Certainly in a less terrible fashion than was the case through the war.

Probably much more slowly, and doubtless without dragging the whole world into the whirlpool.

We were bound to die.

We were at liberty to choose the manner of our death, and we chose the most terrible.
Without knowing it, we lost our independence at the outbreak of war.
We were transformed from a subject into an object.
This unfortunate war once started, we were powerless to end it.

At the conference in London the death sentence had been passed on the Empire of the Habsburgs and a separate peace would have been no easier a form of death than that involved in holding out at the side of our Allies.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Supposed to be the Counts Berchtold, Tisza and Stuergkh and General Conrad von Hohendorf.
[2] See Appendix, p.