Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  The warning signs being transmitted to London about the potential for conflict became louder and more urgent as the days passed. However, they did not register strongly, partly because of the assumption that any continental conflict stemming from Austria punishing Serbia could not involve Britain. London, like other European capitals, had no doubt about the combustible relations between Austria and Serbia, but a week after the murders was making no effort to argue for calm. The delay, inevitably of hours and sometimes of days, between the dispatch of telegrams and their arrival at their destination would make managing the crisis all the more difficult as it unfolded, with the subject matter of some wires virtually ancient history by the time they were read – especially later in July, as the threat of mobilisations was raised.

  British failure to comprehend the consequences of Sarajevo was partly because of the government’s continuing preoccupation with Ireland. Both sides in the dispute over Home Rule – the mostly Protestant Unionist minority, concentrated in the north-east of the island, who had bitterly resisted it, and the mostly Roman Catholic Nationalist majority, who wanted it – were squaring up for a civil war, illegally armed largely by German weapons manufacturers. Asquith’s administration was in power solely because of support from Irish Nationalist MPs in the House of Commons, the most recent election – in December 1910 – having left the Liberal Party without an overall majority. The price the Irish exacted for that support was Home Rule; and the Liberals had obliged, even to the extent of forcing through a Parliament Act in 1911 that removed the right of veto from the House of Lords once a Bill had passed three times through the House of Commons. The Home Rule Bill had done just that, and the Unionist minority was determined, by use of force and insurrection if necessary, to prevent its being implemented. A further distraction in Britain was the death, after years of debilitation, of Joe Chamberlain, the great Liberal Unionist statesman who had split the Liberal Party over Home Rule in the 1880s and then sought to do something similar to the Unionists over free trade; his memory was feted around the globe. As a mark of respect to him the Commons adjourned for the day on the afternoon of 6 July, oblivious to the growing turmoil in central Europe.

  The French, similarly, had their own concerns, and were slow to appreciate the ramifications of Austrian anger at the assassination; on Wednesday 15 July the country’s president, Raymond Poincaré, and his prime minister, René Viviani, departed from Dunkirk on a battleship from St Petersburg via the Baltic, for a three-day state visit from 20 July. They did not know that by the time they arrived there would be a mounting diplomatic crisis in which their great ally, and therefore they, would become deeply bound up. Indeed, the three days of summitry in St Petersburg would be dominated by discussion of the possibilities stemming from Sarajevo. But even Poincaré had his diversions; he was most concerned with the impending trial of Henriette Caillaux, wife of Joseph Caillaux, prime minister of France for seven months in 1911–12. Mme Caillaux had the previous March shot dead Gaston Calmette, the editor of Le Figaro, who she believed was about to publish highly damaging private letters about her husband. Poincaré was deeply implicated, for Caillaux claimed to have evidence of wrongdoing against him by the president, which he threatened to publish unless Poincaré used his influence to secure Mme Caillaux’s acquittal. She would be acquitted on 28 July. In Paris, the talk was of little else, just as in London it was mainly about Ireland.

  Around Europe, the attention of most of the great powers was considerably more focused on the consequences of Sarajevo than it was in London, or indeed in Paris. When de Bunsen wrote on 2 July – received in London on the 6th – that the Viennese press was whipping up anti-Serbian feeling, he commented that Serbia was ‘held responsible for having assisted to create the atmosphere in which the hideous crime of Sarajevo was hatched.’19 He believed it was ‘not unlikely’ that ‘great tension’ would ensue between Austria–Hungary and Serbia. As he wrote, the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were put under martial law.

