by Geert Mak
In Berlin, Käthe Kollwitz saw her sons leave for war. Hans was already in the army, Peter volunteered for duty after seeing a company march away while bystanders sang a ‘rousing popular chorus’ of ‘Die Wacht am Rhein.’ It was hard for her, but her husband Karl said: ‘These wonderful children – we shall have to work hard to deserve them.’ In the evening, after dinner, the family read aloud a war novella about a man who had been summoned to his dying friend. After that there was singing in the living room, ‘old country ballads and war songs’. Käthe went to the barracks to visit her sons. ‘In the courtyard, Hans. In uniform. His baby face.’
There were those, however, who sensed that this war would put an end to their old, familiar world. The writer Vera Brittain, studying at Oxford at the time, read the summons to mobilisation pasted up everywhere ‘with the feeling that I had been transported back into an uglier century’. The German Jewish industrialist Walter Rathenau, son of the founder of AEG, sat quietly in his chair, tears running down his cheeks. Behind the scenes, he had done everything in his power to slow down the arms race and prevent this war. ‘While the people were in the grip of wild enthusiasm, Rathenau was wringing his hands,’ his friend, cosmopolite and diarist Harry Kessler wrote.
During the final week of peace, the newspapers of the European socialists were full of editorials against the war and against militarism. Mass meetings were held, demonstrations organised and plans forged for an international general strike to stop the war machinery in its tracks, but nothing came of it. On Wednesday, 29 July, the Socialist International Congress held an emergency meeting in Brussels, but with little result. That evening the socialist leaders stood on the stage before a cheering crowd, the French party leader Jean Jaurès put his arm around the German social democrat Hugo Haase, both men clearly moved, and then the workers marched en masse through Brussels, waving white signs with the slogan ‘Guerre à la Guerre!’ and singing the ‘Internationale’ over and over. Two days later, on Friday, 31 July, Jaurès was shot and killed by a nationalist in Paris. The German socialists were deeply shocked, and expressed their condolences to their French comrades at this great loss.
Four days later, on Tuesday, 4 August, Lenin's agent in Berlin, Alexandra Kollontai, saw with her own eyes how these same socialists – some of them having even come to the Reichstag in uniform – voted enthusiastically in favour of Kaiser Wilhelm's war budget. ‘I couldn't believe it,’ she wrote in her diary. ‘I was convinced that they had either gone mad or that I was the one who had lost my senses.’ After that fateful vote, she went in a daze to the parliament and was stopped in a corridor by a social-democrat representative, who asked her angrily what a Russian was doing in the Reichstag.
The French socialists behaved no differently. Jaurès was honoured amid a groundswell of national unity. From now on, the fatherland would take precedence over all the rest. Within a week the ‘Internationale’ had been forgotten, but three months later all enthusiasm for the war was gone as well. When Louis Barthas marched off to war, people doffed their hats, ‘as for a procession of condemned men.’
Why were people so keen to go to battle in 1914? The people's rage in Germany was directed principally against the British, the arrogant empire blocking the development of young, dynamic Germany: ‘Gott strafe England!’ Furthermore, for Germany it was a pre-emptive war: the kaiser and his generals were deeply concerned about Russia's burgeoning military power. They feared that, within the next few years, Russia would have an exemplary fleet in the Baltic, rail connections up to the German border and an army bigger than anything Germany could hope to equal. ‘Every year we wait lessens our chances,’ General Helmuth von Moltke announced in spring 1914, to anyone who cared to listen.
The motives of the French, however, had more to do with the past: revenge for the humiliations that had followed the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1, and the reclamation of their former glory. The Austrians wanted, above all, to deal once and for all with rebel Serbia. ‘Serbien muss sterben,’ the students shouted. And besides, a military injection could do their teetering monarchy no harm. For years the squares of Moscow and St Petersburg had been crowded with excited nationalists who wanted to protect their Serb brothers from Austria. What's more, Russia was feeling increasingly threatened by Germany. Turkey, on the other hand, took part because it was in desperate need of German support against its old enemy, Russia.
