Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/63

Rh the thoughtlessness and the shamelessly provocative methods of Austrian despotism.

The factors which evoked the attempt on the Archduke were the same as those which, in consequence of it, led directly to the far more dreadful attack on the world's peace.

Achilles slaughtered twelve Trojans at the funeral of his friend Patroclus. For the funeral ceremonies of Francis Ferdinand, for four years, many millions of men from all the five continents were slain.

For the rulers of Austria, the killing of the most active upholder of the existing régime ought to have been a Mene-Tekel warning them to reform. It showed plainly what were the fruits of a policy of force, and warned them most urgently to substitute for this policy one of liberty and reconciliation as the only one that could give any vitality to a state system on the point of collapse.

But when has any despotism ever regarded such a writing on the wall? It felt itself rather urged to an aggravated terrorism, and to the employment of methods of violence not only against its Croatian and Bosnian subjects but also against the neighbouring Serbian State, which was now devoted to complete destruction.

Before Wiesner's report on the authorship of the outrage had arrived, the rulers at Vienna had already formulated their resolve to make the Serbian Government responsible for the deed, according to the principle: “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.”