Chapter 2 THE SEETHING WHIRLPOOL.

The scene shifts to Vienna,[21] the capital of Austria, the largest city of Austria-Hungary and the heart and centre of the Austrian Empire. It is one of the most attractive cities in all Europe, and has long been renowned as the favoured home of art, music, and gaiety. You will find the city by the side of the Danube, where the river leaves the Bavarian highlands and enters the great plain.

Most of it is modern, and in the Ringstrasse you may see some of the finest buildings in the world, such as the Opera House, which seats 3,000 people; the University, which contains one of the most famous of medical schools; the Parliament House of Austria; and the chief law courts of the country.

Vienna, the capital of Austria, heart and centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The city is surrounded by the Danube and its canals, and has several parks and numerous shady avenues of trees, beneath which the gay Viennese love to stroll or sit at the tables of outdoor cafés listening to the bands. You can scarcely walk half a mile in Vienna without hearing music. The gipsy bands which are often heard in Vienna play their national airs with a dash and fire that sets even the most sluggish pulse dancing.

One of the finest of all the public buildings of Vienna is the Imperial Palace, or Hofburg, which contains a library of a million volumes. The great chamber in which the books are housed is said to be the most splendid library hall in the world. Its floor of red and white marble is adorned with noble statues, and its vaulted dome, which rises 193 feet above the pavement, is covered with beautiful paintings.

In the palace are preserved the crown, sword, and sceptre of Charlemagne,[22] the great Emperor of the West, who gave laws to nearly the whole of civilized Europe, and is renowned in song and story as a prince of knights, and the champion of the Christian religion. To this day he lives in the hearts of the German peoples both of Germany and Austria. They say that he still watches over them, and every autumn comes riding over the Rhine, across a bridge of gold, to bless their vineyards and cornfields with increase.

In the heart of the city stands the old cathedral of St. Stephen. For more than six hundred years this magnificent pile has lifted its towers to the sky. It has seen the Crusaders halt within its shadow on their way to free the Holy Land from the infidel, and it has looked down on great hordes of conquering Turks striving to capture the city. Vienna was the high-water mark at which the progress of the Turkish flood was stayed. The Turks beat upon its ramparts in vain; they were flung back from its walls like ocean waves from the cliffs of a rocky coast. In the old cathedral you may see a huge bell cast out of cannon captured from the Turks in the last of their sieges. For centuries Vienna has been the frontier city between the Eastern and Western peoples of Europe.

* * *

On the very day of the murders at Sarajevo the Emperor Franz Josef left Vienna for his summer holiday at the beautiful watering-place of Ischl,[23] in Upper Austria. What a difference between the reception of the old Emperor by the citizens of Vienna and that of his heir by the citizens of Sarajevo! At the station the mayor and members of the city council met the aged sovereign and told him how greatly they rejoiced at his recovery from a recent sickness. The Emperor was deeply touched by their words of affection and loyalty, and as his train steamed out of the station loud cheers were raised and the national anthem was sung.

A few hours later the terrible news from Sarajevo was flashed to him across the telegraph wires. You can imagine the anguish of the poor old man when he knew that fate had dealt him yet another crushing blow. When, sixteen years ago, he learned that his Empress had been murdered, he cried in his grief, "Then I am spared nothing." How true! Fate seemed again to have replied to his despairing cry, "Nothing." Long ago his mother said of him, "God has given him the qualities needed to meet all turns of fate." From every one of his former blows he had rallied, and prayed the Almighty for power to fulfil what he had been called upon to perform. Now he was fain to cry, with Elijah, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life."

