Kaiser Wilhelm II

by Christopher Clark

  This dramatic worsening of the crisis injected an element of panic and confusion into German diplomacy: worried by messages from London and by hair-raising descriptions of Russian military preparations, Bethmann changed his tack. Having undermined Wilhelm’s efforts to restrain Vienna on 28 July, he now attempted to do so himself in a series of urgently worded telegrams to ambassador Tschirschky on 29 July. But his efforts were rendered futile in their turn by the speed of Russian preparations, which threatened to force the Germans into counter-measures before mediation could begin to take effect. After news of Russia’s mobilization on 30 July, it was merely a matter of time before Berlin responded with military measures of its own. Two days earlier, Falkenhayn had succeeded, after a struggle with Bethmann, in getting troops in training areas ordered back to their bases. The early preparatory measures ordered at this time – buying wheat in the western attack zone, setting special guards on railways and ordering troops to garrisons – could still be kept secret, and could thus, in theory, proceed in parallel with diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict. But the same did not apply to the ‘State of Impending War’ or SIW (Zustand drohender Kriegsgefahr), the last stage of preparedness before mobilization. The question of whether and when Germany should take this step towards war was one of the central themes of debate within the Berlin leadership during the last days of peace. Since Wilhelm alone had the power to adjudicate among the conflicting views of Germany’s political and military leaders, he re-emerged as a central participant in the decision-making process.

  At a meeting of 29 July, the day of Russia’s partial mobilization, there was still disagreement among the military chiefs: the minister of war (Falkenhayn) was in favour of declaring the State of Impending War, while the chief of the General Staff (Moltke) and the chancellor were for merely extending guard duties on important transport structures. Wilhelm appears to have oscillated between the two options. Possibly still under the sobering influence of Nicholas’s telegram of that morning, which had threatened ‘extreme [Russian] measures that would lead to war’, Wilhelm at first sided with the minister of war. But under pressure from Bethmann, he changed his mind, and it was decided that the SIW would not be declared. Falkenhayn regretted this decision, but noted in his diary that he could understand the motivations for it: ‘because anyone who believes in, or at least wishes for, the maintenance of peace can hardly support the declaration of the “threat of war” ’.97

  On 31 July, after further wavering over military measures, news arrived from the German ambassador in Moscow that the Russians had ordered total mobilization from midnight on the previous evening. The Kaiser now ordered by telephone that the SIW be declared, and the order was issued to the armed forces by Falkenhayn at 1.00 p.m. on 31 July. The responsibility for mobilizing first now lay squarely with the Russians, a matter of some importance to Wilhelm and the Berlin leadership, who were concerned, in the light of pacifist demonstrations in some of the German cities, that there should be no doubt about the defensive character of Germany’s entry into war. In view of developments in Russia, Wilhelm could hardly continue to block declaration of the SIW, but it is interesting to note that, according to the testimony of the Bavarian military plenipotentiary von Wenninger, this decision had to be ‘wrung out of him’ by Falkenhayn. By the afternoon, however, he appeared to have regained his sang-froid; in a meeting at which Falkenhayn was present, he gave a spirited exposé of the current situation, in which the entire responsibility for the impending conflict was laid at Russia’s door. ‘His demeanour and language’, Falkenhayn commented, uncharacteristically, were ‘worthy of a German Emperor, worthy of a Prussian king’.98

