The World Crisis

by Winston S. Churchill

  However, the Hapsburg royalties did not share the excitement of their generals and statesmen. The Emperor remained immovable. Again and again he repulsed Conrad’s demands, using such phrases as ‘Even in politics one should stick to the rules of decency’; ‘That would mean war, and I am against war’; ‘That must not be done without a great deal of forethought’; ‘We must do nothing without mature reflection.’ With such replies did the vigorous, clear-headed octogenarian restrain the fierce currents of the times. In all these views he was supported by the Archduke. Francis Ferdinand’s influence had restored Conrad to his post; but the Archduke would not accept his policy. His attitude in February was thus described to Conrad by his Equerry, Bardolff: ‘The Heir to the Throne has sounded the retreat all along the line. In no circumstances will he have war against Russia. He will not consent to it. From Serbia, not a plum-tree, not a sheep. He demands demobilization of the reserves.’ Berchtold under this august influence changed his own attitude with agility, and when Conrad came to him for sympathy and support blandly told him: ‘I would never put my name to war against Russia. The Archduke Francis Ferdinand is absolutely against war.’

  The cause of all this virtue and wisdom is not obscure. One single reason had decided the Emperor and his Heir. They had been left in no doubt that William II did not mean to fight. The Kaiser had conveyed this opinion to them both in the most forceful and confidential manner. They knew that without him they could do nothing. From their highest station and with their direct proprietary interests at stake, they viewed facts in truer proportions than their servants and advisers, and their control of the empire was effective. The peace of Europe during 1913 rested solely upon the Kaiser’s ‘No.’ One hand only held the key that could unloose the deluge. From the moment that Austria had quarrelled with Russia, William II had the Dual Monarchy in his power. While his veto stood the world was safe.

  It now remains to examine the causes and events which led to that veto being withdrawn.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MURDER OF THE ARCHDUKE

  The year 1914 opened cool and calm. The Anglo-German co-operation in Near Eastern affairs and the progress of the colonial Treaty had soothed the anxiety and suspicions of the British Cabinet. Indeed I had encountered in the previous autumn the most stubborn resistance to the Navy estimates necessary to fulfil our declared programmes against Germany. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the opposite mood from his Agadir speech, headed the formidable opposition of a majority of the Cabinet. I made it clear that unless the programmes were maintained, I should resign. Christmas brought an interlude to this sternly fought internal controversy. On January 3 Mr. Lloyd George published an interview in the Daily Chronicle in which he denounced the folly of expenditure upon armaments, referred pointedly to the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill in 1886 on the subject of economy, and declared that the state and prospects of the world were never more peaceful. I had spent my holiday near Biarritz and returning through Paris met President Poincaré and some of the leading Ministers. I was impressed by a certain air of uneasiness in these circles. Mr. Lloyd George’s interview seemed to have disturbed them.

  As the year advanced the belief of our Cabinet that dangers were passing away grew steadily. I carried the full naval estimates through the Cabinet only by the fact that the adverse majority did not wish to face my resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty, and the violent agitation that would have followed, when they were about to be embroiled in the fiercest part of the Irish quarrel. Even the vigilant watch-dogs of the Foreign Office were at ease. Both Houses of Parliament comported themselves as if foreign affairs did not exist. The sanguine mood of the British Government found its counterpart in the French chamber. The Parties of the left held sway. Keen efforts were made to modify the law of Three Years’ military service which had been passed in 1913. Indeed it was only maintained by a compromise which released the third-year soldiers while calling up two new contingents of recruits in their place. This year, for the first time since 1870, the French President dined at the German Embassy. This year, for the first time for nineteen years, we accepted a German invitation for the visit of a British squadron to Kiel during the regatta week in June. We confided four of our finest battleships to the Kaiser’s hospitality. We sent at the same time four battle-cruisers to Cronstadt to pay a like courtesy to the Russians.

