Contesting the Origins of the First World War: An Historiographical Argument 1138308250, 9781138308251

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
A list of who is who
1 Introduction: the debate continues
2 Great Britain: an entente frame of mind . . . but nothing in writing
3 Austria-Hungary: the Habsburgs and the failed third Balkan war
4 Germany: a reappraisal
5 Russia: when opportunity knocks
6 France: the militarization of foreign policy
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Contesting the Origins of the First World War

Contesting the Origins of the First World War challenges the Anglophone emphasis on Germany as bearing the primary responsibility in causing the conflict and instead builds upon revisionist perspectives to reconsider the roles of the other Great Powers. Using the work of Terrance Zuber, Sean McMeekin, and Stefan Schmidt as building blocks, this book reassesses the origins of the First World War and offers an explanation as to why this reassessment did not come about earlier. Troy R.E. Paddock argues that historians need to redraw the historiographical map that has charted the origins of the war. His analysis creates a more balanced view of German actions by also noting the actions and inaction of other nations. Recent works about the roles of the five Great Powers involved in the events leading up to the war are considered, and Paddock concludes that Germany does not bear the primary responsibility. This book provides a unique historiographical analysis of key texts published on the origins of the First World War, and its narrative encourages students to engage with and challenge historical perspectives. Troy R.E. Paddock is a professor of European history at Southern Connecticut State University. He wrote Creating the Russian Peril: Education, the Public Sphere, and National Identity in Imperial Germany, 1890–1914 (2010) and edited World War I and Propaganda (2014) and A Call to Arms: Propaganda, Public Opinion, and Newspapers in the Great War (2004).

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Reason, Religion, and the Australian Polity A Secular State? Stephen A. Chavura, John Gascoigne and Ian Tregenza Civic Nationalisms in Global Perspective Edited by Jasper Trautsch Radical Antiapartheid Internationalism and Exile The Life of Elizabeth Mafeking Holly Y. McGee Castro and Franco The Backstage of Cold War Diplomacy Haruko Hosoda Model Workers in China, 1949–1965 Constructing A New Citizen James Farley Making Sense of Mining History Themes and Agendas Edited by Stefan Berger and Peter Alexander Transatlantic Trade and Global Cultural Transfers Since 1492 More Than Commodities Edited by Martina Kaller and Frank Jacob Contesting the Origins of the First World War An Historiographical Argument Troy R.E. Paddock For a full list of titles, please visit: www.routledge.com/history/series/MODHIST

Contesting the Origins of the First World War An Historiographical Argument Troy R.E. Paddock

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Troy R.E. Paddock The right of Troy R.E. Paddock to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Paddock, Troy R. E., author. Title: Contesting the Origins of the First World War : An Historiographical Argument / Troy R E Paddock. Description: First edition. | London ; New York : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2020. | Series: Routledge Focus on the History of Conflict ; 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019016628 | ISBN 9781138308251 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315142890 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1914–1918—Causes—Historiography. | World War, 1914–1918—Historiography. Classification: LCC D511 .P254 2019 | DDC 940.3/11072—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016628 ISBN: 978-1-138-30825-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14289-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage LLC

Contents

Acknowledgments vi Foreword viii A list of who is whox 1 Introduction: the debate continues

1

2 Great Britain: an entente frame of mind . . . but nothing in writing

18

3 Austria-Hungary: the Habsburgs and the failed third Balkan war

40

4 Germany: a reappraisal

62

5 Russia: when opportunity knocks

90

6 France: the militarization of foreign policy

111



131

Conclusion

Bibliography 138 Index144

Acknowledgments

To write anything, one needs time. So my first thank you goes to Southern Connecticut State University for granting me a sabbatical for the 2018–2019 academic year that gave me the time to write this book. I am also indebted to the staff at Buley Library at SCSU and Sterling Library at Yale University. I am fortunate to have access to the resources and assistance at both places. My colleagues David Pettigrew and David Bello played an instrumental role in the beginning of this book. The former asked me to present a talk about the war for the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. David Bello read the article that I wrote based on the talk and said it needed to be a book. For better or worse, this is that book. I would like to thank Robert Langham at Routledge for his encouragement to pursue this project. I was surprised to learn that Terence Zuber was selected to be one of the reviewers of this proposal and am grateful for his support. The critiques of the other two reviewers were also useful, and I appreciate the time and thought that they shared to evaluate the proposal. The World War One Historical Association also has my gratitude for their permission to reproduce an image from their magazine. My colleagues in the history department at Southern read several chapters of this work. Steve Amerman, Polly Beals, Nikos Chrissidis, Steven Judd, Darcy Kern, Byron Nakamura, Tom Radice, and Jason Smith all have my sincere thanks. Chelsea Harry, Michael Fisher, and Camille Serchuk also provided invaluable intellectual and moral support. I  am grateful to know them and have them as colleagues. Various ideas found in this work were presented over the course of the last couple years at various meetings of the New England Historical Association. I am grateful for the feedback that I received at those meetings, especially to Stefan Papaioannou and Scott Moore. Finally, a special thanks go to Vince Pitts, who read the entire manuscript and offered numerous suggestions to improve the work. This book is better because of everyone’s intellectual generosity. The faults that remain are my own. The good people at Legal Grounds and Books and Company deserve my gratitude for providing a welcoming alternative writing spot and good conversation. Similarly, my riding companions on team Breathe and Push have been of more help than they could ever know. They could care less about what I was

Acknowledgments  vii writing on, but they knew it mattered to me, so they asked about it and supported me. Teresa, Fran, Mandi, Dana, Julie, Rob, Jackie, Nia, Linda, Andrea, and Drew, you all have my sincere thanks and friendship. This book would not have been possible without the love and encouragement of my wife, Mary Paddock. Her patience and support have been unwavering, and for that I am deeply grateful. This book is dedicated to her and our son, Mack.

Foreword

With the centennial commemorations for the First World War coming to an end, there is a good possibility that more ink has been spilled on paper than blood was spilled on the battlefields. Yet, for all that has been written about the origins of the Great War, the terrain of the historiographical debate has not changed a great deal, especially in the Anglophone world. Therefore, it is with more than a little trepidation that I add my voice to the historiographical battlefield suggesting that we need a new map. It was not my intention to write a book about the origins of the Great War. In the fall of 2013, a colleague of mine asked if I would present a talk about the origins of the First World War in January 2014 as a nod to the centennial of the war. I suspect that hundreds, if not thousands, of European historians around the world were asked to do something similar. In January 2014, at the 1,432nd meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, I presented a talk entitled, “Propaganda and Responsibility: Reflections on the Great War.” While preparing for the presentation, I had the opportunity to look at much of the literature that had been produced recently as well as the beginning of the commemorations of the war. For all of the remarkable work that had been done since Fritz Fischer’s work in the 1960s, the basic contours of the discussion have not changed dramatically in the public understanding. Either one adheres to the notion of Germany’s responsibility for the war (here many historians would prefer to use the term “guilt” but avoid it due to the connection to Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty and the baggage surrounding that term) or one opts for a more collective view that does not put the sole onus on Germany but usually claims Germany played the biggest role. Towards the end of his magisterial work Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clark confirms this view when he suggests that “a diluted version of the Fischer thesis still dominates in the studies of Germany’s road to war.”1 I wish to challenge that position. Clark’s work is far more sympathetic to Germany’s situation than most recent works, but even his formulation reflects an unintended bias that can best be explained as a sort of framing or paradigm construction. Too often, the events leading up to the Great War, whether it be the July Crisis or incidents occurring years earlier, are depicted as other nations reacting to German actions. This framework views Germany as the cause of all crises rather

Foreword ix than as one actor among many and not always the initiator of events. This book attempts to shift the paradigm to create a more balanced view of German actions by also noting the actions and inaction of other nations in the years leading up to the war. I suspect that to some this work will appear to be one sided. My response to that charge is that it appears so only because it does not share the assumptions of the dominant paradigm. Instead, it applies the same criteria to all participants and tries to employ a level of reciprocity to ensure that the same standard is used for all nations. If that is done, then I think that some recent works force us to redraw the historiographical map that demarcates the origins of the war.

Note 1 Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Harper, 2012), 560.

A list of who is who

Austria-Hungary Franz Joseph Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary Franz Ferdinand Archduke, heir to Habsburg throne Sophie Duchess of Hohenburg, wife of Franz Ferdinand Foreign Minister (1906–1912) Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal Leopold Berchtold von und zu Foreign Minister (1912–1915) Ungarschnitz Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf Chief of General Staff Wladimir Giesl von Gieslingen Minister to Serbia Alexander Hoyos Section Chief, Foreign Ministry Friedrich Szapáry Szápár Ambassador to Russia Ladislaus Szögyény-Marich Ambassador to Germany István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szaged Hungarian Prime Minister

France Raymond Poincaré President, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (1912–1913) Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin Minister of Justice (acting Foreign Minister) Raoul le Mouton de Boisdeffre General, Army Jules Cambon Ambassador to Germany Ambassador to Great Britain Paul Cambon Théophile Declassé Former Foreign Minister (1898–1906), former Ambassador to Russia Alfred Dumaine Ambassador to Austria-Hungary Joseph Joffre Chief of General Staff Pierre de Laguiche Military attaché in Russia Pierre de Margirie Director of Political Affairs, Foreign Ministry Adolphe Messimy War Minister Maurice Paléologue Ambassador to Russia René Viviani Prime Minister and Foreign Minister

A list of who is who xi

Germany Wilhelm II Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg Erich von Falkenhayn Gottlieb von Jagow Karl Max Lichnowsky Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger) Friedrich von Pourtalés von Cronstern Wilhelm Eduard von Schoen Alfred von Schlieffen Alfred von Tirpitz

Emperor of Germany, King of Prussia Chancellor War Minister State Secretary, Foreign Ministry Ambassador to Great Britain Chief of General Staff Ambassador to Russia Ambassador to France Chief of General Staff (retired 1905) Navy Minister

Great Britain George V Henry Herbert Asquith Francis Bertie George Buchanan Maurice de Bunsen Winston Churchill Dayrell Crackanthorpe Eyre Crowe Edward Grey David Lloyd George Arthur Nicolson William Tyrrell

King of England, Emperor of India Prime Minister Ambassador to France Ambassador to Russia Ambassador to Austria-Hungary First Lord of the Admiralty Charge d’Affaires, Serbia Assistant Undersecretary, Foreign Office Foreign Secretary Chancellor for the Exchequer Permanent Undersecretary, Foreign Office Private Secretary to Edward Grey

Russia Nicholas II Tsar of Russia, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland Peter Bark Finance Minister Alexander von Benckendorff Ambassador to Great Britain Yuri Danilov Quartermaster General Sergei Dobrorolsky Director, Mobilization Section, General Staff Mikhail Giers Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Ambassador to Austria-Hungary Nikolai Giers Nikolai Hartwig Minister to Serbia Alexander Izvolsky Ambassador to France, former Foreign Minister (1906–1910) Vladimir Kokovtsov Prime Minister, 1911–1914 Sergei Sazonov Foreign Minister Nicholas Shebeko Ambassador to Austria-Hungary

xii  A list of who is who Vladimir Sukhomlinov War Minister and former Chief of Army General Staff Nikolai Yanushkevitch Chief of Army General Staff

Serbia Dragutin Dimitrijević (“Apis”) Head of Military Intelligence and the Black Hand Jovan Jovanović Representative in Austria-Hungary Lazar Paču Finance Minister Nikola Pašić Prime Minister

1 Introduction The debate continues

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were murdered in Sarajevo. At the time, few would have predicted that a month later, Austria-Hungary would declare war on Serbia, the nation it believed was behind the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg crown. The Habsburg government hoped that this would be the beginning of a third Balkan war, but officials were cognizant of the fact that it could escalate into a wider European conflagration. That was exactly what happened. The question of the origins of the Great War is really two questions: (1) Why did Austria-Hungary decide to go to war against Serbia? (2) Why did this decision lead to a world war instead of a third year of fighting in the Balkan peninsula? Both are important questions with complex answers. The chapter on Austria-Hungary addresses the first question, and the rest of this book offers an answer to the second question. This work will not reveal previously undiscovered archival material. Rather, it is an attempt to evaluate recent work on these questions that has been done and do it without the preconceptions that have created some blind spots in how we think about the origins of the war. In the United States, the World War One Historical Association began their commemoration of the centennial of the war in November of 2013 with a symposium, “The Coming of the Great War,” at the National World War One Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The symposium serves as a good reference point to discuss the state of scholarship on the origins of the First World War.1 The symposium began with Holger Herwig providing what can fairly be considered the standard assessment of responsibility: “Historians by and large agree that Imperial Germany bore a major responsibility for starting World War I. By fully backing Austria-Hungary’s play against Serbia after the assassinations at Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on 28 June 1914, Berlin assured that what might have been a third Balkan war instead expanded into a general European war.”2 The judgment is not limited to historians. Political scientist Frank C. Zagare frames the issue in this way: “A second important question is whether the crisis in Europe was inevitable, whether Austria-Hungary and Germany could have been deterred from instigating a crisis in Europe.”3

2  Introduction In a 2013 Brookings Essay, comparing the current world stage to the world stage in 1914, Margaret MacMillan wrote: Enmities between lesser powers can have unexpected and far-reaching consequences when outside powers choose sides to promote their own interests. In the years before World War I, Russia chose to become Serbia’s protector, both in the name of Pan-Slavism and also to extend its influence down to Istanbul and the straits leading out of the Black Sea. When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany, feeling it had to support Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia, even at the risk of a world war. Because of alliances and friendships developed over the previous decades, France and then Britain were also drawn in to fight alongside Russia. Thus the war turned almost at once into a wider one.4 All the works squarely place the blame on Germany for transforming what could have been a local conflict into a European conflagration. These propositions reinforce the Treaty of Versailles and Article 231, commonly referred to as the War Guilt Clause, which blames Germany for the war and its damages, thus laying the legal and moral groundwork for reparations. Both Herwig and MacMillan support the idea of German aggression and responsibility for the escalation of a third Balkan war into the First World War. However, MacMillan’s comment is particularly problematic. She writes, “When ­Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany, feeling it had to support ­Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia, even at the risk of a world war.” What she omitted from this statement is the fact that Russia had begun the process of mobilization against both Germany and Austria-Hungary before the latter declared war on Serbia and more than five full days before Germany declared war on Russia. Moreover, the contention that France was drawn into the war frames the issue in such a way as to make France appear as a secondary, if not passive, participant in the events leading up to the war. This is a standard view in the Anglophone world; but it is also a view that needs to be reassessed and revised. In February of 2014, the BBC News Magazine online offered “World War One: 10 interpretations of who Started WWI.”5 Of the ten people asked—Max Hastings, Richard J. Evans, Heather Jones, John C.G. Röhl, Gerhard Hirschfeld, Annika Mombauer, Sean McMeekin, Gary Sheffield, Catriona Pennell, and David Stevenson—only Richard Evans does not blame Germany in some fashion. He places the greatest responsibility on Serbia. The other nine include Germany, seven include Austria-Hungary, three include Russia, and two blame all six nations (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia). The debate over responsibility (or guilt) started before the Versailles Treaty was even signed. In his useful summary of the historiography of the topic up to 1990, John Langdon reports that the French delegation had suggested Article 231 (the “war-guilt clause”) to stress Germany’s responsibility for the war and to justify reparations.6 It was no coincidence that Articles 232–234

Introduction  3 addressed the question of reparations and Germany’s culpability. The cry of German chancellor Philipp Scheidemann—“The hand will wither that signs such a treaty”—was indicative of Germany’s understated reaction to the treaty as a whole and Article 231 in particular.7 Langdon’s work provides a standard interpretation of the historiographical path of responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Immediately after the war governments provided edited (and selected) papers to justify their actions leading up to the war. For the Entente powers, especially France, this was used to justify the French position that they had fought a defensive war. The French historian Pierre Renouvin embodied the link between history and politics. He served on the editorial staff that compiled and released the Documents diplomtiques français (1871–1914). In 1925, he published Les origins immédiates de la guerre, which remained silent on the importance of Poincaré’s visit to St. Petersburg and reasserted that the lion’s share of the blame falls on the Central Powers.8 At almost the same time, a counter position, arguing for collective responsibility, emerged. This position has unusually been referred to as “revisionist.”9 Understandably, World War II played a role in reducing interest in World War I. But that would change in the 1960s, with the publication of Fritz Fischer’s two works, Griff nach der Weltmacht and Krieg der Illusionen.10 Fischer places the blame squarely on Germany’s shoulders and draws a direct line from Wilhelmine Germany to the Third Reich. There are few today who would still embrace all of Fischer’s conclusions, but his work and the work of his students and his students’ students continue to receive a sympathetic hearing in the Anglophone world.11 Winston Churchill was probably not the first person to say that history is written by the victors, but that certainly appears to be the case when it comes to writing about the Great War. The previously cited examples reflect the need to frame the war around the theme of German aggression. To give one more example, the symposium magazine referred to earlier included a time line for events leading up to the war (see Figure 1.1). Where does the magazine see fit to start the time line? It begins with the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War. By starting the time line with the Franco-Prussian War, the problem of the First World War is framed in terms of German aggression and expansion. A strong new nation appeared on the European scene, and it had upset the balance of power. It was only a matter of time before Germany was at war again. This starting point reflects a Western bias and keeps the focus on Germany as the cause for rocking Europe’s boat. Even the image used in the background of a dark Germany, distinct from the rest of Europe, suggests that Germany is the problem. Strangely, the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 is nowhere to be found on this time line. This omission is important because it had a direct impact on the destabilization of the Balkans. One provision of the treaty ending the conflict (Treaty of Berlin) established the rights of Austria-Hungary to administrative authority over Bosnia and Herzegovina with the understanding that at a later date the Habsburg Monarchy could incorporate the provinces directly into their empire. If war is at least in part the result of the breakdown of international

4  Introduction

Figure 1.1 First page of the time line in World War I 2013 Symposium: The Coming of the Great War (Kansas City, MO: World War One Historical Association, 2013), 10. Source: ©️ 2013, World War One Historical Association.

consensus, the vast majority of 19th-century historians would point to the Crimean War as the event which first challenged the concert system that had prevailed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. But like the Russo-Turkish War, it is not to be found on this time line. One reason is that it would not implicate Germany (or Prussia); the other reason is a reflection of the Western

Introduction 5 European bias. Western Europe is the center; thus Eastern Europe and the Near East are at the periphery.12 The Western bias in the coverage of the war has the unintended consequence of diminishing the importance of actions in Eastern Europe (and beyond) in how the Anglophone world thinks about and presents the Great War. The British Council recently released a report entitled “Remember the world as well as the war. Why the global reach and the enduring legacy of the First World War still matter today.”13 Its executive summary notes, “The UK’s public knowledge of the First World War is quite limited.”14 The report’s framing of the war and its findings reveal the blinders that the Anglophone world tends to have on its perspective on the war. For example, this is how the report describes Russia’s entry into the war: “Russia’s decision to embark on military operations in mid-August 1914 opened up the Eastern Front and bought its Western allies welcome breathing space in Belgium and France.”15 The misrepresentation packed into this statement is stunning as well as revealing. A reasonable interpretation of this statement is that Russia entered the war late to help its Entente partners, again putting the focus on the Western Front. It would also be incorrect. Great Britain was not hoping that Russia would enter the war and open an Eastern Front. It was already open before Britain declared war. Russia was the first to mobilize for war in late July, not mid-August, and hoped that Great Britain would come to its aid and take some of the pressure off of Russia on the Eastern Front—it was confident of French support, as will be discussed later. To have a statement so misleading and so focused on the West in a document that was designed to emphasize the global scope and impact of the war is difficult to fathom. The report reveals another example of the tunnel vision that unfortunately appears so embedded in the British understanding of the war. In what the report calls a “case study,” an anecdote is told about a Hammamet Conference held in Tunisia in 2012 to discuss the “Arab Spring.” The opening speaker of the conference, a senior adviser to the Tunisian prime minister, talked of the need to build trust and understanding between his region and the UK. But he did not start with the here and now. Instead, he went back 100 years, when millions of people became embroiled in a global conflict that would come to be known as the First World War. He focused on two events in particular. Firstly, the 1916 Sykes—Picot Agreement, which proposed the division of much of the Middle East into British and French spheres of influence. Secondly, the 1917 Balfour Declaration: a letter by the British Foreign Secretary which paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel and the associated ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. So, to their surprise, many of the UK delegates in Tunisia last year found that these two documents—almost forgotten in the UK—hold strong currency in a region they were visiting with the intention of forming relationships. As in this example, these historical events can in some circumstances fuel the opposite: resentment and distrust.16

6  Introduction The report mentions at several points that many in the UK may be surprised to find that some have negative views towards the UK because of the war. Perhaps it is the conceit of the victor that allows for such a perspective. It is not a conceit that should influence historians, but it does appear to do so. In The Projection of Britain, Philip Taylor writes, “Until the final decades of the nineteenth century, Britain’s supremacy in the world was considered to be so self-evident that there was felt to be little call for a programme of propaganda overseas.”17 This self-assuredness was perhaps just an international projection of the Victorian morality that associated financial success with moral correctness. The position rested on two assumptions that could not be questioned: the centrality of Britain in the world and the correctness of British actions under all circumstances. The two attributes are married nicely in a statement Max Hastings attributes to the French ambassador Paul Cambon, who “observed sardonically that nothing gave greater pleasure to an Englishman than to discover that the interests of England matched those of mankind at large; ‘and where such a confluence does not exist, he does his best to create it.’ ”18 Margaret MacMillan’s observation about Robert Cecil supports Cambon’s view: When he became Prime Minister for the last time in 1895 he chose, as he had done before, to be his own Foreign Minister. “Our first duty,” he told an audience a few months after the Diamond Jubilee, “is towards the people of this country, to maintain their interests and their rights; our second it to all of humanity.” Since he believed that British hegemony in the world was generally benevolent, the two goals were not in his mind incompatible.19 These attitudes have an impact on how the British, and by extension the Anglophone world, view the origins of the Great War. The public commemorations of the war mentioned previously reflect an orthodox historical consensus, perhaps simplified for popular consumption, but essentially the same in its rhetorical thrust. Hastings and MacMillan are two examples already cited of individuals who have a foot in each sphere.20 This book does not aspire to provide a general narrative of the years leading up to the Great War or of the July Crisis itself. What it will try to do is offer a reinterpretation of the origins of the war based on recent works that have focused on individual nations. In the last twenty years, there have been three historians whose works have garnered various levels of attention: Terence Zuber, Sean McMeekin, and Stefan Schmidt. In the Anglophone world, Schmidt has received the least amount of attention because his chief contribution to this debate, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914 (France’s Foreign Policy During the 1914 July Crisis), has not been translated into English.21 In so far as they have been accepted, the works of these three people, which will be discussed in much more detail in the chapters dedicated to the countries that they are studying, have been incorporated into the larger

Introduction  7 historiographical terrain noted earlier. To return to the analogy used in the Foreword, this book is going to argue that if the works of Zuber, McMeekin, and Schmidt are taken together, then the historiographical map needs to be fundamentally redrawn because they challenge assumptions that have for (too) long been taken as historical givens. The most important assumption that these works challenge is the notion of German aggression. This is not the same as claiming that Germany was a pacifistic country. It was not. But there is no longer a justifiable reason to maintain that Germany was planning a preventative war and that the assassination in Sarajevo provided the opportunity for Germany to unleash its aggression. A second assumption that needs to be put to rest finally is that France was a secondary actor during the July Crisis.22 The last assumption that this work challenges is that Russian mobilization did not mean war, whereas German mobilization meant war. In regard to this last assumption, Marc Trachtenberg makes an important observation in his 2017 paper published in H-Diplo/ISSF about the importance of reciprocity when considering the actions of the participants during the July Crisis. Standards should be consistently applied but are often not due to one or more of the aforementioned assumptions. There are two particularly glaring examples of differing standards depending upon who is acting. The first example concerns blank cheques, and the second concerns mobilization. Germany’s unconditional support of AustriaHungary, delivered first by Kaiser Wilhelm II and confirmed by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, is correctly identified as a “blank cheque.” Germany stated that it would support the Habsburg Monarchy’s response to the assassination. However, France provides exactly the same kind of unequivocal support for Russia, and yet there is tremendous reluctance to characterize this as a blank cheque. The second point is virtually an article of faith among historians determined to pin the lion’s share of culpability for the war on Germany: Germany’s mobilization is the only one that meant war. Why only Germany’s mobilization meant war when the mobilization of Russia or France did not is not clear. This “situation” is especially striking when one remembers that the military leaders of France, Russia, and Germany were all under the sway of the “cult of the offensive.”23 Stephen Van Evera identified five characteristics that accompany an offensive mind-set: (1) States act more aggressively; (2) the advantage that accompanies mobilizing and striking first encourages preemptive wars; (3) windows of opportunity force the risk of preemptive war; (4) states compete in high-risk diplomacy and brinksmanship and are more willing to consider trying to execute a fait accomplis; and (5) states have tighter political and military secrecy.24 The one caveat that needs to be made here is to the second point. Germany, France, and Russia all understood the advantage of being “out of the starting blocks” as quickly as possible, but none of the three considered a preemptive strike along the lines of Japan’s strike against Russia to start the Russo-Japanese War. However, he does not apply the five criteria evenly to the three powers and focuses the meaning of all five only on Germany. When Van

8  Introduction Evera considers other nations, it is only in passing or to note that it was worse in Germany. In the process, Van Evera makes some errors that impact his conclusions. The most important concern is the characterization of the Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazonov and Russian mobilization. Van Evera suggests that Sazonov did not understand Russian mobilization and that it was impossible for Russia to mobilize in secret.25 He notes that Russian officials believed that they could mobilize in secret, and as will be seen, Russia’s belief was well founded. While historians want to claim that only German mobilization meant war, it was clear in the minds of French and Russian leaders at the time that they also considered mobilization to mean war. As George Kennan noted when discussing Article II of the Franco-Russian Agreement, which addressed mobilization, “Bearing in mind that both general staffs [French and Russian] not only viewed mobilization as on outright act of war but insisted that all normal operational decisions be based on that assumption, it is clear that this Article eclipsed the first one, addressed to the contingency of an attack; for there was unlikely to be an attack without some form of preceding mobilization.”26 Indeed, General Raoul le Mouton de Boisdeffre, chief of the French General Staff, declared, “la mobilisation, c’etait la declaration de guerre” (Mobilization is a declaration of war).27 Yet the overwhelming majority of historians still tout that only German mobilization meant war. The closest explanation one can find for why later historians think that Germany is different is provided by Margaret MacMillan, who notes that Germany’s mobilization was so refined that it could proceed quickly and without interruption, which made it “almost impossible to stop once started.”28 This perspective appears to ignore the implications of “cult of the offensive” strategies that prevailed in France and Russia, as well as in Germany. If speed was of the essence to the successful execution of a military strategy, and it was for all three nations, then for all three nations mobilization meant war. It is not reasonable to hold one nation to a different standard than others—intent as well as execution is important here. One possible explanation for the differing standards regarding similar actions is that in many of the writings German aggression is assumed and provides the framework for the discussion. The result of this framing is that much of the narrative is written from the perspective of the Entente powers acting in response to German provocations.29 This mind-set—or perhaps it is simply an inclination—is not an intentional or a conscious act. But the result is that German acts are given more weight or interpreted in the worse possible light. The following are two examples from recent important works that display this inclination. In his chapter, “Military, War, and International Politics,” William Mulligan writes, “Two factors precipitated the arms race from late 1911.”30 The first factor he mentions is the 1911 Moroccan Crisis and the subsequent domestic wrangling to increase funding for the German army instead of the navy. The result was the 1912 Army Bill. The second factor was Russia’s decision in February 1910 to undertake a comprehensive rearmament plan.31 Mulligan makes a good point here, but the question is, why does he list Germany’s

Introduction  9 actions first? Russia’s decision to overhaul its armaments occurred first. Russia’s decision even preceded the Moroccan Crisis. It would make more sense to list Russia’s decision first and not just from the perspective of chronology. Putting Russia first would also provide a more complete context for Germany’s decision. Mulligan notes that Germany’s isolation during the Moroccan Crisis caused both civilian and military leaders to rethink their security policy. Russia’s rearmament decision contributed to German insecurity. Instead, Germany’s actions are listed as the first factor, thus creating a rhetorical framework that puts the onus of the arms race on Germany as the cause rather than as one of several actors. A second example is in T.G. Otte’s July Crisis. Otte quotes a letter from Count Forgách, one of Prime Minister Berchtold’s section chiefs, to the Austrian ambassador in Rome, Count Kaketan von Mérey. “The minister [Berchtold] determined—in so far as this word applies to him—to use the ghastly misdeed of Sarajevo for a military cleansing [Bereinigung] of our impossible relations with Serbia.”32 Otte included the German term Bereinigung in the quotation. “Cleansing” is one possible translation for the term, but it is probably not the best one. A  better translation would have been “settlement” or “solution.” Both are possible definitions of Bereinigung and fit the context more appropriately. The difficulty with “cleansing” lies in the later history of the area and of Germany. Within the context of the Balkan peninsula, the use of the word “cleansing” immediately calls to mind the Serbian “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims. The term also has a genocidal connotation that was almost certainly not intended at the time but is now associated with Germany as a result of the crimes of Hitler’s Third Reich. This seems unnecessary and reflects what seems to be an unconscious proclivity to paint Germany (and the German language) in the worst possible light. Scholars who dare to suggest that Germany was anything other than the aggressor are dismissed as “apologists.”33 This is one reason why Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War is an especially useful contribution to the debate about the origins of the Great War. The book is organized by days and what each country did on a particular day. This approach presents Germany as one of many actors who are all acting and reacting simultaneously, often on the basis of incomplete or erroneous information about the others, with no one country consistently dictating the course of events. In The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century, Peter Watson champions the contributions of German culture to the English-speaking world. He wrote the book in part to offset the one-sided and largely negative view of Germany that is dominated by a fixation on the Second World War, Hitler, and the Holocaust.34 In an indirect fashion, Watson is confirming the British Council’s observation about the lack of knowledge about the Great War. Watson’s observation about the fixation on the Second World War is worth noting because I think it has also had a profound impact on the historiography of the First World War, in a fashion that has benefitted the British. Since the end of World War II, the main question

10  Introduction in modern German history is, Why 1933? Why was Hitler able to come to power? If one is unwilling to accept the argument that the First World War was such a catastrophic event that 1919 essentially marked a new beginning, then one has to figure out the origins of German mis-development. Here is where a great many historians enjoyed turning the idea of the German Sonderweg (special path) against the Germans. Germany’s so-called special path was now a road to perdition. How did it happen? During the 1930s and 1940s, a spate of books appeared that allowed authors to pick their least favorite German and make him responsible for National Socialism. (Titles such as From Luther to Hitler, From Bismarck to Hitler, and From Nietzsche to Hitler are just a few examples.)35 A classic postwar posing of this question, which reveals the bias that has dominated German and European historiography for most of the 20th century, comes from Ralf Dahrendorf’s Society and Democracy in Germany, in which he frames the question thus: Why wasn’t Germany England?36 England was taken as the norm for development for the modern nation-state. This is also why Fritz Fischer’s work was so controversial and influential. As R.J.W. Evans noted: Fischer and his followers had narrowed the focus of the debate by confining it to Germany and placing it within a longer-term account of the origins of Nazism that argued Germany had trodden a “special path,” or Sonderweg, to modernity, involving the enthronement of domestic authoritarianism and international aggrandizement at the center of power. So robust was this narrative that for a time it carried all before it.37 Fischer’s work caused an uproar in Germany, both within the profession and inside Germany as a whole—quite an accomplishment for a rather large tome. The work caused less commotion in Austria, France, and Great Britain. In Austria, there was a sense of relief because Fischer put the onus for the war solely on Germany. In France and Great Britain, Fischer did not cause a stir for a number of reasons, but the most important one may well have been that it merely confirmed what the French and British had believed all along: The war was Germany’s fault.38 While it was ostensibly about the First World War, Fischer’s work was also an explanation for the rise of National Socialism. Put simply, what Fischer and later historians argued was that the conservative elites were able to retain power and influence in spite of Germany’s loss in the Great War and that their anti-democratic convictions paved the way for Hitler’s ascension to power. The Second World War, a case where Germany’s aggression and guilt are indisputable, is used to reinforce the idea of German militarism and aggression as innate German traits. This perspective needs to be kept in mind when considering Gerhard Ritter’s work on General Alfred von Schlieffen. Published in 1956, Ritter’s book on the Schlieffen Plan is part of a larger condemnation of German militarism as a cause for Hitler’s rise to power.39 The very real actions during the second war, especially on the Eastern Front, lend legitimacy

Introduction 11 to the Great War propagandistic depictions during the Great War of Germans as “Huns” and outside the realm of civilized nations. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the experience of the Second World War is projected back onto the understanding of the First World War. The eminent historian John C.G. Röhl acknowledges this when he states, “It does not take much imagination to see the First and Second World Wars as two acts in the same drama. The immediate cause of the war in 1939 might have been different from that in 1914, but with the German attack on France in May 1940 followed by the invasion of Soviet Russia in June 1941 the similarities between the two conflicts became unmistakable.”40 It may not take much imagination to do so, but that does not make it correct. This is one of the limitations of the Fischer thesis. Its explanation for 1933 and Hitler’s rise to power depends upon its understanding of 1914. Röhl seems to admit as much at the end of his article when he writes: The Fischer controversy of the 1960s was always more than just an academic dispute about scraps of paper in the archives. . . . This is why, at the political level, I find the current wave of revisionism sweeping through the German media so disappointing. A farcical looking-glass war is being fought out in which the Fischer thesis is being branded a uniquely British “blame game,” and the—brilliant but (in respect of German intentions) flawed—work of an Australian-born historian at Cambridge is being celebrated by German nationalists as providing from the supposedly unjust “war guilt lie” of Versailles. In this context it is a relief to see Germany’s leaders, notably President Joachim Gauck in his moving speech at Liège, Louvain and Mons on 4 August 2014, showing genuine remorse for the outrage of 1914. In my darker moments it feels as if the arcane detective work we few truth-seekers are undertaking in the archives is no match for the overriding (and perfectly understandable) popular longing in Germany for a guilt-free national myth similar to the proud histories the British and French people can construct for themselves. But as an Arabic proverb has it, even God cannot change the past, and the past has an awkward habit of leaving an indelible record on scraps of paper.41 Leaving aside the irony of using an Arabic proverb after noting the proud (guilt-free?) histories of Britain and France, Röhl’s lengthy quote reveals what he believes the stakes are if the Fischer thesis is rejected. Rejecting the Fischer thesis does not mean that the Germans have a guilt-free national myth. Absolving Germany of “war guilt” for 1914 does not absolve Germany of the crimes committed between 1933 and 1945. What it does mean is that Fischer’s thesis does not stand the test of time or the standards of proof that its disciples maintain and that similarities do not demonstrate continuity. Removing the Fischer thesis does not give Germany a spotless past. Germany owns and has owned up to the crimes of National Socialism. Germany and Austria-Hungary lost the Great War and the peace, regardless of Article 231—a sanctimonious inclusion.

12  Introduction Germany could have paid the reparations. What happened in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s was an example of government officials and political parties who refused to take the responsibility of governing—the ones who did were crucified and quickly lost office or were out of power. Because of its dysfunction, German democracy lost its legitimacy and was vulnerable to be undermined by a clever demagogue. The result was the enabling of a political “outsider” who claimed to not be like other politicians and who could come in and change things and get things done. One final point needs to be made about Röhl’s concerns. The way he characterizes his work as that of a “truth-seeker” frames the debate in such a way that any scholar who questions his work is somehow denying the truth.42 However, the “truth” that Fischer expounded was questioned from the very beginning.43 To argue against Fischer or the primary culpability of Germany is not to argue against the truth but rather to suggest that a truth that many hold so dear may need to be reexamined. As John Stuart Mills argued almost two centuries ago, we must continually examine our truths if we want them to be living truths rather than dead dogma. I  respectfully offer the following as a challenge to what I see has become dogma in an effort to get closer to the truth. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate the blind spots that dominate the Anglophone literature is to look at the role of Britain in the origins of the war. The Western Front is the focus of British historiography for understandable reasons. But the Great War was more than the invasion of Belgium. This chapter will contest the narratives put forward by Zara Steiner, Keith Neilson, and T.G. Otte. Using the work of Keith Wilson, the chapter will argue that Britain’s foreign policy was more focused on preserving the empire and the Entente than containing Germany. The Germanophobia that pervaded the Foreign Office assumed German guilt and created a German threat that far exceeded German actions. Grey’s fixation on the Entente and his unwillingness to consider the Habsburg position influenced his ability to address the July Crisis. This chapter will also challenge T.G. Otte’s claim that British foreign minister Sir Edward Grey was a “man of action.” Far from being on top of the crisis, Grey and the British Foreign Office, it appears, were asleep at the proverbial wheel. Otte may be correct to note that Grey recognized early on that the assassination had the potential to cause a crisis. But Britain’s foreign minister did not act on that insight until much later. Moreover, once he did act, it was often based on outdated or inaccurate information. George Buchanan gets special attention here because he was completely misled or out of the loop with what was happening in Russia. The British representative in Serbia, Crankanthorpe, does not fare much better. Compounding the difficulty is that Grey was not always acting in good faith. Whether or not this was intentional or the consequences of decisions made and a habit of mind that favored the Entente Powers is difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Sean McMeekin’s account of the July Crisis shows how Grey was not an honest broker in his attempts to prevent the outbreak of hostilities. On the most fundamental level, Grey’s actions reflect the impossibility of two international orders, the concert system and the alliance

Introduction  13 system, working simultaneously. Or perhaps the difficulty was that the two orders were working towards different ends. The first step towards understanding the outbreak of the Great War is to look at the actions of Austria-Hungary. If a nation is to blame for starting the fighting, it is Austria-Hungary. It was the first to declare war; but the Habsburg officials hoped that it would only be a localized war, that is, Austria-Hungary versus Serbia. The Habsburg Monarchy genuinely wanted this to be the third Balkan war, and it hoped that Germany’s support would persuade Russia to stay on the sidelines. Starting from the premise of Paul Schroeder’s contention that Austria-Hungary made the correct decision, this chapter will examine Austria-Hungary’s decision to go to war. This chapter  will also explore the level of culpability of the Serbian government in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The split nature of the Dual Monarchy greatly inhibited actions that could have facilitated actions that possibly would have allowed Austria-Hungary to achieve its objectives under more favorable circumstances. However, the emergence of the alliance system to replace the concert system as the means to maintain international order and peace put Austria-Hungary in a no-win situation. Chapter 4 will challenge many of the assumptions about Germany’s role in the outbreak of the war. Since virtually every discussion of German aggression is predicated on German military planning, the chapter will start by assessing the impact of Terence Zuber’s arguments about the Schlieffen Plan and German war planning and address his critics. The implications of Zuber’s work are far reaching and force scholars to rethink notions of German militarism and Germany’s commitment to a preventative war. The chapter will also discuss Germany’s role in the European system and its mistakes during the July Crisis. The blank check was not the big mistake; the big mistake was the complete lack of communication, cooperation, or oversight after offering unqualified support to its Austrian ally. The Germans made a number of assumptions that presumed a more competent ally than the one they had. It is also going to suggest that German decisions regarding mobilization were dictated by external events, most importantly Russian mobilization. Russia’s foreign policy priorities and its actions during the July Crisis are the subject of the next chapter. The focus will be on the argument that Sean McMeekin makes in his book The Russian Origins of World War I that Russia bears the largest burden of responsibility for turning the third Balkan war into the Great War. He contends that Sazonov used this crisis as an opportunity to achieve a long-sought-after Russian goal, control over the straits connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Some have dismissed his work on the basis that he has not supported his positions well. This chapter will argue that he supports his work better than his critics contend by comparing his work to Dominic Lieven’s The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I & Revolution. What the comparison will demonstrate is that McMeekin and Lieven agree far more than they disagree and that McMeekin makes a stronger argument because his work also factors in French support for Sazonov and

14  Introduction Russian foreign policy goals—a critical omission for Lieven. The parallels between the circumstances in 1912 and 1914 that McMeekin notes are telling. Enough had changed between these years that if Russia wanted to achieve its long-term foreign policy goals, it would not find a more favorable situation. Focusing on the work of Stefan Schmidt, the next chapter argues that the idea that France was a secondary or passive actor during the July Crisis can no longer stand up to historical scrutiny. Schmidt’s work has demonstrated that the conclusions of John Keiger and Mark Hayne about Raymond Poincaré and French foreign policy are no longer tenable. Moreover, the idea that Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia, somehow went rogue and exceeded his instructions does not explain why Paul Cambon’s actions in London complemented Paléologue’s activities in St. Petersburg. Crucial to understanding French actions in July 1914 is the fact that Poincaré had already conceded in 1912 that an incident in the Balkans would trigger the military articles of the Franco-Russian alliance. It is also clear that Poincaré learned about Austro-Hungarian plans for an ultimatum while he was in St. Petersburg and that there is strong evidence that Poincaré and Sazonov were able to coordinate their response to the Habsburg Monarchy’s ultimatum. The chapter will also argue that France had pursued a foreign policy that could only be successful militarily and concluded that a Balkan inception scenario would be a favorable military situation for France and the Entente. It is worth noting that Poincaré could shape and control foreign policy single-handedly, which John Keiger claims is exactly what Poincaré did, and suggests that the French system of government was not necessarily better equipped to deal with this crisis either. Ultimately, the “truism” that one need not travel beyond Berlin and Vienna in order to find the causes of the Great War needs to be consigned to the dustbin. Much more time needs to be spent in the Entente capitals, and some longcherished assumptions need to be reexamined. The author respectfully submits that some of them have become, as Mills might say, dead dogma.

Notes 1 I did not attend the symposium. My remarks concerning the meeting are based on a special issue of the World War One Historical Association Magazine that both promoted and covered the event. 2 Susan Hall-Balduf, ed., World War I 2013 Symposium: The Coming of the Great War (Kansas City, MO: World War  I  Historical Association, 2013), 3. http://origin.library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1114205593005-50/ World+War+One+Magazine_Vol.+I_Special+Edition_PDF.pdf. DOA 3 January 2014. 3 Frank C. Zagare, The Games of July: Explaining the Great War (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2011), 130. 4 Margaret MacMillan, “The Rhyme of History: Lessons of the Great War,” Brookings Institute Paper, published December 14, 2013. www.brookings.edu/research/ essays/2013/rhyme-of-history. DOA 5 January 2014. 5 www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26048324. 6 See John Langdon, July 1914: The Long Debate, 1918–1990 (Providence, RI: Berg Publishers, 1991).

