Although, as the Kaiser's new perspective indicated, Europe was pulling back from the brink, the brink remained close. Between 1908 and 1913, Europeans had moved the line permanently closer to it. Earlier, the powers were bound by secret treaties of alliance that pledged them to help each other in case of an attack. Now the alliances no longer were defensive. France would fight for Russia, and Britain might well fight for France, right or wrong, as would Germany for Austria. The question that the war would settle would be: which of the Great Powers would remain a Great Power? As of 1914, only one of them felt its status—and existence—immediately threatened unless it took prompt action, and that power was Austria-Hungary.
Encirclement was Germany's nightmare, and Germany had brought it upon itself. Located in the heart of Europe, the country had so effectively terrified its neighbors that they had banded together in self-defense. In turn, what its neighbors had been driven to do had further reinforced Germany's paranoia. What had started as a dark fantasy was converted by Germany's own actions into a reality. France, England, and Russia had no intention of attacking Germany, but they were making contingency plans for combining against the Kaiser's empire if and when it attacked them.
Culturally, in every way the most and best educated population in Europe—that of Germany—was telling itself that it was being suffocated by a European civilization that was pressing in on it from all sides. It was not evident then nor is it now why the Germans felt that way, but it is clear that they did.
Such sentiments were certainly apparent in military and political matters. Historians believe there was an easing of tensions between England and Germany in 1914 as they settled such conflicts as those relating to the German plan to build a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway and to appoint a German general officer, Otto Liman von Sanders, to reorganize the Ottoman army. But when Germany's Anglophile ambassador in London sent home a message urging Germany and Britain to stick together, a high Berlin foreign policy official could only imagine that the ambassador had been duped by the British: "again put into swaddling clothes" (June 27, 1914). When a Russian newspaper urged Entente preparedness, "Against us" was the Kaiser's marginal note; "they are working on high pressure for an early war with us." To the newspaper's assertion that "Russia and France want no war," the Kaiser scribbled "Twaddle!"
CHAPTER 16: MORE BALKAN TREMORS
In the turbulent Balkans of the early twentieth century, peace treaties seemed to be no more than temporary truces during which the parties schemed at realignment for the next round of fighting. So it was in mid-June 1914, as Kaiser Wilhelm II held discussions with his friend Archduke Franz Ferdinand. These talks were followed by a far-ranging conversation between Franz Ferdinand and Count Berchtold, foreign minister of the Dual Monarchy. These, in turn, led to the drafting by several hands within the Hapsburg foreign ministry of a memorandum outlining a grand strategy for Austria-Hungary.
Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand met at the Archduke's country estate, Konopischt, in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic). No transcript survives, but there is evidence that Franz Ferdinand had been asked by his emperor, Franz Joseph, to obtain from Wilhelm a commitment to continue to back Austria unconditionally, such as he had given in November 1912, and that Wilhelm had avoided providing such a statement. The Austrian government believed that Serbia posed a mortal danger, but the Kaiser disagreed.
The political relationship between Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand was far more complex than it appeared on the surface. For the Kaiser, it was, at least in part, a friendship of convenience. He had set out to form a bond with the Hapsburg heir apparent. In some respects that was easy to do because of their shared tastes, including a passion for hunting. Wilhelm made a point of treating Sophie, Franz Ferdinand's wife, as an Archduchess, a position denied to her in her own country. He dealt with the Archduke as though he were the political partner that, upon the death of elderly Franz Joseph, he might well become. He worked at making a friend of Franz Ferdinand, but Franz Ferdinand may not have been entirely fond of Wilhelm. There were tensions within the Austro-German alliance.
Both were men of autocratic temperament. They were impatient and held strong biases. But Franz Ferdinand was Roman Catholic while Wilhelm was Lutheran. And the Archduke deeply resented the descent of the Hapsburg Empire from its first place among the powers of Europe to its position in 1914 as a junior partner to Wilhelm's Germany. He detested Hungary, and deplored the weakness that drove Austria to make the Magyars a partner in government. Wilhelm, on the contrary, spoke highly of Count István Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister, but failed to convince Franz Ferdinand.
