Talk:July Ultimatum

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What is the purpose of the stray brackets in the list of the terms. Are they from the original document?
Cafe Nervosa 22:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Extreme Bias

There are a series of errors and omissions and biased positioned expressed in this article that will lead most readers to assign war guilt to Austria-Hungary.

1. Serbia did not fully accept preamble points A, and B (it did however fully accept point C), nor did it fully accept enumerated demands 1-9 although it did accept the rendered nearly meaningles demand #10. Austria-Hungary thought point #8 had also been agreed to, but deceit was involved. Frankly, Serbia response was of little practical value.

2. No mention of the deceitfulness of Serbia's response was mentioned; two especially noteworthy items: 1)Serbia's false expression of "surprise" and 2) Serbia's deceitfulness regarding their inability to locate Milan Ciganovic.

3. The March declaration, which was the International Law basis of the demarche, was not mentioned.

4. Diplomatic exchanges settled on the term "demarche" to characterize the July Ultimatum, but the article sticks to the Entente propaganda term "Ultimatum" making it sound as if war was threatened, when in fact the only stated consequence was the withdrawal of Austria-Hungary's ambassasador. The continued popular use of the term "Ultimatum" of course requires that we cannot just substitute "demarche" for "ultimatum", but "ultimatum" implies an expressed threat of war and this must cleared up.

5. The following sentence is extremely troubling "When Austria-Hungary rejected Serbia's conditional acceptance of part of the ultimatum and declared war, it set into motion a series of events which led to World War I." The facts and causality stated and inferred are inaccurate. First, the chain of events leading to World War I was already in motion. This includes Russia's steps prepratory to war, Serbia's mobilization, Serbia's inadequate response to the ultimatum and of course Serbia's Military Intelligence sponsoring the Sarajevo outrage and other illegal activities against Austria-Hungary and of course the secret to this day discussions at the Franco-Russian summit that concluded on July 23. Second, Austria-Hungary really had no decision to make, it had already committed to break diplomatic relations if the demands were not totally agreed to and they clearly were not. Third, the implied direct link between rejection of the inadequate response and the declaration of war is false. The final order for Austria-Hungary to mobilize against Serbia and to declare war were not made until after Serbian forces were mobilized and the exagerrated reports of the border incident at Temes-Kubin.

6. The long series of assassination attempts and propaganda by Serbia against Austria-Hungary and the conclusions of Austria-Hungary's judicial inquiry were not mentioned. The article leaves the reader with no where to go except to believe that Austria-Hungary wanted a show-down with Serbia for no particular reason other than vengeance in the heat of passion over the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand.

7. The diplomatic requests early on by Austria-Hungary and Germany made directly to Serbia for an investigation by Serbia within its borders of the conspiracy to assassinate Franz-Ferdinand and Serbia's flat rejection and expression of unconcern were not mentioned. Nor were the rejections of (Austria-Hungary's and Germany's) requests to Russia to influence Serbia to investigate.

8. The demands in the preamble are not mentioned.

9. No mention was made that until Serbia received Russia's telegram of support and information of Russia's steps preparatory to war the Serbian Government was drafting a response of complete acceptance of the demands. "...ultimatum was widely considered to be unacceptable, and merely a preliminary measure to create a casus belli to enable Austria-Hungary to invade and punish Serbia" is highly misleading on a number of grounds. Serbia could have accepted but chose not to and if Serbia had accepted it, the implementation of all its points would have been sufficient and no war required. The demarche had a firm basis in fact and in law. Austria-Hungary did not see the rejection of the demarche as necessarily the last step before war. Punishing Serbia though acceptable was not really what Austria-Hungary was after as a state; the real object was simply to remove Serbia as a threat to its territory, property and people.

10. Grey's comments are unnecessary and he may be off the mark. There are a lot of formidable documents. Its better to let the demarche speak for itself or balance it with quotes from British, German or Austro-Hungarian diplomatic telegrams which state that war will not be the necessary result of rejection of the demands.

If someone can adquately address these issues the bias marker can be removed.

Werchovsky 20:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Just as an example I will go into depth about the deceitfulness regarding the expression of surprise the the Serbian Government led by Pasic and quote some documents demonstrating Serbian knowledge of and secret investigation of the assassination. Deceit is a key element of the Serbian reply but instead the article mentions only "reservations". Was this a code word for deceit?

