Even so, Sazonov tried to head off a conflict. He asked the Austrians to extend the deadline to Serbia and asked Grey to do the same. He advised the Serbs to accept as many of the Austrian demands as they could and suggested everything else be adjudicated at The Hague. He appealed to the German Foreign Office to mediate, unaware that they were Austria’s secret backers. The German ambassador insisted Germany knew nothing about the ultimatum and the matter was between Austria and Serbia. He told Sazonov that Austria simply wanted to teach Serbia a lesson and he should try negotiating with Austria direct. The Austrians turned down all Sazonov’s requests.
Nicholas dreaded the thought of a conflict and was sure Wilhelm did too. He told the French ambassador in St. Petersburg, Maurice Paléologue, “I can’t believe10 the Emperor wants war … If you knew him as I do! If you knew how much theatricality there is in his posing!” One of his ministers recalled later:
He told me11 that he thought Sazonov was exaggerating the gravity of the situation and had lost his nerve … War would be disastrous for the world and once it had broken out it would be difficult to stop. The Emperor did not think it likely that the Note had been sent after consultation with Berlin. The German Emperor had frequently assured him of his sincere desire to safeguard the peace of Europe and it had always been possible to come to an agreement with him, even in serious cases. His Majesty spoke of the German Emperor’s loyal attitude during the Russo-Japanese war and during the internal troubles that Russia had experienced afterwards. It would have been easy for Germany to level a decisive blow at Russia in those circumstances.
The tsar tried to continue life as before: playing tennis, canoeing with his daughters, having tea with his relatives, meeting the Master of the Horse of the court of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. But he was sick with worry and struggled to remain cheerful. “We had only to see12 him during that terrible last week of July,” his son’s tutor wrote later, “to realise what mental torture he had passed through.”
When Wilhelm returned to Potsdam on 27 July, he was shaken to discover Austria had ordered a partial mobilization of its army, before Serbia had replied to the ultimatum. He also found the German army chiefs very much in the ascendant in arguments over what Germany should do next. In contrast to German civilian government, which had become chaotic and divided, making opposition to the war very much harder to coordinate, the army chiefs were well organized and spoke with one voice. They had been allowed, indeed encouraged, to remain entirely beyond the control or scrutiny of civilian authority, they were disdainful of civilian culture and convinced that war was a good in itself, while civilian culture was saturated with admiration for them.
Though Austria had been a grave disappointment, the army chiefs were convinced that it was time to fight and were determined that the kaiser’s pusillanimity would not be allowed to prevent a war. Moltke had an even larger agenda. Since the beginning of the crisis he had argued that the assassination provided the perfect opportunity for a different war, the great war of reckoning with Russia. He’d been secretly encouraging his Austrian opposite number, Conrad von Hötzendorf, for weeks. The idea half-horrified him and he veered between pushing for it and then arguing against it. The war minister Falkenhayn, and the head of Wilhelm’s military cabinet, Lyncker, also agreed the moment was right, and they thought a war would silence, if not flush out, degenerate socialist elements in Germany. Crucial to Moltke’s plan—what has come to be known as the Schlieffen Plan*—was the fact that Austria was willing to fight with Germany. The plan was predicated on the idea that in a war Germany would have to deal with two aggressors—France and Russia—simultaneously. The strategy was that the army would knock out France quickly before its forces could mobilize, then wheel round to attack Russia, which was known to be slow to mobilize its huge army. Wilhelm was said to have called the idea, which had been first suggested around 1905, “Paris for lunch, dinner at St. Petersburg.” Austria was needed to keep the Russians at bay until Germany was ready.
