Europe's Last Summer (29 page)

Clearly that was a reason Moltke always had been a leading advocate of the Austrian alliance, and why he developed a warm personal relationship with his opposite number in Austria-Hungary, Conrad. It was also why he assured the Austrians of Germany's support if Russia attacked. But he did not reveal what would be required of Austria-Hungary.

Moltke kept his secrets, and Conrad kept his. As Conrad saw it— or at least so he claimed later—Austria would crush Serbia while Germany deterred Russia from interfering. His enemy—Austria's enemy—was Serbia; he had no desire to fight Russia. What Moltke did not tell Conrad was that if war came, Austria would have to subordinate its conflict with Serbia in order to devote itself entirely to the combat on the Russian front.

Moltke had another secret. It was one he could not share even with the Kaiser, the war minister, or the chief of the Kaiser's Army Cabinet. It had been devised for him, in large part, by his former assistant,
Erich Ludendorff. It was the plan to seize the fortress of Liege (in Belgium) by surprise the moment that war was declared. Unless that were done, the
invasion of France and Belgium probably would fail— and with it, the war. Had France or Belgium somehow forestalled Germany's move, it therefore would have been a catastrophe.

As the military historian John Keegan tells us, the
fortresses of Liege and Namur, interdicting passage of the Meuse River, were "the most modern in Europe." They were "constructed to resist attack by the heaviest gun then existing. . . . Each consisted of a circle, twenty-five miles in circumference, of independent forts, arranged . . . to lend each other the protection of their own guns." He tells us that at Liege there were four hundred guns, arrayed in twelve forts, "all protected by reinforced concrete and armour plate" and garrisoned by forty thousand troops.

The sooner Germany started the war, the better for the Liege operation. Every day it was postponed was a day in which France or Belgium might divine or anticipate Germany's move. On the other hand, Moltke had always argued that Germany had to postpone declaring war against Russia until Russia could be made to appear the aggressor.

Which was it to be: sooner or later? In the last week of July 1914 Moltke changed his mind from hour to hour and day to day, visibly agonizing.

CHAPTER 33: JULY 26

The Foreign Office building, situated at the corner of Downing Street and rebuilt in the 1860s as an Italianate palace to suit the Regency tastes of Lord Palmerston, did not house the sort of demanding institution that required long hours of its employees. They could sleep late; we are told by
Zara Steiner, a historian of the Foreign Office, that on weekdays "official hours were from twelve to six."

On weekends one left for the country. On the weekend in question the Prime Minister and the foreign secretary—and practically everybody they knew—were in the countryside as usual. Asquith was playing golf, and Grey was fishing for trout. Winston Churchill was with his wife and children on the beach, building sand castles. So it was remarkable that the head of the Foreign Office,
Sir Arthur Nicolson, in London, should have gone to his office to work on July 26, a Sunday.

The telegraphed dispatches that awaited him contained grim news. Serbia had ordered mobilization the day before, even before replying to the Austrian ultimatum; and from Vienna came reports that Austria had broken relations with Serbia. "War is thought imminent. Wildest enthusiasm prevails in Vienna," cabled the British ambassador from the Hapsburg capital.

From St. Petersburg: "Russia cannot allow Austria to crush Serbia and become predominant Power in the Balkans." According to the cable, Serbia had ordered mobilization and Russia had ordered preliminary preparations for mobilization. Historians in the years to come were going to become experts on mobilizations, endlessly disputing the nuances of difference among various forms of readiness for war: of preparatory stages, of mobilizations less than full, and of other postures short of marching on or firing upon a neighboring country.

Nicolson swung into action. He had two expedients in mind, but they were mutually exclusive: if he pushed one, he blocked the other. So he had to choose. The one he did not adopt was to campaign for direct talks between Austria and Russia, the two Great Powers that were directly concerned. Instead, he proposed convening a conference in London of the ambassadors of the uninvolved Great Powers—Germany, Italy, and France, meeting with Britain—at which the quarrel between Austria-Hungary and Serbia could be resolved peacefully. This was the process that had brought a halt to the Balkan wars of the year before. From his country house, Grey sent his go-ahead to Nicolson, who cabled the suggestion to the relevant foreign capitals.

Asquith told Venetia Stanley that he was concerned that "Russia is trying to drag us in." He wrote to her: "The news this morning is that Serbia had capitulated on the main points, but it is very doubtful if any reservations will be accepted by Austria, who is resolved upon a complete and final humiliation. The curious thing is that on many, if not most of the points, Austria has a good and Serbia a very bad case. But the Austrians are quite the stupidest people in Europe (as the Italians are the most perfidious) and there is a brutality about their mode of procedure which will make most people think that it is a case of a big Power wantonly bullying a little one. Anyhow, it is the most dangerous situation of the last 40 years."

That was not necessarily the view of Asquith's cabinet. That night, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George was reported to have told a friend otherwise: "He said that Austria had made demands which no self-respecting nation could comply with . . . he said the situation was serious, but that he thought there would be peace—in fact, he thought so very strongly."

In
Britain and the Origins of the First World War
(1977), Zara Steiner, looking at the weeks following the assassinations of June 28, 1914, suggests: "Only a calendar of events would catch the sense of rising tension and illustrate the interaction between all the capitals which ended in the breakdown of the European state system."

There is a strong element of truth in that insofar as Berlin and Vienna were concerned. But there was no rising of tension day by day in, for example, Paris or Rome or London. Austria and Germany successfully kept the secret of their plot from the other Great Powers for almost four weeks. From the killings the morning of June 28 until the morning of July 24, there was no significant rise in the level of tension.

