At his summer residence on the Gulf of Finland, the Tsar stopped playing tennis. The Russian General Staff Gazette proclaimed a “State of Pre-Mobilization.” It involved, among other measures, preparations to deploy troops quickly at “any threatened frontier” (in this case the Austrian) and the recall of reservists to bring border divisions to full strength.
Overnight Berchtold’s libretto had gone to pieces. He had miscalculated entirely its effects on its intended audience.
The pause he had spun out so cunningly after Sarajevo; the lethargy so studiously orchestrated through four weeks; the dolce far niente put on by the Ballhausplatz that was to have gentled Europe into a summer sleep so sweet that, by the time it woke and rubbed its eyes, it would see Serbia crushed—all that artfulness had produced a very different outcome and an altogether unwanted mood.
During the long month, Sarajevo had dimmed into a trivializing distance. By the end of July, Vienna’s abrupt growl at Serbia sounded—even in diplomatic French—like a savage vendetta over a remote cause. Huge Habsburg looked like a brute seizing a stale pretext to exterminate little Serbia. Now it was the ultimatum that looked like an outrage, not the Archduke’s assassination.
And that wasn’t all. Vienna’s month-long “peace” act produced yet another unpleasant result. During the many days the Ballhausplatz had spent styling the nonultimatum super-ultimatum, General Conrad on his nonholiday holiday had seethed and scribbled and cabled in his Dolomite village, perfecting the mobilization schedules of his army. Of course he had put none of them in effect as yet—that would have rattled the fair-weather scenery. But with the demarche delivered, this backstage phase of his effort was over. On July 26, the General charged into Berchtold’s office saying that the martial moves made by Serbia’s friends in the last twenty-four hours had revised his plans. To prepare for all contingencies, Austria’s forces must now be at absolutely maximum strength and in optimum condition before striking Belgrade—a goal he, Conrad, would need at least three weeks to reach; the army could not start its offensive until then.
Count von Berchtold took all this like a true Viennese. Yes, he had lost his poise temporarily in Ischl. But he recovered it fast, together with his instinct for make-believe. So the fiction that was to beguile Europe had misfired. Very well, he would produce another fiction.
This one he believed in himself. Cleverly it turned Conrad’s bleak news of the Army’s unreadiness into the semblance of an advantage. Now (as one of the Foreign Minister’s lieutenants would later recall)
Berchtold regarded even the declaration of war as not more than an extreme form of pressure to obtain a diplomatic surrender from Serbia which still had almost twenty days for reflection, seeing that military operations would not commence before August 15th . . .
How induce the proper “reflection” in Serbia and her allies? Again by theatrical means, naturally. The Foreign Minister decided that Habsburg would put on a face that was absolutely resolute and charmingly patient at the same time.
To show absolute resolve, Austria declared war on Serbia at 1 P.M. of July 28, by cable. For the first time in history a telegram opened hostilities between two countries (a first time balancing the last time of Austria’s ultimatum in diplomatic French). Austria also trumpeted its determination with thousands of mobilization posters materializing overnight, black print on gold background, from one end of the Empire to the other; by patriotic fireworks in newspapers amenable to government influence; by the announcement that His Majesty was about to issue a ringing manifesto calling his subjects to arms.
At the same time the mask of charming patience spoke. Austrian ambassadors—especially those accredited with Serbia’s friends—pointed to Habsburg restraint. Here was a great power at war. Yet so far Austria had not taken advantage of its enemy’s smallness but only of the fact that the Serb capital lay just across from the Austrian border. Austria had done no more than shell that capital from its own territory. There was still no invasion of Serbia. Furthermore, despite the enormity of Sarajevo, the Austrian government asked only justice from Belgrade and not one square inch of Serbian land.
Surely this demonstrated Vienna’s patience? As for Vienna’s charm, consider her treatment of General Radomir Putnik, Chief of Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces. When Vienna had surprised Belgrade with the ultimatum, the General was still sipping the waters of the Austrian spa Bad Gleichenberg. Of course he departed instantly. On his way home via Budapest, he was hauled off the train and held as a potential prisoner of war—the war Austria would declare within hours. However, “orders from an All-Highest level” had the General released. An Austrian army physician was detailed to attend the General’s asthma while he remained on Austrian soil. An honor guard escorted him to the personal train of General Conrad; and it was in the luxury of Conrad’s salon car that he was allowed to proceed to the Serbian border to assume command against the troops of his host.
