ian capital has founded in Turkey, the Balkans, and China. . . ."]

[End Footnote 2]

Somewhere I have read a Latin line--the name of whose author has slipped
my memory--which seems to fit the case perfectly: "Quidquid non audet in
historia Germania mendax!" [Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: I have taken the references which follow, as far as
possible, from Official Diplomatic Documents, edited by E. von Mach, The
Macmillan Co., New York, 1916. The comments and footnotes in this volume
are untrustworthy, but the texts are presumably correct, and it is
polite to judge the Germans from their own mouths. The book is quoted as
Off. Dip. Doc.]

II

THE AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA

In the latter part of 1916 the New York Times published an admirable
series of articles, signed "Cosmos," on The Basis of Durable
Peace.[Footnote 4] With almost every statement of this learned and able
writer I found myself in thorough accord. But the fourth sentence of the
first article I could not accept.

[Footnote 4: These articles are now published in book form by the
Scribners.]

"The question as to who or what power," writes Cosmos, "is chiefly
responsible for the last events that immediately preceded the war has
become for the moment one of merely historical interest."

On the contrary, it seems to me a question of immediate, vital, decisive
interest. It certainly determined the national action of France, Great
Britain, and Italy. They did not believe that Germany and Austria were
acting in self-defense. If that had been the case, Italy at least would
have been bound by treaty to come to the aid of her partners in the
Triple Alliance, which was purely a defensive league. But she formally
declined to do so, on the ground that "the war undertaken by Austria,
and the consequences which might result, had, in the words of the German
Ambassador himself, a directly aggressive object." (Off. Dip. Doc., p.
431.) The same ground was taken in the message of the President of the
French Republic to the Parliament on August 4, 1914 (Off. Dip. Doc., p.
444), and in the speech of the British Prime Minister, August 6, the day
on which the Parliament passed the first appropriation for expenses
arising out of the existence of a state of war (British Blue Book).

The conviction that the ruling militaristic party in Germany, abetted by
Austria, bears the moral guilt of thrusting this war upon the world as
the method of settling international diffic