July 1914: Countdown to War (14 page)

The arrest of bomb-thrower Nedjelko Chabrinovitch, Gavrilo Princip’s coconspirator, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.
Source: Getty Images.

Princip himself finally gave in on Thursday, 2 July, independently of the others (he seems not to have known that Chabrinovitch and Ilitch had already confessed). In order to spare innocent men the grief of guilt by association, Princip offered to finger his fellow-conspirators so long as he was allowed to see Ilitch and Grabezh in person, in order to explain why he was confessing and encourage them to confess, too. Taking charge of the confessions just as he had taken charge on the quai, Princip then told Ilitch to let the Austrian authorities know “among whom you divided the weapons and where the weapons
are.” He told Grabezh to “confess everything, how we got the bombs, how we travelled and in what society we were, so that just people do not come to harm.”
²

By owning up and trying to get the others to stick to the same story, Princip hoped to cut off the Austrian investigation before it reached Belgrade. But it was not terribly hard for investigators to follow the leads they were given as far as the Bosnian border, where Serbian officials had connived in the smuggling of the assassins, and their weapons, onto Austrian territory. With Ilitch, in particular, showing no signs of resistance under interrogation, it was only a matter of time before the Austrians would know who in Serbia, if anyone, had armed and trained the assassins. While falling well short of legal proof, the confessions were still excellent news for Berchtold.

There were other encouraging signs, too. Germany’s ambassador, so cool on Monday to Berchtold’s plan to punish Serbia, had begun to come around. Shortly before meeting the emperor on Thursday, 2 July, Tschirschky called on Berchtold and told him that “only vigorous measures against Serbia” would do. Berchtold was not certain what accounted for the ambassador’s change of attitude—he had no inkling that Tschirschky had been rebuked by the kaiser—but it was still a welcome development. Above all, Germany’s ambassador told Berchtold, Vienna must this time develop a clear plan of action, ideally one that was “bold and decisive,” in order to convince policymakers in Berlin that Austria was not going to back down again.
³

This was exactly what Berchtold wanted to do. Just as he was beginning to see a way out of the impasse with Tisza, however, Emperor Franz Josef I threw up another obstacle. The Habsburg sovereign, after his own meeting with Germany’s ambassador on Thursday, felt obliged to call Berchtold in to discuss their conversation. Despite his own feelings on the matter, which
were closer to Berchtold’s than Tisza’s—Franz Josef agreed that some kind of “powerful response to Serbia” was necessary—the emperor was worried that events were moving too quickly. With Tisza so resolutely opposed, he was not yet ready to speak of war. Berchtold and Conrad, Franz Josef said, must wait.
⁴

All day Friday, Berchtold mulled over his options. Some kind of approach must be made to Berlin, but how and on what pretext? Tisza was still insisting on his 24 June “peace plan” for winning over Bulgaria and Romania to the Central Powers. The Hungarian surely would not object if this plan were presented to Berlin. But if the Austrians sent Tisza’s memorandum off as is, it would hardly impress the Germans as, in Tschirschky’s words, a “bold and decisive” course of action. So Berchtold decided to write a postscript to Tisza’s text, informing the Germans that “the above memorandum had only just been completed, when the terrible events at Sarajevo happened.” Offering the murders as proof “that the gulf between the monarchy and Serbia was beyond bridging over,” Berchtold concluded that Austria must “tear asunder with a determined hand the threads which its enemies are weaving into a net over its head.”
⁵
For good measure, Berchtold composed a letter to the kaiser for Franz Josef to sign, informing Wilhelm II that “the crime of Sarajevo is not the deed of a single individual, but the result of a well-arranged plot whose threads reach to Belgrade.” So long as the “source of criminal agitation in Belgrade lives on unpunished,” Berchtold’s royal letter continued with an eye to the kaiser’s strong feelings on the monarchical principle, “the peace policy of all European monarchs is threatened.” The danger, the letter concluded, would only pass “when Serbia . . . is eliminated as a political power-factor (
politische Machtfaktor
) in the Balkans.” While careful not to let slip the word “war” lest Tisza object, Berchtold wanted to leave the Germans in little doubt as to what Austria really intended to do.
⁶