Shouldn’t such Viennese gallantry sway Belgrade’s heart, even as Austria’s might should soften Belgrade’s impertinence? And wouldn’t Belgrade’s allies be wise to help Belgrade practice moderation? Shouldn’t they join Berchtold’s effort to prevent the deepening and widening, indeed the very continuance, of the conflict? Shouldn’t they make Belgrade see reason on the one sticking point in the Austrian demarche (participation of Austrian police in the pursuit of Sarajevo accomplices on Serbian soil)—the one point whose settlement on Austrian terms would stop the war before it had really begun? This was the outline of Berchtold’s new plot. But Libretto B fared no better than Libretto A. And once more Germany chimed in with the wrong note.
Not that Berlin had changed its—public—willingness to sing along. This time, though, the Heldentenor himself, the Kaiser, insisted on making an entrance. When the crisis broke, he was still away on his Nordic cruise. His ministers tried to keep him there. They knew too well His Majesty’s impulsiveness, unevenness, hollowness—the thunder of his tongue, the shaking of his knees. During Libretto A they had encouraged the blithe continuation of his voyage. The Wilhelmstrasse had radioed the Imperial yacht Hohenzollern as little of the tension as late as possible. In fact, the Kaiser first learned of the Austrian ultimatum not from his Berlin Chancellery but from his yacht’s radio officer who had listened to news agency reports on July 24.
This irritated Wilhelm, but not enough to abandon his sail along the glitter of the fjords. He did ask Berlin to keep him abreast of developments in detail. In return he received a long, ingeniously murky telegram from his Chancellor, climaxing in the sentence “the diplomatic situation is not entirely clear.” By then it was early in the morning of July 27. Libretto B was on. The Kaiser wired Berlin that he proposed to head home. Back came a telegram saying “Your Majesty’s sudden reappearance might cause undue alarm.” And just that alarmed His Majesty at last.
Never mind that Berlin had just announced that he would not return until August 2. He not only decided to turn his yacht around, he transferred to the swiftest of his escorting cruisers, the Rostock, to speed his homecoming.
On the afternoon of July 27, he hastened down the gangplank at Swinnemunde to be greeted by his pale, hand-kissing ministers as well as by the news that stock markets were quaking all over Europe. En route to Berlin he realized that a major crisis had matured rapidly in his absence. He faced it in character, by blurting out epithets. At this point he still blurted grandiosely, hand on sword hilt, repeating some exclamations he had made on board. He called Berchtold “a donkey” for pledging to let Serbia keep all its territory. He accused his naval chief of “incredible presumption” for advising against drastic fleet movements at this precarious juncture. He said that the Balkan countries were mostly contemptible scum.
Still exclamatory, he entered Potsdam Palace on the evening of July 27. The text of Serbia’s response to the ultimatum had reached Berlin rather tardily only that afternoon. But the German Foreign Minister delayed its transmission to Potsdam yet further. He waited until late at night after
the Kaiser had retired: better to let His Majesty calm down first with a good rest.
Next morning Wilhelm was shown the Serbian note. Again he began to exclaim—but in the opposite direction. “A brilliant achievement in a time limit of only twenty-four hours!” he annotated Belgrade’s reply. “More than one could have expected! A great moral success for Vienna! All reason for war is gone! After that I should never have ordered mobilization!”
As he scribbled this, he had no idea that Vienna had done much more than mobilize. A few minutes later, an aide handed him a bulletin: Austria had declared war. It staggered the Kaiser. Within an hour the German Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg stood before him, peremptorily summoned, “very humble, with a pale and wretched face.”
“How did all this happen?” the Kaiser demanded.
