Austria-Hungary acted with Germany in inviting President Wilson to arrange
an armistice and peace negotiations. The Austrian Government, less careful than Prince Max, began their Note with the assertion that Austria, the unprovoked assailant of Serbia, "has always waged the war solely as a defensive war." We confess our inability to understand why the statesmen of Vienna persist in repeating such gross and palpable lies, which deceive 310 one, and only increase the profound distrust with which the Allies regard Austrian diplomacy. The President has vouchsafed no answer to Austria. The reception of the German Note in the Allied countries and in America was uniformly hostile. Not even those newspapers which have shown traces of Pacificism had a word to say in favour of the proposal. The German rulers have violated so many Treaties and Agreements, small or great, and have boasted so openly of their bad faith, that now no responsible person believes a word they say.
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