WAR WITH AUSTRIA.
[To TIM EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR,"] SIR,—After a delay presumably due to reasons of tactics and diplomacy, the inevitable has happened, and this country is at war with Austria-Hungary. We have no direct quarrel with the Dual Monarchy, but the open ally of our chief enemy cannot remain our friend ; and, quite apart from this con- sideration, a strict blockade of the Adriatic plays a vital and urgent part in any plan for the defeat of Germany and her ally. The irresponsible schemers in Vienna and Budapest who have contributed so materially to this world-disaster must bear the full consequences of their action. Henceforth the future of Britain and the Empire is inextricably bound up with a solution of the Southern Slav question. For the co-operation of the French and British Fleets along the Dalmatian coast will not merely cut off all food supplies from the ports of Trieste and Fiume, but will also bring valuable aid to the Servian and Montenegrin armies. Absorbed as we may be in the nearer problems of the North Sea, Belgium, and Alsace, we must not forget the extreme strategic value of the Southern Slays at the present juncture; nor, if victory crowns our arms, must we forget to insist that in one way or another the Southern Slav question, that open sore upon the face of Europe, shall be dealt with in as final a form as possible, and in accordance with the wishes of the Serbo-Croat race.
Nor must we forget the Roumanian question, which is the corollary of the Southern Slay. Our contribution to this lies in compelling the Turks to remain neutral, and thus averting the grave and imminent danger that they may fall upon Greece and Roumania in the interests of Austria.
I write this letter as one who has always hoped against hope that a conflict with Germany might be avoided, as one who believed that the Habsburg Monarchy had a great mission in Europe, if only her statesmen were willing to take occasion by the hand, and as one who for a number of years, in various books and also in your hospitable columns, has advocated a peaceful solution of the Southern Slav question by Vienna's initiative, as the alternative to a European war. The course of events in the past month has wiped out all such schemes; and so far as one of their advocates is concerned, I feel it incumbent on me to declare that I accept the new situation despite all my broken hopes, and endorse the policy of Sir Edward Grey during the crisis as in every way worthy of the highest British traditions.
The crime of Serajevo—still shrouded in a grim and ominous mystery—removed the one man who possessed the energy, courage, and convictions necessary to achieve a reform of the Dual System, and the consequent emancipation of the subject races of Hungary; and his death was greeted with thinly veiled relief by those whose political monopoly was threatened by his far-reaching schemes. The responsibility for the future must rest in the first instance on the authors of the Austrian Note to Servia—a document which was deliberately framed so as to render acceptance impossible—and upon those who endorsed its evil policy, and upheld the fatal time-limit which, from the first, tied the hands of the peacemakers. Numerous passages in the White Paper and private information from trustworthy sources, both at home and abroad, force me to the reluctant conclusion that the Austrian Note was directly inspired from Berlin—and this despite the evident good faith of the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary, and the German Ambassador in London.
The war which we hate has been forced upon ns and must be fought to a finish. But let us all resolve, while devoting all our powers to a just cause, to prevent the war from ever degenerating into a war of revenge. Let us take a lesson from the Germans themselves and contrast their policy in 1866 and in 1870. Generous treatment of Austria in 1866 won them a faithful ally for two generations; ungenerous treatment of France in 1870 led Europe inevitably into the war of armaments and this horrible
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