July 1914: Countdown to War (53 page)

Still, serious as Berchtold’s errors were, it was not he who began the countdown to European war. His blundering helped isolate Austria-Hungary and embarrass Germany for supporting
her, but his actions did not force Russia to mobilize, much less France or Germany. Here the timeline becomes all-important. Because of Schilling’s running diary at the Russian Foreign Ministry, we know that Sazonov decided on a military response before Serbia had replied to the ultimatum on Saturday, 25 July—before, indeed, he had actually read the ultimatum itself on Friday. True, his decision still had to be ratified in the Council of Ministers Friday afternoon and by Tsar Nicholas II the next day. In a sense, it had to be ratified by France, too. But even before running his decision by anyone else, by eleven
AM
on Thursday, 24 July, Sazonov had already instructed Russia’s finance minister to repatriate funds from Germany and her army chief of staff to prepare for mobilization. Sazonov had known about the impending Austrian ultimatum (if not its exact form) since the preceding Saturday. After he, the tsar, and France’s president, and premier/foreign minister held four days of meetings from Sunday to Wednesday, Sazonov had good reason to believe he had their support for his course of action. The most recent research strongly suggests (although it does not prove) that Poincaré and Paléologue gave Sazonov verbal support for a strong line against Vienna during the summit in Petersburg. The written evidence proves that Paléologue gave this support afterwards, with or without explicit authorization from Poincaré. So, too, did General Laguiche (France’s liaison officer at Russian command) and Joffre and Messimy in Paris.

Tsar Nicholas II signed into law the Period Preparatory to War at midday on Saturday, 25 July—before learning of Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum and before either Serbia or Austria had mobilized. The Period Preparatory to War began at midnight, 25–26 July. Because it, unlike Germany’s version (the
Kriegsgefahrzustand
), was enacted and carried out in secret, historians have been able to deny warlike intent on Russia’s part, the idea
being that, as Sazonov himself told Ambassador Pourtalès, preliminary mobilization measures “did not mean war.” Some have gone even further, saying that even Russia’s general mobilization, ordered at four
PM
on 30 July, did not “mean war.”
⁵
In both cases, the claim is dubious, although it has slightly more surface plausibility with the Period Preparatory to War.

The measures inaugurated on Sunday, 26 July, viewed on their own terms, clearly fell well short of war. Just as clearly, they constituted preparations for war. This was, indeed, the entire reason why the secret Period Preparatory to War had been developed in 1912–1913: to allow Russia a head start in mobilizing against the Austro-Germans. The statute of 2 March 1913 clearly states that the Period Preparatory to War “means the period of diplomatic complications preceding the opening of hostilities.” Or, as laid down in the tsar’s November 1912 directive, “it will be advantageous to complete concentration without beginning hostilities, in order not to deprive the enemy irrevocably of the hope that war can still be avoided. Our measures for this
must be masked by clever diplomatic negotiations
, in order to
lull to sleep as much as possible the enemy’s fears
.” Dobrorolskii, chief of the Russian army’s Mobilization Section, understood this to mean war. So did War Minister Sukhomlinov and Chief of Army Staff Yanushkevitch. Sazonov made a great show of believing otherwise, but then, that was his job: to handle the “diplomatic complications.” In this sense, and this sense alone, was the Period Preparatory to War
not
war. However insincere, diplomacy could continue.

In a curious mirror imaging of Sazonov’s approach, Austria’s foreign minister, tiring of insincere “diplomatic complications,” declared war on Serbia—by telegram—on Tuesday, 28 July. Considering that Conrad did not believe the army would be ready to fight until 12 August, Berchtold’s maneuver was counterproductive, as it gave diplomatic ammunition to Russia
and France in their goal of winning over Britain and other neutrals. Berchtold’s motivation, however, is instructive: he wanted to cut off further outside mediation efforts. War cancelled diplomacy. Here was another sin of commission. Still, aside from its adverse strategic consequences, especially for Germany, Berchtold’s move proves little more than that Austrian leaders wanted a war with Serbia, a fact we knew already.

