The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (71 page)

The news of the annexation did not come as a complete surprise to Europe. The ambassador of Austria-Hungary in Paris had handed over the confidential letter from Franz Joseph to the French President three days early because the latter was going away for the weekend and rumours of the move had inevitably leaked out. The ambassador himself was unrepentant, writing to Aehrenthal: ‘That I am by nature impulsive, I know only too well, but at my age it is difficult to change a basic characteristic.’
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Berchtold who carried a similar letter to the tsar, had to
chase the imperial yacht around the Gulf of Finland. The Russians were annoyed both at the speed with which the annexation had taken place and that they had not been officially told until the day it occurred. (Berchtold in fact wanted to resign his post as Austria-Hungary’s ambassador there because he felt Aehrenthal had been less than completely honest with Izvolsky.
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) In the Duma and the press, there was a storm of protest over the two provinces inhabited by fellow Slavs going to Austria-Hungary, and Izvolsky came under increasing attack for not safeguarding Russia’s interests in the Balkans. Within the government, his fellow ministers were already angered as well by the fact that neither Nicholas nor Izvolsky had bothered to tell them about the discussions with Austria-Hungary until after the Buchlau meeting. Stolypin, the Prime Minister, in fact threatened to resign and he and Vladimir Kokovtsov, the Finance Minister, led the attack on Izvolsky after news of the annexation reached Russia. Nicholas began to back away from his Foreign Minister, who found his position weakening as the months went by.
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Germany was also offended by the manner of the announcement: the Kaiser felt that Aehrenthal had not played fair with Russia and complained that he learned the news from the newspapers. Austria-Hungary’s long-serving ambassador, Count Ladislaus Szögyény, was obliged to visit Wilhelm at his hunting lodge in East Prussia to try to smooth things over. After a train trip of many hours, the unfortunate Szögyény was taken off in what he described as a ‘splendid imperial motor car’ which promptly turned over.
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Wilhelm was concerned, with reason, that Germany risked losing its influence in Constantinople which it had carefully built up over the preceding years. He also felt that Aehrenthal unnecessarily alienated Russia when the Dual Alliance still had hopes of detaching it from the entente.
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In the end, however, the Germans felt they had little choice but to support their chief ally. It was a dilemma they would face again in 1914.

In Austria-Hungary itself reactions were mixed. While the Hungarian government welcomed the increase of territory, it made it clear that it would not accept a third, South Slav, partner in the Dual Monarchy. As a result the status of Bosnia-Herzegovina was to remain, as one Hungarian politician said, ‘floating like Mahomet’s coffin in the air’ under the administration of the joint Minister of Finance in Vienna.
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The empire’s own South Slavs, who were becoming increasingly politically active, were lukewarm about the annexation. The emerging Croat–Serb coalition within the Croatian parliament openly opposed it. The governor of Croatia arrested some fifty deputies and charged them with treason. The subsequent trial was a travesty, with biased judges and flimsy or forged evidence, and the guilty verdict had to be overturned. ‘This trial was an early fruit of the annexation policy,’ wrote the leading Hungarian newspaper. ‘All and everything it in it was politics.’
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Forgery also played a part in another sensational trial in the same period. Dr Heinrich Friedjung, a leading nationalist historian and political figure, published articles claiming to have evidence that key South Slav political leaders within Austria-Hungary were in the pay of Serbia. The documents turned out to have been conveniently supplied (and forged) by the Dual Monarchy’s Foreign Ministry. Both trials shamed the government and Aehrenthal in particular and served to alienate further the empire’s South Slavs.

