the response can fairly be regarded as one of the mistakes that led to war. By declining to yield, the Serbs gave Berchtold, Conrad, and their cohorts the one thing they wanted: an excuse for military action. Worse, they did this unnecessarily. They might have responded differently—not more shrewdly, their document being nothing if not shrewd, but more effectively—had they not been receiving reports about how Russia wanted them to stand firm.
Could they have, though? And maintained anything resembling national sovereignty?
