opportunity. But when would
that be? Not even the most truculent government could well venture a
bald declaration of hostilities without some plausible pretext, some
ostensible ground of quarrel. Where was it? There was none in sight. Of
course the danger of a homicidal crisis in the insanity of armaments was
always there. And of course the ambition of Germany for "a place in the
sun" was as coldly fierce as ever. The Pan-Germanists were impatient.
But they could hardly proclaim war without saying what place and whose
place they wanted. Nor was there any particular grievance on which they
could stand as a colorable ground of armed conflict. The Kaiser had
prepared for war, no doubt. The argument and justification of war as the
means of spreading the German Kultur were in the Potsdam mind. But the
concrete and definite occasion of war was lacking. How long would that
lack hold off the storm? Could the precarious peace be maintained until
measures to enforce and protect it by common consent could be taken?

These questions were answered with dreadful suddenness. The curtain
which had half-concealed the scene went up with a rush, and the missing
occasion of war was revealed in the flash of a pistol.

IV

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the
Austro-Hungarian crowns, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenburg, were
shot to death in the street at Serajevo, the capital of the annexed
provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to which they were paying a visit
of ceremony. The news of this murder filled all thoughtful people in
Europe with horror and dismay. It was a dark and sinister crime. The
Crown Prince and his wife had not been "personae gratae" with the
Viennese court, but the brutal manner of their taking off aroused the
anger of the people. Vengeance was called for. The two wretched
murderers were Austrian subjects, but they were Servian sympathizers,
and in some kind of connection with a society called Narodna Obrana,
whose avowed object was to work for a "Greater Servia," including the
southern Slavic provinces of Austria. The Government of Austria-Hungary,
having conducted a secret inquiry, declared that it had proofs that the
instructions and the weapons for the crime came from Servia. On the
other hand, it has not been denied that the Servian Minister at Vienna
had conveyed a warning to the Government there, a week before the
ceremonial visit to Serajevo, to the effect that it would be w