Prince Lichnowsky frankly admits that the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was a mere pretext for Vienna, which in fact had resolved on an expedition against Serbia soon after the second Balkan war by which she felt herself humiliated. In scathing terms he denounces the Triple Alliance policy and thinks it a great mistake that Germany allied herself with the "Turkish and Magyar oppressors." And though he says that it was Germany which "persisted that Serbia must be massacred," he makes it quite clear that it was Vienna that led the conspiracy against Europe, since on all questions Germany "took up the position prescribed to her by Vienna." The policy of espousing Austria's quarrels, the development of the Austro-German Alliance into a pooling of interests in all spheres, was "the best way of producing war." The Balkan policy of conquest and strangulation "was not the German policy, but that of the Austrian Imperial House." What better testimony is required to prove that Austria was not the blind tool, but the willing and wilful accomplice of Germany? III CZECH POLITICAL PARTIES BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR The Czech policy during the past seventy years has always had but one ultimate aim in view: the re-establishment of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia and the full independence of the Czecho-Slovak nation. From the very beginning of their political activity Czech politicians resisted the Pan-German scheme of Central Europe. They preached the necessity of the realisation of liberty and equality for all nations, and of a federation of the non-Germans of Central Europe as a barrier against German expansion.