Introduction 15 7 Langdon, Long Debate, 2. 8 Langdon, Long Debate, 40–44. The absence of records for Poincaré and Viviani’s visit to St. Petersburg will be discussed in Chapter 5. 9 Langdon, Long Debate, Chapter 2, “The High Tide of Revisionism,” 18–35. German revisionists, such as Alfred von Wegener, have not, as Langdon justifiably notes, “worn well” (23). On the other hand, American revisionist historians such as Sidney Fay made significant contributions to the discussion. 10 See Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht: die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschlands 1914–1918, translated as German Aims in the First World War, trans. James Joll (London: Chatto and Windus, 1967); Fritz Fischer, Krieg der Illusionen: die Deutsche Politik von 1911 bis 1914 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1969), translated as War of Illusions, trans. Marian Jachson (London: Chatto and Windus, 1975). Langdon provides a good summary of Fischer’s contributions and the debate around his work; 66–129. 11 See Langdon or Mombauer, Origins, for a good overview of the Fischer school. Annika Mombauer, “The Fischer Controversy, Documents and the ‘Truth’ About the Origins of the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 48:2 (April  2013), devoted an entire issue to the Fischer controversy; see Journal of Contemporary History. 12 A recent example of this kind of bias can be seen in Alan Kramer’s recent review of the recent historiography of World War I. In his two-part series, there is no mention of McMeekin’s work when he examines the origins of the war. Similarly, when describing recent battle literature, his two categories are “Combat on the Western Front” and “Other Fronts.” See Alan Kramer, “Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part 1),” The Journal of Modern European History 12:1 (2014): 5–27, “Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part 2),” 155–174. 13 The report can be accessed at www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/publications/ remember-the-world. All citations will come from the downloaded pdf version of the report. 14 Anne Bostanci and John Dubber, Remember the World as Well as the War: Why the Global Reach and the Enduring Legacy of the First World War Still Matter Today (Exeter, UK: British Council, 2014), 3. 15 Bostanci and Dubber, Remember the World as Well as the War, 21. 16 Bostanci and Dubber, Remember the World as Well as the War, 15. 17 Philip M. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 293. 18 Max Hastings, Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), 37–38. Unfortunately, Hastings does not provide a source for this bon mot. 19 Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (New York: Random House, 2013), 36. 20 Some might not include Hastings among academic historians due to his not holding an academic post. Nevertheless, his book on the Great War, Catastrophe 1914, is often included in scholarly reviews of recent literature, and his opinions are frequently quoted in the media. 21 Marc Trachtenburg, “French Foreign Policy in the July Crisis, 1914: A  Review Article,” H-Diplo | ISSF Essays 3 (December 2010) provides a thorough review of Schmidt’s arguments for those who do not have the time or the German to read Schmidt’s book. 22 In their recent works, both Otte and MacMillan have France in a reactive role during the July Crisis. 23 For an introduction to the prevalence of the “cult of the offensive,” see Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War, ed. Steven E. Miller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), especially the contributions by Michael Howard, Stephen Van Evera, and Jack Snyder.

16  Introduction 24 Stephen Van Ereva, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” 63–65. 25 Van Evera, “Cult of the Offensive,” 76. It is also disappointing that Van Evera takes Sazonov’s memoir account that he mobilized because he was afraid that Russia could not detect German mobilization at face value and did not consider that Sazonov may have been trying to hide his actions in order to pin the blame on Germany. See Chapter 4 for the discussion of Sazonov and mobilization. 26 George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 250. I found this reference in Gerd Krumeich, Juli 1914: Eine Bilanz (Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013), 137. Krumeich provides a good summary of the Russian mobilization discussion and concludes that on 25 July, Russia had begun to prepare for a great war. See Krumeich, Juli 1914: Eine Bilanz, 136–143. 27 Stefan Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914 Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich: R. Oldenburg Verlag, 2009), 248. 28 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 610. 29 Langdon, Long Debate, 87. 30 William Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 131. 31 Mulligan, Origins, 131–132. 32 T.G. Otte, July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 154–155. 33 See Annika Mombauer, “The Fischer Controversy, Documents and the ‘Truth’ About the Origins of the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 48:2 (2013): 297, 304, and 308; Robert T Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” War in History 13:1 (2006): 115. 34 See the introduction in Peter Watson, The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper, 2011). 35 William Montgomery McGovern, From Luther to Hitler: The History of FascistNazi Political Philosophy (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1941); Louis L. Snyder, From Bismarck to Hitler: The Background of Modern German Nationalism (Williamsport, PA: The Bayard Press, 1935); M.P. Nicolas, From Nietzsche to Hitler (London: W. Hodge and Company, 1938). 36 See Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York: Anchor Books, 1967). 37 R.J.W. Evans, “The Road to Slaughter.” Review of Sean McMeekin’s The Russian Origins of the First World War in the New Republic 5 December 2011, www. newrepublic.com/book/review/the-road-slaughter. DOA 18 March 2014. 38 For the reception of the Fischer thesis on Austria, France, and Great Britain, see the contributions of Guenter Kronenbitter, John F.V. Kieger, and T.G. Otte, respectively, in the Fischer issue of Journal of Contemporary History, 2013. 39 See Gerhard Ritter, Staatskunst und Krieghandwerk: des Problem des “Militarismus” in Deutschland (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1954–1968), published in English as The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1969–1972). 40 John C.G. Röhl, “Goodbye to All That (Again)? The Fischer Thesis, the New Revisionism and the Meaning of the First World War,” International Affairs 91:1 (2015): 153. 41 Röhl, “Goodbye to All That (Again)?” 166. Christopher Clark is the historian whom Röhl is referring to in this quote.

Introduction  17 42 Here, Annika Mombauer’s observation that much of the postmodern turn concerning historical epistemology has largely skipped over this debate is on point. See Mombauer, “The Fischer Controversy,” 290–314. 43 For an early critique of Fischer, see Gerald D. Feldman’s review of Krieg der Illusionen by Fritz Fischer in Journal of Modern History 43:2 (June 1971): 333–336, or, for a useful summary of Fischer’s shortcomings, see Marc Trachtenburg’s article in the Forum 16 “New Light on 1914” H-Diplo| ISSF Essays. Forum No. 16 (2017).

2 Great Britain An entente frame of mind . . . but nothing in writing

The historian J. Paul Harris observes that the Great War remains a national obsession in Great Britain.1 It is easy to understand why. Both popular histories and professional historians recount an image of a reluctant England dragged into war, despite the best efforts of Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey to defend an innocent Belgium from an aggressive militaristic Germany that was bent on continental hegemony. Zara Steiner and Keith Neilson provide what can be fairly characterized as the standard view of Grey and Britain’s entry into the war: Let it be said in his honor that few could have felt the burden of responsibility more acutely or brooded more about their failures. In one way, Grey’s diplomatic efforts had been crowned with success. When Germany made her bid, there was a formidable opposition for her to overcome. The Entente structure held. This was, in Grey’s eyes, a defensive war, which had to continue until the spectre of Prussian militarism was eradicated from the European scene.2 Not all historians, however, are complimentary of Grey, and some have questioned the wisdom of Britain getting involved in the war at all.3 In their review essay on the recent literature about the origins of the war, Samuel Williamson and Ernest May claim that the consensus at the time of their writing (2007) was that Grey played the key role in pushing for intervention and that his efforts to preserve the peace were “sporadic and belated” due to a divided Cabinet and domestic concerns, which had also made it difficult for him to state Britain’s position earlier and unequivocally.4 Lord Lansdowne’s postwar observation confirmed some of the domestic obstacles that Grey confronted during the July Crisis: “I have always believed that the war might have been avoided if Grey had been in a position to make a perfectly explicit statement as to our conduct in certain eventualities. I  am under the impression that he would have been ready enough to make such a statement, but that he could not venture to do so, and could not have got the support of the Cabinet if he had asked for it.”5 T.G. Otte has called into question claims regarding Grey’s passivity and has

Great Britain  19 characterized him as a “man of action” who “consistently worked for a negotiated settlement of the dispute until the very end.”6 There are a number of difficulties with the characterization of Britain as the moderator who tried to mediate the dispute and, when that failed, only reluctantly participated in the war. This view of Britain was, and remains, remarkably self-serving. As Keith Wilson points out, “The more unflattering that portrayal of Germany, the more flattering that of Great Britain. The greater the menace of Germany, the better able were some people to persuade themselves that they had a role to play. The picture that many at the Foreign Office had of themselves depended on their picture of Germany. Portraying Germany as they did was the only way for them to restore their self-respect.”7 This need to portray Germany as a menace appears to be central to modern British concepts of British identity in order to justify the tremendous sacrifices made during the Great War. This chapter will look at the distinctions between British statements and the reality of British foreign policy and will argue that the claim that British diplomacy was shaped more by external events than internal conflicts and that these limited Grey’s options on the eve of the war needs to be looked at in a different light.8

The end of British isolation The Victorian era (1837–1901) was the apex of the British Empire. But by the last decade of the 19th century, it was clear that Britain had reached its limits. Facing imperial pressures from France and Russia and economic challenges from the United States, Japan, and Germany, Britain was no longer in a position to maintain its policy of isolation.9 The Boer War (1899–1902) had exposed the limits of Lord Salisbury’s foreign policy.10 The biggest challenges facing Britain were not coming from the continent but, rather, were challenges to its empire, especially in Asia. Under the direction of the Conservative foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne, Britain began to address these concerns. In 1902, Britain and Japan signed a defensive alliance that suited both powers. Britain had limited imperial interests in the Far East, Japan’s main area of interest, and Japan helped provide a check on Russian expansion in the area, with the added bonus of giving the Russians a cause to think twice before creating too much trouble for Britain in India.11 1n 1904, Britain and France agreed to the Entente Cordiale.12 While the settling of differences in Africa and elsewhere was an important step in AngloFrench relations, the main threat to Britain was Russia. An agreement with France could pave the way to a better understanding with Russia. French foreign minister Declassé recognized that and suggested that an arrangement with France could help restrain Russia. Conservative leader Arthur Balfour saw Russia not only as an ally of France but also as the dominant influence in Persia, as well as a potential invader of India or a disturber of European peace.13

20  Great Britain The 1905 elections returned a Liberal majority to Parliament, thus denying Lansdowne the opportunity to take the next step and negotiate a deal with Russia. Lord Lansdowne was replaced by Sir Edward Grey as foreign minister. Grey, however, approved of what his predecessor had done and continued in that direction.14 This meant supporting France and trying to reach an accommodation with Russia. In the summer of 1906, Grey sent Arthur Nicolson, permanent undersecretary in the Foreign Office and a former ambassador to Russia, to St. Petersburg to negotiate an agreement. The following year, the Anglo-Russian accord was signed. The significance of this agreement is hard to overstate. The greatest foreign policy challenge that Britain faced was maintaining the empire. Like his predecessor, Grey saw that Russia was the gravest threat to that empire due to its ability to put pressure on both Persia and India. The agreement with Russia relieved that pressure. Moreover, the Entente also helped ensure Britain’s continued naval supremacy.15 Grey had achieved the best of both worlds. With the Triple Entente in place, Britain’s empire was secure without a formal military commitment. So, as Grey was so fond of pointing out, Britain’s hands were free to act in its own best interest because nothing was in writing. To maintain this delicate balance, Grey directed his efforts towards maintaining the status quo and preserving the Entente.

The entente frame of mind Some members within the Foreign Office supported better relations with France and Russia but were not satisfied with the Entente. There were factions within the Foreign Office that advocated for an official alliance with the Entente partners. Keith Wilson notes that Eyre Crowe, one advocate for such an alliance, responded to an article that appeared in the French press in February 1911: The fundamental fact of course is that an Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies it may be found to have no substance at all. For an Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content. Some therefore of the faults criticized by the Temps are necessarily inherent in any system resting merely on “Ententes.”16 It is perhaps ironic that Crowe, who was educated in Germany, would so casually dismiss a frame of mind. A frame of mind is crucial to the formation of a Weltanschauung: how someone understands the world around him. A frame of mind is a powerful tool for shaping thoughts and actions. It certainly was in the case of Edward Grey. In terms of foreign policy, his determination to preserve the Entente cast a powerful framework that molded his conduct. As Grey confided to his German ambassador, “We cannot sacrifice the friendship of Russia or of France.”17

Great Britain 21 Subsequent historians have noted Grey’s fealty to the Entente but have not always understood all of the implications of that loyalty.18 Grey was determined to preserve the status quo in the international order. This meant that Britain retained mastery of the seas and that its empire remained as secure as possible. He believed that the best way to ensure both was through the Entente. From a British perspective, this reasoning made perfect sense. With Russia as an Entente partner, the pressure on India was reduced substantially. There were still causes for tension in Persia, and they would increase in the future. Wilson notes, “So long as it was considered, in the words of Grey’s Permanent Under Secretaries, both of them, and this is not at all incidentally, former Ambassadors to St. Petersburg, ‘far more disadvantageous to have an unfriendly France and an unfriendly Russia than an unfriendly Germany’, then so long were the British in a dilemma which was resolved by the mere stating of it.”19 The British foreign minister appeared not to have considered how the Entente itself could have been a force to disturb the status quo. Not everyone in Britain was blind to this possibility. Lord Rosebery feared that the Anglo-French Entente was “much more likely to lead to complications than to peace.”20 Without a doubt, Grey sincerely considered the Entente to be a defensive arrangement. What is interesting is that the two powers that could most disturb Britain’s status quo were France and Russia. In that sense, Grey’s strategy was not that different from Bismarck’s attempt to have treaties with Austria-Hungary and Russia to prevent them from disrupting Germany’s status quo. In the decade before the First World War, the blame for international disturbances was often laid at Germany’s feet.21 It was as if the mere existence of Germany was enough reason to fault it or assume the worst. This helps explain why German missteps like the Krüger telegram—Kaiser Wilhelm II’s foolish 1896 congratulatory note to President Paul Krüger after the defeat of a band of British irregulars—“unleashed emotions far in excess of the actual event.”22 On the other hand, Britain’s ambassador to France Sir Francis Bertie’s provocative remark to acting German ambassador Baron Hermann von Eckardstein—“Should it come to a war with Germany . . . the entire English nation would be behind it, and a blockade of Hamburg and Bremen and the annihilation of German commerce on the high seas would be child’s play for the English fleet”23—did not draw much attention because of the prevailing climate of widespread overreaction only to German action. Christopher Clark notes that weeks after German unification in 1871, Benjamin Disraeli gave a speech where he claimed that German unification was a revolution that had disrupted the European balance of power.24 As Wilson notes in his essay “The Invention of Germany,” “Looked at objectively, some of the claims made about Germany were so remarkable as to be quite hysterical,”25 with the result that “Germany stood guilty until proven innocent.”26 The Germanophobic disposition of the British Foreign Office is well documented.27 Perhaps the most-cited expression of this Germanophobia is Eyre Crowe’s 1 January 1907 memorandum, “Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany.”28 After praising the new relationship with France, the memorandum

22  Great Britain provided what was little more than a crude caricature of Germany as being nothing more than the outgrowth of Prussian militarism. Steiner and Neilson claim it “came very close to an accurate analysis of the German situation,” while Keith Neilson called it “a most curious, confused and self-contradictory piece of work.”29 Christopher Clark is almost amused by a narrative endowed “with the contours of a Boy’s Own morality”; Margaret MacMillan compares it to George Kennan’s “Long Telegram.”30 The memorandum was, beyond a doubt, influential. Clark and MacMillan note that Crowe posited British global dominance as natural, moral, and benevolent and that it was not surprising that Germany would want to challenge it. Britain, however, was obligated by what was tantamount to a “law of nature” to resist any challenges to its position. But whereas British hegemony was welcomed and enjoyed by all and envied and feared by none on account of its political liberty and the freedom of commerce, the vociferations of the Kaiser and the pan-German press showed that German hegemony would amount to a ‘political dictatorship’ and would be ‘the wreckage of the liberties of Europe.’31 Crowe’s memorandum did not change minds but rather confirmed suspicions and played to prejudices. Steiner and Neilson claimed, “One must understand how firmly Grey believed in the German threat.”32 In 1903, before Grey had even become foreign minister, he had identified Germany as “our worst enemy and our greatest threat.”33 Here, Britain’s privileged position and moral correctness were axiomatic in British thinking. MacMillan notes that Grey, “[l]ike other high-minded people, . . . failed to recognize when he himself was being ruthless or devious, perhaps because he took for granted that his motives were pure.”34 As Steiner and Neilson characterize it, “British rule had been and was essentially moral; German rule would shatter the peace and civilisation it had fostered.”35 The peace alluded to was based on Britain’s naval strength. “Grey and his officials equated naval supremacy with peace, and military power with aggression and aggrandizement.”36 Thus, the German attempt to build up its navy and the subsequent naval race between Britain and Germany dominated AngloGerman relations between 1908 and 1912.37 Steiner and Neilson note that the German challenge was seen as real.38 The question here might be why Keith Wilson argues that the British Foreign Office knew that the German navy posed no insurmountable threat to British superiority and that the risk of an invasion of Britain was minimal.39 Germany certainly did not pose a threat to the empire. Such rhetoric was useful for “soliciting contributions from the Dominions to British sea power, sparing the taxpayer and social order.”40 Wilson claims that the German fleet did not revolutionize international politics to the extent claimed by Steiner and others. The Entente was not a response to the naval race, but it certainly validated the premium that Grey subsequently put on good relations with France and Russia.41 It is hard to maintain that the Entente was the reason for peace in Europe during the first decade of the 20th century. Here again, Wilson makes the most

Great Britain  23 reasonable argument. The idea that British intervention served as a possible deterrent to Germany is nonsense, as were claims that Germany did not embark on the hegemonic conquest of Europe because it was not sure if it could battle France on land and Britain at sea simultaneously. There was no evidence that Germany was planning to battle either, much less both simultaneously. But it suited British needs and its national pride to claim this. “In order for Britain to be ‘the only Power who can resist the achievement (of German hegemony)’ Germany had to be aiming at this.”42 While Germany genuinely was a military and economic force to be reckoned with, Wilson suggests that the British Foreign Office “deliberately mistook the aims and objectives of Germany, and credited her with intentions they did not believe her to possess,” in order to draw attention away from Britain’s own weaknesses.43 It is fair to point out, “Above all, all the hostile claims about and portrayals of Germany, at whatever point they were made, ignored the salient facts of the years in question. These were that there was no balance of power on the European continent, that the military power of Germany and Austria far outweighed that of all other Powers and that the main characteristic of German policy was in these circumstances its restraint.”44 It is hard not to wonder if some modern historians do not fall into a similar trap about Germany and an assumption of German aggression and guilt. For example, the accounts of the first and second Moroccan Crises in Steiner and Neilson’s Britain and the Origins of the First World War depict both incidents as the result of German aggression: Lansdowne’s policy was complicated by the impact of the Russo-Japanese War. That conflict had shaken the rough balance of power in Europe between the Russo-French and the German-Austro-Hungarian blocs. This was the state of affairs when the Kaiser, anxious for a diplomatic success, descended on Tangiers on 31 March 1905. The reason for his action lay in the nation’s domestic malaise as well as in its deteriorating international position but proved to be disastrous on both fronts.45 Nowhere is it mentioned that the origin of the “crisis” was French provocation. In a similar fashion, Macmillan signifies the kaiser’s visit to Tangiers as the cause of the crisis, not considering why a reluctant Wilhelm II was willing to land in the Moroccan city.46 Part of the Anglo-French Entente was the British recognition that Morocco was within the French sphere of influence. There, as Clark points out, was nothing surprising about the French attempt to consolidate control in Morocco. But Declassé “chose to endow the policy with a pointedly anti-German spin.”47 Paris had made arrangements with both Spain and Italy beforehand but had not even bothered to give Germany any advance notice of its intentions, which was a departure from Declassé’s earlier policies that would include discussion with Germany and possible compensation in other parts of Africa.48 Declassé’s conduct was also technically a violation of the 1880 Madrid Agreement, which

24  Great Britain had made Morocco a European concern. This part of the bigger picture is completely absent from the Steiner-Neilson version of the events and is only an afterthought in MacMillan’s retelling. There can be little doubt that Wilhelm II and the German Foreign Office handled the dispute awkwardly and that the attempt to convene an international conference to mediate the quarrel was an effort on the part of Berlin to humiliate the French and probably to test the strength of the new Anglo-French Entente. On both fronts, Germany would be sorely disappointed. The fact that Declassé was forced to step down over this incident suggests that there is some merit behind the claim that France caused this crisis. Even though Britain experienced a change of government and Grey became the new foreign minister during the Moroccan Crisis, the Anglo-French Entente was strengthened by the incident. Grey had told Germany that England could not remain neutral in a Franco-German conflict. Steiner and Neilson acknowledge that Grey distrusted Germany and his conviction of German “hostility” towards Britain was not based on any firsthand knowledge of the situation in Germany, “but his views were the price which the Germans had to pay for their decision to embark on a world policy at a time of British weakness. German diplomatic methods reinforced the British sense of being blackmailed.”49 There is a certain irony to this resentment of Germany. Joachim Remak notes: There had taken place, in the half century before the war, a tremendous expansion of British power, accompanied by a pronounced lack of sympathy for similar ambitions on the part of other nations. If any nation was compensation conscious, it was Great Britain; if the Austrians wished to occupy Bosnia, for instance, then the British must have Cyprus. Even without this particular diplomatic gambit, the British between the ­eighteen-seventies and the turn of the century, were adding, adding, adding to the Empire: Burma, Egypt, Uganda, Somaliland, Kenya, Zanzibar, Rhodesia, the Boer Republic were all flying the Union Jack.50 Instead of considering the possibility that Germany was clumsily using the diplomatic tools at its disposal, Grey was promising support to France in the event of a conflict because Grey feared that Germany could only test its power on the international stage with military conflict.51 At no point did it appear that Grey or the British Foreign Office was ever willing to give Germany the benefit of the doubt. The crisis around the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina is a case where the international situation deteriorated considerably when Britain had the ability to alleviate international pressure.52 In 1896, Britain had come to the conclusion that with French support, Russia could no longer be denied the Straits and, a decade later, had concluded that this could happen without damaging Britain’s strategic interests in the Mediterranean Sea.53 This was the understanding of the British Foreign Office when Russian foreign minister Alexander Izvolsky began secret discussions with his Austrian counterpart, Alois von Aehrenthal,

Great Britain 25 to condone Austria-Hungary’s annexation of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for Austrian support to have the Straits open for Russian warships. Steiner and Neilson claim that “Izvolskii had been hoaxed. Aehrenthal moved quickly to annex the provinces, and refused to participate in any international effort that might deny Austria-Hungary her gains. In London, Grey was not aware of Izvolskii’s duplicity, and merely believed that the Russian foreign minister had been outmaneuvered by Aehrenthal.”54 Izvolsky had not been “hoaxed” here. It was Britain’s refusal to consider changing the status of the Straits that prompted Izvolsky to claim that Aehrenthal had betrayed him.55 If anyone had the wool pulled over their eyes, it was Grey. It is true that Austria-Hungary refused to participate in an international conference to discuss the agreement made with Russia. Such a conference had never been part of their initial negotiations.56 What is astonishing is that Grey apparently thought that this crisis demonstrated the value of British friendship57 when Britain could have improved the international situation if it had been willing to consent to changing the terms of Russian access through the Dardanelles. However, when Grey and Asquith suggested to the Cabinet supporting Izvolsky’s proposal that the rules governing the Straits be altered in a fashion favorable to Russia, the Cabinet overruled them.58 Perhaps Grey was referring to the private response that he provided Russia when asked about Britain’s stance regarding a crisis in the Balkans: “It would be very difficult for England to keep out of it.”59 Or perhaps the value was that Britain looked like an attractive option as long as Germany and Russia were at odds.60 The second Moroccan Crisis arose out of the decision by the Quai d’Orsay, the French Foreign Office, to send French troops into Fez to protect the sultan, which was a breakdown of the 1909 Franco-German Moroccan Agreement. In response to French actions, the Spanish government sent troops to occupy parts of northern and northwestern Morocco on 5 June 1911.61 But according to Steiner and Neilson, the situation was “transformed” when approximately four weeks later (1 July), the Germans sent the gunboat Panther off the coast of Morocco.62 Clark notes that the two sides were not that far apart, but the Quai d’Orsay’s intransigence made matters worse.63 The British, too, had been displeased over the conduct of France in Morocco, and Grey anticipated a German response to the French provocation.64 Grey was initially lukewarm towards France’s position, but the lessthan-adroit maneuvering of German foreign minister Alfred von KiderlenWächter—especially his mishandling of the conservative German press—gave the Germanophobes in the British Foreign Office an opening to concoct extreme scenarios. Nicolson, Haldane, and even Grey started claiming that nothing less than the entire Entente rested on Britain supporting France strongly. Both Nicolson and Crowe objected to concessions to Germany in Morocco or the Congo, claiming that Germany’s goal was to reach across the African continent from German East Africa to Portuguese West Africa.65 Sir Francis Bertie, the British ambassador to France, insisted that Britain needed to support France

26  Great Britain and not discuss concessions that might cause France to devalue its relationship with Britain and cause it to turn to Germany.66 Bertie also presented German demands in the starkest manner to provoke British navalists, who would never accept a German port on the Atlantic coast.67 By 21 July, Grey was privately warning the German ambassador that Britain would defend its interests if the Germans landed at Agadir. On the same day, David Lloyd George gave a speech at Mansion House that included “a sharp warning to Berlin,” noting that Britain was not about to leave its place at the table of the Great Powers and would fight to maintain it.68 At no point had Wilhelm II, Bethmann Hollweg, or Kiderlen considered Morocco worth starting a war over,69 but in Britain there was planning for war and even discussion of military coordination with France. More than Germany or France, Britain seemed more willing to escalate the situation—a fact that was not lost on Germany or Austria.70 The fact that Grey took such a hard line in claiming that the very existence of the Entente depended upon supporting France in Morocco revealed just how focused Grey was on maintaining the Entente. There may have been nothing in writing to obligate Britain to come to France’s aid, but Grey’s frame of mind certainly saw the need to maintain the relationship, even at the highest cost. It is hard to agree with Mulligan’s analysis of Grey’s Entente diplomacy as one of “deterrence of Germany and restraint of Britain’s entente partners.”71 The desire to prevent Germany from having territory in the Congo could not have been the motivation for Grey’s conduct. He was on record as noting that it did not matter whom Britain had as a neighbor in Africa.72 Grey was concerned because losing France meant that Grey could also lose Russia. During the second Moroccan Crisis, Grey was afraid of having to face problems in India if the Triple Entente broke up.73 France and Russia had an alliance that committed the two nations, in writing, to come to the aid of the other. Neither nation had any formal commitment from Britain. The British reluctance to commit to an alliance was understandably a cause for concern in Paris and St. Petersburg, which was why Nicolson, Crowe, and others maintained that there was a need for Britain to formalize the relationship with France.74 Grey was reluctant to do so and consistently held that the Entente system served British interests best by keeping Britain’s hands free. But Grey’s strong support for France revealed that his hand was not unfettered. In 1911, the two nations had a Memorandum of Understanding working out the technical details of sending a British expeditionary force to France. If there was still any skepticism about this arrangement, the 1912 naval arrangement with France removed all doubt (or should have). The French moved their fleet into the Mediterranean Sea and promised to protect British interests there in return for Britain’s promise to use its navy to protect France’s northern coast.75 Grey may have been correct when he claimed that there was nothing in writing that forced Britain to join France in a continental war, but Paul Cambon, the French ambassador to Britain, was also right when he later claimed that there was a “moral alliance” implicit in the arrangement.

Great Britain  27 Winston Churchill, then minister of the navy, recognized this when he wrote on 23 August 1912 to Grey and Asquith that in a crisis situation, France could claim “ ‘on the advice of and by arrangement with your naval authorities we have left our Northern Coasts defenceless. We cannot possibly come back in time.’ Indeed it would probably be decisive whatever is written down now. Everyone must feel who knows the fact that we have the obligations of an alliance without its advantages, and above all without its precise definitions.”76 Grey understood this situation, and his decision-making process always considered the impact on the Entente. For all of his talk about Britain’s role in maintaining Europe’s equilibrium, it is not clear that he factored in how his support of the Entente could disturb that equilibrium, if it ever existed in the first place.77 France’s actions during the second Moroccan Crisis gave Italy an opening to fulfill its imperial aspirations at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Using a similar justification for the occupation of Tripoli that France had used for the occupation of Fez, the Tripolitan War (1911–1912) brought the fragility of the Ottoman Empire back to the forefront of European diplomacy. Members of the Russian-inspired Balkan League declared war on the Ottomans. The rapid success of the Balkan League caught the Great Powers off guard.78 Russian and Austro-Hungarian actions gave rise to concerns that war in the Balkans could develop into a European conflagration. In an effort to prevent that and to bring the fighting to a conclusion, Grey took the lead in organizing a conference in London to mediate matters. This would be the last successful implementation of the concert system. The London Conference and its success marked the high point of Grey’s international reputation.79 Grey acknowledged that the German government played a key role in the negotiations and served as a restraint on Austria-Hungary at times.80 Austria-Hungary, for all of its complaints, got everything that it had asked for out of the London Conference, including recognition of an independent Albania and the prevention of Serbia or Montenegro from acquiring access to the Adriatic Sea. But Grey did not seem to fully appreciate Austria-Hungary’s concerns about the Balkans. This may be due to the fact that he did not consider Vienna to be independent of Berlin. Despite repeated statements to the contrary from his ambassador in Austria-Hungary, Grey did not think that Vienna operated an independent foreign policy but rather was dependent upon and dictated to by Berlin.81 Perhaps this misconception helps explain Grey’s actions during the July Crisis.

Grey and the July Crisis T.G. Otte’s July Crisis is an attempt to defend Grey’s actions from critics who claim that he was too passive or did not do enough to keep Britain out of the war. Otte argues that Grey was a “man of action” during the crisis and understood early on the potentially grave consequences of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.

28  Great Britain To support this position, Otte notes that on 6 July, Grey had a conversation with the German ambassador, Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky, upon the latter’s return from Berlin and, two days later, had a conversation with Russia’s ambassador. Grey and Lichnowsky had a good working rapport, and the Anglophile ambassador genuinely wanted good relations between the two nations. He observed that “he knew for a fact, though he did not know the details, that the Austrians intended to do something and that it was not impossible that they would take military action against Servia.”82 He noted that the German government felt a need to support their alliance partner and that there was concern in Berlin over the recent Anglo-Russian naval talks. Otte contends that Lichnowsky and Grey were on the same page in thinking that Britain and Germany needed to cooperate to ensure a peaceful outcome. If there were complications in the Balkans, Grey stated that he “would use all of the influence [he] could to mitigate difficulties . . . and if the clouds arose prevent the storm from breaking.”83 On 8 July, Grey met with the Russian ambassador to Britain, Alexander Benckendorff. The discussion covered the mood in Vienna and concern that events may make it difficult for Habsburg officials to resist taking action and that there may be evidence of an official Serbia connection. Otte writes: It was imperative, Grey urged Benckendorff, that the Russian government “should do all in their power to reassure Germany, and convince her that no coup was being prepared against her.” Here lay the core of the matter, as Grey well knew: “I often thought . . . that things would be better if the whole truth were known. The difficulty was to tell people the truth and make them believe that they really know the whole truth. They were apt to think that there was a great deal more than they had been told.”84 Leaving aside the irony of Grey seldom even informing his own Cabinet colleagues of the “whole truth,” according to Otte, Grey understood that recent developments had shifted the balance of power in Europe to Germany’s disadvantage and that was only going to increase with the continued improvement of French and Russian armaments. These events would increase Austria-Hungary’s importance to Germany as an ally, giving the Dual Monarchy more leverage.85 Otte’s account is informative and revealing. Citing Lichnowsky’s report to German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Grey claimed that Britain “remained wedded to her traditional balance of power principles, ‘yet we did not wish to see the groups of powers draw apart.’ ”86 He told Benckendorff that the thought that the Sarajevo crime might lead to a general war “made his hair stand on edge,” and he told the French ambassador that “Britain and France ‘must do all we could to encourage patience in St. Petersburg.’ ”87 In a follow-up meeting with Lichnowsky on 9 July, Grey assured the ambassador that the naval talks with Russia were at the insistence of his Entente partners but that the “hands of the British government were quite free.” He spoke of his conversation with Benckendorff and was confident that it would be relatively

Great Britain  29 easy to encourage patience with Russia if Austria-Hungary’s demands were not extreme and that he would do his utmost to preserve the peace.88 Otte is correct to note that Grey understood early on the potential dangers surrounding the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg throne. But it is fair to say that Grey did a poor job of following up on those initial conversations and of keeping on top of what was happening in the other European capitals, especially St. Petersburg and Paris, and of keeping his own ambassadors completely informed. I will return to this point shortly. Otte’s account reveals what was either a contradiction or a blind spot in Grey’s understanding of the situation and his actions. Leaving aside Keith Wilson’s convincing argument that the Entente was never about European balance of power, Grey’s actions belied his own analysis. If Grey did relay to Benckendorff that the balance of power was shifting away from Germany and would continue to become more unfavorable, then should not have Grey been concerned about the hegemony of Russia and France on the continent? However, there is no evidence in Otte’s account or any of the other recent works that suggests this was a concern. Moreover, Grey’s assurances to Lichnowsky that he would advise St. Petersburg to proceed with caution were of little value if he was afraid of causing anyone in St. Petersburg or Paris doubt the value of the Entente or the loyalty of Britain. Grey had acknowledged that there was little he could do to stop either country from engaging in actions that he did not support and that he would not endanger the Entente. One indication that Grey was not keeping up with events was the fact that he appeared to be surprised by the nature of the ultimatum that Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia, calling it “the most formidable a declaration I had even seen addressed by one State to another that was independent.”89 The strong language may have taken Grey by surprise, but Austria-Hungary’s intentions should not have. He had been notified on 16 July, almost a week beforehand, by Sir Maurice de Bunsen, British ambassador to Vienna, that Austrian foreign minister Berchtold was planning to send a strongly worded ultimatum to Serbia. De Bunsen also passed on the information to Nikolai Shebeko, Russia’s ambassador to Austria, who forwarded the information about the ultimatum to Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazonov.90 Much to Bertchold’s dismay, the fact that Vienna planned to send an ultimatum to Serbia was common knowledge in European capitals well before it was sent.91 But Grey did not think to inform Buchanan about this possibility. In fact, according to Otte, there were things that Grey told the Russian ambassador Benckendorff that he did not tell his own ambassador in St. Petersburg.92 Once Grey saw the ultimatum, he did act. McMeekin notes that Grey sent a circular to his ambassadors on 24 July that said that the Austro-Serbian dispute was “not our concern.”93 He assumed (or hoped) that he could handle this situation in a similar fashion to the first two Balkan crises. However, there was one important difference that Grey did not appear to appreciate: The previous two crises had involved the members of the Balkan League attacking the Ottoman Empire or Balkan League members fighting among themselves. This time

30  Great Britain a Balkan League member had supported a terrorist attack on a Great Power. Steiner and Neilson admit that Grey perhaps did not appreciate the “crucial role played by Austria in maintaining the status quo where the European peace could be most easily shattered.”94 Steiner and Neilson continue by conceding that a more objective view of the balance of power in southeastern Europe might have suggested support for Vienna instead of St. Petersburg.95 But perhaps because Grey was convinced—despite no empirical evidence to support it and reports from his own officials to the contrary—that Vienna took its orders from Berlin, he did not consider the plight of the Habsburgs. Instead, Steiner and Neilson conclude: In the Balkans as elsewhere, Grey always returned to the question of Germany. Not even the possibility of a powerful Russia in Europe could reverse Grey’s priorities. Any move in the Austrian direction would have resulted in a weakening of the already strained Entente with Russia. Though Britain seemed to be restored to her role as arbiter of Europe, she could not take a detached view even when her interests were not directly engaged.96 The British Foreign Office’s Germanophobia and Grey’s determination to preserve the Entente prevented Britain from looking at either the Balkan region or its own international role objectively. The latter point is important because it impacted how Grey acted once he did actually start to take action. There was a disconnect between Grey’s intentions, words, and actions. How aware Grey himself was of this is unclear. Grey thought that he could handle the Sarajevo assassinations through something like the London Conference. He floated a proposal to Paul Cambon that the four powers not directly involved in the dispute—Britain, France, Germany, and Italy—“mediate at St. Petersburg in case Russia responded with hostility to Austria’s ultimatum, so as to prevent the Balkan conflict from escalating.”97 Germany was the only one that accepted Grey’s idea for a conference among the Great Powers for a four-power mediation of the conflict between Austria and Russia. The Russian ambassador rejected the proposal immediately because it “would give Germany the impression that France and England were detached from Russia.”98 Cambon did not even inform anyone in Paris about Grey’s proposal, which he considered unworthy of consideration.99 Russia and France rejected Grey’s other proposals for mediation as well. Benckendorff’s reason for rejecting the first proposal is worth looking at again. The Russia ambassador did not want Germany to think for even a moment that the three Entente members were in anything but complete agreement. This made it difficult for Grey to maintain that he could mediate between the two parties if he was actually on the side of one of the said parties. And this was exactly the problem. Grey was not a neutral party, and at no point did he truly act like one. Whether or not he was conscious of that fact or was so convinced of the objective correctness of his policies that it did not occur to him

Great Britain  31 is difficult, if not impossible, to determine. But it is clear that Grey’s focus on Germany, not even on Austria-Hungary, but on Germany alone, caused him to not consider what France and Russia might be planning. Grey assumed that Paris shared his desire to find a peaceful solution to the Sarajevo crisis. However, if he had paid closer attention to Cambon’s responses to his proposals and to Buchanan’s reports from St. Petersburg, he might have realized sooner that Paris and St. Petersburg were already in complete agreement to support Serbia and were doing all they could to get London to reach the same conclusion. Cambon’s refusal to even forward Grey’s first proposal should have been a red flag for the British foreign minister. Similarly, Buchanan reported from St. Petersburg that Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia, and Russian foreign minister Sazonov were in complete agreement on the Balkan question.100 Not only did Paléologue reject the idea of having France and Russia intervene with Vienna to extend the deadline of the ultimatum issued to Serbia, his language was so confrontational that Buchanan reported “that it almost looked as if France and Russia were determined to take a strong stand even if we refuse to join them.”101 If Grey took these two incidents into consideration, then it was to draw the conclusion that he could not restrain France or Russia and that they were determined to stand strong with or without England. Otte seems to confirm this view when he notes that by 25 July, Crowe had concluded that France was unwilling to restrain Russia.102 It is interesting to note that at the same time Bertie, the ambassador to France, came to the opposite conclusion. He thought that French public opinion would not support Russian intervention in an Austro-Serbian dispute and that, thus, Paris would advise Russia “to moderate any excessive zeal that they may be inclined to display to protect their Servian client.”103 The two divergent views can be attributed to the divergent views in Paris. Buchanan was in St. Petersburg with Paléologue and where Poincaré had just been, both of whom supported an aggressive Russian position, even if it meant war. Bertie had been in contact with Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin, who served as acting director of foreign affairs during July 1914, and knew that Foreign Minister Viviani preferred a negotiated resolution. Sazonov’s actions suggested that he believed that Poincaré’s side would prevail. Grey’s diplomatic corps did not serve him as well as he needed. It is clear that Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador, was late to the game or was in the dark in just about every conceivable fashion. Grey had not bothered to inform him of de Bunsen’s report about the Habsburg ultimatum. Buchanan heard it from French president Raymond Poincaré, who informed him of a “violent Austrian note” about to be sent. But he did not seem curious about the content of the note, nor about Russia’s potential response.104 Buchanan was not informed about Russia’s intentions at any point in the July Crisis. In fact, the rare times that he asked a direct question, Sazonov either hedged or lied to him.105 It is clear from Buchanan’s own memoirs that Sazonov misled him about Russian intentions, promising the British ambassador that Russia would not act until Austria attacked Serbia. Regarding a conversation with the

32  Great Britain Russian foreign minister, Buchanan wrote, “No assurance that Austria might give as to the integrity and independence of Serbia would, M. Sazonoff told me, satisfy Russia, and the order for mobilization against Austria would be given on the day that the Austrian army crossed the Serbian frontier.”106 Sazonov was clearly trying to mislead his ally. By 28 July, the date that Buchanan gave for this conversation, Russia was beginning its third day of preparations for mobilization. This fact is important because Grey dismissed German reports about Russian mobilization, saying that he did not know of it.107 This was true. Grey did not know of it because Buchanan had been kept out of the loop and did not appear to possess even an iota of curiosity about Russian actions. Clark also notes that the Russians deliberately hid “the extent of their ‘clandestine preparations’ from Buchanan, telling him on 26 July that the ‘protective measures’ in Moscow and St. Petersburg had been put into effect merely to deal with a wave of strikes currently disrupting Russian industry.”108 Buchanan was skeptical about this and in his report to Grey dated 26 July had observed that the strikes were “practically over” and posited that the measures must be connected to “impending mobilization.” But Grey did not respond with further instructions, nor did Buchanan make any further inquiries.109 For McMeekin, it is clear that Grey was determined to blame the Germans for any war, even though France and Russia had not accepted any of his peace proposals. Grey went so far as to tell Prince Lichnowsky, Germany’s ambassador to Great Britain, that he could “confirm” that “no Russian call-up of any reserves has taken place.”110 Not only was this untrue, but, as McMeekin astutely points out, how could he confirm that something in a faraway country had not happened? In spite of his claims of disinterest, Grey had clearly already taken sides. The lack of response did not concern Grey as long as Austria and Russia had not mobilized; but of course, Russia had begun to do so. However, Grey did not know that. This was important, because if one wanted to give Grey the benefit of the doubt, then one could perhaps see why he demanded that Germany try to rein in Austria but did not make similar demands on France to temper Russian actions. There was a chance that he did not know how far Russia had gone. If that was the case, then it was the fault of his diplomatic corps. Grey’s diplomats underperformed in Serbia as well. Mark Cornwall notes that Crankanthorpe, the British chargé d’affaires in Serbia, relayed Serbian prime minister Pašić’s request that London try to influence Vienna to moderate its demands but failed to include the latter’s warning for the future if Vienna did not. Grey did not respond to that specific request, nor did Crankanthorpe pass on Grey’s advice to give “fullest satisfaction” in their reply. It is reasonable to conclude that Grey was not giving Serbia enough attention, nor was he well served by his representative in Belgrade.111 The truth may be that it did not matter that Buchanan and Crankanthorpe did not serve Grey as well as they could have. Grey’s primary concern was to preserve the Entente. Grey did not need Buchanan to remind him of the stakes: “For ourselves [the situation] is a most perilous one, and we shall have to choose between giving Russia our active support [and] renouncing her

Great Britain  33 friendship. If we fail her now we cannot hope to maintain that friendly cooperation with her in Asia.”112 Wilson concludes that Grey had made up his mind as soon as he realized that Russia was not going to permit Austria-Hungary to impose its will on Serbia.113 The task at hand was to bring the rest of the Cabinet to his position. Grey’s free hand to pursue a foreign policy without much consultation or oversight had put Britain in a position where it would have been very difficult for it either to try to restrain its Entente partners or to elect to stay out of the war. The previous paragraph may seem harsh, but the evidence does support it. With the backing of the king and the prime minister, Grey did have a free hand in the pursuit of his foreign policy objectives that was effectively unchallenged. He shielded the policy-making process from unfriendly eyes, and consultations on Britain’s commitments to France were limited to like-minded colleagues.114 The fact that Grey did not make the international situation as the result of the Sarajevo assassinations a subject at a Cabinet meeting until 24 July was characteristic of how he handled foreign policy matters. He viewed the crisis through the lens of the Entente, which meant that he subordinated the issues at the crux of the Austro-Serbian quarrel to the needs of the Entente. But Clark claims that Grey was not interested in or well informed about what was happening in Russia during these crucial times. Some of this can be attributed to Buchanan for reasons already discussed. But some of it also falls on Grey, who often did not follow up on insights that his Russian ambassador did provide.115 Grey told Lichnowsky that he had given moderating advice to Russia,116 but it is hard to find an example of such counsel. As late as 27 July, Bertie told Grey that he should encourage Paris “to put pressure on the Russian government not to assume the absurd and obsolete attitude of Russia being the protectress of all Slav States whatever their conduct, for this will lead to war.”117 It is not clear if Bertie was aware of the fact that Cambon had already dismissed any such course of action. Regardless of what Bertie knew, Grey was already trying to make the case before the Cabinet that British intervention might be necessary. As MacMillan observes, the Cabinet was deeply divided over the question of intervention.118 At the 27 and 29 July meetings, Grey failed to get Cabinet approval for intervention. The 1 August meeting proved no different, and when Grey mentioned this to Cambon, the French ambassador reminded him of the 1912 naval agreement and the moral obligation that accompanied the decision to move the French fleet to the Mediterranean. What swayed the Cabinet towards intervention is still a matter of contention. MacMillan points to a German violation of Belgian neutrality as a sufficient cause for war.119 Mulligan suggests that Grey set up conditions to nudge the Cabinet towards war, namely the request to respect Belgian neutrality, which France quickly affirmed and Germany did not. The reminder of the Anglo-French naval agreement also served as a nudge—it also shocked some of the less-informed members of the Cabinet. Grey also threatened to resign on 2 August if Britain did not intervene on the side of France.120 Another event that Mulligan could have included in this list

34  Great Britain is the infamous “misunderstanding” between Grey and Lichnowsky, where Grey proposed that he could promise British and French neutrality if Germany would not attack France or Belgium. Lichnowsky seized this opportunity and forwarded the news to Berlin. The brief moments of hope in Berlin were quickly dashed when a telegram from King George V to Kaiser Wilhelm II explained that there was no such offer on the table and that there must have been some “misunderstanding.” Wilson suggests that this episode was orchestrated by Grey for domestic consumption to convince the Cabinet that he had done everything that he could to keep Britain out of the war.121 Wilson determines that 2 August was the day when the Cabinet decided to intervene. It was at this meeting that the Cabinet authorized Grey to assure the French that Britain would protect its coasts and shipping from German ships. At a second meeting the same day, a “substantial violation” of Belgian neutrality would also obligate a British response.122 John Burns, president of the Board of Trade, resigned his post in the Cabinet over the decision. Wilson quotes part of his resignation letter: “The statement which Grey made to Cambon this afternoon, and which he does not propose to reveal to Germany until after the announcement is made in the House of Commons tomorrow, will, I think, be regarded as tantamount to a declaration that we take part in this quarrel with France against Germany. I think we should not take part, and so I must resign my post.”123 The statement is interesting because of what was not included. There was no mention of Austria-Hungary, Russia, or Serbia. The looming international crisis was framed in terms of Germany versus France. This is troubling but not surprising. The British Foreign Office had undervalued the role that ­Austria-Hungary played in keeping order in the European system and had dismissed it, incorrectly, as an independent actor. It suited the Foreign Office’s purposes to paint AustriaHungary as a pawn in Germany’s nefarious plans for European hegemony. The claim made by some in the Foreign Office that Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum raised the Balkan crisis to an Entente issue was only remotely plausible if it was assumed that Vienna was acting at the behest of Berlin. Clark concludes that “Grey’s actions and omissions revealed how deeply Entente thinking structured his view of the unfolding crisis.”124 It is hard to argue against that interpretation and the assumptions behind it. At no point did Grey seriously look at the Austrian position against Serbia. Clark observes that Grey did not question the legitimacy of a military response on the part of Russia to end the Austro-Serbian problem. This framing then puts the onus on Germany, who will come to Austria-Hungary’s defense, thus triggering French mobilization and a European war.125 What this sort of framing omits is both the question of the legitimacy of Russian intervention on behalf of Serbia—there were no treaty obligations forcing Russia to war—and an acknowledgment that it was Russian mobilization against both Austria-Hungary and Germany that precipitated German mobilization. Grey’s conduct during the years before and during the July Crisis has certainly received the attention it deserves. Otte’s claim that Grey was a man of

Great Britain  35 action might well be true. But it is hard to claim that “he consistently worked for a negotiated settlement of the dispute until the very end. There was nothing half-hearted or meandering about his policy.”126 Grey addressed the crisis in the way that he had handled his foreign policy in general. He consulted only like-minded people in the Foreign Office and kept the Cabinet largely in the dark. Otte is correct that Grey certainly recognized the potential danger behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. But it is hard to understand why he did not show more initiative after receiving de Bunsen’s note on 16 July about the intended Habsburg ultimatum. It is especially troubling that he did not inform Buchanan in order to alert him. The fact that Grey did not discuss events in the Balkans with the Cabinet until 24 July is equally troubling. Understandably, the Irish question appeared to be a more pressing issue for the Cabinet as a whole, but an earlier mention of the Balkans would seem to have been an appropriate action on the part of Grey. Lansdowne and Otte both identified reasons for Grey’s reluctance: The Cabinet was not united on the issue of intervention and Grey knew that. He also knew that he could not fully lay out the implications of his policies and assurances to the Cabinet as a whole. Grey was correct when he said that there was nothing in writing, but since the first Moroccan Crisis, he had assured France and Russia that it would be hard for Britain to stay out of a war on the continent, even one in the Balkans.127 Grey believed the best way to maintain British interests abroad and the status quo in Europe was to uphold the Entente. Grey did not consider how the growing strength of the Entente could disturb the equilibrium in Europe. He considered the Entente to be defensive in nature. He did not consider, or chose to ignore, how the Franco-Russian alliance could be directed for offensive purposes. France and Russia understood Britain’s reluctance (not necessarily Grey’s reluctance) to get involved in a European war, and they played their diplomatic cards accordingly to help give Grey the cover that he needed. The French decision to withdraw its military ten kilometers from the border was for Britain’s consumption. That is why Britain was notified as soon as that order was issued.128 The German ultimatum to Belgium was a political gift to Grey. It gave him and the Cabinet a more relevant issue to present to the British public. It was easier to say that Britain was entering the war to defend little Belgium than it was to say that they were helping autocratic Russia defend a terrorist act that was connected to the Serbian government. The war “begins” with the German invasion of Belgium. The fact that Russia had begun its mobilization procedures more than a week before, that Russia had invaded East Prussia and France attacked Alsace-Lorraine on the same day, that Austria-Hungary had shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on 28 July, or that all of these events were connected was conveniently omitted from the public narrative and much of the subsequent historical narrative in the Anglophone world. A better understanding of the origins of the Great War needs to begin with the nation that Grey seemed not to consider at all: Austria-Hungary.

