In the course of July 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Government (wherein far more influence was exerted by Count Tisza, the wealthy and incorruptible, the vastly ambitious Magyar Prime Minister, than by the Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, the courteous, somewhat frivolous man of the world who was doomed to execute reluctantly the orders of Berlin and be swept away by the resulting storm, while the brave and brutal Tisza, fighting for the glory of the Habsburgs and the greater glory of the Magyars, rode upon the storm for years)--the Austro-Hungarian Government in July 1914 dispatched to Sarajevo a commissioner for the purpose of investigating whether the Serbian authorities had anything to do with the Archduke's assassination. This official, Baron von Weisner, a very distinguished Professor of Political Economy who was a German Bohemian[73] with staunch German sympathies, reported in the same month that he was convinced that no accusation whatever could be levelled against Belgrade. (As a matter of fact the Serbian police, who had information that a plot was being hatched in Bosnia, gave warning to the Austrian authorities; but no notice was taken of this, not even when a similar warning was uttered on June 21 by the Serbian Minister at Vienna, nor were any special precautions laid down for the Archduke's safety. It was all rather mysterious.) "Byzantium, the everlasting and unconquerable Byzantium," says an Austrian publicist,[74] "had won another victory.... The Habsburg Empire," says he, "only wished to defend herself against those invisible and irrepressible intrigues." And after denouncing the Serbs for throwing a spark into the powder barrel on June 28, 1914, he accounts for their conduct by writing that "it is the tradition of nomad blood to tear down ancient, noble palaces, replacing them by nomad huts." What we know is that General Potiorek, the Governor of Bosnia, who had urged Francis Ferdinand and his wife to continue their programme after the failure of the first attempt at assassination before lunch, was never invited to explain anything--unfortunately for Austria he was placed in command of the "punitive expedition" into Serbia. Other incidents on which a light may some day be thrown were the very unceremonious funeral arrangements for the murdered couple (though this may very likely have been due to the High Chamberlain's personal hatred of the Archduke), and the fact that an Imperial Commission was sent to Konopiště, the Archduke's Bohemian estate, to seize his papers. It was there that he had lately been confabulating with the German Emperor; and Count Berchtold had visited the place on the day after the Kaiser's departure to try to ascertain what had occurred.... It was also at Konopiště that Francis Ferdinand, who was threatened with hereditary madness, had shot a gamekeeper dead. Knowing that the Archduke was as good a shot as he was insignificant in horsemanship, this had excited great attention in