Both men entertained hopes of an eventual detente with Russia, whose Czar shared their belief in royal absolutism. But just as Wilhelm allowed his anti-Slav racism to overcome his monarchist ideology, Nicholas subordinated his ideology to his country's national interest. And it should be noted that the Kaiser had a paranoid fear that Russia was planning a war against Germany.
Time and again, during the frequent war crises that were so conspicuous a feature of their time, both men chose peace, and were distrusted by the military in their respective countries for having done so. Both men were intemperate in their use of language: Franz Ferdinand in dealing with people, Wilhelm in dealing with politics.
Though in theory they were closest allies, the Kaiser's Germany pursued ambitious economic plans in Asia, and even in the Balkans from which Franz Ferdinand's Dual Monarchy was excluded. Austria-Hungary would not back Germany in Morocco; Germany would not support Austria-Hungary in Albania. Regarding the belligerents in the Second Balkan War, Germany was for Greece and Austria was for Bulgaria. Austrians could not understand how Germany could fail to see why Serbia, which had just doubled in size, terrified them. Serbia exercised a powerful magnetic pull on the substantial Slavic population of the Hapsburg Empire.
In policy planning in June 1914, the question for the two empires was which country should be their main Balkan ally: Romania or Bulgaria? Germany chose Romania while Austria chose, once again, Bulgaria. But on this issue Franz Ferdinand parted company with his government; he, like the Kaiser, was for Romania.
Here they were in counsel together, two of the most disliked men in European public life, yet, within the ranks of their own governments, perhaps the only ones of consequence who again and again favored pulling back from the brink of war. They were misunderstood by the outside world. The Kaiser, who loved to talk tough, often ranted and raved like a belligerent adolescent trying to impress his peers, but while his tirades were bellicose, his decisions—when the time to act arrived—by and large were not. There was no reason to misunderstand Franz Ferdinand, however; he spoke as well as worked to achieve peace.
General Conrad, sometime Austrian chief of staff, recalled Franz Ferdinand's aide-de-camp as saying in 1913, "The Archduke has sounded the retreat all along the line, he will on no account have war with Russia, he will not allow it. He wants not a plum tree, not a sheep from Serbia." Berchtold, Austria's foreign minister, said to Conrad, "The Heir Apparent is all on the side of peace." Reportedly Franz Ferdinand told dinner guests that Austria had nothing to gain from conquering Serbia; going to war would be "a bit of nonsense."
On March 16, 1914, Conrad spoke, as he so often did, of going to war as soon as possible against Russia. He was speaking to the German ambassador in Vienna, who explained why it could not happen: "Two important people are against it, your Archduke Franz Ferdinand and my Kaiser."
A secret truth about the politics of 1914—something of which the outside world had no suspicion—was that if these two men continued to work together in pursuit of their common policy goals, the Great Powers of Europe might well have remained at peace. The wars of 1914 would not have taken place.
Count Berchtold had come to Konopischt the day after Wilhelm left. It was Sunday, June 14, two weeks before Franz Ferdinand's scheduled trip to Sarajevo. The two men and their wives spent the day together. Afterwards Berchtold put his foreign ministry officials to wor
k on questions that were at issue. It was not really his staff. It consisted of a clique of talented firebrands he had inherited from Aehrenthal, who had known how to control their high spirits. Now Berchtold was giving them their head. His aim was to summarize Austria's current thinking on world affairs: where the Dual Monarchy was and where it hoped to go.
One concern was Albania, a country created by the European powers as a buffer to contain Serbian expansionism. The assumption had been that it would be Austro-German in orientation; indeed, Albania had been provided with a German monarch. Yet Italy—nominally the ally of Austria and Germany in the Triple Alliance—was maneuvering to achieve hegemony in the newly created country. Italy was becoming a rival and perhaps an enemy.