36  Great Britain

Notes 1 J. Paul Harris, “Great Britain,” in The Origins of World War I, eds. Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 266. 2 Zara S. Steiner and Keith Neilson, Britain and the Origins of the First World War, 2nd edition (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 256. 3 See Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explain World War I (London: Basic Books, 1999) and more recently, Douglas Newton, The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London: Verso, 2014). 4 Samuel R. Williamson Jr. and Ernest R. May, “An Identity of Opinion: Historians and July 1914,” Journal of Modern History 79 (June 2007): 382. 5 Quoted in Keith Wilson, “Britain,” in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. Keith Wilson (London: UCL Press, 1995), 201. 6 Otte, July Crisis, 520. 7 Keith Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” in The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 118. 8 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 111. 9 See Chapter 2 “Great Britain and Splendid Isolation”; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 28–55; Clark, Sleepwalkers, 136–140, for an overview of Britain’s change in thinking about alliances. The fact that Britain was a global imperial power and still thought it could think of itself in terms of isolation speaks to the peculiar manner in which Britain viewed itself in the world. 10 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 261. 11 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 53. 12 See Chapter 6 “Unlikely Friends: The Entente Cordiale Between France and Britain”; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 142–171, for a discussion of the evolution of the agreement. 13 Keith Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” in The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determination of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 71. 14 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 43. 15 Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” 73. 16 Quote in Keith Wilson, “The Politics of Liberal Foreign Policy II,” The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determination of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 37. The phrase “frame of mind” is my emphasis; the word “may” was emphasized twice in the original. 17 Grey to Goschen, 5 May 1910, quoted in Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” 79. 18 One sees this especially in the Steiner and Neilson’s Britain and the Origins of the First World War, but it is also apparent in MacMillan’s War That Ended Peace and in Otte’s July Crisis. 19 Wilson, “The Fiction of the Free Hand,” in The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determination of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 94. 20 Quoted in Wilson, “The Fiction of the Free Hand,” 98. 21 Mulligan, Origins, 147. 22 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 21. The telegram was sent in January 1896. 23 Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 149. 24 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 136. It is worth noting that Disraeli identified Russia as the “most significant long-term threat to British interests” (136). 25 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 101. 26 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 108. 27 See Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 100–120.

Great Britain  37 28 For a copy of the memorandum, see: Eyre Crowe, “Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany,” (January 1, 1907), in British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, eds. G.P. Gooch and H. Temperly, 11 vols., vol. 3 (London: HMSO, 1926–1938), 402–406 (Appendix A). The German section of the memorandum can be found online at German History in Documents and Images, vol. 5. Wilhelmine Germany and the First World War, 1890–1918 Perceptions of German Foreign Policy in England (January 1, 1907). http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/603_Percept%20Germ%20For%20 Policy_107.pdf. 29 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 46; Wilson, “The Invention of Germany.” 30 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 162; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 126. 31 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 163. MacMillan also notes Crowe’s invocation of “law of nature” to describe Britain’s needs. See War That Ended Peace, 127. 32 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 48. 33 Mulligan, Origins, 53. 34 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 391. 35 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 176. 36 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 177. 37 See Chapter  5, “Dreadnought: The Anglo-German Naval Rivalry”; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 110–141. 38 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 54. 39 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 107. 40 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 107. 41 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 110–111. 42 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 116. 43 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 106, 115. Emphasis in original. 44 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 104. Emphasis in original. 45 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 35. 46 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 378–379. 47 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 155. 48 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 155–156. 49 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 45. 50 Joachim Remak, The Origins of World War I 1871–1914 (Hinsdale, IL: The Dryden Press, 1967), 140. Steiner and Neilson acknowledge that Britain never welcomed Germany’s imperial attempts and did not try to accommodate them in the same fashion that they did for France or Russia. Britain, 74. 51 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 46. 52 The Annexation Crisis is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. 53 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 87. 54 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 93. 55 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 355. 56 For more information, see Samuel R. Williamson Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 58–75; Dominic Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution (New York: Viking, 2015), 211–226. 57 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 94. 58 Keith Wilson, “The Politics of Liberal Foreign Policy I,” 34. 59 Wilson, “The Fiction of the Free Hand,” 91. 60 Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 113. 61 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 204–205. 62 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 75. 63 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 205. 64 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 75.

38  Great Britain Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 76. Wilson, “The Fiction of the Free Hand,” 97. Clark, Sleepwalker, 209. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 209–210. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 206–207. Volker Berghahn claims that Kiderlen was prepared “to go to the brink of war, [but] was not really keen to have one.” Volker Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of the War in 1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 109. 70 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 211. 71 Mulligan, Origins, 59. 72 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 76. 73 Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” 79. 74 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 190, 196; Wilson, “The Politics of Liberal Foreign Policy II,” 37–39. 75 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 106–108. 76 Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs, 127. 77 Keith Wilson argues that for all the high-minded rhetoric used by people at the time and later about Britain’s role in maintaining the balance of power, Britain was not the factor that it thought it was. See Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” 59–84. 78 See Chapters 3 and 5 for Austro-Hungarian and Russian responses to the Balkan wars, respectively. 79 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 121. 80 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 125. 81 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 119. 82 Otte, July Crisis, 145. 83 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 145. 84 Otte, July Crisis, 146. 85 Otte, July Crisis, 146. 86 Otte, July Crisis, 145. 87 Otte, July Crisis, 146. 88 Otte, July Crisis, 147. 89 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 254; Sean McMeekin, July 1914: Countdown to War (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 204 has the same quote. 90 McMeekin, July 1914, 126–127. 91 Eugenia C. Keisling, “France,” in Origins of World War I, eds. Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 248. 92 Otte, July Crisis, 146, n141. 93 McMeekin, July 1914, 204. 94 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 123. 95 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 123. 96 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 123. 97 McMeekin, July 1914, 205. 98 McMeekin, July 1914, 206. 99 McMeekin, July 1914, 206. 100 McMeekin, July 1914, 181. 101 Quoted in McMeekin, July 1914, 182. 102 Otte, July Crisis, 260. 103 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 299. 104 McMeekin, July 1914, 181. 105 Buchanan’s memoirs support McMeekin’s interpretation of the British ambassador’s role. Buchanan did faithfully represent the British position in the summer of 1914. Great Britain could not pledge unconditional support to Russia in the event of war. Even if it were so inclined, public opinion would not accept it.



65 66 67 68 69

Great Britain  39 Buchanan also successfully challenged contemporary German claims that Great Britain wanted the war. Where Buchanan fails is in understanding exactly what his Entente partners were doing during the July Crisis. See George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, 2 vols. (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1923), especially Chapter 15 in vol. 1, which discusses the July Crisis and Russia’s actions. 106 Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, 197. 107 McMeekin, July 1914, 214. 108 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 495. 109 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 495–496. 110 McMeekin, July 1914, 238. 111 Mark Cornwall, “Serbia,” in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. Keith Wilson (London: UCL Press, 1995). 112 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 296. Tel. Buchanan to Grey (no. 169), 25 July 1914. 113 Wilson, “Britain,” 201. 114 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 202–203. 115 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 495–496. 116 Otte, July Crisis, 319. 117 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 323. 118 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 581. 119 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 611. 120 Mulligan, Origins, 227. On the idea that some Cabinet members were unaware of Britain’s duty to protect the French coast, see Steiner and Neilson, Britain, 245. 121 Wilson, “Britain,” 195–196. For a more detail on this topic, see H.F. Young, “The Misunderstanding of August 1, 1914,” Journal of Modern History 48 (1976): 644– 665; S.J. Valone, “ ‘There Must Be Some Misunderstanding’: Sir Edward Grey’s Diplomacy of August 1, 1914,” Journal of British Studies 27 (1988): 405–424. 122 Keith Wilson, “The Cabinet’s Decision for War,” Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 136–137. 123 Quoted in Wilson, “The Cabinet’s Decision for War,” 135. 124 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 497. 125 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 498. 126 Otte, July Crisis, 520. 127 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 589. 128 See Chapter 6 for a discussion of France’s strategy to win British support during the July Crisis.

3 Austria-Hungary The Habsburgs and the failed third Balkan war

On 28 July 1914, one month to the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Austria-Hungary declared war on ­Serbia—the nation it believed was behind the plot to murder the couple. Instead of the third Balkan war that Habsburg officials hoped for, the European Great Powers and their colonies across the globe were dragged into war. In the introduction, I raise the idea that the origins of the Great War really boil down to two questions: (1) Why did Austria-Hungary decide to go to war with Serbia? (2) Why did this decision lead to a world war, instead of a third year of fighting in the Balkan peninsula? Both are important questions with complex answers. This chapter will address the first question. The first question is an interesting one. There had been two previous wars on the Balkan peninsula as rising nationalist feelings among the various peoples of the Balkans were translated into actions to capitalize on a declining Ottoman Empire. On both occasions, the Dual Monarchy was prepared to participate in the fighting; yet it did not do so. The decision not to get involved in the fighting was, in part, due to a lack of support from their most important ally: Germany. Here, it is worth noting that Germany did support the Habsburg ultimatum to Serbia that forced the latter to abandon its quest for a port on the Adriatic Sea—a point that will be touched upon later. The third time, however, in July 1914, Germany did support its ally’s aggressive intentions. For more than a few historians, this fact provides the answer to both questions. German support of Austria-Hungary is why it decided to go to war and why the war became a world war.1 In order to understand the decisions of the Habsburg government, a brief discussion of the problems confronting the Dual Monarchy in the years before the assassination in Sarajevo and the changes in the international system is in order.

The Habsburg monarchy: another “sick-man” or just misunderstood2 The decline of the Ottoman Empire, or at least the diminishing of its holdings in Europe, had earned it the moniker “the sick man of Europe.” There was,

Austria-Hungary 41 in the eyes of more than a few people in Europe, a second “man” who was also not feeling all that well: the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The heir to the defunct Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the House of Habsburg, had seen its status over the course of the 19th century drop considerably. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, Austrian foreign minister Prince Klemens von Metternich conducted the Congress of Vienna and helped set up the concert system, which would help maintain order in Europe, if not always peace, for the next century. Then the revolutionary sentiments of liberalism and nationalism rocked the Habsburg Monarchy in 1848–1849, but they were quelled with the assistance of Russian troops. Successive losses of territory and prestige at the hands of two emerging nations, Italy and Germany, contributed to the continued decline of the Austrian Empire. The defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 was particularly traumatic, signifying that Austria was no longer even the dominant Germanic power on the continent. The defeat also led to the Hungarian uprising that resulted in the Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867 and the establishment of a Dual Monarchy. The creation of Austria-Hungary itself highlighted the major challenge that the Habsburg government, or better said, governments, faced. The structure of the Dual Monarchy made the process of governing difficult under ideal circumstances and, for all practical purposes, unworkable in times of crisis. More important, the problem that the Ausgleich tried to address, rising Hungarian nationalism, was just the beginning of the nationality problem for the multiethnic Habsburg Empire. Franz Joseph was both the emperor of Austria and the king of Hungary. He was also the king of Bohemia and of Croatia. Those four titles—and he had others—reflected the great domestic problem facing the Dual Monarchy. The Magyars (as Hungarians referred to themselves) had gained equality with the Germans within Austria-Hungary, but they vigorously opposed granting the same considerations to other ethnic minorities living within Hungary—most notably the Romanians living in Transylvania. Similarly, in Austria, Czechs were struggling for concessions against a German majority. The structure of the Dual Monarchy made governing a challenge. Domestically, Austria and Hungary were effectively separate independent states with their own parliaments, prime ministers, and budgets. The latter is more complicated than it appears. The Compromise provided for each half to have a delegation that would vote on common expenditures. Symbolically and symptomatically, the two delegations never met in joint session.3 Austria-Hungary had a common army and navy, but each half had separate national defense ministries each with its own forces, the Landwehr (Austria) and Honved (Hungary). There was a single foreign minister and a common foreign policy, but in an empire with so many different ethnic groups, it should come as no surprise that domestic concerns also played a key factor in foreign policy considerations. The treatment of Romanians in Transylvania was both a topic and a potential obstacle to negotiations for an alliance with Romania. Certainly, the divisions within the Dual Monarchy made decision making in a time of crisis

42  Austria-Hungary cumbersome, at best. The criticism of historians such as T.G. Otte and Margaret MacMillan that the three eastern monarchies were not constructed in such a way as to handle a modern predicament like the July Crisis of 1914 certainly seems valid when looking at how events unfolded within the Habsburg government.4 However, it would be a mistake to assume that Austria-Hungary was inevitably doomed to the sick man’s fate of decline and disintegration. The blueprint for reshaping Austria-Hungary was already in place, in the form of the Ausgleich between Austria and Hungary. Compromises with other larger ethnic groups within the empire had the potential to transform Austria-Hungary into a confederation of peoples united by the House of Habsburg. In 1908, Edvard Beneš, who in 1919 would be a leader organizing for Czech independence, wrote, “People have spoken of the dissolution of Austria. I do not believe it at all. The historic and economic ties that bind the Austrian nations to one another are too strong to let such a thing happen.”5 The Czechs and Ruthenians (Ukrainians) in the empire had already gained some political and cultural considerations and had a certain limited level of autonomy where they lived. Behind the government’s relatively relaxed attitude towards Slavic cultural expression was the hope that it would blunt the unifying calls of the Pan-Slavists, which Vienna attributed to Russian support. In the case of the Ruthenians, this was enough autonomy to draw the attention and concern of Russian authorities, who feared that Ruthenians in Galicia could inhibit Russification in the Ukraine.6 Franz Ferdinand supported a more federated formation of the empire where “political power would be vertically aligned among nationality groups with the central government holding the disparate factions together.”7 Ferdinand was not on good terms with István Tisza, the Hungarian prime minister, because the heir to the Habsburg throne was partial to the idea of a more federated empire, even at the risk of a constitutional crisis.8 The possibility of the South Slavs in the empire having more power, and perhaps even a position on par with the Magyars, was an idea that officials in both Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, dreaded. But it was not an impossibility.9 The old Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was, as Voltaire once quipped, not very holy, not very Roman, and not much of an empire. It was, however, a viable political entity that served as a home and protector for a variety of smaller ethnic groups in the heart of east central Europe and could, with the appropriate plausible changes, survive into the 20th century.10 It had played an important role in the international order and could have continued to have an important role in maintaining the international peace, even if it was not the leading power it had been in previous centuries. But in order to do so, it would need the assistance of other European powers.

Austria-Hungary and the changing international order In his perceptive essay “Stealing Horses to Great Applause: Austria-Hungary’s Decision in 1914 in System Perspective,” Paul W. Schroeder argues that

Austria-Hungary  43 Austria-Hungary made the “correct, right” decision to declare war in July of 1914 and that this was not some sort of criminal act, nor was the decision a blunder.11 This is not the same as saying that Austria-Hungary did not make mistakes executing its decision. It certainly did, and they will be touched upon later. But what Schroeder is saying is that given the international circumstances, Austria-Hungary made the only viable decision that it could. One difficulty confronting the Great Powers of Europe, particularly AustriaHungary, was that two competing, and perhaps conflicting, systems of maintaining the international order were in play: a concert system and an alliance system. The Concert of Europe, which in reality was the Concert of Great Powers, had been able to more or less effectively maintain peace and the international order since the end of the Napoleonic wars, although the Crimean War (1854–1856) and the German and Italian wars of unification later on had revealed the limitations of the system. David Stevenson identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the concert system: “The Concert had no permanent machinery, no founding document  .  .  . no ringing declaration of principles. It consisted rather of a habit of mind, a willingness by the European Great Powers to discuss matters of common concern in ad hoc conferences of their Ambassadors in one or another capital, or (normally after a war) in congresses of the Heads of Government and Foreign Ministers.”12 As Stevenson correctly observes, the Concert was most effective in forcing smaller nations to accept the decisions of larger nations, legitimizing a fait accompli, or mediating a disagreement. However, if a nation did not want to submit to the conference, it did not have to.13 The system of alliances that arose before the war was a result of Bismarck’s attempts after German unification to keep France isolated and Russia and ­Austria-Hungary from clashing. In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary formed the Dual Alliance. Italy joined the two allies in 1882, making it the Triple Alliance. The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia from 1887 to 1890 helped to preserve the balance between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s decision to let the treaty lapse opened the door for the Franco-Russian alliance in January 1894. In 1904, the Anglo-French Entente was signed; three years later, in 1907, an Anglo-Russian entente was signed, permitting the creation of a Triple Entente. The existence of these competing alliances would increase international tensions. The Annexation Crisis (1908) and the second Moroccan Crisis (1911) were just two instances when the existing alliances contributed to increasing tension, but the concert system was able to reduce it.

The 1908 annexation crisis and its impact on Austria-Hungary and international relations The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 illustrated the strengths and limitations of both the concert and the alliance systems. Julius Andrássy, who in 1871 became the Habsburg foreign minister, wanted to preserve the

44  Austria-Hungary Ottoman Empire, especially its position in the Balkans. After the Bosnian rebellion of 1875, Austria-Hungary and Russia came to an understanding about a limited partition of Ottoman holdings in the Balkans. Andrássy was not interested in adding more Slavs to the Habsburg dominions, but he was concerned about stability in the region.14 The Congress of Berlin (1878) after the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) provided an opportunity to enact this agreement. It established Austria-Hungary’s administrative authority over the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, still officially part of the Ottoman Empire. There was also an understanding that Austria-Hungary would have the right to formally annex the two provinces at some point in the future. As Williamson notes, while Franz Joseph was pleased with this result, for it added to Austria-Hungary’s prestige, the public reaction within the country was more subdued due to concerns about adding more Slavs to the empire. Moreover, the additions effectively turned Austria-Hungary into a colonial power, which was not well received by its new subjects.15 The new nation of Serbia, which gained international recognition of its independence as a result of the Treaty of Berlin, also resented the change in suzerainty, for it created a barrier to Serbia incorporating the two provinces and their Slavic brethren into a greater Serbia. This barrier to Serbian dreams was reinforced when Baron Alois Aehrenthal, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, announced in October  1908 that ­Austria-Hungary was going to exercise its right and formally annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. This announcement was the result of secret negotiations that he had undertaken with Russian foreign minister Alexander Izvolsky. Izvolsky agreed to support the incorporation of the two provinces into the Habsburg Empire, and in return Austria-Hungary promised to support Russia’s bid for special access through the Straits. Aehrenthal’s handling of the announcement was clumsy, to put it kindly. However, what is often overlooked in accounts of this is that it was Izvolsky who approached Aehrenthal with this proposal.16 The two officials agreed that “Bosnia-Herzegovina would be annexed, the Sanjak would be evacuated, Bulgaria would receive de jure independence from Turkey and Vienna would strongly support a change in the Straits.” Izvolsky even understood “that the latter [Aehrenthal] would announce the step before the Delegations met in early October.”17 While negotiating with Izvolsky, Aehrenthal’s office sent out feelers to his counterparts in Italy and Germany about the move, and he also informed Franz Joseph, who unsurprisingly was quite supportive. Aehrenthal followed the constitutional process that was required within the Dual Monarchy.18 He essentially did what he was expected to do. Schroeder argues that there should not have been a crisis over the annexation issue in the first place. One way to look at it was to blame Austria-­ Hungary for getting caught up in the imperialist era and annexing the territory to compete with other imperialist powers, thus causing the crisis. But this interpretation overlooks the fact that Izvolsky approached Aehrenthal with this proposal. Schroeder suggests that “the initiative be seen as Aehrenthal’s

Austria-Hungary 45 attempt to escape the imperialist game and to revive the ethos, rules, and incentives of the Bismarckian era in international politics.”19 A far more persuasive argument can be made that the “crisis” arose because Aehrenthal’s Russian counterpart did not secure the support of Russia’s Entente partners, nor did he take into consideration the views of Russia’s client states. It is not clear that Izvolsky had run his plan by Tsar Nicholas II before, or during any stage of, his conversations with Aehrenthal. Perhaps more crucial, he sanctioned the annexation of the two provinces without seeking compensation for Serbia,20 nor is there any evidence that Russia consulted with its Entente partners about the negotiations. Russian objections were an attempt to save face and avoid admitting that they had either sold out a client state or, perhaps worse, had not even taken Serbian interests into consideration. Clark notes that there was no deal for the Straits to be had in London.21 One has to wonder: If London, Russia’s Entente partner, had been more accommodating, would there have been a crisis at all?22 Schroeder contends that claims that Austria-Hungary violated the Berlin Treaty are hypocritical. Drawing upon one of Bismarck’s favorite axioms, “Pacts must be observed so long as conditions remain the same,”23 Schroeder reminds readers that some treaties were not intended to last forever. He continues: To heighten the irony further, the provisions of the Berlin Treaty granting Austria-Hungary the right to occupy and administer Bosnia-Herzegovina sine die, violated in 1908 were specifically intended to be impermanent. Everyone knew at the time that they were a fig leaf for Austro-Hungarian annexation and expected annexation to follow quickly. The British advocated this, the Russians accepted it, Germany and Russia formally recognized Austria-Hungary’s right to do so in 1881 and 1884, and no power at that time would have thought of opposing it. If, as claimed, AustriaHungary in 1908 ignored Ottoman rights, Serbian outcries, and the wishes of Bosnia’s inhabitants, it did so far more openly in 1878–81, touching off a serious rebellion, and did so with the approval of the international community.24 The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina caused a crisis because of Izvolsky’s miscalculations and his attempt to save face. Aehrenthal may have announced it before the Russian foreign minister had received approval from Nicholas II, but the fault lies with Izvolsky, not Aehrenthal. Ironically, both foreign ministers were looking for an opportunity to gain an important victory for their nation and to enhance their own prestige. Izvolsky failed on both fronts. Russia looked weak for accepting the annexation in order to save the embarrassment of having it made known that Izvolsky has agreed to the action, and Izvolsky never personally recovered from the miscalculation and would be replaced as foreign minister in 1910 by Sergei Sazonov. Aehrenthal, on the other hand, succeeded on both accounts. The annexation would be his signature diplomatic victory, but a pyrrhic one. The crisis would create a rift in Austro-Russian

46  Austria-Hungary relations from which there would be no recovery.25 Austro-Serbian relations, never strong to begin with, would become more strained.26

The first two Balkan wars When the Ottoman Empire refused to consent to Italian military occupation of the port of Tripoli in late September 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Libya.27 The least of the Great Powers, Italy had long desired to enhance its prestige, and the southern Mediterranean coast was the most available spot. As a result of the 1911 Moroccan Crisis, the status quo in North Africa was about to change, and Italy could make a good argument for creating a foothold in Libya, cashing in on vague promises made to it by Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia over the years.28 A change in the administration of Tripoli resulted in the curbing of some of the rights of Italians working there. Rome used this as a pretext much as France had used unrest in Fez to justify its moves in Morocco.29 Italy would ultimately succeed in its war against the Ottomans.30 The Tripolitan War returned the fragility of the Ottoman Empire to center stage in European politics. Both Austria-Hungary and Russia tried to limit the fighting to Tripoli, without success.31 Williamson notes that Vienna continually assured the Ottoman Empire that it wanted to maintain the status quo in the Balkans.32 Unfortunately, Austria-Hungary may have been the only power in southeastern Europe that wanted to do so. The discord within the European lands of the Ottoman Empire combined with the distraction of the Tripolitan War gave the Balkan nations an opportunity to strike, if they could reconcile their own differences.33 The key to a united front in the Balkans was Serbia and Bulgaria reaching an agreement. The Austrophobe Nicholas Hartwig, the Russian ambassador to Serbia, played an important role in negotiations between the two nations.34 It was Hartwig who showed a letter to Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić that Sazonov had sent him stating that Austria-Hungary had the territories that Serbia desired, not Bulgaria, and that Serbia should prepare for the future when the Habsburg Monarchy would have disintegrated.35 The two sides were able to agree on enough points to conclude a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance in March 1912 and a military convention the following month.36 The SerboBulgarian agreement formed the basis of the Balkan League that later included Montenegro and Greece. Andrew Rossos maintains that even though Russia played an important role in the creation of this alliance, because it did not consider the intentions of the allies, it had a different view of the agreement. Russia looked at the Balkan League as a bulwark directed against Austro-­ Hungary’s expansion on the peninsula, while the members themselves viewed it as a means to wage war against a weakening Ottoman Empire.37 It is not clear that Russia was as unaware of the potential of the alliance, as Rossos suggests. Although Sazonov insisted that the treaty was “purely defensive and that Russia would use its influence to ensure that it remained so,” not everyone was

Austria-Hungary  47 convinced.38 According to Clark, when then French prime and foreign minister Raymond Poincaré learned of the contents of the Serbo-Bulgarian agreement, he wrote in his notes: It seems that the treaty contains the seeds not only of a war against Turkey, but of a war against Austria. Moreover, it establishes the hegemony of Russia over the Slav kingdoms, since Russia is identified as the arbiter in all questions. I remark to M. Sazonov that this convention does not correspond in the least to the information that I had been given about it, that, if the truth be told, it is a convention of war, and that it not only reveals the ulterior motives of the Serbs and the Bulgarians, but also gives reason to fear that the hopes are being encouraged by Russia.39 It is possible that the intentions of Russia and its Balkan clients were not as far apart as Rossos concludes. This was certainly the conclusion that Habsburg (and French) officials reached.40 The Balkan League was a prelude to war. By mid-October 1912, the members of the Balkan League were at war with the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War. The Balkan nations were startlingly successful on all fronts, and it appeared that even the Ottoman capital of Constantinople could fall to the Bulgarians, a possibility that caused great consternation in St.  Petersburg.41 Austria-Hungary viewed the success of the Balkan League with alarm, especially Serbian gains. As the Great Powers tried to mediate an end to the fighting, it became clear that any coming changes in the map of the Balkans—and there would be changes—would have to be approved by the Great Powers: an example of the concert system at work. The Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Count Leopold von Berchtold, Aehrenthal’s successor, tried to employ the principles of the concert system to address the problems that the Balkan wars presented.42 Austria-Hungary lobbied for an independent Albania with borders that would prevent Serbian, or Montenegrin, access to the Adriatic Sea. Berchtold, thus, continued his predecessor’s policy of trying to keep Serbia and Montenegro from the sea. As the fighting unfolded, the best option for AustriaHungary was to adopt a “wait and see” position, but Balkan successes put increased pressure on the Habsburg government.43 Attempts to reach some sort of accommodation with Serbian prime minister Pašić were unsuccessful, as were negotiations with Montenegro’s King Nikita. Russian foreign minister Sazonov, attempting to backtrack from his earlier understanding with Berchtold about keeping Serbia away from the Adriatic Sea, moved Russian troops to the Galician border in an attempt to isolate and pressure Austria-Hungary. In late November  1912, a Russian Ministerial Council meeting discussed a partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary and ultimately decided against it.44 Austria-Hungary responded with military measures in Galicia and BosniaHerzegovina. War between Austria-Hungary and Russia looked like a possibility. However, Bulgarian setbacks against the Ottoman forces encouraged a

48  Austria-Hungary cease-fire and the beginning of peace talks. Russia reversed its position, again, regarding Serbian access to the Adriatic Sea.45 Austria-Hungary was still concerned about Serbia, and there was a considerable contingent, which included Franz Ferdinand, within the Habsburg government that advocated using the army to settle accounts with Serbia and Montenegro now because Russia would not get involved. Berchtold opposed this position, in part because he did not think that Berlin would support such a move. At a meeting on 11 December, at Schönbrunn, where Berchtold and Franz Ferdinand argued their positions in front of Franz Joseph, the emperor settled the matter in favor of the beleaguered foreign minister.46 Berchtold sent Prince Hohenlohe to St.  Petersburg to negotiate troop reductions. This visit was ultimately successful. Austro-Russian tensions had eased, but the damage had been done. Russia believed that the show of strength had forced AustriaHungary to back down.47 Berchtold also received European backing for his position, that the ancient city of Scutari would be part of Albania, thus keeping Serbia away from the Adriatic. Berchtold offered Djakova to Serbia as compensation.48 But AustriaHungary’s problems with the Balkan nations were far from over. Scutari was still under siege by Serbian and Montenegrin forces. Berghahn sees that occupation of Scutari as the first significant test of the Concert’s willingness to support claims with the military forces.49 An Austrian naval demonstration in the Adriatic Sea of three battleships, two cruisers, and a torpedo flotilla, against Montenegro, only had the effect of annoying the Russians.50 Williamson argues that the Russians were unhappy because of Vienna’s unilateral action. The Russian claim is valid as far as it goes. Vienna did act without consulting, but the move was in support of a position that had already gained international sanction that Scutari would be part of Albania, and the naval forces did not engage. The evidence that Vienna’s actions were not as inappropriate as St. Petersburg maintained can be found in the fact that shortly afterwards, a second naval show of force occurred, with British and Italian ships joining the Austrian vessels. The British commander demanded an end to the siege of Scutari. This was the last time that the Great Powers cooperated in an effort to impose their will on the Balkans.51 The Montenegrins refused, but the Serbians, feeling pressure from Russia, did stop. Montenegro remained intransigent, and when Scutari finally surrendered to Montenegrin forces in late April, the town was occupied.52 The Habsburg Monarchy could not let Montenegro retain control of Scutari. It would provide Montenegro access to the Adriatic Sea, with the possibility that a union between Montenegro and Serbia would then give a larger Serbia access to the sea. The continued occupation flouted the decision of the Concert; Mulligan calls the occupation “the first significant test of the Concert’s willingness to support its claims with military force.”53 While Great Britain, France, and Germany did not seem to care a great deal about the situation, AustriaHungary had to. It could not afford this setback to its own prestige at the hands of a tiny nation. Austria-Hungary was convinced that Russia would not enter

Austria-Hungary  49 a conflict to defend Montenegro and that Russia’s Entente partners would not get involved in this dispute. More important, Berlin said that it would support an action directed solely at Montenegro. At a contentious Common Ministerial Council meeting on 2 May, the decision was reached to call up the reserves in Bosnia-Herzegovina and to send a 48-hour ultimatum to Montenegro. These actions had the desired results, even if Montenegro did ask for—and received— a delay in the ultimatum, something that Berchtold would not provide Serbia in July 1914. Williamson notes two significant points about the meeting and its outcome. First, there was much discussion about St.  Petersburg’s views but not about Berlin’s. This may well have been, in part, due to the fact that Vienna was convinced that Berlin did not have a proper appreciation of the South Slav problem and the threat that it posed to Austria-Hungary. Second, although Berchtold was consistently conscious that any military actions ran the risk of exploding into a larger war, he chose to pursue a path of “militant diplomacy.”54 Before the Treaty of London that ended the First Balkan War was even signed, members of the Balkan League were airing their dissatisfaction with their territorial acquisitions. Bulgaria faced disgruntled allies to the south (Greece), north (Romania), and west (Serbia). The key area of contention was between Serbia and Bulgaria in Macedonia. The Serbo-Bulgarian agreement had stated that Russia would arbitrate any disputes. But before Russia had a chance to do so, on 29–30 June  1913, the commander of Bulgarian forces, General Mihail Savov, ordered attacks on Serbia and Greece. Soon Bulgaria found itself fighting on all fronts as the Ottoman Empire took this opportunity to regain some of its losses in Europe—most notably Adrianople. The Second Balkan War would end with the Treaty of Bucharest in August 1913. Bulgaria lost territory in Macedonia to Greece and Serbia and ceded southern Dobrudzha to Romania. In September, the Treaty of Constantinople ended the fighting with the Ottoman Empire.55 The two treaties did not end activity in the Balkans. The most significant was Serbia’s continued agitation in northern Albania in an effort to get to the coast. They were able to attempt this in part because the borders to the newly independent Albania state had not yet been set. As a result, Austria-Hungary sent yet another ultimatum—the third in a year—demanding that Serbian forces withdraw from northern Albania. Exhausted from two wars and with no Russian assistance forthcoming, Serbia acquiesced.56 The lessons that Austria-Hungary learned from the Balkan wars would influence how it moved forward in the event of a future incident within the Balkan peninsula—and a future incident was certain; it was just a matter of time. The Dual Monarchy had its most effective results when it resorted to “militant diplomacy” in the form of an ultimatum that demanded action under the penalty of military engagement. It is worth noting that all three times that Berchtold issued an ultimatum, it was to enforce decisions that had already been agreed upon by the Great Powers. Few could have realized that the 1913 London Conference would be the last time the concert system worked. The second lesson

50  Austria-Hungary learned was that Germany did not have, in the opinion of Austro-Hungarian officials, a proper understanding or appreciation of the threat that Serbia posed to the empire. The Balkan wars had double the size of Serbia, and it was only a matter of time before it wanted more. Anti-Habsburg and pro-Serbian agitation and propaganda in Bosnia-Herzegovina received support from Serbia and possibly from Russia.57 Perhaps most important, Austro-Hungarian officials had reached the conclusion that the South Slav “problem” could only be solved with Serbia’s demise.58 The concern that Serbian agitation would continue was well founded. Ten months later, a Bosnian Serb, with discreet assistance from Serbian officials, would assassinate the heir to the Habsburg throne.

The assassination and Serbia’s role The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, on 28 June 1914 put an immediate end to what had started out as an unusually quiet summer. The missteps all around have been well documented and do not need to be recounted here.59 The culprit, Gavrilo Princip, and his accomplices were caught without much difficulty. Although Serbian prime minister and foreign minister Nikola Pašić tried to treat the incident as a domestic issue that should be dealt with internally by Austria-Hungary, almost immediately, Habsburg officials suspected that Serbia had a hand in the assassination plot. Vienna was not the only capital suspicious of Belgrade. Bulgarian premier Vasil Radoslavov asserted, “No great surprise, because rumors of the plans of the ‘Black Hand’ conspirators, the Serbian Officers League, whose arrogance had risen because of cheap success against Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, came to us, and we accordingly could assess and understand correctly the inspiration of the Belgrade in the crime of Sarajevo.”60 His ruler, Tsar Ferdinand, was certain that Russia was behind it all and feared that he could be next on the list.61 Habsburg’s suspicions were well founded. During police interrogations, it was learned that the perpetrators had been trained in Serbia. Moreover, Serbian officials, mostly low-level officials, had provided the weapons and helped smuggle the conspirators back over the border into Bosnia. However, one high-ranking official was involved in the plot: the head of Serbian military intelligence Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević (nicknamed “Apis”). Apis was also the leader of an underground group known as The Black Hand, a group devoted to a Greater Serbia. Apis’s activities were a source of concern to Pašić, who had opened a secret investigation of him in mid-June  1914. Moreover, it is now clear that Pašić had received some sort of information about a plot against Franz Ferdinand that he considered important enough to have Jovan Jovanović, the Serbian representative in Vienna, relay a cryptic word of caution to Vienna—a caution that was essentially ignored.62 Pašić was in a nearly impossible situation. He hoped that the assassination would be treated by Austria-Hungary as a domestic incident. As Mark Cornwall noted, Pašić did not want to act in any way that would implicate “official Serbia,” but Serbian officials had played a role in the assassination.63 At no

Austria-Hungary 51 point did the murder plot receive “official” sanctioning, nor was it even a topic of discussion within the Serbian cabinet. Nevertheless, because a part of the plot had taken place on Serbian soil and the assassins had assistance obtaining weapons and crossing the border, Austria-Hungary would consider “official Serbia” to be guilty. This would be true even before learning of Apis’s connection to the plot, which added a further complication for Pašić. Apis had recently led an opposition insurgence against Pašić and his party because the prime minister was not acting aggressively enough against Austria-Hungary. Pašić had survived this challenge but was now facing an election. In fact, he would be heading to a campaign spot when the Austrian ultimatum was delivered. In this political climate, Pašić could ill-afford to be seen as being submissive to Austria-Hungary by the Serbian electorate. The Serbian leader’s best path was to remain calm and hope that things would settle down. Unfortunately, Cornwall is almost certainly correct in asserting that no matter how Serbia behaved, it could not have avoided the ultimatum.64

Austria-Hungary’s response The immediate response to the news of the murders was relatively muted, considering the ramifications. Emperor Franz Joseph was not particularly fond of his nephew, and he had strongly disapproved of Franz Ferdinand’s morganatic marriage to Sophie, and his sedate response was interpreted by some as indifference. Habsburg officials, however, were far from indifferent to the murder of the heir to the throne. Berchtold was grieved by the murders, but his initial reaction was one of caution, wanting to know the circumstances around the murder. He also wanted to learn of the emperor’s reaction as well as that of Berlin and other capitals. On 30 June, Berchtold and Franz Joseph met and were determined to act. They wanted an investigation and to meet with Hungarian prime minister Tisza.65 Early reports suggested a Serbian link to the plot, which was confirmed by suspects’ confessions. The link to Serbia was enough for many in the Habsburg government to warrant a military response. The important exception was Tisza, who advocated a diplomatic encirclement of Serbia.66 Key to any response on the part of Austria-Hungary was the attitude of Germany. Vienna had consistently lamented Berlin’s lack of appreciation for the threat that Serbia presented to the Dual Monarchy because of its support for South Slav agitation. Berchtold dispatched Count Alexander Hoyos to Berlin to meet with Wilhelm II and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to gauge their support. Williamson notes that sending Hoyos, who carried two letters—one from Berchtold and one from Franz Joseph that was meant for Wilhelm II—with him, served three purposes. It would show Vienna’s resolve to avoid Tisza (who did not yet share that resolve), and it would circumvent the ineffective Count Ladislaus Szögyény, Austria-Hungary’s ambassador to Germany.67 The result of Hoyos’s mission is well known. Both the German emperor and his chancellor gave their ally their unconditional support—the

52  Austria-Hungary now infamous blank cheque. But it should be noted that Berlin expected quick and decisive action from Vienna. The importance of this step on the part of Berlin cannot be overstated, but it can be overemphasized. Would Vienna have acted without Berlin’s unconditional support? Williamson fairly notes that it is hard to say for certain.68 Berchtold’s militant diplomacy had produced the desired results during the Balkan wars, so it is possible that he would have pursued that path. German support certainly bolstered Vienna’s resolve, but German support did not create it. On 7 July, the Ministerial Council met, and every official present, except Tisza, wanted to pursue an immediate confrontation with Serbia that could risk war. Tisza was afraid of possible Russian and Romanian involvement and insisted that a more diplomatic path be pursued before war could even be considered. He felt that a severe diplomatic humiliation of Serbia would be enough and would raise Austria-Hungary’s prestige in the Balkans. He advocated that strong demands be made on Serbia, and if they were not met, then an ultimatum could be sent. But he also insisted that he would have to approve any ultimatum. Tisza’s intransigence effectively blocked any swift action on the part of the Dual Monarchy.69 Williamson makes some important observations about the 7 July meeting. The first point is that German support was clear, but there was no pressure from Berlin to take a particular tack. This is critical because it highlights the fact that Vienna was acting independently and was not a proxy for or a pawn of Berlin. Second, there was clear evidence that linked people within the Serbian government to the conspiracy. Any action against Serbia was not baseless, and the Russian claim that there was no evidence linking Serbia to the crime was simply not the case. Third, Austria-Hungary’s Italian ally was not considered at any point in the meeting. Finally, the possibility of Russian intervention in any action directed at Serbia was understood at the meeting but not considered in any meaningful fashion.70 The Austro-Hungarian Ministerial Council may have wished to act quickly, but without Tisza’s support, nothing would happen. Tisza’s ability to stop everything lends credence to the argument that the Habsburg governmental system was not capable of handling a crisis in a modern state. By 14 July, mounting pressure from all sides on Tisza and further evidence of Serbia having played a role in the assassinations led Tisza to concede to Berchtold’s desire to send a strong ultimatum to Serbia. However, Tisza insisted that the ultimatum must be approved by the entire Ministerial Council. This new demand meant that the earliest an ultimatum could be sent would be 20 July, after the next scheduled council meeting, which would coincide with French president Raymond Poincaré and prime minister and foreign minister René Viviani’s visit to St. Petersburg and give them the opportunity to coordinate their response with Russian officials. As a result, Berchtold decided that the ultimatum must be delivered after the French visit to Russia. As McMeekin notes, this delay only served to further damage Austria-Hungary’s position. More than two weeks had passed since the murders, and the Austro-Hungarian government had done nothing.

