Shortly before noon on July 31 the news of the Russian general mobilization reached Berlin. At 3.30 p.m. an ultimatum was sent to Russia declaring that if Russia did not ‘within twelve hours cease every war measure against us and Austria-Hungary and make to us a definite declaration to that effect,’ the German mobilization would be ordered. This summons was delivered at midnight on July 31. At 6 p.m. August 1 Germany declared war on Russia. It is strange to reflect that on this very day Sir Edward Grey had at last reached a complete agreement with the German Foreign Office upon a form of direct negotiation between Austria and Russia. The cause of quarrel had disappeared on paper at the same time as the fighting all over Europe began.
The British preparations kept pace with these grave developments. At the Cabinet on the morning of the 30th, moved by Captain Hankey,4 the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, I asked and obtained sanction for the putting into force of the ‘precautionary period’; which the War Office ordered at 2.10 p.m. At the same time as this was done I authorized the Admiralty to send the ‘Warning telegram’ to the fleets. This last had become only a formality. Apart from the recall of the reservists of the Third Fleet ships, all our naval arrangements so far as we could foresee them were complete.
The war of Austria upon Serbia about the murder of the Archduke and other grievances had begun. The second war of far graver character had broken out between Germany and Russia about the mobilization of the Russian armies against Austria. The Eastern Front was aflame. But now the third and greatest spread of the conflagration must follow. The German General Staff had no fears about Russia at the outset. They could easily have waited for two or three days before taking any measure against her. All their thoughts were turned on France. Since the war had come, they must attack France without delay. The six brigades straining at the leash beyond the frontier must violate Belgian neutrality and seize Liége from the second day of mobilization. Not a moment could be lost. Accordingly Germany on July 31 informed France of her ultimatum to Russia and asked the French Government to declare within eighteen hours whether it intended to remain neutral in a Russo-German war. Belgium was also invited to afford clear passage to the German armies about to invade France. There was of course no quarrel between Germany and France, and a treaty of guarantee between Germany and Belgium. These difficulties had to be surmounted promptly. The German Ambassador in Paris was therefore instructed, if contrary to expectation France should declare an intention of remaining neutral, to ‘demand the surrender of the fortresses of Toul and Verdun as a pledge of neutrality.’ This demand—like asking Great Britain to hand over Portsmouth and Dover—was intended to make sure that there could be no backing out by France. Any such improper behaviour on her part would have been most embarrassing to Germany, whose armies had already started. The French Prime Minister, M. Viviani, however, replied forthwith, according to the formula agreed upon in his Cabinet, that ‘France would act according to her interests.’ ‘You have a treaty of alliance with Russia, have you not?’ ‘Parfaitement’ [quite so], replied Viviani. Nothing could be more correct and debonair, and the German Ambassador was thus relieved from delivering the second and contingent part of his message about Toul and Verdun. Monsieur Viviani escorted his visitor to his car. Nothing more of significance passed between the two countries. Germany declared war on France at 6.45 p.m. on August 3; and the next morning the German vanguards broke into the Duchy of Luxembourg, in contravention of the various treaties which protected it, on their way to march across Belgium to the invasion of France. The Belgian king and people, threatened with instant assault, appealed for aid to Great Britain and France as joint guarantors with Germany of her neutrality.
When these events became apparent to the British Cabinet and Parliament during August 2 and 3, an ultimatum was sent to Germany forbidding her to violate the Belgian frontiers, and requiring her to withdraw at once any troops who might have done so. Answer was required by midnight on the 4th. The answer was a refusal and the continued march of the German armies. At midnight therefore by German time on August 4 Great Britain, in full unity with all the Dominions and dependencies of the British Empire, declared war upon Germany.
It is impossible to recount these events in the light of all we know without once again trying to apportion responsibility. We have described the slow half-conscious growth of European antagonisms in the quarter-century before the catastrophe. We have seen how the mine was slowly loaded. We are now concerned with the guilt of firing it. After all, it need never have been fired. A war postponed may be a war prevented. The combinations of States vary as years pass. The Ententes or Alliances of one decade may have lost their savour in the next. Time and peace solve many problems, and men’s thoughts move on to new spheres. Terrible before the history of a thousand years is the burden of those who let this blast of misery and devastation loose upon the thoughtless world.
We must not allow ourselves to be baffled by the immense volume of knowledge now accessible upon the immediate coming of the war. Everything has been laid bare. The Gooch-Temperley official documents reveal the whole conduct of Great Britain. Even the German writer Ludwig affirms that there is no substantial discrepancy between these full post-war disclosures and the voluminous Blue Book published within a few months of the beginning of the struggle. The archives of the German, Austrian and Russian Empires have been ruthlessly exposed by revolutionary Governments, each anxious to condemn the old regime or at the least unconcerned to protect it. Not only dispatches and telegrams, but office memoranda, the records of informal conversations between diplomatists or military men, the marginal scribblings of the Kaiser, all are now in world-open print. There is no lack of material. Indeed, it is its plethora that obstructs judgment.
