stated that he had applied for help to the secretary of the
Odbrana, Major Vasic, and that the latter, finding a
1 A Serb from Croatia who threw up his commission in the Austro-Hungarian
army and entered the Serbian army. His brother Svetozar was one of the
leading Serb deputies in the Serbo-Croat Coalition and was from 1923 to 1925
Minister
of Education
in
the
Pasid Cabinet. His
other two brothers,
Adam
and Valerijan, were the two foremost victims of the Zagreb Treason Trial, in
which a " Revolutionary Statute " ascribed to Milan's authorship served as an
incriminating document. Not unnaturally Milan was a special bugbear to the
Austro-Hungarian
authorities,
who
also
hoped
through
him
to
compromise
Svetozar and his colleagues in the Coalition.
2 See infra, pp. 138 and 147.
3 Austro-Hungarian Rotbuch (1915), No. 19, p. 78.
4 Pharos, Process gegen die Attentäter von Sarajevo, p. 8.
121
volume of Maupassant in his possession, took it away,
saying that it was not for him, and supplied him with
other more edifying literature and a little money.1 This
tiny
incident
illustrates
the
difference
in
mentality
between the Narodna Odbrana and the terrorist group.
That these young emigres should have applied to the
former society is the most natural thing in the world, for
it was known to be specially interested in Bosnia and in
the fate of its émigrés.
That is probably hardly a mere accident that the memo-
randum only cites the names of six conspirators, three
of whom had come from Serbia. In reality, proceedings
were taken by the Sarajevo Court against twenty-five
persons, all Bosnian subjects. Of these, sixteen were
eventually
sentenced
and
nine
acquitted.
The
three
chief criminals, Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez, were
condemned
to
twenty
years'
imprisonment,
Austrian
law not allowing the death sentence for persons under
the age of twenty'; but Ilié, Veljko Cubrilovic and
Jovanovic were actually executed.8 Of the remainder,
one was sentenced to sixteen, one to ten, one to
seven and two to three years' imprisonment. To have
admitted before Europe that as many as twenty-five
persons were implicated in the plot, would have been
to stress the spontaneous character of the conspiracy
and
correspondingly
to
diminish
the
probable
share
of Serbia.
In effect, however, this is exactly what Austria did
during the early months of 1915, though Europe was
then far too absorbed in other things to realise the implica-
tions. A whole series of treason trials was instituted
against the youth of Bosnia-Herzegovina. At Travnik
1 ibid., p. 5.
2 All three were in an advanced stage of consumption and died during the war —
Cabrinovic in the prison of Theresienstadt in January 1916, Grabez in February,
and Princip early in 1918. Mitar Kerovié, whose death sentence had been
commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, also died in prison at Möllersdorf.
3 On 2 February, 1915.
122
Borivoje Jevtic 1 was sentenced to three years, and six
of his comrades to two years each. At Sarajevo ten
other students were sentenced to one year each. At
Tuzla Todor Ilic was sentenced to death (though after-
wards reprieved), while six comrades received sentences
of ten to sixteen years, and others again of "one to five
years. Finally at Banjaluka 151 of the ringleaders of
" Young Bosnia " were the victims of a monster trial,
which ended in 98 convictions, the deputies, Vasilj
Grdjic and Popovic and 14 others being sentenced to
death, 52 others to terms of imprisonment varying
from 10 to 20 years, and the remainder to terms varying
from 8 to 2 years.2 Needless to say, proceedings were
only instituted against those who had in one way or
another become marked men; the great mass were
simply mobilised at the outbreak of war and used as
" cannon fodder " for the Central Powers. But the large
numbers involved in these trials, and the wholesale
internments of Jugoslav patriots of all ages — nine-tenths
of whom had never been in any contact whatever with
Serbia — provide overwhelming proof of the spontaneous
and universal character of the national movement among
the Jugoslavs of the Monarchy, and in particular of the
revolutionary tendencies in Bosnia.
One point seemed to be definitely established by the
Memorandum — namely, that the hand-grenades came
originally from the Serbian State Arsenal at Kragujevac.
This again need cause no surprise, for it was notorious
that large numbers of these had been distributed to the
irregular bands employed by Serbia during the Balkan
Wars. Thus there were still many available in private
hands, and Tankosic, as the former chief of a band, can
have had little or no difficulty in procuring some, without
the authorities being any the wiser.
