morning, at 9 A.M., he was received by the Emperor.
Berchtold's diary records a Franz Joseph braced, tart, taut, not at all octogenarian.
'Well, Berchtold, ever on the go?'
'Yes, Your Majesty, one has to be. These are fast-moving times.'
'Exactly, as never before. The note is pretty sharp.'
'It has to be, Your Majesty.'
'It has to be indeed. You will join us for lunch.'
'With humble pleasure, Your Majesty.'
Hoyos, whom Berchtold had brought along to the audience, took the official copy of the demarche from his briefcase. Franz Joseph initialed it. 'The Jewel,' already endorsed by the Joint Ministers, now bore the Imperial imprimatur.
Actually this was only the formal ratification of action taken twenty-four hours earlier. On Monday the Emperor had read and approved the note handed him by the courier. On that same Monday it had been wired to the Austrian Embassy in Belgrade. It was ready to be thrust at Serbia by the time a white-gloved footman set down a tureen before Franz Joseph, Berchtold, and Hoyos at midday of July 21.
In summary, the note said
This was the super-ultimatum. In the words of the British Foreign Secretary, it constituted 'the most formidable document ever addressed by one state to another.' It was also the nonultimatum. Though its tone left no doubt over the consequences of noncompliance, it did not mention the possibility of war, and therefore arrived at the Austrian Embassy in Belgrade labeled as a mere 'demarche with a time limit.'
And there were other fine aspects to Berchtold's game. The sledgehammer message came phrased in fastidious diplomatic French, the last such 'final notice' to be written in that language. Last but not least, Berchtold used precision timing, always important in a theatrical enterprise. Belgrade relied on two principal protectors, Russia and France. Just then the French Head of State was finishing his visit with the Tsar. Berchtold did not want the two to react jointly when the 'demarche with a time limit' struck. Through German diplomatic sources, Berchtold had learned that President Poincare would end his stay at the Russian capital in the early afternoon of Thursday, July 23. By 5 P.M. he would be floating away on the cruiser France. Berchtold instructed the Austrian Ambassador in Belgrade to deliver the 'demarche' at 6 P.M. sharp.
As ordered, so done. Berchtold had successfully achieved the end of Act I.
Act II opened well, or so it seemed. Abruptly, out of the blue of yet another lovely day, the Austrian Ambassador Baron von Giesl placed a telephone call 'of utmost urgency' to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belgrade. It was 4:30 P.M. on July 23, and the Ambassador said that he must deliver 'an extremely important communication' to the Prime Minister-who was also the Foreign Minister-that very afternoon at 6 P.M.
Prime Minister Panic was not even in town. He had no reason to stay close to his office. True, at the beginning of the month, Serbian diplomats abroad had reported rumors that something 'strong' might be brewing in Vienna. Yet week followed week after Sarajevo, and nothing 'strong' materialized. Serbia began to turn to internal matters. An electoral campaign engrossed the country in mid-July. Panic left the capital for a political tour, speaking against Apis's extremist party. It was at this point that the Austrian ambassador placed his peremptory call.
Since the Prime Minister was away on the hustings in the Southern provinces, the Finance Minister substituted for him. The Finance Minister received that astounding note from the ambassador at 6 P.M. of July 23. It did not reach Pasic until 8 P.M. that night, when he heard over the telephone details of the suddenness, the severity, the smooth murderousness of Vienna's demands. He had less than forty-eight hours to answer them.
Panic cancelled all further election speeches. He returned to Belgrade at five o'clock the next morning and immediately called a cabinet meeting. Sessions continued throughout the day, through most of the night that followed, and through most of the day after.
Shortly after 6 P.M. of Saturday July 25, a tall rotund man with a seignorial white beard and a black formal frock coat hurried on foot from the Foreign Ministry to the Austrian Embassy a few blocks off. It was Prime Minister Pasic, holding in his hand an envelope with his government's reply.
When he was admitted to the Ambassador's office it was 6:15 P.M., a quarter of an hour after the deadline set by Vienna. Therefore Ambassador von Giesl did not ask the Prime Minister to sit down. He himself read the note standing. It was a messy document, revised and re-typed many times, after frenzied debates and febrile consultations with the Russian and French embassies. The final version in Baron von Giesl's hands had an inked-out passage and a number of corrections made by pen. That did not interest the Austrian ambassador, nor did the reply's conciliatory and mournful prose, nor did its acceptance of all points of the demarche except those demanding the participation of Austrian police in pursuit of Serbian subjects on Serbian soil. Such requests, the note said, Belgrade 'must reject, being a violation of the Serbian constitution and of the law of criminal procedure.'
It was this rejection that mattered to the Ambassador. It was the necessary next event in Austria's scenario. The Ambassador had counted on it. He had anticipated it. That was why he stood before the Serbian Prime Minister in his trav eling clothes. That was why his code-book had already gone up the chimney, why his secret papers had been shredded, his luggage packed, and his motor-car readied at the front door. That was why he only needed to sign a statement prepared in advance: It said that 'due to the unsatisfactory nature' of the Serbian response, the Austro-Hungarian Empire saw itself forced to break off relations with the Kingdom of Serbia.
At 6:20 P.M. a messenger took the statement from Baron von Giesl's desk for delivery to the Serbian Prime Minister's office. As the messenger left, Giesl repeated the statement orally to the Prime Minister who still stood before him. Then the Austrian ambassador bowed, wished the Prime Minister good day, walked to his car. At half
