The World Crisis

by Winston S. Churchill

  Apart from such visions Austria would surely have been wise at the outset to stand in the main upon the defensive. The streams and rivers running northward from the Carpathians offer a succession of positions well adapted to an obstinate delaying defence. But Conrad had set his heart upon an attack. He knew that the Russians must be hampered by the long distances through which many of their divisions must move. He hoped to attack and defeat them more or less piecemeal and, in any case, before their whole enormous strength was marshalled. In the elaborate calculations of the Austrian staff it was assumed that Russia would deploy against Austria about 31 divisions with 11 cavalry divisions by August 18, the twentieth day of mobilization, and that this would grow to 52 divisions by the thirtieth day, August 28. Against these, Austria could present 30½ divisions plus 10 cavalry divisions by the twentieth day, increasing to 38½ divisions by the thirtieth day. It seemed therefore to Conrad that Austria’s best chance was to come to grips as soon as possible, and that unless this were done the balance would turn heavily against her as the weeks passed.

  Very similar tales were told us at the time of the Agadir crisis in 1911 of the French plan of rupturing the German invasion by an offensive between the eleventh and thirteenth days of mobilization, when they expected to have a temporary superiority. All these calculations are so disturbed by unknown and unknowable factors that they ought not to be taken as more than a rough guide. Although general staffs present the results of their labours in simple and precise assertions, these are no sure foundations upon which to make intricate plans depending upon a few days or a few divisions one way or another. Both the French and the Austrian forecasts were gravely wrong not only as to the strength employed by their antagonists at the outset, but still more as to the arrangement and direction of the invading masses. The general staffs and those who speak for them are prone to emphasize the importance of forestalling the enemy in the beginning of great wars, and statesmen are at their mercy on such questions. Even Time, that precious talisman of war, may be bought too dearly if it leads to the wrong placing of the masses, to the erroneous training or organization of the troops, or to an untrue conception of the character of the war, or of the values and proportions of its physical and moral factors. It is with the greatest reserve that we thus throw doubts upon the sovereign virtues of celerity in striking the first blow. Nevertheless as the scale of the war rises in magnitude, celerity and forestallings at particular points and for particular brief periods seem to become less effective. After all, the supreme study is the general battle and everything should be subordinated to that. Both the French and Austrians would have fared better if they had allowed the invaders of 1914 to test for themselves the then unmeasured power of modern firearms. Both were nearly destroyed at the very beginning of the war by the precipitate offensives which they launched in complete misconception of the numbers and movements of their enemies and of the power of their own rifles, machine-guns and artillery.

  We must now turn from the camps of our enemies to those of our allies. The relations of the French and Russian Staffs authorized by long-proclaimed alliance had every year become more intimate. At the Conferences of 1911, 1912 and 1913 France had been represented successively by General Dubail, General de Castelnau and General Joffre. Since 1906 both Russia and France had been bound ‘on the first news of German mobilization to mobilize all their forces without previous discussion.’ Both parties believed that Germany would use her main force against France and only a minimum against Russia. Both agreed that their armies should take the offensive at the earliest moment, and that the destruction of the German Army was their first and chief objective. In 1913 General Joffre stated that France would concentrate 1,500,000 men by the tenth day of mobilization, and would begin operations on the eleventh. General Jilinsky declared that Russia would in 1914 be able to move against Germany by the thirteenth day with 800,000 men (apart of course from the forces deployed against Austria). The Russians hoped to be able to hold at least five or six German Army Corps in the East, and with this the Frenchmen appeared content.

  General Sukhomlinov had been since 1909 Russian Minister for War. His military career had been long and distinguished. He had fought at Plevna in 1877 and had risen steadily through all the grades of his profession both in commands and in the General Staff. He was a soldier of ability and self-restraint. At the outbreak of the Manchurian war when invited by Kuropatkin to become Chief of his Staff he refused, as he did not know the theatre well enough; but he offered to take a subordinate command. After the Manchurian war was over and after several years of futile attempts to reconstruct and reform the Russian Army by committees of Grand Dukes and other notables, Sukhomlinov was called in. In 1908, the Czar invited him to become Chief of the Russian General Staff, an appointment at that time equal in status and authority to the Minister of War. Sukhomlinov accepted only on the condition that he should be subordinate to the War Minister, as the dual authority was clearly an unsound system. The next year he became Minister of War. He was then sixty-one.

  For five years he had laboured to improve the Russian Army. He set before himself, according to his account, four main objectives: first, the reduction of the three weeks’ start which the German mobilization arrangements had over the Russian; secondly, the technical and scientific progress of the army; thirdly, the revival of its spirit after the defeats in Manchuria; and fourthly, the organization of the supplies and reinforcements of the army in war. He made recruiting truly territorial. He reduced the lavish fortress garrisons, out of which he formed an extra six divisions besides heavy artillery, balloon, and wireless units. He multiplied the number of machine guns, added 250,000 men to the annual quota of recruits, increased the number of officers and improved the food and clothing of the Russian soldier.

