It was not only unnecessary, he declares, but dangerous, to pay
attention to Austria's wishes, since to look at the Eastern question
through Austrian spectacles must lead to a collision with Russia and a
world war.
Such a policy, moreover, was bound to alienate sympathy among
the young, strong, and aspiring communities of the Balkan
Peninsula, who were ready to turn to us and to open their
markets to us. The opposition between courts and peoples,
between the dynastic and the democratic idea of the State, was
clearly defined, and, as usual, we stood on the wrong side. * *
* In Serbia, against our own economic interests, we supported
the Austrian policy of strangulation. We have always ridden
horses whose collapse could be foreseen--Kruger, Abdul Aziz,
Abdul Hamid, and William of Wied--and finally we came to grief
in Berchtold's stable.
Prince Lichnowsky proceeds to describe the Conference of Ambassadors in
London in 1913, and the influential and conciliatory part played there
by Sir Edward Grey, who always, he says, found a way out of every
apparent deadlock.
But we, instead of taking up a position analogous to that of
England, invariably espoused the standpoint of Vienna. Count
Mensdorff led the Triple Alliance in London; I was his second.
My task consisted in supporting his proposals. In Berlin the
prudent and experienced Count Szögyény was in control. "Here the
casus foederis arises," was his constant refrain, and when I
once ventured to question the correctness of this conclusion I
was seriously warned for Austrophobia. At all points we accepted
and supported the views of Austria and Italy. Sir Edward Grey,
on the other hand, practically never sided with Russia or
France. Usually, indeed, he took the side of our group, so as
not to provide any pretext for conflict. That pretext was
supplied later by a dead Archduke.