The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (99 page)

The tsar feared that war, once started, would be difficult to stop and could lead to disaster, and he still had faith in Wilhelm’s peaceful intentions.
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He signed two decrees, at the insistence of his ministers, one for partial mobilisation mainly along Russia’s frontiers with Austria-Hungary and one for general mobilisation against Germany as well, but he still held back on deciding which to use. On 29 July Nicholas sent Wilhelm a cable (in English, as their communications usually were). ‘Am glad you are back’, he wrote, and begged for his German cousin’s help in maintaining the peace. He warned, though, that he and his people were furious at the attack on Serbia: ‘I foresee that very soon I shall be
overwhelmed
by the
pressure
brought upon me, and be
forced
to take extreme measures which will
lead to war
.’
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Wilhelm was unmoved and wrote in a marginal note: ‘A confession of his own weakness, and an attempt to put the responsibility on my own shoulders.’ In a telegram of his own which he had sent at Bethmann’s suggestion and which crossed with that of Nicholas, Wilhelm defended Austria-Hungary’s actions but said that he, as a friend, was doing his best to bring about an understanding between Austria-Hungary and Russia.
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The two
rulers were to exchange ten telegrams before 1 August as the chasm between their two countries deepened irreparably.

On the evening of 29 July, Sazonov, who was with Sukhomlinov and Yanushkevich, the chief of staff, telephoned Nicholas to say that his ministers recommended a general mobilisation. There was enthusiasm at their end of the line when the tsar agreed.
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Later that evening, though, as an officer stood by at the Central Telegraph Office in St Petersburg to send out the necessary orders, Yanushkevich phoned to say that Nicholas had changed his mind, perhaps as a result of reading Wilhelm’s message, and would only allow a partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary, saying, ‘I will not be responsible for a monstrous slaughter.’
¹⁰
Nicholas still seems to have been thinking of mobilisation as a tool of diplomacy and not as a prelude to war. In a telegram the next day to Wilhelm he explained that Russia’s moves were purely defensive measures against its southern neighbour and that he still counted on Wilhelm to put pressure on Austria-Hungary to talk to Russia. ‘So it is almost a
week ahead
of us,’ the Kaiser scribbled angrily. ‘I cannot agree to any more mediation, since the tsar who requested it has at the same time secretly mobilised behind my back. It is only a manoeuvre, in order to hold us back and to increase the start they already have!’
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Nicholas’s government greeted the news of his decision with dismay. Austria-Hungary showed little inclination to back down on Serbia and Germany appeared to be moving towards general mobilisation. A partial mobilisation would leave Russia dangerously exposed. Indeed, as General Yuri Danilov, the quartermaster general, argued forcefully, it would introduce ‘germs of hesitation and disorder in a domain in which all must be based on preestablished calculations of the greatest precision’.
¹²
On the morning of 30 July, Sukhomlinov and Yanushkevich begged the tsar over the phone to order a general mobilisation instead. Nicholas was adamant that he would not change his mind. Sazonov then came on the line to request that the tsar see him in person that afternoon. Nicholas replied that his diary was already full but that he could fit the Foreign Minister in at 3 p.m. In the event the two men talked for almost an hour. Nicholas, who looked haggard, was irritable and nervous and at one point snapped, ‘The decision is mine alone.’ Sazonov, so it was said in St Petersburg society, finally broke his ruler’s resistance by saying that, given the state of public opinion in Russia, war
with Germany was the only means for Nicholas to save his own life and preserve his throne to hand on to his son. The tsar agreed to a general mobilisation to start the next day. Sazonov telephoned Yanushkevich to give him the news and then told him, ‘Smash your phone.’
¹³

