Kaiser Wilhelm had the good sense to keep away from Vienna during the time of the annexation crisis. Very few knew the extent of his influence in the Austrian capital, nor had they any idea how it was exercised. The Kaiser was always well informed of everything that was happening in Austria, and obtained his knowledge by attaching personages like Max Egon Fürstenberg to his person. The Kaiser never selected a friend except for the advancement of his own ends. Prince Max, who had the position of a reigning sovereign, without the work or responsibilities that were formerly attached to the title and possessions, had the entrée to all the most exclusive houses in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Here he shared State secrets that it was given only to very few to know. Kaiser Wilhelm was quick to see the advantage of attaching such a man to his side. The Prince was flattered by the monarch’s notice, and never thought that casual remarks that he let fall were treasured up by his Royal host. The German Kaiser and the Prince even speculated in stocks and shares together, financed companies, and indulged in business that was quite legitimate for the wealthy Prince, who could afford to lose heavily, but very dangerous for a monarch whose purse was always exhausted.

Prince Max, who is easy-going and good-humoured, cared little for his failures, but Kaiser Wilhelm lost prestige with his people through his financial transactions. Prince Max was very irresponsible in many ways. Like many other Austrians, he failed to see that his country was on the edge of a volcano. Things had always settled themselves before, and they would again, he thought. It is doubtful whether he realised that he was a mere tool in the hands of the Kaiser, and even if he did so, his sardonic contempt of life made him indifferent to the unpatriotic rôle that he was playing in giving away his country’s secrets to her worst enemy. Intelligent and well-versed in the traditions of his family that has produced so many famous men, it is probable that Prince Max could have saved Austria from falling into the hands of the Germans had he realised what was happening. Unfortunately, he was too much occupied in pursuing the latest craze of the moment to think of serious matters. Under his charming manners he possessed a certain acumen, but was inclined to think the Germans were guided by the same motives as he was himself. The over-civilised, over-polished man of the world fell an easy prey to the cold, calculating monarch on the other side of the frontier.

Prince Max Egon Fürstenberg was one type of the Kaiser’s familiars. Count Tchirsky, the German Ambassador at Vienna, was the prototype of the others. The German Ambassador in Vienna was the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps. Cold-blooded, calculating, deep, he was the very embodiment of the Kaiser’s ideal politician. Tchirsky did not know what scruples meant, and his many years’ experience of the Court of Vienna enabled him to put his fingers upon every weakness there. He saw only the defects and missed much that was fine in the character of the men with whom he had to deal. They spoke of him as the “Old Spider” of the Metternichgasse, where he had his palace. He did not play a leading rôle in society; visitors to Vienna knew but little about him, if indeed they realised his existence at all. He carried on a bitter warfare against the members of the diplomatic body who tried to oppose the Triple Alliance. His machinations were less openly, but none the less fiercely, directed against Italy, the nominal, but unwilling, ally of the Central Empires. Tchirsky, a man of dark plots, contrived to acquire interest in one of the leading Vienna papers. This interest developed into the effective control of the organ. He was able, thus, under the guise of a newspaper attack, to render Vienna almost intolerable for any diplomatist whose presence he considered detrimental to the welfare of Germany. When the Emperor “conspicuously turned his back upon the Russian military attaché” at a Court ball, the fact was recorded with great gusto in Tchirsky’s paper. The attaché, who was compromised in a spy case, would have left Vienna by the first train on the morrow in any case. Emperor Francis Joseph was a soldier and no courtier, and when he turned his back upon a foreigner there was no mistaking the action. It was done squarely and openly. The record of the German-owned Press did not improve the strained relations between Russia and Austria-Hungary, for the fact that Germany directed the paper’s policy was an open secret. A pro-English American Ambassador was subjected to attacks of a kind that could only be conceived by the fertile brain of Count Tchirsky. The Ambassador was accused of being parsimonious, and his personal habits were described with an acrimony that showed he had a powerful enemy. The coarseness of the language used, too, exposed the source; only a Prussian could employ such machinations against an enemy. How the Austrians, who prided themselves on their hospitality and their courtesy to strangers, could allow such an attack to appear can only be explained by the growing helplessness of their statesmen when confronted by the powerful German. Tchirsky further distinguished himself by making an attack through the Press upon the wife of the British Ambassador. How far he was responsible for the famous Cartwright interview it is difficult to say. The blow, it was known at the time, came from Germany. Austrians might have listened to a private conversation at a table in Marienbad, and put the words uttered by various members of the British Colony into shape as their views upon the Morocco question, but it needed the unscrupulousness of a German to conceive the plan of putting the pronouncements into the mouth of the British Ambassador. The latter was too astonished by the impertinence of the act to realise what it meant. Indeed, it is possible that the Ambassador’s indignant denials of ever having entered into any discussion with the man who claimed to have obtained the interview were suppressed like many other items of news and facts. The only denial that did appear was late and inadequate. The British, bound by traditions, never even suspected that German diplomacy could resort to such means for gaining an advantage. No one realised their absolute deadness to all sense of morality. When Count Tchirsky did sally forth from his chilly palace in Vienna, it was to compass the undoing of the frivolous Austrians. He would exact the payment of a pledge, given over wine. Bargains, made in the ball-room, were reduced next morning to writing, then stored away among the archives at Berlin, and the carrying out of the conditions—conditions favourable to Germany and disastrous to Austria—would be exacted with the cruelty and callousness of a Prussian politician. Had Tchirsky himself hung back, there were others to egg him on. The ideal condition of a Europe in which Germany was supreme must be realised. Any remnants of conscience that Tchirsky might have possessed had long been stifled by intercourse with his Imperial master, who regarded himself as far above all moral law. He was the supreme War Lord. His word had established a new morality quite different from that generally accepted. The military training enjoyed by almost all Germans made them the more ready to accept this point of view. Discipline, enforced until the power of independent reflection has been lost through want of use, relieved them of the necessity of considering the morality of their acts. The hymns of praise of Germany’s successful policy, sung by philosophers and by the pastors of religion, who were foremost, as usual, in advocating the policy of expediency that Germany might be exalted, lulled any scruples felt by Tchirsky’s subordinates. He, himself a survival of a former age, was incapable of imagining anything of the kind. Truth was what the supreme lord decreed to be truth. Honesty was merely another word for expediency. The Ambassador was surrounded by a number of men, with no reputation to lose, who brought him news of every fresh turn of events in Austria-Hungary. They cared little that they were betraying their country to a hard taskmaster. The present benefits of a flourishing banking account were ample compensation for their treachery. These causes all combined to render Tchirsky the least popular man in Vienna. When his name was mentioned, every tongue was suddenly frozen into silence. Was the inquirer a spy? Did he wish to sound the secret feelings of someone present? The Viennese felt a distrust that was rather instinctive than realised. It was the premonition of the closing of the brutal hand of German power upon the crowd of gay butterflies on the banks of the Danube.