Great Britain was a special case. The British government hesitated for an unusually long time. There are those who say that this long hesitation was itself one of the causes of the war: had Wilhelm known beforehand that Britain would join the fray, he would never have started the conflict so lightly. As late as 1 August, it was still almost certain – according to notes made by the young naval minister, Winston Churchill – that the United Kingdom would remain neutral. More than three quarters of cabinet ministers were determined not to let the country be dragged into any European conflict. By 3 August, however, the majority of the cabinet considered war to be inevitable. The British had always seen Antwerp as ‘the pistol aimed at Europe's heart’, and as more and more reports came in about German ultimatums to neutral Belgium, the mood shifted with each passing hour. Now that Germany was pushing the fulcrum of war to the west, there was far more at stake than simply a few treaties. Now it was about the balance of power, about turning the tide of Wilhelm's imperial ambitions, and above all about maintaining the old division of power: balance within Europe, Britain outside Europe. In addition, there was also the momentum of the country's own military planning, a genie that could scarcely be put back into the bottle. During summer 1914, a mechanism had been set in motion among all the world's powers that, after only a few days, could no longer be brought to a halt: the network of war plans, the enormous maze of scenarios that had been developed decades earlier and which would ultimately act as gigantic flywheels, as prophesies bringing about their own fulfilment.
These war plans were a new phenomenon. As detailed as railway timetables, they also had everything to do with the railways themselves. The capacity of the national rail networks had been calculated precisely: the number of foot soldiers a railway could accommodate each day, which trunk lines could be used in the case of an advance, and the number of days it would take to conquer a given stronghold.
This rigid military planning had catastrophic political effects. As soon as one of the powers mobilised, the others could only follow. An army that arrived at the front one week late would already have lost half the war. The French chief of staff Joseph Joffre warned in 1914 that, according to his calculations, every day the mobilisation was postponed equalled a twenty-five-kilometre-wide swathe of territory surrendered to the enemy. The German general staff made a similar claim. By early August 1914, the government leaders were the only ones who could stop the ticking clock. They realised too late what was happening, failed and panicked.
Most of my final day in Vienna is spent in the cellars of the Neue Hofburg, in the warm shelter of the National Library. In what state of mind did the common man in his Viennese café, drinking his coffee and reading his paper, view this oncoming world war? Did he, on 28 June, 1914, have any clue that Gavrilo Princip's potshots at Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie had signalled the onset of a series of catastrophic years?
Later it was suggested that he did, but the back editions of the Neue Freie Presse tell a different story. I read them one after the other, day by day, for the months of June, July and August 1914.
True destiny is often as trivial as the plot of a disaster movie. First there is normal Viennese life, with gossip, road accidents and the daily adverts:‘Feschoform. Poetry in motion! For her firm bust, the true Viennese beauty thanks only Feschoform bosom enhancer!’ The clothing stores are competing with large advertisements, Germania offers a life insurance policy ‘covering acts of war and trips around the world’, and, to guard against the unmentionable, one is urged to use ‘H. Ungers Frauenschutz’.
The monarchy is not altogether ignored.
The foreign pages report a serious Greco-Turkish conflict, there are major problems with Serbia, the crown prince is leaving to inspect manoeuvres in a tense Bosnia. The editorial pages are full of reports on troop movements, ultimata and warships popping up here and there.
Then there is the extra edition, which hit the streets on Sunday evening, 28 June, with huge headlines and the facts of the assassinations. In the days that follow the paper reports endlessly on the culprit's origins, the correct text of the crown prince's final words – ‘Soferl, bleibe leben für unsere Kinder’ (Sophie, stay alive for our children's sake) – the state of siege in Sarajevo, the preparations for the state funeral. The prince's last telegram to his children: ‘Grüsse und Küsse von Papi’. The report of student demonstrations in front of the Serbian embassy in Vienna. On the Vienna, London and Berlin stock exchanges, the killings are the talk of the day, but trading remains calm. ‘The political consequences of this act are being greatly exaggerated,’ the paper writes on Thursday, 2 July.