The plan had fairly devastating implications: firstly, regardless of whether France had been in any way involved, it would be invaded. The same went for the neutral states of Belgium and Luxembourg, which were on the route into France. An eastern European conflict would instantly become a Europe-wide war. Secondly, the plan obliged Germany to mobilize and make the decision for war before anyone else, and rush into hostilities in order to eliminate France in time. As a consequence Moltke was in a hurry. The plan was typical of the way the German officer corps had come to see strategic problems in a vacuum, entirely from their narrow viewpoint, and without recourse to the nuances of diplomacy or the needs of politics. It was also the result of Moltke’s conviction that the war which would decide the fate of Europe was coming anyway, and France would have to be dealt with, just like Russia. Most significantly of all, perhaps, it had been kept secret from the civilian government.
Bethmann-Hollweg, both disappointed and relieved by the Austrians’ failure to act, had questioned the need for a war, but by the time Wilhelm returned he was in the process of being talked round, though he still wanted hostilities to be limited. German army values had so percolated into government that diplomacy had come to seem almost a cowardly way to resolve international problems. Perhaps solutions to difficult problems did require extreme, risky measures. Half-appalled, half-resigned to the situation, he offered to quit. Wilhelm refused: “You have cooked13 up this broth, now you are going to eat it.”
…
The Serbs’ reply to the ultimatum came on 28 July. It was breathtakingly humble and acquiescent; it acceded to everything the Austrians could reasonably have asked and swung international opinion back Serbia’s way. Wilhelm was enormously relieved. He wrote to his foreign minister, Jagow, “A great moral14 success for Vienna; but with it every reason for war drops away.” Instead he thought Austria might perhaps occupy a part of Serbia, until the Serbs had undertaken what they had promised. “I am ready to mediate for peace,” he said, and he told Jagow to notify the Austrians that they must not go to war. His orders were ignored. Bethmann-Hollweg cabled Vienna but did not tell the Austrians to stop their war preparations. The day before, indeed, Jagow had encouraged them to declare war on Serbia at once. When Wilhelm told his ministers that he wanted to avoid war, his war minister, Falkenhayn, informed him that he “no longer had15 control of the affair in his own hands.” It was an expression of the general disdain with which the senior ranks of the army now regarded the kaiser. We don’t know what Wilhelm said to this, but he didn’t challenge it.
The Austrian government rejected the Serb reply, refused Sazonov’s request for talks with Russia and declared war on Serbia. In St. Petersburg, the German ambassador, Pourtalès, had lunch with the British ambassador, Buchanan, and explained to him that the Germans assumed the Russians wouldn’t get involved because he’d assured them that Russia wasn’t capable of fighting a war over Serbia. Buchanan couldn’t believe16 how his German colleague had misread the political atmosphere.
That day Nicholas ordered the partial mobilization of Russian troops. The idea was to move Russian soldiers on to the frontier with Austria, while carefully keeping them away from the borders of Germany so as not to give offence. But he worried about it and thought about rescinding the order.
It was only on 27 July that George seemed to register the Balkan crisis. “It looks17 as if we were on the verge of general European war, caused by the sending of Ultimatum to Serbia by Austria, very serious state of affairs,” he wrote in his diary. The British government had been so preoccupied with the prospect of civil war in Ireland that the Austrian ultimatum had taken it by surprise. Indeed, the German Foreign Office was counting on Ireland keeping Britain out of the Serbian crisis altogether. Asquith had told the king it was “the gravest event18 for many years in European politics.” He also reassured George that there was little reason why “we should be anything more than spectators.” Barely anyone in Britain had ever heard of Serbia, and the government did not feel at all in
clined to fight a war on Russia’s behalf. It wasn’t perhaps surprising that when Heinrich came to see George on 26 July, on his way home after his latest visit to England, the king reassured him—at least in Heinrich’s recollection—that “We shall try all19 we can to keep out of this and remain neutral.”
