extremely
improbable.1
His
concrete
proposals
were
the
refore
re
stricted
to:
(1)
Measures to prevent the con nivance of Serbian officials
in smuggling persons and material across the frontier;
1 See above, p. 117; D.A., i., No. 17.
245
(2) Dismissal of the individuals actually responsible for
letting through Princip and his friends; and (3) Criminal
proceedings against Ciganovic and Tankosic, the two
individuals who supplied them with weapons at Belgrade.
None the less, the Ballplatz continued to hold up the
thesis of official complicity, and instructed its represen-
tatives abroad to treat the Sarajevo enquiry as proving
that the outrage is " the work of a widely ramified
conspiracy whose threads reach over to the neighbouring
kingdom."1
The Note itself opens with a reference to the Note of
31 March, 1909, by which Serbia, at the instance of the
Powers, assured Vienna that the annexation of Bosnia
did not " affect her rights," and promised to change her
policy towards Austria-Hungary and " henceforth live
on neighbourly terms with the latter." These pledges,
however, had not prevented the growth of " a subversive
movement
"
in
Serbia,
aiming
at
the
detachment
of the Monarchy's southern territories; and the Serbian
Government, so far from suppressing this, had " tolerated
the criminal activity of various societies directed against
the Monarchy, the unbridled language of the Press, the
glorification of assassins, the share of officers and officials
in subversive action, an unhealthy educational propa-
ganda — in short, everything which could lead the Serbian
population to hate and despise Austria-Hungary and its
institutions. " It now resulted from the enquiry in Saraj evo
and "the confessions of the murderers" that the crime
had been " hatched in Belgrade," that the arms and
explosives in their possession had been given them by
Serbian officers and officials belonging to the Narodna
Odbrana, and finally that the entrance of the criminals
into Bosnia had been " organised and effected by the
heads of the Serbian frontier service."
In order, then, to make such things impossible in the
future, Austria-Hungary demanded that the Serbian
1 Berchtold to nine Ministers. 23 July; D.A., L, No. 73.
246
Government should issue a formal condemnation of all
this " criminal and terrorist propaganda," and a pledge
for its energetic repression, and that this should appear,
in the actual wording dictated from Vienna, both in the
official journal at Belgrade, and in an " order of the day "
specially addressed by King Peter to the Serbian army.
In addition to this, the Serbian Government was to
fulfil the following ten demands:
1. To
suppress
all
publications
inciting
to
hatred
of Austria-Hungary and directed against her territorial
integrity.
2. To
dissolve
forthwith
the
Narodna
Odbrana,
and " to confiscate all its means of propaganda ";
to treat similarly all societies engaged in propaganda
against Austria-Hungary, and to prevent their revival
in some other form.
3. To eliminate from the Serbian educational system
anything which might foment such propaganda.
4. To dismiss all officers or officials guilty of such
propaganda,
whose
names
might
be
subsequently
communicated by Vienna.
5. To accept " the collaboration in Serbia " of
Austro-Hungarian officials in suppressing " this sub-
versive
movement
against
the
Monarchy's
territorial
integrity."
6. To open a judicial enquiry against those implicated
in the murder, and to allow delegates of Austria-
Hungary to take part in this.
7. To
arrest
without
delay
Major
Tankosic
and
Milan
Ciganovic,
as
implicated
by
the
Sarajevo
enquiry.
8. To
put
an
effectual
stop
to
Serbian
frontier
officials sharing in " the illicit traffic in arms and
explosives," and to dismiss certain officials at Sabac
and Loznica who had helped the murderers to cross
over.
247
9.
To give explanations regarding the " unjustifi-
able " language used by high Serbian officials after
the murder.
10.
To notify without delay to Vienna the execution
of all the above measures.
Finally, a time-limit of only forty-eight hours was
imposed for compliance. The whole form of the docu-
ment was curt and severe in the extreme.
In a private letter of instructions,1 Berchtold informed
his Minister in Belgrade, Baron Giesl, that the Note con-
tained the " minimum " necessary " to clear up our
present quite untenable relation to Serbia." Under no
circumstances, he added, could any extension of time
be conceded, and there could be "no negotiations, only
unconditional
acceptance."
Giesl
was
further
ordered,
in delivering the Note, to refuse all information as to
Austria-Hungary's subsequent intentions, but to remind
the Serbs that she had twice, in recent years, been driven
by their action to costly military measures, and that if
this happened again she would hold them liable for all
the
expenditure
incurred.
