The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (89 page)

Although Berchtold described himself as walking on eggshells between Bulgaria and Rumania, who hated each other with a vengeance after the Second Balkan War, he also tried draw Bulgaria into the Triple Alliance.
¹¹⁴
Although he ran into strong resistance from Wilhelm, who loathed Foxy Ferdinand its king, Berchtold finally persuaded the German government to offer Bulgaria a substantial loan in June 1914. Berchtold’s efforts also served to drive Rumania towards the Entente but in spite of many warning signs, he continued to place his trust in Carol until the eve of the Great War. Conrad, however, ordered his staff at the end of 1913 to prepare war plans against Rumania. He also asked Moltke for more troops to compensate for Rumania’s likely enmity. Moltke, as always, carefully avoided making any promises but it was likely that Germany would have thirteen to fourteen divisions in the east. The worst case, Conrad estimated, was if the combined forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary (which could put forty-eight divisions into the field) had to take on the ninety Russian divisions along with Rumania’s and Serbia’s sixteen and a half apiece, and Montenegro’s five, an overall balance of 128 in favour of the Triple Entente over some 62 for the Dual Alliance. That was what was going to happen.
¹¹⁵

In that last period of the peace there were still attempts by the different sides to reach across the divide. In Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, there were those who argued for an alliance of the
three conservative monarchies. In February 1914 the conservative Russian and former Minister of the Interior, Peter Durnovo, presented a long memorandum to the tsar in which he urged that Russia should stay out of the quarrels between France and Germany or Britain and Germany. Russia had much to gain by being on good terms with Germany and everything to lose. A European war would shake Russian society even more than the Japanese one had. If Russia lost, he predicted, it would suffer ‘a social revolution in its most extreme manifestation’.
¹¹⁶
In Austria-Hungary Baron Stephen von Burián, an old friend of Tisza’s whom the Hungarian Prime Minister had appointed to keep an eye on things in Vienna for him, floated the possibility of an understanding in Europe and over the Straits with Russia. He had made little headway by June 1914 but remained optimistic.
¹¹⁷

The most significant of all the attempts at détente and the one with the greatest potential for keeping Europe away from war was that between Germany and Britain. In the summer of 1913, with a breathtaking disregard of their oldest ally, the British offered Germany Portugal’s African colonies in an attempt to satisfy German hunger for an empire. Terms for liquidating the Portuguese Empire were reached but still awaited signature in the summer of 1914. Britain and Germany also reached an agreement over the Berlin–Baghdad railway: Britain would no longer oppose its construction and the Germans agreed to respect British control of the area south of Baghdad including the sea coast. These were encouraging developments but the key to a better relationship was, as always, the naval race.

At the start of 1912, as the Germans readied a fresh naval bill, the British suggested that the two sides talk. From Britain’s perspective the German increases represented an unacceptable threat to British home waters while for the Asquith government the prospect of trying to get more naval spending approved by Parliament was an unpalatable one. Sir Ernest Cassel, a leading British financier with good links in Germany, visited Berlin in late January 1912 with the approval of the Cabinet to sound out the Germans about some form of agreement. He saw his good friend, the shipping magnate Albert Ballin, who also wanted to end the naval race and had meetings with Bethmann and the Kaiser, to whom he presented a brief memorandum. It contained three key points. First and most important, Germany must accept that Britain’s naval superiority
was essential to the island empire and the German programme must therefore be frozen or cut back. Secondly and in return, Britain would do what it could to help Germany obtain colonies. Finally, the two countries should promise not to take part in aggressive plans or alliances against each other. Bethmann, reported Cassel, was pleased and Wilhelm was ‘enchanted, almost childishly so’.
¹¹⁸
The Germans suggested that the British send a government minister to Berlin for discussions.

On 5 February 1912 the British Cabinet chose Richard Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, to be their emissary. Haldane, a tubby and self-important lawyer, had fallen in love with Germany and German philosophy as a young man and spoke the language impressively well. (This was to be a black mark against him during the Great War.) He was on the hawkish side of the Cabinet and particularly close to Grey, with whom he shared a house. Officially it was given out that Haldane was studying German education, but the real purpose of his trip was to sound out the Germans and suggest that if the two sides could reach an agreement Churchill or Grey himself would be willing to come to Berlin to finalise it. Haldane held two days of talks with Bethmann, the Kaiser and Tirpitz. He judged Tirpitz difficult, the Kaiser friendly – Wilhelm presented him with a bronze bust of himself – and Bethmann sincere in wanting peace.
¹¹⁹

It was soon apparent that the two sides were, in fact, far apart. The British wanted an end to the naval race; the Germans wanted a guarantee that Britain would remain neutral in any war on the Continent. This would, of course, have given Germany a free hand to deal with Russia and France. The most that Germany would do was to slow the tempo of its ship-building if it got that guarantee whereas the most the British would promise was to remain neutral if Germany was attacked and was therefore the innocent party. Wilhelm was furious at what he saw as British insolence: ‘I must as Kaiser in the name of the German Empire and as commander-in-chief in the name of my armed forces absolutely
reject
such a view as incompatible
with our
honour.’
¹²⁰
Although negotiations continued after Haldane’s return to London, it was clear they were going nowhere.
¹²¹
On 12 March the Kaiser approved the new naval bill after the empress, who hated the British with a passion, told him to stop being subservient to Britain. Tirpitz, who had strongly opposed the negotiations from the start, kissed her hand and
thanked her in the name of the German people.
¹²²
Bethmann, who had not been consulted, tried to submit his resignation but Wilhelm angrily accused him of being a coward and refused to accept it. Bethmann loyally remained in office. He later said sadly that he could have achieved a deal with Britain if only Wilhelm had not kept interfering.
¹²³

