bits
of evidence point to this and from something said to me at Kiel
by a very high personage, before the assassinations at Sarajevo,
I would have guessed that war was coming, had it not been
impossible for me to believe that the world was to be plunged
into war simply because the German people were restless under the
rule of the autocracy.

When the murders occurred at Sarajevo, all plans had been laid
for war and the death of Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of
Hohenberg merely gave another excuse to begin hostilities, after
Austria, in the Council of Potsdam, had ratified all the
arrangements made by the Emperor Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand for
the European war. Undoubtedly the German Emperor used his
influence with Franz Ferdinand and his wife in order to secure
the former's aid in dragging Austria into the war,--a war begun
to win the dominion of the world.

How many in America have heard the name of Sophie Chotek? Yet the
ambitions of this woman have done much to send to war the
splendid youths who from all the ends of the earth gather in
France to fight the fight of freedom.

The clever German Emperor, playing upon her ambitions, induced
the gloomy, hated Franz Ferdinand to consent to the world war,
and matters had gone so far that even the death of the Archduke
Franz Ferdinand could not change the situation nor turn the war
party of Hungary and Austria from their programme of blood.
Eighty-four years of age, the old Francis Joseph could only offer
a weak defence to the martial insistence of Tisza, Premier of
Hungary, and his able understrapper, Forgotsch, who represented
him in the Foreign Office at Vienna and who undoubtedly is the
man who drafted the forty-eight hour ultimatum to Servia.

[Illustration: MAIN STAIRWAY IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, BERLIN]

Berliners say that although the German Emperor gave the Duchess
of Hohenberg all the honours due to the wife of an Austrian
Archduke, heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, he was
careful not to bring her claims in direct conflict with any
Prussian female Royalty and that on the first visit of Franz
Ferdinand and his wife to Potsdam, when the doors of the banquet
room were thrown open, it was seen that the Kaiser had skilfully
placed all the guests at small tables, sitting at one with the
Empress and his two guests. In this way he prevented a conflict
of precedence and a possible scene with some Prussian royal
princess.

After one of these Potsdam vis