July 1914: Countdown to War (42 page)

Bethmann, Falkenhayn, and Moltke understood this, although it is by no means clear that their sovereign did. Kaiser Wilhelm II, prone to mood swings in the best of times, was swerving wildly back and forth between abject war lust and plaintive desperation for peace. Just past seven
PM
Thursday evening, upon reading (after nearly twenty-four hours’ delay) the Pourtalès telegram in which Sazonov had declared that Russia’s mobilization “could no longer be reversed,” the kaiser had unleashed one of his most furious tirades ever. “England, France, and Russia,” he wrote in the margins, “are in league to wage a war of annihilation against us, taking the Austro-Serbian conflict as a pretext.” Concluding (again) that all hope for peace was lost, he wrote, “Now this whole trickery must be ruthlessly exposed and the mask of Christian peaceableness roughly and publicly torn off the face [of England]! . . . And our consuls in Turkey and India, agents, etc., must fire the whole Mahometan world to fierce revolt against this hateful, lying, unprincipled nation of shopkeepers; for if we are to bleed to death, England shall at least lose India.”
⁷

Extreme rhetoric (and visions of Islamic holy war) aside, the kaiser’s basic intuition, once more, was correct. Just as his angry marginalia of Thursday morning had accurately divined the chronology of Russia’s war preparations, so now, on Thursday evening, did he grasp the essence of the dire strategic situation better in his fevered state of mind than later, when he had calmed down. At the very time he was scribbling these bloodthirsty marginalia—seven
PM
on Thursday, 30 July—Russia’s general mobilization against Germany and Austria-Hungary was cranking secretly into motion, although neither the kaiser nor his advisers would learn this until the next morning. At the same hour, meanwhile, France had ordered her troops to cover the German border. Unhinged as the kaiser’s anti-English outburst was, Britain’s pose of neutrality (“trickery . . . mask of
Christian peaceableness”) was indeed hollow, as borne out by her biased negotiating posture, ignorance of Russian war preparations, and Grey’s recent threat (as against Grey’s frequent, and disingenuous, vows of neutrality). It was when his inner demons took over that Kaiser Wilhelm II saw things most clearly.

On Friday morning, by contrast, Germany’s sovereign fell prey again to happy illusions. Shortly before learning of Russia’s general mobilization around noon, he penned one more telegram to the Peterhof, warning the tsar that he had received “authentic news of serious preparations for war on my eastern frontier.” Again putting his faith in Nicky’s goodwill, Willy concluded with a plea that “the peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the military measures which must threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary.”
⁸
Even after learning of Russian general mobilization, the kaiser wrote to George V at Buckingham Palace (burying his white-hot anger against Albion of the night before), thanking the king for his “kind telegram” of the night before and promising that he was still “working at” mediation in Vienna. His efforts were made difficult, however, by the fact that “this night Nicky has ordered the mobilization of his whole army and fleet.” With remarkable—and misleading—understatement, the kaiser then informed England’s sovereign that he was “off to Berlin to take measures for ensuring safety of my eastern frontiers, where strong Russian troops are already posted.”
⁹

Of course, these “measures” went much further than “ensuring the safety” of Germany’s eastern frontier. Germany’s premobilization, if not interrupted, would lead inexorably to general mobilization, targeting also her
western
frontier—facing France and Belgium. The kaiser did not fully understand this, but his chancellor did. As Bethmann had told Tirpitz and Falkenhayn on Thursday, “proclamation of imminent danger of war meant mobilization and this in our circumstances—mobilization on
both fronts—meant war.”
¹⁰
It was precisely because he viewed
Kriegsgefahrzustand
as tantamount to war that the chancellor had delayed ordering it for so long.

Now that the decision had been made, Bethmann wasted no time relaying it to his ambassadors. Unlike Sazonov, who had continued dissembling with even Izvolsky, Russia’s most senior diplomat, after the tsar had proclaimed general mobilization, Bethmann simply told the truth. By three thirty
PM
on Friday, he had informed his ambassadors in Vienna, Petersburg, Paris, Rome, and London about the proclamation of
Kriegsgefahrzustand
, and that Germany had been forced to take this measure in response to Russian general mobilization. Bethmann further informed his ambassadors that he was sending Russia a twelve-hour ultimatum to rescind her general mobilization and demobilize (beginning at midnight and expiring at noon on Saturday, 1 August), failing which Germany would be forced to mobilize herself. All this, the chancellor instructed his diplomats, was to be made public. Schoen, in Paris, was asked to discern by noon Saturday what France’s attitude was in the case of European war. In this way, Europe was first made aware that war was about to begin—not by the Russians, who were the first to mobilize, but by the Germans, who informed everyone about what Russia had done in secret and then, for good measure, about their own response to it.
¹¹

Still, rumors will out. Despite Russia’s delay in announcing mobilization, panic-selling began on Friday on all Europe’s bourses; those in St. Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, and Brussels all closed. The City of London saw the worst panic-selling, as financial firms exposed to Europe saw their share values plunge. At ten fifteen
AM
, at the London stock exchange, attendants in “gold-braided silk hats” posted the closure notice on the doors. Soon newsboys were shouting the news through the streets: “The stock exchange is closed!” It was London’s first outright closure since 1773. There was a bank run too, although
few banks remained open long enough for depositors to cash out. By early afternoon, there was an enormous line on Thread-needle Street, outside the Bank of England—the last institution in London still open to convert pound notes into gold coins.
¹²

Sentiment in the City of London and in the House of Commons was almost unanimously against British intervention in the war. As Prime Minister Asquith noted that day, “the general opinion at present . . . is to keep out at almost all costs.”
¹³
Thanks to Churchill, the navy was primed and ready at Scapa Flow. Aside from the bellicose first lord of the Admiralty, however, no one in the cabinet was sure what to do. In theory, Asquith and Grey shared Churchill’s view on the need to defend France against possible German aggression. But they knew that there was no Liberal majority in the cabinet for this position, which is why Sir Edward Grey had tiptoed so carefully all week around anything resembling an actual policy statement. Luckily for the beleaguered foreign secretary, there had been no cabinet meeting on Thursday, which fact he had used as a convenient excuse to demur when the French and German ambassadors asked where he stood.