Among Austria-Hungary’s ruling classes, however, there was jubilation at the news of the annexation. ‘We have showed Europe once more that we are still a great power!’ Franz Ferdinand wrote to Aehrenthal, ‘Very good!’ He advised Aehrenthal to treat the new provinces with an iron fist and to meet any attempts by Serbia to send in agitators with bullets or a salutary hanging or two. And any hostile reactions from the other powers could, the archduke was confident, be managed. ‘The anger of England is costly but the fatty Eddy will already have consoled himself with a few bottles of champagne and the company of a few so-called ladies.’
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It was not going to be as easy as that. The Foreign Office by this point was dominated by suspicion of Germany and the Dual Alliance. The British were annoyed too at Austria-Hungary’s by-passing of the international agreements on the Balkans and worried about the impact on the Ottoman Empire. The Liberal government approved of the Young Turks and did not wish to see them undermined. And if the Ottoman Empire was driven to the point of collapse British interests at the eastern end of the Mediterranean would be threatened. British policy in the crisis was a balancing act between supporting the Ottoman Empire, counteracting German and Austrian-Hungarian influence there, and keeping on good terms as much as possible with Russia while
not supporting the changes to the agreements on the Straits which the Russians wanted. (The British eventually suggested opening the Straits to warships of all nations, which, of course, was the last thing the Russians wanted.)
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From the British point of view, the crisis came at a bad time. The naval scare, with its fears of German invasion, was in full swing (he knew for a fact, said a backbench Member of Parliament, that German agents had concealed 50,000 Mauser rifles and 7 million rounds of ammunition in the heart of London)
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and the government was facing demands to increase its spending on the British navy. At the end of October the
Daily Telegraph
published its famous interview with the Kaiser, where Wilhelm blamed the British government for the bad relations between Britain and Germany, which further aroused British opinion against Germany. As Grey remarked to the British ambassador in Berlin: ‘this is not a time when any nation can safely strike sparks’.
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To add to the tensions, there was a serious crisis between France and Germany which had started over three German deserters from the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. On 25 September, the French had recaptured the deserters, who were being helped by the German consul in Casablanca. The German government promptly demanded an apology. As happened increasingly easily in those years, there was talk of war. By that November the British government was seriously considering what it would do if hostilities broke out between France and Germany.
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Fortunately the issue was settled when the two sides agreed to refer it to arbitration.

In addition to the Casablanca incident, the French were largely preoccupied by domestic issues, with a rise in working-class militancy and the growth on the right of a new aggressive nationalism. The last thing France wanted was to be drawn into a quarrel in the Balkans in which it had little interest. Like Britain, it also wished to see a stable Ottoman Empire and a peaceful Balkans. French investors held as much as 70–80 per cent of the combined debt of the Ottoman Empire, Serbia and Bulgaria.
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Nevertheless, although the Foreign Minister at the time, Stephen Pichon, disliked Russia and the Russian alliance, he recognised that France had little choice but to support its ally. So France denounced the annexation and supported Russia’s call for an international conference. Privately, the French let the Russians know that France expected
to co-operate with Britain over the Straits and, as the crisis worsened, urged the Russians to be reasonable and find a peaceful solution.
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In Constantinople, locals attacked Austrian-Hungarian businesses and set upon the Dual Monarchy’s citizens in the streets while the Ottoman government supported a boycott of trade with Austria-Hungary. The most furious reactions of all came, understandably, in Serbia. Huge demonstrations marched through the streets of Belgrade and a mob tried to smash the windows of the Austrian-Hungarian embassy. The crown prince said he, like all Serbs, was ready to die for a Greater Serbia. (He never got the chance; he was removed from the succession the following year when he kicked a servant to death in a fit of rage and died of old age in Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1972.) A new paramilitary group, Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), formed, which was to play an important part in politics in the next few years, and Serbian volunteers, with the connivance of the government, slipped over the borders into Bosnia-Herzegovina to stir up opposition to Austria-Hungary.
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The Serbian government sent representatives around Europe to win over public opinion. It also demanded compensation although it had no good legal grounds for doing so. ‘Give us a pasture or mill’, the Serbian ambassador in London begged his counterpart from Austria-Hungary, ‘anything to mollify our country.’
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In fact Serbia asked for much more – the Sanjak of Novi Bazar – which would link it to Montenegro, or even the reversal of the annexation. Montenegro also asked for compensation, specifically the end to the conditions imposed on it by the settlement of 1878 which prevented it from such things as having a navy. Both Serbia and Montenegro also took steps to mobilise their armies and ordered new weapons from abroad.
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In an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come, Serbian officials talked about going to war if necessary. In late October, Nikola Pašić, who was to be Prime Minister in 1914, urged Russian leaders including the tsar himself and his ministers as well as prominent Panslavists to stand firm against Austria-Hungary, come what may. In a conversation with Izvolsky, he implied that Serbia might have to act alone, ‘if it is a question of the existence, the honour, and the dignity of the people’.
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Izvolsky, who only a few weeks before had been preening himself on his successful negotiations with Austria-Hungary, was dismayed at the
international reaction and, so he said, furious with Aehrenthal for a premature annexation before Russia could get its own demands in order. The Russian went, said Berchtold unkindly, from being a flamboyant peacock to a rampaging turkey.
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Aehrenthal, who had got what he wanted and who was assured of German support, was unconcerned. When Izvolsky blustered about betrayal, Aehrenthal simply threatened to release their previous secret communications and his own version of the deal at Buchlau which would undermine Izvolsky’s claims to be surprised. He adamantly refused to hold the international conference Izvolsky now insisted upon or to give compensation to the Ottoman Empire, much less to Serbia or Montenegro, whatever the two Balkan states said or did.