  But under the surface the relationships of the Great Powers were ceaselessly hardening. The enlargements and improvements of the Russian army and the building of military railways proceeded apace. France had in one form or another consented to the enormous sacrifices of the Three Years’ Law. Germany was not only increasing her army and navy, but by a capital tax of fifty millions sterling was purchasing war materials and manufacturing munitions and equipment with intense activity. The importations into Germany of all the rare metals needed for the hardening of steel and the making of the weapons and appliances of war—if we had only known it—tungsten, aluminium, vanadium, nickel, antimony, manganese, exceeded in 1914 alone the aggregate totals of the previous three years. Wordy battles were fought between German and Russian newspapers and professors in which all sorts of disagreeable and ugly recriminations were exchanged. The Russian War Minister inspired statements about the growing efficiency of the Russian armies. In the summer Sir Edward Grey asked me to arrange conversations between the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg and the Russian naval authorities similar to those which had taken place at intervals since 1906 between the French and British General staffs. The topics discussed were minor, but the event was significant, and meant to be significant. A good deal of vague war-talk was rife in German military circles. Still the forces of peace seemed to be more than holding their own, and both in Great Britain and France party politics and bitter faction held the stage.

  The last few weeks of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s life were filled with interest and action. In the middle of June he received the Kaiser as his guest at Konopischt. For three days the pair remained in close confabulation. According to the account which William II furnished to the German Foreign Office, the conversations turned mainly upon the Archduke’s dislike of the Hungarians, for their mediaeval habits and oppression of other races within their bounds. He urged the importance of continually pressing Count Tisza not to maltreat the Hungarian Roumanians and thus foment dissension between the Triple Alliance and Roumania. The only other questions said to have been discussed were the relations between Greece and Turkey, Italy’s conduct in Albania, and the replacement of the Hungarian Count Szögyeny by an Austrian Ambassador in Berlin. Rumour has extended this list. It has been asserted that the whole European position was surveyed in a sinister manner, and that the Kaiser said to the Archduke: ‘If we do not strike soon, the situation will get worse.’ It seems certain from what followed that he made no definite promise of German aid to Austria in any particular case.

  The visit ended, the Kaiser proceeded to his villa at Corfu and Franz Ferdinand to the army manœuvres which were to be held in Bosnia. The schedule of his movements had been widely announced. Not only would the Austrian troops be exercising in great strength in the province coveted by Serbia, but thereafter the Heir to the Throne would pay an official visit accompanied by his wife to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. He would enter it upon June 28. This was the anniversary of the fatal Serbian defeat in 1349 at Kosovo Polye, ‘the Field of Blackbirds.’ All this was read and brooded upon in Serbia. This visit was also to be for the Countess Chotek, or Dutchess of Hohenberg as she had now become, the most formal assertion of her growing aspirations to ceremonial recognition. She was to join her husband at Sarajevo, and the arrangements for her separate journey were set out in that full official detail reserved for the journeys of the Emperor himself. Well might Count Paar, as he perused the programme, exclaim scandalized, ‘What are we coming to?’ Well might the Emperor accelerate his departure from Vienna to Ischl, to avoid either accepting or repulsing such pretensions!

