Excerpt from The War Book-of-Facts: 3000 Figures and Facts About the Conduct of War, the Present Crisis, and Its Causes It was nearly three weeks before Austria took her first step, the presentation of an ultimatum, couched in terms so offensive and peremptory as to preclude the possibility of a favourable reply. To the surprise of everyone Servia, after listening to the advice of Russia, accepted every demand except two, and these she requested should be referred to The Hague Tribunal on the grounds that they threatened her existence as a sovereign state. Austria's reply took the form of immediate withdrawal of the Austrian Minister from Belgrade; and this step was at once followed by an attack on the Servian frontier. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.