ABSTRACT
On 28 June 1914 the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated. Once again, as so often in recent years, there was a strained situation in the Balkans, but not so strained as to deter Poincaré, the new President of the French Republic, with his Prime Minister, Viviani, from carrying out an engagement to visit Russia. An opportunity to reaffirm and strengthen the Russian alliance was not lightly to be discarded and on 16 July they set sail for the Baltic. On the 23rd Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia and within a few days, in spite of Serbia’s acceptance of all the Austrian demands, save one, the situation looked so threatening that the French Government, whose offers of mediation had proved vain, telegraphed urgently to the President and Viviani to return. On the 28th Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and on the following day Russia, anxious to check further Austrian aggrandisement in the Balkans and loth to stand by while fellow Slavs were crushed, ordered a partial mobilization which was converted into total mobilization on the 30th. The Russian action, unfortunately, did not lead Austria to call off hostilities. Instead it extended the area of tension. On the 31st Germany intervened with two ultimata, one demanding that Russia should immediately demobilize, the other asking for a statement from the French Government of the attitude they would adopt in case of war between Germany and Russia.
