ver! Never!"

At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their
battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill
with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's
proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper,
promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing
behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent
altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent,
which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their
visit and departing the same evening for Berlin.

For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the
words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no
reason to question. There are many things which point to its
probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong
character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual
Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union
of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been
realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that
outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The
assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the
greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it
further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with
Serbia, thereby making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world,
for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned.

There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were
responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in
their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at
that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political
standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted
thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the
Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced.
Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own
country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he
surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be
unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally
unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who
foresaw a serious diminution of thei