Then, suddenly, on the midsummer weekend of July 24, a full-blown war crisis was sprung on Europe's leaders. It caught them unawares. Until July 23, the British cabinet had spent no time at all on foreign affairs; on July 26 the Chancellor of the Exchequer still believed that peace would be preserved.

In Russia, two weekending statesmen ran into each other that Sunday: the German ambassador found himself about to board the same train as Sazonov, the Russian foreign minister. It happened because their summer houses were near to one another. The ambassador took advantage of the situation to persuade Sazonov to reject Britain's proposals to convene a conference of the powers: "a European forum." It would be "unwieldy," argued the ambassador; the machinery would work too slowly. Instead, Russia should negotiate directly with Austria. (London, it will be remembered, had decided not to launch a campaign for direct negotiations because it would block the more promising proposal for a conference.) According to Germany's ambassador, Austria "does not think of swallowing Serbia, but only wants to give her a well-merited lesson." Sazonov, reported the ambassador, promised to follow the advice: no conference; direct negotiations.

Sazonov took a conciliatory line. He expressed willingness to see almost all of Austria's demands granted. In fact, he proceeded to postpone acting on the British conference proposal while he explored the possibility of direct negotiations with the Dual Monarchy. \But Austria refused to make any concessions. Sazonov had been persuaded to waste a vital couple of days.

Britain.
Members of the naval reserve left for home immediately after their exercises. The fleets themselves were scheduled to disperse Monday morning. Sunday, First Sea Lord Prince Louis of Battenberg spoke twice by telephone with First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, who was at the seashore. Prince Louis gave him news of Austria's rejection of the Serbian reply.

Either Churchill or Prince Louis then ordered the fleets not to disperse but to remain as they were. Churchill came to London, arriving at 10 p.m. He went to see Foreign Secretary Grey to ask whether it would be helpful if he made a public announcement of the order that had been given. Grey said yes. Churchill did so. It was a shot across the bow, aimed at attracting Germany's attention.

Contrary to the views of his closest associates at the Foreign Office, who were skeptical of German intentions, Grey tended to give Berlin the benefit of the doubt. His strategy in 1914, as in 1913, was to move toward a joint Anglo-German approach on the theory that otherwise the Germans would see Britain as forming a bloc with France and Russia. In other words, precisely because of the informal alliance among Britain, France, and Russia, Britain had to move in the first instance toward Germany so as not to appear to be taking sides.

Nonetheless, Berlin rebuffed Grey's conference proposal, claiming that it would be an arbitration, a laying down of the law to Austria. Grey denied it, but Jagow refused to accept the denial. Meanwhile a statement was published in Germany's quasi-official publication, the
North German Gazette,
backing Austria fully.

Nicolson, the
British foreign office head, told Grey that "Berlin is playing with us." Though Nicolson did not say so, Grey's strategy would prove futile if Germany, instead of being a neutral like England, was a hidden belligerent—in fact, Austria's secret backer. And that, indeed, was the case.

Paris.
The political director of the French foreign ministry told the German ambassador that "to any simple mind Germany's attitude was inexplicable if it did not aim at war." The ambassador denied it, but he knew nothing; Berlin had left him in the dark.

Vienna.
Berchtold was urged by Jagow in Berlin to declare war immediately, before the other powers stepped in to impose a peace settlement. In turn, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister attempted to put pressure on his army chief, Conrad, who had been a persistent advocate of going to war in the past. Conrad claimed not to be ready. In Conrad's account:

BERCHTOLD
: We should like to deliver the
declaration of war on Serbia as soon as possible so as to put an end to diverse influences. When do you want the declaration of war?

I
: Only when we have progressed far enough for operations to begin immediately—on approximately August 12.

BERCHTOLD
: The diplomatic situation will not hold as long as that.

Conrad replied that Austria had to hold back. Looking just at the Russian situation—what did Russia intend?—it was necessary to wait until at least August 4 or 5. "That will not do!" Berchtold exclaimed.

Germany's ambassador to Russia reported that he had held a long conference with Sazonov. The Russian foreign minister had been "conciliatory." He had stressed that he was ready to exhaust every means necessary to prevent a war. He "urgently entreated" Germany, too, to do whatever was needed to accomplish that goal. Though the Serbs were fellow Slavs, Russian policy was not guided solely by its "sympathies." It was guided by the need to uphold the balance of power and to protect those interests that were vital.

The German ambassador reported: "I particularly pointed out . . . that if Austria was really seeking a pretext for falling on Serbia . . . we should already have heard of the commencement of some action on the part of Austria."

It was an ingenious way of taking advantage of Austria's maddening slowness to move. Vienna's civilian government
was
trying to get its army to act, and Germany, too, was pushing the Austrians to take up arms.

Berlin.
Moltke, the chief of staff, was back at work with his chief deputy from the morning of July 26. Moltke then went to the Auswärtiges Amt, the German foreign office, to review matters with Jagow. During the course of the meeting, Moltke supplied Jagow with a draft ultimatum to Belgium to be used if and when war began. This envisaged a conflict with France, not with Serbia: a major war rather than a local one.

Finally, Moltke met with the Chancellor, who had been on the telephone almost continuously ever since returning the day before.

According to his wife, Moltke was "very dissatisfied" with the situation he found on his return. So were the other officers who returned that weekend and who had been holding meetings and exchanging views. In the three weeks that they deliberately had stayed away, Austria was supposed to have crushed Serbia, but instead had not even made the first move. Russia, which was to have been kept out of things, was taking preliminary military measures. Bethmann's plans were falling apart. The presentation of a
fait accompli
—his original plan—had not occurred. Localization of the conflict—his improvised second plan—was not occurring either: Britain was considering diplomatic initiatives, and Russia was thinking of taking action.

CHAPTER 34: JULY 27