of them Slav countries, and when Servia
had emerged from the Balko-Turkish War with signal credit to itself,
it was again Austria that had intervened and deprived it of the fruit
of its victories by denying it access to the sea.

Similarly, by the Treaty of Frankfort, Germany had forcibly annexed
Alsace and Lorraine from France. As there existed in Servia voluntary
organizations of men, which ceaselessly agitated for the recovery of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, so in France similar patriotic organizations
have for the last forty years continuously agitated for a war which
would lead to the ultimate recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. The statue
of Strassburg in the Place de la Concorde has been covered with the
emblems of mourning from the time that Bismarck wrung from Jules Favre
the cession of the Rhine territory. If Austria's grievance against
Servia were just, Germany has an equal and similar grievance against
France.

Under these circumstances let us suppose that on the occasion of the
visit of the German Crown Prince to Strassburg, that an Alsatian
citizen of German nationality, having strong French sympathies, had
assassinated the Crown Prince, and that France had formally disclaimed
any complicity in the assassination and expressed its sympathy and
regret.

_Mutatis mutandis_, let us suppose that Germany had thereupon issued
to France the same ultimatum that Austria issued to Servia, requiring
France to acknowledge moral responsibility for a crime, which it
steadily disavowed. The ultimatum to France in that event would have
included a peremptory demand that the government of France, a proud
and self-respecting country, should publish in the _Official Journal_,
and communicate as an "order of the day" to the army of France, a
statement that the French Government formally denounced all attempts
to recover Alsace and Lorraine; that it regretted the participation of
French officers in the murder of the German Crown Prince; that it
engaged to suppress in the Press of France any expressions of hatred
or contempt for Germany; that it would dissolve all patriotic
societies that have for their object the recovery of the "lost
provinces"; that it would eliminate from the public schools of France
all instruction which served to foment feeling against Germany; that
it would remove from its army all officers who had joined in the
agitation against Germany; that it would accept in the courts of
France the participation of German