an
Government no choice but to persevere in its neutrality.

And German statesmen strove hard to wrest the matter from their ally
and take it into their own hands, but were only partially successful.
Both they and the Austrians selected their most supple and wily
diplomatists to conduct the difficult negotiations. Prince Buelow was
appointed German Ambassador to King Victor's Government, Baron Macchio
supplanted Merey in Rome, but the most sensational change effected was
the substitution of Baron Burian for Count Berchtold in the Austrian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[90] This latter event was construed by
the European public as the foretoken of a new and far-resonant
departure in Austria's treatment of international relations. In
reality it was hardly more than the withdrawal from public business of
a tired statesman _malgre lui_ who had persistently sought to be
relieved of his charge ever since his first appointment. Count
Berchtold's name is inseparably associated with events of the first
magnitude for his country and for Europe, but on the creation or
moulding of which he had little appreciable part. It is hardly too
much to say that if, during the period while he held office, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been without a head, the mechanism
would have worked with no serious hitch, and with pretty much the same
results which we now behold. For he was but the intermediary between
the mechanism and the real minister, who invariably appeared as a
_deus ex machina_ in all the great crises of recent years, and who was
none other than the Emperor Francis Joseph himself.

[90] January 15, 1915.

Count Berchtold was a continuator. He endeavoured under adverse
circumstances to carry out the feasible schemes of his predecessor,
but the obstacles in his way proved insurmountable. He is a
straightforward, truthful man, and in the best sense of the word a
gentleman. The greatest achievement to which he can point during his
tenure of power is the disruption of the Balkan League. Having had an
opportunity of seeing the working of the scheme at close quarters, I
may say that it was ingenious. Pacific by temperament and conviction,
he co-operated successfully with the Emperor to ward off a European
conflict more than once. But from the day when Count Tisza won over
Franz Josef to the ideas of Kaiser Wilhelm, Count Berchtold's
occupation was gone.

His successor, Baron Burian, entered upon his office with an
establishe