Page:The heart of Europe; an address delivered by Charles Pergler in Washington, December 11, 1916, at a conference of oppressed or dependent nationalities (IA heartofeuropeadd00pergrich).pdf/26

lin in 1913; it also dominated the most influential circles in Vienna. Of a piece with the speech of the German Chancellor is a Vienna letter published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, on the 13th of May of the same year. The letter is entitled Oesterreichische Katastrophenpolitik; the writer thereof speaks of the fact that owing to Serbian growth Austria had been twice compelled to increase its military expenses. He indicates that the real instigator of all these alleged troubles is Russia, and that there is just one way of stopping all this: “To destroy the tools of pan-Slavism; to subjugate the small neighbors, to destroy the Russian Empire, and to form a number of buffer states under Austrian and German protectorate between the remnants of the Russian Empire and Central Europe.” The writer is refreshingly frank in saying that the internal conditions of Austria require the same measures; that it has been impossible to solve the Bohemian question, the Polish-Ruthenian question, and other similar problems; that these matters endanger Austria in its existence, and that even if all this leads to an European war, the Central Powers have nothing to fear, because as yet they are stronger than Russia and her friends. The writer declares that this is not only his opinion, but the opinion of responsible Austrian persons of importance. We can readily see the connection between this letter and the speech of the German Chancellor hereinbefore referred to. The aim thus expressed was simply this: The crushing of the Slav nationalities in Austria, the subjugation of Southern Slavs, and the destruction of Russia. The writer even goes so far