diplomatic documents, as published since the Revolution) was impressed by the moderation of the Serbs, regarded Vienna's essential wishes as fulfilled and expressed the view that Giesl ought to have remained in Belgrade. His ministers, however, had failed to support Sir E. Grey's proposal for a prolongation of the time limit, and were thus responsible for bringing Russia into action. On July 27 the Tsar replied to a despairing appeal of the Prince Regent for assistance to Serbia, by a telegram strongly urging him to " neglect no step which might lead to a settlement," but conveying the assurance that " Russia will in no case disinterest herself in the fate of Serbia." 1 On July
28 Austria-Hungary formally declared war upon Serbia, and on the same day rejected the Russian proposal for a friendly exchange of views between Vienna and St. Petersburg. 2
Henceforward the Austro-Serbian quarrel is merged in the larger diplomatic conflict between Alliance and Entente. Due stress ought, however, to be laid upon one of Sir Edward Grey's many efforts to avert war even at the last moment. On July
29 he received Count Mensdorff's assurance that Austria-Hun- gary " had no idea of territorial aggrandisement," and when he hinted that there were other means of turning Serbia " into a sort of vassal state," received the rejoinder ' that before the Balkan War Serbia had always been regarded as being in the Austrian sphere of influence." 3 Undeterred by this ominous attitude, Sir Edward on July 30 put forward the proposal that Austria-Hungary, after occupying Belgrade, should cease her advance and consent to discussions with Russia, who otherwise could not be expected to "suspend military preparations." 4 In other words, Belgrade would become a kind of pledge in Vienna's hands for the attainment of a satisfactory settlement. The elaborate dispute regarding the Russian and German mobi- lizations has hitherto obscured the essential fact that on July 31 Francis Joseph definitely, almost petulantly, refused the British proposal as transmitted through Berlin, 6 thereby render- ing the military action of St. Petersburg inevitable.
The Outbreak of War. When Baron Giesl presented the ultimatum, Pasic had been absent electioneering in the prov- inces; but he at once returned to Belgrade, and on July 25 mobilization was ordered, and the seat of Government and the archives were hastily transferred to Nish. In view of so grave a crisis elections became impossible, and as parliamentary sanc- tion was more than ever necessary, the Government had no other course than to ignore the fact of dissolution and to call the previous Skupstina once more into existence. At its first meeting in Nish on Aug. i, the entire Opposition endorsed the Government's action, and for the moment party life was in abeyance. Parliament also ratified the Concordat with the Vati- can and a law ensuring to Catholicism full freedom of worship in Serbia. There was an unexpected delay in the invasion of Serbia, and it was not till Aug. 12 that the first Austro-Hun- garian troops crossed the Drina and the Save. After 12 days of desperate fighting (known as the battle of the Jader) the invaders were thrown back across the frontier, this being the first definite Allied victory. Unduly elated by this success and by the news of Russia's rapid advance in Galicia, the Serbs were now led to underestimate Austria-Hungary's resources, and encouraged by the Allies, passed to the offensive early in September. Their rash invasion of Syrmia a necessary preliminary to any suc- cessful penetration of Bosnia from the east soon proved beyond their strength and had to be abandoned by Sept. 13; and the joy- ous welcome everywhere accorded to them by the population merely brought down a cruel vengeance on its head when the Austro-Hungarian army returned. A further mistake was made in attempting to hold the rich but strategically indefensible Mafiva (Machva) district, doubtless owing to the horrid excesses committed there by the enemy during their first inroad. None the less the Serbs were able to check a second Austrian advance across
1 Serbian Blue Book, Nos. 37 and 43.
2 Russian Orange Book, No. 25, and British Diplomatic Corres- pondence, No. 93.
3 British Diplomatic Correspondence, No. Qi.
4 Ibid., Nos. 103 and no.
5 Die Deutschen Dokumente, No. 482.
the Drina in mid-September. But on Nov. 6 General Potiorek began a third invasion in great force, and during the next month steadily pressed back the Serbian forces into the heart of their country. The danger was aggravated by shortage of ammuni- tion, and when at last the necessary supplies began to arrive, a large force of Bulgarians armed with machine-guns and acting with the connivance of Sofia, raided the Vardar railway from the Strumnica salient and destroyed an important bridge on the only line by which the new guns could be moved up to the front. The enforced evacuation of Belgrade on Nov. 29 revealed the extremity of the danger, and brought the latent political crisis to a head. On Dec. 5 the purely Radical Cabinet resigned and was succeeded on Dec. 13 by a Coalition Government, in which Pasic remained premier, but the leaders of all parties save the Liberals received portfolios. It was however in this blackest week that the Skupstina unanimously endorsed the Govern- ment's declaration that its foremost war aim was " the libera- tion and union of all our Serb, Croat and Slovene brethren not yet set free." This was the first public step of Serbia in favour of Yugoslav unity.
Serbia after the Austrian Rout. With the arrival of muni- tions from the West the army's flagging spirits revived, and the brilliant offensive initiated on Dec. 2 by Gen. Misic and the ist Army resulted, after a twelve days' battle along the whole front, in the complete rout of Potiorek. By Dec. 14 Serbian soil was for the third time entirely free from invaders, and an enormous booty was captured. But the enemy left deadly in- fection behind him, and by the early spring of 1915 exhausted Serbia was immobilized by a typhus epidemic which is estimated to have caused about 300,000 deaths among the civil popula- tion. A notable part in checking its ravages was played by Lady Paget as head of the Serbian Relief Fund units in Skoplje, and by Col. Hunter and a R.A.M.C. detachment, who organized a scheme of disinfection on the whole Serbian railway system. The latter step appears to have been taken in view of the possi- bility of Allied troops being employed upon the Danube, an idea which receded from the general design, in proportion as the Austro-German recovery in Galicia became more marked. Ser- bia's negative role during 1915 was due not only to exhaustion but to considerations of high policy. The attitude of Bul- garia was from the first extremely equivocal, and Serbia, had she listened to certain ill-considered pleas for a fresh offensive into Hungary, would have been at any moment liable to an attack from the rear, unless she could rely upon Greece or the Allies to hold Bulgaria in check. Meanwhile the Entente was eagerly working for the intervention of Italy and of Bulgaria, neither of whom could receive adequate satisfaction save at the expense of Serbian aspirations. During the winter pressure was repeat- edly brought to bear upon Nish to make territorial concessions to Bulgaria in Macedonia; but the one and only condition upon which Serbia could safely have considered this namely, that the Allies should guarantee Yugoslav unity in the event of victory was precluded by their parallel negotiations with Italy, whose official policy it was to prevent, not to further, Yugoslav unity, and to whom by the Treaty of London, concluded on April 26 1915, no less than 700,000 Yugoslavs were assigned. The fact that this treaty's concealment from Serbia was made an absolute condition by Rome, did not tend to diminish the reserve of the Nish Government, who almost immediately learned the essential facts through Mr. Supilo's discoveries in official circles at Petrograd. The Serbs, who were not formally recognized as Allies by the Western Powers, were more conscious than ever of the value to them of the Vardar valley, which would form part of any serious concessions to Bulgaria; and they were from the first sceptical as to the possibility of winning over Bulgaria, whom they believed to be tied to Vienna and Berlin by a secret compact. They were further handicapped by the attitude of Greece, who in the autumn of 1914 exercised her right of veto, under the Serbo-Greek Treaty, upon any cession of territory to Bulgaria and was prepared to demand Monastir as compensation. This attitude could not be ignored at a period when Greece was still ready to intervene on the side