  Yet beneath Austrian outrage at the assassinations there was the realisation that an opportunity had been created for them: the excuse they had sought since 1908 to bring Serbia to heel had now arisen. The dilemma their German allies had about this was of little concern to them, in the heat of their anger, any more than Austria itself had any idea what it would do with Serbia once, as expected, it had crushed the country in a short and violent war. (Indeed, Austria would soon rebuke its Hungarian brothers for suggesting an annexation and partition of Serbia.) The Germans, for their part, were well aware of the questionable reliability of their Austrian allies. Kurt Riezler, an adviser to Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the German Chancellor, noted that ‘it’s our old dilemma with every Austrian action in the Balkans. If we encourage them, they will say we pushed them into it. If we counsel against it, they will say we left them in the lurch. Then they will approach the western powers, whose arms are open, and we lose our last reasonable ally.’20 Since 1907, and the Triple Entente between Britain, France and Russia, Germany had complained of encirclement; it was deeply fearful of isolation, which might result if Austria reached an understanding with France or Britain, so had to stand by its side during the crisis. Unhelpfully when it came to calming Austria down, the German ambassador to Vienna, Heinrich von Tschirschky, had told Berlin that a conciliatory policy by Austria to Serbia was pointless, a view not, at that stage, held by the Kaiser: nor by most Austrians.

  The Germans were additionally rattled by a round of Anglo-Russian talks about naval matters in June 1914, which increased the paranoia of many in Berlin that the entente powers were plotting to carve Germany up. The Triple Entente was not on Britain’s part a military alliance; and German foreign policy had been predicated on the belief that whatever the Russians and French might do, the British would not fight a war against Germany. As will be seen, Grey stuck to that view himself until Belgium was violated, thereby establishing a separate casus belli on which, as he and most of his colleagues saw it, Britain had to act.

  Russia, the most internally unstable of the powers, also had immediate concerns that stemmed from existing considerations. Elements there wanted what a military journal had, at New Year 1914, termed ‘the war of extermination against the Germans’, for which it claimed Russia was arming itself.21 Articles on this theme had continued to appear in the Russian press before Sarajevo, urging the country’s French military allies to be ready. Germany was naturally rattled by such talk, particularly as, along with its Austrian allies, it was outnumbered by the Russians, and the Russian mobilisation procedures had been streamlined thanks to improved rail communications. Crucially, Russian rhetoric – designed to shore up the unsteady position of the Tsar – was beginning to persuade non-militant Germans that there was, after all, a considerable threat from the east that had to be taken seriously. Austria, too, had cause to fear Russia. For different reasons, both Russia and France had instinctive sympathy for the Serbs. To the Russians, they were fellow Slavs who had endured years of provocation from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. France was highly sympathetic to Serbia, aside from its alliance with Russia – the alliance of which Britain was also a part.

  Although Grey, in London, failed at once to alert his cabinet colleagues or Parliament to these dangers, some of his officials, whether in London or abroad, did grasp the threat; though several of them, with long-standing mistrust of a Germany that had since 1870–71 been viewed as the Continent’s main hegemonic power, did so all the more readily because of prejudice against it. British policy also took insufficiently into account the deep mutual suspicion between France and Germany – a Germany that had, since 1871, incorporated and tried to ‘Germanify’ the two French regions of Alsace and Lorraine. This not only made highly combustible any European question in which the two countries could engineer an interest; it also meant that any disagreement had the potential to go out of control very quickly, and that any estimate of the situation made by British diplomats was likely instinctively to weigh against Germ
any. The ruling belief in the Foreign Office was that France was a bulwark between Britain and Germany, and if relations deteriorated between the two continental powers there would be overwhelming pressure to shore up France – despite the non-military nature of the entente.

  With events in Europe moving as fast as they were, Britain was slow to appreciate these threats to regional stability. Yet if certain aspects of the Anglo-French relationship were clear, the Anglo-Russian one retained elements of ambiguity. Edward VII had been instrumental not just in the entente cordiale, but in including Russia in 1907. Yet ministers knew that British public opinion widely reviled the Tsar as an autocrat, an oppressor and a tyrant; no reliance could be placed on widespread support for a war in which Britain and he were on the same side. Also, the idea of involvement in a continental war was one the British had resisted since Castlereagh’s time, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars: what mattered to Britain in the European context was the neutrality of the Low Countries, and freedom of the seas.

