(2) to dissolve the Narodna Odbrana and similar societies;

(3) to remove at once from their public educational establishments all that serves or could serve to foment propaganda, whenever the Austro-Hungarian Government furnish them with facts and proofs of this propaganda;

(4) to remove from military service all such persons as the judicial inquiry may have proved to be guilty of acts directed against the territorial integrity of Austria-Hungary;

(5) though they do not clearly grasp the meaning or the scope of the demand, to accept the collaboration of Austro-Hungarian officials so far as is consistent with the principle of international law, with criminal procedure and with good neighbourly relations;

(6) to take judicial proceedings against accessories to the Serajevo plot; but they cannot admit the co-operation of Austro-Hungarian officials, as it would be a violation of the Constitution and of the law of criminal procedure;

(7) On this they remark that Major Tankositch was arrested as soon as the note was presented, and that it has not been possible to arrest Ciganovitch, who is an Austro-Hungarian subject, but had been employed (on probation) by the directorate of railways;

(8) to reinforce and extend the measures for preventing illicit traffic of arms and explosives across the frontier;

(9) to give explanations of the remarks made by Servian officials, as soon as the Austro-Hungarian Government have communicated the passages and as soon as they have shown that the remarks were actually made by the said officials.

The Austro-Hungarian Government regarded this reply as unsatisfactory and inadequate; they withdrew their Minister from Belgrade the same evening, and on July 28th declared war on Servia.  Meanwhile they published a long official explanation[174] of the grounds on which the Servian reply was considered inadequate; in it they criticized and found unsatisfactory every single article of the reply, except that to demand No. 8.  It is not worth while to analyze the whole of this; one sample may be sufficient.  Sir Edward Grey commented on demand No. 5 and pointed out[175] that it

’would be hardly consistent with the maintenance of Servia’s independent sovereignty, if it were to mean, as it seemed that it might, that Austria-Hungary was to be invested with a right to appoint officials who would have authority within the frontiers of Servia.’

Obviously he was in doubt about the meaning and scope of this demand, and the next was equally vague.  The Servian reply to these two demands was necessarily guarded:  yet the Austro-Hungarian Government treated this as deliberate misrepresentation:—­

’The international law, as well as the criminal law, has nothing to do with this question; it is purely a matter of the nature of state police which is to be solved by way of a special agreement.  The reserved attitude of Servia is therefore incomprehensible, and on account of its vague general form it would lead to unbridgeable difficulties.

...