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The Thirteen Days, July 23-August 4, 1914
The Thirteen Days July 23August 4 1914 Author:William Archer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V DIARY OF EVENTS Thursday, July 23 ' The possible consequences of the present situation are terrible.'—Sir Edward Grey. The Austrian Ambassa... more »dor, Count Mensdorff, to-day London, informed Sir Edward Grey ' that he would be able to-morrow morning to let him have officially the communication that he understood was being made to Serbia to-day by Austria '. He also sketched the nature of the demands, on which Sir Edward, in the absence of fuller information, declined to make any comment. But when Count Mensdorff indicated that ' there would be something in the nature of a time-limit, which was in effect akin to an ultimatum ', Sir Edward at once scented danger, and pointed out that this ' might inflame opinion in Russia ', and render it impossible to get a satisfactory reply from Serbia. If proceedings tended to drag out (he said), ' a time-limit could always be introduced afterwards '. 'A time-limit was generally a thing to be used only in the last resort, after other means had been tried and failed.' Then Sir Edward enlarged on the calamities which could not but ensue from a great European war; to which the Count replied that ' all would depend upon Russia '.1 This remark we may bear in mind in the sequel, when we find Austria affecting surprise that Russia should interest herself in the affairs of Serbia. The Serbian Minister, M. Boschkovitch, called upon Sir A. Nicolson, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and stated that his Government was 1 Blue Book, No. 3. London. ' most anxious and disquieted '. Serbia was perfectly ready to meet any reasonable demands on the part of Austria if the Serajevo inquiry, ' conducted with so much mystery and secrecy ', showed that ' there were any individuals conspiring or organizing plots on Serbian terri...« less