by Peter Hart
The Russians also had a wide variety of theoretical plans relating to their long-term ambitions to secure Constantinople. War games based on this theme were a perennial occupation of the Russian High Command, but these plans represented an aspiration, a goal to be achieved later in the war, rather than a realistic option now. Turkey, after all, was not at war in August 1914.
The plans of Austria-Hungary are of considerably less account, for although technically a great power, in reality she was incapable of affecting events outside the confines of the Balkan region. Although involved in discussions with Moltke to try to harness the Austrian divisions to the cause against Russia, there was still a strong intent to concentrate against Serbia evident in all of the Austrian plans. Two variants existed: Plan ‘B’ pictured three Austrian armies invading Serbia while three more guarded the Russian frontier – a disposition that would be almost useless to their German allies; while Plan ‘R’ sought to guard against a substantial Russian intervention to protect Serbia with four armies while just two invaded Serbia. In the end, the Austrians seem to have played it by ear, still prioritising the destruction of their Serbian arch-enemies over the greater good of the Central Powers.
Close to the edge
The years leading up to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 had been riven by a series of diplomatic incidents and general sabre-rattling between the Great Powers as they tested the limits of what they could achieve without actually resorting to war. The tensions originating in German jealousy of French influence in North Africa were most evident in the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905–6. France was determined to acquire Morocco to complement her existing North African colonies. Bismarck, who regarded colonies with scepticism, would surely have stepped back to allow imperial rivalries to fester between France and Britain. But the Kaiser paid a visit to Tangier in March 1905 and gave an inflammatory speech in which he directly opposed the French moves, thus triggering a great deal of anxiety across Europe. An international conference resolved the situation with a compromise which left France in de facto control of Morocco.
Another serious crisis emerged in 1908 when Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously, under the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, the Austrians had ruled the provinces, replacing the former Turkish administration. But this seemingly insignificant change in status provoked much angst, with almost every major power in the region taking a spirited interest, as each tried to push forward their own agenda. In the end Serbian protests were ignored and the annexation was accepted, but a further layer of distrust had been created between the Austrians and the Russians. The annexation itself had been intended to draw a line under Slav nationalism, but it merely fuelled Bosnian demands for separatism. The Balkan powder keg seemed increasingly likely to explode at the slightest provocation.
A Second Moroccan Crisis would break out in April 1911, when the French sent a small military force to ‘defend French citizens’ in Morocco during a revolt by the indigenous population against the rule of the Sultan. Germany believed that this was merely a step on the road to French annexation, which would thwart forever the German colonial ambition to establish a naval base in Morocco with access to the Atlantic. Germany therefore despatched a gunboat, the Agadir. This action in turn exacerbated the anxiety of the British, who sought to deny Germany an Atlantic port. For a while the diplomatic temperature was dramatically raised, but gradually fell away as none of the protagonists took further provocative action. Eventually Germany was bought off with a worthless parcel of territory in the African Congo, while France finally made Morocco a protectorate in 1912. The whole imbroglio left Germany publicly humiliated, but there was little she could do.
The next big threat to the status quo came in September 1911, when the Italians declared war on Turkey and tried to seize Tripolitania and the Dodecanese Islands in a blatant attempt to take advantage of the fast-decaying Ottoman Empire. However, this action was in turn swallowed up by the outbreak of the First Balkan War, when Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro took advantage of the Italian distraction and banded together to attack Turkey in October 1912. The Turks fought a poor campaign and were soon overwhelmed. But then the alliance between her Balkan opponents spontaneously imploded over their competing territorial claims when Bulgaria attacked her erstwhile allies, Greece and Serbia, and so began the Second Balkan War in June 1913. Bulgaria was hopelessly isolated and by the time the war ended in August 1913 Turkey, all but unnoticed, had succeeded in regaining much of the Balkan territory she had initially lost. The overall weakness of Turkey was not lessened, but the crisis also exposed the uncertainty as to the correct response of both the Austrians and the Russians, either of whom might have been expected to intervene. The Austrians made some exploratory movements, but when it became apparent that the Germans were content to let events take their course, they did nothing even as their Serbian enemies prospered – Serbia almost doubled in size during the Balkan Wars. The Russians at one stage also seemed inclined to order a partial mobilisation, directed against Austria, but that idea was abandoned when the Russian leaders realised that such a radical gesture would provoke retaliatory mobilisations across Europe. No one was ready – or desperate enough – to risk triggering a full-scale war in 1912.
