THE LATEST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9857, 27 July 1914, Page 5

THE LATEST.

NO CONFIRMATION. SERVIA GIVEN TIME. TO RECONSIDER HER REPLY. Received July 27, 2 p.m. LONDON, July 26. There is no confirmation of the declartion of war. Reuter states that Austria's military preparations will give Servia time to reconsider her reply. THE FATEFUL ULTIMATUM.

The Neue Freie Presse stated on 22nd July Austria's demand to be presented to Servia this week will request the immediate prosecution of the Servian subjects compromised by the Serajevo assassination and the suppression of the pan-Servian organisation agitating against the monarchy. It will also express a desire for the better supervision of Austro-Servia from the frontier, and the revision of Servia's policy towards the monarchy." The Magisterial investigation at Serajevo into the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his Duchess proved that a secret committee in Belgrade provided Gabrinovio and Prinzip with bombs and pistols. Prinzip stated that he got bombs and money from Ciganovitch, a rioh merchant in Belgrade. He tried to assassinate the Archduke at the manoeuvres, but the gendarmerie prevented him getting near. Prinzip followed the Archduke about from the moment he set foot on Bosnian soil. Gablinovio states that he got a bomb from Major Milan Pribicevitcn, secretary of the pan-Servian Union, who was in the Servian military service. He told Gabrinovio to apply to a well-known Komataji named Ciganovitch, who supplied him with six bombs and six Browning pistols from the service arsenal at Kragdujivac, upon Gabrinovic's promise to find four more conspirators. Gabrinovio and Prinzip approached a Belgrade student nameoTrifke Grabes, and all three reoeived cyanide, which they were instructed to swallow after throwing the bombs. Gabrinovio refuses to name the other three conspirators. Grabes said that he did not throw any bombs, as the Archduke and his wife were already fatally wounded. RIVAL ARMIES. AUSTRIAN, SERVIAN AND RUSSIAN FORCES. According to the latest available information, the war strength of the Austrian army is estimated as under: Common army 1,360,000 Austrian reserve 240,000 Hungarian reserve 220,000

1,820,000 It is believed by embodying all classes of the "Landstrum," or second reserve, over 3,500,000 men oould ultimately be put in the field, trained and untrained. The Servian army, first and second lines, number about 195,000 men The peace strength of Russia in Europe is 949,000, made up as follows: Infantry 627,000 Cavalry 116,000 Artillery ... . v . ... 138,000 Engineers 34,000 Army Service 34,000 949,000 Including Cossacks and Frontier Guards, some authorities give the total peace strength at 1,400,000. including 60,000 in Turkistan, and 280,000 in Russia. The war strength of the Russian forces consists of about 56,500 ofiioera and 2,855,000 men. These form the active army, but are not all available in any one part of the Empire. To these figures must be added the available reserves, estimated at 1,064,000; frontier battalions, 41,000; Cossacks, 150,000. The war strength in trained men is estimated at 5,400,000.

The peace strength of the German army, aoording- to the new law passed when tne first Balkan war created a disturbance was fixed at 835,000 to 870,000, according to the season of the year. The total war etrength is at present approximately 4,350,000 men, including the field army, and its reserve formations, but the highly trained and vigorous first line would not greatly exceed 1,500,000. The French Army provided for in the estimates of 1913 was fixed at 33,700 officers and 675,000 men. The total first line effective of the French army on a war footing is estimated at 2,500,000, and 2,000,000 older men could be placed in the field. In ItaJy the mean peace effective is about 250,000, and the total war strength about 3,220,000. of whom 1,020,000 are more or lees • 'trained. |