Austria's Note to Servia.

Communicated by Count Berchtold to Count Mensdorf, and published in the "White Papers" of Great Britain, dated August 5.*

(Translation.)

The Austro-Hungarian Government felt compelled to address the following note to the Servian Government on the 23d July, through the medium of the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade:

"On the 31st March, 1909, the Servian Minister in Vienna, on the instruction of the Servian Government, made the following declaration to the Imperial and Royal Government:

"Servia recognizes that the fait accompli regarding Bosnia has not affected her rights, and consequently she will conform to the decisions that the Powers may take in conformity with Article 25 of the Treaty of Berlin. In deference to the advice of the Great Powers Servia undertakes to renounce from now onward the attitude of protest and opposition which she has adopted with regard to the annexation since last Autumn. She undertakes, moreover, to modify the direction of her policy with regard to Austria-Hungary and to live in future on good neighborly terms with the latter.'"

The history of recent years, and in particular the painful events of the 28th June last, have shown the existence of a subversive movement with the object of detaching a part of the territories of Austria-Hungary from the monarchy. The movement, which had its birth under the eye of the Servian Government, has gone so far as to make itself manifest on both sides of the Servian frontier in the shape of acts of terrorism and a series of outrages and murders.

Far from carrying out the formal undertakings contained in the declaration of the 31st March, 1909, the Royal Servian Government has done nothing to repress these movements. It has permitted the criminal machinations of various societies and associations directed against the monarchy and has tolerated

*For the text of these "White Papers" we are indebted to the New York Times, which has published them in full.

unrestrained language on the part of the press, the glorification of the perpetrators of outrages, and the participation of officers and functionaries in subversive agitation. It has permitted an unwholesome propaganda in public instruction. In short, it has permitted all manifestations of a nature to incite the Servian population to hatred of the monarchy and contempt of its institutions.

This culpable tolerance of the Royal Servian Government had not ceased at the moment when the events of the 28th June last proved its fatal consequences to the whole world.

It results from the depositions and confessions of the criminal perpetrators of the outrage of the 28th June that the Serajevo assassinations were planned in Belgrade, that the arms and explosives with which the murderers were provided had been given to them by Servian officers and functionaries belonging to the Narodna Odbrana, and finally, that the passage into Bosnia of the criminals and their arms was organized and effected by the chiefs of the Servian frontier service.

The above-mentioned results of the Magisterial investigation do not permit the Austro-Hungarian Government to pursue any longer the attitude of expectant forbearance which it has maintained for years in face of the machinations hatched in Belgrade, and thence propagated in the territories of the monarchy. The results, on the contrary, impose on it the duty of putting an end to the intrigues which form a perpetual menace to the tranquillity of the monarchy.

To achieve this end the Imperial and Royal Government sees itself compelled to demand from the Royal Servian Government a formal assurance that it condemns this dangerous propaganda against the monarchy; in other words, the whole series of tendencies, the ultimate aim of which is to detach from the monarchy territories belonging to it, and that it undertakes to suppress by every means this criminal and terrorist propaganda.

In order to give a formal character to this undertaking the Royal Servian Government shall publish on the front page of its Official Journal of the 26th June (13th July) the following declaration:

"The Royal Government of Servia condemns the propaganda directed against Austria-Hungary-i. e., the general tendency of which the final aim is to detach from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy territories belonging to it, and it sincerely deplores the fatal consequences of these criminal proceedings.

"The Royal Government regrets that Servian officers and functionaries participated in the above-mentioned propaganda and thus compromised the good neighborly relations to which the Royal Government was solemnly pledged by its declaration of the 31st March, 1909.

"The Royal Government, which disapproves and repudiates all idea of interfering or attempting to interfere with the destinies of the inhabitants of any part whatsoever of AustriaHungary, considers it its duty formally to warn officers and functionaries, and the whole population of the kingdom, that henceforward it will proceed with the utmost rigor against persons who may be guilty of such machinations, which it will use all its efforts to anticipate and suppress."

This declaration shall simultaneously be communicated to the royal army as an order of the day by his Majesty the King and shall be published in the Official Bulletin of the army.

The Royal Servian Government further undertakes:

I. To suppress any publication which incites to hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the general tendency of which is directed against its teritorial integrity;

2. To dissolve immediately the society styled Narodna Odbrana, to confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to proceed in the same manner against other societies and their branches in Servia which engage in propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The Royal Government shall take necessary measures to prevent the societies dissolved from continuing their activity under another name and form;

3. To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Servia, both as regards the teaching body and also as regards the methods of instruction, everything that serves, or might serve, to foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary;

4. To remove from the military service, and from the administration in general, all officers and functionaries guilty of

propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy whose names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian Government reserves to itself the right of communicating to the Royal Government; 5. To accept the collaboration in Servia of representatives of the Austro-Hungarian Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity of the monarchy;*

6. To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the plot of the 28th June who are on Servian territory. Delegates of the Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investigation relating thereto;

7. To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voija Tankosositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a Servian State employe, who have been compromised by the results of the magisterial inquiry at Serajevo ;

8. To prevent by effective measures the co-operation of the Servian authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, to dismiss and punish severely the officials of the frontier service at Schabatz and Loznica guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Serajevo crime by facilitating their passage across the frontier;

9. To furnish the Imperial and Royal Government with explanations regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Servian officials, both in Servia, and abroad, who, notwithstanding their official position, did not hesitate after the crime of the 28th June to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government; and, finally,

IO. To notify the Imperial and Royal Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the preceding heads.

The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the Royal Government at the latest by 6 o'clock on Saturday evening, the 25th July.

A memorandum dealing with the results of the magisterial inquiry at Serajevo with regard to the officials mentioned under head (7) and (8) is attached to this note.

* Sections in italics were considered by diplomats unusual and dangerous to European peace. Sections 5 and 6 were called an infringement of Servian sovereignty.

I have the honor to request your Excellency to bring the contents of this note to the knowledge of the Government to which you are accredited, accompanying your communication with the following observations:

On the 31st March, 1909, the Royal Servian Government addressed to Austria-Hungary the declaration of which the text is reproduced above.

On the very day after this declaration Servia embarked on a policy of instilling revolutionary ideas into the Serb subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and so preparing the separation of the Austro-Hungarian territory on the Servian frontier. Servia became the centre of a criminal agitation.

No time was lost in the formation of societies and groups, whose object, either avowed or secret, was the creation of disorders on Austro-Hungarian territory. These societies and groups count among their members generals and diplomatists, government officials and judges-in short, men at the top of official and unofficial society in the kingdom.

Servian journalism is almost entirely at the service of this propaganda, which is directed against Austria-Hungary, and not a day passes without the organs of the Servian press stirring up their readers to hatred or contempt for the neighboring monarchy, or to outrages directed more or less openly against its security and integrity.

A large number of agents are employed in carrying on by every means the agitation against Austria-Hungary and corrupting the youth in the frontier provinces.

Since the recent Balkan crisis, there has been a recrudescence of the spirit of conspiracy inherent in Servian politicians, which has left such sanguinary imprints on the history of the kingdom. Individuals belonging formerly to bands employed in Macedonia have come to place themselves at the disposal of the terrorist propaganda against Austria-Hungary.

In the presence of these doings, to which Austria-Hungary has been exposed for years, the Servian Government has not thought it incumbent on it to take the slightest step. The Servian Government has thus failed in the duty imposed on it by the solemn declaration of the 31st March, 1909, and acted in