in
the
Hungarian
Parliament,
affirmed that no official notification of the jounîey was made either to the Joint
Finance Ministry, or to the Austrian and Hungarian Governments.
3 Bezirkshauptmannschaften.
4 R. Wiener, in Der Tag of (?) August, 1923, quoted by Albert Mousset in
Gazette de Lausanne, 7 July, 1924.
107
his resolve to visit Bosnia, not merely because he was
exceedingly
headstrong
and
resented
anything
that
might seem a reflection upon his personal courage, but
also because he regarded Bilinski with dislike and
suspicion, as a close confidant of the Emperor and as the
chief exponent of a more moderate regime in Bosnia, as
against the more drastic methods favoured by Potiorek
and the military chiefs. Bilinski was therefore pointedly
ignored in all the arrangements of the visit.1 So far was
this carried that a printed programme of the visit was
circulated to all the Ministries, but not to the Joint
Ministry of Finance! During the visit a state ball was
given at Ilidze (the health resort outside Sarajevo, at
which the Archduke and his wife stayed), but by the
express orders of Francis Ferdinand himself no invita-
tions were issued to any officials of the Finance Ministry2
— an affront so amazing and so subversive of prestige
and discipline as to suggest that its author contemplated
in the near future some drastic transference of authority
in Bosnia, as part of his general design for a " Great
Austrian " state. Moreover, the details regarding the
journey of the Duchess and her official reception at
Sarajevo were not referred to Bilinski as Minister, and he
1 In a telegram of 3 July, 1914, Bilinski reminds Potiorek that they were
drawn up " exclusively from the point of view " and " exclusively between the
Archduke
and
the
Landeschef."
See
Gooss,
Das
Wiener
Kabinett
und
die
Entstehung des Weltkrieges, p. 47.
2 I have had in my hands this official programme, which was of course strictly
confidential (Reservat) and of which only 50 copies were printed. The list of
recipients
includes
the
Emperor,
all
the
chief
military
factors,
the
Joint
Ministries of Foreign Affairs and War, but not of Finance (Bosnia), both Premiers,
both Ministers of Commerce, but only the Austrian Minister of the Interior
(because
the
Archduke
went
by
Dalmatia,
without
touching
the
territory
of
the Crown of St. Stephen), the police in Vienna and Trieste, the Statthalterei in
Vienna, Trieste and Zara, and even the Bezirkshauptmann in Metkovie. It will
be seen that the list is thought out to the smallest detail by some bureaucratic
pedant. Moreover a separate programme was printed for the journey of the
Duchess,
who
came direct
by train
through Croatia. In her case, therefore,
the name of the Hungarian Minister of the Interior is added to the list of persons
to be notified, but that of the Joint Minister of Finance is again missing. There
can be no question that the omission was deliberate and that Bilinski in his
telegram to Potiorek (see note 1 above) is telling the bare truth.
3This we have on the authority of Bilinski himself. See extract from his
Memoirs (so far only published in Polish) in Neue Freie Presse of 28 June, 1924.
108
claims to have read them for the first time when he
opened his paper on the fatal Sunday morning.1 For
this, it is true, there was a further explanation in the
fact that for the first time on Habsburg territory royal
honours were to be paid to the Duchess of Hohenberg,
and that by eliminating the civil authorities from all
say in the matter, Francis Ferdinand had found it easier
to force the hand of the Emperor and win his passive
consent to a precedent which but for the tragedy would
have had important consequences at Court.
I have the authority of one of the highest officials of
the Finance Ministry, who was continually consulted by
Bilinski, for stating that both the minister himself and
his subordinates were very much disturbed at the prospect
of the Archduke's visit, because they had come to realise
the extent to which the ground was undermined in Bosnia
and
the
neighbouring
provinces.
Bilinski's
annoyance
was naturally increased by the knowledge that his own
authority was being deliberately flouted. In conversa-
tion he consoled himself with the thought that the visit
was a purely military one, and that the real danger was
in the towns. If, then, he had been notified beforehand
of the intended reception at Sarajevo, it is probable that
he would have protested, but it also seems highly probable
that a protest, even from such a quarter, would have
been unavailing. The Archduke was a wilful man, and
Potiorek, who enjoyed his full confidence, would have
encouraged him to have his way.
