These journalistic outbursts and the protests of the Serbian Press, although unnoticed by the outside world, attracted, as was natural, the attention of diplomatists. But an interchange of barbed epithets across the Danube was no new thing, and the Austrian Foreign Office assumed an attitude of reassurance which deceived even Russia, and lulled the other Entente Powers into complete security (Serbian Book, No. 6, No. 12, No. 17). We now know that there were other observers less misled, such as M. D’Apchier le Mangin, who noted the massing of guns and munitions on the Serbian frontier as early as the 11th of July, and M. Jules Cambon, who had convinced himself by the 21st of July that Germany had set in train the preliminaries to mobilisation. But nothing open or public (for the police proceedings against the assassins had been held _in camera_) had prepared the way for the Austrian _coup_. It was an amazed Europe that learned the terms of the Note presented at Belgrade by the Austrian Ambassador on the 23rd of July. There were no illusions as to its meaning and implications, for none were possible. Newspapers so little akin as the _Morning Post_ and M. Clemenceau’s _L’Homme Libre_ characterised it in the same phrase: it was a summons to Serbia to abdicate her sovereignty and independence, and to exist henceforth as a vassal-state of the Dual Empire. This document is the Devil’s Cauldron from which have sprung all the horrors of the present war. As to its extravagant character and probable consequences, opinion is unanimous, even unofficial German opinion. The Berlin _Vorwärts_ writes (25th July)-- “From whatever point of view one considers the situation, a European War is at our gates. And why? Because the Austrian Government and the Austrian War Party are determined to clear, by a _coup de main_, a place in which they can fill their lungs.” In the Foreign Offices the same language was used. Sir Edward Grey said to the Austrian Ambassador that he “had never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character.” The reader can very easily verify for himself this impression by reference to the _Diplomatic Correspondence_. To such a document Serbia was given forty-eight hours to reply. As M. Denis points out, Prinzip, the assassin, taken in the act, was allowed three months to prepare his defence, for he was not brought to trial until October: the Serbian nation, exhausted by two wars, was allowed two days in which to decide between a surrender of its independence and an immediate invasion. Almost “to the scandal of Europe,” a reply was delivered within the time. The Austrian representative received it at Belgrade, and in half-an-hour had demanded his passports; fifteen minutes later he was on board the train. The _will to war_ of the Germanic Powers find many cynical and dramatic expressions in the interchanges between the Chancelleries, but none so nude of all decency as this.