The following document is a report given by the Narodna Obrana to the Serbian caretaker government on or shortly after June 5, 1914. It appears as translated by Vladimir Dedijer in the “Road to Sarajevo” on page 388-389; information in "() is added by me, information in "[]" was in the orginal document:

                                                           I

“On the 19th instant (June 1, 1914 [May 19 old Serbian calendar]) in the evening Miloš Milošević from Janja received two high school students, one of whom was called Triša.” (Triša was a nickname for Trifko Grabež one of the three assassins who was sent with the guns and bombs from Belgrade to Sarajevo.) “I don’t know where the students were from, but they were Bosnians by birth. Miloš sent the students to Jakov Milović from Obrijezje. Jakov led the students to the teacher V. Čubrilović in Priboj, by Tuzla, and the teacher had to bring them to the trusted agent in Tuzla, whose name is M.J., and M.J. had to take them to Sarajevo. (This is not quite true, they went on their own from Tuzla to Sarajevo leaving the weapons with M.J. and M.J. later handed off the weapons to the assassin coordinator.) Jakov told Boža (head of the Narodna Odbrana) all this after he escorted the student to Čubrilović. The students carried six hand grenades and four revolvers. The students’ purpose he did not know. The students were sent by the captain of the border guards in Šabac, Rade Popović, and Major Kosta Todorović, and as the students said, they met in Belgrade where they received hand grenades and pistols. The students crossed the border at the Island of Mladen Isaković, and they were brought by the Sergeant of the Border Guards, Grbić. Boža has informed all the agents that they should not receive anyone unless he produces the password given by Boža. II Fourteen days ago Captain Rade met Rade Malobabić [a man sentenced at the high-treason trial in Croatia] (the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence confessed that he ordered Rade Malobabić to organize the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand) and the agent, Milan Vračarić, from Badovince, while they were traveling; they told Miloš that a box of hand grenades would come to him and that he was to give them to agents in Bosnia. Their duty is to hide the grenades and weapons and use them only when they receive orders to do so. Milan informed Boža of all this. Boža told him to receive the grenades and weapons, but not to carry them over to Bosnia, but only inform him when they came. The weapons have not yet been received. III Major Dimitrije Pavlović sent across before the war (Balkan Wars) six boxes of hand grenades to Bosnia. Fourteen of these grenades were found in the river Sava near Brcko. The rest are still over there among the agents. Four hand grenades are with Moja Bikicki in Mitrovica. The rest are in Croatia and they were distributed by Rade Malobabić. 74

The decisive proof of the authenticity of this documents, besides the details given in Note 74, is the fact that Prime Minister Pašić summarized in his own hand the first part of it.75”

Pašić’s notes as they appear on page 503 of “The Road to Sarajevo” are as follows: Line 1: 2 pupils h. (higher) c. (classes) of gimn (high school) Triša (Trifko Grabež) Mladenov (name of Drina Island) [The last word on the line is illegible] Line 2: 6 hand-grenades, 4 rev. (revolvers) From Narodna Odbrana, Janković Line 3: Boža Milanović and Tankosić’s Line 4: trusted agent [then comes an illegible word] and this returned, in Trnovo, in Priboj Line 5: In Tusla, in Sarajevo.

On page 390 of “The Road to Sarajevo” (Chapter 17) by Vladimir Dedijer

Several sources confirm that the civilian investigation took place. In 1914 the Austrian Army captured in Serbia a copy of an order of the Chief of Podrinje District, Kosta Jezdic, to the commander of the fifth company of the Border Guards on June 16, 1914 in which it was said:

 I have learned that customs sentinels on the Bosnian border, through our men and men in Bosnia, are transporting from Serbia into Bosnia armaments, ammunition and other explosives.  After an investigation I found out through Rajko Stepanovic, the sergeant of the Guard troops, that about ten days ago four revolvers and 400 bullets were transported from our territory to Bosnia; at the same time the mentioned Stepanovic and Milan Anicic brought a suitcase from Badovince in which there were weapons and hand grenades, in order to be transported to Bosnia and delivered there to Rade Malobabic

….On that occasion Sergeant Stepanovic showed Vracaric your written order about it. It is not necessary to explain to you what could happened and how bad the consequences could be if the Austro-Hungarian authorities learn about the transport of arms, and this could happen not only by the way the arms are transported but also at the time when it took place and particularly which persons were doing this. Informing you about this, I am advising you to stop your business immediately and to hamper any attempt to transport arms and ammunition from Serbia to Bosnia; if you don’t do this I shall make you responsible to the Minister in charge. You should inform me at once that you have taken notice of this act and in particular whether you have done the above-mention things and if so under whose orders and knowledge you did them, and also what was in the suitcase? At the same time you will send Sergeant Rajko Stepanovic for the necessary investigation in connection with this thing.