Austria-Hungary  53 The Sarajevo incident had already started to fall off the radar of the other European nations, and a further delay in action—which was now determined to be the only alternative—would make any aggressive actions on the part of the Habsburg government appear to be cold and calculated to take advantage of an opportunity, thus depriving Austria-Hungary of any goodwill they may have received as a result of the assassinations.71 Even if Tisza had not slowed things down, it is not a certainty that AustriaHungary could have provided an immediate and effective response. Somewhat ironically, the stumbling block was set out by chief of the General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, possibly the most vociferous hawk in the AustroHungarian government. Conrad had advocated a war of reckoning with Serbia during both Balkan wars; yet he learned on 6 July that due to the harvest leave policy that he had instituted, “units at Agram (Zagreb), Graz, Pressburg (Bratislava), Cracow, Temesvár (Timişoara), Innsbruck, and Budapest were on leave and not scheduled to return until 25 July.”72 Recalling these troops would have alerted other nations that something of a military nature was being planned, so the best that Conrad could do was cancel leaves that had not yet begun. The mechanisms of the Habsburg government and the military (inadvertently) conspired against swift action. Berchtold hoped by waiting to deliver the ultimatum to Serbia until after the meeting between French and Russian leaders that they would be unable to plan a common response in support of Serbia. Unfortunately for Berchtold, word got out about his government’s plans. There were at least two sources for the leaks that revealed Austria-Hungary’s intentions. On 11 July, German state secretary Gottlieb von Jagow informed Hans von Flotow, the German ambassador in Rome, of the intention to send Serbia an ultimatum. Flotow mentioned this to Italian foreign minister Antonio di San Giuliano, who then informed his people in Belgrade, St.  Petersburg, and Vienna. Berchtold assumed that Russian code breakers had gleaned the information from Jagow’s indiscretion.73 The warning that Ambassador Szapáry received later at the reception for Poincaré would support his suspicion. But Russian code breakers did not need to break any codes, German or Italian, to learn of Berchtold’s plans. He had provided all the information that the Entente powers would need himself. On 13 July, Berchtold had asked Count Heinrich von Lützow, a retired diplomat, friend, and confidant, to sit in on a meeting with the German ambassador Count Heinrich von Tschirschky, where the ultimatum must have been a topic. It is not known what Lützow advised his friend to do, but he was concerned enough by what he heard that he told a neighbor, who happened to be the British ambassador to Austria-Hungary, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, about the conversation. In this conversation, he revealed to de Bunsen that Austria-Hungary was resolved to use force if Serbia did not comply entirely with its demands. On 16 July, de Bunsen notified British foreign secretary Grey about AustriaHungary’s intentions. When de Bunsen followed up with Berchtold, the latter gave no indication of his plans towards Serbia, and the former appeared to not have brought up his conversation with Lützow.74 Interestingly enough, it is not

54  Austria-Hungary clear that Grey did anything with this information. However, the other person to whom de Bunsen mentioned this was Nikolai Shebeko, the Russian ambassador to Austria-Hungary, who immediately sent the information to Sazonov.75 The Russians reacted to the information much more energetically than their British counterparts. An interception of a cable to the Austrian embassy in St.  Petersburg also helped Russia to determine with a reasonable degree of confidence what Vienna was planning.76 If there was any question whether or not Russian and French officials knew of Berchtold’s strategy, the conduct of Poincaré and Sazonov should have dispelled any doubts. At the receiving line for Poincaré, the French president, after asking Ambassador Szapáry if there was any news, remarked, “Of course, I am anxious about the results of the inquiry, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, I can remember two previous enquiries which did not improve your relations with Serbia.  .  .  . Don’t you remember? The Friedjung affair and the Prochaska affair.”77 This “reminder” served as an indication that France and Russia were unlikely to believe the results of an Austrian investigation, effectively denying the Habsburg Monarchy any path for satisfaction for what happened in Sarajevo. It is worth noting that Pašić had not launched any investigation into the attack that might determine the extent of Serbia’s complicity.78 It is clear that during an election cycle, such an investigation would have been political suicide. But if Austria was not allowed to investigate Serbia and Serbia would not investigate itself, how could anyone determine the facts of the case? If that were not enough, Poincaré noted in his diary, “I remark to the ambassador with great firmness that Serbia has great friends in Europe who would be astonished by an action of this kind.”79 The second confirmation that the proverbial cat was out of the bag was the issuing of what McMeekin calls “anti-ultimatum ultimatums” from Paris and Petersburg warning Austria-Hungary not to do anything that would violate Serbia’s sovereignty or independence. Shebeko and Alfred Dumaine, the French ambassador in Vienna, would issue remarkably similar warnings to AustriaHungary. The timing and content of these “ultimatums” can only lead to the conclusion that France and Russia had cooperated on this issue. Unfortunately, the timing also assured that they would be delivered to Vienna after its own ultimatum to Serbia had been delivered.80 The Austrian ultimatum was delivered on 23 July at 6:00 p.m. at the Serbian foreign ministry to Lazar Paču, the Serbian finance minister, who stood in for Pašić, who was out campaigning.81 The ultimatum drew a strong reaction from those who read it. After reading it, Edward Grey would call it “the most formidable document he had ever seen addressed by one State to another that was independent.”82 The ultimatum never asserted direct complicity on the part of “official Serbia” but rather asserted that the state “tolerated” actions and groups that resulted in the Sarajevo murders. The lead investigator for Austria-­ Hungary, Dr. Friedrich von Wiesner, wrote a conservative report. He was convinced of the “moral culpability” of Belgrade but did not have the kind of evidence required for a court of law.83 The ten-point ultimatum itself is strongly worded and straightforward. The following were the two controversial items:

Austria-Hungary 55 5 6

to agree to the cooperation in Serbia of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the integrity of the Monarchy; to institute a judicial inquiry against every participant in the conspiracy of the twenty-eighth of June who may be found in Serbian territory; the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government delegated for this purpose will take part in the proceedings held for this purpose;84

Berchtold had insisted on Austrian involvement because he did not trust Serbia to conduct a thorough investigation. But no independent state could or would approve external involvement in a domestic affair. It was an ultimatum that was designed to be rejected. How Serbia planned to respond has been, unsurprisingly, the subject of debate. Pašić was not certain what kind of support he would receive from Russia. His friend, confidant, and link to St.  Petersburg, Nicholas Hartwig, had died of a heart attack two weeks earlier.85 Albertini maintained that Pašić was prepared to consent to the ultimatum until he received assurances of support from Russia.86 Cornwall argues convincingly that Pašić, even though he was uncertain of the kind of support Serbia would receive internationally, was determined from early on not to give in to the demands.87 Serbia did not give in to the demands listed in the ultimatum. Clark characterized it as “a masterpiece of diplomatic equivocation.”88 The Serbian government did not consent unconditionally to any of the demands.89 However, it was worded in such a way as to make it appear more accommodating than it actually was, and that was how the Great Powers, other than Austria-Hungary, interpreted it. The other four powers deemed that reply to be satisfactory enough to avoid a military response from Austria-Hungary. The Habsburg government did not share that view, nor is it clear if any response from Serbia would have prevented Giesl from announcing the severing of diplomatic relations between the two nations. With the break of diplomatic relations, the emperor ordered partial mobilization to begin three days later on 28 July but only along the Serbian frontier. He did not want to give Russia any pretext to take military action, unaware that Russia had already begun its partial mobilization before Serbia had even turned over its response.90 Another tragic example of Habsburg’s ineptitude unfolded on several levels: Fearful that the delay between mobilization and fighting would allow for more opportunities for negotiation or compromise, Berchtold pressed for a declaration of war.91 He got his wish, and on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

Austria-Hungary’s decision to declare war Austria-Hungary’s decision to declare war was a desperate one. Habsburg leaders were well aware that even in the best case scenario, a “localized” war with Serbia would not solve all of their troubles. Their biggest problem was not Serbia; it was Russia, a nation that was not going to go away. Even in the case of a European war ending with a victory for the Central Powers, Russia was

56  Austria-Hungary not going to cease to be a formidable adversary, with geopolitical interests that conflicted with Austria-Hungary’s. Whereas the worst case scenario, a defeat, meant the possible dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, a fate that leading members of the Habsburg government, including Franz Joseph, considered. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight, one can say that the decision to go to war was a poor one, but it is not clear that there was another path that would have led to a satisfactory solution. Doing nothing was not a viable option for Berchtold. Even though not all of the facts were known at the time the decision to declare war was made, there was enough evidence to point conclusively to Serbian involvement in the murders. If Austria-Hungary did nothing but prosecute the seven conspirators that it had captured, one can safely assume that the South Slav agitation, with Serbian support, would have continued. There is the possibility that it would have encouraged Romanians or other ethnic groups within the multiethnic empire to take more violent steps. Doing nothing was not a viable option for Austria-Hungary. The remaining possible option was some sort of mediated settlement, a return to the concert system. There was a last-minute effort to invoke this on the part of Edward Grey after Austria-Hungary issued its ultimatum. Grey’s attempts to mediate the crisis were discussed in the previous chapter; but here it is worth noting Schroeder’s contention that Great Britain did not appreciate the importance of Austria-Hungary in the international system.92 The bias against Austria-Hungary, intentional or not, was clear during the Balkan wars. Clark points out that Great Britain’s response to a war would depend on “how the war broke out”, and was reflective of a larger unwillingness on the part of Britain to incorporate into its foreign policy calculations of either the security concerns of the Habsburg Empire or to grant Austria-Hungary the right to defend its close-range interests in the manner of a Great Power.93 It is important to note that none of the other Great Powers attempted to lead efforts at mediation before the presentation of the ultimatum. For better or worse, Germany did not attempt to mediate or tell Austria-Hungary what to do in any fashion, beyond encouraging it to act quickly. After giving its ally a blank cheque, Germany essentially abdicated its political responsibilities as an ally. This will be looked at more closely in the next chapter. If Austria-Hungary’s other alliance partner, Italy, had tried to mediate, it is unlikely that its voice would have been heeded. Berchtold had not kept his counterpart in Rome informed of any of Austria-Hungary’s intentions in a timely manner at any point during his tenure as foreign minister. The biggest obstacle to a mediated solution was the position of France and Russia. Neither country appeared willing to concede that Austria-Hungary had any right to satisfaction of any kind after Sarajevo. Poincaré’s exchange with Szapáry was just one example of France’s unwillingness to believe anything the Austro-Hungarian government had to say about the assassination. At no point was Russia willing to entertain the notion that Austria-Hungary had any right to punish Serbia or that Serbia deserved any punishment at all.94

Austria-Hungary  57 With two Great Powers refusing to concede that the Dual Monarchy had any legitimate claims to satisfaction, how could the concert system succeed? The concert system depended upon the Great Powers recognizing the legitimate interests of other powers and, at times, sacrificing their own interests for the greater good—in this case, peace. Austria-Hungary had done this before.95 If the Entente powers had done that in 1914, it is possible that war could have been prevented. Throughout the 19th and into the early 20th century, the concert system had maintained the balance of power in part by helping to support a weakened Ottoman Empire.96 But the Entente powers abandoned the concert system and pursued policies that deliberately undermined Austria-Hungary.97 For those who are skeptical of that point, Schroeder observes, “But is there no significance to the fact that virtually his [Declassé] first move in strengthening and transforming the Dual Alliance was to seek an agreement with Russia over the spoils of the Austrian Empire, and that even after his fears of a German seizure of Austrian Adriatic ports proved groundless, he still hoped Austria’s demise might give France the chance to recover Alsace-Lorraine?”98 Berchtold did not turn to war because he wanted to. Up until 1914, he had been a leading advocate for peace. The Balkan wars had taught him that “militant diplomacy” was an effective tool. But what he may not have adequately appreciated was that demands behind his militant diplomacy had received international sanction. The London Conference had supported an independent Albania and had accepted the principle that Serbia would not have access to the Adriatic Sea. Other Great Powers may not have been pleased with how Berchtold handled every situation. But their representatives had already conceded the objectives. The Habsburg foreign minister would not be able to point to a London agreement to support his ultimatum to Serbia. In fact, the only member of the concert system whose support he could count on was Germany. Why were they willing to support Austria-Hungary in a war over the Balkans now but not in the previous two years? What were German leaders assuming, thinking, and planning during the years leading up to the July Crisis? It is now time to turn our attention to Germany.

Notes 1 Fritz Fellner, “Austria-Hungary,” in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. Keith Wilson (London: UCL Press, 1995), 9–26. This is essentially the thesis that Fritz Fischer put forth in his works that Germany had been planning for a war since at least 1912 and that it used this opportunity to launch its bid for world power. Zara Steiner and Keith Neilson reiterate this position several times throughout their seminal study Britain and the Origins of the First World War, 2nd edition, and conclude that recent works have confirmed this thesis. See Britain and the Origins of the First World War, 265n7. The many problems with this position will be addressed in the next chapter. 2 For an understanding of the basic structure of Austria-Hungary and its limitations, I rely heavily on Williamson Jr., Austria-Hungary. 3 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 13–14.

58  Austria-Hungary 4 Both Otte and MacMillan conclude that the government structures of the three eastern monarchies were not adequate to meet the needs of the state during the July Crisis. See Otte, July Crisis; Macmillan, War That Ended Peace. 5 Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 77. 6 Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 57. 7 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 26. 8 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 26. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 108. 9 Richard C. Hall, “Serbia,” in The Origins of World War I, eds. Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 106. Hall notes that while Ferdinand was not fond of Serbia, he supported Trialism, a federalist plan with a South Slav state within the Austrian Empire. 10 See Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2016) for a recent defense of the viability of Austria-Hungary. 11 Paul W. Schroeder, “Stealing Horses to Great Applause: Austria-Hungary’s Decision in 1914 in System Perspective,” in An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1914, eds. Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 23. 12 David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 4. 13 Stevenson, First World War, 4. 14 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 62. 15 Williamson, Austria-Hungary,” 62–63. 16 Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy 1908–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 5; Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 36; Clark, Sleepwalkers, 188. For a brief overview of negotiations and rollout, see Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 68–71. William Mulligan’s characterization of the move as having “unilaterally shredded the Treaty of Berlin” does not stand up to scrutiny. See Mulligan, Origins, 65. 17 Williamson, Austria-Hungary,” 68, 68–69. 18 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 69. 19 Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 37. 20 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 69. 21 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 188. 22 Izvolsky thought that in June of 1908 he had received assurances from Great Britain when Edward VII and Nicholas II met off the coast of Reval (Tallinn, Estonia). Charles Hardinge, a British Foreign Office official, would later deny that any promises concerning the Straits had been given at the meeting. MacMillan, War That Ended the Peace, 411–412. 23 Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 38. 24 Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 38. Emphasis in original. 25 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 87. 26 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 87–91. Contributing to this deterioration of relations was the 1909 treason trail that came from Dr. Heinrich Friedjung’s article in the Neue Freie Presse, claiming that he had seen documents proving that there were Serb activists in Bosnia plotting to detach lands from the Habsburgs and that they were in the pay of the Serbian government. The documents that Friedjung saw were forgeries. When he realized that, he withdrew his claim. 27 Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, 34. 28 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 460. 29 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 76. 30 See MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 460–467 for a brief account. 31 Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, 34. 32 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 77.

Austria-Hungary  59 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, 36. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 106. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 349. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, 45. For a good analysis of the issues and negotiations, see Chapter 2 of Rossos, Russia and the Balkans. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, 208. MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 473. Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 296. Williamson also thinks that Russia had more aggressive intentions than Rossos indicates. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 117. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 117. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 121. For the impact of the possible conquest of Constantinople from a Russian point of view, see Chapter 4. Graydon A. Tunstall Jr., “Austria-Hungary,” in The Origins of World War I, eds. Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 125–126. Tunstall suggests that the “wait and see” position was the only viable option as Vienna did not have German support for a more aggressive position. Tunstall, “AustriaHungary,” 127. McMeekin, Origins, 24–25; Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 265–266. See also Clark, Sleepwalkers, 267–268; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 487. This will be discussed further in Chapter 5. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 123–129. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 130–131. Williamson notes that after this confrontation, Franz Ferdinand returned to his more moderate, peaceful positions. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 135. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 134. Berghahn, Germany, 84. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 136. Richard C. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dorbo Pole, 1918 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), 19. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 136–137. Mulligan, Origins, 84. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 139. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough, 19–24. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough, 24–27. Tunstall, “Austria-Hungary,” 129. Tunstall, “Austria-Hungary,” 127. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 367–403; Otto, July Crisis, 9–38; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 544–574; McMeekin, July 1914, 1–20. Richard C. Hall, Bulgaria’s Road to the First World War (Boulder, CO: Eastern European Monographs, 1996), 285. Hall, Bulgaria’s Road, 287. Hall, “Serbia,” 107. Cornwall, “Serbia,” 63. Cornwall, “Serbia,” 59. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 191–192. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 192. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 195. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 197. See McMeekin, July 1914, 106–116 for a good summary of the 7 July meeting. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 198. McMeekin, July 1914, 120–124. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 200.

60  Austria-Hungary 73 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 201. 74 McMeekin, July 1914, 127–129. 75 McMeekin, July 1914, 129–130. Clark has Lützow telling Shebeko directly about the meeting he attended (Clark, Sleepwalkers, 427). Considering that Russia was not a friendly power, it seems unlikely that Lützow would be so indiscreet, whereas Great Britain and Russia were partners in the Entente and the sharing of such information would be a matter of course. 76 McMeekin, July 1914, 130–131. 77 Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445. 78 Cornwall, “Serbia,” 59. 79 Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445. Paléologue records an even firmer response: “Serbia has some very warm friends in the Russian people, and Russia has an ally, France. There are plenty of complications to be feared.” Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445; McMeekin, July 1914, 156. 80 McMeekin, July 1914, 167–170. 81 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 457–458. 82 Quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, 456. 83 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 453–454. 84 “The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia (English translation),” The World War I Document Archive, https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Austro-Hungarian_ Ultimatum_to_Serbia_(English_translation). 85 The circumstances around Hartwig’s death were straight out of a mediocre spy novel. On 10 July, Hartwig was visiting Baron Giesl von Gieseling, the Habsburg ambassador in Serbia, to pay his respects for the fallen couple and to correct the record. Hartwig maintained that rumors that he still held a bridge party on the night of the assassination and the flags on the Russian embassy were not flown at halfstaff were not true. Giesl accepted his word, and fences were mended. Hartwig then collapsed and died of a heart attack in the Austrian’s office. Serbian papers were filled with wild stories of Habsburg treachery, and Hartwig’s own daughter initially accused Giesl of poisoning her father. Hartwig was buried in Serbia with full honors, a highly unusual move. Giesl would later learn that Hartwig had lied to him and that the “rumors” were true. McMeekin, July 1914, 117–119. 86 Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, Vol II The Crisis of July 1914: From the Sarajevo Outrage to the Austro-Hungarian General Mobilization, trans. and ed. Isabella Massey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 350–353. 87 Mark Cornwall argues that Serbia was not ready to cede to any of Austria-Hungary’s demands and that Russia’s advice had little impact on the framing of Serbia’s response to the ultimatum. See Cornwall, “Serbia,” 77–81 for a good analysis of Pašić’s thinking about the ultimatum and the mixed signals that he received from abroad. 88 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 464. 89 Otto, July Crisis, 283. There is still no clear consensus on how much the Serbians actually conceded. Otte claims that only two points were accepted unconditionally with enough equivocation around the others to make the matter not clear whether or not they were actually accepted. Cornwall suggests that Pašić only rejected the demands that infringed upon Serbian sovereignty (75–76). Langdon claims that Serbia accepted nine of ten demands and that the last demand was only partially rejected. He notes the use of equivocal language with many of the answers. Langdon, Long Debate, 13. 90 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 205. 91 Berchtold was right to be fearful. Germany would approach with a “halt in Belgrade” proposal that Berchtold resisted. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 206.

Austria-Hungary  61 92 Paul W. Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak,” Journal of Modern History 44:3 (September 1972): 335. 93 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 356. 94 Clark, Sleepwakers, 407–408. 95 Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 31. 96 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 288. 97 Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie,” 336. 98 Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie,” 337.

4 Germany A reappraisal

Since the unification of Germany is often pointed to as the beginning of the chain of events leading to the Great War,1 this chapter will begin with a brief assessment of Germany’s international situation and foreign policy under Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s chancellor and foreign minister as well as the architect of German unification. The unification of Germany under Prussia created a new dynamic in Europe. The quick and decisive victories of the Prussian army over Austria (1866) and France (1871) left Germany satiated but had altered the international order. Germany had the most powerful army on the continent and had begun its rapid economic development. The Iron Chancellor’s foreign policy revolved around trying to keep France diplomatically isolated and to keep Austria-Hungary and Russia from going to war. British and French colonial competition suited Bismarck’s designs and the alliance with Austria-Hungary (1879) and the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia (1887) helped him achieve his goals. In 1888, the deaths of Kaisers Wilhelm I and Friedrich III in quick succession put a young Wilhelm II on the German throne. The declining elder statesman frequently clashed with the rising young monarch, and Bismarck was forced out. Desiring to set a “new course,” Wilhelm II let the Reinsurance Treaty lapse, which opened the door for a Franco-Russian agreement.2 George Kennan observed that, at the time of the Franco-Russian alliance, only two of the four continental powers impacted by the alliance, France and Russia, had clear expansionist motives.3 The 1908 annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Habsburg Monarchy suggested that a third power had at least one expansionist objective; but the observation was a valid one concerning Germany. Neither Bismarck nor Wilhelm (I or II) saw much to gain from a continental war, and most of the advisors around the kaiser were of the same mind.4 The aforementioned narrative is at sharp odds with Fritz Fischer’s interpretation of a Germany determined to go to war and planning for it since 1912. Events in the decade before World War I seem to support Kennan’s position more solidly than the proponents of an aggressive Germany. For all of Wilhelm II’s missteps, and there were more than a few of them, during the five instances before 1914 when people in the capitals were concerned about war breaking out—1905/1906, 1908, 1911, 1912, and 1913—he opted for peace.

Germany  63 The first Moroccan Crisis is an appropriate place to start a discussion about German conduct before the war for a number of reasons. German “diplomacy” during the crisis helped bring Britain and France closer together. Christopher Clark notes that the German Foreign Office had been keeping an eye on France in Morocco, determined to protect Germany’s interest against unilateral French actions. The efforts of France’s foreign minister Théophile Declassé to consolidate control in Fez without consulting Germany added “an entirely unnecessary element of provocation” to his policies.5 Margaret MacMillan observes that Declassé refused to talk to the Germans, who had economic interests at stake, about Morocco.6 German complaints were legitimate in legal terms, but their real interest was to test the strength of the Anglo-French Entente. Wilhelm II made a surprise visit to Tangiers, gave a speech, and left. In the short term, these tactics worked in Germany’s favor, but it was a “Pyrrhic victory.”7 Declassé was dismissed, and Germany pressed for an international conference to settle matters. The conference was held in Algeciras, Spain, but the Germans did not get what they wanted. Britain, Italy, Spain, and Russia all sided with France. Only Austria-Hungary sided with Germany. Germany’s attempt to test the Entente only led to its strengthening.8 More significantly, the incident helped give rise to one of the most famous “plans” associated with the Great War: the Schlieffen Plan. The historiographical emphasis on the Schlieffen Plan and its role in Germany’s decision to go to war means that any discussion of Germany’s role in the origins of the Great War needs to begin with a discussion of German military planning. Before discussing the controversy around Terence Zuber’s work, it is necessary to define what exactly is meant by the “Schlieffen Plan.” Before Zuber’s work, the German military historian Gerhard Ritter had defined the Schlieffen Plan for most historians. The Schlieffen Plan was a way for Germany to fight a two-front war by marching through Belgium to strike and defeat France and then to turn its attention towards Russia. “Although Ritter endeavored to point out the shortcomings in Schlieffen’s planning—including the insufficient arming of the army, the ‘distorted’ assessment of the position of Belgium and the Netherlands, and the questionable idea of a Totalsieg (total victory) in a two-front war—he nevertheless clearly emphasized the plan’s basic ideas. According to Ritter’s analysis, Schlieffen’s sole objective was to attempt to ‘seek the decision with outflanking maneuvers and flank attacks.’ ”9 Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross contend: “Ritter’s interpretation of the Schlieffen Plan and especially his analysis of its political explosiveness and the military shortcomings of the supposed ‘recipe for victory’ soon became widely accepted.”10 Not every historian was convinced of the viability of the plan. Holger Herwig writes, “In the final analysis, it is fair to state that the Schlieffen plan was little more than a blueprint for the opening operations in an uncertain campaign—a design for a battle of annihilation rather than a war of annihilation. Moreover, Schlieffen’s incomplete plan failed to address the question of how to deal with Fortress Paris or what to do after a French collapse.”11 Whether one considered it a “recipe for victory” or

64  Germany an “incomplete plan,” the consensus was that the dictates of the Schlieffen Plan played an important, if not decisive, role in Germany’s decision to go to war and—in the eyes of most of these historians—start the First World War.

The Schlieffen plan debate The centrality of the Schlieffen Plan in the historiography of the Great War is why the work of Terence Zuber is significant and why this debate deserves to be called more than an “important recent footnote” in the deliberations about the origins of the war.12 After examining the debate surrounding Zuber’s work, this chapter will survey German foreign policy decisions in the years leading up to the war, arguing that German decisions were as often the result of provocation as they were provocative on their own. This chapter will not try to argue that Germany was innocent or mistake free: from the decision to engage in a futile naval arms race with Great Britain to the blank cheque it provided the Habsburgs to the all-around maladroit “diplomacy” of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Germany deserves its share of the blame for 1914. But it can no longer be argued that Germany was planning for a preventative war or even wanted a Europe-wide war in July 1914. That it was willing to go to war to protect what it perceived to be its vital interests and its ally cannot be disputed. But that is a very different proposition. A retired American army officer, Terence Zuber, almost single-handedly, demands a fundamental shift in our understanding of the war. Zuber began his foray into the historiography of the Great War with a modest claim: There was no such thing as “The Schlieffen Plan.”13 The first point that must be made here is that Zuber is referring to the “Schlieffen Plan” as presented by Gerhard Ritter and “widely accepted” by subsequent historians.14 Zuber contends that the 1905 Denkschrift, which has been traditionally pointed to as the source of the plan, was no plan at all. The Denkschrift, usually translated as “memorandum,” was not a battle plan at all. Rather, it was a political document. It might be more accurate to think of the Denkschrift as a position paper in the form of a war game—the kind of paper that a special interest group would present to advocate a particular position or goal. Zuber argues that this is essentially what Schlieffen was doing. The Denkschrift was both a demonstration of Germany’s perilous position militarily and an attempt to advocate for more resources, especially troops for the army.15 Zuber writes: If we are to arrive at a correct appreciation of Schlieffen’s 1905 Denkschrift, it will only be by considering it as the first of the series of books and articles he wrote after his retirement and not as the last of his war plans. The war plans were firmly rooted in the present—there is no room in a real war plan for notional units and other flights of the imagination. Schlieffen’s writing after January  1906, however, uniformly describes how things must change to meet the challenges of the future, and this challenge was the Millionenheer [mass army].16

Germany  65 A point that Zuber makes that has not been refuted is the timing of the creation of the Denkschrift. He argues that it was written in January and February of 1906, after Schlieffen had retired as chief of the General Staff, and backdated to December 1905,17 perhaps to give it the appearance of an official act. The only response to this point was an accusation that Zuber was being “pedantic” about the fact that Schlieffen had not completed the work in December of 1905.18 Zuber provides a number of reasons why this document should not be considered a real war plan that focus on the nature of the document and the circumstances surrounding its construction. However, one of the most powerful reasons that Zuber offers is the fact that the Denkschrift deployed troops that did not exist. There are quite literally 24 divisions deployed on paper that had no physical counterpart in reality. Zuber calls these “ghost divisions.”19 For an offensive one-front war against France, Schlieffen had always maintained that Germany needed at least 96 divisions, 24 of which did not exist. Zuber argues that if Schlieffen wanted to conduct a war of aggression against France, his “Plan” was an open admission that Germany was about one-third short of the forces needed to do so.20 Contrary to popular opinion and historiographical dogma, Schlieffen did not have an offensive war plan. Zuber writes: This assertion [of a German offensive] is not supported by Schlieffen’s actual war plans or war games. Schlieffen held two Generalstabreisen West in 1904 and one in 1905; in all three exercises the French were attacking. In his 1905 war game (Kriegspiel), his last and greatest exercise, both the French and Russians were attacking. In all four exercises the initial battles took place in German or Belgian territory. There is no evidence that Schlieffen ever played an outright offensive into France or Russia. In all of Schlieffen’s exercises the German counter offensive attacked against French and Russian offensives.21 Zuber notes sardonically that this would be very curious if, as common knowledge maintains, Schlieffen spent 15 years perfecting the Schlieffen Plan for an offensive war against France. Again, contrary to conventional wisdom, Zuber contends that not only was Germany’s war plan a defensive one based on counterattacks but that in 1914 German generals were not advocates of a preventive war. General Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger) and the General Staff were painfully aware that Germany did not have the numbers or the weapons to support a preemptive strike. They were taking steps to rectify their deficiencies, but they would not be sufficient until 1917. Thus, in the words of historian Sean McMeekin, “So far from ‘willing the war’ the Germans went into it kicking and screaming as the Austrian noose snapped shut around their necks.”22 If there was never a Schlieffen Plan, then it is fair to ask, Why has the Schlieffen Plan become a staple of virtually every single Western civilization textbook?23 It is a good question and one for which Zuber has a persuasive answer.

66  Germany The standard narrative about the Schlieffen Plan is inextricably linked to its failure. The chief scapegoat in this story is Moltke, Schlieffen’s heir, who foolishly moved troops from the right flank too soon, thus ruining any chance of encircling Paris and crushing France quickly. The authors of this ­narrative, Lieutenant-Colonel Wolfgang Foerster, General Hermann von Kuhl, and General Wilhelm Groener, came from the postwar General Staff and all who had served during the war. Zuber also points out that Kuhl had the distinction of having made decisions that undermined both German strategy and Moltke’s orders.24 In other words, rather than Moltke not being true to the perfect plan handed down to him, the bigger reason for German failure on the Western Front could be found in decisions made by high-ranking officers at the front that deviated from strategy and thus cost Germany a chance of victory. The revisionist story was a classic example of covering one’s interests that had the advantage of the fact that Moltke was dead and could not challenge their narrative. (Note: This is not the same as saying the Germans definitely would have won had the officers acted differently.) Zuber documents how these officers were the ones in charge of writing the official history of the war afterwards and how they jealously protected access to materials in order to promote their version of events.25 In what is certainly an understatement, Samuel R. Williamson Jr. and Ernest R. May write, “Zuber has not converted everyone to any of his views, let alone all of them.”26 Terence Holmes, Robert T. Foley, Annika Mombauer, and Gerhard P. Gross have all argued forcefully against the Zuber thesis, with Holmes, Foley, and Gross making their case in the pages of War in History.27 Zuber’s work was the theme of a conference in Potsdam sponsored by the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA) in 2004 that Zuber, Holmes, Foley, Mombauer, and Gross all participated in, the results of which were published in 2006.28 It is nearly impossible to condense all of the arguments and counterarguments that Zuber’s work has generated. Annika Mombauer provides a good overview from the perspective of Zuber’s critics, while Zuber provides an analysis of the exchange from his point of view.29 This section will highlight some of the important points in the exchanges and suggest that Zuber has more convincingly moved the debate forward than his critics will concede. The crux of Holmes’s argument is that Zuber has too rigid a view of the Schlieffen Plan and that Schlieffen’s thinking is far more flexible than Zuber, who is fixated on Paris, portrays.30 Holmes also maintains that Schlieffen did not consider Russia to be a threat in 1905 and believed that it would be feasible to raise the troops needed for the plan.31 Zuber’s response focuses on two issues: The first issue is a reading of operational plans as portrayed in the 1905 memorandum.32 The second issue, for the purposes of this work, is more important. Zuber accuses Holmes of inventing a brand-new Schlieffen Plan, one that is not supported by the material (see first point regarding operational plans). But more significant is the fact that Holmes’s Schlieffen Plan also differs from the plan defended in the subsequent historiography of the German General Staff (e.g., Groener

Germany  67 and Kuhl) and criticized by historians (Gerhard Ritter). It is not Zuber who is fixated on Paris; it was the subsequent historiography about the Plan that insisted that Paris was the target of Schlieffen’s planning. Zuber is the one challenging the fixation. Even if Holmes is correct and Schlieffen was not concerned about circling west of Paris, this is an important deviation from the conventional wisdom—one could even say dogma—regarding the Schlieffen Plan.33 That is the reason why Zuber accuses Holmes of inventing a new Schlieffen Plan. The significance of this deviation will be discussed later. What is most significant about the Holmes-Zuber exchanges is that Zuber wins the big concession from Holmes: Whatever the 1905 Denkschrift was, and Holmes contends that it was a plan for a one-front war against France in 1906, it was not the 1914 plan for a two-front war or even the basis for a two-front war plan. Zuber and Holmes spend their final exchanges arguing whether or not Germany could have staffed the 24 ghost divisions that are a part of the memorandum in 1906.34 Foley and Mombauer both accept Holmes’s critique of Zuber as correct but try to further the debate by claiming that Zuber focuses too narrowly on military operations at the expense of German war planning in a larger context. Foley suggests that there was a strong continuity between Schlieffen’s pre1905 thinking and the war plan that bears his name. Moltke adheres to this plan but alters it because of two factors that Zuber does not consider: the French deployment of troops (or how German intelligence thought that the French would deploy their troops) and the construction of German fortifications, especially in Metz.35 Zuber’s response is to note that all of Foley’s work assumes that the Schlieffen Plan is about a German offensive but that all of Schlieffen’s exercises have the French attacking Germany. He also challenges Foley’s claims about German fortifications demonstrating that they do not play a decisive role in Schlieffen’s thinking.36 In round two, Foley challenges Zuber’s use of sources and the role of staff rides, with Foley claiming that they were for training purposes, not for enacting war plans.37 Foley then suggests that Zuber has not put the operational aspects of German war planning into the bigger picture. In 1905, the German assessment of the Russian army was that it “could easily be defeated even by an army as poor as the Austro-Hungarian army.”38 The Moroccan Crisis inspires the idea of a preventive war against France.39 Foley asserts that the “ghost divisions” of the Schlieffen Plan could easily be raised should Germany decide to attack. Moreover, from 1912 onward, Moltke wanted to provoke a war with France.40 Zuber’s response points out Foley’s inconsistencies with his own use of sources and how he has contradicted a position that he had held in his previous published works.41 A telling response to Foley is that if the 1905 memorandum was arguing for a preemptive strike into France, it still required 24 units that did not exist.42 It is therefore hard to accept that the 1905 Denkschrift was advocating an immediate attack.

68  Germany Gerhard Gross identifies seven arguments by Zuber that he will challenge.43 Gross challenges Zuber’s description and analysis of the Schlieffen Plan at almost every level and claims that Zuber has not looked at all of the relevant materials. Zuber responds with a point-by-point rebuttal.44 The exchange is not always enlightening with the two sides talking past each other. To cite two examples, Gross’s first objection is Zuber’s claim that one reason that the Denkschrift could not have been the war plan was because it ended up in the possession of his daughter.45 Gross argues that Artillery General Friedrich von Boetticher refutes this thesis. “According to Boetticher, the original Denkschrift which Hahnke had handed over to Moltke in February 1906 had been stored as top secret document in the Great General Staff until the beginning of the war. . . . Moltke, therefore, had been in possession of the Denkschrift written by his predecessor. He even attached marginal notes shortly after he received it.”46 This is interesting, and it may be correct, but as Zuber points out, it does not explain why the copy of the Schlieffen Plan with a handwritten note that it was property of Schlieffen’s daughters was handed over to the Reichsarchiv in 1931.47 In another example, Gross faults Zuber for not looking at Boetticher’s Nachlass, where he found Generalleutnant E. Zoellner’s and Boetticher’s handwritten notes on operational studies of the 1905 Große Generalstabsreise West, which he considers important to Zuber’s case.48 Zuber retorts that Zoellner and Boetticher wrote extensive articles in the 1930s that he did use, thus the Nachlass were not needed. “The documents that Gross found add only details to what has been widely known for 70 years.”49 Gross also argues that the 1905 Denkschrift was the culmination of Schlieffen’s thinking and that he was comfortable using nonexistent troops in his war planning; in fact, Gross claims that Schlieffen even used nonexistent equipment in his war games.50 Gross also wants to introduce an additional argument into the discussion. “Like his staff, Schlieffen was convinced that the excellent quality of the German troops and their leadership would make up for their inferiority in numbers.”51 Terence Holmes, not a defender of Zuber, finds Gross’s attempt to deal with the issues of troop numbers less than satisfactory. Holmes suggests that Gross has misread the 1894 memorandum and that Schlieffen “did not plan to stage a tremendous artillery battle with guns he did not have, and nor do we need to invoke such a curious ‘precedent’ to justify the status of the Schlieffen plan, every battery and battalion of which can and will be accounted for.”52 Zuber goes one step further and ponders that if Schlieffen really felt that quality and not quantity would be decisive: “If that were the case, why did Schlieffen mention the need for them at all?”53 This is a fair question, and Gross offers no documentary evidence to support his new argument. Gross maintains that the 1905 Denkschrift was the culmination of Schlieffen’s thinking and was also the basis for the 1906/1907 mobilization plans.54 Gross challenges Zuber’s assertion that Dieckmann’s manuscript, the document that both historians are discussing in the instance, demonstrated that the 1905 Denkschrift was an “aberration.”55 Gross chides Zuber for rejecting

Germany  69 Dieckmann’s statements when they do not support his thesis. Gross does not accept Zuber’s reasons for rejecting Dieckmann, which is certainly within his purview.56 It is probably a step too far to call the 1905 Denkschrift an “aberration,” unless Zuber is referring to the construction of the document itself, which is rather haphazard when compared to similar war plans that Schlieffen composed. Nevertheless, Zuber does make a compelling argument against the idea that the Denkschrift was the “culmination” of Schlieffen’s strategic thinking. Mombauer provides the most sweeping and dismissive critique of Zuber’s work. Mombauer does not appreciate Zuber’s occasionally contemptuous tone, although she could be accused of the same towards him. Her claim, like Foley’s, is that Zuber’s “focus on military matters and his refusal to locate military planning within a wider framework that takes account of political and economic considerations has resulted in a number of serious shortcomings to his argument.”57 Mombauer mentions the MGFA conference in Potsdam and subsequent volume of its proceedings.58 What she does not note is that Holmes, by no means a Zuber supporter, did not find Gross’s, Foley’s, or Mombauer’s work helpful in the dispute with Zuber.59 She acknowledges that Zuber has forced people to reexamine long-held assumptions but concludes that “ultimately, the debate seems of very little consequence to what we know about the origins of the First World War”60 and that no Schlieffen Plan does not mean no German war guilt. Mombauer spends the next few pages largely relating the exchanges between Holmes and Zuber and Foley and Zuber, showing little sympathy for Zuber’s position.61 As is often the case in many historical debates, both sides are questioning the other’s selection and use of sources. Mombauer continues her critique of Zuber with a discussion of German war planning from 1906 to 1914 under Moltke. She also revisits a topic that was part of the exchange with Foley, the coup de main on Liege, and the question of war guilt.62 Mombauer’s arguments are not convincing. Her reading of Moltke assumes aggression, so her interpretation of the documents confirms German aggression. In fact, Mombauer appears to defend the traditional interpretation of the Schlieffen Plan when she writes, “Rather it demonstrates that in 1914 Germany did indeed attack France by marching through Belgium as they had planned to do for some years, and that they aimed for Paris in order to defeat the French.”63 Even Holmes, whom Mombauer quotes with approval, does not accept this reading of Schlieffen’s intentions. Indeed, Mombauer’s position is largely based on assuming what she is trying to prove. Because it is “generally accepted”64 that World War I began with the German attack on France and Belgium, it must be so. If Mombauer is correct and this is the “generally accepted” view, it once again illustrates the Western focus of many historians of the Great War as well as a Western bias. Russia mobilized its army first, Austria-Hungary second, and France third; Germany was the last of the continental Great Powers to mobilize. On 4 August 1914, the same day Germany entered Belgium, Russia invaded East Prussia and France entered the Lorraine; yet it is “generally accepted” that the war began when Germany entered Belgium. It may be

70  Germany that German actions confirmed that Great Britain would enter the fray, but it cannot fairly be construed as the beginning of the war. Mombauer claims that her article will critique Zuber’s thesis in the context of broader “political and economic considerations,”65 but she does not do so. In his book Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, Zuber certainly does consider a political context, that of post–World War I Germany. Mombauer claims that Zuber does not consider the economic dimensions of war planning, but there is no evidence in her article to support that claim, nor does Mombauer provide any discussion of the economic dimension of war planning or how it impacts Zuber’s thesis. Moreover, if German actions are put in a larger international political context, then there is ample evidence that Mombauer does not consider that suggests the “generally accepted” view of many historians does indeed need to be reconsidered. Such a reconsideration might begin by paying more attention to Eastern Europe, as I will discuss in Chapter 5.