When Churchill presented his naval estimates for 1912–13 to Parliament shortly after the failure of the Haldane mission, he said openly that Britain was building only against Germany and must keep a decisive advantage. As a gesture of goodwill and in an attempt to keep expenditure under control, he also suggested a naval holiday, where the two sides would take a breather in their battleship building. It was an offer he was to repeat in the next two years. He seems to have been motivated by a desire to appease those members of his own party who objected to the great increase in defence spending and the recognition that a naval holiday at that point would freeze the balance of power in Britain’s favour. The proposal was rejected out of hand by Germany’s leaders and attacked by conservatives in Britain. The only country where it received a warm welcome was in the United States: the new President, Woodrow Wilson, was enthusiastic and the House of Representatives called for an international conference to discuss a freeze in naval building. In 1914 Wilson sent his closest confidant, the small enigmatic Colonel Edward House, to the capitals of Europe to see if the United States could help broker a naval disarmament agreement. House reported from Berlin in May: ‘The situation is extraordinary. It is militarism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you can bring about a different understanding there is some day to be an awful cataclysm.’
¹²⁴

Wilson’s Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, also sent out a letter to other governments suggesting that the third of the Hague international peace conferences, which had started in 1899, take place in the autumn of 1915, and by 1914 a number of countries had started their preparations.
¹²⁵
The international peace movement remained active as well. On 2 August an international peace conference, supported by the American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, was due to take place in the German city of Constance and the Interparliamentary Union planned to meet later that month in Stockholm. While many of the pacifists remained confident that war was becoming increasingly impossible, one veteran was filled with gloom. Bertha von Suttner wrote in
her diary: ‘Nothing but mutual suspicions, accusations and agitation. Well, that is an adequate chorus for the increasing cannons, the airplanes which are testing dropping bombs and for war ministries which always demand more.’
¹²⁶
She died a week before Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo.

As that fateful event drew near, Europe was an odd combination of unease and complacency. Jaurès, the great French socialist, put his finger on it: ‘Europe has been afflicted by so many crises for so many years, it has been put dangerously to the test so many times without war breaking out that it has almost ceased to believe in the threat and is watching the further development of the interminable Balkan conflict with decreased attention and reduced disquiet.’
¹²⁷
The statesmen had muddled through before. They had resisted the calls from their own generals to strike first. Why should they not do so again?

CHAPTER 18
Assassination at Sarajevo

The 28th of June 1914 was a Sunday and the weather was warm and sunny. Holidaymakers thronged Europe’s amusements, its parks, and its beaches. Poincaré, the French President, was with his wife at the Longchamp races, just outside Paris. The crowds, he later wrote in his diary, were happy and carefree. The course with its expanse of green lawns looked beautiful and there were many elegant women to admire. For many Europeans the summer vacation had already started. Europe’s cabinets, its foreign ministries and its military headquarters were half empty, their members scattered. Berchtold, the Chancellor of Austria-Hungary, was duck-hunting in Moravia; Kaiser Wilhelm was racing in his yacht
Meteor
at the annual summer regatta in the Baltic; and Moltke, the chief of his general staff was at a spa. The crisis that was about to come was made worse because so many of the key figures were hard to reach or simply did not take it sufficiently seriously until it was too late.

As Poincaré was enjoying the day with his guests from the diplomatic corps in the special presidential box, he was handed a telegram from the French news agency Havas. The archduke Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife Sophie had just been assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Austria-Hungary’s recently acquired province of Bosnia. Poincaré immediately told the Austrian ambassador, who went white and left at once for his embassy. While the races went on below, the news spread among Poincaré’s guests. Most thought it would make
little difference to Europe but the Rumanian ambassador was deeply pessimistic. Austria-Hungary, he thought, would now have the excuse it wanted to wage a war on Serbia.
¹

18. The confrontation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, risked drawing in other powers. Serbia, whose government probably knew about the planned assassination, was emboldened to stand up to Austria-Hungary because it had support from Russia. As the imperial eagle of Austria-Hungary prepares to attack the chicken of Serbia, the Russian bear lurks behind a rock preparing to defend its small Balkan friend.

In the five weeks which followed Europe went from peace to a full-scale war involving all the great powers except, at first, Italy and the Ottoman Empire. The public, which had played its part over the decades in pushing its leaders towards war or peace, now waited on the sidelines as a handful of men in each of Europe’s main capitals juggled with fateful decisions. Products of their backgrounds and times, with deeply engrained beliefs in prestige and honour (and such terms were going to be used frequently in those hectic days), they based their decisions on
assumptions which they did not always articulate, even to themselves. They also were at the mercy of their own memories of past triumphs and defeats, and of their hopes and fears for the future.