  A word from London

  Throughout these developments, Wilhelm’s attention remained focused on Britain, which he saw as the power at the fulcrum of the continental system, upon which the avoidance of a general war depended. He had been encouraged by an assurance from George V on 28 July that ‘We shall try all we can to keep out of this and shall remain neutral,’99 and his optimism was further reinforced by the reluctance of the Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, to set out British intentions. He was thus shocked to learn, on the morning of 30 July, of a conversation between Grey and the German ambassador, in which the former had warned that Britain would stand aside if the conflict remained confined to Austria, Serbia and Russia, but would intervene on the side of the Entente if Germany and France were to become involved. The ambassador’s despatch provoked a rush of enraged jottings from Wilhelm: the English were denounced as ‘scoundrels’ and ‘mean shopkeepers’ who wanted to force Germany to leave Austria ‘in the lurch’ and who dared to threaten Germany with dire consequences, while refusing to pull their continental allies back from the fray.100 When news of the Russian general mobilization arrived on the following day, his thinking turned again to Britain. Seen in combination with Grey’s warnings, the Russian mobilization ‘proved’ to Wilhelm that England now planned to exploit the ‘pretext’ provided by the widening conflict in order to ‘play the card of all the European nations in England’s favour against us!’101

  This perennial tendency to overestimate Britain’s weight in continental diplomacy helps to explain why Wilhelm remained so open to the idea that a last-minute change of course in London might suffice to prevent war between Germany and France. When George V proposed on the evening of 31 July that Britain and France would remain neutral if Germany refrained from attacking France, Wilhelm replied on the following day (1 August) that although he could not for the moment revoke the order of general mobilization which had just been issued to the German armed forces, he would be willing to halt any move against France in return for a promise of Anglo-French neutrality. Further messages from Lichnowsky announced that Berlin should stand by for a more formal offer from London.102 It was on the strength of this prospect that Wilhelm, supported by Tirpitz and Jagow, ordered that there were to be no further troop movements until the arrival of the expected telegram from London. This order set the scene for a violent dispute between the emperor and the chief of the General Staff.

  Whereas Wilhelm and Bethmann seized on the British offer as a means of avoiding war in the west, Moltke took the view that, once set in motion, the general mobilization could not be halted. ‘This gave rise to an extremely lively and dramatic dispute,’ one observer recalled. ‘Moltke, very excited, with trembling lips, insisted on his position. The Kaiser and the Chancellor and all the others pleaded with him in vain.’103 Moltke objected that it would be suicidal to leave Germany’s back exposed to a mobilizing France, and that in any case the first patrols had already entered Luxembourg, and the 16th Division from Trier was following close behind. But Wilhelm was unimpressed. He had the order put through to Trier that the 16th Division be halted before the borders of Luxembourg. When Moltke implored the Kaiser not to hinder the occupation of Luxembourg, on the grounds that he would thereby prevent the occupation of the Luxembourg railway route, Wilhelm retorted: ‘Use other routes!’ The argument reached a deadlock. In the process, Moltke had become almost hysterical. In a private aside to Falkenhayn, the chief of the General Staff confided, close to tears, ‘that he was now a totally broken man, because this decision by the Kaiser demonstrated to him that the Kaiser still hoped for peace’.104

  At around 5 p.m., a further message arrived from Grey holding out the prospect of English neutrality, even in the event of conflict between Germany and France. There was now jubilation at the palace, although some, including Falkenhayn and Moltke, remained sceptical. Moltke continued to argue that the mobilization plan could not at this late stage be altered to exclude France, but Wilhelm refused to listen: ‘Your illustrious uncle would not have given me such an answer. If I order it, it must be possible.’105 Wilhelm ordered that champagne be brought in, while Moltke stomped off in a huff, telling his wife that he was perfectly prepared to fight with the enemy, but not with ‘a Kaiser such as this one’. The stress of this encounter was such, Moltke’s wife believed, that it had caused the
chief of the General Staff to suffer a mild stroke.106 Shortly afterwards, a new dispatch arrived by telegram from Lichnowsky announcing that Grey would soon name his conditions for English neutrality during a German war against Russia and France. This gave rise to general confusion and no reply was sent.

