July 1914: Countdown to War (43 page)

In a sense, the French and German war plans were mirror images of each other. Plan XVII envisioned thrusts into “occupied” Lorraine left and right of the German fortified area at Metz (there was flexibility as to which side would be emphasized, depending on what the Germans did). If the French, as hoped, broke through the weaker left wing of the German armies and wheeled north, they could cut off the German right wing. Moltke hoped to do the same thing by sending his right wing through Belgium, enveloping the French armies from behind in a gigantic flanking maneuver. While the French plan of march was not as detailed as the German one and had greater flexibility, the basic idea was the same. Under the dynamic, offense-minded doctrine prevailing in both general staffs—the French called it
offensive à outrance—
it was imperative to reach the enemy’s flank first. Speed was everything. Every day counted.
²⁰

For this reason France, as we have seen, had begun quietly preparing for war on Tuesday, when troops were ordered back from Algeria and Morocco. With an eye on Britain, France did not want to show her hand too early. Even so, at each stage, Joffre remained a day or two ahead of Moltke, from the heightening of railway security to “the return to garrison of troops on maneuver,” the cancellation of leaves, and the
couverture
ordered Thursday afternoon—conditioned by the mythical “ten-kilometer withdrawal.”
²¹

Now, on Friday, Joffre wanted to go further still. Notwithstanding the less than fully informative dispatches that Paléologue and Sazonov had sent to Paris, there is no reason to doubt that Poincaré, Messimy, and Joffre understood the gravity of these cryptic messages. Whether Russia had “decided to proceed” to general mobilization publicly or (as Paléologue had it) secretly, she had evidently
proceeded to general mobilization
, as would be confirmed for the Quai d’Orsay at 3:30
PM
Friday afternoon, by France’s ambassador in Berlin, Jules Cambon, in a
wire dispatched at 2:17
PM
. (Sazonov and Paléologue having fudged the truth, it was again left to the Germans to report what Russia had done.) Because, as Cambon himself had reported from Berlin the previous weekend, Germany had pledged herself to respond to this by mobilizing against France and Russia, it did not take too great a leap of imagination to divine that European war was about to break out. As Cambon himself concluded, “in these conditions we can expect the almost immediate publication of the German order for general mobilization.”
²²

Joseph Joffre, chief of staff of the French army, who reoriented France’s Mobilization Plan XVII in a more offensive direction. While France’s president was at sea, Joffre quietly endorsed Russia’s secret early mobilization and urged that it proceed still faster.
Source: Getty Images.

The gist of this report was soon confirmed by Germany’s own ambassador to Paris, Baron Schoen, who called at the Quai d’Orsay at around six thirty
PM
, even as the cabinet was meeting at the Elysée Palace to discuss Jules Cambon’s telegram. Viviani, after conferring with Poincaré about what line to take, dismissed the cabinet and hurried over to the Quai d’Orsay to receive the ambassador. Schoen did not mince his words: in response to Russia’s “
total
mobilization of its land and sea forces,” he informed the French premier, Germany had activated the “Imminent Danger of War” at three
PM
Friday. The Russian government, he continued, was being asked to demobilize on both her German and her Austrian frontiers, within a twelve-hour time limit, from midnight until noon Saturday. Barring this, Germany would be forced to mobilize, which meant war.
*
²³

Viviani claimed that he “had no information at all about an alleged total mobilization of the Russian army and navy.” This transparent lie did not impress Schoen. Plowing right ahead, he asked the premier what the “attitude of France” would be “in the case of a war between Germany and Russia.” Viviani was still evasive. Not unlike Grey in his dealings with the French ambassador, France’s premier replied that he could not, as yet, give an answer. When, Schoen asked, might he be able to give one? Viviani said he would reply by Saturday at one
PM
Paris
time (two
PM
German time, or two hours after Russia’s deadline to demobilize would expire). In one final gambit to tease out French intentions, Schoen asked if he should get his passports ready. Viviani told him to wait.
²⁴

The sequence of events that followed is bewildering. Viviani, returning home for dinner after his meeting with Schoen, ran into Joffre and briefed him on Schoen’s quasi-ultimatum to France. Joffre then urged Messimy, the war minister, “to give orders for our general mobilization without an instant’s delay, for I considered it imperative. Messimy promised me to insist on this step when the Cabinet assembled in the evening.”
²⁵
At eight thirty
PM
, while Viviani was dining at home, a telegram from Paléologue was received at the Quai d’Orsay, announcing that “an order has been issued for the general mobilization of the Russian army.”
*
²⁶
While this could not have come as news, this laconic, single-line message still had a sobering effect, as it threatened to undermine plausible deniability. When the cabinet reconvened at nine
PM
, the first item of business was composing a careful message to Paléologue, in which Viviani asked the ambassador “to report to me, as a matter of urgency, as to the reality of the alleged general mobilization of Russia.” Considering that Paléologue had reported Thursday night that Russia “had decided to proceed secretly” to general mobilization, and then wired again Friday morning confirming it was public, this wire, dispatched to Petersburg at nine thirty
PM
, must
have struck Paléologue as a rhetorical question.
*
²⁷
The only logical explanation is that it was diplomatic camouflage, as France sought to extend plausible deniability a little longer.

