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On 17 July a secret treaty was concluded guaranteeing Bulgaria in return for intervention the whole of Macedonia possessed by Serbia as well as an extension of Bulgaria's frontiers at Serbia's expense farther north. Bulgaria was also allowed to extort a separate price from Turkey in the shape of a strip of land along the Maritza controlling that river and Adrianople.
Nor was Bulgaria the only traitor responsible for the Serbian tragedy. On 5 October Venizelos announced to the Greek Chamber in no uncertain terms the intention of his ministry to draw the sword on Serbia's side if Bulgaria attacked.
The rising pillars of the Skupstchina, Serbia's new Parliament House at the foot of Kossovo Street, point to the future of some great new State. The Croats say "When you go to Zagreb you will see the difference. Ah, there is a city; there is civilization." They kiss their hands to show what they mean. The Croats are Home Rulers. Like the Irish, they are Catholics.
Count Achrenthal had overreached himself, and moreover the wind had already been taken out of his sails by the public recantation on Serbia's part of its pretensions to Bosnia, which, as already mentioned, took place at the end of March 1909, and by the simultaneous termination of the international crisis marked by Russia's acquiescence in the fait accompli of the annexation.
Berchtold could not have entertained any doubt that a Serbian war would bring a Russian one in its train. At any rate, the reports sent by my brother, who was a business man in Petersburg, left him in no doubt on the matter. Serbia's acceptance of the ultimatum was only partial, and the Serbian war broke out. Russia armed and joined in. But at this moment extremely important events took place.
Austria insisted on modifications to the Serbo-Bulgar convention; Turkey too demanded an alteration. But by the time I arrived in Bosnia this affair was thrown quite into the shade by a new step on Serbia's part. She decided to purchase the artillery for her reconstructed army from the Creusot works in France. This so infuriated Austria that she declared a complete boycott of all Serbian goods.
But there were two currents of opinion, the one approving, the other condemning Austria for having thrown down the gauntlet to Serbia and above all to Russia. One paper exulted over the statement that every sentence in Austria's ultimatum "was a whip-lash across Serbia's face;" a phrase expressing so aptly the great mass of popular opinion.
Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and professional men who come from peasant stock.
The more one thinks about this mediation proposal the more clearly one recognizes that it would have made for a diplomatic victory of the Triple Entente." Even the claim that Austria showed some inclination to permit mediation on the points in her ultimatum to Serbia which were incompatible with Serbia's sovereignty, has been categorically denied.
"It is sad that a stranger's eyes should see us die," said another officer in high command. Soon the crackling and sputtering fire of the Mannlicher rifles was rippling up and down the lines; the whole front from Pristina to south of Marcovitza blazed flame, and the last big battle of Serbia's resistance was on.
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