"10. The Royal Government will, in so far as this has not already occurred in this Note, inform the Austro-Hungarian Government of the taking of the measures concerning the foregoing matters, as soon as such measures have been ordered and carried out. It increases the ineffaceable discredit of this brutal ultimatum when we consider the relative size of the two nations. Austria has a population of over 50,000,000 and Servia about 4,000,000. Moreover, Servia had just emerged from two terrible conflicts, from which it was still bleeding to exhaustion. Austria's ultimatum was that of a Goliath to David, and, up to the hour that this book goes to press, the result has not been different from that famous conflict. Germany itself had already given to Servia an intimation of its intended fate. It had anticipated the Austrian ultimatum by some pointed suggestions to Servia on its own account, for in the letter already quoted from Sir M. de Bunsen to Sir Edward Grey, we learn that the German Secretary of State told the British Ambassador before the ultimatum was issued that he on several occasions, in conversation with the Servian Minister, emphasized the extreme importance that Austro-Servian relations should be put on a proper footing.[14] [Footnote 14: In English _White Paper_, No. 2.] This pointed intimation from Germany, thus preceding the formal ultimatum from Austria, naturally gave Servia a quick appreciation that within the short space allowed by the ultimatum, it must either acquiesce in grossly unreasonable demands or perish as an independent nation. To appreciate fully the brutality of this ultimatum let us imagine a precise analogy. The relations of France and Germany--leaving aside the important difference of relative size--are not unlike the relations that existed between Servia and Austria. In 1908, Austria had forcibly annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of them Slav countries, and when Servia had emerged from the Balko-Turkish War with signal credit to itself, it was again Austria that had intervened and deprived it of the fruit of its victories by denying it access to the sea. Similarly, by the Treaty of Frankfort, Germany had forcibly annexed Alsace and Lorraine from France. As there existed in Servia voluntary organizations of men, which ceaselessly agitated for the recovery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so in France similar patriotic organizations have for the last forty years continuously agitated for a war which would lead to the ultimate recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. The statue of Strassburg in the Place de la Concorde has been covered with the emblems of mourning from the time that Bismarck wrung from Jules Favre the cession of the Rhine territory. If Austria's grievance against Servia were just, Germany has an equal and similar grievance against France.