officials in determining who were
guilty, either of the Strassburg murder or of the propaganda for the
recovery of Alsace and Lorraine; that it would further proceed to
arrest and punish certain French officers, whom the German Government
charged with participating in the offensive propaganda, and that
it would furnish the German Government with full explanations and
information in reference to its execution of these peremptory demands.

Let us suppose that such an ultimatum having been sent, that France
had been given forty-eight hours to comply with conditions which were
obviously fatal to its self-respect and forever destructive of its
prestige as a great Power.

Can it be questioned what the reply of France or the judgment of the
world would be in such a quarrel?

_Every fair-minded man would say without hesitation that such an
ultimatum would be an unprecedented outrage upon the fine proprieties
of civilized life._

The only difference between the two cases is the fact that in the case
of Germany and France the power issuing the ultimatum would be less
than double the size of that nation which it sought to coerce, while
in the case of Austria and Servia, the aggressor was twelve times as
powerful as the power whose moral prestige and political independence
it sought to destroy.

In view of the nature of these demands, the assurance which Austria
subsequently gave Russia, that she would do nothing to lessen the
territory of Servia, goes for nothing. From the standpoint of Servia,
it would have been far better to lose a part of its territory and keep
its independence and self-respect as to the remainder, than to retain
all its existing land area, and by submitting to the ultimatum become
virtually a vassal state of Austria. Certainly if Servia had
acquiesced fully in Austria's demands without any qualification or
reservation (as for the sake of peace it almost did), then Austria
would have enjoyed a moral protectorate over all of Servia's
territory, and its ultimate fate might have been that of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, which Austria first governed as a protectorate, and later
forcibly annexed.

CHAPTER VI

THE PEACE PARLEYS

The issuance of the Austrian ultimatum precipitated a grave crisis.
_It did not, however, present any insoluble problem._ Peace could and
should have been preserved. Its preservation is always possible when
nations, which may be involved in a controversy, are inspired by a
rea