Where the debate stands and what does it mean? While Zuber’s critics have tried to dismiss his work as an “interesting footnote,” its impact is far more significant than his detractors are willing to concede. If the “Schlieffen Plan” was how Gerhard Ritter described it, then Zuber has “won” the debate. There was no such thing as the Schlieffen Plan. Even Terence Holmes, Zuber’s most persistent critic, conceded that the plan was not a plan for a two-front war in 1914. If it was any kind of war plan at all—and here he and Zuber still disagree—it was for a one-front war against France in 1906. Zuber’s critics have tried to minimize what Zuber has done, either by stating that he is not saying anything new or arguing: Of course, nobody would actually maintain that Germany went to war in 1914 with the plan that Schlieffen had laid down in 1905, and of course there are differences between the deployment plan developed against the background of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904–05 and the plan implemented as a result of the Austro-Serbian crisis of 1914. Therefore, it has muddied the waters slightly that historians usually use the term Schlieffen Plan when referring to the German war plan of 1914, and it might be helpful to distinguish more clearly between Schlieffen’s planning (which ended in 1905), on which much subsequent German planning was based, and the actual deployment plan of 1914 (the “Moltke Plan”). It would certainly be a positive outcome of the debate if such precision of language were to be adopted in future.66 But that is exactly what historians have been arguing since Ritter, and some are still arguing. Holmes responded to Holger Herwig’s 2002 article that there was a Schlieffen Plan, and the latter was still arguing about the “incompleteness” of the plan in the 2003 volume that he edited with Richard Hamilton.67 Somewhat ironically, Zuber has done exactly what Mombauer has called for. He has

Germany  71 used very precise language to try “to put the history of German war planning back on firm professional military and historical foundation.”68 For Mombauer, this does not appear to be important: “Whether or not Paris was to be encircled is merely a point of detail in this plan, and not the decisive factor in the overall strategy. For the inhabitants of Belgium and France who found themselves at the mercy of the advancing German soldiers, it surely mattered little if their ultimate goal was to march east or west of Paris.”69 She is undoubtedly right about the perspective of French and Belgian civilians,70 and while this is an important point to remember about war in general, it is also a rhetorical device to deflect from the issue at hand. Zuber’s contention is that Schlieffen’s strategic thinking focused on counterattacks (yes, through Belgium), not on offensives. It is this point that causes the most consternation. Schlieffen was concerned about force numbers and made decisions on the basis of numerical superiority or inferiority. Gross recognizes this when he writes, “The examples mentioned clearly demonstrate that Schlieffen planned counter-attacks only in cases of numerical inferiority when an offensive was not possible.”71 The difficulty here for Gross (and others) is that after the Franco-Russian agreements of 1892–1894, Germany was always going to be the numerically inferior party. This fact suggests that counterattacking played a key role in German military planning in a world that its political and military leaders considered increasing unfriendly. The question of whether German war planning was more aggressive or reactive is why the significance of Zuber’s work goes beyond the realm of German war planning. It is also why it has caused a stir. As Zuber notes, “The case against German militarism will now have to be proven without the support of the Schlieffen plan, and without the Schlieffen plan the political-military situation looks very different. The problem facing Schlieffen and Moltke was how to win the first battle while fighting outnumbered, not win the war with an enormous battle of annihilation.”72 For Mombauer, the Schlieffen Plan has become the Schlieffen doctrine, and the focal point has become the German sweep into Belgium. “Whatever we want to call the German deployment plan, the fact remains that Germany attacked France via Belgium (and Luxembourg) in 1914, thus implementing its deployment plan which had been updated and adapted annually under Moltke.”73 Mombauer notes, “Nor was Germany attacked by France in 1914—whatever their agreement with Russia might have held in store.”74 Nowhere does Mombauer mention that France’s agreement with Russia included the promise to join Russia in war against Germany, if Germany mobilized its forces. Mombauer also neglects to mention that France did not even wait for German mobilization and ordered its own forces to mobilize 30 minutes before Germany did. This does not mean that the case for German militarism cannot be made. But it needs to be made in a different fashion. Nicholas Stargardt’s The Idea of German Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866–1914 provides four definitions of militarism: (1) a process of reciprocal armament that creates its own destabilizing and irrational dynamic, leading towards economic ruin and/

72  Germany or war; (2) a state that subordinates civil authority to military in one or more arms of government; (3) state coercion on behalf of capitalist class interests against subordinate classes within the nation and/or against other nations; and (4) failure to subordinate military to political goals in the waging of warfare.75 One can argue about the merits of each definition and whether or not it applies to Germany. For the record, one could make interesting and perhaps even persuasive arguments for all four. But it would be difficult to claim that they only applied to Germany. What is interesting is what is not included in these definitions. There is no mention of the need to launch wars to maintain the social order or to have a foreign policy that is predicated on military aggression. Yet, that is exactly what is implied in the discussions of Imperial Germany. Because Germany was a militaristic country, or at least appeared to honor martial values, it must have also been determined to go to war. Again this is a match for Hitler, who was reportedly upset that he was able to acquire the Sudetenland without the use of military force. But it is not an accurate description of Kaiser Wilhelm II, for all of his faults, nor does it apply to the German General Staff. The convolution of militarism with military action has resulted in historians like Mombauer and many others to assume German aggression and thus German guilt, Moltke Plan or not.76

Mistakes and missteps in German foreign relations Kaiser Wilhelm II was determined to make his own mark on German foreign policy. His refusal to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia presented France with an opportunity to end its diplomatic isolation. The 1892–1894 Franco-Russian agreements were the first step in what is often characterized as the “encirclement” of Germany. The decision would come back to haunt the kaiser and his foreign policy officials sooner than expected. On 18 January 1896, Wilhelm II introduced his plan for Weltpolitik (World Policy), meaning that Germany was going to be a global empire. William Mulligan notes that to achieve this goal, Germany would have to improve its navy enough to deter an attack from Britain and to improve relations with Russia.77 The first task would fall to Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Already considered to be the strongest land power, a Germany with a formidable navy immediately (and understandably) aroused concern in Great Britain. The subsequent naval arms race between Germany and Great Britain, which centered on the production of Dreadnoughts but was broader than that, led to an increase in Anglo-German antagonisms.78 In 1903, Sir Edward Grey, who would soon be Britain’s foreign minister, claimed, “Germany is our worst enemy and greatest threat.”79 Grey’s comment highlights a problem that German foreign policy faced, especially in relation to Britain, that it was never able to successfully navigate. Britain had pursued a foreign policy that centered on a balance of power, which from a British perspective meant that no continental power became so powerful that it could dominate Europe.80 During the age of imperialism, defenders

Germany  73 of Weltpolitik argued that if the balance of power theory was applied globally then Britain was the world hegemon and that Germany was simply trying to create a balance. In fact, several of Leopold von Ranke’s students explicitly took the idea of balance of power that had characterized British foreign policy on the European continent in the 17th and 18th centuries and tried to apply it to a global scale, claiming that British hegemony was a threat to peace and security.81 Britain did not see it the same way and often interpreted every German move in the most negative fashion possible.82 Wilhelm II gave Germanophobes in the British Foreign Office plenty of ammunition. After the Boers repelled a party of British irregulars who had been sent by Cecil Rhodes, on 3 January 1896, the kaiser sent a telegram to “President Paul Krüger congratulating him on having been able to restore peace and the independence of his country ‘without having to appeal to friendly powers for assistance.’ ”83 The telegram served no other purpose than to irritate British public opinion.84 Even though the German government officially took a policy of neutrality during the subsequent South African War (1899–1902), there was still a press war between the two nations and sharp exchanges between British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain and German chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, which may have helped them at home but did nothing to improve relations.85 Just a few years later, in November 1908, the German Foreign Office had to address the infamous Daily Telegraph “interview,” where Wilhelm II commented freely on British foreign policy and declared himself a friend of the British and that those who did not understand this were “mad, mad, mad as March hares.”86 For a man who prided himself on knowing the British, the “interview” was a public relations disaster in Britain and Germany. It also created a rift between Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bülow that would eventually lead to Bülow’s removal from office.87 The fact that this incident occurred during the height of the naval race between the two nations only exacerbated the view abroad that the leader of the German Empire was not the most reliable of individuals. Wilhelm II’s mercurial personality made him an easy target for the press, both German and foreign, and subsequent historians. But it appears that diplomatic circles distinguished between the kaiser’s occasional intemperate outbursts and his more restrained actions. Jules Cambon noted in a May 1912 letter to the French foreign ministry about the kaiser: “It is a curious thing to see how this man, so sudden, so reckless and impulsive in words, is full of caution and patience in action.”88 Similarly, Wilhelm II’s conversation with the Belgian king Albert, where he claimed that war with France was inevitable, was dismissed in international circles as an outburst from someone who was actually restraining the war party in Berlin.89 The Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the autumn of 1908 did not help Germany’s international situation. The kaiser’s retreat from Weltpolitik to focus on securing Germany’s position in central Europe meant that it was more dependent on a strong, or at least functional, Habsburg ally. This helps explain Germany’s steadfast support of the Habsburg Empire. Even though the ultimatum that Germany sent to Russia essentially put an end to the

74  Germany crisis, it was not, contrary to Russian public opinion, the case that Germany was pulling the strings and telling the Habsburg Empire what to do.90 Regardless, the annexations of Bosnia-Herzegovina harmed Russo-German relations as well as Austro-Russian relations. As in 1905, France’s policy in Morocco sparked an international crisis in 1911.91 Clark’s description of this is instructive. A  series of steps taken by France, culminating in the dispatch of a significant French force to Morocco, caused the Spanish government to send forces there and finally the Germans to send the Panther, a gunboat that was “an unimpressive craft that was two years overdue for scrapping.”92 One reason that a “crisis” arose out of an event whose two protagonists were not that far apart was the fact that the Germanophobic Quai d’Orsay, under the leadership of chef du cabinet Maurice Herbette, seized the initiative early and controlled the new French foreign minister Justin de Selve. Herbette used his press connections to delegitimize even the idea of talking to Germany. Ultimately, the newly installed French premier, Joseph Caillaux, and the French ambassador in Germany, Jules Cambon, would have to work behind the back of the Quai d’Orsay in order to achieve a peaceful resolution. The decision to send the Panther was Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter’s, the state secretary for foreign affairs, and was not well thought out. Kiderlen was responsible for the 1909 agreement that France was now violating and hoped for compensation in the French Congo. Even though he was in the right in terms of international law, Kiderlen did not play his cards well. He also turned to the press to bolster support for his goals. But the German press quickly went beyond what Kiderlen had planned. Dreams of a “German West Morocco” were just that—dreams. Clark notes that the saber rattling of the nationalist press in Germany raised alarm bells in Paris and London. Kiderlen’s policy drew so sharp a rebuke from Wilhelm II that he offered his resignation.93 The resolution, the ceding of a small part of the French Congo to Germany, which is all that ever Kiderlen had wanted, was poorly received on both sides of the Rhine. Kiderlen’s poor management allowed French nationalists to feel offended, even though France was again rewarded for ignoring an international agreement, and German nationalists felt that their government had backed down. Mulligan notes that while it was France’s actions that shook the value of international agreements, Germany’s claims of defending international law were dismissed by the other powers.94 Mulligan makes an important observation that the dismissal of German claims was a blow to peace. But, more important, France’s actions in Morocco gave Italy the diplomatic cover to attempt something similar in Tripoli. The Tripolitan War gave the members of the newly formed Balkan League the opportunity to expand their borders at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. During the first two Balkan wars, Germany played a constructive role on the international stage. In addition to helping organize the 1912 London Conference to help bring the First Balkan War to a close, Germany restrained Austria-Hungary. Mulligan characterized German policy as supportive of

Germany  75 Austria-Hungary, but it “refused to underwrite an aggressive policy.”95 From the Habsburg perspective, Williamson noted, Germany’s lukewarm support came from a lack of appreciation of the problems that Austria-Hungary faced in the Balkans and was a cause of some friction between the allies.96 Perhaps the one positive for the alliance that came out of the Balkan wars was the decision to have the two countries’ top generals, Moltke and Conrad, meet to discuss military cooperation. The other event of note to occur during the Balkan wars was the famous “War Council” meeting of December 1912. According to Fischer, it was at that meeting that Germany decided on a path for war that culminated in 1914.97 It is a bold claim that has little evidence to support it. Even Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, who attended the meeting, noted that “the outcome [of the meeting] was essentially nothing.”98 No groundwork was laid to prepare Germany for war in 18 months—no new diplomatic preparations, economic adjustments, or military preparations.99 While there were members in the German General Staff who saw the merits in a preventative war, those figures had their counterparts within the militaries of the other continental Great Powers. Clark notes, “The meeting did not in fact trigger a countdown to a preventative war.”100 It is time to finally stop trying to maintain that Germany was planning for a preventative war. The next incident of note before the July Crisis was the Liman von Sanders Affair.101 In the fall of 1913, General Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders and a detachment of 40 officers were sent to Turkey with the charge of improving the Ottoman army. Since this arrangement was well within the parameters of traditional practice and the discussions were conducted internally between the Ottoman and German Empires, Bethmann saw no need for formal negotiations with other powers. In May of 1913, Kaiser Wilhelm II broached the issue with Tsar Nicholas II who raised no objections to the mission.102 This announcement upset Russian foreign minister Sazonov when it became known that Liman von Sanders would command the forces in charge of defending the Straits. Russia turned to France and Great Britain for support but did not find much. MacMillan claims, “The British government was also embarrassed when it discovered that the admiral who headed a British naval mission in Constantinople had the same powers as Liman.”103 The “crisis” was resolved when Liman von Sanders was promoted to full general and was too senior in rank to command a single unit. Mulligan points to the alliance system and credits Britain and France’s restraint of Russia as the key to keeping the peace.104 MacMillan, on the other hand, suggests “something of the old Concert of Europe where the great powers came together to broker and enforce settlements lingered on.”105 What gets overlooked in both accounts is German willingness to accommodate Russian concerns in an effort to ease tensions and improve relations with Russia. Another example of recent historiographical works underestimating the efforts of the German government to maintain the peace and keep good relations with Russia can be found in the mini–press war that began with an article in the midday edition of the 2 March 1914 Kölnische Zeitung, entitled “Russia

76  Germany and Germany.” The tone of the article is alarming and explicitly claimed that “Russia is arming itself for a war against Germany.”106 Clark and Berghahn suspect that the story was officially inspired.107 There are two good reasons for this assumption: First, up to this point, the Rhenish daily had been the official foreign policy mouthpiece for the government; second, a response from the widely recognized government paper, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, did not come until 12 March, when it claimed that “the two governments were not ready to bury the legend of Russian-German friendship.”108 The fact that the government subsequently severed its ties with the Kölnische Zeitung suggests that it was not government inspired.109 The dustup caused by the article quickly settled, and the German government, like other European governments, had no reason to expect anything other than a quiet summer in 1914.

The July Crisis The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife shocked the German government and press. The news hit Kaiser Wilhelm II particularly hard because he had a good relationship with the Habsburg heir and seemed to genuinely like the couple.110 Ferdinand appreciated the fact that Wilhelm II treated the Archduke’s wife like a future empress and did not use her nonroyal lineage as an excuse to slight her—something Emperor Franz Josef did constantly.111 On 5 July, Wilhelm II received Count Alexander Hoyos, Austrian foreign minister Berchtold’s chef de cabinet, who delivered his boss’s memorandum and a letter from Franz Josef to the kaiser. Wilhelm II was sympathetic to Vienna’s position and agreed that Serbia must be dealt with quickly and offered his support. He noted that he would have to meet with his chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to discuss this but was confident that they would be in agreement that Germany must support its ally. The kaiser met with his chancellor later that evening, and the Austrian delegation would meet with Bethmann the following day. As Wilhelm II anticipated, Bethmann was in agreement, and he, too, offered Germany’s unconditional support.112 This was the now infamous blank cheque written by Kaiser Wilhelm II and cosigned by the chancellor. It is hard to overstate the importance of the blank cheque that Germany had given its long-time ally. But it is possible to exaggerate what it did. It is clear that German leaders understood that supporting Austria-Hungary included the possibility of war. But the decision to take military action against Serbia would be made in Vienna, not Berlin. During his evening meeting on 5 July with Bethmann, Wilhelm II concluded, “Whatever the measures taken by ­Austria-Hungary against Serbia as a result of the Sarajevo crime might demand, we should refrain from all suggestions or incitement in this regard. It was Austria’s affair for her to settle in her own way, and it was not our business.”113 This point is important because some historians suggest that the impetus for action against Serbia comes from Berlin, not Vienna.114 If Germany was anxious to force the issue, the government did not act in a way to prepare

Germany  77 for such a path of action. “Those present at the meeting with Wilhelm II in Potsdam on the afternoon of 5 July all took the view that the Russians, though friends of Serbia, ‘would not join in after all.’ Thus when at the meeting War Minister Falkenhayn asked the Kaiser whether he wished that ‘any kind of preparation should be made’ for the eventuality of a great power conflict, Wilhelm replied in the negative.”115 Otte also notes Wilhelm II’s response to Falkenhayn’s query and writes, “And with that, Germany’s military posture had been determined for the July Crisis.”116 Unfortunately, it appears that the kaiser and his government took this viewpoint a little too seriously. There was little follow-up after the meeting and even less oversight from German officials after Hoyos left Berlin. The one assumption that Berlin had, which turned out to be an erroneous one, was that Vienna was prepared to act quickly.117 Berlin favored a quick response because officials believed that Vienna would still have the sympathy of other nations and that other nations would not react to a fait accompli. While it was widely assumed at the time that Berlin had a hand in drafting the ultimatum, there is no evidence to support that assertion. At least a few officials in Berlin were aware of Vienna’s intention to draft a harsh list of demands, but there is no evidence that anyone in the German government knew the exact content of the ultimatum before they were sent a copy. Even though Berchtold had promised that he would run the ultimatum by Tschirschky, the German ambassador in Vienna, before sending it off, he did no such thing. The Austrian foreign minister even lied to Tschirschky, telling him that it was still undergoing corrections on 21 July and could not be shared until the next day, by which time it would be too late to do anything about it. McMeekin argues that Berchtold withheld the contents of the ultimatum because it was “so draconian that the Germans were unlikely to have approved it.”118 Even without knowing the content of the ultimatum, on 21 July, Bethmann cabled his ambassadors in Russia, France, and Great Britain, informing them that Austria-Hungary had no other choice than to enforce its demands on the Serbian government with strong pressure or, if necessary, by military means. German policy would focus on precluding intervention and deterring escalation of the dispute.119 The German chancellor’s hope was that if there was going to be a war, it would be a localized one: Austria-Hungary against Serbia, essentially a third Balkan war. There is some merit to Otte’s claim that Germany abdicated the responsibility for decision making in its foreign policy. The blank cheque had essentially given Vienna the ability to dictate the course of events with little German oversight or restraint.120 That does not mean that German officials did not try to offer guidance. Foreign Office state secretary Gottlieb von Jagow had advised Berchtold to do two things before submitting the ultimatum: First, AustriaHungary needed to come to some sort of understanding with Italy, even if it entailed territorial compensation; second, the Habsburg government should publish a dossier outlining Serbia’s role in the assassinations in order to neutralize potential diplomatic opposition, especially in the Entente capitals. Berchtold did neither.121

78  Germany Releasing a dossier may have helped Austria-Hungary’s position on the international stage, but it certainly was not going to influence Russia. On 24 July, Russian foreign minister Sazonov told Friedrich Pourtalès, Germany’s ambassador to Russia, that he was not moved “by the so-called proofs that Vienna had linking Serbia to the Sarajevo crime.”122 Sazonov continued with a series of wild accusations, claiming not only that Austria-Hungary wanted to “swallow up” Serbia but also that it would then turn its sights towards Bulgaria and would not stop until it reached the Black Sea and that Russia was prepared to “make war on Austria.”123 This was most likely theatrics on Sazonov’s part—as there were few in St. Petersburg who thought that Austria-Hungary was capable of achieving that goal, even if it did have such desires—designed to make an impression on Pourtalès. Judging by the German ambassador’s journal, it did make an impression. Perhaps unfortunately, he did not convey that impression in his report back to Berlin in which he told Jagow that he suspected that Sazonov was trying to “Europeanize” the issue and that he did not anticipate prompt Russian intervention.124 Pourtalès did not know that Sazonov had already begun preparations for action by ordering the transfer of Russian assets out of German banks. Bethmann returned to Berlin on 25 July to a situation that had developed faster than he expected and had perhaps grown beyond his control. Wilhelm II’s early return the following day confirmed the tense international situation. The kaiser was upset that he had not learned about the contents of the ultimatum before it was sent or of the Serbian response from his chancellor. The meeting in Potsdam on Monday 27 July was important for all of the wrong reasons. As McMeekin notes, there are no records from the meeting itself, but Germany’s passive posture had not changed. Admiral Müller wrote after the meeting, “The tenor of our policy is to remain calm. To allow Russia to put herself in the wrong, but then not to shrink from war if it were inevitable.”125 Had the German chancellor processed the information at hand more carefully, or had he even read the Serbian response to the Austrian ultimatum, he may have had a different attitude towards the meeting. But he did not. This has led some historians to argue that Bethmann was purposely putting a good spin on events for his mercurial sovereign who might be inclined to pressure Austria to hold off on its invasion plans. McMeekin points out that this does not explain why Moltke was not informed of the bad news. Here McMeekin’s position that Bethmann did not present the full picture of the international situation in Potsdam because he did not have it makes the most sense.126 There are a number of reasons why this could have been the case, but it rests on speculation. He may well have not had enough time to process all of the information, but there is no excuse for not having looked at the Serbian response to the ultimatum as soon as he received it. After the meeting, Jagow informed Edward Goschen, the British ambassador to Germany, that they were rejecting Britain’s mediation proposal. This is often cited as evidence that Germany was gearing up for war. Later in the evening, Bethmann would reverse course and advise Ambassador Tschirschky

Germany  79 in Vienna that there was no other choice than to accept the English proposal for mediation. At the same time, presumably with the chancellor’s approval, Jagow informed Count Ladislaus Szögyény, Austria-Hungary’s ambassador in Berlin (who then wired Bertchold), that Germany was not going to force Austria to go to mediation but was just forwarding the British proposal.127 Otte’s characterization of the meeting as issuing a “second blank cheque” is overstated.128 There is no new policy here. For better or worse, Germany reiterated its unconditional support for its ally. McMeekin points out, “Why, indeed, was an ostensibly neutral England demanding so forcefully that Germany mediate Vienna, but not that France mediate at St.  Petersburg? When Grey had demanded that the latter back on Saturday—mediation between Austria and Russia, in which France was expected to pressure the latter—the French and Russian ambassadors had both rejected the proposal outright, and yet Grey had not responded to their rejection by threatening them with war, as he now implicitly threatened Germany.”129 Bethmann’s desire for a localized conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was vanishing before his eyes almost as quickly as his hope for British neutrality. When Wilhelm II read the Serbian response on 28 July, he thought “all reason for war is gone, and Giesl ought to have quietly stayed on in Belgrade!”130 But in order to ensure that Serbia honored the commitments implied in the response, he proposed that Austria-Hungary temporarily occupy Belgrade.131 Unfortunately, around the same time Wilhelm II was coming to this conclusion, Austria-Hungary was declaring war on Serbia without actually attacking. If there was such a thing and an anti-fait accompli strategy, Berchtold was executing it. He declared his country’s intentions and then essentially did nothing for two weeks. McMeekin observes, “They [Bethmann and Wilhelm II] had unquestioningly trusted their ally’s diplomatic competence, only to watch Berchtold make one wrong move after another.”132 At Wilhelm II’s insistence, Bethmann sent a note to Vienna encouraging talks with Russia, but at the same time, the telegram that he sent to his ambassadors in the Entente capitals was vague enough to displease everyone, expecting concessions from Russia without offering anything in return, nor did the German chancellor inform Russia that it should halt its secret mobilizations. At the same time, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II drafted telegrams to each other—the beginning of the now famous “Willy-Nicky” exchanges. In terms of crisis management, Bethmann’s conduct during the July Crisis can be judged only as a failure. The German chancellor must bear much of the responsibility for Germany’s failure. Far from taking charge, it makes more sense to view German actions during the July Crisis as more passively irresponsible than aggressive. Rather than dictating events, Germany was often responding. The assumption that he and Wilhelm II shared—and it was an assumption or hope, because neither acted on it enough to call it a plan or a policy—was that Austria-Hungary would act quickly and decisively against Serbia before the Entente powers had time to react. This was obviously a faulty assumption and, considering the nature of the Austro-Hungarian government

80  Germany structure, perhaps an unwarranted one. But once the decision was made to issue the Habsburg Monarchy a blank cheque, Germany did not waver or question its ally’s actions. This is one reason why Bethmann did not offer German assistance to mediate between Austria-Hungary and Serbia but did accept Grey’s first proposal for a four-power conference to help mediate between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Bethmann’s official policy was to try to keep the dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, yet he did little to facilitate that outcome—if such an outcome was possible. One reason is that the German chancellor took what can only be characterized as a fatalistic view of the situation that, conveniently, removed much of the responsibility from his shoulders. If there was going to be a war, he wanted one between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Germany would only mobilize if Russia got involved. Thus, the decision for a European war instead of a third Balkan war was in the hands of Russia. The German chancellor opined that if Russia did mobilize, then it meant that it wanted to go to war, and it was better to have it now rather than in a couple of years when Russia would have completed its military upgrade.133 Germany was effectively abdicating all responsibility for whatever the results of the July Crisis would be. The aforementioned explanation will undoubtedly draw objections, but it makes sense based on what we know about German conduct up to the AustroHungarian declaration of war and offers a possible explanation for German actions in the last days before their own declaration of war. We know that after Hoyos left with a blank cheque, the German government officials went on or continued with their holidays. Even after the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on 28 July, the German government still had not made any preparations for war. If this were by design, it was a disastrous one. If Bethmann had wanted war all along, as some historians maintain, then at the very least, he should have kept Moltke informed of the latest developments in a timely fashion. But he did not. By 28 July, McMeekin notes, “Even as Willy and Nicky were exchanging their ‘peace’ telegrams, Russia had begun the countdown to European war. The Austrian noose on German necks was now taut. Russia’s generals (although not yet her sovereign) had even determined the date of execution.”134 Bethmann’s handling of events had left Germany in a precarious position: just how precarious was summarized in a 28 July memorandum from Moltke to the chancellor. Moltke noted that a clash with Russia would be inevitable as soon as Austria mobilized its army, and unless Germany reneged on its commitments (in terms of its alliance with Austria-Hungary and the blank cheque) and permitted its ally to fall, it would also be forced to mobilize. Then Russia would have to mobilize its remaining districts, the Franco-Russian Accord would take effect, and all of Europe would be at war.135 This bleak assessment was not far from what happened but did not consider the possibility that Russia would mobilize completely before Germany did anything or that France might be prepared to mobilize before Germany did anything—both of which occurred.

Germany  81 Bethmann’s response to Moltke’s memo and the situation was about as wrongheaded as possible. Instead of trying to talk to Vienna, which he should have done and which was what the kaiser wanted him to do, or declare Kriegsgefahrzustand (Imminent Danger of War), which was what Moltke wanted, he sent telegrams to his ambassadors in Paris and St. Petersburg, telling them to warn the French and Russian governments that if they did not stop their military preparations, he would declare a Kriegsgefahrzustand.136 It is not surprising that both capitals took this as a direct threat. The German chancellor was clearly reaching for straws in his now-desperate hope to keep England out of any possible war, which was increasingly becoming likely. At a meeting in Potsdam on 29 July, he floated the idea of sacrificing the German fleet in exchange for an agreement that England would remain neutral.137 The kaiser’s refusal meant that the idea stayed in dry dock. Continuing to feel the pressure, Bethmann met with Edward Goschen, the British ambassador, late in the evening on 29 July. He told Goschen that he feared a European war if Russia attacked Austria-Hungary and that he hoped that Britain could remain neutral if that were the case. He probably should have stopped there, but he did not. He added that if such a war were to occur and Germany were victorious, it would not take any territorial compensation at the expense of France. As for Belgium, he did not know what operations Germany might have to take, but he promised that if Belgium did not take sides, its integrity would also be respected after the war. Goschen dutifully relayed the message to London. The kindest evaluation of the proposal may have come from Prime Minister Asquith, who noted, “There is something very crude and almost childlike about German diplomacy.”138 If Bethmann had any realistic hopes, they were dashed shortly after the meeting with Goschen when he was handed a third telegram from Lichnowsky, which told him that Grey warned him that if there were a general war, it would be difficult for England to remain neutral.139 The futility of Bethmann’s offer to Goschen was clear, now even to Bethmann. Had Grey been clearer on this issue just two days earlier, perhaps much of this could have been avoided. But perhaps not; more pressure from Bethmann did not guarantee that Austria-Hungary would have held off declaring war against Serbia. Even a revocation of the blank cheque might not have been enough as the Habsburg government did not see any possible solution to their Serbian problem other than armed conflict. Russia and France had already made it clear that they were not prepared to offer Austria-Hungary satisfaction on the international stage.140 Bethmann did try to get Austria-Hungary to reconsider its actions. He wired Berchtold that Austria-Hungary should accept Grey’s four-power mediation offer, and he wired Ambassador Tschirschky that Vienna needed to resume direct talks with Russia. Bethmann noted that the Germans were “prepared to fulfill our duties as allies, but must decline to let ourselves be dragged by Vienna, wantonly and without regard to our advice, into a world conflagration.”141 While Bethmann and Wilhelm II can be accused of many errors during the July Crisis, it is hard to claim that they were advocating war. Even after

82  Germany Bethmann had learned from Pourtalès that Sazonov claimed that Russian mobilization could not be stopped142 and Wilhelm II had learned from Nicholas II in the latest telegram exchange that Russia had already begun its mobilization process five days earlier, and both men also knew that France had begun its preparations for mobilization, a Kriegsgefahrzustand order was not issued— although Wilhelm II was inclined to do just that. Bethmann persuaded the kaiser to send another telegram to his Russian cousin asking him to stop Russian mobilization and explaining that if he did not, then Germany would be forced to mobilize and that a European war would ensue. Therefore, the decision for war or peace rested on the shoulders of the Russian ruler. Undoubtedly, the last part was an effort to convince the German public, and hopefully England, that the responsibility for a Europe-wide war lay with Russia.143 Nevertheless, it is hard to maintain that Germany was itching for war, much less planning a preemptive war. Germany’s ambassadors were also searching for ways to maintain the peace. Pourtalès met with Sazonov and pleaded for something that he could send back to Berlin. Sazonov’s response was that Austria-Hungary had to recognize that the Austro-Serbian question had become a European issue and that it must withdraw points of the ultimatum that violated Serbian sovereignty. Then Russia would begin to stop its military preparations.144 On Friday 31 July, Goschen passed on Grey’s refusal of Bethmann’s illconceived offer with respect to France and Belgium. The German chancellor informed him of reports coming in about Russian mobilization against Germany and that if they were true that Germany would have to respond with serious measures. The reports were true, and the kaiser signed the Kriegsgefahrzustand at 3:00 p.m. Still hoping against hope to avoid war, Bethmann sent telegrams to Paris and St. Petersburg, informing both capitals that Russia had 12 hours to stop mobilizing or Germany would also be forced to mobilize. French prime minister Viviani met with Baron Schoen, the German ambassador, and was noncommittal. He claimed that he had no information about total Russian mobilization (which was not true) and could not provide an answer about the “attitude of France” in case of a war between Germany and Russia.145 The following day, Viviani told Schoen that France would act in accordance with its interests.146 Russia did not reply to the ultimatum. The proverbial noose was a little tighter around the German neck. On 1 August, an apparent lifeline was thrown to a drowning Germany. Grey, through his secretary Sir William Tyrrell, floated the idea to Lichnowsky that “in the event of our [Germany] not attacking France, England, too, would remain neutral and would guarantee France’s passivity.”147 Lichnowsky leapt at the proposal and assured Grey that he could make such a promise. He then cabled Berlin with the stunning offer. The news reached Berlin shortly after 5:00 p.m. that same afternoon, just after Wilhelm II signed the order for mobilization. This led to the now famous exchange between Wilhelm II and Moltke, where the former told Moltke to stop the planned attack in the west and to focus forces against Russia. Moltke responded that he could not. Germany

Germany  83 had only one plan, and to change it would mean that he was sending a mass of men to the east not organized for battle. The kaiser’s famous retort, “Your uncle would have given me a different answer!” hurt Moltke deeply. It turned out that the exchange was unnecessary. After a second extraordinary telegram from Lichnowsky that suggested England would stay neutral even in a German war against France and Russia, a third telegram came. This one was from King George V: “I think there must be some misunderstanding as to a suggestion that passed in a friendly conversation between Prince Lichnowsky and Sir Edward Grey this afternoon when they were discussing how actual fighting between German and French armies might be avoided while there is still a chance of some agreement between Austria and Russia.”148 The last hope had been dashed, and Wilhelm II told Moltke, “Now you can do what you want.”149 What Moltke did is now common knowledge. Germany declared war first on Russia and then on France. German troops marched into Luxembourg; a request or ultimatum was sent to Belgium to let German troops pass through Belgian territory. Belgium rejected the request, and Germany enacted its only war plan. German troops invaded Belgium on 4 August. If the story began there, then German culpability for starting the Great War would be beyond dispute. But the story did not begin there. It began in the Balkans with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia because of the latter’s role in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Russia elected to come to Serbia’s aid. It was under no obligation by treaty to do so. Russian assistance took the form of a full military mobilization against AustriaHungary and Germany. France, in accordance with the terms of its alliance with Russia, was also preparing to mobilize. Both countries were preparing for war against Germany before Germany had even declared Kriegsgefahrzustand. Once it was clear that Germany was going to be attacked, it responded. This is why Moltke demanded that someone bring him a red poster, signifying Russian mobilization; he needed incontrovertible proof to bring to civilian authorities before he was given permission to act.150 The war plan that Moltke enacted was to defend Germany in the event of a two-front war. He had proof of aggressive military measures being taken by both Entente powers. In order to defend Germany against a numerically superior opponent, he needed to act quickly. The one advantage that the German military had was the ability to use interior lines of transportation.151 It could not afford to wait for Russian or French troops to cross the border onto German soil. Germany’s actions were a reaction to Russian mobilization and French preparations. If Russia had not mobilized, then France would not have prepared for war and Germany would not have responded. Why Russia decided to mobilize is the subject of the next chapter.

Notes 1 See Chapter 1 for just one example of this kind of chronology. 2 For a good overview of the deterioration of Bismarck’s foreign policy efforts, see George F. Kennan, The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). For a briefer

84  Germany summary, see Mulligan, Origins, 26–37. The most recent good works on Bismarck and Wilhelm II are Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); John C.G. Rohl’s three-volume study, Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser’s Early Life 1859–1888; Wilhelm II, The Kaiser’s Personal Monarchy, 1880–1900; and Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1910–1941, published by Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3 Kennan, Fateful Alliance, 249. 4 Kennan, Fateful Alliance, 252–253. 5 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 156. 6 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 384. 7 Berghahn, Germany, 66. 8 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 155–157. MacMillan provides a more detailed narrative of the First Morrocan Crisis and notes that Wilhelm II did not want to go to Tangiers but was persuaded by Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. See War That Ended Peace, 378–394. 9 Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, “Introduction: The Historiography of Schlieffen and the Schlieffen Plan,” in The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I, eds. Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, trans. David M. Zabecki (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2014), 7. Originally published as Der Schlieffenplan: Analysen und Dokumente (Paderborn and Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006). 10 Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, “Introduction,” 7. 11 Holger Herwig, “Germany,” The Origins of World War I, eds. Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 156. 12 Mombauer, “The Fischer Controversy,” 308. 13 See Terence Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning 1871– 1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 14 Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, 4–5. 15 Terence Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” War in History 6:3 (1999): 296. 16 Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” 300. 17 Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” 268. 18 Annika Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt: The Debate Surrounding the Schlieffen Plan,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 28:5 (October 2005): 860. 19 Terence Zuber, The Real German War Plan 1904–1914 (Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011), 6–7. 20 Zuber, The Real German War Plan, 178. 21 Zuber, The Real German War Plan, 178. 22 Sean McMeekin, July 1914, 405. 23 See Steven C. Hause and William Maltby, Western Civilization: A History of European Society: Volume II: Since 1550, 2nd edition (Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005), 699; Thomas F.X. Noble, et al., Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries Volume II: Since 1560 (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage, 2011), 697; Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salibury, WEST: Experience Western Civilization Volume II: Since 1600 (New York: McGraw Hill, 2012), 513–514; Lynn Hunt, et al., The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: Volume II: Since 1500, 4th edition (Boston: Bedford, St.  Martin’s Press, 2012), 839; Paul Edward Dutton, Suzanne Marchand, and Deborak Harkness, Many Europes: Choice and Chance in Western Civilization (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2014), 704–705, are just a few examples. 24 Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, 24–26. 25 Zuber provides a clear outline of the contours of the postwar debate in Chapter 1 of Inventing the Schlieffen Plan. 26 Williamson Jr. and May, “An Identity of Opinion,” 335 quoting Bernadotte E. Schmitt, “The Origins of the War,” Journal of Modern History 1 (1929): 365.

Germany  85 27 The exchange between Terence Zuber and Terence Holmes in War in History includes five exchanges, beginning with Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” 262–305 and is followed by replies from Holmes, “The Reluctant March on Paris: A  Reply to Terence Zuber’s ‘The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered’,” War in History 8:2 (2001): 208–232; Zuber, “Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan,” War in History 8:4 (2001): 468–476; Holmes, “The Real Thing: A Reply to Terence Zuber’s ‘Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan’,” War in History 9:1 (2002): 111–120; Zuber, “Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan— Again,” War in History 10:1 (2003): 92–101; Holmes, “All Present and Correct: The Verifiable Army of the Schlieffen Plan,” War in History 16:1 (2009): 98–115; and Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan’s ‘Ghost Divisions’ March Again: A Reply to Terence Holmes,” War in History 17:4 (2010): 1–14. Robert T. Foley, “The Origins of the Schlieffen Plan,” War in History 10:2 (2003): 222–232; Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Was an Orphan,” War in History 11:2 (2004): 220–225; Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” 91–115; Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan and War Guilt,” 14:1 (2007): 96–108; Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 857–885. 28 Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, eds., Der Schliefflenplan: Analysen und Dokumente (Paderborn: Schönigh, 2006). 29 See Mombauer, “On War Plans and War Guilt,” and Zuber’s website. http://terence zuber.com/schlieffendebate.php. 30 Holmes, “The Reluctant March on Paris,” 209. 31 Holmes, “The Reluctant March on Paris,” 210–211. 32 Although it is still referred to as the 1905 memorandum, Zuber correctly points out that it was written up in early 1906. 33 Max Hastings’s discussion of Germany’s battle plan restates the intent of the Schlieffen Plan to advance “through northern France, around Paris, to smash the French army before turning on Russia.” Hastings, Catastrophe 1914, 26. 34 See Holmes, “All Present and Correct,” 98–115; Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan’s ‘Ghost Divisions’ March Again: A Reply to Terence Holmes,” War in History 17:4 (2010): 1–14. Further evidence that Holmes no longer thought that the 1905 Denkschrift was the basis for the 1914 German war plan can be found in his response to Holger Herwig’s critique of the Schlieffen Plan. See Terence Holmes, “ ‘One Throw of the Gambler’s Dice’: A Comment on Holger Herwig’s View of the Schlieffen Plan,” The Journal of Military History 64 (April 2003): 513–516. 35 Foley, “The Origins of the Schlieffen Plan,” 223. 36 Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Was an Orphan,” 220–225. 37 Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” 97. 38 Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” 100. 39 Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” 109. 40 Foley, “The Real Schlieffen Plan,” 115. 41 Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan and War Guilt,” 99. 42 Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan and War Guilt,” 104. 43 Gross’s seven points can be found in three sources, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan: Neue Quellen,” Der Schlieffen Plan, 117–160; the English version of this is “There Was a Schlieffen Plan: New Sources on the History of German Military Planning,” 85–136. An edited and translated version of the argument is “There Was a Schlieffen Plan: New Sources on the History of Military Planning,” War in History 15:4 (2008): 389–431. Gross lists the seven points as follows: (1) One of the reasons that Schlieffen’s Denkschrift of 1905 was not the German war plan is that it had not been locked in the general staff files, but it had been kept among Schlieffen’s private possessions until he died. Afterwards, it became the possession of his daughters. (2) Schlieffen did not plan a great battle of annihilation. Instead, he wanted to ward off the expected French attacks with a well-aimed counterattack close to

86  Germany

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

the border. (3) Schlieffen’s exercise plans never studied the Western envelopment of Paris or battles on French ground. His map exercises always took place only in Lorraine or Belgium. (4) Schlieffen’s Denkschrift of 1905 was not the culmination of his operational planning; instead, it served only as a talking for his intended reinforcement of the army. (5) The divisions necessary to carry out the attack were not available. Therefore, the Denkschrift did not serve as a basis for the real war planning of the general staff. (6) The campaign plan laid down in Schlieffen’s Denkschrift of 1905 does not represent the culmination of his philosophy of operational art. It is rather an isolated aberration among his operational plans. (7) The political dimension of warfare did not play a role in Schlieffen’s operational planning. Terence Zuber, “There Never Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’: A Reply to Gerhard Gross,” War in History 12:2 (2010): 231–249. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 390, 405. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 405. Zuber, “There Never Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’,” 232. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 396. Zuber, “There Never Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’,” 234. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 416–417. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 417. Holmes, “All Present and Accounted for,” 100. Holmes thought that the “missing” troops could be raised if they were needed. Zuber, “There Never Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’,” 241. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 417. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 390, 417. This is objection number six of Gross’s seven critiques of Zuber. Zuber uses the word “aberration” in his article “Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” 285. Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 418. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 859. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 863. The volume was Der Schliefflenplan: Analysen und Dokumente / im Auftrag des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes und der Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung herausgegeben von Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans und Gerhard P. Gross (Paderborn: Schönigh, 2006). Terence Holmes, “All Present and Correct,” War in History 16:1 (2009): 99–101. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 859. Zuber has returned the favor providing his summary of these debates on his own website: www.terencezuber.com/schlieffendebate.html. Zuber responded to Mombauer’s article in War in History. Zuber has also written a book that challenges Mombauer’s view of German war planning after Schlieffen. See Zuber, The Real German War Plan. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 874. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 867. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 863. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 866. See n7. Herwig’s 2009 book on the Marne is still talking about the 1905 Denkschrift as the basis of the 1914 war plan. Holger H. Herwig, The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I (New York: Random House, 2009), xii–xiii. Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, 304. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 877. On German treatment of civilians, see John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001). Gross, “There Was a Schlieffen Plan,” 408. Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, 302–303. Mombauer, “Of War Plans and War Guilt,” 877.

Germany  87 74 Annika Mombauer, “The Moltke Plan. A Modified Schlieffen Plan with Identical Aims?” in The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I, eds. Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, trans. David M. Zabecki (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2014), 58. 75 Nicholas Stargardt, The Idea of German Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 6. 76 See Volker Berghahn, Militarism: The History of an International Debate 1861– 1979 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) for a good overview of the discussion about militarism. An interesting aspect of the debate about militarism is how it is closely tied to economic development, especially industrialization and imperialism. With this wider lens, a discussion about militarism at the turn of the 20th century needs to include Great Britain, France, Russia, Japan, and the United States, along with Germany. 77 Mulligan, Origins, 52. 78 For a brief overview of the Anglo-German naval arms race, see MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 110–141. 79 Quoted in Mulligan, Origins, 53. 80 See Wilson, “The Dissimulation of the Balance of Power,” 59–84, for a dissenting view of British foreign policy. 81 See Ludwig Dehio, “Ranke and German Imperialism,” in Germany and World Politics in the Twentieth Century, trans. Dieter Pevsner (New York: W.W. Norton, 1959), 58–71, for a discussion of this effort. Max Lenz’s 1900 Die grossen Mächte is one example of such an effort. 82 See Keith Wilson, “The Invention of Germany,” 100–120, for a discussion of the invention of Germany as a threat to Britain. 83 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany 1840–1945 (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969), 305–306. 84 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 60. 85 On the press war, see Mulligan, Origins, 174–175. 86 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 136. 87 Wilhelm II had sent the transcript to Bülow for his approval before offering his own consent. Whether or not Bülow did not pay enough attention to the material or intentionally let it through knowing that it would make Wilhelm II look bad and perhaps chasten him a bit is still a matter of dispute. See Peter Winzen, Das Kaiserrreich am Abgrund: Die Daily-Telegraph-Affäre und das Hale-Interview von 1908: Darstellungen und Dokumentation HMRG Beihft 43 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002). 88 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 183. 89 Mulligan, Origins, 118. 90 Mulligan, Origins, 157. Berghahn suggests that there was some resentment in Berlin for not being kept completely informed about Aehrenthal’s plans, but Williamson argues that the Austrian foreign minister did keep Germany in the loop. See Berghahn, Germany, 148; Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 68. 91 Mulligan, Origins, 71; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 384. 92 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 205. The summary of the incident discussed in this paragraph and the next is taken from Clark, Sleepwalkers, 204–209. 93 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 208. Bethmann’s intervention preserved Kiderlen’s policy and kept him in office. Kiderlen did not threaten to resign his post if the German government showed weakness against France. For that erroneous claim, see Spencer M. DiScala, Twentieth Century Europe: Politics, Society, Culture (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004), 131. 94 Mulligan, Origins, 73. 95 Mulligan, Origins, 83.

