CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Outbreak of the World War
1
171.
The Austrian Note to Serbia
2
"The royal government of Serbia condemns the propaganda
directed against Austria-Hungary, the general tendency of
which 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 Serbian 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 March 31, 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 Austria-Hungary,
considers it a duty formally to warn officers and
functionaries, and the whole population of the kingdom, that
henceforth 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 Serbian government further undertakes:
1. 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 territorial 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 Serbia which engage in propaganda against the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The royal government shall
take the 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
Serbia, 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
of Serbia;
5. To accept the collaboration in Serbia of representatives
of the Austro-Hungarian government for 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 June 28 who are on Serbian 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
Tankositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a
Serbian state employee, who have been compromised by the
results of the magisterial inquiry at Serajevo;
8. To prevent by effective measures the coöperation of the
Serbian authorities in the illicit traffic in arm and explosives
across the frontier, to dismiss and punish severely the officials
of the frontier service at Schabatz and 
guilty of having
assisted the perpetrators of the Serajevo crime by facilitating
their passage across the frontier;
9. To furnish the Austro-Hungarian government with explanations
regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian
officials, both in Serbia and abroad, who, notwithstanding their
official position, have not hesitated since the crime of June 28
to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility to the
Austro-Hungarian government; and, finally,
10. To notify the Austro-Hungarian government without
delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the
preceding heads.
1
London, 1915. His Majesty’s Stationery Office.
2 , No. 4.