Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War.

by Gerry Docherty

  By one means or another, the lower edges of the web of culpability were blown away. The Young Bosnians had in their naivety been willing sacrifices to a cause they never knew existed. Hartwig was dead. Murdered? Probably, but all that really mattered was that his voice would never be heard again. Our understanding of his role in managing the Russian intrigues has to remain, at best, incomplete. There was plenty to hide and no doubt at all about Russian complicity.37 The Soviet collection of diplomatic papers from the year 1914 revealed an astonishing gap. During the first days of the October Revolution in 1917, Hartwig’s dispatches from Belgrade for the crucial period between May and July 1914 had been removed by an unknown person from the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Three years dead and his was a voice they still had to gag.38 Finally, Apis and his Black Hand associates were removed from any future inquiry or the temptation of a lucrative memoir. Blown away, all of them, in the expectation that the truth about their contributions would disappear in the confusion of war.

  SUMMARY: CHAPTER 20 – SARAJEVO – THE WEB OF CULPABILITY

  The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was orchestrated through a chain of culpability that stretched from Sarajevo to Belgrade, Belgrade to St Petersburg and then on to Paris and London.

  The Russians Hartwig and Artamanov liaised with the Serbian nationalist Dimitrijevic (Apis) and the Black Hand organisation to underwrite and plan the assassination.

  The Young Bosnians, a much more idealistic and intellectual group, became the agents through whom Apis planned the assassination.

  The assassination was almost called off at the last moment by Apis when an internal political power struggle in Serbia broke out between him and Prime Minister Pasic, but the Russians, through Hartwig, quashed the attempted coup.

  Protection for the archduke on the day of the assassination was so negligible as to make it incomprehensible to today’s reader.

  The assassins’ attempts to commit suicide failed because the cyanide did not work. Serbian complicity was easily proven but steps were taken to remove any evidence that might link the organisation to Russia or even further back.

  The Austrians had broken the Serbian diplomatic codes and captured documents that detailed anti-Austrian activities. Following the assassination, they amassed a significant body of evidence implicating Serbia.

  Hartwig died, almost certainly murdered, at the Austrian embassy in Belgrade. Apis was shot by firing squad in 1917 on a trumped-up charge unrelated to Sarajevo. Hartwig’s correspondence with Sazonov in Russia mysteriously disappeared in 1917. Princip died in prison from tuberculosis in 1918. These deaths ‘coincidentally’ protected the chain of command that led back to St Petersburg, Paris and London.

  CHAPTER 21

  July 1914 – Deception, Manipulation and Misrepresentation

  THE FIRST WEEKS

  The smouldering distrust and racially inflamed tensions that continually raised the political temperature in the Balkans after the uneasy peace of 1913 were very deliberately reignited by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Civilised Europe was stunned by his murder. His uncle, the elderly Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, went into shock. Acrid demands for retribution filled the air. It took careful planning and considered judgement on the part of the Secret Elite to fan the understandable outrage and bring about the great European conflagration for which they had planned since before 1905. Furthermore, it required the highest level of diplomatic skill and political nous, allied to press connivance, unseen sleights of hand and downright lies to achieve the ultimate goal of war with Germany. War apparently started by Germany; war that would once and for all crush Germany and re-affirm the pre-eminence of the British race.

  While the archduke’s murder has generally been accepted as the spark that lit the fuse, it did not make the subsequent war inevitable. Far from it. The act in itself presented no cause for a world war. Assassinations and political murders were not uncommon in these troubled parts, with royalty, prime ministers, political opponents and religious leaders all victims in the recent past.1 This was different. The Secret Elite deliberately and systematically whipped the consequences of Sarajevo into a raging wildfire that could not be extinguished.

