During the latter part of the war several captured, high-ranking Austrian officers told the Court Chamberlain, General Tatishchev, that the old Emperor was directly responsible for the Sarajevo incident and that the Archduke was purposely sent there, where he was hated and murdered by oppressed Bosnians of the Dual Monarchy. The officers thought it was a deliberate excuse to provoke war and the aim was to destroy the little Kingdom of Serbia and take it under control as had happened earlier with Bosnia and Herzegovina. They knew that this little country would not be able to resist the two powers, Austria-Hungary and Germany. But those millions of suppressed plucky Serbs had already endured deprivation of freedom and arrests and confiscation of their property under the Dual Monarchy. They were determined to defend what was left of their country from being dismembered again, and all were willing to die for the right to live in their own land. Father sent a telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm asking that the Austro-Hungarian-Serbian dispute be tried by the International Arbitration Court at The Hague. He also sent word to King Carol of Rumania to wire the Kaiser that Russia did not want war. But all was in vain. They took the killing of this good-for-nothing Archduke as a deliberate excuse, even though the murder was committed by their own citizens who resented the Dual Monarchy. It was common knowledge that Russian mobilization which was under way was directed against Austria, not Germany. VIII NO CHOICE BUT WAR Events moved rapidly. Austria and Germany declared war on Serbia. More than ever Father was shut away from us, doing all in his power to keep Russia out of the conflict. But Russia was an ally of Serbia. There was no choice. German and Austrian troops were already mobilized and were conducting maneuvers near our border, and soon we, too, were in war. Mother wept copiously. “Why,” she asked, “should millions of Russians lose their lives because one man is killed? Wilhelm has brought this on. I never trusted him. I never forgave him the humiliation and indignities toward our Granny (Queen Victoria).” My thoughts flew back to the visit in Germany when the Kaiser was my friend. Only two years ago we had exchanged jokes. Now he was Russia’s enemy, Mother’s enemy, and mine. Wilhelm, Mother’s own cousin. Before we knew it the Austrian troops were threatening the old Russian fortification of Bendery. I was filled with forebodings. Being a believer in dreams, I tried to interpret a dream I had had the night before this news arrived. I dreamed that the forest on the Russian western border was ablaze. I could hear the crackling of the timber and could see fierce fire raging high into the sky. A few years later, during my escape, I crossed these same forests and remembered my dream. Then the trees were not on fire but lay with their huge roots pulled out of the ground--witnesses of the terrific suffering and tragedy that had occurred there.