and arrange the details. The interview, as Page's letter indicates,
was little less than a paroxysm of grief on the Austrian's part. He
denounced Germany and the Kaiser; he paraded up and down the room
wringing his hands; he could be pacified only by suggestions from the
American that perhaps something might happen to keep Austria out of the
war. The whole atmosphere of the Austrian Embassy radiated this same
feeling. "Austria has no quarrel with England," remarked one of
Mensdorff's assistants to one of the ladies of the American Embassy; and
this sentiment was the general one in Austrian diplomatic circles. The
disinclination of both Great Britain and Austria to war was so great
that, as Page relates, for several days there was no official
declaration.

Even more tragical than the fate of the Austrian Ambassador was that of
his colleague, the representative of the German Emperor. It was more
tragical because Prince Lichnowsky represented the power that was
primarily responsible, and because he had himself been an unwilling tool
in bringing on the cataclysm. It was more profound because Lichnowsky
was a man of deeper feeling and greater moral purpose than his Austrian
colleague, and because for two years he had been devoting his strongest
energies to preventing the very calamity which had now become a fact. As
the war went on Lichnowsky gradually emerged as one of its finest
figures; the pamphlet which he wrote, at a time when Germany's military
fortunes were still high, boldly placing the responsibility upon his own
country and his own Kaiser, was one of the bravest acts which history
records. Through all his brief Ambassadorship Lichnowsky had shown these
same friendly traits. The mere fact that he had been selected as
Ambassador at this time was little less than a personal calamity. His
appointment gives a fair measure of the depths of duplicity to which the
Prussian system could descend. For more than fourteen years Lichnowsky
had led the quiet life of a Polish country gentleman; he had never
enjoyed the favour of the Kaiser; in his own mind and in that of his
friends his career had long since been finished; yet from this
retirement he had been suddenly called upon to represent the Fatherland
at the greatest of European capitals. The motive for this elevation,
which was unfathomable then, is evident enough now. Prince Lichnowsky
was known to be an Anglophile; everything English--English literature,
English country