To read many modern writers one would suppose that the war came by itself, and that no person in authority ever thought of such a wicked thing. Berchtold did this and Conrad that, and Jagow was on his honeymoon, and Tschirschky was snubbed by the Kaiser, and Bethmann-Hollweg did not understand the situation, and the Russians got excited and Moltke alarmed, and then all of a sudden all the greatest nations in the world fell upon each other with fire and sword. It was a case of spontaneous combustion. The theory that it all happened by itself, that Germany carelessly gave Austria a blank cheque to correct Serbia, that Russia was indignant at the spectacle, that Germany was alarmed because Russia mobilized, that France and England did not tell Russia she must give in, that England did not tell Germany in time that she would fight, that all Berchtold wanted was his little private war with Serbia, that all Germany wanted was not to be forced to desert her ally, that all the Kaiser wanted was a diplomatic triumph—all these cases find ample documentary support. Still certain stark facts which no elaboration can veil stand forth for all time.
Berchtold and his circle meant to use armed violence upon Serbia. The Kaiser encouraged and urged them to do so. Both parties knew that such an event must arouse not only the Czar and his government, but the Russian nation. Both decided to accept this risk and whatever else it might entail. The Kaiser, having given Berchtold and Vienna a free hand, deliberately absented himself until the ultimatum to Serbia had been dispatched. The German Chancellor and Foreign Secretary instructed their Ambassadors to declare that Germany considered the ultimatum right and proper, before they had even seen its terms. When the Serbians returned a soft answer, Jagow and others delayed the presentation of this document to the Kaiser until it was too late for him to prevent Austria declaring war upon Serbia. Berchtold issued his declaration of war with precipitate haste and obtained its signature from the Emperor Francis Joseph, partly under false pretences. Every request for delay was refused by Vienna. Every proposal, whether for conference of the Powers or direct negotiations between Austria and Russia, was refused or resisted until too late. At St. Petersburg the Russian Government, Court and military men extracted first a partial and then a complete mobilization decree from the reluctant Czar. Germany fastened upon Russia a deadly quarrel abou
t her mobilization. Germany sent an ultimatum to Russia requiring her to cancel it within twelve hours. At this moment the German mobilization, although not officially proclaimed, was already in progress. Germany declared war upon Russia. Germany summoned France to repudiate the terms of the Franco-Russian Alliance and hand over to German keeping her key fortresses as gages of faithful neutrality. Germany declared war upon France. Germany violated the treaty protecting the Duchy of Luxembourg. Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium. When Belgium resisted, Germany declared war upon Belgium, and marched across Belgium to the invasion of France. It was not till then that Great Britain declared war upon Germany, and we are still disinclined to say that she was wrong.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MOBILIZATION INTERVAL
The mobilization of all the armies proceeded apace. The peoples of Europe were smoothly and swiftly drawn into the cogwheels of a long-prepared, all-powerful and intricate machinery of whose existence they had hitherto been only vaguely aware. The patiently elaborated plans of all the general staffs for the various wars that might have to be fought had been put into operation by a few simple decisions, and by every road and railway more than twelve million men were moving towards the battlefields. Censorship and secrecy cast their palls over the scene, and a strange hush descended upon Europe. The silence was broken only by the crackling of the German advance guards breaking into Belgium, and by the Austrian invasion of Serbia. These two small countries at the opposite ends of the battle fronts were the first to feel the edge of the Teutonic swords. In each case compelling motives actuated the invaders. The capture of Liége and the opening of the four lines of railway which passed through it were indispensable to the deployment of the German right wing. The rapid overrunning and subjugation of Serbia was no less urgent for Austria. If this could be accomplished in a three-weeks’ campaign, as was generally believed, the bulk of the troops used against Serbia would be in time for the later phases of the opening battles with Russia. But a speedy, decisive victory over Serbia promised other consequences even more important.
