User:Sayerslle/Dayrell Crackanthorpe

Dayrell Crackanthorpe was a British minister - in Belgrade in the years before the First world war. He was a 'man of pronounced Serbophile sentiment' - he  urged skepticism toward  accounts provided by  British vice-consuls in Skopje and Monastir that reported 'systematic intimidation,  arbitrary detentions, beatings, rapes,  village-burnings,  and massacres by the Serbs in the annexed areas ' - (areas  annexed by Serbia after the Second Balkan War - ) -  The cumulative  detail of reports emerging, and  corroborating accounts from Romanian, Swiss and French officials persuaded the British foreign office however that news of atrocities should not be dismissed as austrian propaganda - Crackanthorpes most important sorce was ' a Servian officer of his acquantaince' -