  Falkenhayn’s scepticism regarding the English offer was shown to be well founded when yet another despatch arrived from Lichnowsky just after 11 p.m. In this despatch, Lichnowsky effectively nullified the offer of English neutrality that Grey had held before him. Relief was in sight for Moltke, who was now at General Staff headquarters, weeping ‘tears of despair’ over the Kaiser’s order halting the 16th Division. Shortly before midnight he was ordered back to the palace to hear news of the latest despatch. On his arrival, Wilhelm showed Moltke a further telegram he had just received outlining the (corrected) British position and said: ‘Now you can do what you wish (Nun können Sie machen, was Sie wollen).’107

  Conclusions: Wilhelm and the outbreak of war

  What general conclusions can we draw from Wilhelm’s actions during the July crisis? We could begin with the banal observation that, while reluctant to entangle Germany in a continental war, he nevertheless made some of the decisions that helped to bring it about. But it should be noted that the same can be said of his two imperial colleagues, Emperor Franz Joseph and Tsar Nicholas II. Alexander Margutti, aide de camp to Franz Joseph, reported that the Austrian emperor regarded the ultimatum to Serbia as a diplomatic bluff and was deeply shaken when he realized that the Serbian reply was unacceptable.108 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was slow to accept the need for military measures and – in a move analogous to Wilhelm’s last-minute efforts to avoid continental war – actually rescinded an order for general mobilization on 29 July after receiving what he took to be a conciliatory message from his German cousin. During a further protracted discussion with Foreign Minister Sazonov on 30 July, the tsar displayed an ‘extreme loathing’ for war and could only be persuaded with the greatest difficulty of the need for an immediate general mobilization.109 On the other hand, both sovereigns represented – at least in a constitutional sense – the ‘ultimate source of decision’ within their respective political systems, and both were crucially and knowingly involved in the decisions that made war inevitable. It was Franz Joseph whose powerful personal appeal to Wilhelm secured the German promise of support for a military action against Serbia, and it was he who approved Berchtold’s ultimatum, even though he believed such a measure might provoke a widening of the conflict – ‘Yes, I know, Russia cannot tolerate such a note,’ he told Finance Minister Leo von Bilinski on 20 July, when the latter warned him that war was likely.110 Nicholas II had fully endorsed the hardening of Russia’s line on the Balkan Slavs from early 1914; he was also fully aware that Russia’s general mobilization on 30 July – the first among the Great Powers – made war inevitable and that ‘nothing remained but to wage it with the greatest possible chance of success’.111 Both sovereigns were determined not to make any concessions that would compromise the reputation and ‘Great Power position’ of their respective states.

  In all three cases, senior military figures offered good reasons for being confident of success, should it come to a conflict, and pressed for a policy of all-out confrontation. The chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, like his Russian and Austrian colleagues Sukhomlinov and Conrad, pressed his sovereign in this direction at crucial moments during the July crisis. But at no point did the German civilian leadership or the head of state surrender the power of decision to the military.112 It is true that Moltke was able to mount an independent initiative on 30 July when he issued an unauthorized exhortation to the Austrians to mobilize against Russia, promising that Germany would do the same; this extra-constitutional intervention has sometimes been cited as evidence of the disempowerment of the civilian executive and the usurpation of decisive authority by the military leadership. But this line of argument should not be taken too far: Moltke’s proposal was not taken up by the Austrians, who continued to focus their military strategy on the narrower Balkan theatre for fear of needlessly antagonizing the Russians. Moreover, a comparison of the diplomacy of the Great Powers in the crisis has led one historian to conclude that ‘coercive diplomacy and military precautions’ were a more prominent feature of crisis-management during July 1914 in Russia, Austria–Hungary, and even France and Britain, than they were in Germany.113

  Indeed, one can argue that the lack of a coordinated decision-making structure at the apex of the German Reich in fact furnished the sovereign with opportunities that were denied to his fellow monarchs to adjudicate for the civilians and against the military leaders. Wilhelm took such opportunities on 28 and again on 31 July. By contrast, Franz Joseph and Nicholas II faced – at least from mid-July – a more or less united bloc of political, military and diplomatic advisers who pressed for a course of resolute military action. Far from ensuring a plurality of viewpoints, the collegial structures that directed policy in Russia and Austria actually made it easier for the generals to sell their own particular perspective on policy to the civilian leadership and thereby create a homogeneity of outlook that was lacking in Berlin. This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in Russia, where the incessant intriguing of Sukhomlinov had helped to bring about the dismissal of the moderate prime minister Count Kokovtsov and to ensure the predominance of the more hawkish voices on the Council of Ministers.114 At no point did Nicholas II or Franz Joseph confront their military chiefs head-on as Wilhelm was prepared to do on 28 and 31 July.