Bethmann tried to explain the purpose and hope of Libretto A, as devised by Vienna: true, the nonultimatum that was an ultimatum had not worked out right, but perhaps this war just declared would yet turn into a nonwar, maybe the Serbs would give in after all, maybe—
Wilhelm, blurting epithets, cut him off. The Chancellor, “utterly cowed, admitted that he had been deceived all along by Vienna and submitted his resignation.” Wilhelm refused him.
“You have cooked this broth,” said His Majesty. “Now you are going to eat it.”
The Kaiser knew that it was beyond his ability to eat it himself. According to Prince Bernard von Biilow—eye-witness of the scene above—Wilhelm was “well aware that he was a neurasthenic. His exaggerations were mainly meant to ring in the ears of the Foreign Office . . . His jingo speeches intended to give the impression that here was another Frederick the Great. But he did not trust his nerves under the strain of any really critical situation. The moment there was danger His Majesty became uncomfortably conscious that he would never lead an army in the field. Wilhelm did not want war”
Quite simply the Kaiser did not feel up to the nervy part demanded of him by Vienna’s script. Therefore the Chancellor must renounce all participation in Libretto B, claiming that Germany had been lured into it by Vienna’s seductive bad faith. Almost immediately after the Kaiser had dressed him down, the German Chancellor wired his ambassador at the Habsburg Court:
I regard the attitude of Austria with increasing astonishment . . . Austria is entertaining plans which it finds advisable to keep secret from us in order to ensure herself of our support in any event . . . Pray speak to Count von Berchtold with great emphasis . . .
With great emphasis the Ambassador spoke to Count von Berchtold about Berlin’s new position. In effect this position constituted Libretto C, authored posthaste by the Kaiser himself: Vienna should forgo the total knuckling-under of Serbia; instead it should proceed with a temporary and token occupation of Belgrade, just across the frontier, avoiding any further substantial penetration of territory. After this punishment Austria should declare its honor satisfied and withdraw.
But Libretto C failed much faster than Librettos A or B. It could not go far without Franz Joseph’s approval. However, by the time Wilhelm proposed it to him on July 28, the old Emperor had passéd the point of authorizing alternatives to the inevitable. He was now the prisoner of quite another, invincible dramaturgy.
On July 25, his Minister of War had appeared in audience at Ischl to receive permission to mobilize. Franz Joseph gave it, not like a monarch commanding a general but like a puppet controlled by a ghost. “Go . . .” he had whispered to the Minister. “Go. . . . I can do no other.” A few hours later he walked on foot, as usual, to the villa of Frau Schratt. From the way he stooped his way across the little bridge before her gate, she knew what turn history had taken. “I have done my best,” he said to her. “But now it is the end.”
“Very quickly,” the Tsar of Russia cabled a few days later to his cousin and soon foe, the Kaiser, “I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure brought on me.” Not only had Franz Joseph I and Nicholas II been disenfranchised but so had all their august peers.
Their ministers thrashed about impotently. They had been yanked from their vacations, out of their hunting boots, their fishing waders, their beach wear. The crisis had slammed them back into their striped trousers. Now they were pacing around telegraph keys that kept clattering adjurations and avowals from chancellery to chancellery. Vienna cabled St. Petersburg that the Austrian Army had mobilized solely against Serbia. St. Petersburg cabled Vienna that the Russian mobilization was only partial and wholly defensive. Berlin cabled Paris about the dangerous consequences of French mobilization. Paris cabled that it mobilized only to protect French security. Berlin cabled London, urging Britain to stop the mobilization of its allies. London cabled Berlin, asking Germany to ask Austria to use mediation, not mobilization, in the Serbian matter. Austria cabled London its willingness to negotiate but without delaying its “operations against Serbia.” London cabled Vienna that it could not remain neutral in a European war. All cables invoked the sacredness of peace. All countries involved kept thrusting bayonets into the hands of their young men.
Power had drained from thrones and chancelleries into the offices of Chiefs of Staff. Clumsily, diplomats tried to bluff their counterparts into peace. Efficiently, each Chief of Staff activated his mobilizing apparatus. Inevitably, the mobilizations accelerated each other.
Now the subordination of Chiefs of Staff to heads of state was only nominal. Now the Chiefs drew their true prerogative from an unofficial but tremendous power. Overnight this power had become visible. It was surging through the streets all over the continent.