Initially sympathetic to Austria’s desire to make Serbia accountable for its role in the assassination (which had encouraged the Germans), Sir Edward Grey was now determined to prevent the war. He had concluded, against the advice of several of his most senior officials, that Berlin’s intentions were honourable and it had no wish to support a war. He endorsed Sazonov’s request that the matter go to The Hague, and when the Austrians turned it down, suggested a conference, like the one that had resolved the Balkan Wars, of England, Germany, France and Italy. Lichnowsky, the ambassador,20 who knew nothing of the German government’s decisions, passed the idea to the German Foreign Office with an enthusiastic endorsement. Bethmann-Hollweg realized that Grey’s proposal might actually stop the war. He felt obliged to forward it to Austria so as to avoid laying Germany open to accusations that it wanted war, but he told the Austrian Foreign Office to ignore it. On 27 July he rejected the proposal himself, claiming that it would unfairly force a decision on Austria—but salving this with a suggestion that Austria and Russia were about to enter negotiations. The next day the Austrians declared war.
Even now, the British still felt that they had little reason to get involved. Three-quarters of the cabinet were against the idea and Asquith noted that it was “still not a21 British war.” But Grey told Parliament that the minute the conflict spread beyond Austria and Serbia it would become “the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen the Continent of Europe.” He did not, however, tell Parliament about all the military and naval talks with France of the previous eight years, which he now believed had created an obligation to come to France’s aid.
George complained to his younger son that he’d had to cancel22 his annual trip to Goodwood races, and was regretting the loss of his weekend sailing at Cowes.
Late on the twenty-eighth, after the Austrians had declared war, and as the roll towards European war seemed inexorable, Wilhelm and Nicholas exchanged telegrams, each appealing to the other to stop the conflict. Nicholas still hoped that, if Germany could pull Austria back from attacking Belgrade, war could be stopped: “I appeal to you23 to help me … I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed by pressure brought upon me, and forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war.”
Wilhelm, for the last time, appealed to monarchical solidarity: “… You will doubtless agree with me that we both, you and me, have a common interest as well as all Sovereigns to insist that all the persons morally responsible for the dastardly murder should receive their deserved punishment. In this case politics plays no part at all.” He reassured Nicholas that Germany was doing its best to try to bring about an agreement between Vienna and St. Petersburg—though he would not promise that he would stop the attack on Serbia.24
I fully understand how difficult it is for you and your Government to face the drift of your public opinion. Therefore, with regard to the hearty and tender friendship which binds us both from long ago with firm ties, I am exerting my utmost influence to induce the Austrians to deal straightly to arrive to a satisfactory understanding with you. I confidently hope that you will help me in my efforts to smooth over difficulties that may still arise.500
Your very sincere and devoted friend and cousin Willy501
Wilhelm didn’t know that his own Foreign Office had advised the Austrians to go to war, and that Bethmann-Hollweg had accompanied his demand to the Austrians to stop in Belgrade with a note that it wasn’t to be taken seriously and was simply for propaganda purposes.
Nicholas wrote to George too, asking for support from Britain if Russia did find itself at war, and assuring him that he was doing all he could to avoid it.
Austria has gone25 off upon a reckless war, which can easily end in a general conflagration. It is awful! My country is confident of its strength and of the right cause it has taken up … Now we are compelled to take strong measures in case of emergency—for our own defence … If a general war broke out I know that we shall have France’s and England’s full support. As a last resort I have written to William to ask him to bear a strong pressure upon Austria so as to enable us to discuss matters with her.
“Where will it26 end?” George wrote plaintively. “… Winston Churchill came to see me, the Navy is all ready for War, but please God it will not come. These are very anxious days for me to live in.”
On 29 July Wilhelm summoned his military leaders. Most of the army chiefs were keen to go to the next level of preparedness for mobilization—Kriegsgefahr, the “state of impending war,” the stage before mobilization—but Bethmann-Hollweg and Moltke, visited by one of his moments of anxiety, argued against it and Wilhelm eventually sided with them. He also announced he had received a message from Heinrich telling him of George’s words of a few days before—that Britain would try to keep out of the conflict. He seized on this as an official assurance of British neutrality. When Tirpitz suggested he might have misinterpreted it, Wilhelm said grandly, “I have the word27 of a King, and that is enough for me.” But in the afternoon Lichnowsky sent the German Foreign Office a telegram describing a meeting with Sir Edward Grey, who, after suggesting that the Austrians should stop in Belgrade, added that, if Germany and France became involved in a war, Britain wouldn’t be able to remain aloof.
