July 1914: Countdown to War (32 page)

This was a rationalization, as Bethmann would have realized if he were thinking clearly. If he truly enjoyed a clear conscience, he would not have been so wracked with doubts as the crisis hurtled toward war. While neither Bethmann nor the kaiser was solely to blame for the war clouds now darkening Europe’s horizon, Grey was not wrong to point to Germany as the focal point for war or peace on Monday, 27 July. True, Russia was secretly mobilizing, almost certainly with French connivance and British—well, indifference. But the power about to actually declare war on another sovereign state was not Russia but Austria-Hungary. And the Austrians would never take this fateful final plunge without approval from Berlin. Why else had Berchtold directed Tschirschky to inform Bethmann about the
impending declaration of war on Serbia, if not to ask for German permission? With localization evidently a fantasy, with Britain all but lost to the Entente, with the Germans’ fait-accompli stratagem rendered effectively obsolete by weeks of delay in Vienna, the time to take a step back and call off the Austrians was that moment—Monday night. The next day would be too late.

It must have been an evening of excruciating tension. As Riezler recorded in his diary, there was “immense commotion at the Wilhelmstrasse. Nobody sleeps. I see the chancellor only for seconds.”
²⁵
Bethmann’s dilemma was acute. If he called off Austria’s war with Serbia now—after Vienna had finally given the Germans the fait accompli they had been demanding for weeks—the chancellor might well rupture the alliance with Austria-Hungary, Germany’s only true ally. If, however, he allowed the Austrians to declare war as planned on Tuesday, then the long-feared breach with London might result, turning Britain from disinterested neutral into likely enemy in a European war.

Faced with such unappealing options, Bethmann, unsurprisingly, chose a third. Rather than call off the Austrians, he passed on to the Ballplatz Grey’s new proposal for German mediation in Vienna “on the basis of the Serbian note,” while signaling that he was passing it on under duress. “After our having declined an English proposal for a conference” (Grey’s four-power idea, targeting Austria, Russia, and Serbia equally), Bethmann informed Tschirschky, Germany’s ambassador to Austria, in a telegram dispatched from the Wilhelmstrasse just before midnight, “it is impossible for us to reject this English suggestion
a limine
. By a rejection of all mediatory action we should be held responsible for the conflagration by the whole world and be represented as the real warmongers.” Germany’s position, the chancellor continued, was “all the more difficult as Serbia has apparently yielded so much. We cannot therefore reject the role of mediator and must submit the English proposal to
the Vienna cabinet for consideration.” For good measure, Bethmann asked that Tschirschky also remind Berchtold of “M. Sazonov’s desire to negotiate directly with Vienna,” of which he had learned from Pourtalès. In this way the chancellor covered his British flank, furnishing evidence that Germany was not opposed to mediation, while still not quite pulling the rug out from under Austria’s impending war with Serbia (which subject he did not mention at all).
²⁶

More quietly still, Jagow (presumably with Bethmann’s tacit approval, if not outright connivance) sought to reassure Berchtold, in off-the-cuff remarks made to the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, that Germany would not really hold Austria to account over England’s mediation proposals. Jagow, Ambassador Szögyény reported to the Ballplatz at nine fifteen
PM
, told him “in a strictly confidential form that in immediate future mediation proposals from England will possibly (
eventuell
) be brought to Your Excellency’s knowledge by the German government.” Jagow did not indicate which of Grey’s proposals was meant: the four-power conference or the idea of German mediation at Vienna on the basis of the Serbian reply (in the event, it was the latter that Bethmann passed on to Tschirschky several hours later). He did not really need to, as his real purpose was to assure Berchtold that “the German government . . . tenders the most binding assurances that it in no way associates itself with the proposals, is even decidedly against their being considered, and only passes them on in order to conform to the English request.” The reason was straightforward. “It is of the greatest importance,” Jagow explained to Szögyény, “that England at the present moment should not make common cause with Russia and France.”
²⁷
The Germans, that is, wanted plausible deniability with London, but meanwhile, Austria could go ahead in her war with Serbia.

