ria would not resort to armed interference,
although two army corps were held in readiness to march into Serbia.
Of course it would have suited Austria much better if the king, who
seemed to be emancipating himself from the veiled tutelage accepted by
his father, had been dethroned and kept by the Ballplatz as a
restraint on the political waywardness of any successor. Some of those
who entered the palace on the night of June 10, 1903, may have had
their intentions changed by the panic which was caused owing to the
lateness of the hour and the groping along unlighted passages--the
electricity was out of order--but amid the band of executioners there
may very well have been some who recognized that, for Serbia's future
peace and welfare, it was infinitely preferable that he should not
live. From practically the whole nation there came, when they heard of
his death, a sigh of relief; he was killed by the detestation of his
subjects. Yet there might have been, in the people's state of nerves,
an outbreak against the actual murderers and this might have
inaugurated a reign of terror if Pa[vs]i['c] had not walked up and
down in front of the palace, wearing a bowler hat and buttonholing
everyone he saw. "Most unfortunate, most unfortunate," he said; "they
were both drunk, and so they killed each other." Meanwhile, machine
guns were being mounted at appropriate spots, but they were not
required. And Austria published to the world a few abominable
incidents that accompanied the deed and followed it; these were almost
wholly untrue, yet they served to make not only Western Europe but
even the Sultan hold up their hands in horror. Abdul Hamid raised
those hands that were dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians, and in exalted phrases, says Mr. Laffan,[64] lectured
the Serbs on the undesirability of assassination.

A younger man than King Peter Karageorgevi['c], who now succeeded,
might have been appalled by the difficulties of the situation. Murder
and the rearing of pigs were universally regarded as the purposes for
which God had created the Serbs, and years were to elapse before the
little country could persuade the world that it was not inhabited by
beings who approached the lower animals--and then the world perceived
that it was, to a great extent, inhabited by heroes. When King Peter
ascended the throne the Royal Families of Europe congratulated each
other that they were not related to him, and they symp