THE PROSPECT OF WAR WITH SERBIA

Aleksandra's Note: The following documentary evidence, the source of which is the Austrian Ministerial Council during the "JULY CRISIS" of 1914 confirms the "theory" that war with Serbia was a foregone conclusion regardless of the Austrian "Ultimatum" that would follow on July 23 and regardless of Serbia's response to that Ultimatum. War would be waged against Serbia, period.

What these officials present at this council meeting did not foresee was that war against Serbia would be just the beginning...

Franz Ferdinand (in fur-lined coat) on a hunting weekend with Wilhelm II (left) in 1914.

Reproduced below are the official minutes of the Austrian Ministerial Council Meeting which took place on 7 July 1914, some nine days following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.

During the meeting the prospect of war with Serbia was debated; aside from the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Tisza, all present favoured presenting Serbia with a sufficiently severe ultimatum that could not be accepted. Its rejection would therefore prove grounds for a subsequent declaration of war.

The Royal Serbian Government will furthermore pledge itself:

1. to suppress every publication which shall incite to hatred and contempt of the Monarchy, and the general tendency of which shall be directed against the territorial integrity of the latter;

2. to proceed at once to the dissolution of the Narodna Odbrana to confiscate all of its means of propaganda, and in the same manner to proceed against the other unions and associations in Serbia which occupy themselves with propaganda against Austria-Hungary; the Royal Government will take such measures as are necessary to make sure that the dissolved associations may not continue their activities under other names or in other forms;

3. to eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, everything, whether connected with the teaching corps or with the methods of teaching, that serves or may serve to nourish the propaganda against Austria-Hungary;

4. to remove from the military and administrative service in general all officers and officials who have been guilty of carrying on the propaganda against Austria-Hungary, whose names the Imperial and Royal Government reserves the right to make known to the Royal Government when communicating the material evidence now in its possession;

5. to agree to the cooperation in Serbia of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the integrity of the Monarchy;

6. to institute a judicial inquiry against every participant in the conspiracy of the twenty-eighth of June who may be found in Serbian territory; the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government delegated for this purpose will take part in the proceedings held for this purpose;

7. to undertake with all haste the arrest of Major Voislav Tankosic and of one Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian official, who have been compromised by the results of the inquiry;

8. by efficient measures to prevent the participation of Serbian authorities in the smuggling of weapons and explosives across the frontier; to dismiss from the service and to punish severely those members of the Frontier Service at Schabats and Losnitza who assisted the authors of the crime of Sarajevo to cross the frontier;

9. to make explanations to the Imperial and Royal Government concerning the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian functionaries in Serbia and abroad, who, without regard for their official position, have not hesitated to express themselves in a manner hostile toward Austria-Hungary since the assassination of the twenty-eighth of June;

10. to inform the Imperial and Royal Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised in the foregoing points. The Imperial and Royal Government awaits the reply of the Royal Government by Saturday, the twenty-fifth instant, at 6 p.m., at the latest.

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