1 Author of Sarajevski Atentat (1924).
2 For details, see Austro-Magyar Judicial Crimes (1916).
123
The most serious charge in the memorandum — and one
which has since been substantiated — is the implication
of two officers of the Serbian Frontier Guards, at Sabac
and Loznica, in smuggling the young men across to
Bosnia.
This
was
from
the
very
first
virtually
unchallenged, and the details would very quickly have
been established if the whole question had been referred
to the Hague Tribunal, as the Belgrade Government
suggested.
While investigations proceeded at Sarajevo behind a
strict veil of official secrecy, there were growing polemics
in the press of Vienna and Budapest on the one hand
and of Belgrade on the other. In neither case would it
be just to regard them as symptomatic of normal public
opinion in the two countries, but their continuance had
an
irritating
and
inflammatory
effect.
One
essential
distinction must, however, be emphasised at the very
outset. The Serbian press had always been violent, and
often scurrilous; subject under the Obrenovic to unjust
and illicit pressure, it had attained since the change of
regime in 1903 a liberty which, in the absence of any law
of libel, swiftly degenerated into licence, but which was
generally tolerated as a safeguard against any possible
return to the old system. No Government since 1903,
however powerful in other respects, possessed the power
to restrain the press, or had the courage to attempt a
remedy by introducing a stringent press law; and to
impose restrictive measures by ministerial decree would
have been a violation of the Constitution. At the moment
of the murder Serbia was absorbed by party feuds of a
specially acute kind, and opponents of the Government
took a positive delight in embarrassing it still further by
provocative language, even in the delicate sphere of
foreign politics.
In Vienna and in Budapest the position was entirely
différent. Not merely the official and semi-official
organs, but the entire press, with very rare exceptions,
124
was amenable to the influence of the Ballplatz in matters
of foreign policy, and could be mobilised, or muzzled,
almost at a moment's notice, despite the existence in
both Austria and Hungary of press laws drafted on
approved European lines. Of this, such incidents as
the Prochaska affair in the winter of 1912 provide
eloquent proof. In a word, while the two Governments
of the Dual Monarchy, and above all the Joint Ministry
for Foreign Affairs, had most of the press in both capitals
at its disposal, the press of Belgrade — save a few personal
organs, which were not necessarily the most influential
— was all the more uncontrollable because so many of
its
writers
were
inexperienced
and
unbalanced,
and
was often ready to defy the Government on the most
trifling excuse. Undoubtedly one reason of the contrast
was that among the two ruling races of the Monarchy
journalism had become very largely a monopoly of the
Jews,
whose
natural
subservience
to
authority
was
supplemented by anti-Slav bias, whereas in Belgrade
the journalistic trade, being poorly paid and still in its
infancy, attracted a number of very second-rate indi-
viduals. Nor would it be fitting to overlook the rôle
played in envenoming Austro-Serbian relations by a
group of Jewish " revolver journalists " living at Zemun,
the little frontier town facing Belgrade across the river,
and unscrupulously feeding Vienna and Budapest with
a never failing supply of scandalous gossip about Serbia.
Moreover, among the Southern Slavs there has always
been a class of " Hochstapler," highly intelligent but
unprincipled to a degree, and possessed of a lively imagina-
tion which takes the form of feeding the credulous or
spitefully-disposed
foreigner
with
yarns
of
a
highly
sensational character. The all-pervading system of police
espionage
which
the
Austro-Hungarian
Ministries
of
Foreign
Affairs
and
War
had
organised
throughout
Bosnia and the other Southern Slav provinces provided
these adventurers with great opportunities; and obscure
125
individuals like George Nastic, Vasic, Steinhardt and
others came to play a really important rôle, thanks to
the infinite gullibility of the authorities and their blind
hatred of everything Serb. The virulent pamphlets of
Leopold Mandl were accepted as gospel, not merely by
historians of the calibre of Friedjung, but by all the
chief statesmen of Central Europe.