Austria’s declaration of war on Serbia has usually been seen as the point of no return in the outbreak of the First World War, the moment when the July crisis escalated into actual conflict. This, too, has a surface plausibility. And yet again, we need to be careful with chronology. While it is true that Berchtold’s rash action gave Russia a pretext to escalate her war preparations, these had been underway for nearly three days when Austria declared war on Serbia. By keeping quiet about the Period Preparatory to War and then delaying the announcements of both partial and general mobilization, Sazonov was able to convince Sir Edward Grey, along with generations of historians, that Russia had begun mobilizing only after Austria’s declaration of war on Serbia. This is untrue: Austrian, German, French, and most of all Russian sources confirm that Russia’s mobilization measures against
both
Austria and Germany were well advanced by 28 July, and even more so by 29 July. All Berchtold’s telegram did was give Russia a public casus belli for war preparations she was undertaking anyway. The long-running argument about Russia’s partial versus general mobilization rests, ultimately, on a fiction. As Kokovtsov had pointed out in November 1912, and Dobrorolskii pointed out in July 1914, a partial mobilization targeting Austria alone, without using the Warsaw railway hub and blanketing Poland, was technically impossible. Nor was it ever fully implemented. “Partial mobilization” was a diplomatic conjuring act designed to show France—and more so, Britain—that Russia was not giving Germany a pretext for war.

The decision for European war was made by Russia on the night of 29 July 1914, when Tsar Nicholas II, advised unanimously by his advisers, signed the order for general mobilization. General mobilization—as he knew, as Sazonov knew, as Schilling knew; as Krivoshein, Rodzianko, and Duma leaders knew; as Sukhomlinov, Yanushkevitch, and Dobrorolskii knew—meant war. So clearly did the tsar know this that, on being moved by a telegram from Kaiser Wilhelm II, he
changed his mind
. “I will not be responsible for a monstrous slaughter” is the key line of the entire July crisis, for it shows that the tsar, for all his simplicity—or expressly because of his guileless, unaffected simplicity—knew exactly what he was doing when he did it. He knew exactly what he was doing when he did it again, sixteen hours later, after agonizing all day about it. Sazonov knew it, which is why he told Yanushkevitch to “smash his telephone” so that the tsar could not change his mind again.

The French knew it, too. Although the final decision and its timing needed to be massaged carefully for British ears, Poincaré, Joffre, and Messimy knew that Russia had resolved on war long before her general mobilization was confirmed by Paléologue’s thirty-hours-late telegram Friday night. In a fascinating illustration of the importance of chronology, Barbara Tuchman, in her classic
The Guns of August
, narrates a middle-of-the-night drama that sees President Poincaré awakened in bed by Russian ambassador Izvolsky asking him, “What is France going to do?” Messimy then wakes up Viviani, who exclaims, “Good God! These Russians are even worse insomniacs than they are drinkers.” It is a wonderful set piece, but Tuchman gets the date wrong by two days.

This scene transpired not on
Friday
night, 31 July–1 August, after Germany had inaugurated
Kriegsgefahrzustand
and sent Russia and France her ultimatums, but on
Wednesday
night, 29–30 July. The catalyst for the late-night drama was not, as Tuchman
suggests, pressure from Berlin—on Wednesday and Thursday Germany still had not undertaken serious war preparations of any kind—but Izvolsky’s receipt of Sazonov’s cryptic telegram from St. Petersburg announcing that, owing to Russia’s inability “to accede to Germany’s desire” that she cease mobilizing, “it only remains for us to hasten our armaments and regard war as imminent.” Wednesday was the same night that Sazonov told the German ambassador that Russia’s mobilization measures “could no longer be reversed.” Viviani, for his part, may still have entertained illusions that Russia could stop short of war, which is why he hesitated longer than the others before approving France’s general mobilization on Saturday. But Poincaré and Messimy knew perfectly well what Sazonov meant on Wednesday night, which is why they convened a crisis meeting from four to seven
AM
to craft a response.

France’s response, as we have seen, was carefully calibrated to manipulate British opinion. In none of the messages Viviani sent to Paléologue in St. Petersburg on either 30 or 31 July was there any endorsement of Russia’s mobilization, which was referred to only obliquely, but there was no request to halt it, either. Joffre, Messimy, Laguiche, and Paléologue had already endorsed and encouraged the acceleration of Russia’s war preparations. Poincaré and Viviani, because they were at sea from 24–29 July, had plausible deniability of all this—plausible deniability they needed to maintain, even after returning to Paris, to convince London of their innocence. But the dramatic scene of Wednesday night (not Friday night) gives the game away. Whether or not they had known before that Russia was mobilizing, they knew then. And they knew what it meant. It meant France had to mobilize, too. And mobilization meant war.