Was Russia a concern? Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand tended to think not, and favored a thaw in relations with the Czar. However, some in the foreign office in Vienna feared that, as in 1912, pan-Slav Russians would be able to unite all the Balkan countries—only this time against Germany and Austria instead of against Turkey.
Wilhelm thought that the Balkan states would remain disunited. The trick was to back the right combination of them. Romania was at the top of his list. Its monarch had secretly pledged—personally—to support the Triple Alliance. That did not bind his country. Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand hoped for a public and secure commitment.
A problem was that Austria was bound to Hungary in the Dual Monarchy, and Hungary and Romania had an apparently irreconcilable conflict—one that endures today. Franz Ferdinand was fiercely anti-Hungarian, and wanted to ally with Romania at Hungary's expense. The Kaiser would not face the issue; he admired Hungary's premier, Count István Tisza, and felt that the Hungary-Romania conflict could somehow be made to go away. He also wanted to bring in Greece as an ally, but lacked convincing evidence that Greece would wish to do so. Finally, he hoped to reconcile Serbia and Austria—much to the disgust of the Austrians, who tried in vain to convince him that Serbia was a menace that somehow had to be eliminated. In effect, the Kaiser was proposing to re-create the victorious alliance of the Second Balkan War, but this time have it led by Germany and the Dual Monarchy. He argued for going with what had been the winning side.
Berchtold saw things the other way around. The Dual Monarchy's foreign minister did not believe that Romania would be an ally of Austria's; it would not back Austria-Hungary because of the Hungarian conflict, and the Dual Monarchy would therefore have to ally with Romania's enemy, Bulgaria. Bulgaria had ties with Turkey, so Greece would have to be thrown on the other side. Therefore Berchtold would essentially reconstitute the alliance pattern of the Second Balkan War too, but he would take over what had been not the winning, but the losing side.
On the eve of the world crisis, there was no agreement in Berlin or Vienna as to who was the enemy or what was the quarrel in the troublesome Balkans.
As regards Europe as a whole, the two empires were reasonably clear as to who was on what side: they themselves, maybe joined by Italy, on one side; Russia and France, maybe with England, on the other. Moreover, the two chiefs of the general staff, Helmuth von Moltke in Germany and Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf in Austria-Hungary, were in close touch with one another and sometimes discussed their respective war plans. Both generals often urged launching preventive war.
Indeed, in the words of Hew Strachan, "Conrad first proposed preventive war against Serbia in 1906, and he did so again in 1908–9, in 1912–13, in October 1913, and May 1914: between 1 January 1913 and 1 January 1914 he proposed a Serbian war twenty-five times."
But the generals were subordinated to monarchs who opted for peace. And in Germany, Moltke also was opposed by Tirpitz, who wanted a cold war—at least for many years to come—rather than a hot one, and whose focus was on a conflict with England rather than with the land powers of France and Russia. Then, too, lobbying against Moltke was the ministry of war, which wanted to keep the officer corps small enough to ensure Prussian control of Germany— which was a level too low to win a war.
Even Moltke, in the circumstances of 1913, had cautioned against launching a war because it was the wrong time to do so. He continued to believe "that a European war is bound to come sooner or later, in which the issue will be one of a struggle between Germandom and Slavdom." But, in his view, a war should not be initiated until public opinion could be rallied around the cause. In Moltke's words: "When starting a world war one has to think very carefully."
As the twentieth century dawned, Europeans were richer and more powerful than anybody ever had been before. They should also have felt more secure than anybody had felt before. But they did not. They—or at least their governments—were in the grip of fear. They sensed the tremors. Where or when, they did not know, but they were convinced an earthquake was going to strike.
Across the ocean, at least one American statesman was sufficiently attuned to European realities to feel the same thing. His name was Edward House. He could speak for the President, and he decided to try his hand at preventing the cataclysm that threatened.
