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The Guilt of William Hohenzollern

me only a question as to whether it is advisable for us to support our comrades in a policy, or rather to guarantee a policy which I look upon as a wild one, since it will lead neither to a radical solution of the problem nor to the crushing of the Great Serbian movement. If the Austrian police and the Bosnian provincial authorities let the Heir to the Throne drive through 'an avenue of bomb-throwers' I can see in this no sufficient reason to risk the famous 'Pomeranian grenadier' in promoting the huzzar-policy of Austria, merely in order to strengthen Austria's self-consciousness, which in this case, as the era of Aehrenthal has shown, considers its supreme task to be its entire liberation from the leading-strings of Berlin.

"If, however, it is proposed to decide our policy by the consideration that as soon as the Great Serbian movement has received its death-blow, Austria Felix, relieved of this anxiety, will be grateful to us for the assistance we have rendered, I cannot suppress the question whether the national movement in Hungary was stamped out when the revolt was overthrown by the help of the Tsar Nicholas, and by the constant requisition of the gallows after the Hungarian subjugation at Vilagos under direction of the Imperial General Haynau, and whether the rescue of Austria by the Tsar really laid the foundation of cordiality and confidence between the two empires."

Thus Lichnowsky wrote on July i6th. Of course, all his Cassandra warnings had the usual result. They were absolutely unheeded.

Meanwhile Poincaré's departure to St. Petersburg