were threats against Great Britain in connection with affairs in South Africa. In 1898 there were veiled threats against the United States in connection with affairs in the Philippines, and in 1903 America was concerned with German threats against Venezuela. In 1896 the Kaiser himself, on a spectacular visit to Turkey, declared at Damascus that "at all times he was the friend and protector of the three hundred million Mussulmans who honored Sultan Abdul Hamid as Caliph" - an assertion not only of German political and economic interests in the Ottoman Empire but also of German opposition to British rule in India and in Egypt and to French rule in northern Africa. In 1904 the Kaiser encouraged Russia to fight Japan, and in the following year he utilized Russian military defeats in order to compel France, Russia's ally, to alter her Moroccan policy. In 19081909 he stood "in shining armor" beside his own ally, AustriaHungary, enabling her coolly and calmly to tear up an international treaty and to appropriate the Serb-Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina despite the entreaties of the states of Serbia and Montenegro and despite the lively sympathy of the Russians with their South Slav (Jugoslav) brethren. In 1911 Germany unsheathed the sword at Agadir, and put it up again only on condition of receiving a hundred thousand square miles of French colonial dominion in equatorial Africa. In 1912 and 1913, during the Balkan Wars, Germany proved herself a brilliant second to Austria-Hungary in preventing Serbian egress to the Adriatic, in driving the Montenegrins out of the town of Scutari which they had captured from the Turks, in erecting the petty principality of Albania, and otherwise in strengthening the Austro-German strangle-hold on Turkey and the Balkans. From 1895 to 1914 Germany pursued without cessation the policy of employing force and threats and bluff in order to win economic advantages and political prestige. "It is only by relying on our good German sword," wrote Crown Prince Frederick William in 1913, "that we can hope to conquer that place in the sun which rightly belongs to us, and which no one will yield to us voluntarily. . . . Till the world comes to an end, the ultimate decision must rest with the sword."

excused on the ground Paradoxical as it may 1914 produced no such

Militarism has been most frequently that it guarantees order and security. seem, German militarism from 1895 to happy results. Not only was there a renewed epidemic of wars and rumors of war between states but there was the most astounding lack of a sense of security in Germany. The more

Germany affronted Russia, France, and Great Britain, the higher rolled the wave of fear, even of panic, within Germany. Patriotic militaristic societies came into being by the score, societies like the Navy League, the Pan-German League, the Security League, performing the twofold function of preparing the mind for additional deeds of aggression and of instilling in the same popular mind the basest sort of fright and terror. Under the auspices of these leagues what might be termed a "psychology of suggestion" was communicated gradually and skillfully to the German masses. Russia was "menacing," and as formerly there had been a "Yellow Peril" so now there was a "Slavic Peril." France was thirsting for "revenge," was "vengeful," but also the French were decadent." The English were insanely "jealous and Great Britain was "the vampire of the Continent." Moreover, when "menacing" Russia and "vengeful" France and "jealous" Britain tended to draw together, the German professors of suggestive psychology began to exploit the word "encirclement" and to expatiate upon the ring of dangerous, greedy neighbors by which the Fatherland and child Austria were surrounded. As the ring best known to the German mind was of iron, this foreign "encirclement" was naturally termed the "iron ring."

One step further went the terrifying phrase-makers of Germany. Now that they had made up their own minds and had gone far toward fashioning the conviction of the bulk of their fellow-countrymen that sooner or later Germany and AustriaHungary would be crushed to death by the inevitable pressure of the encircling "iron ring," they began to suggest and then to preach the necessity of a speedy open attack before the iron ring should become so strong as to be irresistible. Such an attack upon nominally peaceful neighbors could not be construed as "defensive war." Yet from the German standpoint it would not be "offensive war." ." The psychologists escaped from the dilemma by urging the plausible slogan of "preventive war. And to the problem of finding the most favorable opportunity for inaugurating the "preventive war," German militarists and German patriots turned their attention. In 1914 Germany was ready, and her governing class of Junkers and capitalists were willing, to precipitate war.

THE OCCASION: THE ASSASSINATION OF AN ARCHDUKE

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, nephew of the aged Emperor-King Francis Joseph and heir to the Habsburg crowns, was assassinated, together with his wife, in the

streets of the Bosnian city of Serajevo by youthful Serb conspirators. The outrage caused an instantaneous outburst of indignation throughout Austria-Hungary and Germany. For on Francis Ferdinand many hopes had been pinned. His piety had made him a favorite with Catholics; his loyalty to the German alliance augured well for the future maintenance of the international solidarity of the two great Teutonic Powers; his vigorous patriotism and his conscientious fulfillment of administrative duties were harbingers of the continued integrity and stability of the Dual Monarchy after the demise of Francis Joseph. Moreover, Francis Ferdinand was supposed to favor a special policy on the part of Austria-Hungary toward the Slavs of Southern Europe to him was attributed the leadership in a scheme to transform the Dual Monarchy into a Triple Monarchy, in which the Serbs of Bosnia and the Serbo-Croats of CroatiaSlavonia and probably the Slovenes would constitute an autonomous entity resembling Austria and Hungary; and to him, therefore, was imputed by patriotic Serbians and Montenegrins the inspiration of the hostile attitude which Austria-Hungary, with Germany's powerful backing, had taken, especially since 1908, toward the territorial expansion of the two independent Serb kingdoms.

Certainly the Serbs disliked Francis Ferdinand immensely and certainly from 1908 to 1914 they organized secret societies in Bosnia as well as in Serbia and Montenegro and conducted a deliberate propaganda with the more or less avowed object of wholly detaching the South Slav peoples from the Habsburg Empire. Naturally, then, when the official Austrian investigation into the archduke's assassination indicated that the plot had been executed by Bosnian youths animated by the revolutionary secret societies of the Serbs and with the connivance of at least two officials of the kingdom of Serbia, the indignation of both Germans and Magyars was aroused. The government of Austria-Hungary solemnly affirmed that the very existence of the Dual Monarchy depended upon putting an end once for all to Serbian machinations, and with practical unanimity the responsible press of Germany declared that Austria-Hungary's welfare was Germany's welfare. But by the same token and with equal unanimity the press of Russia declared that Serbia's welfare was Russia's welfare. A new crisis, and a most serious one, had arisen in the Balkans.

One week after the Serajevo assassination, a conference of German and Austrian dignitaries was held at Potsdam. Pre