Conrad, who had strongly supported the annexation, urged his government to take the opportunity to wage a preventive war on Serbia and Montenegro; Italy too if it showed signs of intervening. He promised that he could defeat all three handily. Austria-Hungary could put over 700,000 men in the field along its southern borders while Serbia had at most 160,000 men, Montenegro a mere 43,000, and Italy, which was highly unlikely to fight, 417,000. What is more, Austria-Hungary’s equipment and training was much superior to that of its enemies.
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Once Serbia had been defeated, it should be incorporated into the empire. That last was too much for Aehrenthal, who understood the political difficulties; the most he would do to Serbia would be force it into a customs union. While he preferred the cheaper route of diplomacy to settle the crisis, he certainly did not rule out war.
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‘Perhaps’, he wrote to Franz Ferdinand near the start of the crisis, ‘conflict between us and Serbia in the course of the next few months is unavoidable, and as soon as this is clear, I favour demonizing Serbia with all energy possible.’
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All that winter of 1908–9, said a member of the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, it felt as though they were on the brink of war.
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Conrad prevailed upon the government to step up war preparations: he ordered new armaments, moved forces into Bosnia-Herzegovina, and delayed demobilising conscripts whose terms were up. He also increased his forces on Austria-Hungary’s frontier with Serbia and made preparations to mobilise forces in Galicia near the border with Russia.
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Franz Ferdinand, for all his hatred of the ‘Balkan curs’, acted as a brake on
Conrad’s headlong dash towards war. Austria-Hungary, he argued to Aehrenthal, had much to lose by going to war. ‘Please restrain Conrad’, the archduke wrote to Conrad’s adjutant, ‘he must stop this warmongering. It would be tempting to strike down the Serbians … but what use are such cheap laurels when we might risk the impossible war on three fronts? Then it would be the end of the song.’
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Unfortunately, when another crisis broke out in the Balkans in 1914, Franz Ferdinand was no longer there to advocate restraint.

While Aehrenthal was enjoying the success of his annexation, Izvolsky, who was in Paris when the news broke, continued his increasingly desperate trip around Europe’s capital cities to try to gain support at the very least for an international conference. (Bülow said maliciously that he really delayed his return to St Petersburg because the pretty and extravagant Madame Izvolsky wanted to do her Christmas shopping.)
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Russia’s own allies would do little but offer to help broker an end to the crisis. When the Russians asked Grey point blank that November what Great Britain would do if Russia went to war with Austria-Hungary over the Balkans, he temporised: ‘so much depended upon how the quarrel arose, and who was the aggressor’. Privately, however, Grey told his close colleagues ‘it would be very difficult for England to keep out of it’.
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In Berlin Bülow was sympathetic (he had not completely given up hope of winning Russia back) but told Izvolsky Germany could do nothing. The Germans knew that Russia’s financial situation was bad and calculated, rightly, that Russia was in no position to fight. The Kaiser happily wrote ‘Bluff’ on the memorandums that came across his desk saying that Izvolsky was threatening war.
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When Izvolsky arrived back in St Petersburg at the start of November, Berchtold found him a broken man. ‘He lay limp on his armchair. His eyes were dull, his voice raw, his speech like that of a dying man.’
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Izvolsky had good reason to feel depressed; Russia had been made to look weak and isolated abroad and his own position had been seriously damaged. Izvolsky’s own colleagues led by Stolypin made it clear that he could no longer have a free hand in foreign policy but must consult the Council of Ministers. To make matters worse, it turned out that neither he nor anyone in the Russian Foreign Office knew, as Aehrenthal was delighted to point out, that Russia had agreed a couple times in the 1870s and 1880s not to oppose the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. ‘You will understand’,
the tsar wrote to his mother, ‘what an unpleasant surprise this is, and what an embarrassing position we are in.’
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