Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/103

 tative in Petrograd. This is the Austrian version (24th July)—

"The participation of Imperial and Royal (Austrian) officials in the suppression of the revolutionary movements elicited further protest on the part of the minister. Serbia then will no longer be master in her own house. You will always be wanting to interfere again, and what a life you will lead Europe."

"Serbia would no longer be master in her own house." There was the key to Austrian ambitions. The independence of Serbia was to be violated, her territory was to admit foreign officials, and gradually a small nation was to disappear into the patchwork-quilt possessions of the Dual Monarchy. There you have the sinister House of the Hapsburgs exposed in the very act of pressing the button, and releasing the current which has shattered the fabric of Europe.

Swaddle and disguise it as you will in words, there is the seed of origin of the European War. There is no plainer transaction in history: the clock has a crystal face that allow us to see all the works. You may, if you will, call up a mist of eloquence and people it with ghosts, the ghosts of wicked things done by English in Ireland and India, Russians in Finland, French in Morocco, Italians in Tripoli, Belgians in the Congo, and Serbians all the way back to Kosovo. You may write at length of the inherent perils of the "Euro