The city of Belgrade. Photo, Exclusive News Agency.
While the British fleet was unfolding itself before our King, there was no gaiety amongst the high government officials in Belgrade. They were getting very anxious. The Council of Ministers in Vienna was inquiring closely into the part played by them in the Sarajevo murders. It was rumoured that the Austrians had traced the arms and explosives with which the murderers were provided to certain Servian officers and officials of the government who were members of a National Union for making Slav power supreme in the Balkan Peninsula. It was also said that these same officers and officials had secretly passed the murderers into Bosnia, and had helped them in various other ways to do their deadly work. If Austria could prove all this, she would be able to say that Servia had been playing the part of a secret enemy, and rightly deserved punishment of some sort.
The King and Crown Prince of Servia. Photo, Topical.
On the evening of the 23rd of July the Austro-Hungarian ministers in Belgrade handed the Note to which your father referred when he read his newspaper at the breakfast table. You know that every European country sends officials to live in the capitals of other countries, and that these officials represent the powers by which they are sent. They are always treated with the greatest possible respect, and their houses are supposed to be bits of their own land planted down in a foreign country. Sometimes these representatives are called ambassadors, sometimes simply ministers. When the government of one country wishes to communicate with the government of another country, it sends and receives messages through its ambassadors or ministers.
In Belgrade there was, of course, an Austrian minister, and it was he who handed the Note to the Servian Prime Minister. This Note was of such grave importance that I must tell you what was in it. First, it began by telling Servia that for a long time past she had been stirring up her people against Austria; that she had allowed men connected with the government to plot against her; and that she had taken no steps to punish those who had assisted the murderers at Sarajevo. The Servians were greatly to blame, and upon them must fall much of the responsibility for the wicked deeds that had been done in Bosnia.
Then followed a list of ten things which Servia was to do to make up for the mischief which she was said to have caused. She was to print on the front page of the government newspaper a statement that she would no longer permit her people to work against Austria, either by word or deed; she was to express regret that Servian officers and officials had spoken or acted in an unfriendly manner against Austria; and she was to remove from their posts all who had done so. The whole army was to be told that such conduct would no longer be permitted, and the National Union was to be broken up. Two officers, mentioned by name, were to be arrested, and all who had in any way helped the murderers of Sarajevo, either by giving them arms or helping them to get into Bosnia, were to be brought to trial. Austrian officials were to take part in the punishment of the wrongdoers, and in putting an end to the bad feeling between the two countries.
The Note ended as follows:—
"The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the Servian Government at the latest by six o'clock on Saturday evening, the 25th of July."