  General Sukhomlinov was, as is well known, removed from his post in May 1915, and arrested and tried in 1916 on charges of neglect in the war-preparations, of treacherous relations with the Germans and Austrians during the war, and of the acceptance of bribes. He was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Released during the revolution by Lenin in the general amnesty of Czarist prisoners, Sukhomlinov betook himself to Germany. He survives there to this day, and vindicates himself in able memoirs. He was certainly the scapegoat of disaster. There is no doubt that the Russian Army of 1914 was incomparably superior to that which had fought the Manchurian war. The whole military system had been reorganized; the extensive rearmament and equipment programmes prescribed in the agreement of 1911 with France had been carried out. Copious French loans—104 millions sterling in 1913 alone—had provided quantities of war material, and the five-year plan of strategic railways upon and to the western frontiers had already made substantial progress. Thus the mobilization of the whole armed strength of Russia and its assembly in the battle zone did not break down. The prodigious task was punctually accomplished.

  Such were the plans and compacts which underlay the civilization of Europe. All had been worked out to the minutest detail. They involved the marshalling for immediate battle of nearly twelve million men. For each of these there was a place reserved. For each there was a summons by name. The depots from which he would draw his uniform and weapons, the time-tables of the railways by which he would travel, the roads by which he would march, the proclamations which would inflame or inspire him, the food and munitions he would require, the hospitals which would receive his torn or shattered body—all were ready. Only his grave was lacking; but graves do not take long to dig. We know no spectacle in human history more instinct with pathos than that of these twelve million men, busy with the cares, hopes and joys of daily life, working in their fields or mills, or seated these summer evenings by their cottage doors with their wives and children about them, making their simple plans for thrift or festival, unconscious of the fate which now drew near, and which would exact from them their all. Only a signal is needed to transform these multitudes of peaceful peasants and workmen into the mighty hosts which will tea
r each other to pieces year after year with all the machinery of science, with all the passions of races, and all the loyalties of man.

  Yet it should not be supposed by future generations that much direct compulsion was required. Of all the millions who marched to war in August 1914, only a small proportion went unwillingly away. The thrill of excitement ran through the world, and the hearts of even the simplest masses lifted to the trumpet-call. A prodigious event had happened. The monotony of toil and of the daily round was suddenly broken. Everything was strange and new. War aroused the primordial instincts of races born of strife. Adventure beckoned to her children. A larger, nobler life seemed to be about to open upon the world. But it was, in fact, only Death.

  CHAPTER VII

  DECLARATIONS OF WAR

  Count Berchtold had ordered the ultimatum to be presented to Serbia at six o’clock in the evening of Thursday, July 23. Originally it had been five o’clock; but Berchtold delayed delivery for one hour in order to make sure that President Poincaré and the French Prime Minister, Viviani, should have actually left St. Petersburg on their journey home. The German Chancellor and Foreign Secretary did not see the text till the afternoon before. They were startled by its character; but nevertheless did not recall or alter the German circular note, already dispatched to guide their Ambassadors in London, Paris and St. Petersburg, declaring that the Austrian demands were ‘moderate and proper.’ The ultimatum required compliance by Serbia within forty-eight hours.

  Whole libraries have been written upon the next eight days and their chronicle is far beyond the limits of this book, which can but notice the salient points. The many sincere efforts made by statesmen and ambassadors to keep control of the situation, the desperate resistances of the Czar to war, the eleventh-hour repentance or awakening of the Kaiser, the paroxysms into which the Cabinets of the Parliamentary countries were thrown, the despairing agitations of the Socialists in every land, counted as nothing compared to the mechanical processes of mobilization and the outbursts of national fervour and excitement. The Austrian ultimatum had fired the train which led to a mine loaded by the vice and virtue of half-a-century. The flame ate remorselessly along the fuse.

  Europe was thrown at once into convulsions. In a dozen capitals the leading political, diplomatic, military and editorial personages felt themselves at once in the presence of danger. The rasping terms, the humiliating conditions, the parade of mortal hatred could have no other meaning than war. It did not seem possible that any state however small, however in jeopardy, could make the necessary abject acceptance. When on the Friday afternoon of July 24 the British Cabinet, assembled to discuss the Irish quarrel, then at a pitch, heard Sir Edward Grey read the text of Berchtold’s document, nearly every one felt that we had entered a new world. I remember that we had to go abruptly to the House of Commons to vote in a routine division. Behind the Speaker’s chair I met my great friend and political opponent Mr. F. E. Smith, afterwards Lord Birkenhead. We had been trying to reach some party reconciliation about Ireland, and he asked me anxiously whether I had any news to impart. I said: ‘None of this matters now. In a week all Europe will probably be at war.’

