Ring of Steel

by Alexander Watson

  12.Minutes of the Council of Ministers, 7 July 1914, in L. Bittner and H. Uebersberger (eds.), Österreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise 1908 bis zum Kriegsausbruch 1914 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1930), pp. 343–51. The translations follow the abridged version in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 80–87. Also S. R. Williamson, Jr, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Basingstoke and London, 1991), pp. 197–200.

  13.Tschirschky to Jagow, 10 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, p. 107, and M. Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers. Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz, Vienna and Cologne, 1993), p. 75.

  14.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 391–7.

  15.Ibid., pp. 381–7 and 453–4.

  16.D. G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton, NJ, 1996), p. 234.

  17.Berchtold to Franz Joseph, 14 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, p. 103.

  18.F. Conrad von Hötzendorf, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 1906–1918. 24. Juni 1914 bis 30. September 1914. Die politischen und militärischen Vorgänge vom Fürstenmord in Sarajevo bis zum Abschluß der ersten und bis zum Beginn der zweiten Offensive gegen Serbien und Rußland (4 vols., Vienna, 1923), iv, pp. 51 and 53–6.

  19.S. Tisza, Count Stephen Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary: Letters (1914–1916), trans. C. de Bussy (New York, San Francisco, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Paris and London, 1991), pp. 29–30 (letter of 26 August 1914).

  20.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 101–4 and 392.

  21.Tschirschky to Bethmann, 14 July 1914, and Minutes of the Council of Ministers, 19 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 116 and 139.

  22.Williamson, Austria-Hungary, pp. 200–202.

  23.Berchtold to Giesl, 20 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 142–6. For the composition of the ultimatum, see Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 78–9.

  24.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 452–7.

  25.Docs. 10396, 10399 and 10400 in Bittner and Uebersberger (eds.), Österreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik, pp. 518–19 and 522–6.

  26.Szápáry, telegram, 21 July 1914, in ibid., p. 568. See also the masterful account in Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 444–6.

  27.Jagow to Lichnowsky, 18 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, p. 122.

  28.Czernin to Berchtold, 22 June 1914, quoted in G. A. Tunstall, Jr, ‘Austria-Hungary’, in R. F. Hamilton and H. Herwig (eds.), The Origins of World War I (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid and Cape Town, 2003), p. 128. For other foreigners’ negative perceptions of the Habsburg Empire, see B. Jelavich, ‘Clouded Image: Critical Perceptions of the Habsburg Empire in 1914’, Austrian History Yearbook 23 (1992), pp. 23–35.

  29.R. A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, and London, 1974), pp. 331–4.

  30.R. Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism (Oxford, 2007), pp. vii–viii, 26 and 217–23.

  31.C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918 (London, 1968), pp. 693, 758–66, Kann, History of the Habsburg Empire, pp. 456–61, and F.T. Zsuppán, ‘The Hungarian Political Scene’, in M. Cornwall (ed.), The Last Years of Austria-Hungary: A Multi-National Experiment in Early Twentieth-Century Europe (Exeter, 2002), pp. 100–103.

  32.R. Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy: From Enlightenment to Eclipse (New York, 2001), pp. 305–8, and Macartney, Habsburg Empire, pp. 664–9.

  33.Macartney, Habsburg Empire, p. 681.

  34.M. Cattaruzza, ‘Nationalitätenkonflikte in Triest im Rahmen der Nationalitätenfrage in der Habsburger Monarchie 1850–1914’, in Melville, Scharf, Vogt and Wengenroth (eds.), Deutschland und Europa in der Neuzeit, pp. 722–3.

  35.C. Albrecht, ‘The Rhetoric of Economic Nationalism in the Boycott Campaigns of the Late Habsburg Monarchy’, Austrian History Yearbook 32 (2001), pp. 56–61.

  36.G. E. Rotheberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, IN, 1976, 1998), p. 130, and G. Kronenbitter, ‘Krieg im Frieden’. Die Führung der k.u.k. Armee und die Großmachtpolitik Österreichs-Ungarns, 1906–1914 (Munich, 2003), pp. 215–16.

  37.K. Bachmann, ‘Ein Herd der Feindschaft gegen Rußland’. Galizien als Krisenherd in den Beziehungen der Donaumonarchie mit Rußland (1907–1914) (Vienna and Munich, 2001), pp. 29–33.

  38.Bachmann, ‘Ein Herd der Feindschaft’, pp. 132–8, 173–90 and 219–58, and I. L. Rudnytsky, ‘The Ukrainians in Galicia under Austrian Rule’, in A. S. Markovits and F. E. Sysyn (eds.), Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, MA, 1982), pp. 60–67. Also Z. A. B. Zeman, The Break-Up of the Habsburg Empire, 1914–1918: A Study in National and Social Revolution (London, New York and Toronto, 1961), pp. 4–5, and J. Redlich, Austrian War Government (New Haven, CT, and London, 1929), pp. 32–3.

  39.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 88–9.

  40.Kann, History of the Habsburg Empire, pp. 446–8, and Macartney, Habsburg Empire, pp. 767–70.

  41.Minutes of Common Ministerial Council meeting, 7 July 1914, in Bittner and Uebersberger (eds.), Österreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik, p. 347.

  42.Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism, pp. 195, 198 and 202–16, and Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo, pp. 235–45. Also W. S. Vucinich, ‘Mlada Bosna and the First World War’, in R. A. Kann, B. K. Király and P. S. Fichtner (eds.), The Habsburg Empire in World War I: Essays on the Intellectual, Military, Political and Economic Aspects of the Habsburg War Effort (Boulder, CO, and New York, 1977), pp. 51–5.

