 Ritter argued that though the Germans supported the idea of an Austrian-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, this was more of an "ad hoc" response to the crisis gripping Europe as opposed to Fischer's claim that Germany was deliberately setting off a war of aggression.Ritter complained that Fischer relied too much on the memories of Austro-Hungarian leaders such as the Count István Tisza and Count Ottokar Czernin who sought to shift all of the responsibility for the war on German shoulders.Ritter ended his essay by writing he felt profound "sadness" over the prospect that the next generation of Germans would not be as nationalistically-minded as previous generations as a result of reading Fischer.