The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1916. THE SERAJEVO TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 69, 21 March 1916, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1916. THE SERAJEVO TRAGEDY.

For tike cause that lacks aatutanes. Fur the tcrong that need* retittanm, Fur the future in the distance, And the good that tee car t»

The murder of the Archduke of Aus- i tria and his wife, ou June 28, 1014, will 1 always be famous in history as the event, I which finally precipitated the greatest ot" < all wars. But no one who has given f any intelligent attention to the fact c£ ' the case could be persudaded that this ' tragedy was the cause of the war. For ' there is an immense amount of evidence * to show that Germany and Austria had ' made preparations for war on a most elaborate scale long before the Archduka ' started on his ill-fated tour through th° ' border provinces, and that the Prussian • and Magyar war-parties were watching eagerly for any chance that would give ' them an excuse for striking their blow before their opponents could realise their danger. Without labouring this point, we may be content to refer to the con- ' elusion reached by Professor Ramsay Muir, after a most exhaustive analysis of the evidence, to the effect that even if the Archduke had never been murdered, Austria and Germany would have made war on Serbia and Russia and France in the summer of 1914. As an illustration of the tone adopted by the war organs of the Central Powers at that time, we may quote the " Militairischc Rundschau" of Vienna, which urged the Government to take extreme measures against Serbia. "The moment,'' declared this influential journal, a week before Germany drew the sword, " is still favourable for us. If we do not decide upon war, the war we shall have to wage in two or three years at the latest will be begun in circumstances much less propitious. Now the initiative belongs to us. Russia is not ready, the moral factors arc for U6, might as well as right. Since some day we shall have to accept the struggle, let us provoke it at once." The meaning of all this has riot been lost upon the two nations, and the Socialist leader, Dr. Liebknecht, told the Reichstag the bitter truth the other day when he roused his colleagues to frenzy by reminding them that to the militarist cliques in Berlin and Buda Pest and Vienna the murder of the Archduke " came as a gift from God." This is not the first time since the war began that Liebknecht has taken his life in his hands by daring to warn his countrymen of the designs and purposes of their rulers. But the fury of the dominant caste against Liebknecht is not to be explained simply by his bold reiteration of a truth already well recognised, that the rulers of Germany and Austria devised this war, and precipitated it at their own carefullychosen time. Behind Liebkneeht's charge is another and even more sinister insinuation—that the disappearance of the Archduke from the scene at this critical juncture was so fortunate an event in the eyes of the Magyar and Prussian militarists that they lie under grave suspicion of having facilitated the assassination and shielded the perpetrators. To those unfamiliar with the crime-stained records of Central and Enstern Europe this may seem too monstrous a charge to be discussed or tolerated. But in the first place, we must take account of the fact that from the standpoint of internal politics this war has grown out of the age-long struggle between Teuton and Slav in the Dual Monarchy and the Near East; and, in the second place, we must remember that the Archduke Francis Ferdinand : was the one man in Central Europe who , seemed able and willing to attempt a i solution of the problem, by raising the , Southern Slavs to the same level as the Teutons and Magyars within the Empire, instead of depressing them to a still lower level of servitude. The , "Trialism" which the Archduke professed —the policy of combining Slav, Austrian, and Magyar into a triple instead of a Dual Monarchy—would never have satisfied the Slavs themselves. But to the Teutonic war parties at Berlin and Vienna it was a grave national danger; and to the strong Magyar clement, which from Buda-Pest has long dictated the repressive internal policy of Austria, ;jthc Atchduke seemed.a mad incendiary berVt- upon the destruction of 'the Empire. . The' Hungarians have long since forgotten the revolutionary Liberalism which half a century ago inspired them to struggle so bravely for their own freedom. The Magyar rule in Croatia' J and Bosnia and all the Southern Slav ' provinces has been a remorseless i tyranny, and, carried away by their fear J that the Archduke might some day > liberate the Southern Slavs and wrest the Slav provinces from their grasp, the Hungarians came, to look upon Francis Ferdinand as a national enemy, destined unless he were opportunely prevented, Ito work their ruin and his country's ' overthrow. , All this goes to explain why the news of the Archduke's tragic end was greeted with such ill-concealed satisfaction In certain circles in Austria and Germany. Ko doubt -the expresions of public J horror were widespread and genuine, ' but there are other facts to be taken into , account. "In Britain's Case Against . Germany " one of the most scholarly and [ accurate accounts yet written of the 1 origin of the war, Professor Ramsay 1 Muir, puts the ease thus:—"So appoi sitely did the murder happen that some J hava thought it wa» arranged, the Archi w _

duke having many enemies in Austria. 1 This suspicion is too horrible to bo a accepted without overwhelming evidonee, but there are facts which give j colour to it. The Archduke was left un- i guarded. Several of the conspirators ' were Austrian subjects. The Austrian Government had been warned against f one of them bj- the Serbian Govern- v ment, and the actual murderer, Princ-ip, 1 has not been sentenced to death, but only to imprisonment." Even more start- j ling is the version of the incident sup- \ plied by a singularly well-informed < article in the "Round Table" of Septem- J ber, 1914: —"The Serajevo murder is j and may remain a hideous mystery. In | a country so infested by secret police as ' Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Croatia, where ' for years past treason hunts had been the order of the day, and indeed trea- , sonable propaganda has often been arti- j! ficially created to order—it is difficult to understand how so elaborate a plot ] could have eluded the vigilance 6f the authorities. It is an- open secret that no precautions were taken for- the pro* 1 tection of the Archduke and his wife. . and without endorsing ..the wide-spread ; assertion that the two murderers were Austrian agents-provocateurs, we are at least entitled to suspect that they were left free to ply the trade of assassin." It is a well authenticated fact that when the first bomb thrown failed to effect its purpose the Archduke turned to his suite and remarked—"That fellow will get the Golden Cross of Merit for this." This was not the first time that Francis Ferdinand had openly confessed that he knew that his Austrian enemies were trying to get rid of him. But whatever the truth about the murder-plot may be, it is enough to point out that, as the "Round Table" puts it, "despite the widespread horror excited by the outrage, the removal of Francis Ferdinand evoked in many influential circles in Vienna and Buda Pest feelings of thinlyvciled relief." It is easy to understand how thankfully the war parties iv Austria and. Hungary, and Prussia would greet an opportunity for pushing their forward policy in the Balkans under circumstances t,hat would probably. deter France or' Russia from 1 interfering,''and would almost certainly induce England to stand aside. The Austrian and Prussian militarists may be guiltless of the Archduke's blood, but their own knowledge of their complicity in all the cunningly laid schemes that rendered the war inevitable is quite enough to account for their furious wrath against Liebknecht when he told them plainly in the Reichstag a few days ago that they hailed the Serajevo murder as a heaven-sent opportunity for the consummation of their plots and plans. . S.M2ITB Ji