88  Germany 96 See Chapter  2. Clark reflects the Habsburg perspective when he characterized Germany’s support as “lukewarm.” Clark, Sleepwalkers, 288. 97 See, Fischer, Krieg der Illusionen, 231–241. 98 Fischer, Krieg, 234. “Das Ergebnis war so ziemlich Null.” 99 Berghahn, Germany, 179–180. Berghahn takes the lack of results as meaning that the forces for an immediate war were defeated, but the advocates for a delayed start to a war—he identifies Bethmann and Tirpitz as two such people—did not get anything to help what he identifies as their position as well. 100 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 330. 101 Mulligan refers to the incident as the “Liman von Sanders Crisis,” but it is not clear that the events even remotely approached the “crisis” stage. 102 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 338–339. 103 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 528. 104 Mulligan, Origins, 87–89. 105 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 529. 106 “Russland und Deutschland,” Kölnische Zeitung, March 2, 1914, 1. 107 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 232; Berghahn, Germany, 190. 108 Troy R.E. Paddock, Creating the Russian Peril: Education, the Public Sphere, and National Identity in Imperial Germany, 1890–1914 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2010), 173. 109 Georg Potschke, “Kölnische Zeitung,” in Deutsche Zeitungen des 17: Bis 20: Jahrhunderts, ed. Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (Munich: Verlag Dokumentation, 1972), 155. For a brief summary of the article and press war around it, see Paddock, Creating the Russian Peril, 167–176. 110 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 404. 111 Otto, July Crisis, 87. 112 Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 195–196; Clark, Sleepwalkers, 412–414. 113 Quoted in Otte, July Crisis, 83. 114 Langdon, Long Debate, 147. See Berghahn, Germany, 198–199 for an example of this viewpoint. 115 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 416. Clark also notes that Wilhelm II did not think that the Russian Tsar would support regicides (418). Berghahn also concedes that on 8 July, neither the German army nor the navy was showing any concern for events. This is also contrary to Holger Herwig’s assertion that everyone fully expected a hostile Russian reaction. Herwig, “Germany,” Origins of World War I, 177. 116 Otte, July Crisis, 87. 117 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 564. Otte also notes this expectation and writes, “It is not difficult to conclude that if Vienna had struck immediately after the murder of the Archduke, no world war would have ensured.” Otte, July Crisis, 104. 118 McMeekin, July 1914, 142. See pages 141–143 for a discussion of Berchtold’s efforts to keep the terms of the ultimatum away from the German ambassador and much of the Austro-Hungarian imperial government. 119 Zigare, 135. Berghahn also writes that in the beginning of July 1914, Bethmann opted for a localized war strategy but recognized that it could become a general war. 120 Otte, July Crisis, 103. 121 McMeekin, July 1914, 143. 122 McMeekin, July 1914, 187. 123 McMeekin, July 1914, 188. 124 McMeekin, July 1914, 188. 125 McMeekin, July 1914, 229. 126 McMeekin, July 1914, 230–231. 127 McMeekin, July 1914, 236–237. 128 See, Otte, July Crisis, 330–333. 129 McMeekin, July 1914, 237.

Germany  89 130 Quote in McMeekin, July 1914, 242. 131 McMeekin, July 1914, 242. 132 McMeekin, July Crisis, 254. 133 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 476. 134 McMeekin, July 1914, 259. 135 McMeekin, July 1914, 266–267. 136 McMeekin, July 1914, 267–269. 137 McMeekin, July 1914, 277. 138 Quoted in McMeekin, July 1914, 279. 139 McMeekin, July 1914, 279–280. 140 See Chapter 3. 141 Quoted in McMeekin, July 1914, 281–282. 142 McMeekin, July 1914, 283. 143 McMeekin, July 1914, 285–287. 144 McMeekin, July 1914, 298. 145 McMeekin, July 1914, 320. 146 McMeekin, July 1914, 333. 147 McMeekin, July 1914, 330–331. 148 McMeekin, July 1914, 330–349. Quotes are from 331 (Grey’s offer) and 348 (George V’s telegram). 149 Quoted in McMeekin, July 1914, 349. 150 Ulrich Trumpener, “War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914,” Central European History 9:1 (March 1976): 82. 151 Zuber, The Real German War Plan, 176.

5 Russia When opportunity knocks

The standard interpretation of Russia’s involvement in the Great War revolves around its commitment to pan-Slavism and its unwillingness to let AustriaHungary alter the balance of power in the Balkan peninsula, as well as the need to preserve its international standing as a Great Power. Sean McMeekin has challenged that interpretation. McMeekin’s work has been hotly debated in academic circles and for good reason. He has written two books that should force more historians to consider the role of Russia in the origins of the Great War. The first book is misleadingly titled The Russian Origins of the First World War. The title is misleading in that the book goes far beyond the origins and discusses the entire war. McMeekin’s argument fundamentally boils down to this: “The War of 1914 was Russia’s War even more than it was Germany’s.”1 The second book, July 1914, is a detailed and riveting account of the five weeks between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of the war. In these two works, McMeekin asserts that Russian foreign policy before the war was driven by the question of access through the Straits and that pan-Slavism was a useful diplomatic and political tool but that the Russians would readily abandon their Slavic brethren if it was in Russia’s best interest to do so. McMeekin’s Origins was welcomed for its boldness and for bringing more attention to Russia and its role in the in the summer of 1914. At the same time, critics have suggested that some of McMeekin’s daring conclusions are not supported by the evidence that he presents.2 The key criticisms center on what McMeekin identifies as the key Russian priority: security of access through the Straits from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. McMeekin is chided for not giving proper emphasis on the Balkans as a priority.3 Central to this critique is the question of just how much in charge Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov really was of Russian foreign policy.4 Others assert that McMeekin also does not provide enough analysis of Russian mobilization plans.5 Matthew Rendle also questions to what extent Sazonov was able to manipulate France and Great Britain.6 At least one reviewer, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, found no redeeming value and concludes his review essay with the following: Towards the Flame, which won the Pushkin House’s prize for the best book in English about Russia in 2015, and Shattering Empires are both

Russia  91 required reading for everyone who wishes to become properly acquainted with Russia’s Great War. By the same token, they would be well advised to steer clear of The Russian Origins of the First World War. It is all well and good to challenge the current historiographical wisdom, but this book’s tendentious and questionable scholarship does little to inspire confidence in the vetting process at some American university presses.7 This chapter will respectfully disagree with the last assessment and will argue that McMeekin has more of a point than his critics are willing to concede. Moreover, some of the criticisms of McMeekin’s work do not stand up to scrutiny and are, in fact, part of the mainstream Russian historiography. This chapter will use the book that Schimmelpenninck van der Oye characterizes as “the closest we now have to a definitive account of St. Petersburg’s role in the July Crisis of 1914,”8 Dominic Lieven’s The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution, to suggest that McMeekin has more of a point than his critics acknowledge.9 Ultimately, McMeekin’s analysis is more persuasive because it includes considerations that Lieven omits—for reasons that are not readily apparent. A question was posed in the introduction of this book: Why was Austria’s invasion of Serbia the start of World War I instead of the third Balkan war? The Habsburg Monarchy was ultimately willing to risk such a war, but it certainly did not want one. McMeekin’s answer is that Russia did want such a war and that the timing was such that it would be better not to wait any longer for settling the geostrategic priorities in the Crimea and the Balkans. Dominic Lieven’s The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution comes to a different conclusion. He notes, rightly in my view, that World War I needs to be understood “first and foremost as an Eastern European conflict.”10 In fact, he suggests rather provocatively that the war is hinged upon the fate of the Ukraine. Lieven’s sweeping work offers three levels of analysis: the God’s eye view, the intermediate view, and the worm’s eye view. The God’s eye view incorporates geopolitical structural factors—most important in this case is the notion of empire. Intermediate factors include systems of government and institutions. The worm’s eye view is that of the people who made the decisions and their thoughts and motivations.11 In the end, Lieven concludes: Russia had entered World War I for reasons of security, interest, and identity. Security meant above all an attempt to shore up the European balance of power against growing German might and the perceived threat of Germanic expansion. Interest meant the wish for predominance at the Straits and in the Balkans. Identity meant Russia’s status as both a great power and the leader of the Slav peoples.12 This interpretation of Russia’s involvement in the war is that of a reluctant participant. German or Germanic aggression is assumed. It suggests that Russia felt a duty to protect Serbia from Habsburg aggression and to fulfill its

92  Russia commitment to pan-Slavism. But it also acknowledges Russia’s interest in the Straits and the role that it played in Russia’s calculations. An examination of Russian foreign policy suggests that there is not as much space between McMeekin and his critics as they like to suggest. Russia had been expanding rapidly across Asia until its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. After the twin disturbances of military defeat and revolution, Russia concentrated on the implications of a declining Ottoman Empire. Even before its defeat in the Far East, Russia’s desire for free passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles was common knowledge. Russia’s northern ports, Archangel and St. Petersburg, were either frozen solid for long stretches of time or too far away for the Russian navy to be able to deploy in a timely fashion to defend all of Russia’s expanding interests. What free passage meant was ambiguous. In times of peace, an international agreement of neutrality was enough to secure free passage. However, any threat of war could lead to the closure of the Straits.13 Closing the Straits was more than a military concern; there were critical economic consequences as well. Exports through the Black Sea played a key role in the Russian economy. In 1912, during the Tripolitan War, the Ottoman Porte briefly closed the Straits. The results were dramatic. Black Sea exports were down by one-third for 1912, and the lack of imported supplies greatly slowed heavy industry in the Ukraine.14 Securing access through the Straits was a strategic priority for the Russian government.15 How to achieve the goals of securing Russian interests regarding the Straits was an open question. Depending on which Russian official was quoted, the road to Constantinople went through Warsaw, Vienna, or Berlin. Ronald Bobroff writes that Russia had been developing war plans for obtaining the Bosphorus since 1895/1896.16 McMeekin maintains that Russian desire to control the Bosphorus and Dardanelles is crucial to understanding Russia in the summer of 1914. Pan-Slavism was a cause that Russia could use to achieve its most important aim, which was to ensure free passage through the Straits. McMeekin’s view gains some credence when considering Russia’s actions during the first two Balkan wars. In the first war, Russia supported Slavic initiatives at the expense of the declining Ottoman Empire; McMeekin suggests that the First Balkan War provided a “critical dry run for Russia’s military planners.”17 Russia’s actions during the First Balkan War are worth considering. McMeekin asserts that the “predatory Balkan coalition” was widely believed to have been masterminded by Nikolai Hartwig.18 Lieven does not go so far in his discussion of Hartwig but notes that Nikolai Giers, Russia’s ambassador in Vienna, “denounced Hartwig’s ‘incurable Austrophobia’ and accused him of pursuing Slavophile goals that contradicted Russia’s interests and its acute need for peace.”19 Lieven himself characterizes Hartwig as “the most dangerous of Russia’s leading diplomats before 1914.”20 Lieven notes: Hartwig had good reason to believe himself much more competent in Balkan affairs than Sazonov. Complaints poured into the Foreign Ministry

Russia  93 that its representative in Belgrade was criticizing the minister and his policy and conniving with the Serbian leadership to undermine it. The Serbs were said to respect his advice much more than warnings from Petersburg, which explained why they were frequently very slow to bend to Russian wishes. These complaints came from both Russian and foreign sources. They caused bad blood between Hartwig and Sazonov.21 The success of the Balkan coalition against the Ottoman Empire threatened to disturb the European peace as Austria-Hungary placed armies at its southern borders and reinforced the Galician garrisons.22 McMeekin suggests that it was only Kaiser Wilhelm II’s position of “free fight and no favor”—even as its client state, the Ottoman Empire, was threatened with dismemberment— that prevented Austria-Hungary from entering the fray.23 Lieven also notes that Bethmann Hollweg counseled restraint on the part of the Habsburg Monarchy and that taking on the combined forces of the Triple Entente would be, at that time, “extremely stupid.”24 McMeekin maintains that it was the Habsburg’s passivity in this conflict, even as Serbia threated to gain a foothold on the Adriatic coast, “that convinced Russian policymakers of Austria-Hungary’s strategic impotence.”25 More interesting is the revelation that the other Great Power ready to mobilize during the Balkan war was Russia. War Minister Sukhomlinov proposed a “ ‘partial’ mobilization of the military districts of Warsaw (that is Russian Poland targeting Austrian Galicia), Kiev (Russian Ukraine targeting the same) and Odessa, from which an amphibious assault operation on Constantinople might be launched.”26 Tsar Nicholas II had initially consented to this proposition but asked for a delay in order to consult with Prime Minister Kokovtsov and Sazonov. Nicholas II presented the measures as “precautionary,” but “Kokovtzov responded that ‘no matter what we chose to call the projected measures, a mobilization remained a mobilization, to be countered by our adversaries with actual war.’ ”27This was almost identical to a partial mobilization plan against Austria-Hungary that was proposed in July 1914, to mobilize against Austria alone so as not to alarm Germany. Both the 1912 and 1914 plans for partial mobilization were rejected. McMeekin notes that the 1912 proposal was rejected because such a mobilization would lead to a general Austrian mobilization to be followed by German mobilization and thus a European war. For McMeekin, this is a sharp contrast to 1914 when the partial mobilization was rejected because it would not allow Russia to keep its mobilization timetable against Germany.28 Thus, in 1912, partial mobilization was rejected because Russia did not want a European war, whereas in 1914, it was rejected because Russia expected, perhaps even wanted, a European war. The decision to reject military action in 1912 becomes all the more interesting when one factors in how Russia’s Entente partners reacted to the possibility of an armed response by Russia to an Austrian attack on Serbia. To no surprise, Clark notes that Great Britain was noncommittal, with Grey refusing to answer a hypothetical question. Poincaré, on the other hand, was unequivocal, noting

94  Russia that France would support Russia in an Austro-Serbian conflict. After the war, Poincaré would deny having made such statements of assurance. Izvolsky alone would not be enough to verify this claim, but Clark notes that a couple of days later, Poincaré reiterated his position with the Italian ambassador in Paris.29 Poincaré’s support at the time would be consistent with the position that he had outlined earlier in the year to St. Petersburg: that an incident in the Balkans could serve as a casus foederis. Nevertheless, Sazonov chose to avoid armed conflict.30 What makes the 1912 episode so revealing is that it occurred at a time when Russia’s Balkan clients were clearing the table. Russia was interested in stopping Bulgaria, and its “Tsar” Ferdinand, from marching all the way to Constantinople. Ferdinand supposedly had a full Byzantine emperor’s regalia made to order for him to wear if such an opportunity arose.31 Russia’s mobilization plan was to prevent Bulgaria from taking control of Constantinople. During the Second Balkan War, Russia did not support Bulgaria. Ambassador Giers worried that Bulgaria would try to seize Constantinople. Bobroff writes, “Sazonov shared this fear and emphasized that Russia would not be dragged into war by a small power; if the Bulgarians took it upon themselves to try for Constantinople, Russia would endeavor to stop them at Adrianople. ‘Russia would be obliged,’ Sazonov said, ‘to warn them off . . . though she had no desire to establish herself at Constantinople, she could not allow any other Power to take possession of it.’ ”32 Bobroff outlines Sazonov’s position as “Constantinople must remain Turkish as long as Russia cannot control the process of change.”33 This confirmation supports D.W. Spring’s suggestion that Sazonov’s call to limit Bulgarian aspirations was due to the fact that “the Russian army was ‘unready’, not for war, but to enable Russia’s full weight to be felt in the international disputes.”34 In Roads to Glory, Bobroff’s third chapter is called “The Balkan Wars: Choosing Between the Balkan States and the Straits, 1912–1913.” It seems clear that Sazonov chose the Straits. The Liman von Sanders Affair provides an interesting insight into Russia’s view of the international situation. As part of improving relations between the Ottoman government and Germany, the former requested that Berlin provide a military mission to help organize and train its army. In the fall of 1913, General Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders and a detachment of 40 officers were sent to Turkey. The arrangement was not unusual; in fact, Russia’s ally Britain had a similar understanding to help upgrade the Turkish navy, but the announcement that Liman von Sanders would command the army corps in charge of defending the Straits caused consternation in Russia, and Sazonov’s demands raised the situation to a crisis level.35 To ease the international tensions, Berlin agreed to promote Liman von Sanders to full general, which would disqualify him from commanding a single army corps. The move was largely a face-saving maneuver, but it was still a Russian victory. Bobroff notes that Liman von Sanders had upset Sazonov to the extent that he contemplated occupying the Turkish Black Sea port of Trabzon or the town of Bayezid in Eastern Anatolia

Russia  95 in retaliation.36 A February 1914 meeting of Russia’s council of ministers concluded that Russia’s current infrastructure did not make such an operation feasible. Reynolds observes that one outcome of this meeting was that the “army, navy, and ministries of finance, trade, and industry would work together to solve the transport problem, achieve naval supremacy, and increase the number of men and artillery assigned to amphibious operations.”37 Until this could occur, St. Petersburg’s task was to avoid a European war and try to prevent the Ottomans from improving their own navy. To accomplish the latter task, Russia had to stop the Ottoman Empire from acquiring the Dreadnoughts that it had ordered from Britain or were trying to purchase from other nations. The Council of Ministers’ meeting also concluded that the optimal time to seize the Straits would be during a general European war.38

The role of Sazonov Crucial in understanding Russia’s role in the Great War is the part that Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazonov played in charting Russian foreign policy during the July Crisis. Positions vary wildly on how Sazonov handled events. Reflecting the perspective from the Franco-Russian relationship, Otte writes that “the French president sought to stiffen what he considered to be Russia’s flaccid stance in the face of a likely Austro-Hungarian move against Serbia” and claims that Sazonov “plagued by doubts . . . had failed to communicate a consistent line to other Powers, most significantly, Austria-Hungary and Germany.”39 McMeekin would agree that Sazonov presented a different face to different officials but would argue that it was intentional and part of an effort to create the most favorable situation for Russian interests. Sazonov’s contemporaries and later historians agree that in the summer of 1910, Sazonov was not necessarily the obvious choice to succeed Alexander Izvolsky, who had never fully recovered from the mishandling of Austria-­ Hungary’s 1908 annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.40 Sazonov and Finance Minister V.N. Kokovtsov maintained in their memoirs that Izvolsky selected Sazonov to be assistant foreign minister in 1909 based on the work that they had done together during Izvolsky’s stint at the Vatican. Critics of Prime Minister Petr Stolypin’s policies suggested that nepotism was a prime factor—Sazonov was Stolypin’s brother-in-law—and that Sazonov was not likely to challenge the prime minister and interior minister’s desire to have foreign affairs serve the interests of his domestic agenda. Kokovtsov also suggested in his memoir that Izvolsky picked Sazonov to please Stolypin.41 After Stolypin’s assassination in 1911, Sazonov would have more autonomy, but he largely continued the line set by Stolypin and was limited only by the tsar.42 Lieven concludes, “In most respects, the foreign policy pursued by Sergei Sazonov in 1910–14 was a moderate version of the old ‘country’ strategy. It perceived Germany and Austria as Russia’s key rivals, reflected Slavophile sympathies for the Balkan peoples, and stressed the overriding priority of the Straits for Russian foreign policy.”43 Bobroff notes that Tsar Nicholas II “played a relatively minor role

96  Russia in setting policy.”44 Lieven also concludes that by January  1914, Sazonov’s authority on foreign policy was unchallenged.45 The role of Sazonov’s Slavophile sympathies is worth consideration. McMeekin is unequivocal in claiming that for all of Sazonov’s pan-Slavic utterances, he was more than willing to throw his Slavic little brothers to the side if their desires interfered with Russian national interests, and he would point to Russia’s willingness to mobilize to stop Bulgaria from reaching ­Constantinople—a point that Lieven and Bobroff also recognize and that supports McMeekin’s position. Lieven, however, considers Sazonov’s pan-­ Slavism to be deeply felt, arguing that “Sazonov saw the Treaty of Bucharest as a disaster for the Slav and Russian cause and worked hard to revise it in Bulgaria’s favor.”46 Bobroff came to a different conclusion: “Sazonov could not allow Bulgaria, with the losses it sustained from the Treaty of Bucharest, to become even smaller than it was before the war. Bulgaria might give in for the moment, but as soon as it had recovered strength, it would seek a new war, bring new instability to Europe, and new danger at the Straits.”47 Bobroff appears to agree with the assessment of Britain’s ambassador to Russia, George Buchanan, who believed that Sazonov was making noise to protect Russia’s prestige and Europe’s.48 Sazonov’s actions suggest that he was sympathetic to pan-Slavism and would support a pan-Slav agenda when it was in Russia’s interest. But if it went against Russia’s interest, then he would oppose it, with force if ­necessary—as the plans to stop Ferdinand of Bulgaria demonstrated. Only two European Great Powers had a direct interest in the Balkans: ­Austria-Hungary and Russia. But neither had direct territorial ambitions there. Austria-Hungary was the only European Great Power whose interest was focused solely on the Balkans, the only region where the declining power had any realistic possibility of maintaining or expanding its influence. Here it is worth repeating that Austria-Hungary did not plan to annex Serbia.49 The multiethnic Habsburg Empire did not need to add more Slavs to its ethnic mix. Austria-Hungary’s threat to Russia existed on what Lieven would identify as the intermediate level. It was not a military threat but a political one. Austria-Hungary’s system of government was trending towards the federal, with ethnic minorities gaining more rights and autonomy. The Magyars had forced the issue in 1867, creating the Dual Monarchy. Czech nationalism was gaining momentum, and Russian officials were deeply concerned about Ruthenians (Ukrainians) in Austrian Galicia gaining similar freedoms, which might encourage political dissent among their ethnic brethren across the border in Russia. Lieven notes that “by 1914 Austrian Galicia was the center of Ukrainian nationalism.”50 Austrian authorities did not put constraints on the evolution of national identities within its multiethnic empire. T.G. Otte notes that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was likely to encourage this trend, noting “the Archduke’s well-known preference for solving the Monarchy’s nationality problems by offering its Southern Slav subjects major concessions.”51 Austria-Hungary did not pose a military threat to Russia. But its mere existence did present a political challenge. While Russia was trying to homogenize Belarusians and

Russia  97 Ukrainians as Russians, Austria-Hungary was allowing Ukrainian culture to evolve as a separate entity.52 In the Balkans, the main problem was how to maintain stability in the wake of the retreat of the Ottoman Empire. Lieven suggests that while Russia supported a Serb-Bulgarian agreement as a check to Austria-Hungary’s ambitions in the peninsula, neither Great Power wanted a Serb-Bulgarian alliance to disturb the status quo in the Balkans.53 Here, it is worth noting that Lieven and McMeekin fundamentally agree that Russia had a long-standing interest in unfettered use of the Straits.54 This interest intensified after Russian imperialism in the Far East was halted by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, a conflict that the Russian Black Sea fleet could not participate in precisely because of the lack of free passage through the Straits. Recall the 1908 agreement that resulted in the annexation of ­Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Dual Monarchy. Alexander Izvolsky, Russia’s foreign minister at that time, was willing to permit the bondage of Russia’s Slavic kin in exchange for Habsburg support for Russian access through the Straits. Austria-Hungary’s quick announcement of the annexation before Russia was able to secure its part of the arrangement led to greater enmity between the two powers and contributed to Izvolsky’s downfall.55 McMeekin also uncovers diplomatic correspondence revealing that the Russian Foreign Office did not have a particular fondness for Serbia or its territorial ambitions. For all of Sazonov’s pan-Slavic utterances, the Russian foreign minister demonstrated that Russian national interests trumped the desires of Russia’s Slavic kin. McMeekin argues that more than any other Great Power, Russia was anxious for a war and felt that the summer of 1914 was perhaps their best opportunity for two reasons: First, Russia was confident of its military position vis-à-vis the Central Powers. Russian officials were certain that if they could mobilize early enough, then they would be at an advantage and were convinced of French support. Second, the Ottoman Empire was upgrading its navy and defense forces, including purchasing two Dreadnought class ships from Great Britain.56 McMeekin points out that Russian diplomats had tried unsuccessfully to prevent the British from providing the Ottoman Empire with these ships.57 In his second book, July 1914, McMeekin turns to the fateful five weeks between the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie and the outbreak of the war. This is a detailed account that deserves close attention. An important point in this account is the coordination of planning between Russia and France. This planning deserves more attention and should cause a fundamental revision of our understanding of the war. The role of the French in the July Crisis has often been minimized, even though Poincaré was in Russia when Russian officials learned about the Austrian ultimatum. In his popular history about the Russian Imperial Army and the Great War, Rutherford Ward noted: Another matter touched upon, albeit fleetingly, was an occurrence in Austria’s recently annexed province of Bosnia: the murder of the heir to the

98  Russia throne of the Dual Monarchy, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his morganatic wife. While both deplored Austria’s attempt to hold Serbia responsible for the crime, they agreed that the death of a single couple, even when one was heir to an imperial throne, was not sufficient to ­disturb—much less imperil—the new climate of confidence. Germany, they considered, could only be bluffing in supporting the Austrian démarche against Serbia.58 More academic histories do not fare much better. As noted earlier, Martin Gilbert’s “complete history” of the First World War does not even mention that French president Poincaré visited St. Petersburg to meet with Tsar Nicholas II and his ministers in late July  1914. Even more recent scholarship, such as T.G. Otte’s July Crisis, characterizes French diplomacy during the July Crisis as “largely reactive.”59 For reasons that are not readily apparent, Lieven does not provide any meaningful discussion of this visit either. In fact, there is only a photo of Poincaré visiting Russia.60 But Lieven does concede that when Poincaré came into power, there was a notable shift: “In 1908–09, Paris had made it clear that it would offer no military support to Petersburg if Austria invaded Serbia. By 1912, France had reversed this decision and in the crisis of July 1914 held firm to this policy and entered World War I as a result.”61 Lieven writes, “From the beginning of the Balkan Wars in the autumn of 1912 down to July 1914, confidence that France would back Russia if conflict in the Balkans led to a European war was a crucial factor in Russian foreign policy in general and specifically as regards Petersburg’s willingness to stand up stoutly in defense of its Serbian client.”62 He also observes that this Franco-Russian alliance was not merely a defensive one: “Between 1906 and 1912, the members of the French General Staff got little joy out of discussions with their Russian counterparts about planning for war. Matters then changed, beginning in 1911 and decisively from 1912. This reflected the rebirth of Russian military power and the overall tightening of the Franco-Russian alliance. Russian thinking became more confident and more committed to an initial offensive against Germany as well as Austria.”63 McMeekin demonstrates that Sazonov knew of the Austrian plan to issue an ultimatum (even if he did not know the exact content) before Poincaré arrived for his visit in July.64 The idea that the French president and Russian tsar and their respective foreign ministers did not discuss this topic is simply implausible. As D.W. Spring writes, “Poincaré had only just left St. Petersburg on 23 July. Strong rumours were already circulating in the press about a forthcoming ultimatum from Austria, and it is inconceivable in these circumstances that Poincaré and Sazonov in their final discussions did not come to some degree of understanding on what their response should be.”65 Certainly, Maurice Paléologue’s support of Sazonov during the last days of July strongly suggests that the French and Russian governments were on the same page regarding how to handle the crisis.66 McMeekin notes that the Russians had broken Austria’s encryptions, and Berchtold’s attempts to keep Austria’s intentions secret were not successful.

Russia  99 Count Heinrich von Lützow, a retired Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Italy, had learned of Berchtold’s intentions on 13 July; two days later, he passed on this information, apparently rather offhandedly, to Sir Maurice de Bunsen, British ambassador to Vienna, who reported the information to Grey the next day, 16 July. Bunsen also passed on the information to Nikolai Shebeko, Russia’s ambassador to Austria, who forwarded the information about the ultimatum to Sazonov.67 Later, Sazonov told Germany’s ambassador Count Pourtalès that there must be no ultimatum from Austria to Serbia (after he knew that was the intention of Austria-Hungary). He also told Buchanan on 18 July that “anything in the shape of an ultimatum at Belgrade could not leave Russia indifferent, and that she might be forced to take some precautionary military measures.”68 Thus, McMeekin concludes that Sazonov’s famous response on the morning of 24 July, “C’est la Guerre Européenne,” was not a result of surprise about the ultimatum that he had known about for a week but rather a declaration of intent.69 War was not unavoidable; it was desired, and Russia was transferring monies out of Berlin to Paris and St. Petersburg—a standard war preparation. But later that day, when meeting with British ambassador George Buchanan and French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, Sazonov was asked directly by Buchanan if Russia would get involved in the event that Austria attacked Serbia, and Sazonov hedged (even though he knew the answer). Paléologue, who was aware of Russia’s plans, rejected any idea of pressuring Austria to extend the deadline of the ultimatum.70 The role of France and unequivocal French support for Russia’s decision making is an important factor and one omitted factor in Lieven’s account. How Lieven cannot even discuss any of this in his book is difficult to explain. The desire to write a book where the Russian perspective is at the center is laudable and an important corrective in the Anglophone historiography. It is fine for Russia to play the lead, but to ignore—not minimize, ignore—the potential consequences of the French visit to Petersburg in July of 1914 results in a distorted view of events. One of the oldest causes of the Great War that almost all historians agree upon is the alliance system that bound nations to their allies. Russia and France were bound together and obligated by the treaty (unless attacked) to discuss military measures in advance. At the God’s eye, intermediate, and worm’s eye levels in Lieven’s work, there is precious little discussion of France, its actors, or its interests. In fact, his chapter on the July Crisis does not even mention that Poincaré visited Russia. It is understandable that Lieven is consciously writing a book that he calls Russian centered, but to exclude this important information calls into question how he analyzes the situation. The Franco-Russian Entente was a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy. There is no conceivable scenario regarding an international situation that could lead to war where Russia, or any nation, would not consult its allies or consider what their actions would be. It is on this point that I think Lieven’s interpretation of events ultimately falls. Lieven and McMeekin see eye to eye on a great deal of perspectives. They both agree that the single greatest concern was access through the Straits; in its

100  Russia strongest form, this included the acquisition of Tsargrad, also known as Constantinople. They even agree that Russia stopped Bulgarian advances in the First Balkan War because they did not want “Tsar” Ferdinand to march into Constantinople. They are of the same mind that the Balkan wars revealed Austria’s declining power. They also subscribe to the opinion that Germany did not have any territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe.71 They also concur about the political views of many of the major players in the Russian government—most notably Nicholas II, Izvolsky, and Sazonov. They also agree that while Sazonov was not the most dynamic of individuals, by January 1914, there was no one in the Russian cabinet who could successfully challenge him on foreign policy.72 An important point where they differ is on Russian mobilization. Here it appears that Lieven tries to minimize Russian actions and make them appear defensive, whereas McMeekin asserts that they were aggressive. One needs to remember that even before the Austrian ultimatum expired on midnight of 25 July, the tsar had signed the premobilization order “Period Preparatory to War in All Lands of the Empire,” and these activities were kept secret. McMeekin writes, “The general mobilization the Russian high command had thus decided on by 28 July—more than three days before Germany even began its pre-­mobilization—was for “a war with a coalition” (“variant 4”), in which the participation of both Britain and France was assured, and in which—as Yanushkevitch revealingly wired to Tiflis on 29 July 1914—‘Turkey does not at first take part.’ ”73 Lieven, on the other hand, argues that because the red mobilization posters were not up in St. Petersburg or Moscow, that meant that reservists had not been called up, nor had troops been moved to the border districts. He notes, “As late as 4 p.m. on 29 July the German General Staff itself reported that no significant reservists had yet been recalled in the Vilna or Petersburg districts, a statement that further undermines the argument that the measures taken by Russia under the period preparatory to war played a major role in alarming Berlin or bringing on the conflict.”74 What Lieven’s remark does not consider is the fact that that the German General Staff did not have evidence does not mean that nothing was happening. In fact, General Laguiche, the French liaison officer at Russian military headquarters, reported to the War Ministry in Paris at 1:55 p.m. on July 26: Yesterday at Krasnoe Selo the war minister confirmed to me the mobilization of the army corps of military districts Kiev, Odessa, Kazan and Moscow. The endeavor is to avoid any measure likely to be regarded as directed against Germany, but nevertheless the military districts of Warsaw, Vilna and St. Petersburg are secretly making preparations. The cities and governments of St. Petersburg and Moscow are declared to be under martial law. . . . The minister of war has reiterated to us his determination to leave Germany the eventual initiative of an attack on Russia.75 McMeekin points out that even partial mobilization had to involve the railroad hub in Warsaw—an activity that could not leave the Germans indifferent.

Russia 101 Within an hour of learning officially of the Austrian ultimatum, Sazanov had “instructed Nikolai Yanushkevitch, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, to make ‘all arrangements for putting the army on a war footing,’ in order to have a partial mobilization plan written up and ready in time for the meeting of the Council of Ministers planned for 3PM that afternoon.”76 McMeekin contends that Sazonov was borrowing War Minister Sukhomlinov’s partial mobilization plan that was discussed at the senior ministerial level during the First Balkan War in November 1912. In fact, such an order was “folly,” as the chief of the Russian army’s mobilization section, General Sergei Dobrorolskii, told his boss Yanushkevitch between 11AM and noon, just minutes after the latter had promised that it was feasible to Sazonov—impossible both in the general sense, in that Plan 19 required mobilization against Germany and Austria simultaneously with no variant separating the two, and in more specific sense that it was physically impossible to mobilize against the Austrian border without extensively using the Warsaw railway hub, which would inevitably alarm the Germans.77 Luigi Albertini has argued that if Yanushkevitch had told Sazonov that such a plan was impossible, then the foreign minister would never have got the Council of Ministers on 24 July and the tsar on 25 July to approve in principle, nor would he have proclaimed it on the evening of 28 July with incalculable consequences. If he had been asked to choose between no mobilization and general mobilization against the Central Powers, Sazonov would have hesitated to plunge headlong into the venture, whereas believing that he could threaten Austria without provoking Germany, he found out too late that this could not be done.78 McMeekin does not believe that either Sazonov or Yanushkevitch was ignorant or incompetent. He maintains that Sazonov’s partial mobilization plan was an intentional gambit to plunge Russia into war. McMeekin reminds the reader that Sazonov had been at the ministerial council meeting held at Tsarskoe Selo on 23 November 1912 when Kokovtsov had argued that partial mobilization would force Austria into a general mobilization and lead to a general European war and that Russia would not want to do such thing without consulting France first.79 McMeekin argues that this time they had consulted with France first; in fact, Poincaré had just left Petersburg the day before. France had given Russia its support for “whatever counter-measures Sazonov might order to Vienna’s ultimatum.”80 McMeekin posits that Sazonov had his blank cheque, and without Kokovtsov to counter him, he was going to cash it. To support this interpretation, McMeekin points to Petr Bark’s conversation with Baron Schilling, Sazonov’s chief of staff, who said that, “Sazonov considered war unavoidable.”81 McMeekin points to the fact that Sazonov ordered the transfer of Russian Treasury deposits to Paris and St. Petersburg—an amount of some 100 million rubles.82 This order was given before the Council of Ministers

102  Russia met in the afternoon of 24 July. McMeekin asserts, “These actions—clearing the financial decks for war, and mobilizing the army by stages—constituted together three of the five resolutions passed by the council that afternoon.”83 The five resolutions called for (1) more time on the ultimatum, (2) Serbian restraint, (3) a partial mobilization, (4) stockpiling war materials, and (5) repatriating funds from enemy countries (what Sazonov asked Bark to do). McMeekin contends that if Russia was not planning for (and not even wanting war), why was the mobilization done in secret?84 If Russia wanted to prevent war, would not a public show of force in the form of mobilization demonstrate that Russia would indeed not be indifferent to the fate of Serbia and would get involved? This might encourage Germany to temper Austrian actions and to counsel restraint. If the main issue was Serbian independence, then why did Russia mobilize the fleets on the Baltic and Black Seas (nowhere near Serbia or Austria-Hungary) in addition to 13 entire army corps? Why was the military district of Odessa mobilized along with Kazan, Kiev, and Moscow? McMeekin points out that all of this was not even made public until 28 July. He contends that Sazonov must have privately instructed Yanushkevitch to take further steps, noting that Petersburg and Warsaw were also put under martial law and that “Yanushkevitch wired Warsaw that the morrow (26 July 1914) would mark ‘the beginning of the “Period Preparatory to War” in the entire region of European Russia,’ covering all six of the main military districts—Warsaw, Vilna (Vilnius, i.e. the Baltic are), Kazan, Kiev Moscow and Odessa.”85 McMeekin argues that early secret mobilization was consistent with the understanding of Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian General Staff. McMeekin quotes a report to Sukhomlinov from 21 November 1912, before the war minister drew orders for a partial mobilization against Austria alone that stated “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.”86 He continues noting that the official language in “Regulation Concerning the Period Preparatory to War” that Nicholas II signed into law in March 1913 was nearly identical and included the calling up of reserves to frontier divisions, which occurred on 26 July. Ultimately, McMeekin argues that the “Period Preparatory to War” looks like mobilization and effectively is so, no matter what it is called. To support this position, McMeekin points to a diary entry from Maurice Paléologue, “At seven o’clock this evening [25 July] I went to Warsaw station to say goodbye to Izvolsky who is returning to his post [Paris] in hot haste. There was a great bustle on the platforms. The trains were packed with officers and men. This looked like mobilization. We rapidly exchanged impressions and came to the same conclusion: ‘It’s war this time.’ . . . The cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow have been declared in a state of siege.”87 For McMeekin, there is no doubt that by 25 July, Russia was preparing for war. Lieven, of course, has a different view. He acknowledges that “the mobilization of the Kiev, Odessa, Moscow and Kazan military districts was a far more serious threat than the measures undertaken within the remit of the period preparatory to war.”88 But nevertheless, he continues, “In reality, things were

Russia  103 not as alarming as they seemed to the Germans. So long as the Petersburg and Warsaw military districts were not mobilized, Russian preparations for war against Germany could not go very far.”89 The question of what was happening in the Warsaw military district at this time is of paramount importance. Lieven will argue that as long as the Warsaw and Petersburg districts were not mobilizing, Germany had little cause for concern. But the real question to consider is how Warsaw could not be included in the initial military preparations. If a partial mobilization was feasible, then Warsaw had to be included in order to defend itself from Austrian Galicia. If partial mobilization was not a viable option for Russian military planners, then full mobilization would, of course, include Warsaw. Either way, there is no military scenario that does not involve military preparations in the Warsaw district. Eyewitness accounts from various officials in Warsaw at the time, including the French ambassador to Russia, conclude that there was something going on in Warsaw that was akin to mobilization, even if it was not called by that name. Lieven’s claim that things were not as alarming as it seemed to the Germans misses the point on two fronts: First, it does matter how things appear to the Germans because they need to react to changing conditions. Second, the Warsaw district was preparing for war. Sazonov himself understood that German leaders could not be indifferent to the activities in Warsaw. He had made the same argument in 1912 to argue against partial mobilization. Accounts of Sazonov’s actions during the last week of July vary widely and appear more to depend upon whom he was speaking with and what that individual was most concerned about regarding the crisis at hand. His meetings with the various players in this drama leave historians with differing conclusions.90 Otte opines, “Doubts about Russia’s willingness to aid Serbia against Austria-Hungary were by no means without foundation.”91 Yet Otte can also conclude that Sazonov’s first meeting with the Serbian envoy Spalajkovic left no doubt in the latter’s mind where Sazonov and Russia stood and would be “instructive” in understanding Russia’s position and how Serbia would fashion in its response to the ultimatum. Sazonov understood that no sovereign state could accept the terms of the démarche and that Belgrade could count on Russian support.92 He urged for moderation from Serbia and to appeal to the Great Powers for assistance. When Szapáry provided Sazonov with a copy of the note—this would be the first time that Sazonov actually saw the final content of the démarche/ultimatum that he knew Austria-Hungary was going to send— he accused Austria-Hungary of wanting war and of setting Europe on fire. Otte continues, “If the Habsburg ambassador found Sazonov hostile, the Russian foreign minister’s firm response had no effect on Vienna. The Ballhausplatz continued to conduct diplomacy by dissimulation.”93 The evidence suggests that the charge of dissimulation could be leveled at Sazonov as well. Sazonov was not forthcoming with his adversaries or his allies. Sazonov told the German ambassador Pourtalès and Major Eggeling, the German military attaché, that no mobilization order had been given, and the later was assured (on 26 July) by Sukhomlinov “that not a horse was being requisitioned, not a

104  Russia reservist called up.”94 In his meeting with Paléologue and Buchanan on 25 July, the day after the Council of Ministers had recommended partial mobilization and the day that Tsar Nicholas II would issue the order, Sazonov “discussed only the decision ‘in principle’ to mobilize the four military districts against Austria (and even here, the Russian neglected to mention that the Baltic and Black Sea fleets would be mobilized as well). Sazonov, Buchanan reported to Foreign Secretary Grey, insisted that the ukase “ordering the mobilization of 1.1 million men” would “only be published when Minister for Foreign Affairs [Sazonov] considers moment come for giving effect to it.”95 When Buchanan expressed the desire that Russia not mobilize until Britain had time to use its influence to pursue peace, Sazonov promised that Russia had no aggressive intentions. But the Russian minister also noted, with Paléologue’s support, that “necessary preliminary preparations for mobilization would, however, begin at once.”96 Buchanan did not enquire as to what form those preparations might take, and Sazonov did not offer further information. The British ambassador did warn Russia that Germany would react to Russian actions. Here Buchanan correctly concludes his report to Grey that the situation was “perilous” because Russia was sure of French support and that Britain would have to choose between supporting Russia and “renouncing our friendship.”97 This insight on the part of Buchanan was not followed up with any discernable action on the ambassador’s part. McMeekin notes, harshly, “By Tuesday, 28 July, Russia’s preliminary mobilization was so far advanced that only the willfully ignorant, like Britain’s ambassador Sir George Buchanan, failed to notice it.”98 Such a damning indictment appears warranted when later that afternoon around 3:00 p.m., before either Buchanan or Sazonov had learned of Austria’s declaration of war, Buchanan was still pushing Grey’s desire to mediate between Russia and Austria, and Sazonov responded that no Austrian promise to respect Serbia’s independence or integrity would satisfy Russia, but that “the order for [Russian] mobilization against Austria would be given on the day that the Austrian army crossed the Serbian frontier.”99 Buchanan urged Sazonov not to take any military actions that might alarm Germany, unaware that such actions had already begun on 25 July, three days earlier. McMeekin, again rightly in my view, notes that Sazonov and Paléologue were evasive about Russia’s military maneuvers precisely to manipulate English public opinion so that when war broke out, it would favor Russia by painting Germany as the aggressor. Otte makes an important point when he notes: The furtive nature of Russia’s military preparations after 25 July meant that the perceptions of the other Powers were now more important than the official pronouncements of St.  Petersburg. What mattered was not so much what measures the Russian authorities were implementing, but rather what the other Powers thought these measures to be.100 Far from misunderstanding British policy, as Otte asserts in his work, it appears that Sazonov knew what he was doing and led Britain, with French assistance,

Russia 105 throughout the crisis, to the point where Britain had to act.101 It is hard to not come to the conclusion that Otte has it exactly backwards. Otte’s contention that “the military preparations, then ought to be seen as part of Russia’s diplomatic moves rather than a deliberate move towards war, itself an incalculable risk for the Russian Empire, especially, as the statements by Krivoshein and Bark made clear,”102 inverts the relationship between military preparations and diplomacy dictated in the 1913 Russian order. The Period Preparatory to War was “a period of diplomatic complications, which precede the opening of military operations, and during which all departments must take the necessary measures for preparing and ensuring the success of the mobilization of the army, navy, and fortresses and the deployment of the army along the threatened frontier.”103 It seems reasonable, based on the extant evidence, that this is what Sazonov did. Sazonov gave Buchanan, and by extension Grey, the appearance of restraint while preparing for military action, which would be inevitable once Russia’s preparations became public knowledge. The Serbian crisis provided both Russia and France with an opportunity to act in a way that could promote their immediate and long-term interests, albeit at a tremendous price. But neither nation had reason to believe that the price would lessen if the action were postponed. Neither Russia nor France truly cared about Serbian independence. Russia supported pan-Slavism when it suited its interests and put its foot down when its “little brothers” acted in an undesirable fashion, as the First Balkan War demonstrated. By the time of the First Balkan War, Russia had received France’s commitment for support in the event of a Balkan incident. But Russia did not take the opportunity in 1912. By 1914, increasing German influence in the declining Ottoman Empire and the strengthening of the Ottoman navy with the order of two British Dreadnoughts meant that if Russia wanted free passage through the Straits, it might have to strike now before it became too late. In this sense, Lieven has a point when he suggests that World War I is about the Ukraine. But whereas he is pointing to the Western Ukraine and Galicia, it might have been appropriate to include Odessa and the Black Sea. Russia would certainly neither be the first nation nor the last to use an international incident as a cover to achieve broader geopolitical goals. The preceding pages demonstrate that McMeekin’s positions are not as far out of the mainstream as some of his critics would suggest. He and Dominic Lieven, whose work is what many point to as the definitive work on Russia and the Great War, are not as far apart as McMeekin’s critics like to contend. Both agree that access through the Straits was Russia’s key strategic priority. Both agree that Russia was not interested in a change in the balance of power in the Balkans. The two differ on the level of Sazonov’s commitment to pan-Slavism. Whereas Lieven considers Sazonov to be a sincere supporter of Balkan Slavs, McMeekin is less convinced of the Russian foreign minister’s commitment to Slavic solidarity. There is nothing in McMeekin’s discussion of mobilization plans that contradicts conventional wisdom. Where he and Lieven (and his critics) disagree is about the significance of these actions.