After that comes the arrival of the royal corpses and the state funeral. When it is all over, much of Vienna goes on wrangling for days about whether protocol was correctly observed with regard to the nobility and the military. The city sinks into a holiday torpor. Lessner's department store fills pages with the summer sales of foulard silk.
There is a little summertime news. Wilhelm will leave on 6 July for a holiday cruise on the Hohenzollern. He will be gone for three weeks, to the seclusion of the Norwegian fjords. His chief of staff and the state secretary of the navy will also be leaving Berlin. The Austrian cabinet does not convene until Tuesday, 7 July, ten days after the killings in Sarajevo.
On Monday, 13 July, more than two weeks after the attack, the Neue Freie Presse opens for the first time with the growing tension between Austria and Serbia. Princip and his cohorts, it seems, were aided by the Serb secret police. Austria demands redress. It continues to be a glorious summer, and everyone is confident that international diplomacy will succeed in extinguishing the fires of conflict. Meanwhile, envoys are sent back and forth and old alliances reconfirmed: Austria does not dare to act without Germany, and receives the assurance that Germany will help out; Russia supports Serbia, but has no real desire to go to war. The paper reports that the Russian ambassador in Belgrade has died of a heart attack. Otherwise everything remains still, for almost three weeks. On 16 July, French president Raymond Poincaré pays a state visit to St Petersburg. The stock exchange is caught in the summer doldrums. Even the keen-witted British minister of foreign affairs, Edward Grey, will be leaving for a weekend of fishing on 25 July.
It is only after 20 July that unrest truly arrives in the pages of the Neue Freie Presse. Russia is openly interfering in the affair, the paper hints at ‘steps’ and ‘ultimatums’, on Friday, 24 July we read that the German kaiser plans to come back early from his holidays, and two days later – along with the call to mobilisation – the word ‘war’ appears in the paper for the first time.
Even the Serbian chief of staff is caught unawares. That weekend he happens to be in Budapest, visiting his daughter, and he is promptly arrested by Austrian plainclothesmen. The Neue: ‘Putnik jumped up, pushed one of the detectives away and pulled his pistol. The impression was that he planned to take his own life.’ Meanwhile, his daughter started weeping and wailing. The next day the general has already been released and put on a train with due ceremony, ‘on the grounds that the Austrian Army is possessed of too much chivalry to rob the enemy army of its highest commander’.
In the evening edition of that same Sunday I come across, for the first time as well, an editorial warning that a war between Austria and Serbia could become ‘total’, and stating the need to ‘contain the conflict’.
On Monday, 27 July, the paper reports on British attempts to restore peace. The mutual alliances are not nearly as binding as was later suggested, and the diplomats still have plenty of room to manoeuvre. Germany, for example, is in no way obliged to come to Austria's assistance in this matter. Russia need not support Serbia through thick and thin. Britain was not at all bound to enter the war for the sake of Belgium.
The first map of a possible theatre of war is published on Tuesday, 28 July. Rumours are circulating about Russian mobilisation and a possible German counter-mobilisation.
The next day, the Neue Freie Presse prints the text of Emperor Franz Josef's declaration of war against Serbia: ‘To my peoples’. Behind the scenes, the danger of this crisis has now fully sunk in. Among the French there is a growing fear that Germany will now march against them too. After all, an attack on Russia – according to the Franco-Russian convention of 1892 – also constitutes an attack on France.
Thursday, 30 July: Germany and Great Britain are still hoping to convince Austria and Russia to halt the mobilisation.
On Friday, 31 July, reports come in concerning a general mobilisation in Russia and German ultimata to France and Russia.
On Saturday, 1 August, the headline of the morning edition reads: ‘Die Monarchie und das verbündete Deutschland in Waffen’. Germany, along with Austria, is mobilising against the Russians. France receives a German ultimatum: the country must declare its neutrality within eighteen hours. A French mobilisation will mean ‘immediate war’.
