July 1914: Countdown to War (54 page)

Sir Edward Grey’s sins during the July crisis were of omission, not commission. By failing to develop a clear policy (owing to the lack of a mandate from the cabinet or Commons, although he could have showed courage and overridden them), Grey missed his chance to put a scare into Berlin that Britain might intervene until it was too late for the Germans to pull Vienna back from the brink. Grey’s misleadingly positive signals, up to and including his bizarre neutrality pledges of 1 August and his ambiguous speech in the Commons on 3 August, left the Germans guessing until he finally sent Berlin an ultimatum on 4 August. By feigning neutrality and yet clearly taking the Franco-Russian side, by failing to notice Russia’s secret early mobilization and yet denouncing Austria and Germany for “marching towards war,” Grey encouraged Russian and then French recklessness, as his attitude convinced Sazonov and Poin
caré that they had him in their pocket. Still, while he can be faulted for misleading the cabinet and Commons, and even, arguably, for failing to prevent the war by not earlier deciding on a policy, bringing about a Great Power war was the furthest thing from Grey’s intention, and further still from that of some other cabinet ministers (even Churchill, who wanted the navy to be ready and was generally gung-ho, did not really wish for a European war to break out). Britain’s role in unleashing the First World War was one born of blindness and blundering, not malice.

We can say something similar about Germany’s role, although with allowance for the much greater sin of invading Belgium. For this colossal error in judgment, German leaders richly deserve the opprobrium they have been showered with ever since 1914. Like the blank check, it was a sin of commission, not omission. And yet with Belgium, too, Germany’s sin was not one of intending a world war—British belligerence was the last thing anyone in Berlin wanted—but of botching the diplomacy of the European war’s outbreak. Russia had mobilized fully two days before Germany; she had begun her secret war preparations against Austria and Germany five days earlier still. France had mobilized before Germany, too (although only by minutes). Austria had not mobilized against Russia at all. And yet somehow the prevailing opinion in London on 3–4 August was that Austria and Germany had started the war with France and Russia. The assault on Liège was not the cause of this error in British perception, which owed more to Franco-Russian deception, Sir George Buchanan’s inept reporting, and Grey’s misleading summaries. But Liège did help to confirm British prejudice against Germany. It also gave Entente diplomats, and pro-Entente historians, a ready-made argument for German war guilt—the idea that Germany “caused” or “intended” or “willed” the First World War.

This argument is not supported by the evidence. As indicated by their earlier mobilizations (especially Russia’s), in 1914 France and Russia were far more eager to fight than was Germany—and far, far more than Austria-Hungary, if in her case we mean fighting Russia, not Serbia. Germany declared war first on France and Russia because of Bethmann’s misguided sense of legal propriety, but she mobilized last, and even then hesitatingly, with her leaders (except for the timetable-obsessed Moltke and Falkenhayn) clutching desperately for exits, as indicated by how eagerly the kaiser, Bethmann, and Jagow jumped on Grey’s last-minute neutrality offers.

The reason for Germany’s reluctance becomes clear when we examine the order of battle of the armies. With German forces outnumbered and outgunned on both fronts, with Britain primed to intervene against them with an expeditionary force and a naval blockade, French and Russian generals expected that they would win, so long as Russia’s mobilization began early enough. This is abundantly clear from the chatter at the time of the war’s outbreak, which shows a widespread (although not unanimous) mood of optimism in the French and Russian general staffs. As Sukhomlinov wrote in his diary on 9 August 1914, as the assembly of the armies was nearing completion, “it seems that the German wolf will quickly be brought to bay: all are against him.”
¹⁰

The Germans, by contrast, went into the war expecting that they would lose, which is why they were so keen to wiggle out of it at the last moment. Moltke’s unrealistic and ultimately suicidal war plan, involving a march across Belgium, reflected German weakness, not German strength. It is not hard to see why Sir Edward Grey was able to convince the Commons (or most of it, anyway) that Germany was the aggressor in 1914: she was indeed the Power that first violated neutral territory in Luxembourg and then in Belgium. She did so, however, out of desperation,
out of Moltke’s belief that only a knockout blow against France would give her the slightest chance of winning. So far from “willing the war,” the Germans went into it kicking and screaming as the Austrian noose snapped shut around their necks.

