Europe's Last Summer (10 page)

Baron von Aehrenthal, foreign minister of the Dual Monarchy (1906–12), elevated from Baron to Count in 1909, gloried in his reputation as the most highly esteemed foreign secretary of his time. At the foreign office, he surrounded himself with a staff of aristocratic young aides who became his disciples. Admirers thought him clever; detractors,
too
clever.

Aehrenthal saw in the Young Turk rebellion an opportunity to score a dazzling success in the continuing rivalry among imperial Great Powers. Whether taking the Balkan provinces proved to provide the first—or the last—chance to dismember the
Ottoman Empire hardly mattered; in either event Austria-Hungary would move ahead of the other powers by striking first. It was a propitious moment: Russia, formerly Austria's chief rival in the Balkans, was so weakened by losing the war against Japan (1904–05) and by the revolution of 1905 as to be practically
hors de combat.

On October 6, 1908, the Dual Monarchy announced its
annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. To distract attention from the proclamation, Aehrenthal encouraged Bulgaria, which nominally had remained until then under Turkish sovereignty, to proclaim legal independence the day before. Further throwing dust into the eyes of Europe's other foreign ministers, he also proposed to withdraw Hapsburg troops that he regarded as
useless from the neighboring Turkish district of Novibazar. Aehrenthal, who kept his own monarch, Franz Joseph, in the dark about these maneuvers, lied repeatedly to other European governments about what he was doing and what he was pushing Bulgaria to do. It was an example of the erosion of the aristocratic code of conduct that formerly had typified European leaders.

The most violent reaction came from the small but vigorous Balkan monarchy of Serbia, champion of South Slav rights. Serbia long had regarded Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of its heartland. Many elements in the government, in the military, and in the population thought immediately of mobilization against Austria or of going to war.
Narodna Odbrana, a Serbian nationalist paramilitary organization, sprang up to champion the Serbian cause.

Even the Kaiser was appalled, terming the annexation "fearful stupidity" and lamenting, "Thus my Turkish policy, so carefully built up over twenty years, is thrown away." He learned of the Austrian move only from the newspapers and expressed himself as "deeply offended in my feelings as an ally" by Aehrenthal's secrecy; to which Germany's Chancellor responded: "Our problem could be stated as follows: we must not risk the loss of Austria—with her fifty million inhabitants, her strong and efficient army, but still less must we let ourselves be dragged by her into the midst of an armed conflict which . . . might lead to a general war, in which we certainly had nothing to gain."

Alexander Izvolsky, the foreign secretary of Russia, which was Austria's main rival in the region, initially made no objection to the Austrian grab. He believed that Aehrenthal had promised him that the Hapsburg Empire would help secure compensation for the Czar: free passage for Russia through Constantinople and the Straits. Indeed, Izvolsky believed that he had a definite promise from Aehrenthal in this regard and felt cheated that it was not kept. But a bullying note in undiplomatic language from Berlin dissuaded the Czar from championing the Serbian cause. Germany's acting foreign minister, the aggressive
Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter, on Bülow's behalf used menacing language—that of ultimatums—in communicating with Izvolsky: "we expect a definite answer: yes or no; any evasive, involved, or vague answer would have to be regarded by us as a refusal." Russia, reeling from defeat and revolution in 1905, had little choice but to submit. It was all the more humiliating to Izvolsky because other leading figures in his government who did not share his goals at the Straits were astonished that he had let Aehrenthal get away with taking Bosnia.

Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina upset the fragile balance of power in the
Balkans. Izvolsky, whether to hit back at Aehrenthal or for some other reason, sent
Nicolai Hartwig as minister to Serbia (1909–14). Hartwig was a pan-Slav militant with a following of his own in Russia. He set out to bring Balkan states into a common front to take some or all of the lands still occupied by the Ottoman Empire in Europe. This was a difficult task—getting the quarrelsome rival states of the Christian Balkans to agree on anything seemed hopeless at times—but, as Hartwig showed, it was not impossible.

Hartwig began by forging an alliance between
Serbia and
Bulgaria, and then joining that alliance to an accord
with Russia. Arrangements with Greece and Montenegro followed.