  On 6 July de Bunsen telegraphed Grey to warn him that his Serb colleague in Vienna thought there was about to be systematic repression of Serbs in Austria–Hungary, and an attack on Serbia itself. Grey had already learned something similar from Prince Lichnowsky, the cultivated and popular German ambassador, who had called on him to express his government’s satisfaction at recent naval cooperation between Britain and Germany. Lichnowsky told Grey that he ‘knew for a fact’ the Austrians would act: a key piece of information that ought to have shifted British perceptions of the urgency of the problem. Grey expressed shock that they might be about to seize Serb territory.22 Austria was Germany’s principal ally: both Grey and Lichnowsky knew that Berlin had great influence over Vienna but Grey struggled to grasp that where Vienna was determined to move, Berlin had at least to support and understand, and perhaps even follow. What no one in the Foreign Office knew then was that on 5 July Germany had given Austria–Hungary what Germans called ‘carte blanche’, but what the English called a ‘blank cheque’, to deal with its enemies as it saw fit; there would, therefore, be little point in calling on Germany to demand its ally exercised restraint. Also, there were some in Austria who had been waiting for an opportunity to remove Russian influence from the Balkans and to replace it with their own: this could be it.

  Lichnowsky discounted an occupation of part of Serbia, saying the Austrians had no use for such territory: but acquainted Grey with German disquiet, which should have served as a further warning to him and to the British government. First, he asked Grey to understand Germany’s predicament: that if it urged restraint on Austria at a time of national outrage, it ‘would be accused of always holding them back and not supporting them’; whereas if it ‘let events take their course there was the possibility of very serious trouble.’23 This dilemma caused ‘anxiety and pessimism’ in Berlin, the chief pessimist being the Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg; though it is not clear whether at that stage the Chancellor thought Britain might be part of that trouble. Lichnowsky pleaded with Grey that if Austria did attack Serbia, Britain might seek ‘to mitigate feeling in Berlin,’ that is to seek to persuade Berlin not to give too much encouragement to its ally: Lichnowsky dreaded the idea of Germany going to war. The dominoes were being lined up.

  Lichnowsky disclosed that Berlin was convinced that Russia, which had recently greatly increased its military strength, had a ‘very unfavourable’ feeling towards Germany: this is the first hint Grey had that Germany feared an attack by Russia if it sided with Austria against Serbia, a Russian ally. Grey had previously given Lichnowsky assurances that no secret naval pact existed between Britain and Russia, nor a secret deal behind the Triple Entente between Britain, Russia and France – though there had been conversations with France since 1906 about military cooperation if either party were attacked: he reiterated them. A naval pact would, Lichnowsky said during their meeting, ‘impair good feeling between England and Germany generally.’ It had been the main aim of Lichnowsky’s embassy to improve Anglo-German relations, and he appeared thus far to have succeeded. After this conversation Grey should have understood the possibilities of all the great European powers being embroiled in a conflict, and how the Germans felt it was Britain’s responsibility to keep Russia calm. However, a lack of calm in Germany was as much of a problem: Lichnowsky said Austria and Serbia would come to blows at some point, and better to get the matter over and done with.

  Britain’s view of this was markedly different. After talking to Grey, Lichnowsky reported back to Berlin that Britain had no intention of leaving the Triple Entente, ‘for she must preserve the balance of power and could not see France annihilated’. Then came the paradox, for Grey had also told Lichnowsky that ‘we did not wish to see the groups of power drawn apart’: Grey was anxious not just for Britain to maintain good relations with all the main powers in Europe, but also for those powers to have a serene relationship with each other. The diplomacy of ensuing days would represent an attempt to achieve what, in the light of events and reactions to them, would become this impossibility. Grey promised to use ‘all the influence I could’ to restrain Russia if Austria attacked Serbia ‘and if clouds arose to prevent the storm from breaking.’ His conversation with Lichnowsky – which he reported to Rumbold in Berlin at once – was valuable and informative.

