Obtaining Hungarian support, collecting criminal evidence, and the drafting of demands to place on Serbia took two weeks to complete. This was poor timing as the bi-annual Franco-Russian summit was about to begin. The French President Raymond Poincaré and his Premier arrived in St. Petersburg on 20 July, conferred with the Czar and his ministers, and left on 23 July 1914. The details of this summit have never been published. Austria-Hungary waited until the hour of the summit's conclusion and released its letter of demands on July 23 at 6PM Belgrade time. This letter of demands became known as the July Ultimatum.
The demands were tough. Austria-Hungary made Serbia's March 1909 declaration to the Great Powers, in which Serbia promised (see the "Bosnian Annexation Crisis" below) to respect Austria-Hungary's territorial integrity and maintain good neighborly relations, the basis of legitimacy of its ten enumerated demands and several demands in the letter's preamble. These demands focused on the investigation and arrest of the Serbian Military conspirators fingered by the assassins, destruction of the terrorist infrastructure and means of propaganda, rooting out terrorists from the Serbian Military, and putting Serbia back on track to be a good neighbor. Serbia was required to admit misbehavior by its officers and allow Austro-Hungarian authorities to participate in the investigation in Serbia. All demands had to be agreed to within 48 hours or Austria-Hungary would withdraw its ambassador.
The Serbian Government was unnerved. With the Russian weakness during the crisis of 1908-9 and its more recent refusal to support Serbia against the Austrian ultimatum of 1912 fresh in the minds of the Serbian ministers, they began writing a response accepting the demands in total, while Serbia's diplomatic corps sought its allies' support. Prince Alexander of Serbia wrote to the Czar, stating that Serbia would accept only those conditions "compatible with the position of...