In the fierce polemics which followed the murder,
considerable excuses may be made for the Viennese
clerical organs, to whose hopes and ambitions the removal
of Francis Ferdinand dealt the deadliest of blows. But
no such plea can be advanced for the Liberal Jewish
press of both capitals, which had always hated and
feared the Archduke, while the attitude of the official
and semi-official organs was of course due to the direct
initiative oî the Ballplatz itself. Specially unrestrained,
and hence specially worthy of notice, was the language
of the Pester Lloyd, which on all matters of foreign policy
had, ever since the 'sixties, been a recognised mouth-
piece of the Hungarian Premier and of the Joint Foreign
Minister of the day. Its first leader after the murder
(29 June) roundly declared that " the threads of this
bloody web are still not laid bare, but there is already
certainty as to whither they lead. . . . Ten years ago
they butchered their own King and Queen by night;
they have now murdered the Austro-Hungarian heir in
open daylight on the street. In technique and boldness
there has in the interval been a notable improvement.
Such are the cultural products which the world has to
procure
from
this
quarter."
And
again
next
day,
Panserb crime has already been branded on the fore-
head. To render it harmless by pitiless extermination
as the task of the future." (30 June.) As must have
been foreseen, the first of these articles of course provoked
reminders in the Belgrade press that the crime was due
bosnian
discontent
and
Austrian
repression;
and
of this the Pester Lloyd replied on 1 July with over three
126
columns of violent comment, in which it was claimed
that those who dared to speak of " the fable of oppres-
sion of their kinsmen " laid themselves open to the
countercharge
of
"
incitement
to
murder."
Instead
of regretting the excesses perpetrated against the Serbs
of Bosnia, it simply treated Potiorek's proclamation of
martial law as " a revelation of facts which the Belgrade
gentry with their big talk can no longer juggle away."
After these calculated outbursts it established a daily
rubric entitled: " Serbian whitewash," or " From the
Serbian Witches' Cauldron," and containing the most
violent rejoinders to its own abuse. Finally, when the
Serbian Press Bureau issued a statement regretting the
crime and its effect upon relations between the two
countries, the Pester Lloyd replied by declaring that a
country where " assassination was the national gospel "
and "regicide an article of exportation, had no right to
be counted as part of the civilised world."
Under such provocation Belgrade was not slow to
retort,
and
exaggerated
t
he
already
grave
anti-Serb
excesses into a veritable "St. Bartholomew's Night."
As an example of the lengths to which certain revolver
journalists went, may be quoted the article of Zvono
(16 July), which describes Principas the son of the former
Crown
Princess
Stephanie,
charged
with
avenging
Rudolf's death upon his murderer, Francis Ferdinand! »
Matters were not improved by an interview in Novoye
Vremya, in which the Serbian Minister in St. Petersburg,
Mr. Spalajkovic, referred to Vienna's reprisals against the
Bosnian Serbs.» The fact that the Minister had first
become known by a pamphlet on Austro-Hungarian rule
in Bosnia, and that his wife came of a prominent Bosnian
family, made his intervention all the more indiscreet and
1 First Austro-Hungarian Red Book (1915), No. 19, app. ix.
2 An interesting commentary on this incident is to be found in Sazonov's
frank reference to Spalajkovic" as déséquilibré. (Szâpâry to Berchtold, 21 July
1914, D.A., I, No. 45.)
127
highly incensed the Ballplatz. Almost equal offence was
riven by an interview of Pasic himself in the Leipziger
Neueste Nachrichten, which he soon found it advisable to
deny in several particulars, and which Baron Giesl may
have been right in regarding as really addressed to his own
electors at home.
Perhaps the most singular contribution to this press
feud was made by Mr. Horatio Bottomley, who on 11
July placarded London with the phrase, " To Hell with
Serbia," and published an article in John Bull accusing
the Serbian secret service of plotting the murder through
its London Legation. The incriminating document —
reproduced in facsimile — was a half-burnt cipher on the
notepaper of the Legation, procured by John Bull,
" never mind how," to use its own words. It decodes
" into crude Spanish," and contains a promise of £2,000
" for the total elimination of Francis Ferdinand."1 Now
it so happens that this " crude Spanish " is really the
dialect employed by the Jews of Salonica, and that the
man who hawked this document round several London
newspaper offices and was eventually accepted by the
sensation-loving Mr. Bottomley was a Salonican Jew.
This suggests some connection with the Committee of
Union and Progress, which had centred in the Jewish
Lodges of Salonica until the expulsion of the Turks
eighteen months previously, and which was of course
actively hostile to Serbia. Needless to say, no one in
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