When Diplomacy Fails presents the July Crisis Anniversary Project, a day-by-day account of the events that occurred 100 years ago.

War Council.

Today is the 19th of July 2014, and over this period of history 100 years ago,

occurred the following events. When Habsburg ministers gathered together on the morning of Sunday

the 19th of July to deliberate and debate the terms of the ultimatum to Serbia, they thought they

were acting in secret. Austria-Hungary's foreign minister, Leopold von Berchtel, believed that he

had insured against any possibility of leaks, and that once the ultimatum was delivered to the

Serbs, it would take them by surprise. Berkdelt had also designed the delivery of the ultimatum to coincide with the Franco-Russian summit

between the French President and Russian Tsar, which was due to take place on the 20th to the 23rd

of July.

Berkdelt hoped that by waiting until the last day of the summit, when the French President

was leaving St. Petersburg, he could ensure that neither ally could properly coordinate strategy.

That had been the gall and impetus behind waiting so long.

For Berkdold, it is unlikely that he still felt the raw emotion of shock that he had originally experienced when he had learned of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's

assassination on the 28th of June. Certainly for Berchtold, as well as the rest of his colleagues,

what had begun as an exercise to gain revenge on the culprits in Serbia, had mutated into a test

of Austria-Hungary's ability to conduct its affairs like a great power should.

Berchtel believed that the days of secrecy would contribute to a successful outcome,

and that Serbia would be faced with difficult choices, while Austria mobilized, the Tsar Dithered,

and leading French officials remained unreachable on the Baltic Sea.

That was the plan anyway, but by the 19th of July, Berchtdalt's secret had already gotten out,

and in fact had been disseminated to the highest levels of the Russian government. For Heinrich von Luzov, who had sat in one of Berkdold's meetings with the German ambassador

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