106  Russia While Lieven suggests that Russia’s actions were not as threatening as Germany feared, McMeekin demonstrates that Russia’s actions, starting on 24 July, go far beyond the measures associated with the “Period Preparatory to War in All Lands of the Empire” as well as those of a partial mobilization directed solely at Austria-Hungary. Preparations directed only at the Habsburg Monarchy would not include the Baltic fleet and all of the European districts. What gets overlooked in discussions about whether or not a partial mobilization was even feasible is the fact that the actions taken during the preparatory period went far beyond the requirements needed for a partial mobilization. L.C.F. Turner posits that “the whole argument about partial and general mobilization is largely irrelevant.”104 He suggests that the crucial Russian decisions taken on 25 July went beyond the authorization of partial mobilization and concludes, “It seems difficult to dispute that Russian general mobilization did in fact begin on 26 July, with full knowledge and tacit approval of the French ambassador and French military attaché, and that Paris was kept fully informed of this development.”105 A question raised here was whether or not Russia misled France and Great Britain during the July Crisis or if the French ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paléologue, took a path that was not in accord with his instructions, thereby offering more French support than the French government was willing to provide. It seems clear that Sazonov was not always forthcoming about Russia’s intentions with the British ambassador, George Buchanan. But McMeekin’s work certainly suggests (and Turner agrees) with regard to France that the answer is in the negative in both cases. It is now time to turn to France and the work of Stefan Schmidt.

Notes 1 Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2011), 5. 2 John W. Steinberg, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” Slavic Review 72:1 (Spring 2013): 170–171. 3 Lucien J. Frary, “Review of McMeekin, Sean, The Russian Origins of the First World War,” H-Russia, H-Net Reviews (February 2012). www.h-net.org/reviews/ showrev.php?id=34716. 4 See Laurie Stoff, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” Journal of World History 24:3 (September 2013): 719–721; Matthew Rendle, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” First World War Studies 5:3 (November 2014): 340–342. 5 Steinberg, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” 171; Rendle, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” 341. 6 Rendle, “Review of The Russian Origins of the First World War,” 341. 7 David Schmimmelpenninck van der Oye, “Getting to Know the Unknown War,” The Russian Review 75 (October 2016): 689. 8 Schmimmelpenninck van der Oye, “Getting to Know the Unknown War,” 684–685. 9 For reasons not clear to David Schmimmelpenninck van der Oye or myself, the American version of Lieven’s book is called The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution. The American version will be cited here.

Russia  107 10 11 12 13

14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29

Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 2. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 12–13. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 323. Russia rejected a British proposal to internationalize Constantinople and neutralize the Straits during the First Balkan War because it did not have sufficient guarantees to protect Russian interests. See Ronald P. Bobroff, Roads to Glory: Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 55. Michael A. Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 35–36 also notes Russia’s rejection of internationalizing the Straits. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 29; Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 32–34. Bobroff notes the economic impact but argues that Sazonov was indifferent to it, resisting calls to pressure Italy to not attack the Dardanelles again. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 45. Sazonov’s concern about the Straits closing during the First Balkan War suggests that he was not as completely indifferent to economic consequences as his conduct during the Italo-Turkish War might have suggested. Michael Reyonlds also notes, “The impact [of the closure] upon Russia was severe: Russian grain exports for the first half of 1912 fell 45 percent from the same period in 1911, an unacceptable situation given that the export of grain from the Black Sea was absolutely essential to Russia’s own drive to industrialize and match its rivals.” Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 33. Reynolds writes, “The Russian Naval Ministry drafted a plan to build up the Black Sea Fleet calculating that Britain and France would in the event of a fait accompli acquiesce to Russian control of the Straits, the planners underlined the need for good relations with Greece. Russia between 1915 and 1918 was to concentrate both its Baltic and Black Sea Fleets in the Aegean by making use of Greek ports. Then at the appropriate time, predicting to be between 1917 and 1919, Russia was to strike and seize the Bosphorus and Dardenelles. Russia’s ministers gave the plan their unanimous endorsement.” Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 36. Ronald Bobroff, “Behind the Balkan Wars: Russian Policy Towards Bulgaria and the Turkish Straits, 1912–13,” Russian Review 59:1 (2000): 79. Lieven also mentions this plan, The End of Tsarist Russia, 73. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 23. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 250. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 259. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 260. Bobroff calls Hartwig “a rabid pan-Slav and rival for the foreign minister’s post. From 1912 on, Hartwig repeatedly pushed Serbia toward a more aggressive foreign policy than it might have taken on its own or that the Foreign Ministry desired.” Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 25. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24; Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 261. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 262. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24. Quoted in L.C.F. Turner, “The Russian Mobilisation in 1914,” in The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880–1914, ed. Paul Kennedy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), 255. Turner notes that after the tsar left, Sazonov scolded Sukhomlinov for his actions and the later retorted: “We shall have war anyway; we cannot avoid it and it would be more profitable for us to begin it as soon as possible” (quoted in Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 255). McMeekin, Russian Origins, 24–25. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 298–299. Williamson suggests that France and Britain had a moderating effect on Russian actions during the crisis. Williamson, Austria-Hungary,

108  Russia

30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54

141. Turner concludes that while Poincaré did not discourage Russia from a “venturesome policy” in the Balkans, he did not say that France would support Russian mobilization in November 1912 (Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 256). One possible reason for this decision is that Sazonov had already committed to “a policy that protected both the Balkan states if Turkey won and Austria if the Balkan states won. If territorial changes were imminent, Europe was committed to intervene.” Williamson, Austria-Hungary, 126. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 25. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 44. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 44. D.W. Spring, “Russia and the Coming of War,” in The Coming of the First World War, eds. R.J.W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 70. Mulligan, Origins, 87. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 86. Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 41. Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 41. Otte, July Crisis, 222. Otte’s remark about Poincaré’s concern that Russia would not stand up to Austria-Hungary suggests that France supported a strong stand against the Habsburg Monarchy. If that is the case, then the contention that Paléologue had gone rogue and had set up an “ambassadorial dictatorship,” which led France passively into war, needs to be reassessed. This will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 29. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 13–15. Lieven notes Sazonov to be “under the thumb of Stolypin, who by no means coincidentally was his brother-in-law” (The End of Tsarist Russian, 108). Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 19. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 127. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 15. Lieven concludes that Nicholas backed Sazonov’s version of the “country” strategy. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 128. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 297. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 277. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 73. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, 73. See Chapter 3. It is worth reemphasizing a point that Paul W. Schroeder makes. Austria-Hungary goes to war to eliminate the threat that Serbia poses to it. What that exactly means when war breaks out is unclear to Austria-Hungary itself. What its leaders do understand is that the war will not eliminate Austria-Hungary’s main existential threat: Russia. Even a victorious war will not eliminate Russia. Schroeder notes that this differentiates Austria-Hungary from the other Great Powers. Schroeder writes, “Britain, France, and Russia expected a victorious war to eliminate the main threat to their security by reducing Germany’s power, and developed their war plans accordingly. German leaders, at least in their optimistic moments, expected military victory to make Germany dominant on the continent, ending the threat of encirclement and insecurity.” Schroeder, “Stealing Horses,” 20. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 56–57. Otte, July Crisis, 18. For a discussion of the nationality problem in Russia and the tension in AustroRussian relations caused by Austro-Hungarian cultural policies, see Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 51–58. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 249–251. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 71–73, 101, 127.

Russia  109 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

See Chapter 3 for further discussion of the 1908 Annexation Crisis. Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 31. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 38–39. Ward Rutherford, The Tsar’s War 1914–1917: The Story of the Imperial Russian Army in the First World War (Cambridge: Ian Faulkner Publishing, 1992), 4. Otte, July Crisis, 130. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 238. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 240. D.W. Spring confirms this position: “Poincaré has in 1912 accepted that the obligations of the alliance could be active by a change in the balance in the Balkans.” Spring, “Russian and the Coming of the War,” 72. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 240. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 157. McMeekin, July 1914, 126–130. Spring, “Russian and the Coming of the War,” 71; Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 72. Paléologue’s role during the July Crisis is a matter of some debate. See Chapter 6 for further discussion (see Otte, July Crisis, 240). McMeekin, July 1914, 126–127. Quoted in Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 260. McMeekin, July 1914, 176–177. McMeekin, July 1914, 182. In fact, Lieven notes that German leadership had restrained Austria in the Balkans. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 277. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 294. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 73. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 330. The endnote at the end of the quote is not enlightening. The reference to Russian mobilizations appears to be from earlier than 1914 (see n29, p. 413). Sean McMeekin, July 1914, 220. McMeekin, Origins, 54–55. McMeekin, Origins, 55. Albertini, Origins, 294. McMeekin discusses Albertini’s observation and L.C.F. Turner’s twist to Albertini’s argument that it would be to Russia’s advantage not to mobilize because Austria-Hungary would then be fully occupied with Serbia and thus vulnerable to Russia and the Entente. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 55–56. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 56. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 56. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 57. Otte, July Crisis, 232, confirms that Sazonov’s order to remove Russian funds from German banks occurred before the meeting. Otte, July Crisis, 232. Trachtenberg, “New Light on 1914?” 37–38. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 60. Otte also notes this, July Crisis, 241. McMeekin, Russian Origins, 61. Quoting Sidney Fay’s, Origins (McMeekin’s emphasis). McMeekin, Russian Origins, 62. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 333 (my emphasis). Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 333. For example, Szapáry thought Sazonov’s demeanor was “more one of depression rather than of violent excitement” (Otte, July Crisis, 231), while Pourtalès described him as “very excited” (Otte, July Crisis, 238). Otto, July Crisis, 231.

110  Russia 92 Otte, July Crisis, 238. What Sazonov does not reveal to the Serbian envoy is that the “energetic steps” that he alludes to had already begun. 93 Otte, July Crisis, 233. 94 McMeekin, Russian Origins, 64. See Trachtenberg, “New Light on 1914?” 38, n131; Albertini, Origins, 550; Turner, “Russia’s Mobilisation,” 263 for confirmation of Sukhomlinov’s deception. 95 McMeekin, July 1914, 194. 96 McMeekin, July 1914, 194–195. 97 McMeekin, July 1914, 195. 98 McMeekin, July 1914, 246. 99 McMeekin, July 1914, 247. 100 Otte, July Crisis, 246. 101 See Otte, July Crisis, 245 for the assertion that Sazonov’s attitude was “based on a profound misunderstanding of British policy.” 102 Otte, July Crisis, 245–246. 103 Otte, July Crisis, 245; McMeekin, Russian Origins, 61. 104 Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 261. 105 Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 262.

6 France The militarization of foreign policy

In all of the drama of July 1914, the French are treated in the historiography as rather passive, far more wrapped up in the trial of Mme Caillaux than focused on events in the Balkans. In their review of the literature, Williamson and May write: Assuming that the key decisions were made in Berlin, Vienna, or St.  Petersburg, most historians, from Fay’s day onward, treated France as a secondary actor in the July crisis. They focused chiefly on France’s endeavor to secure British assistance, its belated and unsuccessful attempt to restrain Russia, and efforts by French officials to ensure domestic unity if war came. This continues to be true.1 Max Hastings provides an example of the popular conception, writing that “few responsible historians suggest that the French desired a European war in 1914.”2 As already noted, the French role in the run-up to the war is so disregarded in the Anglophone historiography that Martin Gilbert’s magisterial The First World War: A Complete History does not even mention that French president Poincaré visits St. Petersburg to meet with Tsar Nicholas II and his ministers in late July  1914.3 The dominant view is still one that has France playing a secondary role in the decision-making processes that occurred during the course of the July Crisis. John Keiger concludes his France and the Origins of the First World War with the observation that “France more than any other power in July 1914 was following events rather than leading them. In the end the choices open to her leaders were narrowly limited.”4 In her overview of research on the role of France, Annika Mombauer cites the work of Keiger and Mark Hayne, noting that France had pursued an essentially defensive policy.5 In this vein if there is any French responsibility, it is laid at the feet of an ambassador who has gone rogue, Maurice Paléologue, who takes advantage of the isolation of President Poincaré and Prime Minister Viviani to set French policy as he deems appropriate. Albertini takes Paléologue to task for his actions during the July Crisis.6 Laurence Lafore writes, “He [Paléologue] was, for a time, making French policy toward Russia, and the policy he made was incitement to war.”7 Hayne claimed that Paléologue had

112  France established an “ambassadorial dictatorship” at St.  Petersburg and his active support of Sazonov and encouragement for Russia to take a belligerent attitude was an important factor in the outbreak of the war. “It is difficult to envisage St. Petersburg risking such a conflict without the support of Paléologue, who claimed to be acting in the name of France.”8 Keiger takes the indictment of Paléologue even further: “First, it is clear that Paléologue was acting independently of Paris. He certainly has a lot to answer for in overstepping his orders by encouraging Russia to take a firm line and especially for failing to keep Paris informed of her Ally’s actions. But that fact that he did this independently, and even contrary to orders from Paris, shows by the same token that France was not to blame.”9 In this context (to borrow Keiger’s phrase), “French leaders were literally and metaphorically at sea,” during the crucial period before the war.10 However, Williamson and May’s prediction that scholarship would continue to look at Poincaré’s trip and French actions has been proven true. In addition to McMeekin, whose interpretation of French activities was alluded to in the previous chapter, scholars argue that the French were far more active than reported. The most significant contribution to this study is Stefan Schmidt’s Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914 (France’s Foreign Policy During the 1914 July Crisis), which has not been translated into English, and, as a result, is not widely known. Here, the exception is Christopher Clark, who does use Schmidt freely in Sleepwalkers. Schmidt’s work deserves wide attention. He puts France’s actions during the July Crisis within the context of French foreign policy, security concerns, and military planning. This chapter will examine France’s foreign policy and military planning that impacted the action of French leaders during the July Crisis. The focus will be on how Stefan Schmidt’s work forces historians to reassess the standard understanding of France’s role in the events leading up to and including the July Crisis.

France after the Franco-Prussian War The loss to Prussia in 1870 and the corresponding unification of Germany left France feeling vulnerable. Faced with a formidable force on its eastern border, France needed a way out of the diplomatic isolation that Bismarck had constructed. With the departure of Bismarck from Wilhelmstrasse, the diplomatic order that he had created fell apart and gave France an opportunity to emerge from isolation.11 The result was a Franco-Russian Accord in 1891 that was formalized by both governments in late December 1893 and early January 1894. An Anglo-French Accord followed in 1904. The creation of the Triple Entente, regardless of how obligated Great Britain felt to its continental allies, ensured that France would not be diplomatically isolated. It also signaled a redefinition of how the balance of power in Europe was calculated. The concert system that had administrated European conflicts since the end of the Napoleonic wars was replaced with an alliance system that France clung to ferociously. In Keiger’s

France  113 analysis, “For Poincaré, peace was best safeguarded by the balance of power in the rigid separation of the two alliance systems. He conceived of no alternative international order.”12 Poincaré’s commitment to the Triple Entente was based on the fact that France was incapable of defending its national interests on its own. Given that Great Britain was reluctant to commit fully to any alliance that would obligate the use of its military for a cause that did not directly impact British interests, France’s national security was directly tied to its relationship with Russia. The French government understood Great Britain’s attitude towards continental alliances and attempted to maneuver in such a fashion that would bring the British closer to the French without technically, in a legal sense, obligating the British to join France in military actions. The French government pursued a policy that would achieve this end. By 1904, France and Great Britain had resolved the differences that had arisen out of competing imperialist agendas, but they did not have any agreement similar to the one between France and Russia. In 1906, Great Britain and France held their first military discussions, and by 1911 the two nations had a Memorandum of Understanding, working out the technical details of sending a British expeditionary force to France. Talks between the two nations turned to a naval agreement. The agreement had France moving its navy from the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea, placing its northern coast under the protection of the British navy. In return, the French promised to protect British interests in the Mediterranean Sea. This meant that France was placing its trust in Great Britain in the event of a German naval attack—French military planning did not consider any other possibility.13 This meant, as then naval minister Winston Churchill wrote on 23 August  1912 to Grey and Asquith, that in a crisis situation, France could claim “ ‘on the advice of and by arrangement with your naval authorities we have left our Northern Coasts defenceless. We cannot possibly come back in time.’ Indeed it would probably be decisive whatever is written down now. Everyone must feel who knows the fact that we have the obligations of an alliance without its advantages, and above all without its precise definitions.”14 The French government certainly believed that Great Britain must help defend the French coast. So when Grey claimed that the disposition of the French and British fleets respectively at the moment was not based upon an agreement to cooperate in war, that may have been technically correct. But it was also extremely disingenuous. Even if one tried to argue that the naval agreement and shift of the French navy to the Mediterranean Sea had other reasons and did not make the British morally responsible to defend the French northern and western coasts, the French thought otherwise and reflected a view of the French government that expected Great Britain would support them. MacMillan writes, “Paul Cambon, the influential ambassador in London, took away from Grey’s repeated assurances of friendship, and the fact that he had authorized the military conversations, the conviction that the British saw the Entente as an alliance (although he was never to be quite sure what that implied).”15 The assumptions behind Plan XVII, the French war plan,

114  France indicated that even if Great Britain was not obligated militarily, France could still count on support from the British navy.16 The naval agreement would give French officials more moral leverage to use to persuade Great Britain to join France and Russia in a war against Germany. It would not be the only diplomatic victory for French diplomacy. Schmidt’s work is important because it notes just how dependent French foreign policy and military strategy was upon its eastern ally. Schmidt observed that a crucial aspect of the1893/1894 agreement between France and Russia was the understanding that each would come to the other’s aid with armed forces under certain circumstances and was a cornerstone of France’s foreign policy and security policy.17 The first two articles of the Franco-Russian Agreement are as follows: [Article 1] If France is attacked by Germany or Italy supported by Germany, Russia will use all its available forces to attack Germany. If Russia is attacked by Germany or Austria supported by Germany, then France will use all its available forces to fight Germany. [Article II] In case the forces of the Triple Alliance or one of the Powers that are part of it mobilize, France and Russia, the first announcement of the event and without the need for a concert before, will mobilize immediately and simultaneously all their strengths and carry them as close as possible to their frontiers.18 Schmidt correctly observes that scholars have noted the tension between these two articles. Even if one does not want to go as far as George Kennan and calls them a “dishonesty by mutual understanding,”19 there is still the fact that France is committed to attacking Germany in the event of an attack by Germany or an attack supported by Germany, including a mobilization by Austria-Hungary. But it extends even further, noting that in this event, the two nations do not have to necessarily consult each other in advance to mobilize and move forces to the frontier. Schmidt quotes one of the French negotiators of the agreement, Raoul François Charles de Boisdeffre: “Mobilization is a declaration of war.”20 According to Kennan’s reading of the agreement, the noteworthy and odd peculiarity of the document was that it gave the Russians the opportunity to unleash a great European war whenever it suited them.21 Kennan is overstating the ease with which Russia could trigger such an event, but he was not entirely incorrect. It would depend on the political interests of the French state as to how loose or restrictive an interpretation may be given to the casus foederis. In the years immediately following the agreement, the French government provided a rather strict interpretation of the clause and did not back Russia, even during the 1908 Bosnian Annexation Crisis, because the French government said that the clause only applied when French and Russian interests are threatened.22 The 1911 military convention between France and Russia obligated both parties to act in the event of a German mobilization, and a clause was inserted to recommend consultation in the case of an Austrian mobilization.23

France 115 Poincaré’s appointment as prime minister and foreign minister marked a change in the French foreign policy. Poincaré wanted to reform the way things were done at the Quai D’Orsay. Keiger opined, “Poincaré probably disliked the personnel of the Foreign Ministry as much as he disliked its organization.”24 The new foreign minister sought to make “minor administrative changes that would facilitate his work.”25 In consultation with Paul and Jules Cambon, Paul Revoil, and Camille Barrère, the result was an “inner cabinet” that served as a mouthpiece for Poincaré at the expense of the ambassadors. Poincaré’s inner cabinet consisted of Émile Daeschner, Maurice Paléologue, and Pierre de Margerie.26 The choice of Paléologue, whom he had known since their school days, certainly did not please his advisors.27 “Poincaré was certainly mindful of Paléologue’s faults, especially his excessive imagination, he was nevertheless confident that he would be a loyal and intelligent subordinate.”28 Keiger concluded: The endemic instability of the French governments could be a source of strength for an astute Prime Minister or President of the Republic intent on weeding out opponents within the government and replacing them with allies or yes-men. There was ample opportunity to do this before the First World War, with seven different governments and six Prime Ministers between January 1912 and June 1914. Poincaré perfected it to an art, so that foreign policy decisions taken in the Cabinet when he was Prime Minister and President were nearly always unanimous. Poincaré set out to make French FP a one-man affair and was completely successful.29 One of the most important changes that Poincaré made in French foreign policy was to give the second article of the 1893/1894 Franco-Russian Accord a more extensive interpretation, noting that military support of Russia was no longer dependent upon a specific circumstance under which a war would break out but was linked solely to the intervention of Germany. Schmidt notes that this is a significant reinterpretation of an agreement from a defensive alliance to a tool that could be used for an offensive policy.30 Another change that Poincaré made in 1912 was informing Russia that it would consider a situation in the Balkans as a casus foederis.31 The Germanophobia that pervaded the Quai d’Orsay and Poincaré’s thinking ruled out any sort of diplomatic detente with Germany, in spite of Jules Cambon’s efforts.32 Poincaré pointedly refused to consider any policy that included reaching an understanding with Germany.33 A fear of Germany combined with the inability of France, on its own, to successfully defend itself meant that military strategy had to also account for assistance from allies. The two most important allies for France were Russia and Great Britain, and the latter was not a dependable military ally, not in the least because Great Britain preferred to keep a “free hand” and was reluctant to enter into any formal military alliances. Consequently, France was even more dependent upon Russia for

116  France its national security. The 1911 military convention bound the two nations more closely, and the change in French military strategy starting in 1911 reflected both the assumption of Russian help and France’s dependence upon that help in the case of war. This leads to what Schmidt calls a “militarization of foreign policy in general”34 that would limit their options during the July Crisis. The limited options during the July Crisis were in no small part due to what Schmidt characterizes as “a foreign policy under the spell of the military” (Eine Aussenpolitik im Banne des Militärischen).35 The appointment of General Joseph Joffre to lead the French General Staff marked a new chapter in French military planning. Shunning the defensive mindedness of his predecessors, Joffre embraced the offensive. The foundation for Plan XVII was an unrestrained offensive.36 Underlying Plan XVII was the notion that moral, not material, factors made the difference between victory and defeat. Louis de Grandmaison, who was responsible for strategic questions in Section  III of the General Staff, maintained that defensive combat was an action of inferior order to offensive combat and cannot claim victory—there was a moral inferiority that an advantage in material could not overcome. So the French needed to develop a plan for an immediate and total attack.37 French were aware of German planning in the event of a coalition war. Joffre’s project was given the green light: “Mr. President of the Republic notes with pleasure that we abandon the defensive projects which on our part were an admission of inferiority. We are now resolved to walk straight to the enemy, without hindrance. The right offensive to the temperament of our soldiers, must assure us the victory.”38 The basis of the attaque à outrance was numerical superiority, which France did not possess over Germany. A Franco-Russian military force would have numerical superiority; if a British expeditionary force joined in, even better, but that could not be counted upon. But this plan also depended upon Russia mobilizing quickly enough and in sufficient number to prevent Germany from concentrating too many units on its Western Front.39 The French General Staff considered an attack on Germany through Luxembourg and Belgium. By sweeping to the left and going around German defensive fortifications, the French would gain a decisive advantage. Joffre’s view could be summarized as “our only chance of crushing the enemy is to immediately bring the fight to Belgian territory.”40 The decision not to pursue the Belgian option was made on political and not military grounds. An immediate sweep through Belgium to Germany might alienate English public opinion enough to prevent British assistance in a French war against Germany. “The concern which the British Government has always manifested with regard to the Belgian neutrality would make it a duty, in the event of a war between France and Germany, not to assume any initiative that might be regarded as a violation of that neutrality.”41 Schmidt astutely notes that there was no similar concern for Luxembourg’s neutrality in French military planning.42 Russian military planning was a concern for the French. French military leaders recognized that a rapid mobilization and concentration of Russian forces was not sufficient in and of itself. France needed a Russian attack pointed at vital points in Germany. There was not a consensus about that view

France  117 in Russia. Danilov agreed that an early attack on Germany’s vital points was essential. Asleskeev thought that if Russia defended against Germany, that would suffice, for the French could hold off the Germans. Even if Germany defeated France, it would be a pyrrhic victory because if Russia crushed the Habsburgs, there would be a Slavic revolt within Austria-Hungary, and Italy and Romania would join the fray on their side.43 Joffre disagreed and did not care about Austria-Hungary as a military opponent and wanted Russia to keep its eyes on the prize: the defeat of Germany.44 Joffre and other French military and political leaders realized that a French offensive through Alsace or Lorraine would not result in a quick decisive victory. Only by violating Belgian neutrality would that kind of victory be possible. If France had to face major German opposition, that could be fatal. As a result, there was a need to coordinate with Russia and for Russia to attack Germany quickly. In order for military coordination at this level to succeed, Russia needed to improve its infrastructure, especially its railroads. Improved infrastructure could reduce the amount of time Russia needed for mobilization and thus the time needed to gain numerical superiority on the battlefield. As Théophile Declassé noted, if Russia could take the offensive at the same time that France took its offensive, that would force Germany to divide its forces.45 Schmidt’s study of the blending of French foreign policy and military strategy is important because it puts the international circumstances before the July Crisis in an interesting light. The French helped bankroll the improvements of Russia’s western infrastructure. Kokovtsov, the Russian finance minister, did not want money spent on railroads that had primarily a military function, but he was overruled. Schmidt notes that neither Russia nor France appeared to think or care about the effect that these actions would have on Germany. In his memoirs, Poincaré states, “It was not a question of preparing aggression against Germany or even of taking immediate measures of defense. It is a longterm effort to halt the state of inferiority in which the Russian mobilization system was located.”46 What goes unstated is the reason for France wanting to raise the “Russian mobilization system” from a state of inferiority. France is trying not only to ensure its security but also to restructure the balance of power in Europe.

French and the Triple Alliance The creation of a powerful neighbor on its eastern frontier forced France to rethink its security strategy and its foreign policy. Schmidt argues that the political and military leaders accepted that a military conflict was unavoidable if France wanted to achieve its foreign policy objectives.47 The question is, What were the foreign policy objectives of France that required military conflict? This is not within the scope of this work to answer this question in any definitive fashion. But it is a question that almost certainly needs to be reexamined in the light of Schmidt’s work. Keiger claimed that Poincaré could only conceive of a balance of power maintaining the peace through the rigid separation of the two alliance systems. How did Poincaré and other French leaders

118  France view Germany and the other members of the Triple Alliance? The first given that needs to be stated is that Poincaré and the Quai d’Orsay were grounded in a Germanophobia that was not based on irrational fears or revanchist fantasies. It was based on what might be characterized as a realization that the new Germany was militarily, economically, and demographically powerful and was growing at a rate that France could not match. Accompanying rapid German growth was a cultural chauvinism that did not endear Germans to many of their fellow Europeans, including the Habsburg Monarchy. Schmidt notes one French official’s view that Germany is always looking for markets for economic and colonial expansion. “They [Germans] think that they are entitled to it because they grow every day, because the future belongs to them.”48 Because of the pessimistic view that war was coming— a view that pervaded the Quai d’Orsay and Poincaré’s thinking—Germany’s actions were often viewed with trepidation. At the same time, Schmidt notes that French observers of Germany were of the opinion that the German kaiser and chancellor were essentially peaceful and sought to expand the German Empire while maintaining the peace.49 Most French political and military leaders were convinced of the peaceful nature of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the majority of the German people, but they were not certain if that was enough. The permanent undersecretary for the British Foreign Office, Arthur Nicholson, noted: The French Gov’t, were convinced that no [sic] opportunity would he seized, perhaps not this year, but possibly next year or the year after, by Germany to create some incident which would arouse public feeling on both sides of the frontier, and would, viewing the temper in both countries, very probably lead to war. The German Emperor and the German Chancellor were doubtless pacifically inclined, but they were not in reality the influential and deciding factors. The Pan-Germans, the Navy League, and other chauvinistic elements, the military etc. were the factors which had the greatest weight and influences.50 There is a tension in the French view of Germany that is hard to reconcile. The belief that the kaiser and chancellor were pacifically inclined was firmly held, yet there were French officials, Théophile Declassé, for example, who were convinced “that Germany would strike before Russia was ready and discover a pretext for war whenever she found a weak place in Russia’s armour. He [Declassé] assured me that he knew this as a fact.”51 Here Schmidt notes, “It is not without irony that it is precisely this French ambassador whose mission was primarily to expand the military infrastructure of the alliance partner to an extent that it could threaten Germany with a deadly attack, who predicts that his opponent wants a preventative war.”52 The most striking feature of the thinking about Germany is an apprehension that Germany could be looking for an excuse for war; thus, France had to prepare for it. What makes this significant is that there was no issue where France

France  119 and Germany had vital interests in conflict. The colonial friction in Morocco had been settled to the satisfaction of the French, and in fact in favor of the French, considering they had broken the agreement about how to handle affairs in Morocco. They had a common interest in maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. They had no conflicts in China and a way to balance interests in Africa.53 But French policy consciously pursued a path that could only apply pressure to Germany. Poincaré rejected any policy of reconciliation with Germany and tried to prevent any improvement of relations between Germany and Russia or Great Britain because he feared that it would harm the Triple Entente. Instead, by tightening the bond with Russia and supporting infrastructure development whose primary purpose was to facilitate the transporting of troops to the German border, France increased prewar tensions in Europe. The other two powers in the Triple Alliance do not receive the same level of attention or concern that Germany received. In fact, considerations of how to handle each nation were viewed through the lens of how it impacted French military strategy against Germany. The main concern for Austria-Hungary was the Balkans. French leaders were concerned that a defeat of Serbia would then allow Austria-Hungary to throw its forces at Russia. There was a concern that if the Habsburg Monarchy was too developed, then Germany could bring units from its Eastern Front to the Western Front, that is, redirect them towards France. The awareness of the situation was drawn into Plan XVII: Germany can no longer expect, with the same degree of certainty, the assistance which her principal ally has hitherto been able to bring her. The renaissance of the Balkan States will have the effect of obliging the Austrian to maintain a greater number of corps d’armee on his Southern side, and to diminish the power accordingly. In sum, the growth of the Balkan peoples has, to a certain extent, changed European equilibrium.54 This viewpoint was reiterated by Minister of War Étienne at an assembly on 11 March 1913: “He [meaning Wilhelm II, St S.] has examined the consequences of disturbances and upheavals that occurred in eastern Europe in the Balkan Peninsula. He noted that a new group, vigorous, strong, ardent, endowed with virtues warriors, was formed on the very flank of Austria and he felt that the Austrian would always be busy turning his gaze to the east.”55 The Balkan wars had harmed Germany because of the position that they had put the AustroHungarian Empire. Schmidt concurs with Julian Isaac’s conclusion that France had an interest in the continued existence of the order brought about by the partial collapse of the Ottoman Empire and that it would qualify as a motive that helped determine French actions during the July Crisis. Izvolsky’s correspondence to Sazonov on 24 October 1913 shows that Poincaré had been long considering the Balkans in his political calculus: [T]hat Mr. Poincaré, while sincerely endeavoring to maintain peace, is not afraid at the same time not only of the thought that in certain circumstances

120  France he will have to make war, but expresses a calm confidence that the present military political economy is for the Powers of the Triple Entente is quite favorable and that the powers have the greatest chance of success on their side. This confidence is based on carefully considered considerations French General Staff, i.e. considers the weakness of Austria’s situation, which is compelled to fight on two fronts with Russia and the Balkans.56 In French thinking, a Habsburg victory over Serbia would be felt in the West as well; therefore, it considered any attempts to localize the war as “dangerous.”57 During the July Crisis, the French did not support any initiatives that would facilitate the localization of war. Italy, the third piece of the Triple Alliance, presented its own allies with more difficulties than it actually presented the Triple Entente. Italy’s own irredentism led to territorial disagreements with Austria and played an important part in preventing Italy from fully embracing its allies. Although Italy was on the southeastern border of France, French political and military leaders did not consider Italy to be a major military threat but understood that the Italian navy could cause problems in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1902, France was able to reach an agreement with Italy that effectively took it out of the Triple Alliance in terms of how it acted towards France. It would remain defensive against France, which enabled France to concentrate its forces on Germany.58 Schmidt remarks that even parliamentary government can fall under a foreign policy spell that has a military outlook not to preserve the peace but to prepare for military victory. “This basic feature accompanying French foreign policy, even though it is only mentioned in passing, is marked by the change in the verdict that the political leadership made on the value of the agreement, which since 1902 committed Italy to neutrality under certain conditions in the event of a military conflict and in which Poincaré recognized less an instrument for the maintenance of peace as a means of influencing the military balance of forces.”59 Schmidt concluded that the military function of the 1902 agreement overshadowed its political meaning. It was not created primarily to preserve the peace but to prepare the way to military victory.60

The July Crisis and France’s Dual Strategy Schmidt’s study divides the events in the summer of 1914 into three phases: “The Hidden Crisis? (28 June–23 July),” “The Phase of Negotiations—A Dual Strategy (24–28 July),” and “The End Phase of the July Crisis (28/29 July– 4 August).” The French documents compiled and published in 1937 do not reveal much to the reader. The correspondence between the Quai d’Orsay and its ambassadors from 28 June to 23 July makes it appear as if the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was a surprise.61 The visit of French president Raymond Poincaré to Russia in July of 1914 has been the subject of more speculation than analysis. Poincaré almost certainly had no knowledge of Austria’s plans when he boarded the France on

France 121 16 July to sail to Russia. His visit, although planned in January, had had the intention of firming up the Franco-Russia alliance. On the agenda was the relationship between Russia and Great Britain. France desired to bring the two European naval powers into closer agreement and to help ease tensions between the two nations over Persia. France also hoped to gain assurances of Russia’s peaceful intentions towards Sweden that it could relay back to Stockholm on the return journey.62 The Balkan crisis was an ideal background for this meeting. Because Poincaré’s ship left St. Petersburg before official news of the ultimatum arrived and because memoirs and official records are largely silent on the issue, historians have tended to take at face value the assertion that the Balkan crisis or possible actions were not discussed.63 To call this absence of official reports or minutes from this visit “an anomaly”64 is to put it politely, since neither French nor Russian archives have produced any official records of this visit. That does not mean that we have no idea of what was discussed at the meeting. Fortunately, as Keiger noted from an early age, Poincaré was a regular and meticulous diary keeper.65 That Poincaré did not keep notes on this visit, when he had as prime minister and foreign minister on a similar trip in 1912, is hard to believe. It is even harder to believe when Schmidt discovers this entry in Poincaré’s diary dated 21 July 1914 recounting a discussion with Tsar Nicholas II: “But his most acute concern is Austria. He wondered what that it meditates in the aftermath of the Sarajevo attack. He repeats to me that in the circumstances, the full agreement between our two governments seems more necessary than ever.”66 Nevertheless, there are things that we do know. It is clear that by 18 July, at the latest, Russia knew that Austria-Hungary was planning on sending Serbia an ultimatum that would have to be accepted completely or it would be compelled to accept.67 Poincaré certainly would have been informed of it upon his arrival in St. Petersburg. With knowledge of the ultimatum, the proposition that France and Russia did not discuss the planned Austrian ultimatum to Serbia defies credibility. It seems unlikely that Poincaré’s 22 July diary entry—“And we are in Russia, and we have great business to deal with!”68—was referring to assuaging Stockholm’s concerns. Schmidt suggests that both Poincaré and Paléologue, with the assistance of Pierre Renouvin, were revising the visit and the nature of the conversations with Russia after the war had concluded.69 We know that Poincaré and Viviani met with both Tsar Nicholas II and Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov. But, barring the discovery of previously unknown documents, we will not know the exact nature of their conversations. Since it has been established that Sazonov knew of the intention of the ultimatum even before Poincaré’s arrival, it is inconceivable that Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia, did not inform Poincaré of its existence. Poincaré’s reception line exchange with Austria’s Russian ambassador Szapáry was sharp and threatening, which suggests that the French president knew of AustriaHungary’s intentions.70 Louis de Robien, French attaché in St.  Petersburg, wrote in his diary on the morning of 22 July that “the atmosphere had changed overnight. War was now talked about as a possibility.”71 Austria-Hungary may

122  France have delayed sending the ultimatum in an attempt to prevent Poincaré from learning about it but to no avail. The two allies did not need to know the exact content of the ultimatum in order to coordinate a response. Indeed, it is during this visit that the French and Russian governments coordinate what McMeekin characterizes as an “anti-ultimatum ultimatum.”72 The last dinner of the state visit was filled, as these dinners often are, with toasts and proclamations. Poincaré’s was not different. Once the ultimatum was issued, France and Russia were essentially on a war footing. On 24 July, one day before the ultimatum’s expiration deadline of 25 July, Sazonov met with the Council of Ministers to get approval for a premobilization order. The “Period Preparatory to War in All Lands of the Empire” was signed by the tsar the following day, and activities were kept secret. From 24 July to 28 July, France pursued what Schmidt characterized as a dual strategy. It was a dual strategy in two senses of the phrase. France wanted to appear to be interested in finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis while at the same time preparing for war in a situation that placed France in the most advantageous position if war did occur.73 The second sense in which a dual strategy was pursued involved France preparing French public opinion to support a war and to convince Great Britain to enter the war on the side of France and Russia. A possible way to achieve both aims would be to make the war appear as an act of German and Austro-Hungarian aggression. How interested the French officials were in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis that came out of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is a legitimate question to pose. It seems clear that Viviani and some other French officials, most notably Bienvenu-Martin, were sympathetic to Habsburg’s predicament. Austria-Hungary had lost the heir to their throne to an act of political terror—an assassination plot. It had legitimate concerns about what role Serbia may have had in the plot and in the anti-Austrian propaganda that Belgrade sponsored.74 The French prime minister and foreign minister Viviani was not anxious to go to war over Serbia.75 Poincaré, however, was committed to supporting Russia in this crisis, including going to war. The French president’s rebuke of Szapáry in the reception line indicated that he had little sympathy or trust in Austria-Hungary. Paléologue recounted the following comment from Poincaré to Szapáry: “Of course I am anxious about the results of the enquiry Monsieur l’Ambassadeur. I can remember two previous enquiries which did not improve your relations with Serbia. . . . Don’t you remember the Friedjung affair and the Prochaska Affair?”76 Clark interprets that statement as a preemptive attack on the credibility of the Austrian investigation of Sarajevo, indicating that France was not going to accept that the Serbian government had any responsibility for the murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife.77 Poincaré was determined to support Russia in this crisis. Recall that in 1912 he had already informed Sazonov that an event in the Balkans could be considered grounds to invoke the alliance obligations. This is important to remember because the French ambassador to Russia during this time was Poincaré’s

France  123 old friend Maurice Paléologue, who had arrived in Russia in February 1914. Poincaré had settled on Paléologue—he was not his first choice—to help him streamline foreign policy procedures in the Quai d’Orsay when the former was foreign minister. Paléologue had his faults, and Poincaré appeared to be well aware of them. But he also had two traits that Poincaré valued: intelligence and loyalty. When looking for a scapegoat for why Russia was willing to go to war, many historians of France have pointed to Paléologue and blamed him for going rogue and pursuing a policy that he believed in rather than one that was in the best interest of France.78 Considering how fastidious and determined Poincaré was, it is hard to imagine that he would have tolerated a person who would not follow his orders, nor is it plausible that he could get away establishing an “ambassadorial dictatorship.”79 Irwin Halfond mentions Paléologue’s first meeting with Tsar Nicolas II, where he tells the Russian monarch, “France has been making effort to convert the Triple Entente into a Triple Alliance. If the action of the Alliance in the Balkans has not been more friendly, it is not the fault of the French government.”80 While Halfond sees this as an example of Paléologue overstepping his role, nothing in that statement contradicts what Poincaré had been working towards. It was indicative of a continuation of French policy.81 Poincaré’s response to the news that Sazonov had encouraged the Serbs not to offer any resistance at the border and withdraw into the interior—“We assuredly cannot show ourselves braver [i.e., more committed to Belgrade] than the Russians,”—indicates that Paléologue was on the same page as Poincaré.82 Certainly, Paléologue’s actions during the July Crisis, when taken in isolation, make him a suitable target for condemnation by subsequent scholars. Albertini took the lead on this front, and later historians joined the chorus: “It has been shown conclusively by Albertini that Paléologue, by a mixture of concealment and belated information, kept Paris in the dark about the Russian mobilization.”83 Paléologue was guilty of all of the actions that Albertini and others accuse him of, but it does not necessarily lead to the consequences that have been laid at the ambassador’s feet. Paléologue does keep the Quai d’Orsay at arm’s length throughout the July Crisis. But that is not the same thing as keeping Paris in the dark. As noted in the previous chapter, General Pierre de Laguiche, France’s liaison at the Russian military headquarters, had telegraphed his superiors on 26 July informing them of Russian mobilization in the military districts of Kiev, Odessa, Kazan, and Moscow, as well as of the secret preparations in Warsaw, Vilna, and St. Petersburg.84 Schmidt maintains, “What the statements of Joffres and Messimy, on the other hand, show and what not always enough attention has been paid to in the historical research, is the fact that the General Staff corresponded with his military attaché in Petersburg, without this correspondence necessarily being made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d’Orsay. The fact that de Laguiche no longer sent a telegram to the General Staff via the French Foreign Ministry after July 28, confirms the suspicion that in the final phase of the July crisis a direct correspondence between the military attaché and his employer took

