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Excerpt from Entente Diplomacy and the World: Matrix of the History of Europe, 1909-14
Though M. B. de Siebert has requested me to assign to him only the role of translator in the identification of the authorship of this book, he must, nevertheless, be looked upon as its author. To be sure, the many documents here reproduced are from the minds of other men - the men who made the history of Europe in recent years - but they had no intention whatever of having any of them come to the ken of the public. What they wrote was written in their capacity as statesmen - ministers of foreign affairs and diplomatists - and was by its very character destined to rest forever in the secret archives of governments, more especially the Imperial Russian government in this instance.
It was left to M. de Siebert to take the steps that have resulted in the publication of the diplomatic documents and correspondence herein contained. To explain why and how these steps were taken would not be well, simply because a statement in regard thereto would prejudice the case of one of the Powers involved in the truly stupendous conspiracy against the welfare of mankind herein laid bare.
I take the liberty of saying that it took great courage to do this. Men have earned the displeasure of powerful governments for much less, and if I wanted to enter upon the realm of general knowledge - upon that field which is not supported by official proof - I could say that M. de Siebert, in giving these documents to the world, ran the risk of becoming an attraction to the political assassin. The individuals and groups who encompassed the murder of Jaures and a number of other con-conformists are still in being, and the same can be said of those who decided upon the death of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg, to which group the Serbian Narodna Odbrana was merely a tool.
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