The next question was how to send the diplomatic notes to Berlin. Berchtold could simply use a courier as usual, but this might not be enough to convince the Germans of how serious he was. Nor was Ambassador Szögyény an ideal candidate to announce a change in policy. Having served at his post since 1892, he was a part of the furniture of Embassy Row in Berlin, closer, in some ways, to the Wilhelmstrasse than to the Ballplatz, where his long tenure was resented, not least because Szögyény was untouchable, protected by Emperor Franz Josef himself. Moreover, he was Hungarian. Berchtold had long wanted the aging Szögyény, now seventy-three and in poor health, to retire so he could replace him with a loyal German-Austrian, Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst. Szögyény’s retirement was expected in August, but in the current crisis that might not come soon enough.

Of course, Berchtold could simply go himself. Such a high-level mission, however, would invariably attract unwanted attention from the other powers—and from Tisza. Finally, on Saturday morning, 4 July, Hoyos had an inspiration: perhaps he could go in Berchtold’s stead. The foreign minister trusted Hoyos, and so evidently—based on Naumann’s approach earlier that week—did the Germans. No one in Berlin would doubt his ability to represent the views of the Ballplatz. Better still, as a vigorous young hawk, Hoyos could counteract any impression of indecisiveness left by the aging Hungarian ambassador. A Hoyos mission was, Berchtold agreed, the perfect solution.

Events now moved rapidly. Saturday afternoon, Berchtold wired to Szögyény, asking him to arrange an urgent appointment with the kaiser for the following day. Shortly before Hoyos left the Ballplatz, Berchtold furnished him with oral instructions that went further than his textual glosses. Hoyos was, Berchtold later recalled telling him, to “explain to Ambassador Szögyény that we believe the moment has come for a final reckoning with Serbia. We must obtain from the government in Belgrade
specific guarantees for the future, the refusal of which will result in military action.” Szögyény’s task, Berchtold explained, was to “see if such a course of action [by Austria] would be supported . . . by official circles in Berlin.”
⁷
Armed with these instructions, Hoyos boarded the night train for Berlin. Berchtold then returned to his estate at Buchlau, to cultivate the appearance that little was happening.

Tisza knew nothing of these momentous decisions. Following his audience with the emperor at Schönbrunn on Wednesday, Hungary’s minister-president had returned to Budapest, where urgent domestic business awaited him. Having made his opposition to punitive action against Serbia clear to both the emperor and Berchtold, he did not suspect that any significant change in the foreign policy of the dual monarchy would be made without him. Tisza was therefore shocked when, on Sunday morning, he received a phone call from the Ballplatz, informing him that a diplomatic note had just been dispatched to Berlin, outlining Austria’s new Balkan strategy in light of the Sarajevo incident. Tisza demanded at once to be shown a copy of the text of the note, which was duly wired to Budapest. Recognizing at once the importance of Berchtold’s additions, which changed the entire meaning of his Balkan peace memorandum, Tisza called back the Ballplatz and demanded that he be allowed to delete objectionable passages—especially the one about “eliminating Serbia as a political power-factor in the Balkans,” obvious shorthand for war. It was too late: Hoyos, with Berchtold’s unedited texts in hand, was already in Berlin.
⁸

Upon his arrival in the German capital Sunday morning, 5 July, Hoyos went straight to the Austro-Hungarian embassy, where he briefed Szögyény on the two diplomatic notes and on Berchtold’s unwritten instructions. There was little time to waste, as Szögyény was expected at the Neues Palais for lunch with the kaiser. After the briefing was finished, the ambassador
set off for Potsdam, while Hoyos headed over to the Wilhelmstrasse to meet with his contacts in the German Foreign Office.

