Berchtold vacillated, torn hither and thither by different influences.

It was a question of hours merely; but they passed by and were not made use of, and disaster was the result.
Russia had created strained conditions which brought on the world war.
Some months after the outbreak of war I had a long conversation on all these questions with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Stephen Tisza.

He was decidedly opposed to the severe ultimatum, as he foresaw a war and did not wish for it.

It is one of the most widely spread errors to stigmatise Tisza to-day as one of the instigators of the war.

He was opposed to it, not from a general pacifist tendency, but because, in his opinion, an efficiently pursued policy of alliance would in a few years considerably strengthen the powers of the Monarchy.