The cynicism with which Bethmann forwarded Grey’s mediation proposals to Vienna has come in for well-deserved
opprobrium among historians.
²⁸
And yet it is not entirely clear what the chancellor’s maneuver proves, beyond that he was trapped in an impossible policy dilemma and tried, clumsily, to climb out. As his critics point out, Bethmann could indeed have pulled back from the brink and forced the Austrians, against their will, to negotiate. Conrad, Austria’s army chief of staff, might even have gone along with this, knowing that Austria’s cumbersome mobilization meant that he could not invade Serbia until 12 August anyway. It was not Conrad, though, who was insisting on declaring war immediately; it was Berchtold. Were Bethmann to rebuke him now, Berchtold would be humiliated. So, too, would Bethmann himself; the fait accompli was, after all,
his
policy (and the kaiser’s, although the nature of German court politics meant that Bethmann alone would be blamed if the policy went wrong). For the chancellor to unwind it now would all but necessitate his resignation—a resignation he had in fact offered on Saturday. Instead, Bethmann was now eating the broth he had cooked, just as the kaiser had ordered him to.

Bethmann’s critics also fault him for being dishonest with Grey, by pretending that he was sincerely trying to pressure the Austrians to negotiate. But what else could Bethmann have done? Having chosen a policy course requiring Germany to back Vienna, he stuck to it now. If he was trying to deceive Grey about this, it was for the obvious reason that Grey had made an impossible demand of him. Why, indeed, was an ostensibly neutral England demanding so forcefully that Germany mediate at Vienna, but not that France mediate at St. Petersburg? When Grey had demanded the latter back on Saturday—mediation between Austria and Russia, in which France was expected to pressure the latter—the French and Russian ambassadors had both rejected the proposal outright, and yet Grey had not responded to their rejection by threatening them with war, as he now implicitly threatened Germany. Indeed, France
and Russia had not responded to Grey’s four-power proposal on Sunday either (Bienvenu-Martin did accept it on Monday afternoon, but only on the condition that the Germans intervene at Vienna first).
²⁹
The Germans had rejected Grey’s second, four-power conference proposal just as publicly and frankly as they had accepted his first, for outside mediation between Austria and Russia. If they were now treading more carefully around the third (Grey’s idea of using the Serbian reply note as the basis for German mediation at Vienna), it was for good reason.

No matter whether the Germans said yes or no, Grey had concluded—as he told Lichnowsky—that Germany alone would decide the question of war and peace, while exonerating France and Russia, despite their not yet having accepted
any
of his proposals! In the same conversation, Grey had “confirmed” to Lichnowsky that “no Russian call-up of reserves has taken place.”
³⁰
This statement was not only blatantly untrue; its very formulation signaled bias to the Germans. (How could Grey possibly have “confirmed” something in a faraway country
not to have happened?
Only by taking Russian denials at face value.) Declaring himself, and by implication Britain, impervious to any evidence of Russia’s warlike intentions, Grey had already taken sides, despite his pose of disinterestedness. Small wonder that Bethmann resorted to deceit. Grey had rigged the diplomatic game over Britain’s belligerence in such a way that Germany could not possibly win if she played it straight.

Of course, Grey did not believe himself to be lying when he kept denying that Russia was mobilizing. He had little to go on beyond the reports of his ambassador, and these were about as ill-informed as diplomatic dispatches could be. Buchanan had reported, on Sunday evening at 8
PM
, that the “Governments of St. Petersburg and Moscow have been placed in a ‘state of extraordinary protective activity.’” But he qualified this report immediately by claiming that this had been done “ostensibly in
view of strikes” (this is what Sazonov must have told him). All he offered Grey in the way of critical acumen was that the measure
might
have been connected to “intending mobilization.”
³¹
But then even this watered-down interpretation was undercut when Buchanan failed to follow up on the matter. In a dispatch filed from Petersburg on Monday night at 8:40
PM
, by which time dozens of reports on Russia’s secret mobilization measures had arrived in Berlin and Vienna, Buchanan did not so much as mention a single rumor about mobilization.
³²
So far as Grey knew, he was therefore acting in good faith. He
thought
he was averting an unnecessary war by making a reasonable demand for German mediation in Vienna, as Austria appeared to be the only power threatening the peace of Europe. In reality, he was putting the screws exclusively on Germany while ignoring Russia’s threatening moves on the Austrian and German frontiers.

