"Under these circumstances Austria must say to itself that it is incompatible with the dignity and the safety of the monarchy to remain inactive any longer in face of the occurrences across the border. The Austrian Imperial Government has notified us of this, their attitude, and has begged us to state our views. Out of a full heart we could but assure our Ally of our agreement with this interpretation of conditions and assure him that any action that would seem necessary to put an end to Servian attempts against the existence of the Austrian monarchy would meet with our approval. We fully realized that eventual war measures undertaken by Austria must bring Russia into the situation and that we, in order to carry out our duty as ally, might be driven into war. But we could not, realizing as we did that the most vital interests of Austria-Hungary were threatened, advise our ally to adopt a policy of acquiescence, that could not possibly be brought into accord with its dignity, nor could we refuse to lend our aid in this attitude.
"And we were particularly prevented from taking this stand by the fact that the persistent subversive Serbian agitation seriously jeopardized us. If the Serbians had been permitted, with the aid of Russia and France, to continue to threaten the existence of the neighboring monarchy, there would have ensued a gradual collapse of Austria and a subjection of all the Slavic races under the Russian sceptre, which would have rendered untenable the situation of the Germanic race in Central Europe. A morally weakened Austria, succumbing before the advance of Russian Panslavism, would no longer be an ally on which we could count and depend, as we are obliged to do in view of the increasingly menacing attitude of our neighbors to the East and to the West. We therefore gave Austria a free hand in her proceedings against Serbia. We have had no share in the preparations."
These were the words that lay before the social-democratic Reichstag group on August 4th, the only important and deter-
