Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/62

58 "“The other branches of the administration (besides that of Justice) had also disclosed weak points, the knowledge of which ought long before to have dissuaded the Archduke Francis Ferdinand from undertaking this journey. The Provincial Governor (Landeschef), and the Master of the Ordnance, Potiorek, knew quite well that the journey was arranged and put into execution by the Archduke, in exclusive association with the Provincial Governor, from a military point of view....

“Dr. von Bilinski least of all could have assumed that a non-military visit was to be included in the military programme. If Dr. von Bilinski had had any knowledge, from the reports of the Provincial Governor, that the police were quite unequal to their task, it would obviously have been the duty of both of them to prevent the journey under any circumstances.” (Gooss, Vienna Cabinet, pages 46, 47.)"

Soon afterwards, on July 13th, the Ministerial Councillor von Wiesner, who was dispatched to Serajevo to inspect the documents used in the inquiry connected with the trial of the murderers, telegraphed:

"“Nothing to prove or presume complicity of the Serbian Government in the attack or in its preparation or the supplying of weapons. Rather there are grounds for considering this entirely out of the question.”"

Thus those who were guilty of this bloody deed were not to be looked for in the Serbian Government; the responsibility for it lay rather with the ignorance,