I have been told that during the period between the assassination and the war, warlike demonstrations were daily occurrences in the Viennese restaurants and people's parks; patriotic and anti-Serbian songs were sung, and Berchtold was scoffed at because he could not "exert himself to take any energetic steps." This must not be taken as an excuse for any eventual mistakes on the part of the leaders of the nation, for a leading statesman ought not to allow himself to be influenced by the man in the street. It is only to prove that the spirit developed in 1914 appears to have been very general. And it may perhaps be permitted to add this comment: how many of those who then clamoured for war and revenge and demanded "energy," would, now that the experiment has totally failed, severely criticise and condemn Berchtold's "criminal behaviour"? It is, of course, impossible to say in what manner the fall of the Monarchy would have occurred had war been averted. Certainly in a less terrible fashion than was the case through the war. Probably much more slowly, and doubtless without dragging the whole world into the whirlpool. We were bound to die. We were at liberty to choose the manner of our death, and we chose the most terrible. Without knowing it, we lost our independence at the outbreak of war. We were transformed from a subject into an object. This unfortunate war once started, we were powerless to end it. At the conference in London the death sentence had been passed on the Empire of the Habsburgs and a separate peace would have been no easier a form of death than that involved in holding out at the side of our Allies. FOOTNOTES: [1] Supposed to be the Counts Berchtold, Tisza and Stuergkh and General Conrad von Hohendorf. [2] See Appendix, p. 325. [3] See page 275. CHAPTER II KONOPISCHT 1 Konopischt has become the cradle of manifold legends. The lord of the castle was the first victim of the terrible world conflagration, and the part that he played before the war has been the subject of much and partly erroneous commentary. The Archduke and heir to the throne was a man of a very peculiar nature. The main feature of his character was a great lack of balance. He knew no middle course and was just as eager to hate as to love. He was unbalanced in everything; he did nothing like other people, and what he did was done in superhuman dimensions. His passion for buying and collecting antiquities was proverbial and fabulous. A first-rate shot, sport was for him a question of murdering _en masse_, and the number of game shot by him reached hundreds of thousands. A few years before his death he shot his 5,000th stag.