"... _I had an aim in life and a leading idea. The events of the annexation crisis have proved calamitous for the policy which I followed all my life_. I wished to do everything which lay within the compass of my small powers, to render my own nation happy and great in a free, powerful and generally respected Austria ... _I have always resented the fact that when they talked about Austria people really meant only the Germans and Magyars, as if the great majority of Slavs upon whom rest the biggest burdens did not exist_. But now--and no beautiful words can make me change my opinion on that point--an entirely independent policy has become unthinkable, because the only path which remains open to Vienna leads by way of Berlin. Berlin will henceforward direct our policy." 4. To offer any proofs that the present war was deliberately planned and provoked by the Governments of Berlin, Vienna and Budapest seems to me superfluous. Who can to-day have any doubt that Austria wilfully provoked the war in a mad desire to crush Serbia? Who can doubt that Austria for a long time entertained imperialist ambitions with respect to the Balkans which were supported by Berlin which wished to use Austria as a "bridge to the East"? No more damning document for Austria can be imagined than Prince Lichnowsky's Memorandum. He denounces Austria's hypocritical support of the independence of Albania. In this respect he holds similar views to those expressed in the Austrian delegations of 1913 by Professor Masaryk, who rightly denounced the Austrian plan of setting up an independent Albania on the plea of "the right of nationalities" which Austria denied her own Slavs. Professor Masaryk rightly pointed out at that time that an outlet to the sea is a vital necessity for Serbia, that the Albanians were divided into so many racial, linguistic and religious groups and so uncivilised that they could not form an independent nation, and that the whole project was part and parcel of Austria's anti-Serbian policy and her plans for the conquest of the Balkans. Prince Lichnowsky admits that an independent Albania "had no prospect of surviving," and that it was merely an Austrian plan for preventing Serbia from obtaining an access to the sea. He apparently disagrees with the idea of "the power of a Ruling House, the dynastic idea," but stands up for "a National State, the democratic idea." That in itself seems to indicate that he is in favour of the destruction of Austria and its substitution by new states, built according to the principle of nationality. He admittedly disagrees with the views of Vienna and Budapest, and criticises Germany's alliance with Austria, probably knowing, as a far-sighted and well-informed politician, that Austria-Hungary cannot possibly survive this war.