Count Szögyény, despite his frailty, had developed valuable skills during his extra-long tenure in Berlin. Above all, he was good at handling Wilhelm II. He knew the kaiser’s likes and dislikes, his capricious moods, and how to manipulate them. Szögyény began the lunchtime audience by telling Wilhelm II how strongly Franz Ferdinand had admired him. Serbian terrorism, both men readily agreed, was a threat to sovereigns everywhere. As the conversation shifted onto the always-favorable ground of the “monarchical principle,” Szögyény unveiled the sovereign-to-sovereign note signed by Franz Josef I (although actually written by Berchtold), along with the accompanying diplomatic note on the Balkans. The kaiser read both notes, he reported, “with the greatest attention.” This was the moment Berchtold and the Austrians had been waiting for. A week to the day after the Sarajevo incident, Wilhelm II would weigh in on Austria’s plans to demand satisfaction from Serbia. What would he say?

Somewhat to Szögyény’s disappointment, Germany’s sovereign did not at first assent to the general thrust of the Austrian notes. His anger over the murder of his friend having apparently subsided over the course of the week, the kaiser told Austria’s ambassador calmly that “he had expected some serious step on our [i.e., Austria’s] part towards Serbia, but that at the same time he must confess that the detailed statement of His Majesty made him regard a serious European complication as possible.” Wilhelm was no less fooled than Tisza had been by Berchtold’s language in the sovereign-to-sovereign note: “eliminating Serbia as a political power-factor in the Balkans” clearly meant punitive war. The kaiser had been burned before for loose, bellicose talk, most famously in the
Daily Telegraph
affair of 1908. He was not about to stick his neck out so recklessly again. On a question of this magnitude, the kaiser told Szögyény,
he “could give no definite answer before having taken council with the Imperial chancellor,” Bethmann Hollweg. The ambassador quietly dropped the subject.
⁹

Szögyény knew the kaiser too well, however, to let the matter rest there. It was well to let Berchtold’s diplomatic notes percolate in Wilhelm’s mind, which was never fixed for long. Having let his host relax over dessert and coffee, the ambassador tried once more in the early afternoon. “When I again called attention to the seriousness of the situation,” Szögyény reported later that day to Vienna, “the Kaiser authorized me to inform our gracious Majesty that we might in this case, as in all others, rely upon Germany’s full support.” Wilhelm insisted once more that he must speak with Bethmann, but this time he assured the ambassador that he was certain the chancellor would go along with his declaration of support.

This should have been the end of the conversation, and, in the hands of a more seasoned statesman than Wilhelm II, it would have been. Having now twice told Szögyény that he could not say anything further without consulting his chancellor, the kaiser proceeded to do just that. It was “his opinion,” he offered, that

This would be more to Berchtold’s liking. The kaiser’s incandescent rage over the Sarajevo outrage may have dissipated, but his recklessness remained. Even if Wilhelm changed his
mind later, Szögyény, and through him Berchtold, now had the kaiser’s belligerent remarks (even though made only in oral conversation) on the record: these remarks might prove invaluable in a policy tussle with Tisza. While Germany’s loose-lipped sovereign did remember to summon Bethmann from Hohenfinow to Potsdam for consultation, as far as Szögyény was concerned, the kaiser had said enough. He returned to the Austrian embassy that afternoon to report to Vienna on his promising conversation with the kaiser, expecting to speak to Bethmann the following day.

In addition to the chancellor, Wilhelm also summoned to the Neues Palais those of his military advisers to be found in Berlin. These included his own adjutant, General Hans von Plessen; General Moritz von Lyncker, chief of the military cabinet; General Erich von Falkenhayn, the Prussian minister of war; and, to represent the navy in Tirpitz’s absence, a Captain Zenker. Once everyone had arrived, shortly after five
PM
, the kaiser read out the diplomatic notes Szögyény had presented him, and briefly summarized his conversation with the ambassador. He then opened the floor for discussion.