I have already told you that the peoples of Austria-Hungary are divided by wide and deep differences, and that they have little in common, but that they are all united in their reverence for their aged sovereign. They regard him with the same sort of affection which the people of this country used to feel for Queen Victoria. She was more than a queen; she was the mother of her people, high above all the quarrels of parties and sects. So it is with Franz Josef, and you can therefore imagine the bitter anger and the eager desire for revenge which took possession of the Austrian people when they learnt of the murder of his nephew. They showed their sympathy with the Emperor very clearly when he returned to Vienna to take part in the funeral ceremonies, and still more when thousands of them passed through the Hofburg Chapel, where the Archduke and his wife lay in state.

Every government in Europe sent messages of deep sympathy with the Emperor in his hour of sorrow, and that which was tendered by Mr. Asquith, our Prime Minister, was one of the most sincere of them all.

The children of the Archduke and Archduchess were living in a castle in Bohemia[24] when the sad news came to them that they were orphans-bereft of father and mother in one dread day. The German Emperor and his wife sent the following message to them: "We can scarcely find words to express to you children how our hearts bleed at the thought of you and your inexpressible grief. To have spent such happy hours with you and your parents only a fortnight ago, and now to think that you are plunged in this immeasurable sorrow! May God stand by you, and give you strength to bear this blow! The blessing of parents reaches beyond the grave."

Meanwhile the Austrian people had begun to fasten the blame for the murders on Servia. While the funeral procession was passing through the streets, crowds gathered in front of the Servian minister's residence with shouts of "Hurrah for Austria!" and "Down with Servia!" The sight of the Servian flag, to which a streamer of crape had been attached, only made them more angry still; the flag was burnt, and stones were thrown at the police. The newspapers now began to declare openly that the plot had been hatched in Servia, and that high officials in the Servian government had encouraged it. The Council of Ministers met and inquired into the question, and then came a lull of three weeks.

For a time the Austro-Servian question sank out of sight, and it was thought that at the worst there would only be another Balkan War. No one suspected for a moment that the other Powers of Europe would be dragged into the quarrel, and that the schoolboy's pistol-shot at Sarajevo would be the signal for Armageddon. Had any one suggested in the early days of July that in three weeks all the Great Powers would be at war, he would have been laughed at. But all the while a great whirlpool was seething, and slowly but surely Russia, Germany, France, and Great Britain were being drawn into the centre.

* * *

Before I tell you the further history of the quarrel between Austria and Servia, and show you how the chief Powers of Europe became mixed up with it, let me tell you of a very fortunate event which happened at home. On Saturday, the 18th of July, our King went down to Portsmouth to visit his Fleet, which had been assembled at Spithead. Every boy and girl knows that we live on an island home, and that the sea which surrounds us has been a great source of blessing to us.

"Thy story, thy glory,

The very fame of thee,

It rose not, it grows not,

It comes not save by sea."

Shakespeare tells us that the encircling sea serves us

"In the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house

Against the envy of less happier lands."

King George V. in the uniform of a British admiral.

Photo, W. and D. Downey.

This "defensive moat" has always proved a barrier against foreign attack, but it has not preserved our islands from invasion. Celts, Romans, English, Danes, and Normans have in turn conquered England; but never since it became the home of a united nation with a strong Navy has any foreign invader landed in strength on our shores. For more than eight hundred years no hostile army has dared to invade us, and our people have never been forced to lay down their tools and snatch up their weapons to drive away the invader. No other land in Europe can make this boast. We owe this long reign of security to our Navy.

Not only has our Navy kept us free from invasion, but by winning for us the mastery of the sea it has enabled us to build up a great foreign trade, by which we have grown rich and great, and to found colonies and hold possessions in every continent on the face of the globe. At the present time it does even more than this-it secures for us the means whereby we live and move and have our being. So many of our people are now engaged in mines and quarries and factories, on railways, and in offices, that we do not grow enough food for our needs. There is never enough food in this country to last our people for more than a couple of months or so. We draw our food supplies from all parts of the world, and were a foreign foe to destroy our Navy and cut off our food ships, the great bulk of us would soon perish of starvation. So you see that "Britannia must rule the waves," if we are to exist at all and remain the greatest trading and colonial nation of the world, as we are to-day. Every sensible man understands this, and all agree that our Navy must be very strong and very efficient. It must be able to command the seas, for, as Raleigh told us long ago, "Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and, consequently, the world itself."