Failing
acceptance
within
the time-limit, Giesl was to leave Belgrade instantly with
his entire staff.«
On 21 July, Berchtold, having learnt in the interval
that Basic had left Belgrade on an electioneering cam-
paign, told Giesl to notify the Serbian Foreign Office
that they might expect to receive " an important com-
munication on the afternoon of the 23rd,"3 but, if even
this should not bring Pasic back to Belgrade in time, the
Minister was to hand it over " under all circumstances "
to the Premier's substitute. Finally, as an after-thought,
and in order to make assurance doubly sure, Berchtold
intimated to Giesl that even the resignation of the Serbian
Cabinet would not be accepted by Vienna as an excuse
for delay.4
1 20 July; D.A., i„ No. 28.
2 See further D.A., ii., No. 1.
3 21 July; D.A., i., No. 36.
4 23 July; D.A., i., No. 63.
248
Giesl himself does not appear to have exercised much
influence upon Berchtold's decisions; but that he was
in entire agreement with them is shown by a long despatch
which he sent to his chief on 21 July, and in which he
laid it down as " a well-known axiom that Serbia's policy
rests on the detachment of the Southern Slav provinces,
and eventually on the destruction of the Monarchy as
a Great Power, and knows this aim only." ι Austria-
Hungary, he declares, is not merely hated but despised
by
the
Serbs,
their
Press
continually
discusses
its
impending collapse, and the alarm with which they at
first viewed the possible consequences of the murder
has vanished day by day, until the danger of energetic
action by Vienna is being dismissed as mere bluff. The
conclusion which Giesl reaches is that " a war for the
Monarchy's position as a Great Power, and even for its
existence as such," is quite inevitable, and that punish-
ment should be enforced regardless of consequences.
Before the time came for Giesl to act upon his instruc-
tions,
a
last
opportunity
of
restraining
Berchtold
presented itself to the German Government. On 21 July
the Serbian Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin announced to
Jagow his Government's desire for good relations with
Austria-Hungary, and its readiness " to fulfil all Austria-
Hungary's demands for a strict enquiry into the murder,
in so far as they were compatible with the honour and
sovereignty " of Serbia.1 At the same time he begged
Germany " to use her influence upon Vienna in a con-
ciliatory
sense."
To this
Jagow
curtly
replied
that
Serbia had in recent years been so lacking in correct and
neighbourly
behaviour
that
energetic
language
from
Vienna
was
only
to
be
expected.
He
then
told
Tschirschky to inform Berchtold of the Serbian démarche
and this answer, and pointedly omitted all attempts at
conciliation. Hence it is hardly too much to assume
1 D.A., i., No. 37.
2 Jagow to Tschirschky, 20 July {D.D., L, No. 91), and Tagesbericht of Berch-
told re conversation with Tschirschky, 21 July (D.A., i., No. 38).
249
that Jagow's rebuff to Serbia was a direct encouragement
to Berchtold to persist in his design of presenting such
demands as no Government could regard as compatible
with its honour and sovereignty.
So far, indeed, from urging conciliation, Jagow next
day specially warned Berchtold of a slight detail which,
if overlooked, might render outside intervention possible.
We have seen that the German Government did not see
the text of the Note before its final adoption (after the
event Jagow assured Rome that they had not wished
to see it!), but that they were kept closely informed
from Vienna as to each step of the proposed action.1
They knew, then, that the Note was to be delivered in
Belgrade between 4 and 5 p.m. on 23 July,1 as being the
earliest
moment which would ensure
its tenor not
becoming known in St. Petersburg before Poincaré's
departure.3 It now occurred to Jagow that if the Note
was delivered before 5 o'clock it might just arrive in
time for Poincaré, who was timed to leave at 11 p.m.
(that is, 9.30 by Central European time). He therefore
sent Vienna telegraphic warning of this danger/ and in
due course received an answer conveying Berchtold's
" warmest thanks " for the hint, and announcing that Giesl
had been instructed to postpone the delivery of the Note
till 6 o'clock.4 This detail deserves emphasis, as showing
the minute attention devoted to the whole affair in
Berlin. This results
very clearly
from
the German
Diplomatic Documents, which contain Jagow's special
wire to the Ambassador in St. Petersburg asking the
exact hour of Poincaré's departure, and his request to
the Admiralty Staff to provide him with a time-table —
days and hours — of the President's cruise." Thus Berlin's
1 cf. pp. 191-2, 194-5. 238. » Berchtold to Giesl, 20 July; D.A., i., No. 27.
