On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The Serb government declared that the political strategy was not concerned by an event that was internal to Austria-Hungary because the authors of the attack were all Bosniacs and thus Austro-Hungarian subjects. Austria was increasingly weakened by pressures from north and south, and would be incapable of following Germany into a war. The German rulers were convinced that rapid action would prevent the other powers from intervening in the conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. If Russia did not fall in with the wish for localisation and acted militarily in support of Serbia, it would show proof of its war-mongering and pan-Slavist aims. In the end, if a climate of risk of war had developed, it was indeed the army leaders who provoked the outbreak of the war, applying pressure on hesitant or paralysed civilian powers.