H.M.S. Colossus firing a salute. Photo, Cribb.

The sure shield of Britain-a scene at the Naval Review. Photo, Cribb.

Never has the British Navy been so powerful and so well equipped both in ships and guns and men as at present. The "wooden walls" in which Blake and Nelson fought have long since disappeared, and our bluejackets now fight behind bulwarks of steel. Steam has taken the place of sail; the old muzzle-loading guns have been superseded by huge weapons, the largest of which can hurl nearly a ton of metal for twelve miles with deadly aim. Our modern warships are filled with costly machinery quite unknown and even undreamt of in the days when Britain fought and won the greatest sea fights of her history. But though the ships have changed out of knowledge, the officers, bluejackets, and marines who man them possess all the old fighting spirit and all the courage and daring of their forefathers.

"Ye mariners of England,

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again

To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep

While the stormy winds do blow-

While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow."

When the King went down to Portsmouth on the 20th of July there appeared to be no foe to fight; there was no sign of any war in which we could possibly be engaged, yet in less than a fortnight the Navy had cleared for action, and our sailors were standing at the guns watching and waiting for the battleships of Germany to appear.

Gray skies were overhead, and a cold easterly wind was sweeping over the seas as His Majesty led out to sea the largest and most powerful fleet ever seen in British waters. When the royal yacht anchored, no less than twenty-two miles of warships passed in procession before it. First came four battle-cruisers, headed by the Lion, and followed by the Queen Mary, Princess Royal, and New Zealand. Then in stately order, two by two, came the latest of our battleships, led by the Iron Duke and the King George. Marines and bands were paraded on the sides of the ships nearest to the King's yacht, and their scarlet uniforms ran like a ribbon of bright colour along the edge of the great gray monsters. Just as each ship reached the stern of the royal yacht, the sailors, with the smartness of a machine, removed their hats, held them at arm's length, and waved them to the roar of British huzzas. At the same moment the bands struck up the National Anthem, and the marines presented arms. The King and the Prince of Wales stood on the bridge of the royal yacht, saluting the ships as they passed.

Behind Sir George Callaghan's flagship came the four First Fleet battle squadrons, including twenty-nine vessels of the vastest power in the whole world. In the first and second squadrons were eight Dreadnoughts, in the third squadron eight of the great ships that were built before the all-big-gun ships became the first line of our Navy, and in the fourth squadron were three more Dreadnoughts and the Agamemnon.[25] Following these were the smart cruisers of the First Fleet-swift, armed ships that act as the fighting scouts of the seas. In their wake passed fifty-six torpedo destroyers, moving in sections of fours. By the time the last of the First Fleet ships had passed the King's yacht, the leading vessels were far away on the horizon.

A slight pause, and then the Second and Third Fleets began to appear, led by the Lord Nelson and the Prince of Wales respectively. When these ships had saluted their sovereign there still remained the cruisers attached to these fleets. Never had such an array been seen before in the history of the world-twenty-two miles of warships in endless columns, gliding slowly through the water, every one of them a tower of strength and a mighty engine of destruction. Not only was every type of warship represented, but the new powers of the air were visible. Scores of seaplanes and aeroplanes flew over the King's yacht like huge birds of prey.

Such was Britain's display of naval strength at the moment when the issue of war or peace was hanging in the balance. It was a sign to the world that, whatever might befall, Britain was ready, aye ready, to guard her own with the strong arm of ancient renown:-

"Come the four quarters of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them."

* * *

"It's a long, long way to Tipperary," sing our soldiers on the march, and it's a long, long way from Spithead to the Servian capital, Belgrade, whither we must now wend our way. On a bright, sunny morning, when the train has clattered across the iron bridge which spans the Danube, and the city comes into view, it looks very attractive. Belgrade in the distance well deserves its title of the "White City." A poetically minded person has described it as "shining like a pearl through the silvery mists of sunrise."