CHAPTER 17: AN AMERICAN
TRIES TO STOP IT
New York City, May 16, 1914. An immense crowd gathered at the docks to witness the departures of passengers on the transatlantic ocean liner Imperator bound for Europe. Among those who could be observed boarding the vessel was Edward House: Colonel House, to give him his honorary Texas title.
House, aged fifty-five, was described by the New York Sun as "a slender, middle-aged man with a gray, close-cropped moustache, well dressed, calm-looking" who walked quietly but firmly. He spoke quietly too, at times in tones that seemed silken.
He was a lifelong insider in politics, although he was never a candidate for public office. He was someone to whom others confided their secrets. He may have been the best listener of his time. Those who spoke with him came away with the conviction that he had understood them, which usually was true, and that he fully sympathized with them, which often was not.
A man of independent wealth, on familiar terms with the great figures of Wall Street, he lived in Manhattan while maintaining a residence and his political power base in his home state of Texas. When needed, he commuted by train to Washington, D.C., to meet at the White House with his best friend and closest associate, the first-term, reform-minded American chief executive Woodrow Wilson, whom House had helped elect to the presidency in the freak election of 1912. In that election the two Republican candidates, former President Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive, and incumbent President William Howard Taft, had split the Republican majority between them, allowing Wilson—the candidate of the minority party, the Democrats—to slip through to victory with less than 50 percent of the popular vote, though far more than half of the electoral college.
Woodrow Wilson was one of the oddest men ever elected to the presidency. A recluse who felt at ease only with women and children, he lacked a taste for politics or a liking for politicians, finding deals and compromises distasteful, and political ambition—except his own—sordid.
Serendipity brought Wilson together with House in the 1912 election. House became his alter ego. Once Wilson was elected, to a large extent House took charge of the political aspects of the presidency: the chores that Wilson either could not or would not do for himself. House often interviewed those who wanted jobs or favors from the new administration. If there were deals to be made or trades to be transacted, he did them. Scholars continue to dispute the respective contributions of the two men to the positive accomplishments of the Wilson administration, but House played a key role in such important matters as the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank, tariff reform, and the institution of the income tax.
In the field of foreign affairs, at least in the opening two years of the Wilson presidency, it was House, a gifted student of international politics, who took an interest in European developments, while Wilson, who had no background in the field, did not.
House noted, in the spring of 1914: "the President had given very little thought
to the existing situation in Europe." He himself was quite concerned by what he saw and foresaw. House apparently was almost alone among American statesmen in understanding the implications of the Balkan wars, in sensing that they could end by threatening the peace and stability of the world.
To head off the dangers that he perceived ahead, House proposed to go to Europe to negotiate the creation of a new international structure that would bring a lasting peace among all the Great Powers. Wilson gave his full and admiring support to the endeavor. House's own private name for the mission on which he was to embark was "the great adventure."
House's effectiveness, and his value to the President, were due in large part to his discretion. Secrets were confided to him because it was believed that he could be trusted not to reveal them. Of course, this aroused widespread popular curiosity. Picturing House as a man of mystery, a newspaper editor told one of his reporters: "House sees nobody. He can't be reached. Nobody knows his address, and his telephone number is private." But that was an exaggeration; House made himself available, as good politicians do. Thus aboard the Imperator, and although preoccupied by thoughts of his secret mission, he found time to deal with a cable from a woman asking that her husband, a U.S. consular official, be promoted from a posting in Rio to one in London. "Even at sea there is no rest from the office seekers" was House's comment.
The mission with which House had entrusted himself was to persuade Germany and Britain to join with the United States in an alliance to keep the peace. It was a long-held idea of his that the chief powers of Europe had accumulated so much power in their hands that, together with America, they could prevent major wars.
It was an idea that was, so to speak, in the air. Theodore Roosevelt at one time had envisaged the creation of a cartel of perhaps five Great Powers to keep the world at peace. Ideas for a league of nations also surfaced from time to time in Great Britain's Liberal administration.
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