  The Ser
bian officers who had cut to pieces King Alexander and Queen Draga at Belgrade in 1903 had banded themselves together for mutual protection in a secret society called ‘The Black Hand.’ This deadly association nourished a fierce patriotism with the discipline of the early Jesuits and the methods of the Russian Nihilists. They were connected at many points with Serbian governing circles. It was even said that the Crown Prince Alexander, Pashitch the Prime Minister, and Putnik, the Commander-in-Chief, had at one time or another been with them; and their leader, Colonel Dimitriyevitch, was actually at this time the head of the Serbian Intelligence branch. Amid many obscurities there is little doubt that Dimitriyevitch organized the plot to murder the Archduke during his visit to Bosnia. A number of fanatical youths, most of them not yet twenty, were incited to go to Sarajevo. They were provided under his authority with bombs and Browning pistols which they were taught to use. They were given money for their journey and maintenance. They were given cyanide of potassium for suicide in the last resort. There seems no doubt from post-war revelations that Pashitch and several of his colleagues learned what was afoot. The Serbian Government at that time was at variance with the ‘Black Hand’ organization upon the administration of the newly-acquired Macedonian territory. It is said on their behalf that they sent orders to their frontier authorities to prevent the conspirators passing into Bosnia; but that these frontier authorities being themselves members of the Black Hand sped them on their way. It is also suggested that the Government endeavoured to warn Vienna that the Archduke would be in danger during his visit to Bosnia and Sarajevo. Indeed the Serbian Minister in Vienna, Yovanovitch, almost certainly made a vaguely-worded statement to one of Berchtold’s subordinates to this effect. So far as this was regarded at all, it was regarded as an impertinence. The Archduke was alive to the dangers of his visit, and he attempted without success to dissuade his wife from coming with him. As a Prince and a soldier, he himself felt bound to fulfil his engagements.

  In these circumstances it might have been expected that the most stringent police and military precautions would have been taken. Instead, the neglect and carelessness were such as to foster the insulting suspicion that the Archduke’s life was not much valued in the highest spheres of the Austro-Hungarian Government. At this point General Potiorek presents himself for closer examination. After Conrad he was the leading military personage in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Conrad himself when invited to become Chief of the Staff in 1908, had proposed Potiorek instead. A dapper, keen-looking soldier of almost monastic self-discipline, with a strong element of mysticism in his nature, and an intimate and carefully developed connection with the Emperor’s aged court, Potiorek stood on firm ground. He was at this moment as the military Governor of Bosnia responsible above all others for the safety of the Heir-Apparent during his visit to its capital. Whether maliciously or through sheer incompetence, he grossly neglected this duty. His subsequent military record favours the more charitable view. But of course he knew how strongly the Court disapproved of Royal honours being accorded to the Duchess Sophie. It was understood she was not to be unduly exalted. Few police were imported, no troops lined the streets, no reserve of gendarmerie was at hand. The arrangements invited disaster, and, such as they were, they were muddled in execution.

  On the afternoon of June 28 the Archduke and his wife entered Sarajevo. The murder had been carefully planned. At least seven assassins had taken their stations at various points upon the probable Royal route. Every one of the three bridges had its two or three murderers in waiting. The first attempt was made on the way to the Town Hall; but the bomb slid off the back of the motor-car and its explosion only wounded two officers of the suite. After the miscreant had been caught, the Archduke proceeded to the Town Hall and received in a mood of natural indignation the addresses of welcome. The police precautions had seemed to be lax, and the owner of the motor-car, Count Harrach, who sat beside the driver, accosted the Governor, Potiorek: ‘Has not Your Excellency arranged for a military guard to protect his Imperial Highness?’ to which the Governor replied impatiently, ‘Do you think Sarajevo is full of assassins, Count Harrach?’ The Archduke proposed to alter the return route and to visit the Hospital to which the wounded officers had been taken. When told that the bomb-thrower had been captured, he is said to have remarked, ‘Hang him as quickly as possible or Vienna will give him a decoration.’ A strangely bitter saying! Almost his last! Count Harrach wished to stand on the left footboard to protect the Archduke. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself,’ said Franz Ferdinand. The four cars moved out into the dense crowds in the original order, but at a faster pace. At the entrance to Franz Joseph Street the crowd, uncontrolled by the police, made a lane and by a fatal error the cars turned back to the original route, Governor Potiorek, who sat facing the Royal visitors, told the chauffeur that he had taken the wrong turning. The car slowed down and came close to the right-hand pavement. A young man fired two shots at three yards’ range. The Archduke continued to sit upright; his wife sank upon his breast. A few murmured words passed between them. For a few moments no one realized they had been shot. But the Archduke had been pierced through the artery of his neck and the Duchess through the abdomen. Both sank into unconsciousness and expired within a quarter of an hour. The assassin, a Serbian student named Princip, was seized by the crowd. He died in prison, and a monument erected in recent years by his fellow-countrymen records his infamy, and their own. Such was the tragedy of Sarajevo.