From Berlin the German government had been watching developments in Russia closely. The Kaiser was furious at the news of Russian military preparations, which he saw as an act of betrayal even when they were still only directed against Austria-Hungary. He blamed France and Britain, and his dead uncle Edward VII, for seducing the tsar away from his rightful alliance. He would, Wilhelm declared, destroy the British Empire and call up his friends in the Muslim world to wage a jihad against it. (In this last at least he was true to his word.) ‘For if we are to bleed to death, England shall at least lose India.’
¹⁴
While some in the high command, Falkenhayn for example, were pressing for mobilisation – which in Germany’s case would lead inexorably to combat – they met resistance. Moltke did not initially think the situation was serious enough and Bethmann was for delay in order to portray Germany as the victim of aggression. It was Russia’s military measures, so Bethmann told the British ambassador on 28 July, that were becoming an insuperable obstacle to attempts to get a peaceful settlement between Austria-Hungary in the Balkans as well as a threat to Germany itself. On 29 July, as the Russian government was wrestling with whether or not to go for a general mobilisation, Bethmann sent a telegram to his ambassador in St Petersburg: ‘Kindly impress on M. Sazonov very seriously that further progress of Russian mobilisation measures would compel us to mobilise and that then European war would scarcely be prevented.’
¹⁵

The British Cabinet met at 11.30 on the morning of 29 July to discuss Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia and it also spent considerable time on Britain’s obligations to Belgium as one of the parties to the 1839 Treaty of London which guaranteed the neutrality and independence of the little country. (The other signatories were France, Austria, Russia and Prussia and in the last case Germany had assumed the obligations after 1871.) John Burns, the President of the Board of Trade and among those radical Liberals firmly against war, noted in his diary: ‘Situation seriously reviewed from all points of view. It was decided not to decide.’ Grey was asked to tell both Cambon and Lichnowsky that ‘at this stage we were unable to pledge in ourselves in advance, either
under all conditions to stand aside, or in any conditions to join in’.
¹⁶
The Cabinet did make two important decisions, however. First, Churchill was given permission to send out cables for a preliminary mobilisation of the navy. That night the fleet sailed northwards without its lights through the Channel to its battle stations in the North Sea. Second, the government would put a ‘Precautionary Stage’ into effect for the armed forces in Britain as provided for in their new War Book. There was confusion briefly when it was realised that no one knew exactly how to start the process and consternation when it became known that a section of the Territorials had been called up for guard duty, something that was most unusual in peacetime. The government hastily put a notice in the newspapers to say Britain was not mobilising: ‘the only orders that have been given are purely precautionary and of a defensive character’.
¹⁷

Grey met with both Paul Cambon and Lichnowsky immediately after the Cabinet meeting. To Cambon he stressed the free hand but with Lichnowsky he went further than the Cabinet might have approved and gave a warning: the British government still hoped for mediation of the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia but if Russia and Germany got drawn in the British government would have to make up its mind quickly. ‘In such an event’, Grey went on, ‘
it would not be practicable to stand aside and wait for any length of time
.’ Wilhelm’s pen erupted with marginal notes when he read the ambassador’s dispatch later that evening; ‘The common cheat!’ ‘Common cur!’ ‘Scoundrels.’ ‘That mean crew of shopkeepers.’
¹⁸

In the last stage of the crisis both the Kaiser and Bethmann, both of whom had come down on the side of peace in previous crises, were showing the nervous strain they were under as they faced towards war. France had begun preparations; Belgium was calling up its reservists and strengthening its defences, particularly around the crucial fortress of Liège, and the British navy had gone to its battle stations. Most dangerously of all, Russia was moving rapidly towards full mobilisation. On 29 July, Bethmann instructed his cousin, Pourtalès, the German ambassador in St Petersburg, to warn Sazonov that if Russia continued to mobilise Germany would have no choice but to do the same. Pour-talès, a rich and amiable man who was a great favourite of the Kaiser, had been sending reassuring reports back to Berlin to the effect that Russia was only bluffing. He now found himself in the uncomfortable
position of calling the bluff. When Sazonov heard the threat, which Pourtalès preferred to call merely a friendly opinion, he exclaimed angrily, ‘Now I have no doubt about the real reasons for Austria’s intransigence.’ Pourtalès protested vehemently against such a hurtful remark. Sazonov curtly responded that the German still had the opportunity to prove him wrong.
¹⁹