                                                             The Chief of Distric, Kosta Jezdic 78

On Page 505 of “The Road to Sarajevo” by Vladimir Dedijer appears footnote 78 of Chapter 17.

78. This document was copied by Major Kosta Todorovic in his diary, which was captured by the Austrian army in 1914…. A report written by Captain Jovan Prvanovic on June 27, 1914. to the commander of the Fifth Frontier Section: “I have heard lately that the police authorities, as well as customs authorities, on the basis of a higher order, are supervising and controlling the personnel of this company. The Chief of the Jadar District received two confidential orders from the Chief of Podrinje Region to keep an eye on men from this company and to report at once everything he learns. The same one has interrogated the chief of the customs station at Sipacka Ada. The Chief of the Azbukovica Distrcit ordered the village authorities, as well as the chief of Ljubovija customs, to inform him at once about the work of our men. All this has been done without knowledge of the undersigned, as the commander of his men, and this is all true because several county residents at the border informed him about it.

Werchovsky 21:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

and more....

“Il Dramma Di Seraievo” (in Italian) on pp 115-6 describes how in mid-June Prime Minister Pasic sent a telegram about the upcoming assassination. It should be noted that Jovan Jovanovic was a known ally of the military men sponsoring the assassins and not expected to carry out his instructions well.

"One evening, in a bivouac improvised in an Albanian stable, the conversation fell on the attack of Sarajevo. Colonel Lešanin asserted that the Serbian government was well aware of the conspiracy progressing toward Sarajevo. In the first days of the second fortnight of June a telegram from Pašić to Minister Jovanović reached the Serbian Legation in Vienna advising Jovanović to make known that the Serbian Government suspected that there was a conspiracy against the life of the heir apparent archduke on occasion of his trip to Bosnia. Such travel could result in disagreeable incidents involving some exalted personages and it would be useful to suggest to the Austro-Hungarian Government to suspend the travel of the hereditary archduke.

Minister Jovan Jovanović felt very embarassed; for two days he meditated the form that he could give to this most delicate matter, which might be regarded as an intimidation attempt to block the (archduke’s) trip. The telegram, moreover, was general and did not include particulars about the assassins. The personal relationship between Jovan Jovanović and Berchtold was bad. What reception would Berchtold have given to a step of this kind and how would he interpret it?

Jovan Jovanović determined to approach Finance Minister Bilinski, with whom he was on good terms and who had as one of his responsibilities the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Jovan Jovanović did not have the elements necessary to allegate the existence of a conspiracy. Therefore he stressed in general terms the risks the Archduke heir apparent might run from the inflamed public opinion in Bosnia and Serbia. Some serious personal misdaventure might befall him. His journey might give rise to incidents and demonstrations that Serbia would depricate but that would have fatal reprecussions on Austro-Serbian relations. It would be advisable to communicate these not unjustified concerns of the Serbian Government to the Austrian Government before the journey was undertaken. He did not speak to Berchtold directly in order not to offend him, and because given the existing relationship with Berchtold, he feared he would be misinterpreted.

On his return to the Embassy, Jovan Jovanović said to Colonel Lesanin that he was concerned by the fact that, after a few minutes of thoughtful silence, Bilinski showed no sign of attaching great importance to the total message and dismissed it limiting himself to remarking when saying goodbye and thanking him: “Let us hope nothing does happen.”"

THE SERBIAN PRIME MINISTER WAS NOT SURPRISED WHEN HE LEARNED FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN DEMARCHE that Serbs were behind the assassination.

