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DF Small Arms Competition
The smell of success
T
he assassination of Franz Ferdinand on June 28th
was seen by hawks within Austria-Hungary as
presenting the ideal opportunity to put an end to
the problems presented by Serbia for once and for all.
The difficulty faced by the Hapsburg Empire, however,
lay in the likelihood that Russia would not stand by in
the event of the outbreak of hostilities between Austria
and its Balkan neighbour. Consequently, Vienna sought
assurances from its ally, Germany, that it would provide
assistance in the event of Russia moving against them.
The Austrians found willing ears in the German gov-
ernment and military, many of whom were anxious for
a general war to establish Germany's emerging position
as the major continental European power. There was a
commonly held view in the upper echelons of the Ger-
man Army that such a war was required before Russia
was able to complete its Great Military Programme
in 1917, which would make future conflict with Russia
much less favourable.
On July 5th Vienna received a 'blank cheque' guar-
antee from Berlin for any action against Serbia. It
was also made clear that any backtracking by Aus-
tria-Hungary would threaten the Triple Alliance and
that Vienna would have to face the repercussions of
being seen to be weak by its enemies.
In order that Austria-Hungary was not seen to at-
tack its smaller neighbour without pretext, a plan was
developed to use the assassination of the Archduke to
make a series of demands on the Serb government, and
to make those demands so onerous that the Serbs could
not comply.
The result of this was a document, later known as
By TERRy MCLAuGHLIN