At the bottom of the same page, Stefan Zweig writes of his hurried return to Vienna from Ostend: ‘The beach and the sea. People grabbing papers, tossing them open, the pages struggling in the wind, to find the reports. Only the reports! For the rest is impossible to read, in these French papers: it is too painful, it excites, it embitters … French, the language people have used for years with love and loftiness, suddenly sounds belligerent.’
On Sunday, 2 August, the paper reports that there has been an exchange of telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas. The desperate texts would be made public only later: ‘I understand fully how difficult it is for you and your government to defy the power of your public's opinion. That is why, because of the hearty and tender friendship that has bound us so strongly for so long, I am applying my greatest influence to compel the Austrians …’ Signed: Cousin Willy.
‘I can see that within a very short time I shall have to bow to the pressure that is being applied to me, and that I will be forced to take extreme measures that will lead to war. In an attempt to prevent the calamity of a European war, I therefore beg you, in the name of our old friendship, to do whatever you can to keep our allies from going too far …’ Signed: Cousin Nicky.
On Monday, 3 August, the morning edition opens with Germany's declaration of war on Russia. France mobilises. The Russian diplomatic mission leaves Berlin. Along the Russian-German border, the first hostilities are reported. The first strange rumours start flowing in as well. ‘A French airplane has dropped a bomb on Nuremberg. This is behaviour unworthy of a cultured nation. Even in war, there are limits to the decent use of force.’
Two days later, in the evening edition: the British Empire declares war on the German Empire. Diplomatic relations end.
Within a few days, all the switches have been thrown. Everything is ready for the Great European War, 1914–45.
Let us take one good, close look. On the right side of the uniform's collar, beside the general's star, we see a hole several millimetres in diameter. That is all. The rest of the uniform is covered in bloodstains. Rips in the front of the coat and the sleeves bear witness to the physicians’ panic, to the attempts to save what can still be saved.
Franz Ferdinand's sky-blue uniform is still on display in a glass case in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna. The same hall contains the green and black open touring car in which the heir to the Habsburg throne and his wife Sophie were sitting as they made their tour of Sarajevo, a huge, tinny thing that resembles an old jalopy from a cartoon.
Gavrilo Princip and his five romantic school friends had spread out along the quay that morning, to murder the hated symbol of the nation. The first would-be assassin was afraid to open fire; the second decided t
hat, on second thoughts, he had no desire to spatter Sophie's blindingly white dress with blood; the third was clever enough to take up a position right beside a policeman. He did, however, throw his hand grenade. Panic broke out, a few people were wounded, the crown prince and his wife remained unharmed. Princip, who was waiting a little further along, was disappointed and went to drink a cup of coffee.
At the town hall Franz Ferdinand flew into a rage, especially when he noticed that the text of his speech had been spattered with blood. A little later, at Sophie's suggestion, they decided to drive to the hospital to visit the wounded. But the chauffeur was not informed of the change of plans. The delegation drove back down the quay, and turned the corner onto Franz Josef Street. ‘Wrong!’ shouted the Bosnian governor, who was also in the car. The chauffeur tried to backup, the car stalled for a moment. Of all the infernal luck, precisely at the spot where Gavrilo Princip happened to be standing. He jumped onto the running board, shot Franz Ferdinand, then pointed his Browning at the governor, but the second bullet hit Sophie, who was bent over her husband.
‘The crown prince was hit precisely in an artery,’ I read in the coroner's report, printed in the Neue Freie Presse of 3 July, 1914.‘Had the bullet entered a little further to the left or to the right, the damage would never have been fatal. As a physician, I can only conclude that the bullet struck him there more or less by accident. There was no way Princip could have aimed so carefully. That is also to be seen from the fact that the first bullet went through the side of the automobile before striking the crown princess.’
‘It was Sunday, I was a student,’ Joseph Roth wrote. ‘That afternoon a girl came by. They wore their hair in braids back then. She was carrying a big, yellow straw hat, it was imbued with summer and reminded me of hay, crickets and poppies. The hat contained a telegram, the first extra edition I had ever seen, crumpled, terrifying, a lightning bolt of paper. “You know,” said the girl, “they've killed the crown prince. My father came home from the café. We're not staying here, are we?”
