The history of that Note is curious. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was fastened upon as a fitting pretext for mutilating the Servian State. Servia’s Government and the entire class of intellectuals from which it was drawn were stigmatized as the real authors of the crime. The murder itself was declared to be but a typical act of an unprincipled political organization which had ramifications all over the land, including all political parties, the clergy, and the teaching bodies. Bomb-throwing, assassination, and a subversive propaganda in Bosnia and Herzegovina were alleged to be among its recognized methods. Austria-Hungary, it was contended, could not lead a normal life so long as this state of affairs was allowed to endure. It must, therefore, be transformed radically. But no transformation could be effected until Servia was brought to her knees by the Habsburgs and forced into the groove of chronic quiescence which had been destined for her by the murdered Archduke. In other words, she must become a satellite of her powerful neighbour, and subordinate her policy, military, commercial, and foreign, to that of the Ballplatz. This was the programme, most of which had been adopted some eighteen months before, during the factitious excitement about the imaginary murder of the Austrian Consul, Prochaska, by the Serbs. I announced it in the _Daily Telegraph_ at the time. Since then it had been kept in abeyance, and now the crime at Sarajevo was held to have supplied a favourable conjuncture for reviving it. That official way of stating the grounds of the quarrel had one great advantage. It identified Servia with monstrous crime and Austria with law and justice. Foreign Governments which set a high value on the reign of order and tranquillity would, it was hoped, be deterred from giving countenance to such a nation of criminals as Servia was alleged to be. By way of strengthening this deterrent, they were reminded of the stain on Servia’s honour contracted when King Alexander and his consort were brutally done to death. By that crime, it was alleged, the present King himself had been compromised, and was consequently now powerless to curb his unprincipled subjects, on whose goodwill his own tenure of office depended. From Servia’s goodwill, therefore, there was nothing to be hoped. But if regeneration could not come from within, it must proceed from outside. And as Austria’s political interests were also at stake, she would undertake the work of sternly punishing crime and efficaciously preventing its recurrence. To this rôle no civilized Power could reasonably demur without laying itself open to a charge of fomenting a vast criminal organization which it behoves monarchs and people alike to put down by every means in their power. This was the argument by which Russia was to be floored. It was also the bridge over which she would, it was assumed, recoil from Servia when Servia was at grips with Austria-Hungary.