“According to his (Kaiser William's) opinion action (against Serbia) must not be delayed too long. Russia will, in any case, take up a hostile attitude, but he had for years been prepared for this; and should it come to a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia, we might be assured that Germany would, with her usual fidelity, be found at our side. Moreover, as matters now stand, Russia is by no means prepared for war, and will think long before appealing to arms. She will, however, stir up the other Entente Powers against us and will fan the flames in the Balkans.
“He understood very well that His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, with his well-known love of peace, would find it hard to decide on a march into Serbia; but when we had once recognized the necessity of taking action against Serbia, he (Kaiser William) would regret that we should not seize the present favourable moment.” (Red Book, 1919, I., page 22.)
Dr. Gooss endeavours to question whether Count Szögyeny was capable of giving a correct account of the matter. And all the four authors of a memorial on the guilt of the outbreak of war in the White Book of June, 1919—Professors Hans Delbrück and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Max Weber and Count Montgelas—harp on the same string.
We shall come to speak of this in another connection later on; for the present let us merely remark that the communications of the Austrian Ambassador in Berlin are in absolute agreement with what we know of William's ideas at this period and what his marginal comments on Tschirschky's report have already made clear to us.