  Grey’s apparent complacency in the face of the warning that the assassinations might have wider repercussions, however, may have been affected by the developing views of his permanent secretary. Nicolson, so initially alert to the potential for crisis, told de Bunsen on 6 July that he trusted ‘the crime at Serajevo [sic] … will have no serious consequences, in any case outside of Austria–Hungary’.24 Nicolson had been soothed by some of the Viennese press taking a more moderate line about making Serbia responsible for the crime of ‘certain revolutionaries’. Sadly, the ‘reasonable journals’ in which this opinion appeared had little influence over the Austrian government or people. De Bunsen’s next dispatch to Grey, describing the obsequies of Franz Ferdinand and his unfortunate wife, struck a rather different note, detailing the high level of police protection around the house of the Serb minister, protecting him from the mob. He said ‘the entire Serb race’ was a target, and special precautions were being taken to prevent the mob getting anywhere near the Russian embassy, in case of gratuitous provocation.25 Extracts from Serbian newspapers commenting on the murders, reprinted in Viennese ones, ‘unfortunately contain some expressions amounting almost to condonation, and even approval of the dastardly outrage.’

  On 8 July Grey was sufficiently concerned by what his ambassador was reporting to him about the strengthening of Austrian feeling that he spoke ‘quite unofficially’ to Count Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador to London and the man most responsible for the Triple Entente, about the Austrian government’s being driven by public opinion to attack Serbia.26 Benckendorff expected Germany to restrain Austria; Grey told him of the tensions in Berlin about that, and the concern that Russia was planning an assault on Germany – a possibility Benckendorff repudiated. He could, however, understand a German cast of mind in which it would be argued that Germany should fight Russia now, before its military power increased, hoping to put Russia in its place; a view he refused to believe either the Kaiser or his ministers shared. Grey told him the Russians ‘should do all in their power to reassure Germany, and convince her that no coup was being prepared against her.’ Benckendorff agreed, and promised to write at once to Sasonov, the Russian foreign minister.

  The next day Grey received a dispatch from de Bunsen that confirmed his fears. Sentiment was hardening in Vienna, from the top to the bottom of society. The French ambassador to Austria, Dumaine, had, de Bunsen said, ‘repeatedly spoken to me during the past week of the dangers of the situation, which he fears may develop rapidly into complications from which war might easily arise.’27 On 9 July Grey talked further with Lichnowsky, and told Rumbold that ‘I would do my utmost to prevent the outbreak of war between the Great Powers.
’28 Grey accepted that Austria might retaliate against Serbia, but Lichnowsky hoped Berlin had succeeded in counselling restraint. Grey’s fear was that Austria would react so strongly that St Petersburg would feel forced to send an ultimatum to Vienna because of outraged Slav feelings in Russia. In Vienna, the government debated how to respond to the assassination, and took its time: meanwhile, as The Times reported on 11 July by way of pointing out a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, ‘the Vienna bourse has been during the last few days about as bad as could be.’29

  Rumbold, on 11 July, confirmed to Grey Lichnowsky’s view of caution in Berlin and a reluctance to see matters worsen; and Austria said it would stay its hand pending investigations in Sarajevo. An interlude of what appeared in the Foreign Office to be relative calm occurred. It was a delusion, as in Vienna particularly the mood was hardening. On 16 July de Bunsen telegraphed Grey: ‘I gather that situation is regarded at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a serious light and that a kind of indictment is being prepared against the Servian government for alleged complicity in the conspiracy which led to assassination of the Archduke.’30 He said Serbia would be told to clamp down on ‘nationalist and anarchist propaganda’. The Austro-Hungarian government was ‘in no mood to parley’ with Belgrade, and failure to comply with the ultimatum it proposed to send would be met with force. Vienna had no intention of sending an ultimatum just yet: Poincaré and Viviani were still in St Petersburg: the ultimatum would not be released until the French were sailing for home and could not consult easily with the Russians. It should now have been absolutely clear to Grey that Austria was prepared – in the interests of retaining its status as a great power – to use force, and all that would entail. What ought to have been more worrying still, de Bunsen reported that Germany was ‘in complete agreement’ with this proposal.31