Prince Albert, the King's second son, as a midshipman. This photograph was taken during the King's inspection of the Fleet.

Photo, Ernest Brooks.

In the 'seventies Belgrade was a miserable, dirty, and comfortless town; its main thoroughfare was a sea of mud; its buildings were poor; and it was no better than a tumble-down Turkish fortress. But since those days Servia has become an independent kingdom, and she has made Belgrade a really fine city, with broad, tree-fringed streets, electric trams, and fine hotels. Only two of the ancient landmarks remain-the cathedral, and the citadel, over which flies the national flag. Through modern Belgrade runs a fine street more than a mile long, overtopped about the middle by the golden domes of the new palace. Here are the principal hotels, private houses, and shops, the latter of which blaze with electric light in the evenings. The people of Belgrade sometimes call their town "Little Paris," and they strive to make it as gay as the French capital itself.

The city of Belgrade. Photo, Exclusive News Agency.

While the British fleet was unfolding itself before our King, there was no gaiety amongst the high government officials in Belgrade. They were getting very anxious. The Council of Ministers in Vienna was inquiring closely into the part played by them in the Sarajevo murders. It was rumoured that the Austrians had traced the arms and explosives with which the murderers were provided to certain Servian officers and officials of the government who were members of a National Union for making Slav power supreme in the Balkan Peninsula. It was also said that these same officers and officials had secretly passed the murderers into Bosnia, and had helped them in various other ways to do their deadly work. If Austria could prove all this, she would be able to say that Servia had been playing the part of a secret enemy, and rightly deserved punishment of some sort.

The King and Crown Prince of Servia. Photo, Topical.

On the evening of the 23rd of July the Austro-Hungarian ministers in Belgrade handed the Note to which your father referred when he read his newspaper at the breakfast table. You know that every European country sends officials to live in the capitals of other countries, and that these officials represent the powers by which they are sent. They are always treated with the greatest possible respect, and their houses are supposed to be bits of their own land planted down in a foreign country. Sometimes these representatives are called ambassadors, sometimes simply ministers. When the government of one country wishes to communicate with the government of another country, it sends and receives messages through its ambassadors or ministers.

In Belgrade there was, of course, an Austrian minister, and it was he who handed the Note to the Servian Prime Minister. This Note was of such grave importance that I must tell you what was in it. First, it began by telling Servia that for a long time past she had been stirring up her people against Austria; that she had allowed men connected with the government to plot against her; and that she had taken no steps to punish those who had assisted the murderers at Sarajevo. The Servians were greatly to blame, and upon them must fall much of the responsibility for the wicked deeds that had been done in Bosnia.

Then followed a list of ten things which Servia was to do to make up for the mischief which she was said to have caused. She was to print on the front page of the government newspaper a statement that she would no longer permit her people to work against Austria, either by word or deed; she was to express regret that Servian officers and officials had spoken or acted in an unfriendly manner against Austria; and she was to remove from their posts all who had done so. The whole army was to be told that such conduct would no longer be permitted, and the National Union was to be broken up. Two officers, mentioned by name, were to be arrested, and all who had in any way helped the murderers of Sarajevo, either by giving them arms or helping them to get into Bosnia, were to be brought to trial. Austrian officials were to take part in the punishment of the wrongdoers, and in putting an end to the bad feeling between the two countries.

The Note ended as follows:-

"The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the Servian Government at the latest by six o'clock on Saturday evening, the 25th of July."

The Czar of Russia and President Poincaré.

This photograph was taken on board the Czar's yacht when President Poincaré visited Russia in the middle of July. (Photo, Record.)

