The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (101 page)

There has been a debate ever since over whether Moltke was right, that it was too late for Germany to go to war on one front alone. General Groener, head of the general staff’s Railway Department at the time, maintained afterwards that it would have been feasible.
⁵⁰
In the event, a compromise was patched up; deployment on both fronts would continue as planned but the German armies in the west would halt just before the French border until France’s position was clearer. Moltke never really recovered from the psychological battering he received that day. When he returned home, recalled his wife, after the Kaiser’s request
for a partial mobilisation, ‘I saw immediately something terrible had happened here. He was purple in the face, his pulse hardly countable. I had a desperate man in front of me.’
⁵¹

Later that night a second telegram from Lichnowsky came in to say that his earlier one had been mistaken; the British were insisting that there be no German invasion of Belgium nor an attack on France and, furthermore, German troops designated for an attack on France in the west must not be moved to the east to be used against Russia. When Moltke went back to the royal palace in Berlin to get permission to resume the movement against Belgium and France, the Kaiser, who was already in bed, said curtly, ‘Now do as you please; I don’t care either way,’ and turned over to go to sleep.
⁵²
There was still no sleep on that fateful day for the Kaiser’s ministers who sat up to the early hours of the next morning in a debate over whether going to war with Russia required a formal declaration. Moltke and Tirpitz did not see the necessity but Bethmann, who argued ‘otherwise I cannot pull the Socialists along’, won what was to be one of his last victories over the military.
⁵³
A declaration of war was to be prepared and cabled to Pourtalès in St Petersburg. With Germany’s decision to mobilise, three of the five great European powers had now begun their general mobilisations and were either already formally at war, as in Austria-Hungary’s case, or about to be so in the case of Russia and Germany. Of the remaining three, Italy was choosing neutrality, France had decided to ignore the German ultimatum and start its own general mobilisation on 2 August, and Britain still had not decided what to do.

The 1st of August was the start of a bank holiday weekend for the British. Many families had gone to the seaside and in London Madame Tussaud’s was advertising new waxworks exhibitions for the holiday-makers: ‘The European Crisis. Lifelike Portrait Models of H.I.M. the Emperor of Austria, King Peter of Servia, and other reigning Sovereigns of Europe. The Home Rule Crisis. Sir Edward Carson, Mr. John Redmond, and other Celebrities. Naval and Military Tableaux. Delightful Music. Refreshments at Popular Prices.’
⁵⁴
There was little holiday mood in the corridors of power in Whitehall and this time an increasingly morose Grey was not able to slip away to his country cottage.

One piece of bad news followed another. The City of London was panicking. The bank rate had doubled overnight and hundreds of people
had queued in the courtyard of the Bank of England to change their paper notes for gold. The management of the Stock Exchange had decided to close until further notice (and it was to remain closed until the following January). Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Asquith had held a meeting with leading businessmen in an attempt to reassure them that the government would intervene if necessary to stabilise the economy. From the Continent came reports of armies on the move and stories, false as it turned out, that German troops were already crossing the French frontier. In a private letter to Nicolson at the Foreign Office, Goschen, the British ambassador in Berlin, wrote plaintively, ‘It’s all very terrible! All my servants will have to go I suppose and I shall remain with my English valet and Swiss
aide-cuisinier.
I hope you’re not as tired as I am.’
⁵⁵

The Cabinet met in the late morning of Saturday 1 August. ‘I can honestly say that I have never had a more bitter disappointment,’ wrote Asquith to Venetia Stanley afterwards – but he was talking about not being able to meet her during the week. The international crisis, he went on, was no closer to being resolved and the Cabinet remained undecided on what to do. One group that morning still took what Asquith described in his letter as ‘the
Manchester Guardian
tack’ – that Britain should declare that it would not join a continental war under any circumstances – and on the other side were Grey and his supporters such as Churchill and Asquith himself who refused to rule out war. Grey had hinted again at resignation if the Cabinet adopted a firm policy of nonintervention. In the middle and as yet undecided was the pivotal figure of Lloyd George, who was temperamentally inclined towards peace but who had a lively sense of Britain’s need to maintain its position as a great power. The meeting could only agree that it would not ask Parliament to approve sending the British Expeditionary Force to France.
⁵⁶

