AMERICA-THE GREAT WAR 1914-1916

Ex-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND EMPEROR WILLIAM II, IN 1910.

THE FORMER KAISER AND HIS GUEST REVIEWING GERMAN MILITARY MANEUVERS NEAR BERLIN

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume XI The Great War 1914-1916 ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATION DEPARTMENT VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF FRANZ JOSEPH TO THE KAISER

ON June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo, Bosnia, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his consort, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg, were assassinated by one Gavrilo Princip, abetted by Bosnian-Austrian confederates. Both victims were unpopular at the Hapsburg Court, but their assassination was arbitrarily declared by Austria to have been plotted in Serbia.

The accompanying letter, dated Vienna, July 2, 1914, from Emperor Franz Joseph, together with the Annexe Memoire, was delivered to the Kaiser in Berlin July 5 by the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, Count de Szogyeny-Marich. The Memoire had been drafted fully a month before the Sarajevo tragedy, showing clearly that the Dual Monarchy designed to shackle Serbia and that the killing of the heir to the Hapsburg throne simply served as a convenient, if not welcome, pretext. Count Tisza, the Hungarian Premier, vainly opposed hasty overt action. In 1918 he was murdered as "the man who brought on the war."

I SINCERELY regret that You should have been obliged to give up Your intention of going to Vienna for the funeral ceremonies. I should have liked personally to express to You my sincerest thanks for Your sympathy in my keen sorrow a sympathy which has greatly touched me.

By Your warm and sympathetic condolence You have given me renewed proof that I have in You a sincere friend worthy of confidence and that I may count upon You in every hour of grave trial.

I should have liked very much to discuss with You the general situation, but as that has not been possible, I take the liberty of sending to You the subjoined memoire prepared by my Minister of Foreign Affairs, which was drawn up before the terrible catastrophe of Serajevo, and which now, following that tragic event, appears particularly worthy of attention.

The attack directed against my poor nephew is the direct consequence of the agitation carried on by the Russian and Serbian Pan-Slavists whose sole aim is the weakening of the Triple Alliance and the destruction of my Empire.

By the foregoing declaration, it is no longer an affair at Serajevo of the single bloody deed of an individual but of a well-organized conspiracy, of which the threads reach to Belgrade and if, as is probable, it be impossible to prove the complicity of the Serbian Government, nevertheless it cannot be doubted that the policies leading to the reunion of all the Southern Slays under the Serbian flag is favorable to crimes of this character and that the continuance of this state of things constitutes a constant danger to my house and to my realm.

This danger is rendered more grave from the fact that Roumania, despite the alliance with us, has entered into friendly relations with Serbia and, on her own territory, permits against us an agitation just as venomous as that allowed by Serbia.

It is painful to me to suspect the fidelity and the good intentions of so old a friend as Charles of Roumania, but he himself has twice declared during these last months to my Minister that by reason of the aroused and hostile sentiments of his people toward us he would not be in a position in case of need to carry out his obligations of alliance.

Furthermore, the Roumanian Government encourages openly the activities of the Kulturliga, favors a rapprochement with Serbia and carries on, with Russian aid, the creation of a new Balkan alliance which can only be directed against my Empire.

Once before, at the beginning of the reign of Charles, such political fancies as these propagated by the Kulturliga disturbed the good political sense of Roumanian men of state and the danger arose of seeing your realm launched on a policy of adventure. But at that time your venerated grandfather in an energetic and far-sighted fashion intervened and pointed out to Roumania the road which assured to her a privileged place in Europe, and she became the strong support of the existing order.

Now the same danger threatens this kingdom; I fear that counsel alone is insufficient and that Roumania cannot be retained in the Triple Alliance unless, on the one hand, we make impossible the creation of the Balkan League under the patronage of Russia, by the entrance of Bulgaria into the Triple Alliance, and unless on the other hand, we make it clearly understood at Bucharest that the friends of Serbia cannot be our friends, and that Roumania cannot consider us as allies unless she detaches herself from Serbia and represses with all her force the agitation directed in Roumania against the existence of my Empire.

The efforts of my government should in consequence be directed toward isolation and the diminishment of Serbia. The first step in that direction will be to strengthen the present situation of the Bulgarian Government in order that the Bulgars, whose real interests coincide with ours, shall be preserved from a return to friendship with Russia.

If they realize at Bucharest that the Triple Alliance has decided not to abandon the alliance with Bulgaria, but that it is disposed to invite Bulgaria to an understanding with Roumania and to guarantee its territorial integrity, we may perhaps succeed in bringing her back from the dangerous step to which she has been led by her friendship with Serbia and her understanding with Russia.

If this should succeed, a reconciliation of Greece with Bulgaria and Turkey could be attempted. There would then arise, under the patronage of the Triple Alliance, a new Balkan alliance, the aim of which would be to put an end to the invasion of the Pan-Slavist tide and to assure peace to our states.

But this will not be possible unless Serbia which is at present the pivot of Pan-Slavist policy is eliminated as a political factor in the Balkans.

And You, also after this last terrible happening in Bosnia, will see and know that one cannot think of smoothing out the differences that separate us from Serbia, and that the maintenance of peaceful policy by all the European Monarchies will be threatened as long as this focus of criminal agitation in Belgrade remains unpunished.