Chancellor von Bülow had approved the use of humiliating language in dealing with Russia. Perhaps it was because he wanted to score an evident triumph. He needed one.

Bülow had been appointed to his position largely through the influence of
Philipp Eulenburg, the Kaiser's best friend. Following a series of homosexual scandals and prosecutions, Eulenburg had been obliged to retreat into exile. Tales of transvestite follies and decadent parties seemed to implicate the Kaiser himself.

As Chancellor, Bülow had been obliged to recognize that Germany could not keep up the naval arms race with Britain, a contest that had been central to the Tirpitz policy that he and the Kaiser had embraced. He himself realized the difficulty of supporting the budget and saw no way of raising the taxes that were needed to do so.

As the Bosnian crisis was playing itself out, Bülow faced another scandal: a controversial newspaper interview given by the Kaiser that had been cleared in advance by the Chancellor.

The interview had been granted by Wilhelm to a British friend, who worked up his notes into an article that was published by the
London
Daily Telegraph
in October 1908. The article meant to show that the Kaiser was pro-British and that England therefore had nothing to fear from Germany. Wilhelm claimed that during the recent
Boer War in South Africa (in which German interests and sympathies lay with the Boers and against England) he personally had prevented other European powers from combining against Britain. Even more, the Kaiser claimed to have devised and delivered strategic plans for Britain that had enabled Britain to win the war. The British were enraged, and in this they were not alone.

The German people, the German parliament, and all German parties denounced Wilhelm. There was a question as to whether the Kaiser might be forced to abdicate. Of course he had not, as he claimed, provided the British generals with their campaign plans. But Bülow, who had failed to adequately vet the indiscreet remarks of his monarch, now failed to defend him. To save himself he lied and did not admit that he had cleared the interview. In 1909, Bülow resigned. A new Chancellor took office, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, a civil servant, but of an old and wealthy Rhineland family. Bethmann knew he was not Wilhelm's preferred choice for the office, and his willingness to stand up to the Kaiser was questioned then and is questioned still. Bethmann was an outsider—not Prussian, not military— who did not have, nor did he ever develop, personal relationships with the leaders of the armed forces or with the emperor.

For the Prussian military, demoralized by the discrediting of Wilhelm, it seemed evident that the only way to save the monarchy and therefore their way of life was to go to war. The chief of the Military Cabinet,
General Moritz von Lyncker, claimed that war was needed in order to get Germany "out of the internal and external difficulties." But he added that the Kaiser probably would not have the nerve to adopt this solution.

Moltke, chief of the Great General Staff, believed that war was inevitable, and the sooner the better. He was disappointed that the Bosnian crisis was resolved peacefully; such an opportunity of war, he warned, "will not come so soon again under such propitious circumstances."

Having completed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Aehrenthal set out to preserve the new status quo in the Balkans. He wanted no further changes. He tried to persuade the powers that Austria did not intend to take Macedonia next. But Russia viewed what he had done as aggressive and therefore believed that Austria-Hungary had become expansionist. To counter that expansionism, Russia felt impelled to organize pro-
Russian, anti-Austrian sentiment in the Balkans. In turn, the Dual Monarchy saw this as Russian expansionism, requiring defensive measures of its own.

The treaty of 1879 between Germany and Austria had been a defensive alliance: if either country were attacked—but
only
if it were the country that was attacked—the other was bound to come to its aid. But in January 1909, at the climax of the Bosnia-Herzegovina crisis, Conrad, Austria's chief of staff, had asked Moltke, his German counterpart, what Germany would do if Austria invaded Serbia and thereby provoked Russia into intervening. Moltke replied that Germany would protect Austria anyway, even though Austria would have started it. Moreover, Germany would go to war not only against Russia, but also against France, since France was Russia's ally.

In his history of Germany,
Gordon Craig notes that Austria thereafter relied upon Moltke's pledge as a binding commitment: "In effect, Moltke had changed the treaty of 1879 from a defensive to an
offensive treaty and placed his country at the mercy of the adventurers in Vienna." It should be added that Moltke's pledge was backed by the Chancellor.