 
___________

*
Not even in World War II. When France dropped out in 1940, the Soviet Union was allied to Nazi Germany. Not unless we count de Gaulle’s “Free French” as a sovereign co-belligerent could a British-French-Russian wartime coalition be said to have repeated itself.

**
Asked on his deathbed by a prison psychiatrist whether he had any regrets about his deed, Princip replied, “If I hadn’t done it, the Germans would have found some other excuse.”

Notes to Prologue
         
Sarajevo, Sunday, 28 June 1914

1
. Nikitsch-Boulles, 214.

2
. “Alone and without escort”: Fay, vol. 2, 31n39. “Wifeless toast”: Morton,
Thunder at Twilight
, 241.

3
. Cited in Albertini, vol. 2, 8.

4
. Nikitsch-Boulles, 212.

5
. Pharos, 7 (Chabrinovitch testimony), and 23 (Princip).

6
. Fay, vol. 2, 88–89.

7
. Ibid., vol. 2, 117.

8
. Pharos, 27–29 (Princip testimony) and 51–52 (Grabezh).

9
. Fay, vol. 2, 121; Pharos, 21 (Chabrinovitch testimony), 63–64, 68 (Ilitch), and 105–106 (Jovanovitch).

10
. Nikitsch-Boulles, 213.

11
. Morton,
Thunder at Twilight
, 243.

12
. Fay, vol. 2, 121–124, 138–140.

13
. “Red-gold Moorish loggias”: Morton,
Thunder at Twilight
, 245. “That’s rich . . .”: Würthle, 13.

14
. Potiorek Abschrift, 28 June 1914, in HHSA, P.A.I. Liasse Krieg, Karton 810.

15
. Pharos, 53 (Grabezh testimony).

16
. Ibid., 40 (Princip testimony).

17
. Würthle, 15–16.

Notes to Chapter 1
        
Vienna: Anger, Not Sympathy

1
. Zweig,
The World of Yesterday
, 215.

2
. Conrad, vol. 4, 17–18.

3
. “Solve the Serbian question once and for all”: cited in Albertini, vol. 1, 538. Conrad proposed going to war twenty-five times in 1913 alone: see Strachan,
First World War
, 69. On Conrad’s mistress and her beer merchant husband (see footnote), see Beatty, 5, 199.

4
. Berchtold, “monstrous agitation”: cited in Hantsch, 551. On the atmosphere in Vienna, see also Rauchensteiner,
Der Tod des Doppeladlers
, 66.

5
. Ritter to Berchtold, 29 June 1914, HHSA Liasse Krieg, Karton 810.

6
. Citation and commentary (on the most likely phrasing of the emperor’s remarks) in Albertini, vol. 2, 116, 116n2.

7
. “Consternation and indignation”: cited in Morton,
Thunder at Twilight
, 267. “Threads of the conspiracy”: Tschirschky to Bethmann from Vienna, 30 June 1914, PAAA R19865.

8
. “War on everyone’s lips”: cited in Hantsch, 551.

9
. Tisza to Franz Josef I, 1 July 1914, cited in Erenyi, 245–246.

10
. Conrad, vol. 4, 33–34. “War. War. War”: cited in Hantsch, 558.

11
. On the Common Army, language, and nationality issues, see especially Rauchensteiner,
Der Tod des Doppeladlers
, 45, and Stone,
Europe Transformed
, 315. Conrad spoke seven languages: Strachan,
First World War
, 282.

12
. Conrad, vol. 4, 30–31.

13
. Citations in Hantsch, 559–560.

14
. “Mandate of Heaven . . . stiff, Burgundian rituals”: Stone,
Europe Transformed
, 304–305. “Engine under steam . . . keen desire to spite his nephew”: cited in Beatty, 201.

15
. Tschirschky to Bethmann, 2 July 1914, in PAAA R19865.

16
. Conrad, vol. 4, 34.

17
. Citations in Fay, vol. 2, 191.

18
. Ballplatz insiders: see discussion in ibid., 205–206.

19
. Tuchman, 15.

20
. Details on Ferdinand at funeral: Morton,
Thunder at Twilight
, 269. On Sophie: Albertini, vol. 2, 117. “Provincial hole”: Zweig,
World of Yesterday
, 217.

