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i9i4] M. SCHEBEKO IN VIENNA 283
not proclaiming them too loudly, and by not delivering
insufficiently-controlled apprehensions to the
indiscretion of Offices and Courts.
Less comprehensible to me was the scepticism of
which M. Schebeko showed proof (or parade). Perhaps
he thought that in due time he would be able to master
the situation. In Vienna itself, he had been an
eyewitness to the ascendency which his former chief,
Prince Lobanoff, had been able to gain. He had
repeatedly seen the latter act by strength of character
and the lucidity of his arguments on the vacillating
minds of his Viennese partners, and draw attention at
the same time in our country to the dangers which
weije arising and to the necessity of avoiding them. M.
Schebeko undoubtedly possessed this same strength of
character and temperament. One noticed this when,
having hastily returned to Vienna in the tragic week
that preceded the rupture, he was able, in two
interviews with Count Berchtold, to extort his consent to
enter into conversations with Russia, that is to say to
abandon the uncompromising attitude that the
Austro-Hungarian Government had adopted from the first
day. William II. was then obliged to have recourse to
extreme measures and to the ultimatum hurled at Russia,
in order to precipitate events all the same and to drag
Austria in her train. The energetic intervention of
the Russian Ambassador had unfortunately come a few
days too late.
I was also assured that the very journey that M.
Schebeko had undertaken had had as its chief object to
discuss the situation, which was becoming serious and
the events which were developing, with M. Sazonoff by
word of mouth. In this case it is most regrettable that
our Ambassador to Vienna did not start much earlier,
that is to say, on the assassination of the Arch-Duke
Francis Ferdinand.
It was through inordinately " robust" optimism that
our whole diplomacy sinned on this occasion, and 1
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