Germany had good hopes when the crisis began of gaining other adherents. The Triple Alliance included Italy, and a military convention was based on this fact. She was a party to Austria’s secret treaty of alliance with Roumania. She had a close understanding with Bulgaria cemented by an identity of animosities against Serbia. She had considerable expectations of Greece, arising from the connection of the Royal Families. Lastly, on August 2 she had contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with Turkey. Thus the whole of south-east Europe was by presumption vowed or inclined to the Teutonic cause. Over all these confident expectations the apparition of the British Empire as the ally of France and Russia had thrown a paralyzing chill. Italy had been the first to fall away. By a secret condition in the original treaty of the Triple Alliance Italy had stipulated that she should not be obliged in any circumstances to go to war with England. The Austrian designs upon Serbia prejudiced Italian interests, and immediate claims for compensation in the Trentino were advanced. The historic feud and clash of interests between Italy and Austria came plainly into view. The position of the Italian army in Libya, and indeed the life of Italy itself, would be jeopardized in a war in which the command of the Mediterranean was lost or seriously endangered. On July 31 Italy, deaf to all appeals from Berlin and Vienna, explained that as Austria was the initial aggressor against Serbia, the casus foederis did not arise, and declared that she would remain neutral. The decision of Italy affected profoundly the attitude of Roumania. King Carol, with his pro-German sympathies, pleaded the text of the secret treaty in vain. Opinion in Bucharest had been estranged by the terms of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, nor could Roumania contemplate without alarm an increase of Bulgarian territory at Serbia’s expense. Although as late as August 9 the Roumanian Chief of the Staff inquired from Conrad at what points it would be convenient for the Roumanian army to concentrate, the decision to remain neutral had already been taken. King Carol, overruled by statesmen of all parties, among whom Mr. Take Jonescu, always a sincere friend of England, played a prominent part, bowed in grief to the inevitable. Greece could not dissociate herself from Great Britain or from British sea-power. The Young Turks, whose plans for a war with Russia and conquests in the Caucasus were completed, found their hopes of gaining the command of the Black Sea destroyed by the impounding of the new-built Turkish battleship about to sail from the Tyne. Turkey was also affected by the sudden unexpected problems which a war with Great Britain would bring upon her. Bulgaria alone was found willing, under important reservations, to promise to march with the Central Powers when an opportune moment arrived; but the danger of offending Roumania made the Central Empires hesitate to avail themselves of this aid. Thus the whole combination which a generation of German diplomacy had been building dissolved in a vapour of hesitations and polite disclaimers. The action of Great Britain also determined the attitude of her small but ancient ally, Portugal; and at the other side of the globe the empire of Japan, although the Anglo-Japanese alliance was not invoked, prepared herself to extirpate German influence in the Far East. Certainly the long-gathered associations and slowly woven ties which the influence of the British Empire had established were impressively effective.
All the more important was it for Austria to clarify the Balkan situation by a speedy conquest and elimination of Serbia. The defeat of Serbia and her collapse might be the signal which several at least of the neutral States seemed to await before answering to the long-drawn and several times repeated trumpet-call.
Conrad had already taken his first military decision. It was a capital error and its consequences were inexorable. The Austrian plans, like those of other countries, had been drawn for various contingencies. Plan B, ‘Balkan,’ the smaller and more probable, was for war against Serbia and Montenegro while Russia remained neutral. In B, three out of six Austro-Hungarian armies were to invade Serbia, the Fifth and Sixth from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Second across the Save and Danube, while the other three armies took up precautionary defensive positions against possible Russian hostility in Galicia. Plan R, ‘Russia,’ on the other hand, contemplated a war with Serbia and Russia simultaneously. In this case only the Fifth and Sixth armies, much weaker than the others and amounting to twelve divisions, were to invade Serbia from the west, while the Second Army was to join the main Austrian concentration in Galicia. Which to choose? On July 25, when Austria ordered mobilization, Conrad had chosen Plan B, ‘Balkan.’
The origins of this surprising decision are found in the conversations and councils which have already been described at which the chastisement of Serbia was resolved. The German blank cheque had arrived; it must be filled in at once and cashed, lest it should be stopped. To act promptly and with enormous force against Serbia was what the Germans had invited. It offered a chance of a rapid sudden success and a campaign over before Europe had recovered from her shock, and while diplomacy might still be endeavouring only to limit the conflict. This idea of an immediate decisive striking down and punishment of Serbia in a private war while the rest of the world was talking or keeping the ring had taken possession of Berchtold and his colleagues, and Conrad viewed the problem through their eyes. His own account is revealing.
‘The diplomatic activities took as their goal only a war against Serbia, consequently mobilization and assembly for this must ensue. To break this off or to diminish the strength employed on account of the possibility of Russia’s intervention was not feasible. It might well be—and diplomacy counted on it—that the action against Serbia would be completed without an interruption by other Powers. This was the more likely to occur if a rapid thorough success against Serbia forestalled the intervention of other Powers. It followed that strong forces should be directed against Serbia from the outset; that is, that the complete mobilization “B” and the assembly against Serbia involved in it should be ordered.
‘This necessity was imposed upon us by the diplomatic action.’
&
nbsp; He proceeds:
‘Meanwhile there was the danger that Russia would seize Austria’s upraised arm, might threaten war or even actually resort to it. From a military point of view therefore the most desirable thing would have been to take the initiative against this danger and to treat the war against Serbia as a side-show. But to do this on the strength merely of the possibility of Russian intervention was out of the question, since if Austria acted thus the obligation on the part of her allies to co-operate would lapse. Moreover, Austria would thereby incur the grave charge of letting loose a world war, whereas the war against Serbia was merely a brutally imposed action of self-defence.
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