  From the hub of the Foreign Office in July 1914, Sir Edward Grey and his ambassadorial guard abused their position in order to trick both Austria-Hungary and Germany into a European war. A diplomatic network of highly experienced ambassadors committed to the Secret Elite vision of the pre-eminence of the British race was in place throughout the European capitals: Sir George Buchanan in St Petersburg, Sir Maurice de Bunsen in Vienna, Sir Edward Goschen in Berlin and Sir Francis Bertie in Paris. Each was entrusted with the task of manipulating the Balkan crisis into a war that would see the Anglocentric influence dominate the world. Highly confidential information and instruction passed to and fro between them and London, where Sir Eyre Crowe and Sir Arthur Nicolson headed Grey’s personal praetorian guard in the all-powerful Foreign Office. Even where the major players appeared to be Russian (Sazonov and Isvolsky) or French (Poincaré and Maurice Paléologue, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg in 1914), their actions were sanctioned from London.

  The last days of June and the first week of July were, on the surface, comparatively calm. An outpouring of sympathy for Austria and its monarchy followed the initial shock of the assassination. In a parliamentary address on 30 June, Prime Minister Asquith stated that Emperor Franz Joseph ‘and his people have always been our friends’. He spoke of the ‘abhorrence of the crime and the profound sympathy of the British Parliament’.2 In France, President Poincaré expressed his ‘sincere condolences’.3 Profound sincerity did not last long.

  Franz Ferdinand had not been particularly popular in some Austrian circles because of his morganatic marriage4 and the suspicion that he favoured Austria-Hungary’s Slavic subjects. In many ways he was relatively enlightened about democratic rights and freedoms, a philosophy that was not shared by the Hapsburg traditionalists.

  Despite the archduke’s high office and his position and rank as heir-apparent, his funeral was decidedly low-key. The Austrian foreign minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, allegedly wanted it that way. Kaiser Wilhelm definitely intended to go. Franz Ferdinand had been a close personal friend, and it was his duty to show public respect to the ageing emperor.5 The kaiser, however, developed diplomatic lumbago6 when it was put about that a dozen Serbian assassins were making their way to Vienna to kill him.7 Prince Arthur of Connaught was the designated representative for King George V, but quite suddenly, on 2 July, he and all other members of European royalty cancelled. Every one. Fears were expressed that other assassins were ready to do away with any passing royalty. No collection of funereal crowned heads gathered in Vienna.

  Count Berchtold did not want a rabble of royalty descending on Vienna. He hoped to spare the ailing emperor the vexation of a long funeral ceremony.8 Perhaps Berchtold feared that a gathering of emperors, kings and princes in Vienna would have distracted the Hapsburg government in its determination to seek retribution from Serbia. It most certainly suited the Secret Elite that Berchtold was left unfettered by interference from visiting dignitaries who might have cautioned care.

  Isvolsky, the Secret Elite’s Russian puppet-master, knew immediately what the success of the mission in Sarajevo meant. On the following day, he left Paris in utmost secrecy and slipped out of the public eye. His given role was to hold everything together in the Russian capital. The czar would need careful handling, and Foreign Minister Sazonov’s resolve had caused concern from time to time. President Poincaré, Prime Minister Vivani and senior French diplomats were expected in St Petersburg on a mission that Isvolsky had helped organise some six months previously, though no fixed date had been agreed until after Sarajevo. On 20 July, they assembled for one purpose: to ensure that Russia triggered a war with Germany. If Isvolsky failed to put steel into the Russian backbone and there was no war, the dream of Constantinople and the Straits might forever be gone. Isvolsky disappear
ed for three crucial weeks before the St Petersburg meeting. There is no known record of his whereabouts.9

  This vital gap in our knowledge of Isvolsky’s whereabouts is not due to chance. No record remains of his diplomatic activities from the beginning of July 1914, and this from an agent who sent prolific notes and information to his French and Russian contacts on a daily basis. Who would have sought to blank out his contribution to the slide to perdition? Since the French leaders Poincaré and Vivani were scheduled to visit St Petersburg, and he had decamped there to be with Sazonov and the czar, Isvolsky would certainly have been in communication with them prior to the visit. He would likewise have kept in regular contact with Sir Edward Grey, either through Buchanan, the British ambassador in St Petersburg, or one of his Foreign Office acolytes. Sadly, we can but speculate. Isvolsky’s biographer hints that his diplomatic telegrams from that time were deliberately destroyed.10 Whatever and wherever, we can be sure that Isvolsky was actively influencing the Franco-Russian resolve to provoke a war with Germany, backed, as ever, by the Secret Elite.