After the Cabinet meeting Grey saw Cambon, who had been waiting anxiously at the Foreign Office for news of Britain’s intentions. The French ambassador pointed out the grave peril that his country now faced from German armies on land and with the German navy able to threaten its Atlantic coasts which France had left bare, so Cambon claimed with a certain amount of exaggeration, as a result of its agreement with Britain which had undertaken to protect them. Grey gave him little comfort, waving, yet again, the free hand in front of him.
Belgium’s neutrality was important to the British, however, and the Foreign Secretary intended to ask the House of Commons on Monday, if the Cabinet agreed, to affirm that Britain would not allow a violation of that neutrality. Cambon pointed out that French opinion was going to be very disappointed at Britain’s delayed response and, according to Grey’s account of the meeting, gave a warning: ‘If we did not help France, the
entente
would disappear; and, whether victory came to Germany or to France and Russia, our situation at the end of the war would be very uncomfortable.’
⁵⁷
Afterwards Cambon staggered into Nicolson’s office white in the face and able to say only, ‘They are going to abandon us, they are going to abandon us [Ils vont nous lâcher, ils vont nous lâcher].’
⁵⁸
To a friendly British journalist who visited him at the French embassy, he said, ‘I wonder whether the word “honour” should be stripped from the English vocabulary.’ Nicolson rushed upstairs to ask Grey whether Cambon was speaking the truth about their meeting. When Grey said that he was, Nicolson said bitterly, ‘You will render us … a by-word among nations,’ and protested that the Foreign Secretary had always given Cambon the impression that if Germany were the aggressor Britain would take France’s side. ‘Yes,’ replied Grey, ‘but he has nothing in writing.’
⁵⁹
That night, Crowe, who was a strong advocate in the Foreign Office for intervention, wrote to his wife: ‘The government has finally decided to run away, and desert France in her hour of need. The feeling in the office is such that practically everyone wants to resign rather than serve such a government of dishonourable cowards.’
⁶⁰

On the other side of Europe that same day, Russia and Germany were breaking off relations. (Austria-Hungary, still dreaming of crushing Serbia, did not make its own declaration of war on Russia until 6 August.) At 6 p.m. an emotional Pourtalès, the German ambassador, asked Sazonov three times whether Russia would accede to Germany’s demand to stop mobilising. Sazonov replied each time that Russia was still willing to negotiate but that the orders could not be revoked. ‘I have’, he said, ‘no other reply to give you.’ Pourtalès then drew a deep breath and said with difficulty, ‘In that case, sir, I am instructed by my Government to hand you this note.’ With trembling hands he passed over the declaration of war and went to the window and wept. ‘I never could have believed’, he said to Sazonov, ‘that I should quit Petersburg
under these conditions.’ The two men embraced. The next morning the German embassy staff along with representatives of the separate German states left by a special train from the same Finland station Lenin was to arrive at three years later to make his revolution.
⁶¹
Sazonov phoned the tsar to inform him that the break had been made. Nicholas said only, ‘My conscience is clear – I did my utmost to avoid war.’
⁶²
His family had been waiting anxiously for him to come into dinner. He arrived, very pale, and told them that Russia and Germany were now at war. ‘Hearing the news,’ recalled one of the children’s tutors, ‘the Empress started to cry, and the grand duchesses, seeing their mother’s despair, also burst into tears.’
⁶³
There were many other tears in Europe that day, although nothing by comparison with what was to come, as the fact of war sank in and the conscripts marched off to join their regiments.

