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Updated: June 9, 2025
It cannot for a moment be denied that this argument contained a series of errors; but it must be stated that, according to my convictions, Count Berchtold did not intend to incite war by the ultimatum, but hoped to the very last to gain the victory by the pen, and that in the German promises he saw a guarantee against a war in which the participators and the chances of victory were equally erroneously estimated.
It was on Tuesday, July 28, of the previous year that Count Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, had pressed the button in "the powder magazine of Europe" the Balkans by declaring war on Serbia. For two days the world looked on in breathless, wondering suspense.
The moment Count Berchtold presented his ultimatum to Serbia this "Russian" bank refused to change any Russian banknotes on any terms and let it be understood that they were valueless. A panic on the Belgian market was the immediate consequence. Russian travellers had to deposit their jewellery in pawn and pay exorbitant rates of interest on loans.
The Archduke begged me for the sake of my friendship for him to accept the post, which I finally decided to do after I obtained a promise from Berchtold that, at the end of two years as the longest term, he would put no obstacle in the way of my retirement. The Archduke Franz drew his pro-Roumanian proclivities from a very unreliable source. He hardly knew Roumania at all.
But at the end of June the worthy artist Sattler, whose acquaintance I had made at Constantinople, arrived here. He found me out, and proposed that I should travel to Damascus with Count Berchtold, a French gentleman of the name of De Rousseau, and himself, instead of wasting my time here. This proposition was a welcome one to me, for I ardently desired to be released from my fowls' nest.
There is a story that in very ancient times, when Berchtold, the original founder of the city, was beginning to build the walls, a monstrous bear came out of the woods to attack him. Berchtold, with the assistance of the men who were at work with him on the walls, killed the bear.
In addition to such inquiries Berchtold urges the necessity of sketching landscapes and costumes, and better yet, the scientific drawing of engines and complicated machines, and also of acquiring skill on some musical instrument, to keep one from the gaming table in one's idle hours, preferably of learning to play on a portable instrument, such as a German flute.
This seems sufficiently laborious, but it makes for an easy life compared to the one prescribed by Count Leopold Berchtold in his Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travellers.
Prince Bülow was appointed German Ambassador to King Victor's Government, Baron Macchio supplanted Merey in Rome, but the most sensational change effected was the substitution of Baron Burian for Count Berchtold in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Penfield, the United States Ambassador, who accepted immediately in the most friendly spirit my request that his Excellency would take charge provisionally of British interests in Austria-Hungary during the unfortunate interruption of relations, I proceeded, with Mr. Theo Russell, Counsellor of His Majesty's Embassy, to the Ballplatz. Count Berchtold received me at midday.
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