If Serbia didn't believe in pleasantries amidst goblets, it did take seriously the looming of the dreadnoughts. Early in October the Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic visited Vienna. After an interview with Count von Berchtold, Panic's office issued a communique: he and the Austrian Excellency could not agree on the issue of Austrian interference in the southern Balkans, but he did promise that Serbia would not invade Albania and he hoped that his pledge would fortify the possibilities of amity between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Coming from the chief executive of a pugnacious upstart of a country, this was an almost chastened statement. Perhaps it also reflected a weakening of Serbia's international support that autumn. The saber that its protector could rattle was tarnished for the moment; the Tsar was beset by domestic trouble. Credit for that belonged, at least in part, to Lenin and therefore to Lenin's hidden hosts in Austrian CounterIntelligence. At the Bolshevik summer conference in Austrian Galicia-held at virtually the same time as Freud's PsychoAnalytical Congress in Munich and as contentious and important-Lenin had forced through a controversial resolution: It directed the Bolshevik parliamentary deputies to the St. Petersburg legislature to form a caucus separate from the more moderate Mensheviks with whom they had till then formed a common Social Democratic front. In word and action they were now free to push their own much more drastic program.
Very soon the move made itself felt through much of industrialized Russia. The Bolshevik-controlled Pravda in St. Petersburg mercilessly scourged "Menshevik spinelessness" and Trotskyite "nonfactionalism." In the Duma, Bolshevik speakers called on workers to stop being slaves. Their fierceness unfettered, Lenin's men drew more attention from major trade unions. They also gained more influence. Scattered but steady strike activity spread in the factories, guided by Bolshevik headquarters in Austria. Here Lenin enjoyed freedom to operate and to politick in ways that made Habsburg smile. Occasionally Lenin smiled back. In his talks on the Nationalities Question he said more than once that Vienna handled the problem far better than St. Petersburg.
But in the second half of 1913 you didn't have to be a Bolshevik to consider Austria morally prettier than Russia. By autumn the damage from the Redl case was fading in Habsburg lands; at any rate it receded before the disgrace happening under Romanov. In October the Tsar's district attorney in Kiev prosecuted, with anti-Semitic zeal, a ritualmurder trial against a Jew named Mendel Beilis.
The spectacle reeked of medieval viciousness. Indignation ran through Europe, not least along the Danube. To support their brother so unjustly accused, Vienna's Jewish Community organized a huge meeting at the Musikvereinssaal. The famous (non-Jewish) physiologist Julius Wagner-Jauregg was among three Austrian scientists giving testimony in defense of Mendel Beilis's innocence. Internationally, on Beilis's behalf, a petition was addressed to the Tsar; notables signing it included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Engelbert Humperdinck, Anatole France, Kathe Kollwitz, Selma Lagerlof, H. G. Wells, Frank Wedekind, as well as Viktor Adler, the Jewish leader of Austrian Socialism, and Hermann Bahr, the non-Jewish Austrian writer.
When the Russian court had to acquit Beilis in the first week of November, it was an Austrian variety-show producer who first offered him a personal-appearance contract worthy of his red-hot celebrity. Mr. Beilis begged off because of stress caused by the trial.
Meanwhile the first cold gusts helped yellow the leaves on oak and beech all over Vienna's parks. But whether or not it was the contrast to Tsarist barbarism, the Western Powers seemed to warm not only toward Austria but also toward its German ally. England's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, made a very well-tempered speech at Manchester; he noted an improvement in relations between his country and the Reich and proposed a mutual reduction in the building of new battleships. America contributed a friendly sound from even higher up. A German publisher brought out a translation of President Woodrow Wilson's The State-Elements of Historical and Practical Politics. It marked a highlight of the fall publishing season, not least because of the preface specially written by the author for this edition. In it the American President praised the profundity of German thought, which had furnished not only his book but many other American works with inspiration.
At almost the same time, Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, chose an odd forum for displaying willingness to associate himself with things Austrian. The Vienna press reported his appearance in a variety show in Maryland also featuring a Tyrolean yodeler. Mr. Bryan's role in the entertainment consisted of a spectacularly orotund oration that championed peace among the world's principal countries, most of which he enumerated (omitting Mexico, against which the USA was preparing an ultimatum). This high-minded aria, euphonious with metaphor and legato vowels, he repeated for twelve performances. In an interview, his Excellency explained that only through fees for extra undertakings such as this could he foot the high representational expenses of his office. The Tyrolean received much less for his yodels. But then a Tyrolean yodeler was not an American gentleman, and an American gentleman-said Diamond Jim Brady in New York during an interview much quoted in the Vienna press that fall-an American gentleman required an income of $1,000 a day, plus expenses.
This, of course, was the sort of zany flash typical of America. But in the course of autumn of 1913, Vienna saw the international horizon brighten in a more important way. At Belvedere Palace the First Lord Chamberlain of the Crown Prince issued an auspicious statement. An arrangement informally discussed during the summer had been confirmed and could be publicly announced: His Imperial and Royal Highness, the Archduke and Heir Apparent Franz Ferdinand and his consort had been asked to join Their Majesties, the King and Queen of England, at Windsor Castle, for a shoot during the third week of November.
To be sure, this was to be a "private stay" for the Austrian couple-not a state visit, which would have implied an altogether august elevation for a morganatic wife. Still, the last time Franz Ferdinand's spouse had seen the English King, two years earlier, she had almost been smuggled into Buckingham Palace as an incognito luncheon guest under the name of Countess of Artstetter. But now, at Windsor, the Archduke would have her officially at his side as the Duchess of Hohenberg. It was a protocol breakthrough; a coup scored by the Crown Prince over Prince Montenuovo, First Lord Chamberlain of the Emperor; an event registered instantly by Vienna gossip as a bulletin from the invisible front line running through the Court.
And there was that other arena, much less accessible to rumor, in which the Crown Prince did combat. Here the contest was waged through memos, usually top secret and livid; special couriers scurried from backstairs at the War Ministry to the "confidential door" of Franz Ferdinand's Military Chancellery at Belvedere Palace and back again. The temperatures sank in Vienna in the course of autumn. The thrust and parry heated up between Army Chief and Crown Prince, between Serbia's unappeasable foe and the volcanic apostle of restraint.
Earlier in the year the Archduke had mentioned that he might attend the Army's summer exercises planned for summer of 1914 at Sarajevo. Presently definite notice of his intention to participate was transmitted to the Chief of Staff by General Oscar Potiorek, Governor of Bosnia. The Crown Prince had chosen to convey "highest" information to the Chief of Staff through an officer of less senior rank. It was a pointed disregard of channels.
And the Chief of Staff, General Conrad, retaliated with some anti-Serb ammunition pointed directly at the Archduke's heart. Austrian intelligence in the United States had been watching Michael Pupin, the well-known professor of electromechanics at Columbia University and the head of Srpska Slega, an organization of Americans of Serbian descent. A student of Pupin's, one Dusan Trbuhovic, had left America for Serbia at the end of summer and during a farewell dinner for him at the Hotel La Salle in Chicago, the possibility of an attempt on Franz Ferdinand's life had been discussed in detail. This report Conrad sent on to the Archduke. It seems fair to assume that the purpose was not just to warn but to rattle His Highness, to shake him into a tougher stance toward the Serbs.