  Wilhelm could do this, perhaps, because he was conscious that his own outlook on policy differed in crucial ways from that of the military leadership. It is important in this connection to remember that, notwithstanding his frequent affectations of a swaggering military style and the pleasure he took in uniforms, Wilhelm was not particularly close to the senior echelons of the active military. There had been a cooling in relations since Wilhelm’s falling out with Waldersee over the handling of manoeuvres in the early 1890s, and it was widely known that the senior military distrusted the irresolution and hesitancy of the ‘peace Kaiser’. The military entourage created the appearance of an emperor constantly in the company and councils of his warlords, but in fact the entourage had long tended to have the opposite effect: its long-serving members became ‘court soldiers’ with largely ceremonial duties and increasingly tenuous ties to the active command. Wilhelm never embraced the ‘preventive war’ thesis intermittently expounded by Falkenhayn, Moltke and other militaries; he preferred to conceive of a German response to the Russian armaments boom of 1913–14 in terms of defensive precautions, such as the construction of an impregnable belt of fortresses on the eastern frontier. At no point did he apply the logic of preventive war to the problems that arose in July 1914. He was aware of the Schlieffen Plan and presumably knew that the eastern campaign plan had been shelved in 1913, but he refused to view the campaign plan as etched in stone. He declined to accept Moltke’s notion of the German mobilization schedule as unalterable, or irreversible once launched. In other words, Wilhelm was an exponent neither of preventive war nor of the topos of inevitable war cited by some historians as a crucial factor in the escalation of the July crisis.115 This helps to explain his attack on the ‘pessimism’ of Austrian diplomacy in the Balkans and his publicly asserted wish that his reign should be remembered as an era of European peace.

  It might be objected that even if Wilhelm wanted European peace, he also wanted Balkan war, at least in early July 1914. This is certainly true, and Wilhelm was wrong in believing that one could have the latter without jeopardizing the former. Whether the legitimacy of Austria’s proposed action against Serbia was as meagre as historians have generally presumed is an issue whose adjudication must lie beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say that Vienna’s demands look distinctly undraconian from a contemporary standpoint – they represented considerably less of an incursion upon Belgrade’s sovereign prerogatives th
an those set before the Serb delegation at Rambouillet in 1999 – and the Serb reply was less accommodating than has often been asserted. In any case it is clear that Wilhelm believed not only that the Austrian cause was just but – quite rightly – that this point of view was widely held among the governments of the European Powers. For this reason among others, Wilhelm, like most of his political advisers, subscribed to the assumption that Russia would decide against intervening in the Austro-Serb conflict, even if it came to a military confrontation. This ‘illusion of a limited war’ has often been identified as a contributory factor in the German decision to support Austria–Hungary.116

  How one judges Wilhelm’s and Berlin’s mistaken assessment of the situation depends on whether one regards the assumption of Russian neutrality as an absurd delusion – a misreading of Russian intentions that is inexplicable except as a camouflage for plans to launch a preventive war – or whether one takes seriously the reasons adduced for Russian non-intervention. The fact is that the Germans had good grounds to be confident that the Russians would stay out of the conflict. The most important, as we have seen, was the still very incomplete state of the Russian armaments programme. A further factor was the signals of irresolution from the Russians, the French and the British. The Russians did ultimately intervene, but this was by no means inevitable: the experience of recent conflicts in the Balkans made it difficult to predict how seriously Russia would respond to this particular challenge. Moreover, Russian policy during the July crisis might have taken a very different course if Kokovtsov had still been in the prime minister’s chair, or if the French had not pressed so ardently for full mobilization on 27 and 28 July.