  After voting I went back to the Admiralty and reviewed the naval situation with Prince Louis of Battenberg, the First Sea Lord. There was very little to be done. At no moment in a hundred years was the Navy more conveniently disposed. It was, in fact, actually undergoing a test mobilization and assembled in its entirety for the review. Out of 525 war vessels under our direction, there were only five large ships in dockyard hands in any part of the globe. All the rest could proceed to their war-stations without a moment’s delay. However, on Saturday the reserve men who were required for the oldest and weakest ships would be going back to their homes, and on Monday the whole battle fleet assembled at Portland would separate for exercises, training ashore, or leave. Every hour or day of dispersal would require about the same time for reassembly. The First Fleet, comprising practically all our modern strength, was permanently upon a war footing. We decided that as everything was completely in our control within the time-bracket, we need not take any alarmist action. We could afford for forty-eight hours to go on with the dispersal of the Fleet as if nothing had happened. After all no one had the right to assume that because Austria wished to chastise Serbia, all the greatest nations and empires would go mad. They might; but they might not.

  Sunday morning, July 26, showed that Serbia had submitted. Her leaders understood only too well that argument or protest would be answered by cannon. But then during the day it was learnt that the Serbian obeisance was not acceptable to the Austro-Hungarian Government. There were, it appeared, some reservations. The Austrian Minister, Baron Giesl, had quitted Belgrade; and the invasion of Serbia by Austria was imminent. Serbia, under no illusions, had mobilized at the same time she bowed. By Sunday night excited crowds filled the streets of St. Petersburg, Vienna and Berlin. All the Sunday newspapers published evening editions in triple-leaded type. Reports that the German navy was mobilizing came in from many quarters, official and unofficial. We continued to allow the reservists to go to their homes; but we held the First Fleet together at Portland and kept all the Second Fleet ships lying alongside the quays where their balance crews lived and trained. Near midnight, after consultation with Sir Edward Grey, I published this fact in the newspapers. This exceptional procedure was intended by the Foreign Office to intimate to all who might be concerned that the British Empire was not detached from the European situation.1

  Difficulties had been expected in obtaining the Emperor’s signature to the Declaration of War against Serbia. When Margutti handed the necessary document to Count Paar, the Count remarked: ‘This may be all right, but all I can say is that men of eighty-four years of age don’t sign war proclamations.’ Count Berchtold had therefore fortified himself by laying before his master at the same time a report that the Serbians had already fired upon Austrian troop steamers on the Danube and that hostilities had in fact begun. The text submitted to Francis Joseph ended with the words ‘the more so as Serbian troops have already attacked a detachment of Imperial and Royal troops at Temes-Kubin.’ This was not true; and Berchtold, after the Emperor had signed the Declaration, erased the sentence, explaining the next day that the report was unconfirmed. But he did not give the Emperor any chance to review the decision. His policy was perfectly clear. He meant at all costs by hook or by crook to declare war on Serbia. In the whole world that was the only thing that counted with him. That was what Germany had urged. That he must have; and that he got. But he got much more too.

  The Serbian reply had been handed to Giesl in Belgrade at 6 p.m. on Saturday, the 25th. Its submissive character was known all over the world on Sunday morning. Its actual text was not officially telegraphed. It reached London, Paris and Berlin by post early on Monday, the 27th. The Serbian Minister in Berlin gave it to the German Foreign Office in the morning, and about noon it was handed to Herr von Jagow. All this is certain. The Kaiser had returned to Germany from his cruise in the Norwegian fjords on the night of the 26th in a very warlike mood. The intemperate minutes which he had scribbled upon the telegrams received at sea convict him of this. At three o’clock in the afternoon on the 27th he held a conference of his executive officers of state and war. The Chancellor was there and the Chiefs of Staff. Jagow was there; but he had not brought the Serbian reply with him. The Emperor was told verbally that ‘it agreed on nearly all the points including the punishment of the officers.’ He was not told in such a way as to make any decided impression upon him in the general stress. The conference concerned itself with military measures and precautions and separated in a spirit of resolve to ‘fight the business through, cost what it may.’ [die Sache, koste es was es wolle, durchzufechten.]14 This at least was the information conveyed to Falkenhayn, not himself present at the meeting. Jagow returned to Berlin and during the evening received M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador, who asked him about the Serbian answer. He said that he ‘had n
ot yet had time’ to read it. Nearly forty-eight hours had already passed since it had been rendered in Belgrade.

  During the evening of the 27th the Wilhelmstrasse completed their arduous task of making a fair copy of the document for the Kaiser. This was sent off by special messenger at 9.30 p.m. to the palace at Potsdam, 18 miles away. Incredible as it may seem, the Kaiser, as we are assured on all hands, did not read it until late in the morning of the 28th. When he did so, he was staggered. In fact, he was completely capsized. Already since his return he was beginning to be uneasy at the attitude of England. He was relieved and delighted at the Serbian submission. He wrote in the margin of the despatch: ‘A brilliant performance for a time limit of only forty-eight hours. This is more than one could have expected! A great moral victory for Vienna; but with it every reason for war is removed and Giesl ought to have remained quietly in Belgrade. On the strength of this I should never have ordered mobilization.’15