  In those days I was much concerned with the preparation of the Navy and with the creation of the Naval Air Force. I had spent the early hours of the morning at the Central Flying School at Upavon and motoring back to Portsmouth bought the newspapers at the ferry across the harbour. I remember I read the news while the car waited. I recall a sudden and vivid feeling that something sinister and measureless had occurred. I spent the afternoon in the dockyard where so many new ships were building and did not reach the Admiralty till late at night. Our Admiral telegraphed from Kiel that following the news of the murder the Kaiser had immediately quitted the scene and that the regatta and festivities were at an end. I reflected that it would be nice to get our great vessels back from the Baltic soon. They passed the Belts by June 30th.

  The crime of Sarajevo roused widespread fury throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its various races were united with their government in rage and hatred of Serbia. To judge their feelings we must imagine our own in a similar case. Suppose that Ireland had been a republic growing in power and hostility; that it was not an island, but lay with frontiers actually joining Wales and Scotland; that there was a vehement, active pan-Celtic scheme to unite Ireland, Scotland and Wales into a separate foreign combination against England; that the Prince of Wales had gone to Carnarvon on official duty, and that he had been murdered by a band of assassins organized and sent by an Irish secret society and armed with weapons supplied from the Dublin Arsenal! That would have been a not-unfair parallel to the situation now created in the Hapsburg dominions. For some days the anger of the peoples of Austria expressed itself in violent demonstrations against Serbia and attacks upon Serbian representatives and establishments. The British Consul-General at Buda-Pest reported that Hungarian feeling was even more incensed. ‘A wave of blind hatred for Serbia and everything Serbian is sweeping over the country.’ The Hungarian nation he thought ‘willing to go to any lengths to revenge itself on the despised and hated enemy.’

  The Emperor, though shocked at assassination in principle, and loathing Serbia, was decidedly resigned and even cool upon the personal aspects of the tragedy. His first remark to Count Paar on hearing the news reveals his distinctive point of view. ‘Horrible! The Almighty does not allow Himself to be challenged with impunity…. A higher Power has restored the old order, which I unfortunately was unable to uphold.’ This, then, was the punishment administered by Providence as guardian of the Hapsburg dynasty to an Heir-Apparent who had fallen into a morganatic marriage.

  The opportunity for which Conr
ad had waited so long and pleaded so often had now come. He demanded, as usual, immediate war upon Serbia. Mobilize at once and march in! Those who had restrained him in the past were gone. Aerenthal was dead; the Archduke was dead; and Conrad found in Count Berchtold not opposition, but agreement. Berchtold had already made up his mind. As Foreign Minister he was not, however, free to act alone under the Emperor. The constitution required that he should procure the agreement of the two Minister-Presidents of Austria and of Hungary. The Hungarian, Count Tisza, was an outstanding figure, a man of force and personality, clear-sighted, resolute, severe in speech, and with political influence far beyond the authority of his high office. On July 1 Berchtold told Count Tisza that he meant to make ‘the horrible deed at Sarajevo the occasion for a reckoning with Serbia.’ Tisza objected; he warned his colleague of the measureless consequences which might follow what he stigmatized as ‘a fatal mistake.’ He wrote to the Emperor the same day that Serbia’s guilt was not proved and that if the Serbian government were able to furnish satisfactory explanations the Empire would have exposed herself before the whole world as a disturber of the peace, besides having to begin a great war in the most unfavourable circumstances. He insisted upon an inquiry. He dwelt upon the unsatisfactory attitude of Roumania. He advocated a treaty of Alliance with Bulgaria as a vital precaution before a breach with Serbia. On the other side, Conrad and the generals clamoured incessantly for war.