CHAPTER 12: FRANCE AND
GERMANY MAKE THEIR PLAY

For a long time France had been eyeing Morocco. It was the last territory in North Africa that remained independent, and it would nicely complement the nation's holdings in Algeria and Tunisia. France was moving to assert a presence in Morocco when, in 1905, Germany unexpectedly intervened. The Kaiser, albeit reluctantly, was sent by his government on a trip—by ship, through a Force 8 gale—to champion
Moroccan independence. On Germany's part this was a pretext aimed at disrupting the newly formed Entente of Britain with France. But the German maneuver failed: Britain sided with France. An international conference convened and sympathized with France, too. The conference awarded France the leading role in Moroccan affairs by a treaty signed at Algeciras in 1906. At Germany's insistence the treaty pledged the Europeans to uphold the rule of the Sultan, not to undermine Morocco's independence, as France (or at least its colonialist party) actually aimed to do and in fact went ahead to do.

In March 1911, according to French authorities, rebel tribes brought disorder to the interior of Morocco and threatened one of the capital cities, Fez. The Sultan of Morocco appealed to France to send troops and to restore order. In Berlin it was believed that the tribal uprising had been fomented by the French in order to provide them with an excuse for occupying the country. Even if the uprising were genuine, it was safe to assume that once French troops were installed in Morocco, they would remain. The new German foreign secretary, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter, decided to spring a trap. Until the French acted he did nothing but remind them that to do so would abrogate existing treaty arrangements and lead to negotiations to replace them. His aim was to force France to offer Germany substantial compensation: enormous tracts in Africa. In turn, such a diplomatic triumph would shore up the Berlin government's position in the forthcoming parliamentary elections of 1912, where prospects otherwise were quite bleak.

French troops occupied Fez on May 21, 1911. Without consulting even such key members of his own government as the armed forces chiefs, Kiderlen sent a naval cruiser, the
Panther,
to anchor in the harbor of Agadir on Morocco's Atlantic coast. He then asserted Germany's claims on July 1. Apparently he assumed that England, as France's longstanding imperialist rival, would stay out of the conflict. So would Russia, unwilling to risk war for a country as far away and unimportant as Morocco. Austria-Hungary was an ally and so, at least in theory, was Italy.

Kiderlen's calculation was that an isolated France would give way. But it turned out that France was not isolated. Great Britain rallied to its support: Chancellor of the Exchequer
David Lloyd George, though of radical, pacifist-leaning, anti-imperialist political origins, made that clear in a rousing speech at a Mansion House banquet on July 21. Russia, too, with some ambiguity, seemed to sympathize with France, while Austria-Hungary refused to extend even diplomatic support for Germany. Italy was of no help.

The Kaiser and his political friends, reluctant from the start to let the foreign secretary play out his risky hand, weighed in on the side of peace. Germany backed down. Austria had gotten away with annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina due to German support, so France had gotten away with taking Morocco due to Britain's aid. France, which already held Algeria and Tunisia, now received Germany's recognition of its protectorate over Morocco too. In return, Germany was awarded compensation in Africa that it deemed to be inadequate. All was agreed November 4,1911.

Everything seemed to fall into place in the wake of the Agadir crisis. The outlines of a future war, although not its cause, became increasingly clear. Germany had been put on notice that Great Britain might well come in on France's side, and that Russia would do so too if what was at stake was France's survival rather than a mere colonial issue.

Germany could not rely on Italy, a nominal ally, nor even on the Dual Monarchy. Regarding the
Austrian alliance as vital, Germany learned at Agadir that it was a
one-way affair: Berlin would help to pursue Vienna's interests, but Vienna would not help to pursue Berlin's. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had known it even before the crisis; he had told the Kaiser: "If it comes to a war, we must hope that Austria is attacked so that she needs our help and not that we are attacked so that it would depend on Austria's decision whether she will remain faithful to the alliance." In other words, a conflict would have to be Austria's in the first instance or else Vienna would sit out the war.