2 Stolberg to Bethmann Hollweg, 17 July; D.D., i., No. 65.
3 Jagow to Tschirschky, 22 July; D.D., i., No. 112. This was ordered by
Berchtold in his wire to Giesl, 23 July; D.A., i., No. 62.
4 Tschirschky to Berlin, 23 July; D.D., i., No. 127.
5 See D.D., ï., Nos. 93» 96. and 108.
250
share in the plan for deluding and eliminating Poincaré
at the height of the crisis is proved up to the hilt.
It is worth adding that, while Berchtold insisted upon
referring to the Note as a "démarche with time-limit"
(eine befristete Demarche), not only Giesl himself,1 but the
German Government from the first recognised its true
character
as
"an
ultimatum"
2 His contention that
only action which led to immediate hostilities, and not
merely to a diplomatic rupture, can be described as an
ultimatum, may be dismissed as an obvious quibble.
Indeed, an amusing light is thrown upon this point by
one of William II's marginal notes. When the German
Ambassador in Paris reported upon the French view
that discussion might be allowed on minor points of the
Note,
his
Imperial
master
commented
as
follows:
" Ultimata are fulfilled or not, but there is no more
discussion! Hence the name! "3
Punctually at the time appointed Giesl called at the
Serbian Foreign Office. He was received, in Mr. Pasic's
continued absence, by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Pacu,
who, without reading the Note, expressed the fear that,
in view of the elections and the absence of Ministers in
their constituencies, it would be physically impossible to
call a full Cabinet Meeting at such short notice. To this
Giesl sarcastically rejoined that in so small a country
as Serbia it would be easy enough to recall everyone
very rapidly.
In these pages I have described in some detail the
efforts of Berchtold to conceal his real intentions till
the very last moment, and his success in deceiving almos
t
every European capital. But nowhere was he more
successful than at Belgrade, and, indeed, the way in
which the Serbian Government was taken unawares by
1 Gooss, op. cit., p. 108.
2 Moreover, Berchtold himself, in his conversation as early as 9 July, was
comfortably
discussing
an
"
ultimatum,"
to
be
delivered
on
the
22nd.
See
Conrad, op. cit., iv., p. 61.
3 D.D., i„ No. 154.
251
the ultimatum is one of the strangest incidents in the
whole story. Mr. Pasic himself was more absorbed
than anyone in the electoral struggle, but such thought
as he could still spare for other matters was given, not
to the Austrian danger, but to the problem of Serbo-
Greek relations. On 19 July he had formally appointed
Mr. Pacu as acting Premier and Foreign Minister, and
left for Nis with Mr. Sajinovic, a high Foreign Office
official, intending to proceed a few days later to Salonica
and confer with Mr. Venizelos. When the ultimatum
arrived, Pasic was in a remote corner of the former
Sandjak of Novipazar, and, in order that the grave news
from Belgrade should be conveyed to him, a mounted
gendarme had to ride out from Mitrovica for twenty or
thirty miles. Even then he failed to grasp the situation,
and thought of continuing his journey to Salonica; it
was only in response to urgent telephonic messages to
Nis from Mr. Slavko Grujic, then permanent Secretary
in the Foreign Office, that he at last allowed his carriage
to be uncoupled from the Salonica train and sent back
to Belgrade. It is difficult to acquit him and his
colleagues of great remissness or lack of judgment, and
it seems clear that the prompt adoption of a positive
policy of investigation into the crime, and the offer of
satisfaction to Vienna, would have completely dislocated
BerchtokTs secret plans, and rendered aggression on his
part much more difficult. But this much may be said
for Pasic and his colleagues — that this undoubted
absorption and remissness goes a long way to invalidate
the reckless charges of complicity sometimes levelled
against them.
THE IMPRESSION IN EUROPE
The first stage of Berchtold's design had thus been
successfully accomplished, and the Note had been safely
delivered in Belgrade, without Europe having more than
an inkling of what was impending. The second and
252
more difficult stage — that of convincing Europe that
such action was reasonable and need not lead to foreign
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