r to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke
Francis Ferdinand. The Greater Servia propaganda of action had put aside
the man who was especially hated in Servia as the powerful exponent of
Austro-Hungarian unity and strength. This murder is the real cause of
the present European war. Austria-Hungary was able to prove to a
shuddering world, a few days after the murder, that it had been prepared
and planned systematically, yea, that the Servian Government had been
cognizant of the plan. The immense extent of the Servian revolutionary
organization in the provinces of Southern Austria, the warlike spirit of
the Servians and its instigation by Russia and France, imposed upon the
Vienna Government the duty to insist upon quiet and peace within and
without its borders. It addressed to the Servian Government a number of
demands which aimed at nothing but the suppression of the anti-Austrian
propaganda. Servia was on the point of accepting the demand, when there
arrived a dispatch from St. Petersburg, and Servia mobilized. Then
Austria, too, had to act. Thus arose the Austro-Servian war. But a few
days later the Russian Army was being mobilized, and the mobilization
was begun also in France. At the same time, as the German "White Book"
clearly proves, the diplomacy of Russia and France asserted its great
love of peace and tried to prolong the negotiations in order to gain
time, for, as is well known, the Russian mobilization proceeds slowly.
Germany was waiting, and again and again the German Emperor tried to win
the Czar over to the preservation of peace, for he considered him
sincere and thought him his personal friend. Emperor William was to be
cruelly disappointed. He finally saw himself obliged to proclaim a state
of war for Germany. But at that time the Russian and French armies were
already in a state of complete mobilization. At that time The London
Daily Graphic wrote the following article, which shows how an English
paper that was only slightly friendly to Germany judged of the situation
at that time:

The Mobilization Mystery.

A general mobilization has been ordered in Russia, and Germany has
responded by proclaiming martial law throughout the empire. We are
now enabled to measure exactly the narrow and slippery ledge which
still stands between Europe and the abyss of Armageddon. Will the
Russian order be acted upon in the provinces adjoining the German
frontier? If it is, then the