The Guilt of William Hohenzollern. Karl Johann Kautsky

beautiful principles of warfare:

      “No quarter is to be given. No prisoners are to be made.... As the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves a thousand years ago... ​so now let the name of German go down in China for a thousand years, so that a Chinaman will never again dare even to look askance at a German.”

      If later on, in the world-war, the German methods of warfare were set down to a system of cruelty thought out in cold blood, and Germans got the name of Huns, the German people have their Kaiser to thank for it.

      While through such utterances the German people were made abhorrent in the eyes of all humane thinkers, William, at the same time, did not hesitate to fling down his challenge to the imperialists of other lands. He began in 1896 with his telegrams to the Boer president, Kruger, in which William at the outset of the conflict between England and the Boers assured the latter of his friendship.

      Shortly afterwards, in 1898, he declared himself the patron and protector of the three hundred millions of Mohammedans in the world. That included the Mohammedans in French Algeria as well as those living under English rule in Egypt and India, the Mohammedans in Russia, and those whom Russia was threatening in Turkey.

      It was merely a continuation of this policy of provocation when in Tangier in 1905, as France began to take an active interest in Morocco, William promised his support to the Sultan against anyone who should threaten his independence, and later, in 1911, in connection with the same dispute, suddenly sent a war-ship to the Moroccan harbour of Agadir.

      On both occasions the peace of the world was endangered. The situation was not improved by the fact that always, when the time came for the threat to be made good, William lost courage and left in the lurch those to whom he had pledged his protection. Thus it ​was in Morocco, and thus, most discreditably, in the case of the Boers. And this contributed to add contempt to the hatred with which Germany was regarded.

      In these conflicts the antagonists on both sides were imperialists. In the war of mighty England against the little Boer Republic, the public opinion of the whole civilized world had unanimously taken part with the smaller and weaker party. In the case of Morocco, the working classes of both Germany and France were fully agreed in opposition to their Governments, and contributed not a little to the maintenance of peace. And through this attitude of the Socialist proletariate, the incalculable, abrupt and provocative element in German world-policy was to some extent reduced.

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CHAPTER IV

      AUSTRIA

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      The German Government, however, was not contented to play the fool in its own house alone. It felt impelled to make itself accountable also for the stupidities of Austrian policy, which likewise threatened to kindle a world-war, not indeed for objects oversea, but in relation to the independence of States in Europe itself, which were directly threatened by Austria.

      The world-policy of Germany had brought it about that she had now scarcely a friend among the independent and durable States in Europe. Even relations with Italy, her ally, had grown cool. Two States alone were on terms of close friendship with Germany—two States which had lost their vitality and could only maintain themselves by powerful help from without—Austria and Turkey.

      The Habsburg State, like that of the Sultan of Constantinople, was a State of nationalities which maintained itself not through the common interests of these nationalities, not through its superiority in well-being and in freedom, but solely through military force. This type of State was growing ever more irreconcilable with modern democracy, which was developing irresistibly under the influence of modern means of communication.

      Austria and Turkey, at least Turkey in Europe, were ​thus irretrievably doomed to perish. So little did the statesmen of Germany understand this, that it was precisely these Powers on which they chose to lean. But indeed what others had their world-policy now left to them?

      Both these States stood in a position of traditional hostility to Russia, which was always straining towards an outlet on the Mediterranean, towards Constantinople, but which had learned by repeated experiences that this goal could not be directly arrived at. Russia decided therefore on a circuitous route, by dissolving Turkey into a collection of small independent States, of which it was hoped that, related as they were by religion, and also in part—in the case of Serbia and Bulgaria—by language, to the Russian people, they might become vassal States of the Tsardom. In opposition to the Austrian and the Turkish Governments, Russia therefore favoured the movement for independence in the Balkans, and therefore advanced on the inevitable course of historical progress, while the other Governments set themselves against it. The same monarch whom his own subjects cursed as a hangman and the Tsar of Blood was hailed in the Balkans as the Tsar of Deliverance. Russian imperialism, indeed, would not have attained its object among the Balkan peoples. The more their strength and their independence of the Sultan increased, the more independent they tended to become as against the Tsar also. They felt themselves drawn to him so long only as they needed his protection, so long as their independence was threatened from another side.

      This other side, in the decades immediately preceding the war, was revealing itself more and more as Austria. In view of the national movements which were ​growing up at home among the Rumanians and Yugo-Slavs, who were particularly oppressed by the ruling classes in Hungary, a strong Serbia and Rumania seemed to the leaders of Austro-Hungarian policy a highly dangerous development. To the agrarian party in the Monarchy—and again more particularly to the Hungarian section—the agrarian export territories of Serbia and Rumania were a thorn in the flesh. Finally, to the imperialists, militarists, bureaucrats and capitalists of Austria, who all desired to control the road to Salonika, the existence of an independent Serbia appeared an obstacle which they could not but desire to remove.

      The policy of all these Austrian elements forced Serbia and Rumania into the arms of Russia.

      While the Austrian statesmen believed that they had to crush Serbia in order to bolt the door against Russian intrigues in the Balkans, the true state of the case was exactly the reverse. It was just through Austria's hostility that Russian influence was strengthened.

      To eliminate it, the leaders of Austrian policy would have had to pursue a policy of concessions to the Serbs and Rumanians in Austria, and also towards the neighbouring States of Serbia and Rumania. Such a policy was impossible to the rulers of Austro-Hungary. To save the State on these lines they would have had to act contrary to their own interests of the moment.

      If the national democratic and proletarian opposition in Austria failed to bring about the downfall of these rulers, then Austria was doomed, just as Turkey was; and doomed also was anyone who had bound himself to this State for weal or woe.

      At the same time Austria felt itself as a Great Power, wished to behave as if it were independent, and made ​continued attempts at an independent policy, which grew ever more futile according as difficulties increased, within and without.

      Nor was the situation helped by any personal quality in the Government of the State. At its head stood a monarch who had never been noted for intellectual ability, to whom age and a series of heavy blows of fate had made repose imperative, and whose régime had taken on the character of senility. But it was his misfortune that the peoples of Austria took no account of this need of repose, and that their revolt against the impossible State into which they were compressed grew continually more violent. Under the influence of this growing unrest in the realm, the Emperor's senile need of repose gave rise to the most contradictory phenomena; among other things, it brought about some astonishing capitulations. But these had not the desired effect in calming the popular mind, for they only touched individual points, they made nothing but patchwork. Of any radical reform the régime was incapable.

      If concessions did not effect the desired end in producing peace, then the need of repose brought about a recourse to extreme harshness, so that the disturbers of the peace might be suppressed by force.