July 1914: Countdown to War (27 page)

To this veiled warning Buchanan replied with a warning of his own. Unable to give Russia the unequivocal endorsement she wanted, the Briton “said all he could to impress prudence on [Sazonov].” If, however, “Russia mobilized,” Buchanan warned Russia’s foreign minister, “Germany would not be content with mere mobilization or give Russia time to carry out hers, but would probably wish to precipitate a conflict.” Since neither Austria nor Russia looked like blinking, war now looked increasingly likely. The position, Buchanan concluded in his report to Grey, was “perilous.” Because Russia was now “secure of support of France, she will face all the risks of war.” Before long, Britain “shall have to choose between giving Russia our active support or renouncing our friendship.”
⁶

Paléologue had no such qualms. Poincaré and Viviani were still at sea. He had received no messages either from the
France
or from the acting director of foreign affairs at the Quai d’Orsay, Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin, urging any sort of caution (he may have agreed on a policy line with Poincaré before the president
left). Paléologue therefore felt justified in assuring Sazonov that “France placed herself unreservedly at Russia’s side.”

Unlike Buchanan, France’s ambassador was under no illusions about what the Period Preparatory to War meant. In a telegram sent to Bienvenu-Martin at 6:22
PM
, following his afternoon audience with Buchanan and Sazonov, Paléologue reported not only Russia’s “partial” mobilization, to be announced if and when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, but also that “meanwhile secret [Russian military] preparations will begin today.”
⁷
In the same telegram, Paléologue informed Paris that France’s military attaché, General Pierre de Laguiche, had been posted liaison at Krasnoe Selo to Russia’s War Minister Sukhomlinov and her future commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas. Laguiche, for his part, received secret instructions from the French General Staff this day to treat with the Russians on the assumption that “European war could no longer be avoided.”
⁸
Thus even while her civilian government was at sea, France’s diplomatic and military liaisons in Petersburg would be fully in the loop—and in contact with Paris—as Russia’s secret mobilization proceeded.

A
BOARD THE
F
RANCE
, Poincaré and Viviani remained unaware of the momentous decisions made at Tsarskoe Selo on Saturday. Although the ship’s wireless was working, the signal strength was often weak. Thus the
France
’s wireless operator was able to decode Paléologue’s Saturday morning telegram announcing Friday’s decision at the Council of Ministers to advise Serbia not to resist an Austrian invasion but not the telegram he sent at 6:22
PM
announcing Russia’s impending partial mobilization and that “secret military preparations will begin today.” Poincaré, unaware that Sazonov was taking a carrot-and-stick approach, thus thought it was all carrots. He was
apoplectic on hearing that Russia wanted Serbia to submit. In his diary Saturday evening, Poincaré called Russia’s advice to Belgrade an “abdication of the tsarist empire” that would mark a “sinister day in world history.” The French, he lamented, “can certainly not be more pan-Slavic than the Russians. Poor Serbia will thus likely be humiliated.”
⁹
Had the
France
decoded Paléologue’s second telegram, Viviani almost certainly would not have approved. Poincaré, by contrast, would have danced a jig in joy.

Meanwhile, in Belgrade, the ultimatum deadline was fast approaching. While Berchtold had told his colleagues, and the Germans, to expect a rejection, the signals coming from Belgrade were ambiguous. Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Pašić’s initial response, given Saturday morning to foreign legations in Belgrade—including Austria’s—suggested that Serbia would comply with the ultimatum with only minor reservations. As Britain’s chargé d’affaires in Belgrade, Dayrell Crackanthorpe, reported to Grey, the reply “will be drawn up in the most conciliatory terms and will meet Austrian demands in as large measure as possible.” The key public demand, that Serbia publish in its official gazette a statement of apology and condemnation of anti-Austrian propaganda, would be met in full. The ten points of the ultimatum, Crackanthorpe continued, “are accepted with reserves.” Serbia would “agree to suppress Narodna Odbrana” and to “dismiss and prosecute those officers whose guilt can be clearly proved.” Apis’s right-hand man, Major Tankositch, whose apprehension for helping organize the assassination plot was demanded in point 7, was already under arrest. Even the onerous points 5 and 6, which demanded that Austro-Hungarian officials collaborate in the “suppression of the subversive movement” in Serbia and “take part in the investigations relating thereto,” were accepted conditionally, so long as the appointment of such a “mixed commission of enquiry . . . can be proved to be in accordance with international usage.”
¹⁰

