In the second letter he notified the Legations that the Austro-Hungarian news bureaus, the channel of Serbian news to the world, misrepresented, through garbling extracts, the tone of the Belgrade press, and that all Serbian papers were forbidden entry into Austria-Hungary.
"With us the press is absolutely free. Newspapers can be confiscated only for lèse-majesté or for revolutionary propaganda; in all other cases confiscation is illegal. There is no censorship of newspapers."
Accordingly the Serbian foreign ministers were instructed to give out information that the Serbian Government lacked the power to control the newspapers, and further to spread knowledge of the fact that it was Austro-Hungarian papers which originated all the controversies, while the Serbian ones only replied. There was no desire in Serbia to provoke Austria-Hungary.
On July 15, 1914, M. Yov. Yovanovitch, Serbian Minister at Vienna, reported to M. Pashitch, Prime Minister at Belgrade, that the Ministers of the Dual Monarchy had been consulting about the Sarajevo incident, and that it appeared nothing was decided. Count Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, had gone to Ischl, where Emperor Francis Joseph was recovering from the shock of the assassination, to report to him. Count Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister, had replied evasively to interpellations made in the Hungarian Parliament by the Opposition. Owing to the absence on leave from his post of the War Minister and his chief of staff, the Bourse had recovered.
"One thing is certain: Austria-Hungary will take diplomatic steps at Belgrade as soon as the magisterial inquiry at Sarajevo is completed and the matter submitted to the court."
In a second letter of the same date M. Yovanovitch reported to M. Pashitch that it was thought that the inquiry had not produced sufficient evidence to justify officially accusing Serbia more than for tolerating in her borders certain revolutionary elements. Austro-Hungarian methods were criticized in diplomatic circles and the Serbian attitude was commended as in accord with the dignity of a nation.
"In spite of the fact that it appears that the German Foreign Office does not approve of the anti-Serbian policy of Vienna, the German Embassy here is at this very moment encouraging such a policy."
In a third letter of the same date M. Yovanovitch informed the Prime Minister that it appeared that Austria-Hungary would not invite the Serbian Government to assist her in discovering and punishing the culprits of the Sarajevo crime, but would make it a case against Serbia and the Serbians, or even against the Jugo-Slavs (on her own border), looking in this for the approval of Europe, which would prepare the way for the sharp reactionary measures she contemplated to take internally to suppress the great Serbian propaganda and the Jugo-Slav idea. The Government must take some action for the sake of its prestige at home as well as abroad....
The accusation against Serbia will extend from April, 1909, to the present. Austria-Hungary will claim to the powers that the facts developed therein give her the right to take diplomatic steps at Belgrade, and demand that Serbia in future act as a loyal neighbor. Austria-Hungary will ask Serbia to accept unconditionally her demands.
On the same day, July 15, 1914, M. Dumaine, French Ambassador at Vienna, reported to M. Viviani, Prime Minister at Paris, that certain press organs in Vienna, specifically the "Militärische Rundschau," represented France and Russia as incapable of holding their own in European affairs, and that Austria-Hungary, with the support of Germany, could therefore subject Serbia to any treatment she pleased. The "Rundschau" argued that now was the most propitious time for the war in which Austria-Hungary would have to engage in two or three years at the latest.