France, even more than Russia, insisted publicly that mobilization was not war. The “ten-kilometer withdrawal” to allow the Germans the initiative was a brilliant public relations move
then, and it continues to gull historians. Aside from Joffre’s sensible orders to avoid border incidents until concentration of forces was complete (orders nearly identical to those Moltke gave), it was nonsense. Article 2 of the Franco-Russian military convention specified that, once the
casus foederis
was invoked, “France and Russia . . . without a previous agreement being necessary, shall mobilize all their forces immediately and simultaneously, and shall transport them as near to the frontiers as possible.” As General N. N. Obruchev, Russia’s signatory, explained, “this mobilization of France and Russia would be followed immediately by positive results, by acts of war, in a word would be inseparable from an ‘aggression.’” Or as France’s counterpart to Obruchev, General Raoul de Boisdeffre, put it after signing the accord, “the mobilization is the declaration of war.” Or as Dobrorolskii, architect of Russia’s mobilization in 1914, put it, “once the moment has been chosen, everything is settled; there is no going back; it determines mechanically the beginning of the war.”
⁶
After this moment—midnight on 30–31 July, when Russia’s general mobilization took effect—France and Russia were expected to mount offensives against Germany by M + 15. Just as Dobrorolskii said, mobilization moved like clockwork. The first Great Power battles of 1914 occurred on German territory, in France’s case on
exactly
Russian M + 15, with her invasion of Alsace on 14 August. Russia, too, won her first engagement on German soil, at Stallupönen/Gumbinnen, on 17–20 August 1914.
⁷

One can, of course, still argue that the Austrians fired first, at Serbia on 29 July. Austria also declared war first, on 28 July (although only against Belgrade). We must remember, however, that Austria-Hungary, for all her warlust against Serbia, had little desire to fight Russia, to the extent that Moltke had to beg Conrad repeatedly to do it. For all Berchtold’s mischief with the ultimatum and declaration of war, it was clearly his intention,
and Conrad’s, to fight a war with Serbia alone. True, they realized that Russia might object, but to the extent they thought about this at all, they expected the Germans to handle Russia. The evidence shows that there was little real coordination between Berlin and Vienna, rather a great gap in understanding of what the other side was up to. The Germans were just as shocked when they learned of Berchtold’s declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July—which they had just been assured would not come until August 12—as the Austrians were when they learned that Germany planned to invade Belgium rather than concentrate her forces against Russia. None of this absolves anyone in Berlin and Vienna of responsibility for gross errors in policymaking. But it does make ridiculous the charge of cold, joint premeditation.

Only the Germans, of course, were responsible for the strategic stupidity of invading France by way of Belgium. Although recent research casts doubt on the notion that there was ever an immutable Schlieffen Plan, all this means is that Moltke himself is to blame for the decision—and even more so for the strike on Liège on M + 3.
⁸
Questionable as the German occupation of Luxembourg was, the fact that its railways were, by treaty, under German management mitigates some of its significance, along with the fact that Britain did not see the occupation as a plausible casus belli against Germany. Belgium was what mattered to outside powers, especially Britain; indeed the French understood this so well that Poincaré intervened with Joffre in 1912 to ensure that France’s initial deployment would not violate her territory. Germany’s decision to violate Belgian neutrality—on M + 3, two weeks before the concentration of her armies would be complete—was a political, diplomatic, strategic, and moral blunder of the first magnitude. For this, Moltke was directly to blame, although Bethmann, Jagow, or the kaiser should have called him to account over it.

Important as the German violation of Belgium was, it did not cause the First World War. It may not even have brought Britain into it. Until the Germans gave him the gift of Liège on 4 August, Grey’s ammunition against noninterventionists in the cabinet came from the informal naval agreement with France he had personally arranged with Cambon in November 1912, about which the Commons (although not the cabinet) remained ignorant. It was over this issue—not Belgium—that Morley and Burns resigned. Morley and Burns, along with some historians, paint Grey in a Machiavellian light, as a master manipulator who brought his own party, against its will, into an agreement with France (by encouraging her to move her fleet to the Mediterranean and leave her Channel coast undefended) and then co-belligerence with her and Russia.
⁹
While there is an element of truth here insofar as the semisecret French naval agreement did encourage French hawks and tie Britain’s hands in the case of war between France and Germany, Grey hardly had the intention of fomenting such a war.