All arrangements, then, were in the hands of Potiorek,
and at his door must be laid the failure to provide
adequate protection. According to Bilinski's own official
information,2
the
authorities
in
the
Bosnian
capital
actually only had 120 police at their disposal, and were
" not at all equal to their task." Moreover, though
70,000 troops were concentrated within no great distance
for purposes of the manœuvres, there was none the less
1 ibid.
2 See his telegram to Potiorek, 3 July (Gooss, op. cit., p. 47).
109
no proper lining of the streets. In short, we can safely
endorse the words of that tried servant of Francis Joseph,
Baron Margutti, who declares that the inadequacy of
the precautions " baffled every description."1 The best
proof of this is to compare them with those adopted on
the very similar occasion of the Emperor's state visit
to Sarajevo as recently as 1910. Every street along
which he passed was lined with a double cordon of troops,
the town swarmed with special police and detectives
from headquarters in Vienna and Budapest, who tested
the minutest details of the already elaborate system of
espionage and control established by the Bosnian police.
Strangers were not tolerated except after close enquiry,
and hundreds of individuals in Sarajevo were forbidden
to leave
their houses during the Emperor's stay. The
contrast between 1910 and 1914 amply justifies us in
speaking of criminal negligence on the part of those
Austro-Hungarian authorities with whom the care of
the Archduke lay.
The most trenchant comment upon this neglect came
from the German Ambassador, Herr von Tschirschky,
who said to General Auffenberg, "If in some railway
station an Archduke is stung by a fly, the Stationmaster
might even have to pay for it with his post. But for
the battue in the streets of Sarajevo not a hair of any man's
head is touched! "2
Nor can Potiorek plead in excuse his failure to realise
the gravity of the situation. For it was he who, as
Governor of Bosnia, had over a year before introduced
repressive measures against the Serbian population3 and
1 Vom Alten Kaiser, p. 396. Margutti reflects the views of the inner ring of
Court officials, Paar, Montenuovo, etc. One of the most responsible Austrian
writers on the war, Hof rat Glaise -Horstenau, is equally frank in admitting
"extraordinary
carelessness
and
lack
of
precaution."
(See
Neues
Wiener
Tagblatt, 28 June, 1924).
2 Auffenberg, A us Oesteneichs Höhe und Niedergang, ρ. 255.
3 In May 1913 he annulled the statutes of Serbian societies in Bosnia, put a
stop to the activities of the Prosvjeta (a very active educational and publishing
organisation), and closed tltf Radical club in Sarajevo.
110
had since then continued to urge the need for their
extension and to denounce to Vienna the folly of Bilinski's
more conciliatory policy. He was
fully aware that
Bosnia was seething with discontent which needed no
stirring from the outside in order to boil over; that the
choice of Bosnia for the scene of manoeuvres was widely
regarded as a menace, or at least a warning to Serbia and
still more that the choice of St. Vitus's Day for the
Archduke's official visit would be especially resented as
a direct challenge to the Serbian national idea. After
a lapse of five centuries Kosovo had been avenged and
could be celebrated freely for the first time since the
liberation; and on that very day the representative
of an alien dynasty seemed by his presence to be reaffir-
ming the enslavement of provinces for whose delivery
Serbia and Montenegro had twice gone to war in vain.
There is little doubt that Potiorek regarded this senti-
mental factor as an added reason for the state visit, just
as he and Conrad and the whole military hierarchy held
a speedy reckoning with Serbia to be inevitable and
desirable.
