The Ultimatum That Made The Great War A Foregone Conclusion

www.heroesofserbia.com ^ | July 23, 2014 | Aleksandra Rebic

[Ravnagora]

THE ULTIMATUM THAT MADE THE GREAT WAR A FOREGONE CONCLUSION / Austria-Hungary presents the Kingdom of Serbia with the "Impossible Ultimatum" 100 years ago July 23, 1914

Aleksandra's Note: What follows is the impossible Austro-Hungarian ultimatum presented to the government of the Kingdom of Serbia on July 23, 1914, just over 3 weeks after the June 28th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Fair historians have assessed this ultimatum as being both unreasonable and, more importantly, clearly intended to set Serbia up to fail to meet the demands, thus giving the green light for the war against the Serbs the Empire had been planning all along.

First is the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum presented in the original form. This is followed by the Serbian translation. The English text of the Ultimatum follows the Serbian text. All dates indicated are according to the current [Gregorian] calendar. The "old calendar" [Julian] date would show as being 13 days earlier.

The Serbs were given 48 hours to comply. The deadline was July 25, 1914 at 6:00 p.m.

British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey was struck by the nature of the ultimatum, stating that he had "never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character."

By all fair accounts, the Serbian response was remarkably compliant. "Point 6" was the one point they could not submit to, and I challenge any self-respecting sovereign nation to comply to the extent that Serbia did. However, it was not good enough for the Empire, thus proving that the ultimatum of July 1914 was ultimately just a pretense.

Sincerely,

Aleksandra Rebic

*****

[Ravnagora]

Ping.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Powerful.

[Cronos]

The roots of WWI lie in events from the late 1700s -->

1. the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (a country larger than France) which made Russia the direct neighbor of Germany and Austria-hungary, removing a valuable buffer state
2. the French revolution with the creation of nation-states and forced crushing of minor languages
3. The American revolution that created the powerful USA

[IronJack]

Some documents change the course of humanity. The Declaration of Independence, the Balfour letter, France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man ...

This is certainly one of them.

[DownInFlames]

The USA wasn’t a world power until after WWI.