  One other burning question remained unanswered: what, precisely, would Austria do? Serbia could not go unpunished. A sense of justified indignation consumed the Austrian people. Sarajevo was the latest in a series of insults and challenges that threatened the very prestige of a nation that called itself a Great Power. Nor did the assassination stop the onslaught from Belgrade. Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the British ambassador in Vienna, telegraphed London to say that Serbian newspapers were ‘behaving shamefully’ and virtually elevating the assassins to martyrs.11 When the Serbian press referred to Austria-Hungary as ‘worm-eaten’, Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austrian chief of staff and head of the militarist party in Vienna, bristled at the inaction of his government. He believed that by its constant yielding to Serbian provocation, Austria had given the impression that she was impotent and this in turn encouraged Serbia to be ever more aggressive. Von Hötzendorf was convinced that Austria had to choose between being slowly strangled by its noxious neighbour or making a final effort to prevent its own destruction. Severe military measures had to be taken against Serbia in an act of self-preservation.12

  This was exactly the response the Secret Elite hoped they would get from the Austrians. Their challenge now was to encourage the key decision makers in Austria-Hungary to overreact without realising they were being led into a greater confrontation.

  Within a few days, the telegraph wires were hot with diplomatic intrigue. Even prior to the archduke’s inauspicious funeral, the Belgian ambassador to Berlin was able to tell Brussels that the Austrian government would demand that Serbia set up an inquiry into the assassination and permit Austro-Hungarian police officers to take part in it. The ambassador added:

  The Pachitch [Pasic] Government, having deliberately shut its eyes to the hotbed of anarchist propaganda in Belgrade, ought not to be surprised at being required to take energetic measures against the guilty persons, instead of continuing to treat them with blind tolerance.13

  Before the archduke had been laid to rest, diplomats were clearly well informed about Austrian intentions. This information was also known to the respective Foreign Offices in London, Paris and St Petersburg. Despite their professed surprise and exaggerated pretence of shock, the key agents of the Secret Elite knew by the second day of July that the Austrians would demand a full investigation. Critically, at that early juncture, the Belgian ambassador clearly identified the nub of the question: ‘Will Serbia consent to tolerate the assistance of Austro-Hungarian police agents? If she refuses on the grounds that it will be an infringement of her sovereign rights, will such a dispute break out into open hostilities?’14 It certainly would. Crucial information was to hand, and positions were already being taken in those early days of July. The Secret Elite knew then that the instrument with which they could deliberately fan the flames was the question of Serbia’s ‘sovereign rights’.

  Serbia continued to goad Austria and made little pretence of being contrite. Why? Why did the Serbs continue to aggravate the situation, unless of course they, and others, were determined to provoke a reaction? The Times correspondent reported on 1 July that newspapers in Belgrade were claiming that the assassination was a consequence of the bad old Austrian police system and a lack of real liberty in Austria. The Russian press was equally aggressive. They placed the responsibility for Serb agitation on those who, ‘like Franz Ferdinand’, sowed discord between Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. The Novoe Vremya15 published a long indictment of anti-Slav policy which alleged that the archduke was its leading protagonist. If the powers that controlled Serbia, both internally and from St Petersburg, had wanted to caution restraint, then this provocation would never have been tolerated. But the assassination had not been meticulously planned as some singular act of defiance. The flames could not be doused.