Grey’s message was far from being an explicit threat—he couldn’t know that the German response to a Balkan conflict would include attacking France—but it shocked Bethmann-Hollweg, who still hoped the war might be localized. News that the Russians were starting to mobilize, and a dressing-down from Wilhelm when he suggested that Germany should sacrifice the fleet in order to keep Britain neutral, convinced him the conflict was escalating too fast and too far. Contradicting his previous messages, he sent three increasingly desperate telegrams to Vienna asking that the Austrian army stop when they got to Belgrade. But a few hours before, Moltke had cabled Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austrian chief of staff, and told him to go to full mobilization. The Austrians shelled Belgrade; Bethmann-Hollweg was too late. It was a horrible instance of the German government’s confusion. Even Moltke was far from delighted by what he had done. He wrote a memo to the government that day in which he described a war “which will annihilate28 the civilization of almost the whole of Europe for decades to come.”
In a final effort to head off British involvement, Bethmann-Hollweg summoned the British ambassador, Edward Goschen, and suggested that, if the British agreed to stay neutral, the Germans would not invade Holland and that, while perhaps invading France, the Germans wouldn’t try to take any of its territories. The British were amazed that the chancellor had all but admitted that Germany was going to attack France. Grey called it “a disgrace.”29
Meanwhile, still under the illusion that he could mediate between Russia and Austria, that the Austrians had heeded his message to stop at Belgrade, and certain that Russia could be deterred from getting involved, Wilhelm replied to Nicholas’s telegram. He told the tsar that Russia could easily “remain a spectator30 without involving Europe in the most horrible war she has ever witnessed … Of course military measures on the part of Russia would be looked upon by Austria as a calamity we both wish to avoid.”
In St. Petersburg, the German ambassador, Pourtalès, had twice visited Sazonov to tell him that any partial mobilization by Russia would mean war between their two countries. His words seemed to contradict Wilhelm’s “conciliatory and friendly message,” and Nicholas cabled to ask for clarification and suggested that the dispute be taken to The Hague. He signed it, “Trust in your31 wisdom and friendship, Your loving Nicky.” No answer came back. The Russian General Staff was pressuring him to mass Russian troops on the Austrian border in retaliation for the shelling of Belgrade. Nicholas sent Wilhelm anothe
r telegram explaining that he had allowed partial mobilization to go ahead—an order that originally dated from several days before. He promised that Russian troops would not take the offensive, as long as talks with Austria continued. “I hope from all32 my heart that these measures won’t interfere with your part as mediator which I greatly value. We need your strong pressure on Austria to come to an understanding.”
When he got the telegram Wilhelm decided that Nicholas had taken a deliberately provocative step. He thought the Russians were now ahead in mobilization, or maybe he was just looking for a reason to be angry. He scribbled on it, “And these measures33 are for defence against Austria which is in no way attacking him!! I cannot agree to any more mediation since the Tsar who requested it has at the same time secretly mobilized behind my back.” Next to Nicky’s last sentences about his mediation, he wrote, “No, there is no thought of anything of that sort!!!” On the morning of 30 July Wilhelm wrote back to Nicholas:
Austria has only34 mobilised against Servia [sic] & only a part of her army. If, as it is now the case, according to the communication by you & your Government, Russia mobilises against Austria, my rôle as mediator you kindly intrusted me with, & which I accepted at you[r] express prayer, will be endangered if not ruined. The whole weight of the decision lies solely on you[r] shoulders now, who have to bear the responsibility for Peace or War
The Three Emperors Page 50
