One hundred years ago today, the Austro-Hungarian Empire cast the die that led to the start of The Great War.
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(Sarajevo was the main city in Bosnia, which was annexed by Austria-Hungary from Serbia in 1870 in one of the endless reshuffling of boundary lines in the Balkans. High-ranking elements of the Serbian government sought to recover the lost territory, which had a minority Serb population. A Serb extremist, Gavrilo Princip, murdered the Archduke and his wife while they were on a state visit to Sarajevo on June 28.)
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Much has been written about the July 23 ultimatum, but I never learned the contents until I came across a website, http://wwi.lib.byu.edu, that contains an archive of documents about the war.
In the English translation of the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary complains that Serbia had tolerated a campaign to dismantle the Empire. The clearest evidence of this was the murder of the murder of the Archduke.
Austria-Hungary gave Serbia until July 25 to comply with the following requirements:
(As you might notice, four of Austria's 10 demands focus on offensive words, rather than deeds. It harkens back to an era when individuals dueled over the impugning of one's reputation. Nowadays most ultimatums—for instance, the United States' demands against Iraq in 1990 and 2003 and against Afghanistan in 2001—serve as indictments of bad behavior, rather than matters of propaganda.)
There was no immediate reaction in Serbia to the ultimatum. However, a Serbian diplomat in Vienna, in a communiqué to his superiors on July 20, "expressed no room for optimism." It was "highly probable," the diplomat said, that Austria was preparing for war against Serbia. From the diplomat's perspective, Austria believed it had an opportunity to attack and occupy Serbia "before Europe could intervene."
He could not have been more mistaken on that final point. The intervention by the other European Powers was to be swift, and the war was to last four years.
In Vienna, the government issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that is small neighbor "desist from the attitude of protest and opposition" and come clean with its role in the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
The historical record clearly shows that elements of the Serbian government plotted the assassination, that it promoted nationalist groups bent on creating a Greater Serbia that would include all Serbs within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that it supplied weapons to the Black Hand, the group responsible for the assassination. There even is evidence that suggests that the Serbian prime minister knew about the assassination in advance.
Bosnia, then and now, contained ethnic Serbs, Croats, Muslims and other groups. No one group predominated. (Serbia coveted the territory even into recent decades. In the 1990s it even went so far as to sanction the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, to eliminate non-Serbs from the key portions of the land. The previous time that Europe witnessed such a crime against humanity was during the Hitler regime in the 1930s and 1940s.)
The dual Monarchy of Austria and Hungary encompassed numerous ethnic groups, including Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats, Romanians, Italians—and Serbs.
The dual Monarchy of Austria and Hungary encompassed numerous ethnic groups, including Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats, Romanians, Italians—and Serbs.
Much has been written about the July 23 ultimatum, but I never learned the contents until I came across a website, http://wwi.lib.byu.edu, that contains an archive of documents about the war.In the English translation of the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary complains that Serbia had tolerated a campaign to dismantle the Empire. The clearest evidence of this was the murder of the murder of the Archduke.
Austria-Hungary gave Serbia until July 25 to comply with the following requirements:
- Suppress every publication "which shall incite to hatred and contempt of the Monarchy" and question the Monarchy's territorial integrity.
- "Proceed at once" to dissolve the main nationalist groups seeking to undermine Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia in 1909.
- Eliminate "without delay" any public teaching in Serbia that "serves to nourish propaganda" against Austria-Hungary.
- Expel from the Serbian military and administration any officials who are guilty of participating in propaganda against Austria-Hungary.
- Agree to cooperate with Serbia to suppress subversive movements directed against the Monarchy.
- Institute a judicial inquiry "against every participant" in the conspiracy to assassinate the Archduke. (Princip was not a lone wolf; at least three other Serb nationalists were directly involved and Serbian officials financed and armed them.)
- Arrest Major Voislav Tankosin and Milan Ciganovic, both Serbian government officials, for their possible involvement in the Archduke's death. The Austrians blamed them for supplying guns and bombs to the Black Hand. According to Austria, Princip and his allies conferred with Tankosin about their assassination plot.
- Prevent the smuggling of weapons from Serbia to Austro-Hungarian terrorist cells and punish those involved.
- Explain to the Imperial government about "the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian functionaries" at home and abroad who had expressed hostility to Austria-Hungary at the time of the assassination.
- Inform the Imperial government about Serbia's progress toward meeting the demands.
(As you might notice, four of Austria's 10 demands focus on offensive words, rather than deeds. It harkens back to an era when individuals dueled over the impugning of one's reputation. Nowadays most ultimatums—for instance, the United States' demands against Iraq in 1990 and 2003 and against Afghanistan in 2001—serve as indictments of bad behavior, rather than matters of propaganda.)
There was no immediate reaction in Serbia to the ultimatum. However, a Serbian diplomat in Vienna, in a communiqué to his superiors on July 20, "expressed no room for optimism." It was "highly probable," the diplomat said, that Austria was preparing for war against Serbia. From the diplomat's perspective, Austria believed it had an opportunity to attack and occupy Serbia "before Europe could intervene."
He could not have been more mistaken on that final point. The intervention by the other European Powers was to be swift, and the war was to last four years.