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.