The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (148 page)

26. Known as ‘Apis’ or the Bull on account of his formidable physique and character, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević was head of Serbian military intelligence in 1914. Deeply involved in secret Serb nationalist societies, he encouraged the plot to assassinate the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

27. The Bulgarian troops on their way to fight the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War of 1912 have little idea of what lies in store. Although the Ottomans were defeated by an alliance of Balkan states, the Bulgarian army was badly mauled.

28. Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie set out on a summer morning in Sarajevo on their last trip. The timing could not have been worse since it coincided with the Serbians’ national day. In spite of warnings of terrorist plots security was lax. His death removed the one man close to the emperor who might have counselled against war. Gavrilo Princip (inset), a passionate Serbian nationalist, himself fired the shots that killed the royal couple. Because he was underage at the time he could not be executed. Sentenced to prison, he died of tuberculosis in 1918, unrepentant about the European catastrophe which he had helped to set off.

29. On 31 July 1914 Germany took the first step towards general mobilisation and so to making war on France and Russia. Standing outside the old arsenal in Berlin, a lieutenant announces the state of ‘imminent threat of war’ in the traditional way.

30. Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf saw his nation as surrounded by enemies, from Italy and Serbia in the south to Russia in the east. His recommendation in the several crises before 1914 was invariably for war.

31. Handsome, cultivated and exceedingly rich, Count Leopold Berchtold was Austria-Hungary’s foreign minister from 1912–15. Although he preferred peace, he became increasingly convinced that Serbia had to be destroyed.

32. István Tisza was an Hungarian aristocrat who twice headed the government. Clever, proud and headstrong he was committed to maintaining Hungarian dominance over the large national minorities within Hungary’s borders. Initially reluctant to support a war on Serbia he eventually swung round.

33. Like many other civilian leaders, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, Germany’s chancellor between 1909 and 1917 frequently chose to appear in military uniform. While he hoped for improved relations with Great Britain, he was not strong enough to overcome Wilhelm and Tirpitz and bring an end to the naval race.

34. In a scene that was repeated across Europe, families in Berlin wave goodbye to the men who have been called back into uniform. These troops from the reserves may well have been heading for the front lines, something the French had not counted on. As a result, French armies and the tiny British Expeditionary Force faced a stronger German attack than they had expected.

35. French nationalists had never accepted the loss of the provinces Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1871 and in Paris, the statue representing Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, had been draped with mourning. As France and Germany go to war in August 1914, crowds rushed to the Place de la Concorde and tore off the black crepe.

36. Although much worse destruction was to follow, the burning of the great library at Louvain by German troops as they passed through Belgium was a symbol of what the Great War did to European civilisation. The act also helped to turn opinion in neutral countries, most importantly in the United States, against Germany.

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PROFILE BOOKS

DESTINY IN THE DESERT

Jonathan Dimbleby