Another year; another crisis. Anything seemed to provoke uproar. In December 1913 the Germans were set to appoint Lieutenant General Otto Liman von Sanders as commander of the Turkish I Corps. There was a long-standing German Military Mission in Constantinople, but this move gave Liman actual command of the very unit responsible for the defence of the Straits. This jagged at exposed Russian nerves as they faced the prospect of a Turkish Army strengthened by ongoing close military co-operation with Germany. This was in addition to a significant Turkish naval rearmament with the co-operation of the British Naval Mission – much to the frustration of the Russians, who felt they might have expected more consideration from their Entente partners. A reinvigorated Turkey with a strong Black Sea Fleet played no part in Russia’s long-term plans for Constantinople. There was much sabre-rattling before a compromise was reached whereby Liman was promoted to Inspector General of the Turkish Army and hence not actually in command of the Straits. This defused the immediate crisis but left Russian animosity and underlying fears unresolved. Resentments were building up on all sides.
Any of these convoluted problems could have triggered war in the years leading up to 1914. They symbolised the prevailing weaknesses of the Great Powers. But in every case a combination of old-fashioned diplomacy, statesmanlike restraint, natural trepidation and a lack of readiness for war at that particular moment in time prevented an outbreak of serious hostilities. Perhaps there was also a strong element of luck, but it surely could not last. Each of the Great Powers feared they were losing ground to their rivals, which in turn gradually fuelled a spiralling collective paranoia. Most of all, the German Empire was in an exceptionally difficult position, trapped as she was under the flawed world vision of Kaiser Wilhelm’s regime: tied by necessity to Austria-Hungary and doomed to face war sooner or later with France, Russia and probably Great Britain. But the increasing power of Russia, meant that Germany’s only feasible plans for victory could not be relied on for much longer – perhaps only until 1917, and certainly not beyond 1922. For Germany there was no point in delaying war; if it had to come, then let it be as soon as possible. By August 1914 the last remaining restraints had been frayed away and preparations for war were complete. The scene was set for Armageddon.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand
The final trigger for war would be the pent-up pressure of nationalism within the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire. Various nationalist groupings were plotting, of which the most significant would prove to be the Serbian Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), established in 1908, along with its rather intimidating secret terrorist wing, ‘The Black Hand’. Their intention was to liberate all Serbs from their oppressors to create a Greater Serbia, and in particular to reverse the formal
annexation of Bosnia by the Austrians in 1908. To this end they had recruited a formidable membership within an interlinked nest of organisations such as ‘Young Bosnia’. Collectively, they were highly motivated conspirators and in June 1914 they were given their chance to change the world.
A tiny clipping from a newspaper, mailed without comment from a secret band of terrorists in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, to their comrades in Belgrade, was the torch which set the world afire with war in 1914. That bit of paper wrecked old, proud empires. It gave birth to new, free nations. I was one of the members of the terrorist band in Belgrade which received it. The little clipping declared that the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand would visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, June 28, to direct army manoeuvres in the neighbouring mountains. It reached our meeting place, the café called Zlatna Moruna, one night in the latter part of April 1914. At a small table in a very humble café, beneath a flickering gas jet we sat and read it. There was no advice nor admonition sent with it. Only four letters and two numerals were sufficient to make us unanimous, without discussion, as to what we should do about it.4
Borijove Jevtic, The Black Hand
The culmination of months of plotting would be the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. In the intervening period Serbian intelligence officers covertly provided the conspirators with weapons and training, before facilitating their re-entry into Bosnia. On that fateful day the putative assassins were spread out in the waiting crowd on the streets of Sarajevo as the cars containing the Archduke and his entourage passed by. Their initial efforts were less than lethal: one lost his nerve, while a second hurled a hand grenade which wounded people in the car behind the Archduke’s and the others missed their chance as the car accelerated away. But then in the confusion that followed, the Archduke’s car got lost, stalled and by a dreadful coincidence rolled to a stop within a couple of yards of one of the hitherto frustrated assassins: a 19-year-old student called Gavrilo Princip. Whipping out his revolver, Princip fired twice at point blank range into the open-top car. He did not miss. The first bullet hit Franz Ferdinand in the neck, while the second tore open the stomach of his pregnant wife Sophie as she tried to protect her husband. On the running board Count Franz von Harrach was a horrified witness.
