THE EUROPEAN CRISIS
ON July 23, Austria abruptly sent an ultimatum to Servia, in substance charging that Government with responsibility for the murder of the Archduke, imposing conditions which amounted to the surrender of Servian independence and giving but a few hours for answer. This was instantly accepted by Europe as a real challenge to Russia and for the third time in five years the two great groups of European Powers, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, stood face to face with the obvious possibility that war might result from the clash of rival purposes. Once more Russia, France and Great Britain were in one camp, Germany, Austria and presumably Italy in the other, and between the two lay the old question of European balance of power.
In 1908, when Austria annexed Bosnia, France, Great Britain and Russia protested. The annexation was in fact an express violation of the agreement made in the great Congress of Berlin after the Russo-Turkish war. It not merely increased the territory of a member of the Triple Alliance but it