Werchovsky 21:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't help but think this rewrite is a bit unbalanced in the other direction (if the term ultimatum is biased certainly the term "Sarajev outrage" could be dispensed with) and somewhat lacking in a few other ways. Since the article is about the demarche I think that seperating the terms of the ultimatum and the resply/compliance as it was in the prior version is desirable.

At any rate I'm going to correst some grammatical errors.

Loje 00:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't find the grammatical errors you fixed, but there sure are some new ones. The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand does not include the killing of his wife and wounding of the 20 or so others, so the Sarajevo Outrage is a term you can ofen find including in the leading works on the subject such as Albertini. You have deleted a lot of verifiable and relevant information without comment. Let me hear your justifications for such deletions please.

Werchovsky 02:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The grammatical errors comment was made before I started really looking at it. I know the term "Sarajevo outrage" was often used by contemporaries and researchers, but I'm sure you know that the assassination of the heir apparent was what made this one the cause of such reaction. You must also be aware that reference to the assassination of the archduke as an incident is rarely if ever meant to refer to the archduke and not the other victims. Perhaps near the end of the article after the parts on the ultimatum and Serbian response you could put a section on Serbian falsehoods (I have read most of the works you mentioned too after all), keeping in mind of course that the amount of space devoted should be somewhat in porportion. I naturally don't have any objections to your more recent modifications.

--Loje 03:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"Archduke Franz-Ferdinand and the Sarajevo Outrage" is in fact the title of Chapter I of Volume II of "The Origins of the War of 1914". The total incident was indeed an outrage and provoked outrage in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary, and arround the world. The reaction to "The Outrage" including the "Ultimatum" was not simply because the heir was killed, it was the totality of the circumstances including:

 1.  the scale of the operation and casualties;
 2.  the anti-Serb rioting;
 3.  the involvement of the Narodna Odbrana;
 4.  the involvement of the Serbian Military;
 5.  the correctly surmised monitoring role of the Serbian Civilian Government (see Potiorek quote in Albertini, Vol.II, Pg. 174);
 6.  the military intelligence style (Cyanide, compartmentalization, planning, training, safe houses, logistics, special map, funding);
 7.  the refusal to cooperate in the investigation and dissembling by Serbia;
 8.  the surrounding political and diplomatic circumstances. 

Additional sections are a good suggestion and a way to include the appropriate historical detail. In the case of lies, the space devoted must be adequate to prove the lie was indeed a lie (lest someone come along and summarily delete it), which may bend your idea of proportion I fear, but let us try. When I opened my children's high school text books I was apalled to find that the Sarajevo Outrage was boiled down to "Princip", who happened to be a Serb, shooting the Heir." We should not perpetuate this popular misconception.

Werchovsky 04:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Werchovsky, if you are so well informed and neutral on the subject as you claim, would you be so kind to show us the SERBIAN RESPONSE in the same detail as you did with all Austro-Hungarian documents trying to incriminate Serbia? As it stands the article is flatly pro-Austrian. As far I can see from what you yourself added - even the Austria-Hungary had no objections to the arms-trafficking point as well as to the 10th point, yet you claim that only the 10th was 100%accepted. There are no proofs here to the claimed Austro-Hungarian knowledge of the supposed control of the press by the Serbian state (for instance) yet the it is regarded as an outright fact. If you do not have any other information than those presented you should remove the "Serbian response" section (as it is written with far less ground than most of the rest of the article) and strongly point out that all the documents described in detail come from Austria-Hungary and reflect their POV! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.121.94 (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Austria-Hungary did not object to the Serbian response to demand #8. Austria-Hungary had not yet captured the documents that showed that the Serbian civilian government had ordered the interdiction of the arms traffic several weeks before the assassination and so was not taking this action in response to the Austro-Hungarian demand, but rather in response to the plot to kill Franz-Ferdinand. I think you are referring to the following passage when you state that the article expressed the view that Serbia could control the press as fact: "The Serbian reply stated that the Serbian press was beyond the government's control. Austria-Hungary contradicted this claim." The intent was to make no claim one way or the other, just to state each government's position. If you think the "Serbian response" section is too brief I suggest you expand it, making good footnotes if you can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Werchovsky (talk • contribs) 21:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I have never found a Serbian response to the Austro-Hungarian response to the Serbian response to the ultimatum. If there is one, can you point me at it?Werchovsky (talk) 23:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)