WHO ARE THE HUNS?

82 Treatment of Diplomatic Representatives.
CHAPTER VIII.
Treatment of Diplomatic Representatives by the
Triple Entente Countries in Violation of International
Law. Acts of Diplomatic Representatives
of the Triple Entente in Violation of International
Law.
The following was reported from Vienna on the 14th
of August:
"The facts given below were brought to the attention of
the Foreign Office through the American Ambassador. On the
13th of August the Austrian-Hungarian Vice-Consul Hoffinger
who had been left in St. Petersburg by the Austrian-Hungarian
Ambassador in order to guard the diplomatic archives and for
whose safety the Russian Foreign Office had given its distinct
guaranty, was arrested as a prisoner of war. The protest made
against this flagrant breach of the law of nations by the American
Embassy, which, as is known, had been entrusted with the
protection of Austrian-Hungarian interests for the duration of
the war, remained without result.
The Austrian-Hungarian Government therefore felt itself
obliged to combat this forcible act on the part of the Russians,
—which had already been preceded by the wanton arrest of
a secretary of the Embassy, Herr Loster,—by resorting to the
legitimate weapon of reprisals, and it is for this reason that
the Russian secretary of the Embassy, M. Stolkowsky, who
had been left behind in charge of the diplomatic archives, was
arrested as a prisoner of war."
Breach of treaties, breach of the given word of honor,
violations of the law of nations, violations of common penal
law! Weapons such as these, abuses such as these, have wiped
away the thin veneer of civilization from the very first day
of war and even before that. The point of view of the Tartar
and the Mongol has superseded at one blow all those agreements
and compacts entered into at the Hague in 1899 and
1907. And let it not be forgotten that the prime mover in all
this was the "Czar of Peace" himself, or rather some sudden