This was very short notice indeed, and it clearly meant that if the Servian Government did not immediately agree to the Austrian demands war would be declared. In a few hours the full text of this letter was known to all the world. Your father read it, and called it "very harsh." Certainly it was very severe, and the Austrians meant it to be severe. They knew very well that they were asking for some things which no state could possibly yield and still call itself independent. For instance, if the Servians had agreed to remove officers and officials from their posts at the bidding of Austria, and had allowed Austrians to take part in the police work of the country, they would be confessing to all the world that they were no longer masters in their own house, and that they were nothing more than the tools of Austria. The Servians were prepared to punish any officers who were proved guilty, and were quite willing to give way on nearly all the points in the Note, because they wished to stave off war with their powerful neighbours; but they were not ready to acknowledge the Austrians as their overlords. Do you blame them? I don't.

So they handed in their reply to the Austrians, and in it they said that they would agree to all Austria's demands; but they asked for delay in order to make new laws by which they could carry out her wishes. They also asked for an explanation of the way in which Austrian officials were to take part in their police and law-court work. This ought to have been enough; but Austria had all along meant war, and she had drawn up the Note, with the knowledge, and perhaps the help, of the German Ambassador at Vienna, in such a way that the Servians were bound to refuse some of its terms. Immediately the reply was handed to the Austrian minister he rejected it, and asked for a safe conduct back to his own country. When a minister does this he clearly indicates that his country means to fight. The same evening the Austrian minister left Belgrade, and on the 28th Austria declared war. The next day fighting began, and the Austrians bombarded Belgrade.

Now we are to understand how Russia came into the quarrel. Russia has always regarded herself as the protector of the Slav races, and especially of the little Slav races. When, therefore, Russia saw that Austria was bent on conquering Servia, she began to call her troops together, and to prepare them for war. When a nation does this she is said to mobilize her forces. Russia is such a vast country and her troops are so widely dispersed that she cannot mobilize so quickly. She only partly mobilized, and by doing so meant to show Austria that she was not going to allow Servia to be swallowed up, or even to be badly beaten, especially after Servia had shown such willingness to meet Austria's demands.

For Fatherland.

This beautiful picture, which hangs in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, illustrates the sacrifice which Frenchmen are always ready to make for their dearly loved native land.

Now I must break off my story for a few moments to explain to you that Germany and Austria, as far back as 1879, made a treaty by which they promised to stand by each other if either of them should go to war. Italy joined Germany and Austria three years later, but on the understanding that she would fight only if one or other of the three partners should be attacked. This agreement is called the Triple Alliance.

Ever since 1870, when the Germans invaded France, and in less than five months utterly overcame her, tore from her two provinces, and fined her two hundred million pounds, there has been ill-feeling between France and Germany. Frenchmen have longed for the day on which they might win back the lost provinces and pay off old scores. Germany is too rich and powerful and has too big an army for France to be able to meet her on equal terms, so she has formed an alliance with Russia. This is known as the Dual Alliance. France and Russia have agreed to help each other if either of them should be attacked.

During the lifetime of our late King Edward VII., who was very fond of France, we were brought nearer and nearer to our friends across the Channel. For centuries they have been our foes; we have fought them off and on since the days of William the Conqueror. Our great admiral, Lord Nelson, used to say to his midshipmen, "Your duty is to fear God, honour the King, and hate the Frenchman." King Edward was a man who loved peace, and he did much to bring the French and the British people together, and make it easier for our statesmen to come to an understanding with French statesmen. This understanding was that if the coasts of France should be attacked by the fleet of an enemy, our Navy would help the French Navy. Now, when we came to an understanding with France we also came to an understanding with the ally of France-that is, with Russia. For a long time we had only an understanding with these countries, but not long ago we turned this understanding into an alliance. So you see that in July last there were two triple alliances in Europe-Germany, Austria, and Italy on the one side, and Great Britain, France, and Russia on the other. Later on, when I tell you something about Germany, you will understand why this new triple alliance was formed.