France’s new minister to Belgrade, Jules August Boppe, added in his own report that Pašić had agreed to “dissolve the societies of national defense [i.e., Narodna Odbrana] and all other associations which might agitate against Austria-Hungary,” and to “modify the press law, to dismiss from the army, public instruction and other administrations all officials whose participation in the propaganda shall be proved”—Pašić telling Boppe, helpfully, that Austria-Hungary might provide her own list of guilty officials. As to points 5 and 6, Boppe said that Serbia would “ask for explanations” and “only agree to that which is consonant with international law or to relations of good neighborliness.”
¹¹
If this was the only objection Pašić would raise, Vienna would be hard-pressed to find fault with his reply.

Sometime Saturday afternoon, however, the draft presented to the legations in Belgrade that morning was scrapped and replaced by something quite different. The final text of Serbia’s reply to the Austrian ultimatum, which Pašić presented to Giesl in person at six
PM
, reneged on many of the promises made earlier, beginning with the public apology. Rather than expressing regret “that Serbian officers and officials have participated in the above-mentioned propaganda,” as demanded in the ultimatum, Serbia expressed “regret that,
according to the communication from [Austria-Hungary]
certain Serbian officers and functionaries participated.” Rather than regretting an action, that is, Serbia regretted being accused of an action. Likewise, the Serbian reply note agreed that Narodna Odbrana would be dissolved but insisted that Serbia’s government “possess no proof, nor does the note of [Austria-Hungary] furnish them with any, that the
Narodna Odbrana
and other similar societies have committed . . . any criminal act.” Four other clauses were accepted in principle, but with enough conditions and camouflage as not to suggest compliance in practice.

As to the crucial clauses 5 and 6, Pašić’s final draft split the difference. The first—collaboration of Austrian officials in suppressing
the subversive movement—was accepted, as Boppe and Crackanthorpe had informed Paris and London it would be, insofar as this “agreed with the principle of international law, with criminal procedure, and with good neighborly relations.” The second, however, was shot down firmly. “As regards the participation in this inquiry of Austro-Hungarian agents or authorities,” Pašić’s reply read, Serbia “cannot accept such an arrangement, as it would be a violation of the Constitution and of the law of criminal procedure.”
¹²
There was no camouflaging this one: it was a blanket refusal.

Had Pašić changed his mind? Because so many of the relevant Serbian documents have disappeared, it is difficult to determine exactly when, and why, Serbia’s prime minister decided not to comply with the Austrian ultimatum. One possibility is that he never meant to comply at all but told allied ministers such as Boppe and Crackanthorpe that he would in order to win British and French backing (Russian support was taken for granted). Buttressing this explanation, the final reply presented to Giesl at six
PM
, unlike the morning draft, was not presented to the other powers until days later (it was not sent by telegraph), by which time events had overtaken it and no one paid it much attention—with the curious exception of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who, on reading Pašić’s reply on 28 July, believed it to constitute acceptance.

Another explanation is that Pašić resolved to take a firmer line after reading Spalaiković’s report from Petersburg, in which Sazonov had advised him not to accept points 5 and 6 and that “Serbia may count on Russian aid.” This report arrived in Belgrade before midnight on Friday and was probably decoded Saturday morning and then given to Pašić, who had returned from Nish overnight. It must have been welcome news. Were Pašić to comply with all or even most of the ultimatum, the faction of extreme nationalists in the Black Hand led by Apis would have an excellent pretext for overthrowing his government. On
Friday, the German minister at Belgrade, Julius Griesinger, had reported to Berlin that the Serbian military “categorically demand the rejection of the note and war” and that in the event a Serbian public apology were published in the official Serbian gazette, as demanded by Austria, “a military uprising is feared.”
¹³
Lending further credence to this version of events, Slavko Gruić, the secretary general of the Serbian Foreign Office charged with translating the reply note, recalled endless hassles over the text. All Saturday afternoon, Pašić and his advisers badgered poor Gruić with suggested changes, to the point where the running draft was “was so full of crossings out and additions as to be almost incomprehensible.”
¹⁴
The prime minister clearly sweated over his draft until the last minute, trying to make it sound as conciliatory as possible to allies and neutrals, while still making a strong enough stand on point 6 such as he knew could not be acceptable to Austria-Hungary, thus protecting his political flank against Apis. Pašić may have wanted to reject the ultimatum anyway, but until he was sure of Russian backing, he could not risk doing so. Sazonov’s pledge thus saved him from the horns of a very serious dilemma—and, possibly, from a coup d’état.