Scarcely had the cabinet put together this cover story denying French knowledge of Russian general mobilization than a bombshell came in from the streets. Jean Jaurès, the great pacifist orator, had just returned to Paris after addressing an antiwar congress of the Socialist International in Brussels, at which he had locked arms with Hugo Haase, leader of the German Social Democratic Party, in a gesture of internationalist solidarity. Addressing journalists at the Chamber of Deputies, Jaurès was seen to “explode” in anger over Russia’s malign influence on French foreign policy: “Are we going to unleash a world war because Izvolsky is still furious over Aehrenthal’s deception in the Bosnian affair [of 1908–1909]?”
²⁸
At 9
PM
, Jaurès went to dine with friends at the Café Croissant in Montmartre. At 9:40
PM
, a young nationalist fanatic out to avenge the murder of Gaston Calmette by Mme Caillaux
**
—the improbably named Raoul Villain—walked up to the open window and fired two shots into Jaurès’s back. By 9:45
PM
Jaurès was dead.
²⁹

Word of Villain’s terrible deed rifled across Paris. The cabinet was informed at 9:50
PM
. Whatever their views of the Socialist orator, everyone was stunned by the news, which seemed a terrible omen. Even Poincaré, Jaurès’s bitter opponent over the Three-Year Service Law, took the time to compose a heartfelt message to Jaurès’s widow, expressing “great admiration”
for his rival.
³⁰
But it was not all hugs and kisses. Public commotion over the Mme Caillaux trial had finally died down; now it threatened to begin all over again. The prefect of police phoned to warn that “there will be a revolution in Paris in three hours.” The Socialists, after all, had vowed, in a series of international congresses, to stage a general strike to sabotage any European war. Jaurès himself was the most famous partisan of the idea, although he had always been careful to avoid direct exhortations to sedition. Suddenly, it seemed imperative to invoke the notorious Carnet B, the long list of antiwar agitators, anarchists, pacifists, and spies the French government planned to arrest on the day of mobilization. Viviani, a former Socialist who knew some of the men on the list, predictably opposed the idea as an outrage. In the end the cabinet, hoping to cool tensions in the wake of the Jaurès murder and to preserve national unity, agreed not to invoke Carnet B against French citizens (although foreigners suspected of spying were still to be arrested). As an added precaution, Joffre agreed to order two cavalry regiments, about to depart for the frontier, to remain in the capital.

There remained urgent business. Despite Joffre’s impatience, Viviani refused to authorize general mobilization yet, insisting that everyone sleep on the question one more night. In a sense, the point was moot: it was already too late to issue orders to take effect by midnight Friday. To make midnight Saturday, the French had until four
PM
the next day. Meanwhile, Joffre wired his corps commanders to prepare for war.
³¹

At ten thirty
PM
, Britain’s ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, arrived at the Elysée Palace, demanding an answer to Grey’s query about respecting Belgian neutrality. Viviani demurred, responding with a question of his own: What would Britain do? To give a hint as to where things stood, he then told Bertie that “the German Embassy is packing up” (this was untrue, although it was true that Schoen had asked him whether he should begin
packing).
³²
After conferring with his colleagues in the cabinet, Viviani dispatched Bruno de Margerie, his political director, to give Bertie an answer. The message for Grey was emphatic: “French Government are resolved to respect the neutrality of Belgium, and it would only be in the event of some other Power violating that neutrality that France might find herself under the necessity . . . to act otherwise.” Poincaré had promised to repeat this assurance personally to King Albert of Belgium.
³³

Equally important was what the French cabinet did
not
discuss Friday night. Aside from the curious rhetorical “query” about Russian mobilization sent to Paléologue, no message of any kind about avoiding provocative Russian military measures on the German frontier was addressed to Izvolsky or Sazonov—not even as mild a warning as the one Viviani had sent off on Thursday morning. Then, everyone had been awakened at three
AM
to respond to Sazonov’s cryptic message that, as Russia was “unable to accede to Germany’s desire [to cease mobilizing], it only
remains for us to hasten our armaments and regard war as imminent.”
Now that the Germans themselves had inaugurated
Kriegsgefahrzustand
in response to Russian general mobilization, there was no more need for dramatic late-night consultations between Russia and France. France would order mobilization when she (that is, Viviani, the last holdout) was ready—probably at four
PM
Saturday. In the meantime, Messimy was dispatched to give the Russian ambassador a private assurance, “in solemn, heart-felt tones of the [French] Government’s firm resolve to fight.” In exchange, France’s war minister “begged” Izvolsky “to confirm the hope of the French General Staff that all [Russia’s] efforts will be directed against Germany and that Austria will be regarded as a negligible quantity.”
³⁴
It was not quite a guarantee of co-belligerence, but it was close.

Nor was there any cabinet discussion of mediation in Vienna. The Austrian ambassador to Paris, Count Szécsen, visited
the Quai d’Orsay just after ten
PM
, about the same time the cabinet was reacting to the Jaurès assassination. His brief was to inform the French government that Austria had officially declared to Russia that she did not intend to annex Serbian territory or infringe Serbian sovereignty. Szécsen assured Philippe Berthelot, the director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who met him in Viviani’s stead, “it ought to be possible still to settle the question, [Austrian] mobilization not being war, and leaving a few days still for conversations.” Serbia, he proposed, could ask Austria for terms. Not surprisingly, Berthelot dismissed the proposal, on the grounds that it was “extremely late” and had already been “overtaken by events.” Szécsen did not put up much protest, conceding to Berchtold in his own report of the encounter that, owing to the German
Kriegsgefahrzustand
ordered in response to Russia’s general mobilization, “the Serbian question fell entirely into the background.”
³⁵
Certainly the French cabinet saw things this way, as there was no discussion of Serbia on Friday night. Despite Berchtold having catalyzed the entire crisis a week earlier with the ultimatum to Belgrade, with the decisive events of Friday in Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris, Vienna had become almost an afterthought.