ABSTRACT
In the conversation I had this morning with Zimmerman we talked, of course, fi rst of all about the horrible misdeed of Sarajevo and of the political consequences that can derive from it. While paying the rightful homage to the unhappy victims, he told me in all confi dentiality that the personality of the heir to the Austrian throne was not, after all, such that could have fully inspired confi dence here. He certainly was keen on the Triple Alliance, called himself a friend of Germany and, in the last few years, had formed a cordial relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm but at home he sided preferably with the Slavs and dreamed of that project of Trialism which, in many people’s opinion here, would have put an end to the German superiority in the monarchy. He also had too many dislikes and prejudices: against the Hungarians, against the Italians, against everything liberal; he was moody, violent, subject to backward and exclusivist infl uences. Without wanting to deny his qualities and merits, especially regarding the army, one can assume that his disappearance could simplify rather than complicate the situation of the Monarchy, at home and abroad. That is, if there were men capable of imprinting on its politics a wise and energetic course, now that the will of the old Emperor, so easy to dominate these days, would no longer encounter that resistance and adverse tide which, in recent years, had so often paralysed the actions of the rulers of Vienna. But one must doubt that such men really exist.