  The Westminster Gazette, owned by Waldorf Astor from the Secret Elite’s inner-circle,16 stated that ‘Austria cannot be expected to remain inactive’.17 The Manchester Guardian, always influential in Liberal circles, declared that Serbia’s record was unmatched as a tissue of cruelty, greed, hypocrisy and ill faith. ‘If it were physically possible for Serbia to be towed out to sea and sunk there, the air of Europe would at once seem clearer.’18 It could hardly have made its position more obvious. With one exception, The Times, all English newspapers recognised that Austria had suffered intense provocation and acknowledged her right to take the strongest measures to secure the punishment of those concerned. The weekly paper John Bull, which had a wide readership among the working classes, was equally adamant that Austria’s position was ‘just’.19 Small wonder, then, that Berchtold believed that he had the backing of the British government. Editors with direct access to key members of the Cabinet offered him sympathetic support for direct action.

  The British public were consumed by their own immediate crisis. Though it is not absolutely true to say that they had their heads turned exclusively elsewhere, the overwhelming newspaper interest centred on Ulster, parliamentary uproar over Irish Home Rule, gun running and the Ulster Volunteers. All of these threatened a civil war in a very real sense.20 Day by day, week by week, the Loyalists in Ulster and the Home-Rulers in the southern counties captured the headlines and raised the horrendous spectre of a civil war that would spill over onto mainland Britain. How convenient, then, that for most of the month of July home affairs dominated learned debate, while Sir Edward Grey and the Foreign Office went about their business in almost monastic silence, unburdened by the need to keep the Cabinet informed of the developing crisis in Europe.

  Austria was determined to deal with Serbia as an act of self-preservation,21 but it would have been impractical to attempt this without the approval of her great ally, Germany. A letter from Emperor Franz Joseph was delivered to the kaiser at Potsdam on 5 July, underlining Austria’s desire to take definitive action. After discussing the representations from Vienna with his advisors, Kaiser Wilhelm gave his unqualified approval, the so-called German ‘blank cheque’. This was later misrepresented as a binding promise to give Austria military support against Serbia with the deliberate intention of bringing about a European-wide war. It was nothing of the sort. Certainly the kaiser encouraged Austria to take whatever action she believed necessary to put Serbia in its place,22 but few in Germany believed that Russian military intervention in a localised dispute was a realistic possibility. Russia had no defence treaty with Serbia, and Austria had no intentions whatsoever of using force against Russia. It was inconceivable to the kaiser that the czar would actively support the ‘regicides’ in Serbia.23

  One of the most deliberate historical misrepresentations of the twentieth century took root in that Potsdam meeting. A great lie was concocted by the Secret Elite that, before going on holiday, the kaiser convened a crown council meeting at Potsdam on 5 July and revealed his determination to make war on an unsuspecting Europe.24 The myth holds that he was advised to wait a fortnight in order to give German bankers time t
o sell off their foreign securities.25 Such blatant fabrication has since been unmasked as part of the orchestrated propaganda constructed to ‘prove’ that Germany intimidated Austria into attacking Serbia in order to draw Russia into the conflict.26 In the years immediately after the war, the deliberate lie that the kaiser was the instigator of war passed into accepted history as ‘truth’. Children learn in school, and students repeat in examinations, that war was the kaiser’s doing. In fact, the only signal he transmitted back to Vienna was that, whatever Austria decided, Germany would stand by her as an ally and friend. His near-desperate efforts to claw Berchtold back from the precipice at the end of the month demonstrated the sincerity of his attempts to maintain the peace of Europe. If the kaiser is to be held at fault at all, it might be for not restraining Berchtold earlier. The difference between Sir Edward Grey and the kaiser was that only one of them was plotting war.

  From Vienna, the British ambassador Sir Maurice de Bunsen advised the Foreign Office that the situation was dangerous and might rapidly deteriorate.27 Other diplomats conveyed the same burning sense of urgency to their respective governments, but Grey, Poincaré and Sazonov did nothing to reduce the tension. The Secret Elite agenda required them to play a deadly game of charades that left Berchtold convinced that Europe understood his dilemma. Austria-Hungary had to stop the Serbian-inspired rot. Grey played his cards perfectly. He may never have read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, but the first rule of all war is deception, and deception was an art at which Sir Edward Grey and his Foreign Office associates were absolute masters.