The same day Bethmann, who had to this point refused British or Russian requests to put pressure on Austria-Hungary to compromise, reversed himself and urged it to accept mediation. How sincere an attempt to maintain the peace this was is still a matter of debate; Bethmann also had an eye to opinion in Germany and elsewhere. Much of the nationalist right was openly for war, even a preventive one, while many moderates were prepared to support a defensive war. The right wing and liberal press increasingly used the language of honour and sacrifice and painted the horrors of Russian despotism and its ‘Asiatic’ barbarism sweeping into Germany, with women and children at the mercy of bestial Cossacks.
²⁰
Anti-war sentiment still seemed to be powerful, however, among the working classes. That week there were big demonstrations for peace all over the country involving some 750,000 people and in Berlin alone 100,000 took to the streets, more than had turned out in patriotic marches.
²¹
Nevertheless Bethmann hoped, rightly as it turned out, that the workers and their leaders in the SPD would rally around their homeland if it were attacked by Russia. As a consequence he strongly resisted the calls from the Kaiser and those on the right to take advantage of the crisis and use the army to crack down on the SPD.
²²

Bethmann did, however, ask Tschirschky, his ambassador in Vienna, to recommend strongly to the government there that it accept mediation. By this point Bethmann had seen the warning sent by Lichnowsky that Britain might well intervene and his mood was sombre. He had little hope, however, of prevailing on the government of Austria-Hungary. On the morning of 30 July Berchtold simply said that military operations against Serbia were now too far along and that any attempt to freeze them in place, with a halt in Belgrade, was out of the question given the state of public opinion and the feeling among the military.
²³
A direct appeal from Wilhelm to Franz Joseph echoing Bethmann’s proposal for a halt in Belgrade and mediation had as little impact. What
the Kaiser and Bethmann may not have known was that the German military were sending a very different message, urging their counterparts in Austria-Hungary to make their mobilisation a general one and to move forces up to the Russian border. Late in the evening of 30 July, Moltke sent an emotional telegram to Conrad which read in part: ‘Austria-Hungary must be preserved, mobilise at once against Russia. Germany will mobilise.’
²⁴

The mixed messages coming from Berlin shook the government of Austria-Hungary, which was under intense international pressure to accept mediation and which feared that Germany would back away from support, as it had done in the Bosnian crisis and more recently in the First and Second Balkan Wars. ‘Who rules in Berlin? Moltke or Bethmann?’ a shaken Berchtold asked his colleagues. He chose to believe that it was Moltke and said, ‘I had the impression that Germany was beating a retreat; but now I have the most reassuring pronouncement from responsible military quarters.’
²⁵
At its meeting on the morning of 31 July, the Common Ministerial Council dismissed out of hand the proposals which were coming from Britain as well for a halt in Belgrade and international mediation. Russia, said Berchtold, would only emerge as Serbia’s saviour; Serbia’s army would remain intact; and Austria-Hungary would be left in a weaker position to deal with Serbia in the future. Count Joseph Stürgkh, the Austrian Prime Minister, and Bilinski, the Common Finance Minister, both referred bitterly to the previous mediation in the First and Second Balkan Wars when Austria-Hungary had been obliged to back down. ‘The entire public’, said Bilinski, ‘would revolt at a replay of this political theatre.’
²⁶
With Franz Ferdinand no longer there to help him resist the calls for war and Conrad telling him ‘The Monarchy is at stake’, the old emperor signed the order for a general mobilisation of Austria-Hungary’s forces the same day.
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Berchtold described this to the world as ‘defensive military counter measures in Galicia to which we have been compelled by Russian mobilisation’ and said that Austria-Hungary would stop as soon as Russia did.
²⁸
Another giant step had been taken to a European war.