Whatever the reason for the revisions, Pašić knew that the Austrians would not accept his reply. He seems not to have minded if the Austrians knew, too. By one
PM
on Saturday—five hours before Giesl was to accept Pašić’s reply—Giesl reported to Vienna that Serbian preparations for war had already begun. “The reserves of the National Bank, along with the archives of the Foreign Ministry,” he informed Berchtold, “are being removed from Belgrade to the interior.” Serbian troops garrisoned in the capital were returning to field bases in the country. Munitions depots near Belgrade were likewise being evacuated. At the train station, “strong military traffic” was observed. At three
PM
on Saturday, 25 July, Serbian mobilization
against Austria-Hungary was ordered (although it was not yet made public). While Giesl did not learn this until later that evening, an informant from the cabinet told him around the same time that the government would not accept Austria’s demands unconditionally. Serbia meant war.
¹⁵

When Pašić arrived at the Austrian legation at around 5:55
PM
, then, Giesl already knew what to expect. There would be no such melodrama as occurred on the same premises two weeks previously, when Hartwig dropped dead. Pašić handed over the note to Giesl, informing him (in broken German) that “part of your demands we have accepted. . . . For the rest we place our hopes on your loyalty and chivalry as an Austrian general.” Giesl looked over the reply with equal lack of ceremony and promptly decided—whether based on the document itself or on Pašić’s terse remark—that it did not fulfill Berchtold’s conditions of unconditional acceptance within forty-eight hours. He then handed Pašić his own note, informing Serbia’s government that, having not received a satisfactory reply, he would leave Belgrade that evening along with the entire Austro-Hungarian legation.
¹⁶

Giesl was not bluffing. With truly Germanic efficiency, his staffers burned the diplomatic codebooks in a matter of minutes. Giesl, his wife, and the entire legation staff evacuated the premises by 6:15
PM
, aiming to make the 6:30 train to Vienna. Giesl later reported that en route he “found the streets leading to the station and the station itself occupied by the military.” Serbia’s army did not, however, detain him. Giesl made his train, which crossed the Austrian frontier at 6:40
PM
on Saturday, 25 July, thus establishing what the American historian Sidney Fay called “the speed record for the rupture of diplomatic relations.”
¹⁷

As per Berchtold’s instructions, Giesl stopped in the border town of Semlin and wired the news immediately, en clair, such
that Tisza, in Budapest, learned of Serbia’s rejection even before 7
PM
. For good measure, Giesl telephoned Tisza and personally informed him that Serbia had begun mobilizing at 3
PM
. Tisza passed on Giesl’s reports to the Ballplatz by telephone at 7:45
PM
. At Bad Ischl, Franz Josef I, anxious all afternoon, got the news even sooner than this, via an aide-de-camp at the War Ministry who phoned directly. Berchtold and Krobatin, the war minister, were already at Bad Ischl. Together they convinced the emperor that he must mobilize. The order was dispatched at 9:23
PM
.
¹⁸
Chief of Staff Conrad could not have complained. His timetable was being adhered to almost perfectly.

Just as the elaborately designed Austrian war plan seemed to be coming together, however, notes of hesitation crept in. In part to appease opinion in England, in the last few days Berchtold had begun insisting publicly that a rejection by Serbia did not necessarily mean war. As he had instructed Giesl on Thursday, “fruitless expiry of time limit will be followed only by breaking off diplomatic relations, not by immediate commencement of state of war. State of war will begin only with declaration of war or Serbian offensive.”
¹⁹
On Friday, Berchtold had spoken along similar lines with the Russian chargé d’affaires, Prince N. A. Kudashev, insisting that the only immediate result of a rejection would be that “our minister and the legation staff would depart.” The Russian was not convinced. “Then it is war” (
Alors c’est la guerre
), Kudashev told Berchtold before leaving the Ballplatz. And yet Berchtold, as late as Sunday morning, 26 July, hours after mobilization had been decreed, insisted to Giesl that it “still does not mean war.”
²⁰