124  France place.”85 The response to Laguiche’s telegram of 26 July is noteworthy. Turner writes, “At the request of General Joffre, Messimy, Minister of War, communicated with Laguiche at St. Petersburg on 27 July and, in his own words, ‘urged with all my might that, in spite of the slowness of Russian mobilization, the Tsar’s armies should as soon as possible take the offensive in East Prussia.’ ”86 Therefore, the claim that Paris was in the dark about Russian mobilization because of Paléologue’s actions are simply incorrect.87 What is closer to the truth is that the Quai d’Orsay was in the dark. Considering Poincarè’s estimation of the Centrale as an administrative body and the fact that Viviani was not as anxious to take a firm stand against Austria-Hungary, it is not out of the question that Poincaré, who was determined to have (and according to Keiger was successful) control over foreign policy, tried to minimize—if not ­circumvent—the Quai d’Orsay in order to manage events. Keiger’s passive Poincaré does not match the image of the Poincaré that Schmidt paints with his policy of preparation and firmness (fermeté). Nor does it seem likely that Poincaré was the type of leader who would appoint someone to an important position (and the ambassadorial post in Russia was just that) if he had any doubts about that person’s loyalty or ability. Paléologue had had the opportunity to demonstrate both when Poincaré was prime minister and foreign minister and had created an inner cabinet in the Quai d’Orsay. In light of Schmidt’s analysis of French foreign policy and military strategy, the claim that Paléologue had established an “ambassadorial dictatorship” does not seem justified. The preceding conclusion is not just based on Paléologue’s actions but also on the fact that the actions of other French diplomats, most notably Paul Cambon, the French ambassador to Great Britain, who also supported the position that France was interested neither in localizing the conflict nor in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis. After reading the Austrian ultimatum, Grey called in Cambon and proposed that “ ‘outside powers’—meaning Britain, France, Germany, and also Italy—to mediate at St. Petersburg in case Russia responded with hostilities to Austria’s ultimatum, so as to prevent the Balkan conflict from escalating.”88 Cambon did not like the idea and in fact did not even relay the offer to Paris. McMeekin speculates that this is because the task would have mostly fallen upon France, and that would have been the wrong message to send its alliance partner. Instead, he suggested that Berlin be encouraged to restrain Vienna, putting the onus on Germany.89 The importance of this incident is to point out that Paléologue’s actions did not put him out on an island. They were consistent with other actions and actors within the French government. It is far more likely that he was acting in accord with Poincaré’s instructions, certainly with his own flair from the dramatic, rather than driving French foreign policy on his own initiative. Keeping the Quai d’Orsay in the dark about Russian mobilization would fit in with the “dual strategy” that Schmidt outlines. If the official apparatus of the French Foreign Ministry does not know about Russian mobilization, then it is also likely that the French press does not know about it. Secrecy for Russian mobilization was important for three reasons: First, if Russia was going to fight

France 125 Germany, it needed a head start in mobilizing. So it was better to keep it secret than to give the Germans a chance to prepare. Second, if France and Russia could make the argument that they are responding to German aggression, then they had a better chance to garner British support. Finally, news of Russian mobilization over Serbia as a cause for war is not likely to garner popular support in France. Getting the support of French public opinion was not difficult. The French press was surprised by the ultimatum and critical of it. Opinions varied as to the role that Germany played in this event, but all were certain that Germany knew of it beforehand and approved of it. When the Echo de Paris misrepresented part of the German ambassador’s statement about the ultimatum, the ultimatum became an affront to French honor akin to the Agadir Crisis. Moderate and conservative papers ran with the Echo story, and German attempts to correct the record had no impact. The damage had been done. The significance of the Echo article was that it gave what the French public had seen as a Habsburg-Romanov conflict a French versus German dimension.90 With French public opinion ready to support a war against Germany, Poincaré’s task was to find a way to convince Great Britain to enter the approaching war as quickly as possible. It is hard to look at the actions of French diplomats, especially after the expiration of Austrian ultimatum, and maintain that France was looking for a peaceful solution to the political crisis that arose out of the Sarajevo assassinations. Schmidt recounts Paul Cambon’s efforts to change the terms of British mediation proposals to put more of an onus on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Buchanan’s report on the evening of 25 July confirms French reluctance to seek a peaceful solution. “France has placed herself unreservedly on Russia’s side. . . . Russia cannot allow Austria to crush Servia and become predominant Power in the Balkans, and secure of support of France, she will face all the risks of war.”91 The day before (24 July), Eyre Crowe, the British Foreign Office expert on Germany, noted on a communication from the French ambassador, “The moment has passed when it might have been possible to enlist French support in an effort to hold back Russia.”92 After Russian mobilization, Joffre pressed for French mobilization on 28 July, even though there was no sign of any German military activity. He was rebuffed by Minister of War Adolphe Messimy. French war planning and preparation gave them a one-day advantage in mobilizing. This permitted them a small window of opportunity to react to German actions and still execute their military plan. While Joffre wanted to mobilize sooner, political considerations forced him to wait. France did not want to give the appearance of being the aggressor, in order to secure British support. If there is still any doubt about the French position, consider that as soon as the order was given to move French troops to ten kilometers from the French border to prevent any accidental encounters, a note was sent to London informing the British of this move. Schmidt concludes that the order was not done to allow for a political solution to the situation but to influence Great Britain.93 When the French mobilization was ordered on 1 August at 1600 hours, the French government still was not

126  France certain what Great Britain would do. Paul Cambon had reported on the previous two days that Asquith and Grey were supporting British intervention.94 With favorable domestic and foreign conditions, general mobilization was ordered in France along with the proclamation that this does not mean war and that France would leave no stone unturned for the peace. Viviani also sent a summary of the situation to Cambon in England to paint Germany as the aggressor.95 Viviani did not need to worry; on 1 August, Cambon reported that Grey had told the German ambassador Lichnowsky that if Germany were at war with France, Great Britain could not stay neutral.96 Poincaré and the Cabinet were successful in placing France in the most favorable position to start the war. Thus, Poincaré could remark, “Never was a declaration of war received with such satisfaction.”97 Schmidt’s work forces historians to reevaluate the role of France before the First World War. Certainly, the position that Keiger and Hayne take about the peaceful intentions of Poincaré and the passivity of France during the July Crisis, except for the rogue Paléologue, can no longer be maintained. From 1912 to the outbreak of the war, French foreign policy was largely in the hands of one man, Raymond Poincaré. He pursued a policy that protected France from a potential German threat. Where that threat was could never be identified exactly, nor was he willing to consider any kind of rapprochement that would ease tensions with Germany. Instead, he pursued what Schmidt characterizes as “an unmistakable militarization of French foreign policy in general, and of a situation analysis particularly unavoidable in the Great War. . . . They were of the opinion that in a Great War, which began in the Balkans, there was an extremely good chance of success, and at the same time they were aware that the war for France could well have come about under much more unfavorable circumstances.”98 Schmidt goes on to ponder whether or not France may have been planning a preventative war and concludes that it was unlikely. That is a reasonable conclusion. The French may have feared the Germans, but it would be a stretch to claim that French leaders were preparing for a preventative war—much as it is a stretch to claim that German leaders were doing the same. Returning to the question of why did the Austria-Hungary declaration of war lead to a Great War instead of a third Balkan war, part of the answer has to be because French leaders saw an opportunity to reshape the balance of power even more in their favor. French leaders had been pursuing a foreign policy that could only be achieved by military means. They may not have been looking to create an incident, but it certainly appears that Poincaré was more than prepared and willing to take advantage of an incident that was not of French making. In The War That Ended Peace, Margaret MacMillan attributes the following quote to Helmuth von Moltke the Younger: “The highest art of diplomacy is from my point of view not to keep the peace by all means but to shape the political situation of a state permanently in such a way that it is in a position to enter a war under advantageous conditions.”99 It may not have been a permanent situation, but if ever a statesman put his nation in a position to enter a war under the most advantageous of conditions, Raymond Poincaré certainly did.

France  127

Notes 1 Williamson and May, “An Identity of Opinion,” 374. 2 Hastings, Catastrophe 1914, 19. 3 See Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994). 4 John F.V. Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 167. 5 Mombauer, “The Moltke Plan,” 201. 6 Albertini, Origins, 582–589. 7 Laurence Lafore, The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I (New York: J.B. Lippencott Company, 1971), 265. 8 M.B. Hayne, French Foreign Office, 269–270. 9 Keiger, France, 160. 10 Keiger, France, 147, quoted in Williamson and May, “An Identity of Opinion,” 375. 11 See George F. Kennan, The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 12 Keiger, France, 166. 13 An example of French thinking on this issue is revealed in a letter from Francis Bertie, the British ambassador to France, to Grey. Bertie wrote, “It would not have been taken if they [gemeint ist das französische Kabinett, St.  S.] could suppose that in the event of Germany making a descent on the Channel or Atlantic ports of France, England would not come to the assistance of France. If such was to be the case the conversations between the Naval Experts would be useless and the French Government must have their best ships to face Germany in the Channel.” Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 128. 14 Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 127. 15 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 400–401. 16 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 128. 17 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 112–113. 18 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 247. “[Artikel I] Si la France est attaquée par l’Allemagne ou par l’Italie soutenue par l’Allemagne, la Russie emploiera toutes ses forces disponibles pour attaquer l’Allemagne: Si la Russie est attaquée par l’Allemagne ou par l’Autriche soutenue par l’Allemagne, la France emploiera toutes ses forces disponibles pour combattre l’Allemagne. [Artikel II] Dans le cas où les forces de la Triple Alliance ou d’une des Puissances qui en font partie viendraient à se mobiliser, la France et la Russie, à la premiere annonce de l’événement et sans qu’il soit besoin d’un concert préalable, mobiliseront immédiatement et simultanément la totalité de leurs forces et les porteront les plus près possibles de leurs frontièrs.” 19 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 247. The quotation comes from a German edition of Kennan, Fateful Alliance. 20 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 248, “la mobilisation, c’était la déclaration de guerre [. . .] --” 21 Kennan, Fateful Alliance, 252. 22 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 249. 23 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 250. 24 Keiger, France, 48. Hayne’s The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War is still the most comprehensive study in English on the history, workings, and limitations of the Quai d’Orsay during this time period. 25 Hayne, French Foreign Office, 229. 26 Keiger, France, 51. 27 Hayne, French Foreign Office, 230; Keiger, France, 50. 28 Hayne, French Foreign Office, 230.

128  France 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Keiger, France, 165. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 250. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia, 240. Hayne notes that there was no pro-German faction in the Quai d’Orsay and that almost all of the French diplomats were “thoroughly anti-German.” Hayne, French Foreign Office, 26. Jules Cambon believed that Wilhelm II and others, including Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg, wanted better relations with France. Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers, 194–195. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 372. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 368. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 105–211. The name of this section of Schmidt’s book is “Eine Aussenpolitik im Banne des Militärischen?” Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 105. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 107. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 110. See Gerd Krumeich, Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik in Frankreich vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg: Die Einführung der dreijährigen Dienstpflicht 1913–1914 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1980), 22f. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 158. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 159. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 159. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 179. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 183. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 191. Poincaré, Au service de la France—Neuf années de souvenirs (Paris: Plon-Nourrit et cie, 1926–1974), Bd. III, S. 322. Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 193–194. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 367. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 217. Schmidt quotes a previously unpublished French report: “All the information we collected was consistent with the findings of our military attaché. More and more, Germany imagined that she was predestined to dominate the world, that the pretended superiority of the Germanic race, the ever-increasing number of the inhabitants of the Empire, the continuous pressure of the economic necessities, created for it among the nations exceptional rights” (Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 238). Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 367. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 238. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 244. Quotes a correspondence from Buchanan to Nicolson. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 244. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 223–224. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 200. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 201. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 209. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 204–205. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 118–123. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 368. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 123. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 65–66. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 70–71. Clark reports a similar agenda. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 441, 499. Even Williamson and May note that the Balkan crisis was discussed in St. Petersburg. Williamson and May, “An Identity of Opinion,” 375. Christopher Clark takes

France  129

64 65 66

67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77 78 79

80 81

82 83

an even stronger position in his work, noting that it was Poincaré who appeared to be more intent on taking a hard line against Austria-Hungary and making sure that Russia would not back down. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 433–450. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 40. The term “anomaly” was apparently used by the French historian Pierre Renouvin, who was one of the editors of the official documents that were released about the origins of the war. Keiger, France, 44. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 71. “Mais sa préoccupation la plus vive a trait à l’Autriche. Ii se demande ce qu’elle médite à la suite de l’attentat de Sarajevo. II me répète que, dans les circonstances actuelles, I’accord complet entre nos deux gouvernements lui paraît plus nécessaire que jamais.” Clark references the same concern on the part of Nicholas II. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 444. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 72–73; McMeekin, July 1914, 126–127. Keiger’s assertion that Poincaré first learned of the Austrian ultimatum “through a series of garbled radio messages on 24 July” (Keiger, France, 152) is at best half correct. He may have learned about the actual content of the ultimatum then, but it is beyond doubt that he knew well before that Austria was planning on sending an extreme note. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 78. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 77. McMeekin, July 1914, 156. Clark also noted that Poincaré’s treatment of Szapáry “was an extraordinary response for a head of state visiting a foreign capital to make to a representative of a third state.” Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445. McMeekin, July 1914, 157. McMeekin, July 1914, 169. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 289. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 290. Hayne, French Foreign Office, 276. Schmidt notes that Poincaré was concerned that Viviani’s hope for a peaceful solution would cause him to make decisions that were not, in Poincaré’s judgment, in the best interest of French security (Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 315). Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 445. Both Keiger and Hayne lay considerable blame at the feet of Paléologue, as did Albertini. Hayne, French Foreign Office, 269. Irwin Halfond’s biography of Paléologue also embraces this characterization of the ambassador. See Maurice Paléologue, The Diplomat, the Writer, the Man, and the Third French Republic (New York: University Press of America, 2007), 85–94. Halfond, Paléologue, 76. Paléologue relayed an exchange with Théophile Declassé when the latter told him in early 1913, at the beginning of his stint as the French ambassador to Russia, “that his sole aim would be to ensure that the Tsar’s armies would be prepared to make any necessary offensive in fifteen days: ‘As for the diplomatic twaddle and old nonsense about the European equilibrium, I shall bother with that as little as possible; it is no longer anything but verbiage’ ” (quoted in Keiger, France, 139). Keiger notes that Poincaré feared that Declassé pandered to the Russians at the expense of French interests (Keiger, France, 139). Given French support for the improvement of Russia’s railroads in the west precisely geared towards expediting the Russian mobilization timetable, it does not seem that Declassé went too far astray in his mission. Clark, Sleepwalkers, 499. Emphasis in original. Keiger, France, 160.

130  France 84 McMeekin, July 1914, 220. See Chapter  5. Schmidt has the same quote that McMeekin uses in the original French up to the ellipses. See Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 318, n24. 85 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 330. 86 Quoted in Turner, “Russian Mobilisation,” 263. 87 Turner comes to the same conclusion that the French ambassador and military attaché knew and approved of the general Russian mobilization, which in fact began on 26 July and that Paris was kept fully informed. 88 McMeekin, July 1914, 204–205. Schmidt notes that the French cabinet, including moderates, was in agreement that it would not consent to German requests to moderate Russia’s actions to localize the conflict and to not intervene in an AustroHungarian-Serbian conflict. He notes that Izvolsky writes to Sazonov that he was surprised that there was no misunderstanding between France and Russia at any level. This support was not just against Germany but also directed against the first British attempt at mediation (Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 293). 89 McMeekin, July 1914, 205–206. 90 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 307–310. 91 Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 300. 92 Quoted in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 300. 93 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 345–346. 94 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 351. 95 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 352. 96 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 351. 97 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 354. 98 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 368–369. 99 MacMillan, War That Ended Peace, 322.

Conclusion

Taken collectively, the works of Terence Zuber, Sean McMeekin, and Stefan Schmidt force us to rethink how World War I began. It cannot be disputed that Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia started the fighting. But why that fighting became the Great War is not as clear cut as many historians would like us to think, in spite of claims about “common knowledge” and “general consensus.” We might also want to reexamine the conviction that it was only the Eastern monarchies that were ill equipped to deal with the July Crisis. The critiques of the Hohenzollern, Habsburg, and Romanov monarchies and their respective governments are well founded. I  would respectfully suggest that the democratic governments in London and Paris were not necessarily better equipped to deal with the crisis. The revolving door of foreign ministers in Paris made it possible for a talented and determined man, and Raymond Poincaré was both, to shape French foreign policy and keep those who were opposed to his goals either in the dark or out of the loop. Similarly, Sir Edward Grey was able to shield his activities as foreign minister from prying eyes to the point that even members within his own Cabinet were surprised to learn the extent of British commitments. Perhaps there is no other way to conduct foreign policy, but it strikes this author as problematic that a small cadre of individuals can act essentially without oversight towards goals that have the potential to, and in this case did, send millions of people to their deaths. I have argued that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia because they saw no other way to solve the problem confronting them. The nation that could have helped Vienna solve its Serbia problem was Russia, but it would not do so. Similarly, the concert system could not work in this instance because at least two Great Powers, Russia and France, were not willing to concede that the Habsburg Monarchy had a legitimate claim to make against Serbia.1 Moreover, the concert system had effectively been replaced by a system of competing alliances: the Triple Entente versus the Triple Alliance.2 Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia started the fighting. But it could have easily remained localized and become the third Balkan war. It became a European war because Russia had decided that it was going to get involved on the side of Serbia. Russia was not under any obligation by treaty to

132  Conclusion do so. It did so because it saw the window of opportunity to achieve its regional geostrategic goals closing and determined that it could use the cover of a general war to attain control of the Straits. Russia had made the decision to invoke the “Preparatory Period for War” before Serbia had responded to the Austrian ultimatum. Russian mobilization against both Austria-Hungary and Germany was not simply to defend Serbia. Russian strategy during the opening phase of the war supports the claim that Russia’s decision to go to war was motivated by interests beyond protecting its Slavic brethren. McMeekin argues that Russia used the Balkans situation as a “brilliant smokescreen” to hide its secret mobilization and its ambitions to dominate the Ottoman Empire from the British.3 Even the French, who were more aware of Russian war aims, were too preoccupied with Germany to pay close attention. McMeekin points to geography as the main source of Western indifference to Russian aims. Constantinople and the Straits were a constant in Russian foreign policy, whereas neither had been a concern to Paris or London since the Crimean War—which was when, as McMeekin points out, Britain and France denied Russia the opportunity to achieve those objectives. McMeekin suggests that the downgrading of the Porte by Western European governments has extended into the historical literature.4 McMeekin’s position that Russia used the Balkan crisis as an opportunity to achieve its strategic goals against the Ottoman Empire is supported by Russian actions during mobilization and after the fighting begins. On 27 July, Yanushkevitch had extended the “Period Preparatory to War” to the districts of Omsk, Irkutsk, Turkestan, and the Caucasus and had informed the Tiflis command to enact “variant 4 of Russia’s general mobilization plan for a European war in which ‘Turkey does not at first take part.’ ”5 Sazonov’s insistence that Britain not send the Dreadnoughts that the Ottoman Empire had ordered also revealed Russia’s concern about the Porte’s ability to control the Straits and the Black Sea. McMeekin also questions how sincere Russia’s public pronouncements desiring Turkish neutrality in the conflict were. The Ottoman Empire was well aware of Russia’s desire to control the Straits and understood that an Entente victory would likely enhance Russia’s ability to achieve that goal. Russia even rejected a proposal from Ismail Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, that could have potentially freed up the Caucasian army to reinforce Russia’s Western Front against Germany and Austria.6 Russia was preparing for the Ottoman Empire’s entrance into the war. The Ottoman Empire’s sneak attack on Odessa, led by Admiral Wilhelm Souchon on 29 October, gave Russia the grounds to declare war on the Porte on 2 November. Once the Ottoman Empire was officially in the war, Russian war aims were revealed. Russia’s top priority was control of the Straits.7 Russia seemed much more interested in gaining control of the Straits than it was in supporting Serbia, the nation it was supposedly defending. Perhaps more surprising is how quickly Britain and France appeared to sign off on Russia’s aims. The breadth of Russian ambition may have stunned the French, but it is hard to dispute the fact that they supported Russia’s decision to mobilize before the

Conclusion  133 expiration of Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia.8 The official record of what was discussed between French and Russian leaders during the French visit to St. Petersburg may be missing, but Stefan Schmidt’s work has made it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the two governments discussed a coordinated response to the ultimatum. Virtually every European capital knew about Berchtold’s intention to send a strong ultimatum to Belgrade, even if the exact content remained a mystery. The conduct of Ambassadors Cambon and Paléologue strongly suggests that Paris was determined not only to support Russia but also to blunt any efforts to moderate Russia’s actions. French officials may have been divided about the crisis in the Balkans. Viviani and other officials in the French government were not as hawkish as Poincaré, but the French president and his allies, most notably Paléologue, were able to work around the Quai d’Orsay. Schmidt’s work also forces historians to reconsider the broader scope of French foreign policy before the war. The Germanophobia of the Quai d’Orsay has been well documented. Both Declassé and Poincaré made foreign policy decisions that were unnecessarily provocative towards Germany. France and Germany had no real conflicts of interest that could be considered potential flashpoints for a military contest. Due to financial interests in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, France had reason to support stability and the status quo in both regions. Poincaré’s 1912 decision to treat an incident in the Balkans as a casus foederis may have thus represented a reversal of French policy, but it also reflected French strategic thinking that considered a war in the Balkans as a way to engage in a war that favored the Entente and played to the strength of French war plans. Austria-Hungary would not be able to engage Serbia and Russia simultaneously and would need German assistance. Germany would be forced to fight on two fronts. The more German forces that Russia could engage on Germany’s Eastern Front, the better it would be for French forces on Germany’s Western Front. Schmidt’s research puts to rest the contention that France was a secondary player in the July Crisis, simply reacting to external events. Poincaré knew about the Austrian ultimatum, and there cannot be any serious doubt that Poincaré and Sazonov coordinated their response to the Habsburg ultimatum. Schmidt’s work also should put an end to the idea that French ambassador Maurice Paléologue was a rogue actor who set up an “ambassadorial dictatorship.” Poincaré and his old friend had an opportunity to coordinate their actions, and it is unlikely that a man like Poincaré would have tolerated anyone who would not follow his instructions. Poincaré wanted Russia to take a strong stand against Austria-Hungary. Recall his concern that he did not want the French to seem braver than the Russians on this matter. Moreover, Paul Cambon’s actions in London reinforced Paléologue’s actions in St. Petersburg. The French would not support any action that put restraints on Russia and did not want to give anyone the impression that the Entente was anything less than united. Unless the official records of the French visit in July 1914 are discovered in a dusty corner of a French or Russian archive, this position cannot

134  Conclusion be proven beyond a doubt. However, this interpretation is more plausible and consistent with what we know than the idea that France was merely reacting to events and that Paléologue was acting on his own initiative. T.G. Otte’s attempt to rehabilitate Edward Grey’s reputation is laudable but ultimately unconvincing. Grey may well have understood early on the potential dangers that surrounded the murder of the Habsburg couple, but he did not act in a fashion that indicated he thought that the worst could happen. Part of the reason for this must be laid at Grey’s feet. His decision not to inform George Buchanan, his Russian ambassador, of Austria-Hungary’s intention to deliver an ultimatum is hard to explain. Had Buchanan been aware of this, he may have been a bit more diligent in trying to discern all of Russia’s actions during the crisis. Lord Lansdowne was certainly correct when he noted that Grey most likely wished that he could have stated his position early on but that domestic considerations prevented him from doing so. While Asquith and a few others were aware of Grey’s actions, the British Cabinet as a whole was not fully cognizant of the extent of Grey’s policies or the implications of his promises. Grey’s first concern throughout the crisis was maintaining the Entente. The loss of Russian friendship had potentially disastrous consequences to the British Empire in Asia. Grey had certainly made up his mind for intervention early on in the crisis, and he eventually won the Cabinet over to his way of thinking. Keith Wilson’s conclusion that the “misunderstanding” between Lichnowsky and Grey was designed for domestic British consumption rather than as a serious suggestion to keep Britain out of the war is plausible. The German ultimatum to Belgium was a public relations gift to a British Cabinet that had already decided on intervention. The German war plan was not for a preemptive war. Zuber is right. There was no such thing as the Schlieffen Plan. There were ideas that Schlieffen had developed that found updated manifestations in Moltke’s war planning, including in 1914. But that is not what many historians—Holger is just one example— have been arguing. The German invasion of Belgium as part of its plan to fight a two-front war may have been ill advised from a political and a public relations standpoint—the French decision not to go through Belgium as part of its war plan was not out of respect for Belgian sovereignty but to not alienate Britain who it hoped would join the battle—but it was not the start of the war. The war had begun in Eastern Europe. Wilhelm II may have been disappointed that Moltke the Younger did not have a plan for just a war in the east, but there was also no scenario where German mobilization did not result in a two-front war. Mombauer can fault Moltke for “not devising a suitable alternative, and for not admitting in fact that war was no longer a viable option for Germany’s decision-makers in their quest for a position of hegemony in Europe.”9 But this position assumes that Germany sought war and does not factor that Germany was indeed responding to events, not dictating them.10 Schmidt points out that the Franco-Russian Accord was directed at Germany. Any German mobilization could be used as cause, and France had already determined that a Balkan scenario would be an adequate cause to

Conclusion  135 mobilize. What is too often lost or simply dismissed in the shuffle is the fact that Germany was the last of the four continental powers to mobilize for war. The argument that only German mobilization meant war is simply disingenuous. None of the military leaders at the time thought that mobilization meant anything other than the first step towards war. As the French general Raoul le Mouton de Boisdeffre declared, “Mobilization is a declaration of war.”11 The Russians were of the same mind about mobilization, and Sazonov was following the 1913 “Regulation Concerning the Period Preparatory to War” using diplomatic negotiations to mask its true intentions. As Clark notes, “General Dobrorolsky, head of the Russian army’s mobilization department, remarked in 1921 that after the St. Petersburg meetings of 24 and 25 July ‘the war was already a decided thing, and all of the flood of telegrams between the governments of Russia and Germany were nothing but the staging for the historical drama.”12 Both the French and Russian generals knew that mobilization meant war. There was nothing unique about German mobilization. German decision making during the July Crisis was questionable at best. In spite of what Grey may have thought then and what historians such as Berghahn have thought after, Berlin was not calling the shots for Vienna. The decision to issue Vienna a blank cheque may well have been understandable from the perspective of an ally that determined that it needed to support its only reliable partner. But from that point onward, most of the decisions made in Berlin were not wise. The assumption that Vienna would act with alacrity was quickly dispelled. Nevertheless, neither Bethmann Hollweg nor Jagow felt the need to keep on top of events in Vienna and make sure that they were informed of all decisions. That Austrian foreign minister Berchtold could keep the content of its ultimatum from Serbia away from Germany, after the latter had requested to see it before it was sent, is troubling. More troubling is that there were no consequences for Austria-Hungary’s actions. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s observation that Serbia’s response gave Vienna no reason to declare war was a testimony both to the craftsmanship of the response— historians still disagree on just how much Serbia actually conceded—and to Berchtold’s determination to settle accounts militarily. It is certainly fair to say that Germany should have tried to restrain Vienna after Serbia’s deft diplomatic response. Whether or not the lack of German support would have deterred Austria-Hungary is a different question. The Habsburg Monarchy could not let the incident go without a response. It is understandable that Belgrade would not permit Vienna to infringe upon its sovereignty. But Belgrade was not going to investigate the issue because it maintained that the assassination was purely a domestic Austrian affair, and any investigation would have had political ramifications in Serbia that Prime Minister Pašić wanted to avoid. Russia and France had made it clear that they would not consider any evidence that Vienna had that would implicate Serbia. So it is fair to conclude that Austria-Hungary felt that it had no alternative but to go to war. Once Russia mobilized against both Austria-Hungary and Germany, Germany would have to respond. Therefore, it is not clear that the

136  Conclusion outcome would have been any different had Germany withdrawn its support for Austria-Hungary. Russia mobilized against both nations, and it could not risk mobilizing only against Austria-Hungary and hope that Germany stayed on the sideline. The only way the Habsburg decision could have resulted in a third Balkan war was if Russia had decided not to come to Serbia’s aid. Russia’s decision to mobilize against both Austria-Hungary and Germany meant a European war.13 German mobilization would be sufficient reason for France to mobilize its forces, although France decided to mobilize before Germany did, even if it was only by 30 minutes. What this all means is that we need to reconsider the general consensus about the origins of the Great War. Germany made a number of bad decisions during the years and the month before the war. But they were not the main reason for or the cause of the Great War. Conceding this point does not, as some historians seem to fear, provide Germany with a “guilt-free national myth.” Germany still bears the responsibility for its conduct in Belgium.14 Germany still lost the war and deliberately failed to honor the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Most important—and this should not have to be said—this does not absolve Germany of the crimes of Hitler and the Third Reich. What this does mean is that historians need to return to the archives in St.  Petersburg and Paris, and perhaps even in London, to look at old documents with fresh eyes.

Notes 1 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 581. 2 In reality, the latter was a Dual Alliance of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Italy was a member, but it had been effectively neutralized by its agreement with France and its unresolved irredentist issues with Austria-Hungary. 3 McMeekin, Origins, 99. 4 McMeekin, Origins, 100. Here, McMeekin neglects to add the Congress of Berlin (1878) as a more recent example of a desire to stop Russia’s gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. But his basic point is still valid. 5 McMeekin, Origins, 61, 102. 6 McMeekin, Origins, 106–108. 7 McMeekin, Origins, 114–116. 8 McMeekin writes, “Primed by the Sazonov-Krivoshein good cop/bad cop routine in September, the French ambassador was not even surprised when Nicholas II openly spoke of annexing the Straits, European Thrace, and ‘Turkish Armenia’ on November 21, 1914, although he does seem to have been a bit taken aback when the tsar vowed openly that the postwar Ottoman Empire be confined to an Asian rump centered on Ankara or Konya.” McMeekin, Origins, 121. 9 Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 285. 10 One can argue that Germany’s war plan was immoral because of the violation of Belgian neutrality and that political concerns should have had more of an influence on German war planning. But that is a different issue than Germany responding to Russian and French aggression. 11 Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, 248. 12 Clark, Sleepwalkers, 486.

Conclusion  137 13 Holger Herwig concedes this point when he notes that if Russia said “no” to any war in Europe, the result would have been an Austro-Serbian conflict, in effect a third Balkan war. See Holger Herwig, “Why Did It Happen?” in The Origins of World War I, eds. Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 455. 14 See Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities 1914.

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Index

Aehrenthal, Alois Lexa von 24, 25, 44 – 5 Africa 19, 23, 25, 26, 119 Adriatic Sea 27, 40, 47, 48, 57, 93 Albert, king of Belgium 73 Albertini, Luigi 55, 101, 111, 123 Alliance system 13, 43, 75, 99, 112, 113, 117 Anglo-French Entente 19, 21, 23, 24, 43, 63, 112 Anglo-French naval agreement 26 – 7, 33, 113, 114 Anglo-Russian accord 20, 43 Annexation crisis (1908) 24, 25, 43 – 6, 62, 73, 74, 95, 97, 114 Anti-ultimatum ultimatum 54, 122 Article 231 (Versailles Treaty) 2, 3, 11 Asquith, Henry Herbert 25, 27, 81, 113, 121, 134 Austria-Hungary: Balkan wars 46 – 50, 56, 100; and Bosnia-Herzogovina 3, 24, 25, 43 – 5; and Britain 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 56; declaration of war 2, 35, 40, 43, 83, 131, 133; domestic issues 41 – 2; federalism 42, 43, 96; and France 56, 114, 121, 122; and Germany 27, 40, 56, 57, 63, 74 – 5; and Russia 45 – 6, 48, 56, 74, 78, 93; Serbia 13, 29, 31, 33, 34, 41, 70, 82, 96; ultimatum 29, 52, 53 – 5, 99, 100, 120 – 1 Austro-Prussian War 41 Balkan League 27, 29 – 30, 46, 47, 49, 74 Bark, Petrn 61, 102, 105 Belgium 5, 12, 18, 34, 35, 63, 69, 71, 81, 82, 83, 116, 134, 136; neutrality of 33, 34, 116, 117 Benckendorff, Alexander von 28, 29, 30

Berchtold von und zu Ungarschnitz, Leopold 9, 29, 47 – 9, 51 – 5, 56, 57, 76, 77, 79, 81, 98, 99, 133, 135 Berlin, Treaty of 3, 44, 45 Bertie, Francis 21, 25, 26, 31, 33, 127n13 Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von 7, 26, 28, 51, 64, 75, 76 – 82, 93, 118, 135 Bienvenu-Martin, Jean-Baptiste 31, 122 Bismarck, Otto von 10, 21, 43, 45, 62, 112 Black Sea 2, 13, 78, 90, 92, 94, 102, 104, 105, 107n14, 107n15, 132 blank cheque 7, 13, 52, 56, 64, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 101, 135 Bobroff, Ronald 92, 94, 95, 96, 107n21 Bosnia 3, 24, 25, 43 – 5, 47, 49, 50, 62, 73, 74, 95; Bosnian rebellion (1875) 43 Bosphorus 92, 107n15 Britain: and Austria-Hungary 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 34, 48; and the Balkan Wars 25, 30, 35, 46, 48, 56; foreign policy 2, 6, 12, 191, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 56, 73, 113; and France 19, 25 – 6, 28, 30, 33, 35, 114, 124; and Germany 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, 34, 64, 72, 73; fear of Germany 19, 21, 22, 23, 72, 73; imperial pressures 19, 20; mediation in July crisis, 30 55, 72, 78, 104; Moroccan crises 23, 24, 26, 63; naval supremacy 20, 21, 22; origins of the war 2, 6, 7, 12, 18, 34, 122, 126, 134; and Russia 5, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35, 38n105, 75, 96, 104, 105, 121 (See also Great Britain) Buchanan, George 12, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38n105, 96, 99, 104, 105, 106, 125, 134 Bucharest, Treaty of 49, 96 Bunsen, Maurice de 29, 31, 35, 99, 53, 54

Index  145 Cambon, Jules 73, 74, 115 Cambon, Paul 6, 124, 26, 30, 31, 33, 34, 113, 115, 124, 126, 133 Central Powers 3, 55, 97, 113 Churchill, Winston 3, 27, 113 Clark, Christopher 16n41, 21, 22, 23, 25, 32, 33, 34, 45, 47, 55, 56, 63, 74, 75, 76, 93, 94, 112, 122, 129n70, 135 concert system 4, 12, 13, 27, 41, 43, 47, 48, 49, 56, 57, 75, 112, 131 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz 53, 75 Constantinople (see Istanbul) 47, 49, 75, 92, 93, 94, 96, 100, 132 Cornwall, Mark 32, 50, 51, 55, 60n87, 60n89 Crackanthorpe, Dayrell 12, 32 Crimean War 4 Crowe, Eyre 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 31, 125 Danilov, Yuri 117 Declassé, Théophile 19, 23, 24, 557, 63, 117, 118, 129n81, 133 Demarché (see ultimatum) 98, 103 Dobrorolski, Sergei 101, 135 Dragutin, Dimitrijević, (“Apis”) 50, 51 Dreadnoughts 72, 95, 97, 105, 132 Dual alliance 43, 57, 136n2 Dumaine, Alfred 54 Entente 3, 5, 8, 12, 14, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 43, 45, 49, 53, 57, 63, 77, 79, 83, 93, 99, 112, 113, 114, 120, 123, 131, 132, 134, 136 Evans, Richard J.W. 2, 10 Falkenhayn, Erich von 77 Ferdinand, king of Bulgaria 50, 94, 96, 100 Fez 25, 27, 46, 63 Fischer, Fritz 3, 10, 11, 12, 57n1, 62, 75 France: and Austria-Hungary, 54, 56, 57, 81, 119, 120, 135; and the Balkan wars 48; and Britain, 19, 21, 25, 26, 30, 113, 114; British naval agreement 26 – 7; foreign policy, 14, 19, 112, 114, 115, 117, 120, 123, 124, 126, 131, 133; and Germany, 34, 43, 62, 63, 65, 74, 82, 83, 118 – 9, 133;and Italy, 120; July Crisis 120 – 6; military planning 112, 113, 116, origins of the war, 2, 3, 7, 14, 111, 133; Plan XVII 113, 116, 119 Franco-Prussian War 3, 112

Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary 41, 44, 48, 51, 56 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 1, 13, 27, 35, 40, 42, 48, 50, 51, 76, 83, 90, 96, 97, 98 George V, King of England, Emperor of India 34, 83 Germany: aggression, 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 23, 69, 72, 125; alliances 43, 62; and Austria-Hungary 2, 7, 13, 28, 40, 41, 43, 50, 56, 57, 73, 75, 76 – 7, 79, 80, 119, 136; and Britain 10, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 31, 33 – 4, 72 – 3, 78, 82, 126; British neutrality 34, 79; foreign policy 23 – 4, 56 – 7, 62 – 4, 72 – 6; and France 23, 25, 74, 81, 82, 112, 114, 117, 118, 119, 126, 120, 125, 133; militarism 10, 13, 18, 22, 71 – 2, 87n76; responsibility for war 1, 2, 3, 7, 11, 83; and Russia 43, 45, 73 – 4, 75, 82, 93, 94, 95, 99, 116 – 7, 135; war planning 13, 63, 69, 71 (see also Schlieffen Plan) Giers, Mikhail 92, 94 Giesl von Gieslingen, Wladimir 55, 60n55, 79 Great Britain (See Britain) Greece 46, 49, 107n15 Grey, Edward 12, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 – 35, 53, 54, 56, 72, 79, 80, 81, 83, 93, 99, 104, 105, 113, 124, 126, 131, 134, 135 Habsburg Monarchy 3, 7, 13, 14, 41, 46, 48, 54, 62, 80, 91, 93, 106, 118, 119, 131, 135 Hartwig, Nikolai 46, 55, 60n85, 92, 93, 107n21 Hastings, Max 2, 6, 85n33, 111 Herbette, Maurice 74 Herwig, Holger 1, 2, 63, 70, 88n115, 137n13 Herzogovina 3, 24, 25, 43 – 5, 50, 62, 73, 84, 95, 97 Hoyos, Alexander 51, 76, 77, 80 India 19, 20, 21, 26 Izvolsky, Alexander 24, 25, 44, 45, 58n22, 94, 95, 97, 100, 102, 119, 130n88 Jagow, Gottlieb von 53, 77, 78, 79, 135 Joffre, Joseph 116, 117, 123, 124, 125

146 Index Jovanović, Jovan 50 July Crisis 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 18, 27 – 35, 42, 57, 76 – 82, 91, 95, 97, 98, 99, 106, 111, 112, 116, 117, 119, 120 – 6, 135 Kokovtsov, Vladimir 93, 95, 123, 124 Krüger, Paul 21, 73 Laguiche Pierre de 100, 123, 124 Langdon, John 2, 3 le Mouton de Boisdeffre, Raoul 8, 135 Lichnowsky Karl Max Von 28, 29, 32, 34, 81, 82, 83, 126, 134 Lieven, Dominic 13, 14, 91, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106 Liman von Sanders, Otto Viktor Karl 75, 94 Lloyd George, David 26 London Conference 27, 30, 49, 57, 74 Lützow, Heinrich von 53, 99 Macedonia 49 MacMillan, Margaret 2, 6, 8, 22, 23, 24, 33, 42, 63, 75, 113, 126 McMeekin, Sean 2, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 29, 32, 52, 54, 65, 77, 78, 79, 80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 122, 124, 131, 132, Messimy, Adolphe 123, 124, 125 militant diplomacy 49, 52, 57, mobilization 7, 13, 32, 116, 135; AustriaHungary, 55, 93, 114; France 8, 34, 126; Germany 7, 8, 68, 71, 82, 93, 114, 134, 135, 136; Russia 7, 13, 32, 116, 135 Moltke, Helmut von 65, 66, 67, 69, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 78, 80, 81, 82 Mombauer, Annika 2, 17n42, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 111, 134 Montenegro 27, 46, 47, 48, 49 Moroccan Crisis (1905) 23, 24, 25, 63, 67; (1911) 8, 9, 23, 25, 26, 27, 43, 46 Milligan, William 8, 9, 26, 33, 48, 58n16, 72, 74, 75 Napoleonic Wars 4, 41, 43, 112 Neilson, Keith 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30 Nicholas II 45, 58n22, 75, 79, 82, 93, 95, 98, 100, 102, 104, 111, 121, 136n8 Nicolson, Arthur 20, 25, 26 Nikita, king of Montenegro 47 North Africa 46

Otte, T.G. 9, 12, 18, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 42, 60n89, 77, 79, 95, 96, 98, 103, 204 – 5, 134 Ottoman Empire 27, 29, 40, 44, 46 – 7, 49, 57, 74, 75, 92, 93, 95, 97, 105, 119, 132, 133 Paču, Lazar 54 Pašić, Nikola 32, 46, 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 135 Paléologue, Maurice 14, 31, 60n79, 98, 99, 102, 104, 106, 108n39, 111, 112, 115, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 133, 134 Persia 19, 29, 21, 121 Poincaré, Raymond 3, 14, 31, 47, 52, 53, 54, 56, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 101, 109n61, 111, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120 – 2, 123, 124, 125, 126, 129n67, 131, 133 Pourtalés von Cronstern, Friedrich von 78, 82, 99, 103 Reinsurance treaty 43, 62, 72 Renouvin, Pierre 3, 121 Ritter, Gerhard 10, 63, 64, 67, 70 Röhl John C. G. 2, 11, 12 Romania 41, 49, 52, 117 Rossos, A 46, 47 Russia: and Austria-Hungary 2, 24 – 5, 28, 30, 32, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 55, 62, 93, 96, 99, 135; foreign policy 14, 90, 92, 95, 98, 99, 132; and France 7, 145, 23, 31, 52, 53, 54, 62, 79, 97, 8, 99, 101, 111, 114, 115; and Germany 72, 73, 74, 75 – 6, 78, 90, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106; military planning 8, 9, 116; 1912 Ministerial Council 47, 93; Ottoman Empire 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 105, 132; Period Preparatory to War 100, 102, 105; Plan 19 100, 101, 132; and Serbia 2, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 77, 83, 102, 103, 136; straits 24 – 5, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 105; threat to British Empire 19, 20, 21, Russo-Turkish War (1878) 3, 4, 94 Ruthenians 42, 96 (see Ukrainians) Sarajevo 1, 7, 9, 28, 30, 31, 33, 40, 50, 53, 54, 56, 76, 78, 121, 122, 125 Sazonov, Sergei 8, 13, 14, 29, 31, 32, 45, 46, 47, 54, 75, 78, 82, 90, 92, 93, 94,

Index  147 95 – 104, 105, 106, 112, 119, 121, 122, 123, 132, 133, 135 Schlieffen, Alfred von 10, 63, 70, 71, 134 Schlieffen Plan 10, 13, 63, 64; Zuber debate 64 – 70, 70 – 72 Schmidt, Stefan 6, 7, 14, 106, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 131, 133, 134 Schoen, Wilhelm Eduard von 82 Schroeder Paul W. 13, 42, 43, 45, 56, 57, 108n49 Scutari 48, 136 Serbia 1, 2, 9, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 44, 45, 46 – 50, 50 – 1, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 82, 83, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136 Shebeko, Nicholas 29, 54, 99 Sophie, Duchess of Hohenburg, 1, 27, 35, 40, 50, 51, 97 Spring, D.W. 94, 98 Steiner, Zara 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30 Stevenson, David 2, 43 Straits 2, 13, 24, 25, 44, 45, 58n22, 75, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 105, 107n15, 132, 136n8

Sukhominov, Vladimir 93, 101, 102, 103, 107n27 Szapáry, Friedrich 53, 54, 56, 103, 121, 122 Szögyény-Marich, Ladislaus 51, 79 Tirpitz, Alfred von 72, 88n99 Tripoli, Tripoltian War 27, 46, 74, 92 Tyrrell, William 82 Tisza de Borosjenő et Szaged, István 42, 51, 52, 53 Ukraine 42, 91, 92, 93, 105 Ukrainians 42, 96, 97, (See Ruthenians) Viviani, René 31, 52, 82, 111, 121, 122, 124, 126, 129n75, 133 Weltpolitik 72, 73 Wilhelm II 7, 21, 23, 24, 26, 34, 43, 51, 62, 63, 64, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 82, 87n87, 88n115, 93, 118, 119, 134, 135 Wilson, Keith 12, 191, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 33, 34, 38n77, 134 Yanushkevitch, Nikolai 100, 101, 102, 132 Zuber, Terence 6, 7, 13, 63, 64 – 6, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 131, 134