The international peace movement had watched the rapid slide towards war with horror and there had been demonstrations for peace in several European cities, to little effect. Jean Jaurès, the great French socialist, had worked tirelessly as the crisis unfolded to keep Europe’s working classes united in the fight against the war. ‘Their hearts must beat as one to prevent this horrible disaster!’ he said on 25 July in his last speech in France.
⁶⁴
On 29 July he joined representatives of Europe’s socialist parties in Brussels in a last attempt to hold the Second International together. They still called each other comrade and the leader of the German Social Democratic Party embraced Jaurès, but it was becoming clear that the nationalism, which had always threatened the unity of the Second International, was now about to tear it apart as the working classes in each country swung to the defence of their homelands and their parties prepared to vote with the governments for war credits. After a lot of debate, it was decided only to move the full Congress scheduled for later that summer up to 9 August and to hold it in Paris rather than Vienna as planned. British delegates complained that there would not be enough time for Australians to get there. Jaurès was worried and sad and had a dreadful headache. Nevertheless he made a speech that evening at a huge assembly in the Cirque Royale, the largest concert hall in Brussels. Yet again he warned of the dreadful fate with death, destruction, and disease that lay in store for Europe unless they all worked to avert war. The next morning he was more cheerful and
said to a Belgian socialist friend: ‘There will be ups and downs. But it is impossible that things won’t turn out all right. I’ve got two hours before catching the train. Let’s go to the Museum and see your Flemish primitives.’
⁶⁵

Back in Paris by 30 July, Jaurès fought on as he had always done, writing his columns for the left-wing newspaper
Humanité
, organising meetings and trying to see government ministers. When Jaurès snatched a drink with friends late that evening, at his favourite café, no one noticed the bearded young man who stalked up and down on the pavement outside. Raoul Villain, a passionate and fanatical nationalist, had decided Jaurès was a traitor because of his internationalism and pacifism. He had brought a revolver with him but did not use it that night. The next day, Jaurès managed to get a meeting with Abel Ferry, the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, who told him bluntly there was nothing to be done to avert war. Jaurès reacted as though he had been hit by a sledgehammer but he said that he would continue the struggle for peace. ‘You will be assassinated on the nearest street corner,’ Ferry warned. That evening Jaurès and a few friends stopped by the café again for supper before continuing their work. They sat by a window which had been opened to get some air on the stiflingly hot night. Villain suddenly appeared outside and fired twice; Jaurès died almost at once. A plaque still marks the spot at the Café du Croissant in the rue du Montmartre.
⁶⁶

The news of his death reached the French Cabinet on the evening of 31 July as it met yet again in emergency session. The ministers were all feeling the strain. Germany’s and Austria-Hungary’s general mobilisations had been confirmed and Joffre, the chief of the general staff, was bombarding them with demands for France’s own general mobilisation with warnings that every day of delay put France in a more dangerous position. Poincaré tried to maintain a strong facade for the others, he wrote in his diary, but underneath he was deeply troubled. His only respite from the endless meetings came when he took a walk in the grounds of the Elysée Palace with his wife. As their two dogs gambolled around them, Poincaré wrote, ‘I asked myself anxiously if Europe is really going to fall victim to a general war because Austria is wilfully determined in wanting to make a row with Wilhelm II’s sword.’
⁶⁷
The German ambassador had just been to ask the French Prime Minister whether France would remain neutral in a war between Russia and
Germany. Viviani said that he would give a definite reply in the morning. The ambassador also asked if it was true that Russia had ordered a general mobilisation and Viviani had replied that he had not been informed of this. Controversy continues to surround the question of how much the French leadership knew at this point. A telegram from Paléologue with news of Russia’s decision sent that morning took some twelve hours in transmission (a sign of how communications were starting to break down across Europe) so may not have arrived in time for the Cabinet’s meeting. In any case the policy of the French government had remained the same since the start of the crisis: to ensure that both Russia and France were seen as the innocent parties in the face of German aggression. In the preceding days, Poincaré and Viviani had repeatedly urged Russia to move cautiously and avoid provocative actions.
⁶⁸
Although no record exists of the Cabinet’s discussions that evening, when it broke up at midnight it had decided to make a decision on mobilisation the next day. It also agreed to promise Britain, in response to a request from London, that France would respect Belgian neutrality. Messimy, the War Minister, also saw Izvolsky, the Russian ambassador, to assure him that France would fight alongside Russia.
⁶⁹