ulties which could have been
better settled by arbitration or conference, is a very real thing at the
present moment. It is shared by the Entente Allies and the United
States. It is one of those "imponderables" which, as Bismarck said long
ago, must never be left out of account in estimating national forces. It
will hold the Allies and the United States together. It will help them
to win the war for peace under conditions for Germany which may not be
"punitive," but which certainly must be "reformatory".

Understand, I do not imagine or maintain that the primary or efficient
causes of this war are to be found in any things that happened in 1914
or 1913. They are inherent in false methods of government, in false
systems of so-called national policy, in false dealing with simple human
rights and interests, in false attempts to settle natural problems on an
artificial basis.

All nations have a share in them. They go back to Austria's annexation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908; to the Congress of Berlin in 1878; to
the Franco-Prussian War in 1870; to the Prusso-Austrian War in 1866; to
the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Yes, they go back
further still, if you like, to the time when Cain killed Abel! That was
the first assertion of the doctrine that "might makes right."

But the "occasional cause" of this war, the ground on which it was
brought to a head and let loose by Germany, was the Austrian ultimatum
to Servia, presented on July 23, 1914, at 6 P. M.

This remarkable state-paper, so harsh in its tone, so imperious in its
demands, that it called forth the disapproval even of a few bold German
critics, was apparently meant to be impossible of acceptance by Servia,
and thus to serve either as the instrument for crushing the little
country which stood in the way of the "Berlin-Baghdad-Bahn," or as a
torch to kindle the great war in Europe. I do not propose to trace its
history and consequences in detail. I propose only to show, by fuller
proofs than have hitherto been available, that Germany must share the
responsibility for this flagitious and incendiary document.

On July 25, 1914, the German Ambassador at Petrograd handed an official
"note verbale" to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs which stated
that "The German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian
note before it was presented, and exercised no influence upon its
contents." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 173.) Similar communicati