to thank the King for having conferred the Grand Cross of one of the Roumanian orders on me, obviously as a proof that the Russian visit had not made him forget our alliance, and he gave me some interesting details of the said visit.  Most interesting of all was his account of the conversations with the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs.  On asking whether Sassonoff considered the situation in Europe to be as safe as he (the King) did, Sassonoff answered in the affirmative, “pourvu que l’Autriche ne touche pas a la Serbie.”  I at once, of course, reported this momentous statement to Vienna; but neither by the King nor by myself, nor yet in Vienna, was the train of thought then fully understood.  The relations between Serbia and the Monarchy were at that time no worse than usual; indeed, they were rather better, and there was not the slightest intention on our part to injure the Serbians.  But the suspicion that Sassonoff already then was aware that the Serbians were planning something against us cannot be got rid of.

When the King asked me whether I had reported Sassonoff’s important remark to Vienna, I replied that I had done so, and added that this remark was another reason to make me believe that the assassination was a crime long since prepared and carried out under Russian patronage.

The crime that was enacted at Debruzin, which made such a sensation at the time, gave rise to suspicions of a Russo-Roumanian attempt at assassination.

On February 24, 1914, the Hungarian Correspondence Bureau published the following piece of news: 

A terrible explosion took place this morning in the official premises of the newly-instituted Greek-Catholic Hungarian bishopric, which are on the second floor of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce in the Franz Deak Street.  It occurred in the office of the bishop’s representative, the Vicar Michael Jaczkovics, whose secretary, Johann Slapowszky, was also present in the room.  Both of them were blown to pieces.  The Greek-Catholic bishop, Stephan Miklossy, was in a neighbouring room, but had a most marvellous escape.  Alexander Csatth, advocate and solicitor to the bishopric, who was in another room, was mortally wounded by the explosion.  In a third room the bishop’s servant with his wife were both killed.  All the walls in the office premises fell in, and the whole building is very much damaged.  The explosion caused such a panic in the house that all the inhabitants took flight and vanished.  All the windows of the neighbouring Town Hall in the Verboczy Street were shattered by the concussion.  Loose tiles were hurled into the street and many passers-by were injured.  The four dead bodies and the wounded were taken to the hospital.  The bishop, greatly distressed, left the building and went to a friend’s house.  The daughter of the Vicar Jaczkovics went out of her mind on hearing of her father’s tragic death.  The cause of the explosion has not yet been discovered.