Слике страница
PDF
ePub

plicity in the crime of Sarajevo proofs should be furnished.

It undertakes especially to publish on the first page of the official journal under date of 13-26 July the following declaration :

The Royal Government of Serbia condemns all propaganda which might be directed against AustriaHungary, that is to say, the ensemble of the tendencies which have the ultimate object of detaching from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy territories which form part of it, and it sincerely deplores the dreadful consequences of these criminal actions.

The Royal Government regrets that certain Serbian officers and functionaries should have taken part, according to the communication of the Imperial and Royal Government, in the above-mentioned propaganda and thereby compromised the relations of good neighborliness to which the Royal Government had solemnly pledged itself by its declaration of 18-31 March, 1909.

The Royal Government, which disapproves and repudiates any idea of or attempt at interference in the destinies of the inhabitants of any part of AustriaHungary whatever, considers it is its duty to formally warn officers, functionaries, and all the population of the kingdom that henceforward it will proceed with the utmost rigor against persons who should render themselves guilty of such actions, which it will use all its efforts to prevent and to repress.

This declaration will be brought to the knowledge of the royal army by an order of the day in the name of his Majesty the King by his Royal Highness the Crown Prince Alexander, and will be published in the next official bulletin of the army.

The Royal Government undertakes further:

(1) To introduce at the first regular session of the Skupshtina a clause in the law dealing with the press

by which the most severe punishment will fall upon any provocation to hatred and disdain of the AustroHungarian Monarchy as well as upon any publication whose general tendency would be directed against the territorial integrity of Austria-Hungary.

It undertakes, at the time of revision of the Constitution which is soon to come, to introduce into Article 22 of the Constitution an amendment of such a character that the foregoing publications can be confiscated, which is actually, under the categorical terms of Article 22 of the Constitution, an impossibility.

(2) The Government possesses no proof, and the note of the Imperial Royal Government does not furnish it with any, that the "Narodna Odbrana" society and the other similar societies have committed up to the present any criminal act of this kind by any one of their members. Nevertheless the Royal Government will accept the demand of the Imperial and Royal Government, and will dissolve the Narodna Odbrana society and any other society which should act against Austria-Hungary.

(3) The Serbian Royal Government undertakes to eliminate without delay from the public instruction in Serbia all that serves or could serve to foment a propaganda against Austria-Hungary when the Imperial and Royal Government shall furnish it with the facts and proofs of this propaganda.

(4) The Royal Government similarly accepts to remove from the military service those whom the judicial inquiry shall prove to have been guilty of acts directed against the integrity of the territory of the AustroHungarian Monarchy; it expects that the Imperial and Royal Government will communicate to it later the names and the acts of these officers and functionaries for the purposes of the procedure which will follow.

(5) The Royal Government must acknowledge that it does not clearly understand the sense and the meaning of the demand of the Imperial and Royal Govern

ment contending that Serbia should undertake to accept upon its territory the collaboration of the agents [officers] of the Imperial and Royal Government.

But it declares that it will admit any collaboration which would fit in with the principles of international law and the criminal procedure, as well as accord with good neighborly relations.

(6) The Royal Government, it goes without saying, considers it its duty to open an inquiry against all those who are or who, eventually, might have been mixed up in the plot of 15th June, and who should be found on the territory of the kingdom. As for the participation in this inquiry of agents of the AustroHungarian authorities who should be delegated to this effect by the Imperial and Royal Government, the Royal Government cannot accept it, for it would be a violation of the Constitution and of the law upon criminal procedure. However, in the concrete cases, communications on the results of the inquiry in question could be given to the Austro-Hungarian agents.

(7) The Royal Government proceeded, on the evening of the receipt of the note, to the arrest of Commander Voija Tankositch. As for Milan Ciganovitch, who is a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and who up to the 15th June was employed as aspirant in the Administration of the Railways, he has not yet been found. The Imperial and Royal Government is requested to be so good as, in the accustomed form, to make known the soonest possible the presumptions of culpability, as well as the eventual proofs of culpability, which have been gathered up to this day by the inquiry at Sarajevo, for the purpose of the ulterior inquiries.

(8) The Serbian Government will strengthen and extend the measures taken to prevent the illegal traffic of arms and explosives across the frontier. It goes without saying that it will order immediately an inquiry and will severely punish the frontier functionaries on the Schabatz-Loznica Line who have been

derelict in their duty and allowed the authors of the crime of Sarajevo to escape.

(9) The Royal Government will willingly give explanations regarding the statements which its functionaries both in Serbia and abroad have made after the attentat in interviews and which according to the affirmation of the Imperial and Royal Government have been hostile toward the Monarchy, as soon as the Imperial and Royal Government shall have communicated to it the passages in question of these statements and as soon as it shall have demonstrated that the statements employed were in effect made by the said functionaries, although the Royal Government itself will undertake to collect proofs and convictions.

(10) The Royal Government will inform the Imperial and Royal Government of the execution of the measures comprised in the preceding points in so far as that has not already been done by the present note, as soon as each measure shall have been ordered and executed. In case the Imperial and Royal Government should not be satisfied with this reply, the Serbian Royal Government, considering that it is the common interest not to precipitate the solution of this question, is ready as always to accept a pacific understanding by leaving this question either to the decision of the International Tribunal of The Hague, or to the Great Powers which took part in the elaboration of the declarations which the Serbian Government made on the 18-31st March, 1909."

The reply of Serbia went beyond the expectations of the Entente powers "in its moderation and in its desire to afford the fullest satisfaction to Austria."8 The French director of the political department thought that its concilia

7 International Conciliation, Pamphlet 84, No. 13. 8 B. W. P., 46; R. O. B., 33.

tory attitude would "produce the best impression in Europe," and the foreign minister expressed himself as believing that as Serbia had yielded on nearly all points, a little mutual good-will would bring about an agreement.10 Sir Edward Grey considered that Serbia had subjected herself to the greatest humiliation that he had ever known a country to undergo. He was therefore disappointed when Austria received the note as a flat refusal when she should, in his opinion, have accepted it as a basis for negotiation.11

Serbia's reply was not acceptable to Austria. A comparison of the Serbian and Austrian notes shows that Serbia declined to meet the demand that Austro-Hungarian officials be allowed to participate in the trial of alleged "participants of the conspiracy of June 28th, who are [were] on Serbian territory." As to demand 5, that Austro-Hungarian officials be allowed in Serbia to "coöperate in the suppression of a movement directed against the territorial integrity of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy," Serbia declared her willingness "to accept every coöperation which does not run counter to international law and criminal law, as well as to the friendly and neighborly relations." Austria-Hungary contended that

9 R. O. B., 27. 10 F. Y. B., 75.

11 B. W. P., 46, 48.

« ПретходнаНастави »