service of Turkey, developing
plans of sedition and rebellion in India and Egypt, and setting their
fires in Persia.

The demands made by Austria upon Serbia were a mere single step in the
plan which compassed Europe and Asia from Berlin to Bagdad. They hoped
that these demands might not arouse Europe, but they meant to press
them, whether they did or not. For they thought themselves ready for the
final issue of arms. Their plan was to throw a belt of German military
power and political control across the very center of Europe and beyond
the Mediterranean into the heart of Asia, and Austria-Hungary was to be
as much their tool and pawn as Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, or the
ponderous States of the East. Austria-Hungary, indeed, was to become a
part of the Central German Empire, absorbed and dominated by the same
forces and influences that originally cemented the German States
themselves.

The dream had its heart at Berlin. It could have had its heart nowhere
else. It rejected entirely the idea of the solidarity of race. The
choice of peoples played no part at all in the contemplated binding
together of the racial and political units, which could keep together
only by force. And they actually carried the greater part of that
amazing plan into execution.

Look how things stand. Austria, at their mercy, has acted, not upon its
own initiative or upon the choice of its own people, but at Berlin's
dictation ever since the War began. Its people now desire peace, but
they cannot have it until leave is granted from Berlin. The so-called
Central Powers are, in fact, but a single Power. Serbia is at its mercy
should its hand be but for a moment freed; Bulgaria consented to its
will; Rumania is overrun by the Turkish armies, which the Germans
trained into serving Germany, and the guns of the German warships lying
in the harbor at Constantinople remind the Turkish statesmen every day
that they have no choice but to take their orders from Berlin.

From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf the net is spread. Is it not easy to
understand the eagerness for peace that has been manifested by Berlin
ever since the snare was set and sprung? "Peace, peace, peace" has been
the talk of her Foreign Office for a year or more, not peace upon her
own initiative, but upon the initiative of the nations over which she
now deems herself to hold the advantage. A little of the talk has been
public, but most of it has been private, through all sorts of channels.