On Friday morning, even as the City of London went into war-scare meltdown, Grey continued talking calmly about peace-mediation plans with Germany’s Anglophilic ambassador, both men blissfully unaware that Russian general mobilization had already begun. With improbable timing, shortly after the London bourse shut down owing to war hysteria, Grey told Lichnowsky, “I have today for the first time the impression that the improved relations with Germany of late years and perhaps also some friendly feeling for Germany in the cabinet makes it appear possible that, in case of war, England will probably adopt an attitude of watchful waiting.”
¹⁴
Grey was dissembling, but he was not wrong about the cabinet, which met Friday afternoon. The French had been demanding all day—all week—that he take a stand. Everyone in the cabinet knew this;
in fact, the main subject of debate Friday was what Grey should say to France’s ambassador, Paul Cambon, after the session was over. We have no transcript of the Friday meeting, but there is no doubt that the Little Englanders again won the day. Lord Morley, a leading anti-interventionist in the cabinet, “tapped [Churchill] on the shoulder” to say, “Winston, we have beaten you after all.” As Grey reported to his ambassador in Paris, “nobody here feels that in this dispute, so far as it has gone yet, British treaties or obligations are involved.” Grey could offer France no “definite pledge to intervene in a war.”
¹⁵

Grey said as much to the French ambassador on Friday evening, although he added several wrinkles. His encounters with Cambon were always difficult. Grey’s spoken French was as poor as Cambon’s spoken English, so they both conversed slowly in their own tongue rather than in one common language.
¹⁶
In the current case, this worked to Grey’s advantage, as, lacking authorization to give Cambon the pledge of support he wanted, the Briton’s goal was to obfuscate. And so Grey assured the Frenchman vaguely that “we had not left Germany under the impression that we would stand aside.” In fact, Grey claimed, he had told Lichnowsky on Friday morning that, in case of war, “we should be drawn into it” (this was untrue, although Grey had spoken to Lichnowsky in this sense on Wednesday). When Cambon asked for a commitment, Grey said evasively that he “could not give any pledge at the present time.” The French ambassador “expressed great disappointment” at this reply and tried to pin Grey down as to “whether we would help France if Germany made an attack on her.” Grey’s answer was the same: “as far as things had gone at present, we could not take any engagement.”

Grey then introduced a stunning bit of news into the conversation. As if to change the subject, Grey informed Cambon that he had just learned that “Russia had ordered a complete
mobilization of her fleet and army.”
*
Russia’s action, Grey informed Cambon in a rare moment of clarity, “would precipitate a crisis, and
would make it appear that German mobilization was being forced by Russia
.” Returning to his usual manner of obfuscation, Grey dropped the subject and concluded by promising Cambon that “the Cabinet would certainly be summoned as soon as there was some new development, but at the present moment the only answer I could give was that we could not undertake any definite engagement.”
¹⁷
Russian general mobilization against Austria and Germany, apparently, did not qualify as “some new development.”

Cambon, infuriated by the foreign secretary’s evasions, went and “unburdened himself” to Sir Arthur Nicolson, the permanent undersecretary of state, with whom he was on much better terms. Nicolson, concerned that Britain was offering France nothing, then sought out the foreign secretary to see what he could do for Cambon. Grey reminded Nicolson that he had sent a telegram to Paris and Berlin, demanding a pledge from each power that she was “prepared to engage to respect neutrality of Belgium so long as no other Power violates it.” If the Germans refused, perhaps Grey could use this in the cabinet to make a case for intervention.
¹⁸
The idea that Russia’s unprovoked general mobilization against Germany might be used by British policymakers to make a case
against
intervention did not occur to him.

Meanwhile Churchill continued preparing the British fleet for war, whatever the sentiments of the cabinet. On Friday he outdid even himself, ordering British naval crews to board and seize the two dreadnoughts,
Sultan Osman I
and
Reshad V
, being
built for the Ottoman navy. Based on the timing—Sazonov had asked Britain to detain these very warships on Thursday night—one is tempted to conclude that Churchill had an intuition about Russian general mobilization before learning of it. And yet there is no evidence that Churchill, when he carried out this provocative action (for which planning had been underway since Wednesday), knew that Russia had mobilized or that Sazonov had asked him to hold the ships in port. At any rate, detaining them was far from Churchill’s purpose, and the Russo-Ottoman naval rivalry in the Black Sea was far from his thoughts. He was commandeering these state-of-the-art dreadnoughts for the British navy, as added strategic insurance against the German High Seas Fleet.
¹⁹

I
N
P
ARIS
,
THINGS WERE MOVING FASTER
. France, expecting to bear the brunt of the German assault, could not afford the attitude of “watchful waiting” Sir Edward Grey had adopted. Mobilization Plan XVI had envisioned France completing the concentration of its active army corps by M + 10 or M + 11, which would leave little margin for error, as the Germans were expected to finish concentration by M + 12 and go on the offensive by M + 13. Plan XVII, adopted in May 1913, cut off a full day, which would theoretically allow the French armies to begin their principal offensive two days before the Germans were ready to begin theirs (and with five days to spare regarding France’s obligations to Russia)—so long as Moltke did not beat his counterpart, Joffre, to the punch by mobilizing first.
*