Potiorek's crowning fault was an arrogance that led
him to keep all arrangements in his own hand, yet
prevented him from listening to advice; and this involved
him quite naturally in the paradox that while he preached
to Vienna the dangers of the situation, he could not
conceive that Bosnia could be so utterly out of his control
as to produce a whole bevy of assassins on the streets
of the capital. Thus he expressly assured Bilinski that
the military measures taken by him were quite adequate
for the Archduke's protection. 1
Meanwhile, it is obvious that the police, which on
such occasions is bound to take its own precautions,
also showed itself strangely remiss or inefficient. Indeed,
not the least mysterious fact in the whole tragedy is
that it should have been possible for so large a group of
1 This also I have on the authority of one of Bilinski's highest officials.
111
conspirators to evade so permeating an influence as
that of the Bosnian and Croatian police for so long a
time. It is worth noting that only two days before the
murder, the Croat clerical deputy, Persic, in the Croatian
Sabor, denounced the growth of the police regime and
asserted that in Croatia alone (of course under orders
from Budapest and Vienna) 700,000 crowns had been
set aside for police spies and informers. What followed
showed the incompetence of the regime, but it also set
many people wondering whether its failure could be
entirely accidental, and whether there were not some
hideous
secret
behind
the
murder.1
Small
wonder,
then, if in the excited atmosphere of war many both at
home and abroad should have rejected mere negligence
as an adequate explanation of the crime, and if the
theory of official complicity on the part of Vienna or
Budapest gained considerable credence! Moreover, the
ill-concealed relief, sometimes bordering upon delight,
at the ill-fated couple's removal, which was displayed
by more than one member of the Imperial family, by
high court dignitaries and by many prominent figures
in the political and journalistic world, seemed to lend
plausibility to the theory, when it was publicly advanced
early in the world-war. But nothing which even remotely
deserves the name of evidence has ever been adduced in
proof, and each of the many suspicious details is suscep-
tible of a simpler and less sensational explanation. There
seems to be little doubt that more than one attempt
was made to dissuade Francis Ferdinand from the
journey, and also that on the eve of departure he had
strong presentiments of coming evil. In this connection
1 Symptomatic of the fantastic legends that grew out of the murder is a long
article by J. J. Bosdan in the Boston Sunday Globe (U.S.) of 21 March, 1915,
asserting that the Archduke was a victim of the " Austro-German Palace con-
spirators," that the driver of the car was in the plot and deliberately turned into
a side street in order to place him at the mercy of the assassins; that neither
Princip nor Cabrinovid were the real murderers; that both victims wore silk-
woven armour and were shot int the neck by expert marksmen who knew this
fact!
112
it is worth quoting a remark, which he himself let
fall after the reception ot the Town Hall and which was
overheard by Mr. Cokorilo, the local representative of
The Times: " Now I understand why Tisza advised me
to postpone my journey.1 In point of fact, both a
defiance of danger and a disregard of warnings on the
part of royal personages belong to the commonplaces
of history — from Caesar to Henri Quatre and Alexander
Obrenovic. But in this case the main cause, apart from
his own headstrong behaviour, was the conflict between
the military and civil authority, which has already been
described. It was a final and classic example, of the
almost boundless " Schlamperei "· (no English word
can fully render the idea of incurably bungling and
haphazard methods which this conveys) which char-
acterised the old regime in Aus
tria.
The rôle of the police in the whole affair is a matter
which has rightly attracted considerable attention, and
I therefore make no apology for citing here a somewhat
miscellaneous assortment of facts which I was able to
collect on the spot last summer.
For instance, the German Consul in Sarajevo received
on io April, 1914, an anonymous letter, warning him
that an attempt was being planned against William II,8
and as the latter had recently been at Vienna and Miramar
and was soon to visit the Archduke Francis Ferdinand
again at Konopistë, this was not to be rejected as
fantastic, even though no proof was ever actually forth-
coming. It certainly serves to explain the insistent
messages sent by the Consul to Berlin after the murder
— messages which we now know from the German
official documents to have been the decisive factor in
1 H. W. Steed, Through Thirty Years, i., p. 400.
2 I remember discussing the whole affair more than once with Professor
Masaryk in the early days of his exile, and this was the word which he found
most adequate to describe the situation in Sarajevo.
3 This was told me by the detective who had to deal with the warning at the
time, and who showed me his original notes.
113
preventing the Emperor from attending the funeral in
Vienna.
The subordinate police officials seem to have been
more nervous than their chiefs, and to-day claim to
have advised against the selection of St. Vitus's Day
(Vidovdan) for the visit, but to have been disregarded.
They tell also of a mysterious individual who, ten days
before the murder, called more than once at their office and
insisted that he had an urgent warning to convey to their
chief. He could not be induced to give his information
to any subordinate, and having been twice refused an
appointment, never came again.
During the week preceding the tragedy, a police order
was issued that all pupils at secondary schools who were
not actually domiciled in Sarajevo itself must at once
return to their homes. But this order, which would
have affected almost all the ringleaders, was not enforced.
Then two days beforehand a detective at Ilidze telephoned
to headquarters, warning them that he had recognised
on the street young Cabrinovic, who, as we saw, had
been expelled
from Bosnia
in 1912.
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