Grey was just as ignorant, apparently, of Britain’s own war preparations. After ordering the fleet at Portland not to disperse as planned, on Monday night Churchill had gone further still, wiring to all of Britain’s naval commanders:

Churchill, by sending this secret message without approval from the cabinet, had committed an act of insubordination. Yet his behavior was more honest about British intentions than that of Sir Edward Grey, who, against the logic of his own biased diplomacy, continued denying that such a thing as a Triple
Entente existed. Grey’s desire for peace was genuine, but it was hardly helped along by his flimsy pose of neutrality.

Good intentions in diplomacy avail little without good intelligence. In his knowledge of Russian military preparations, Grey was two full days behind events, and falling further behind. France’s peace-minded premier, stuck on board the
France
, was no better off. Germany’s Ambassador Schoen was not wrong to inform Berlin that Viviani intended to influence Petersburg, but Bethmann was deeply mistaken if he really believed that the premier’s efforts would amount to anything. Viviani did succeed in getting one official message to his ambassador, Paléologue, on Monday, reaffirming France’s support for Russia in the current crisis—though adding, in a personal touch (this phrase was not in the original Quai d’Orsay draft), that she was offering this support “in the interests of general peace.”
³⁴
Whether or not this message was intended to stiffen or weaken Russia’s posture vis-à-vis Germany and Austria, it was certainly not going to convince Sazonov to rescind mobilization measures Russia had already taken, about which Viviani seems to have been just as oblivious as Grey.

On the German side, Kaiser Wilhelm II, as a result of Bethmann’s dithering, was also two or three days behind. He had seen the text of the Austrian ultimatum only on Sunday and had still not seen Serbia’s reply when he went to bed Monday night. All three men, though for different reasons, would dearly have loved to prevent the European war that now seemed imminent. The lack of up-to-date information rendered them impotent in the face of onrushing events.

 
___________

*
That news of the holding together of the British fleet reached Berlin on Monday, 27 July, is asserted by nearly all historians of the July crisis, although it is not confirmed by any contemporary source. Lichnowsky’s three dispatches from London sent this day do not mention it. According to the German official history, two telegrams were received from the German naval attaché in London on English naval preparations—on
Tuesday
, 28 July.

TUESDAY, 28 JULY

T
HE KAISER ROSE AT DAWN
in the Neues Palais on Tuesday morning, 28 July. At seven thirty
AM
, he went for a ride with his adjutant, General Plessen. Neither man was aware of the previous evening’s critical dispatches to and from Vienna. There was thus little to disturb the pleasant early morning exercise. “H[is] M[ajesty],” Plessen recorded in his diary, “tells me England thinks the Serbian answer to the Austrian ultimatum such that in essence all the demands are conceded and therewith all reason for war is gone.” While Plessen saw no reason to disagree, he did tell his sovereign that he “thought Austria must at least lay hands on some gauge which should serve as a guarantee for the carrying out of [Serbia’s] concessions.” The kaiser thought that Austria had missed her chance for a punitive war, but this was by no means a bad thing, if a diplomatic triumph over Serbia was still on offer.
¹

It was in this state of mind that Wilhelm sat down, at long last, to read the Serbian reply to Austria’s ultimatum after he returned to the palace shortly after nine. Delivered from the Wilhelmstrasse by courier, the decrypted French-language text had
arrived in Potsdam shortly before midnight, long after the kaiser had turned in. While he already suspected that the tone of the reply would be reasonably conciliatory, Wilhelm was floored when he read it. “A brilliant achievement in a time limit of only forty-eight hours!” he scribbled, declaring Serbia’s near-total compliance “more than one could have expected!” and “a great moral success for Vienna.” With Prime Minister Pašić’s reply, he deduced, “all reason for war is gone, and Giesl ought to have quietly stayed on in Belgrade!” Receiving such a reply, he wrote, “I should never have ordered mobilization.”
²