NEWS OF THE WEEK.
WE give below a chronicle of events. First, however, we must touch on the essential question : Is it still possible to avoid the outbreak of a general war ? We believe there is still one way left. War can now be stopped only by force or the threat of force, and, by a strange irony, it is the least strong and least populous of the great European Powers which can exercise this force. If, even at the eleventh hour, Italy were to tell her two colleagues in the Triple Alliance that if they did not agree to a peaceful solution of the present crisis she will not only leave the Triple Alliance, but will pass over to the other side, ally herself with the Powers of the Triple Entente, and form with them a Quadruple Alliance in the interests of peace, we believe that Austria-Hungary must yield. In proof of this one has only to think what it would mean for Italy to throw in her lot with the Entente. It would mean that the Italians would move on the Brenner, the Trentino, the Austrian Tyrol, and Trieste, and that Austria-Hungary must either abandon these regions or else wage a war with three fronts—with Servia on her Eastern borders, with Italy on the south, with Russia on the north, while at the same time Roumania attacked Transylvania, and a Franco-British squadron overawed the 'Arian and Dalmatian coasts. Such pressure Austria-Hungary could not resist.
