Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/54

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The Guilt of William Hohenzollern

circulation. After that there came into consideration the publications of Herr Mühlon.

Anyone who still could not see clearly after all this must have had his eyes opened after the November Revolution by Eisner's publication of the Report from the Bavarian Legation in Berlin of July 18th, 1914. Unfortunately Eisner, by this publication, committed the imprudence of treating it rather as a journalist to whom the effect produced was of chief importance, than as a historian who was concerned as to the completeness and the unimpaired condition of his sources. He brought out the Report in extracts only, and left out passages into which some people desired to read the German Government's love of peace.

We shall see how to estimate the love of peace that is supposed to be expressed in the passages omitted.

New material was then contributed by Austrian and German publications of the Foreign Offices, Red and White Books. This Austrian Red Book, “Diplomatic Documents relating to the Events preceding the War of 1914” (Vienna, 1919), which has already been quoted, and which will be referred to as the Red Book of 1919, affords most important explanations on the question of the authorship of the war. On the other hand, the reader must proceed very critically with this material as worked up by Dr. Roderick Gooss in the form of a book which was published in Vienna at the same time as the above Red Book, under the title of “The Vienna Cabinet and the Origin of the World War.” As he was unacquainted with the German documents, the author of the Austrian commentary in places arrives at some very controvertible and even manifestly false conclusions.

Before the Austrian Red Book was published, there