Austria’s Impossible Demands.
Moreover, the Servian Government was to undertake (1) to suppress all publications designed to excite people to hatred and contempt of the Austrian Monarchy; (2) to dissolve at once the “Narodna Odbrana” Society; (3) to eliminate from the curriculum of the public schools anything tending to foment an anti-Austrian propaganda; (4) to dismiss military and civil officers guilty of similar propaganda; (5) to accept the collaboration of Austria in the suppression of the said “subversive movement”; (6) to open a judicial inquiry against the partisans of the conspiracy of June 28th still in Servia; (7) to arrest Commandant Voija Tankositch and Milan Ciganovitch, a Servian official; (8) to prevent illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, and dismiss and punish severely the Servian officials at the Schabatz-Loznica frontier guilty of having helped the authors of the crime of Sarajevo by facilitating their passage across the frontier; (9) to give the Austrian Government explanations as to the declarations hostile to Austria made by high Servian officials in interviews after the crime of June 28th; (10) to advise the Austrian Government without delay that the above demands have been complied with. To these demands a satisfactory reply must be given at latest by Saturday, July 25th, at six o’clock in the evening. On the following day, July 24th, the Minister for Foreign Affairs at St. Petersburg sent a telegram to the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Belgrade, in which he pointed out that the communication of the Austrian Government gave a wholly insufficient length of time to the Powers for dealing with the complications which had arisen. In order to guard against the incalculable consequences, which were equally serious for all the Powers, that might follow from the action of the Austrian Government, it was indispensable first of all that the delay accorded to Servia should be extended. At the same time M. Sazonoff despatched an identical message to the Russian Ambassadors in England, France, Germany, and Italy, in which he said he hoped that the Governments to which they were accredited would support the Russian Government in the view that it took.