greatest severity against Serbia, while keeping
eight army corps ready to start operations.

Nevertheless Baron Macchio, Austro-Hungarian Under-Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, had assured M. Dumaine that the tone and demands of
the note were such as to allow us to count on a peaceful result.

"In view of the customary procedure of the Imperial Chancellery,
I do not know what confidence ought to be placed in these
assurances....

"The Serbian Minister [M. Vesnitch] holds that as M. Pashitch
[Serbian Prime Minister] wishes to come to an understanding, he
will accept those demands which relate to the punishment of the
outrage and to the guaranties for control and police supervision,
but that he will resist everything which might affect the
sovereignty and dignity of his country.

"In diplomatic circles at Vienna the German Ambassador [Von
Tschirschky] is in favor of violent measures, while at the same
time he confesses that the Imperial Chancellery is perhaps not
entirely in agreement with him on this point; the Russian
Ambassador [Schebeko], trusting to assurances which have been
given him, has left Vienna, and before his departure confided to
M. Dumaine that his Government will not raise any objection to
the punishment of the guilty and the dissolution of the
revolutionary associations, but that they could not accept
requirements which were humiliating to the national sentiment of
Serbia."

On the same day, July 23, 1914, M. Allize, French Minister at
Munich, reported to M. Bienvenu-Martin that the Bavarian press were
optimistic over a peaceful solution of the Serbian question, but
that official circles were pessimistic.

The note was presented at 6 p. m., Thursday, July 23, 1914, by the
Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen,
to the Serbian Minister of Finance, M. Laza Patchou, in the absence
of M. Pashitch, the Prime Minister, who was away electioneering. The
time limit for acceptance of its demands was forty-eight hours.
Giesl added verbally that, if the demands were not accepted within
that period, the Austro-Hungarian Legation would leave Belgrade on
the morrow, Friday, at 10 a. m. This information was telegraphed
that evening to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petrograd, M.
Sazonof, by the Russian Charge d'Affaires in Belgrade, M.
Strandtman. Through him M. Patchou solicited the