21
. Bethmann to Franz Josef I (via Tschirschky), 2 July 1914, in DD, vol. 1, no. 6b, 9–10.

Notes to Chapter 2
        
St. Petersburg: No Quarter Given

1
. No condolences offered: Austrian consular reports from Belgrade (29 June 1914) and Sinaia (5 July 1914). Russian embassy in Rome not flying its flag at half-mast: Ritter from Belgrade, 6 July 1914. Russian Legation in Belgrade refused to lower flag during funeral requiem: Giesl from Belgrade, 13 July 1914. All in HHSA, P.A.I. Liasse Krieg, Karton 810.

2
. Ritter to Berchtold, 29 June 1914, and again 13 July 1914, in HHSA, P.A.I. Liasse Krieg, Karton 810.

3
. On Pašić and Hartwig, see especially Turner, 81.

4
. Albertini, vol. 2, 85.

5
. On Pašić’s knowledge of the plot, see Fay, vol. 2, 152; Albertini, vol. 2, 98 and passim.

6
. Cited in Turner, 38.

7
. On Russia’s Black Sea exports, see British Foreign Office study of the “Russian Financial Situation,” 25 July 1914, in PRO, FO 371/2094.

8
. On missing Russian and French correspondence, see McMeekin,
Russian Origins
, chapter 2.

9
. “Has [France] no other glory than to serve the rancors of M. Izvolsky?”: cited in Beatty, 238. For Izvolsky’s correspondence, see LN.

10
. Buchanan to Nicolson, 9 July 1914, in BD, vol. 11, no. 49, 39.

11
. Czernin to Berchtold, 3 July 1914, no. 10017 in Oe-U, vol. 8.

12
. Paléologue to Viviani, 6 July 1914, no. 477 in DDF, ser. 3, vol. 10.

13
. Pourtalès to Bethmann from Petersburg, 13 July 1914, reproduced in Pourtalès, 81–83.

14
. Russian General Staff memorandum to Sazonov, 3 July 1914, no. 74 in IBZI, vol. 4. For “telegraphs, telephones and four wireless stations” and the feverish tone of the requests: documents and annotations in Gooch,
Recent Revelations
, 173, 176.

15
. Conference protocol in Pokrovskii,
Drei Konferenzen
, 40–42.

16
. Original transcript of 21 February 1914 conference, in AVPRI, fond 138, opis’ 467, del’ 462.

17
. Sazonov to Grigorevich, 30 June 1914, no. 24 in IBZI, vol. 4. “They considered an offensive against Constantinople inevitable”: Sazonov, 126–127.

Notes to Chapter 3
        
Paris and London: Unwelcome Interruption

1
. Messimy,
Souvenirs
, 125–126.

2
. Ahamed,
Lords of Finance
, 63. “A thousand kisses”: cited in Beatty, 212.

3
. Citations in Beatty, 234, 237–238.

4
. Quoted in ibid., 235. On Russian bribes: Fay, vol. 1, 270 and 270n79.

5
. Keiger,
Poincaré
, 102. “Possibility of recovering our lost provinces”: cited in Beatty, 232.

6
. Izvolsky to Sazonov, 21 May 1914, in LN, 267.

7
. Cited in Keiger,
Poincaré
, 164.

8
.
Times
citations in Neiberg, 29, 31; Fromkin, 140.

9
. Cited in Marcus, 93.

10
. Cited in Marcus, 192–193.

11
. Grey to Goschen, 24 June 1914, reproduced in Grey, vol. 1, 294. “Question of life and death for Germany”: Jarausch, 156.

12
. Tuchman, 74.

13
. Benckendorff to Sazonov, 30 May/12 June 1914, in AVPRI, fond 138, opis’ 467, del’ 462. Imperial Russia used the Julian calendar, which in 1914 was thirteen days behind the Gregorian one used today. For all Russian documents dated by the Julian calendar, I have given the Gregorian date after a slash, as here.

14
. “Probably irreversible”: Jannen Jr., 51. “Master of the complex art”: Marcus, 70.

15
. Churchill,
The World Crisis
, 65.

Notes to Chapter 4
        
Berlin: Sympathy and Impatience

1
. Cited in Fay, vol. 2, 39.

2
. Cited in Balfour,
Kaiser and His Times
, 125.