Page - 119 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

July 25, 1914 was a terribly hot day.’ This is how Baron Wladimir von Giesl, the last Imperial and Royal envoy in Belgrade, began his portrayal of his departure from this city.258 Following the handover of the démarche containing the ultimatum he had arranged for two variations of his personal reaction to the Serbian response to be sketched out. One of them was for an unconditional acceptance and the other was for a conditional acceptance, in which case it was irrelevant whether the démarche was accepted only in parts or almost in its entirety. His unequivocal instructions stipulated an ‘unconditional acceptance’. During the day on 25 July, at Giesl’s behest no member of the delegation was per- mitted to leave the building. Events then proceeded at a breakneck pace. Following the visit of the Serbian prime minister to the Imperial and Royal delegation and the handover of the response note, diplomatic relations were regarded as discontinued. A quarter of an hour later, Giesl was already on his way to the railway station with the members of the delegation. He heard calls of abuse in the streets. At the station, all ac- credited diplomatic representatives in Belgrade were gathered together ; only the Rus- sian representative was missing. A Serbian officer called : ‘Au revoir à Budapest !’ Then the scheduled train departed. Following the crossing of the Old Sava Bridge and, with it, the imperial border, Geisl was called to the telephone at Zemun station. It was Tisza, who asked him : ‘Did this have to happen ?’ Giesl responded in the affirmative. The soldiers of the Zemun garrison had taken up positions along the banks of the Sava River. Aside from this, however, there were of course no other visible develop- ments, as the Austro-Hungarian mobilisation began only three days later. During the remainder of the journey, the train containing Giesl was greeted at every station by cheering people. At three in the morning, the envoy was led from the train in Subotica (Szabadka), in order for him to hear an excited address. In Budapest he met with Tisza. The journey continued via Győr (Raab) to Vienna. Everywhere there was cheering and relief. On the 26th Giesl reported to the foreign minister and on the 27th to the Em- peror in Bad Ischl. As Giesl palliatively wrote, the Emperor supposedly then said : ‘You could not have acted any differently […] I must now accept the consequences.’ Re- turning to Vienna, Giesl reported to Archduke Friedrich, designated Commander of the Balkan Armed Forces. Here he was given his new assignment : the Baron had been chosen as the representative of the Foreign Ministry attached to the High Command. Giesl’s portrayal of his journey through Hungary as far as Vienna on the night of 25/26 July and in the hours that followed reveals only a tiny segment of what really