o
crisis, left Vienna on a fortnight's leave of absence. The President
of the French Republic and its Premier were far distant from Paris.
Pachitch, the Servian Premier, was absent from Belgrade, when the
ultimatum was issued.

The testimony of the British Ambassador to Vienna is to the same
effect. He reports to Sir Edward Grey:

The delivery at Belgrade on the 23d of July of the note to
Servia was preceded by a period of _absolute silence_ at the
Ballplatz.

He proceeds to say that with the exception of the German Ambassador at
Vienna (note the significance of the exception) not a single member of
the Diplomatic Corps knew anything of the Austrian ultimatum and that
the French Ambassador, when he visited the Austrian Foreign Office on
July 23d (the day of its issuance), was not only kept in ignorance
that the ultimatum had actually been issued, but was given the
impression that its tone would be moderate. Even the Italian
Ambassador was not taken into Count Berchtold's confidence.[4]

[Footnote 4: Dispatch from Sir M. de Bunsen to Sir Edward Grey, dated
September 1, 1914.]

The Servian Government had formally disclaimed any responsibility for
the assassination and had pledged itself to punish any Servian
citizen implicated therein. No word came from Vienna excepting the
semi-official intimations as to its moderate and conciliatory course,
and after the funeral of the Archduke, the world, then enjoying its
summer holiday, had almost forgotten the Serajevo incident. The whole
tragic occurrence simply survived in the sympathy which all felt with
Austria in its new trouble, and especially with its aged monarch, who,
like King Lear, was "as full of grief as age, wretched in both."
Never was it even hinted that Germany and Austria were about to apply
in a time of peace a match to the powder magazine of Europe.

Can it be questioned that loyalty to the highest interests of
civilization required that Germany and Austria, when they determined
to make the murder of the Archduke by an irresponsible assassin the
pretext for bringing up for final decision the long-standing troubles
between Austria and Servia, should have given all the European nations
some intimation of their intention, so that their _confreres_ in the
family of nations could cooperate to adjust this trouble, as they had
adjusted far more difficult questions after the close of the
Balko-Turkish War?

Whatever the issue of the present confl