During the last months before the cataclysm, relations became still closer, and the interchange of views still more frequent, between the Courts of Berlin and Vienna. William II. and the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the real guiding spirit of Austro-Hungarian statecraft, missed no opportunity of seeing each other and conversing at length. They were like two conspirators, furtively laying their heads together for some momentous deed. In April the Kaiser paid a visit to the Austrian Crown Prince at Miramar, and in June at Konopischt, in Bohemia, where he was accompanied by the Secretary of State for the Navy. Both the curiosity of the public and the professional interest of diplomats were aroused by these marks of a friendship that was too intimate not to give cause for anxiety. On the occasion of the Konopischt meeting, the German ambassador in London was instructed to reassure the British Foreign Secretary as to the presence of Admiral von Tirpitz in the Emperor’s retinue. The visit, it was stated, had no military object. The Ambassador did protest too much! The Admiral, we may be sure, did not leave home in order to enjoy the fragrance of the Bohemian roses. It is more than doubtful, however, whether we shall ever know the purport of these conversations; one of those who took part in them is already in the grave. Did they, at Konopischt, remodel the map of Europe, assign the mastery of the Mediterranean to the Austro-German squadrons, fix the moment for the great upheaval? The Archduke, so far as one can read into the soul of this inscrutable prince, seemed to be the most eager for war. Yet, by a decree of fate, he did not live to see the accomplishment of the plans that he drew up in cold blood with his guests amid the exquisite gardens of his lordly mansion. In the spring of 1914 Germany and Austria-Hungary, who both had old scores to pay off in connection with Morocco and the Balkans respectively, reached the zenith of their military preparations. The German army was ready at all points, and the Austro-Hungarian army was as ready as it can ever be. The airships and aeroplanes were only waiting for the signal to leave their sheds; the heavy guns, an array of monsters, were already marshalled in the artillery parks. All that was wanted was a pretext. As Dr. Schiemann had pointed out in the _Kreuzzeitung_, however, Germany could have a war with France merely by letting Austria fly at Serbia’s throat. Prophetic words, which a political crime was to bear out, while at the same time it was to give William II. the pretext he required for appearing before Europe as an instrument of justice and vengeance! CHAPTER VIII. THE WEEK OF TRAGEDY. I.