34
THE NEW POWER DID NOT WAIT FOR PROCLAMATIONS FROM GOVERNMENTS. It needed no galvanizing by propaganda, no goading from the press (which was by no means uniformly militant in the principal countries). The new power had already divided the world into Allies-until-Victory and Enemies-unto-Death. This new power had gathered thousands along the shores of the Danube where they sang, fervently, “The Watch on the Rhine” against France. The new power burned German flags in Paris while cafe orchestras along the Champs Elysées played “God Save the King.” The new power raised a sea of fists against the Russian Embassy in Vienna, against the German Embassy in Paris, and its stones shattered eleven windows of the British Embassy in Berlin. Even restaurants felt the fingers of the new power. “Menu cards here in Vienna” Karl Kraus wrote to his beloved Sidonie, “now have their English and French translations crossed out. Things are getting more and more idiotic . . .”
But Kraus himself knew better. It wasn’t mere idiocy that was governing things now. It was something far more formidable. Sarajevo had only been a flash point of its strength.
Our politicians [Kraus said in Die Fackel of July 1914] are unconsciously right in their suspicion that “behind this schoolboy . . . who killed the Archduke and his wife stand others who cannot be apprehended and who are responsible for the weapon used” No less a force than progress stands behind this deed—progress and education unmoored from God . . .
A key sentence on the century’s key moment as nations were turning themselves into regiments. Kraus did not amplify here on the God from whom progress had severed mankind so fatally. He had done that earlier elsewhere, in his poem “The Dying Man.” There God meant the Presence in the pristine garden that was both “source and destination.” But now men had paved over His soil and their souls. Concrete had strangled the “source.” They had lost their sense of origin and of final purpose. Therefore they must claw from the barrenness a new “destination”—an angrier destiny. Under the oppressiveness of a loss, the new power had been forged.
It had forged the life of Gavrilo Princip, modernity’s foremost assassin, who had triggered the crisis. The family of “this schoolboy” had lived for centuries in an approximation, however imperfect, of Kraus’s garden. As a zadruga, that is, as a tight-knit, farm-based Bosnian clan, the Princips had raised their own corn, milled their own flour, baked their own loaves, and worshipped a God close enough to their roof to be their very own protector.<
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Progress had broken all that apart. Princip’s father could no longer create bread from his earth. He could no longer live his livelihood. He must earn it with the estranged, endless trudgings of a postman. His son Gavrilo, more educated than his father, more sensitive, more starved for the wholeness that is holiness and thus more resentful of the ruins all about him, had to seek another garden. He sought something that would satisfy his disorientation and his anger; something which, as his readings of Nietzsche suggested, would restore the valor of the vital principle that his race had lost. He found it in the Black Hand. It conjured “the earth that nourishes .. . the sun that warms.” It was part of the new power. It offered him the cohesion, the communal fortitude and faith of the shattered zadruga.
Progress had shattered numberless zadrugas by hundreds of other ethnic names, from the hamlet of Predappio in Italy’s Romagna where a blacksmith named Mussolini had a son named Benito, to the village of Didi-Lilo in Russia’s Transcaucasia where a cobbler named Dzhugashvili sired a boy later called Stalin. The Stalins, Mussolinis, Hitlers, Princips were the monsters of progress. Progress had abused and bruised them, but they could turn the sting outward and avenge the injury. There were many millions like them with less fury in their bafflement, less steel in their deprivation: the lumpenproletariat on whose backs Europe rode toward the marvels of the new century. Their anonymous pain fermented the new power.
A year before Sarajevo, Vienna’s Arbeiter Zeitung published a survey documenting that it was always the most rapidly industrializing areas which produced among the poor the highest rate of alcoholism, of syphillis and tuberculosis, of emotional pathology, and by far the highest rate of suicide. Their sickbeds and their graves marked the trail of “progress unmoored from God.” But now Princip’s deed was inspiriting its live and able-bodied victims. With two shots he had set in motion a firestorm that was to burn meaning into the numbest slums.
Thunder at Twilight Page 27
