Not so funny
Sir: How kind of Mr Damant (Letters, 20 September) to set me right once more with the aid of his trusty informant who is quot- ing custom and law in modern Germany.
In Austria the aristocracy has not existed in law since the end of 1918, but phantom custom continues what has existed since Charlemagne. There are still Babenberger alive whose title goes back to the tenth cen- tury; the Traun only to the 11th. These war- riors held the frontiers to the east against Slays and Turks for centuries. They have always been soldiers, up to Herrn Otto Ehrenreich Abensperg-Traun, to give him his official style, who died a week or so ago, having lost a foot on the Russian front in the second world war. Their customs are as antique as their non-titles; to lose a foot trying to keep the Russians out of his home Was entirely in keeping for my old friend, Who lies now in the Romanesque vault of his family — who do not (except for Carl) answer the telephone with `Traun'. But this ancient history does not tell us What the extended jest of the Schlieffen let- ters was about; nor for my own part can I find it seemly to joke about developments from 1892 to 1914 which resulted in the deaths of millions of men, not to mention the countless millions who died of the Bol- shevik experiment.
As to whether the Entente powers knew of the Schlieffen Plan, of course they did. The strategy had been used before, success- fully, against Napoleon. It was a flanking move designed as a warning or threat if the French attacked towards Alsace-Lorraine once war broke out between Austria-Hun- gary and Serbia. All Europe knew war was coming. If the German preparations were known behind the Belgian frontier, so were the Russian ones in Russian Poland with their new French-built railways, where the 'Russian steam-roller' waited, ready. The Asquith-Stanley letters, among other evi- dence, are conclusive. We do not need to rely on the utterly unreliable Churchill. And what motivated this great wheel of fate, with its eastern attack on Gallipoli, where Churchill was so much engaged? Oil.
Sarah Gainham
Schlosspark, Petronell, Austria
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