NEGOTIATORS AND NEGOTIATIONS ro7
Austro-Hungarian Gove rnment treated this as deliberate
misrepresentation : 'The international law, as well as the criminal law, has
nothing to do with this question; it is purely a matter of the
nature of state police which is to be solved by way of a special
agr eeme nt. The reserved attitude of Servia is therefore in·
comprehensible, a nd o n account of its vague general form it
would lead to unbridgeable difficulties.
'If the Servian Gove rnment mis unde rstands us here, this is
do ne d elibe rately, for it must be familiar with the difference
betwee n "enqut:te judic iaire" and simple police researches.
As it desired to escape from every control of' the investigation
which would y ie ld, if correctly carried out, highly undesirable
results for it, and as it possesses no means to r efuse in
a plausible manne r the co-op eratio n of our officials (preced e nts
for s uch police interve ntio n ex ist in great number), it tries to
j ustify its refusal by s howing up our demands as impossible.' '
It would have been fairer to Servia to assume tha t there had
been a genuine misunders tanding, and that the explanation
he re give n by Austria mig ht prove satis factory to S ervia,
a s the Ita lia n Ministe r for F ore ig n Affairs suggested.' The
persiste nt r e fusal o f Austria- l-1 ungary to p ermit any discussion
o n the basis of the Servian reply goes far to jus tify Sir Maurice
de Bunsen's impression ·
'that the Austro-Hungarian note was so drawn up as to
make war inevitable, that their Government are fully resolved
to have war with Ser via, that they consider their position as
a Great Power to be at stake, and that until punishment has
been administered to Servia it is unlikely that they will listen
to propos als of mediation'.'
German \\/ bite Book, pp. 29 et sqq.; see i11/rn Appendix I.
Sir R. Rodd to Sir E. Grey, July 28.
' Ibid. No. 4r. Sir M. de Bunsen to Sir E. Grey, July 27.

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' Correspo11dm:r, No. 6~.