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Serbia was willing to punish any one of her subjects who had been proved to have any complicity in that assassination. What more could you expect ? What were the Austrian demands? Serbia sympathised with her fellow-countrymen in Bosnia—that was one of her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saving nasty things about Austria: they must do so no longer. That is the German spirit; you had it in Zabern. (Hear, hear and applause.) How dare you criticise a Prussian official?—(Laughter)—and if you laugh, it is a capital offence—the colonel in Zabern threatened to shoot if it was repeated. In the same way the Serbian newspapers must not criticise Austria. I wonder what would have happened if we had taken the same line about German newspapers. (Hear, hear.) Serbia said: "Very well, we will give orders to the newspapers that they must in future criticise neither Austria, nor Hungary, nor anything that is theirs." (Laughter.) Who can doubt the valour of Serbia, when she undertook to tackle her newspaper editors? (Laughter and applause.) She promised not to sympathise with Bosnia; she promised to write no critical articles about Austria; she would have no public meetings in which anything unkind was said about Austria.
"Serbia Faced the Situation with Dignity."
But that was not enough. She must dismiss from her army the officers whom Austria should subsequently name. Those officers had just emerged from a war where they had added lustre to the Serbian arms; they were gallant, brave and efficient. (Hear, hear.) I wonder whether it twas their guilt or their efficiency that prompted Austria's action! But, mark you, the officers were not named; Serbia was to undertake in advance to dismiss them from the army, the names to be sent in subsequently. Can you name a country in the world that would have stood that? (Cries of "No.") Supposing Austria or Germany had issued an ultimatum of that kind to this country, saying "You must dismiss from your Army—and from your Navy—(Laughter)—all those officers whom we shall subsequently name." Well, I think I could name them now. (Laughter.) Lord Kitchener—(Loud applause)—would go. Sir John French—(Applause)—would be sent away; General Smith-Dorrien—(Applause)—would go, and I am sure that Sir John Jellicoe—(Applause)—would have to go. And there is another gallant old warrior who would go—Lord Roberts. (Applause.) It was a difficult situation for a small country. Here was a demand made upon her by a great military power that could have put half-a-dozen men in the field for every one of Serbia's men, and that Power was supported by the greatest military Power in the world.