As the car quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness’s mouth on to my right check. As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, ‘For God’s sake! What has happened to you?’ At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car, with her face between his knees. I had no idea that she too was hit and thought she had simply fainted with fright. Then I heard His Imperial Highness say, ‘Sophie, Sophie, don’t die. Stay alive for the children!’ At that, I seized the Archduke by the collar of his uniform, to stop his head dropping forward, and asked him if he was in great pain. He answered me quite distinctly, ‘It is nothing!’ His face began to twist somewhat but he went on repeating, six or seven times, ever more faintly as he gradually lost consciousness, ‘It’s nothing!’ Then came a brief pause followed by a convulsive rattle in his throat, caused by a loss of blood. This ceased on arrival at the governor’s residence. The two unconscious bodies were carried into the building where their death was soon established.5
Count Franz von Harrach
Princip and his co-conspirators were swiftly arrested and interrogated. Although as Bosnians they were Austro-Hungarian citizens, it soon became manifest from confessions extracted by 2 July that the Serbian state was deeply implicated – even if at arm’s length – in the assassination. The Serbian Prime Minister, Nicholas Pasic, was placed under intense pressure by the furious Austrians. Their annoyance was genuine but, riven as they were by internal problems, the crisis with Serbia also provided a convenient way out for them. If Germany could counterbalance the threat of intervention from Russia, then perhaps the upstart Serbians could be dealt with once and for all. A soundly trounced Serbia would quash the endless calls for Slavic autonomy for at least a generation. The rickety structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire might even survive the death of the elderly Emperor Franz Josef I. War offered hope where before only disintegration had beckoned. Before reacting publicly, on 5 July Austria’s Foreign Minister, Count Leopold von Berchtold, sent his emissary to Berlin asking for support in dealing with his country’s now irreconcilable differences with Serbia.
What was Germany to do? She could of course abandon Austria-Hungary, her only real ally, but that would leave her more isolated in Europe than ever. On one level some German politicians seem to have believed that a quick war could be fought between Austria and Serbia which might lance their ally’s most annoying carbuncle without triggering a general European conflagration. But, on the other hand, the powerful German military leaders were all too aware that if there was to be a European war then better before Germany’s enemies had gained even greater strength. Then there were also the glittering prizes offered by victory. Their main enemy – France – could be emasculated once and for all, just as Moltke the Elder had wanted back in 1871, to prevent any future military revival. Germany could gain great swathes of territory in the east, pressing beyond Poland and deep into Russia. And with domination of Europe achieved, Germany, backed by her strong High Seas Fleet, could finally attain the status of a world power with the colonies to match those wider imperial ambitions. War was not an inconceivable measure to the German hierarchy: after all, within their own lifetimes they had witnessed their country emerge from the crucible of war. The crisis in the summer of 1914 left them little option but to support their Austro-Hungarian allies, yet let there be no doubt that the Germans had their own very aggressive agenda. This policy had been explicitly spelled out by the Chief of General Staff, General Helmuth von Moltke, on 1 June 1914, well before the assassination crisis: ‘If only things would finally boil over – we are ready; the sooner the better for us.’7 Although he was prey to some wavering, this remained Moltke’s default position throughout the crisis. The German military were prepared to take risks, to go the very brink of war and beyond to seize the moment should they be given any kind of legitimate pretext. And so it was that first the Kaiser and then the German Chancellor, Bethman Hollweg, offered their full support to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in whatever course they decided to pursue in bringing Serbia to heel – even if it meant provoking war with Russia and hence a general European war.
After considerable dithering, on 23 July the Austrians finally issued their ultimatum, which contained ten stringent demands of the Serbs requiring answers within just two days. At the same time, clearly anticipating a rejection of those demands, they began to mobilise their forces. Serbia was required not only to desist but also publicly to condemn all forms of nationalist or separatist propaganda, while allowing Austro-Hungarian officials to supervise the detention, interrogation and punishment of all Serbs implicated in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. After ordering the precautionary mobilisation of their relatively small army, the Serbs buckled, unwilling to face war without the explicit backing of Russia. Then, as the deadline loomed, significant news came through to Belgrade from Russia. In a moment the situation had changed: for the better, perhaps, for Serbia in the short term, but for the worse for the people of Europe.
On 25 July, Tsar Nicholas II proclaimed the ‘Period Preparatory to Mobilisation’ whereby among other measures the youngest reservists were called up to their units. Hitherto, for all the heightened international tension, it was still possible to see the crisis as a national dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. But the Russian mobilisation was a key moment. Even partial mobilisation would cut down the time it would take the Russian armies to appear on Germany’s Eastern Front and, given the delicately balanced nature of the German war plans, this was a real threat. The Germans were still in control of the situation, confident in their speed of mobilisation, and so they immediately sought to portray Russia as the aggressor in order to help get the backin
g of their own people as war loomed ever closer.
The Russian decision is puzzling in many respects. They were well aware that their programme of re-armament and improved railway links to the German Eastern Front had not yet really come to fruition. Although they had recovered their military strength after the debacle of the Russo-Japanese War, this represented a very bold step. Yet at the same time they clearly felt that they could not allow Serbia to be overwhelmed. As the Austro-Hungarians had brusquely rejected Russian requests for compromise, the Russians wished to add more bite to their diplomatic representations. Also, risks could be taken because, if the worst came to the worst, then although they would have to fight a war with Austria-Hungary and Germany, they would have the guaranteed support of the French, and perhaps even of the British. If the war went well, then perhaps they could finally dismember Turkey and at last secure Constantinople and that long-coveted route to the Mediterranean.