  43.Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, iv, p. 34.

  44.J. Leslie, ‘The Antecedents of Austria-Hungary’s War Aims: Policies and Policy-Makers in Vienna and Budapest before and during 1914’, Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 20 (1993), p. 309.

  45.Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, iv, pp. 37–8.

  46.Ibid., p. 309. Also, Berchtold at the Common Ministerial Council, 7 July 1914, reproduced in Bittner and Uebersberger (eds.), Österreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik, pp. 343–4.

  47.S. Wank, In the Twilight of Empire: Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854–1912), Imperial Habsburg Patriot and Statesman. Volume 1: The Making of an Imperial Habsburg Patriot and Statesman (2 vols., Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2009).

  48.M. Twain, ‘Stirring Times in Austria’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 96 (December 1897–May 1898), p. 530.

  49.For Franz Joseph’s image and symbolism see M. Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004, 2007), pp. 216 and 281–2, and D. L. Unowsky, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916 (West Lafayette, IN, 2005).

  50.Unowsky, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism, esp. pp. 26, 94–101.

  51.Kronenbitter, ‘Krieg im Frieden’, p. 223. Also L. Cole, ‘Military Veterans and Popular Patriotism in Imperial Austria, 1870–1914’, in L. Cole and D. L. Unowsky (eds.), The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy (New York and Oxford, 2007), pp. 36–61.

  52.For the continued significance of historical borders, see R. J. W. Evans, ‘Essay and Reflection: Frontiers and National Identities in Central Europe’, The International History Review 14(3) (August 1992), pp. 480–502.

  53.H. LeCaine Agnew, ‘The Flyspecks on Palivec’s Portrait: Franz Joseph, the Symbols of Monarchy, and Czech Popular Loyalty’, in L. Cole and D. L. Unowsky (eds.), The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy (New York and Oxford, 2007), pp. 86–112.

  54.Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 15–24 and 46–51. See also J. King, ‘The Municipal and the National in the Bohemian Lands, 1848–1914’, Austrian History Yearbook 42 (2011), pp. 89–109.

  55.Macartney, Habsburg Empire, pp. 562–3 and 574, and Okey, Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 198–200.

  56.G. B. Cohen, ‘Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914’, Central European History 40(2) (June 2007), esp. p. 276.

  57.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp.
3–31.

  58.P. W. Schroeder, ‘Stealing Horses to Great Applause: Austria-Hungary’s Decision in 1914 in Systematic Perspective’, in H. Afflerbach and D. Stevenson (eds.), An Improbable War: The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1914 (New York and Oxford, 2007), pp. 17–42. For the influential, aggressive sections of Russian public opinion, see D. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), pp. 128–33.

  59.D. Stevenson, ‘Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914’, International Security 22(1) (summer 1997), pp. 133–5, Schroeder, ‘Stealing Horses’, pp. 35–8, and Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 83–7.

  60.E. J. Erickson, Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913 (Westport, CT, and London, 2003).

  61.D. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904–1914 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 232–9 and 253–65.

  62.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 281–92. For Serbian figures, see D. Stevenson, 1914–1918: The History of the First World War (London, 2005), p. 12.

  63.Leslie, ‘Österreich-Ungarn’, p. 675.

  64.S. McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War (Harvard, MA, and London, 2011), p. 22.

  65.Minutes of the Council of Ministers, 7 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, p. 85.

  66.S. Wank, ‘Desperate Counsel in Vienna in July 1914: Berthold Molden’s Unpublished Memorandum’, Central European History 26(3) (September 1993), p. 308.

  67.L. Bittner, ‘Österreich-Ungarn und Serbien’, Historische Zeitschrift 144(1) (1931), pp. 97–8.

  68.Variants of this idea were expressed by Andrian, Hoyos, Molden, and also earlier (see below) Tisza. See Leslie, ‘Österreich-Ungarn’, p. 675, Fellner, ‘ “Mission Hoyos” ’, p. 314, and Wank, ‘Desperate Counsel’, p. 300.

  69.Tisza in March 1914, quoted in Herrmann, Arming of Europe, p. 211.

  70.Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, iv, p. 55.

  71.Fellner, ‘ “Mission Hoyos” ’, p. 309.

  72.Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, iv, pp. 36–7.

  73.Kaiser Wilhelm II, 8 December 1912, quoted in J. C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge, 1994, 1999), p. 173.

  74.H. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn. Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich, 1994), esp. pp. 150–52 and 155.

  75.Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 148–51.

  76.P. Bairoch, ‘International Industrialization Levels from 1780 to 1980’, Journal of European Economic History 11(2) (1982), p. 292.

  77.Quotation from N. Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, 1998), p. 33. Figures from J. H. Clapham, Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815–1914, 4th edn (Cambridge, 1936, 1968), p. 5, and T. Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 1866–1918. Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist (2 vols., Munich, 1998), i, pp. 9 and 234–7.

  78.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 92–3.

  79.W. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 32–4.

  80.Fischer, Germany’s Aims, pp. 20–22, Mulligan, Origins, p. 54, and Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 150–52.

  81.A point made by Paul W. Schroeder in ‘World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak’, The Journal of Modern History 44(3) (September 1972), pp. 322–3. For the military restraint of the Germans in comparison with other continental powers during international crises, see Stevenson, ‘Militarization and Diplomacy’, pp. 130–47.

  82.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 155–7, and Mulligan, Origins, pp. 54–8.

  83.Schroeder, ‘World War I as Galloping Gertie’, pp. 324–5 and 328–9. Also Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 158–9.

  84.H. H. Herwig, ‘Luxury’ Fleet: The Imperial German Navy, 1888–1918 (London, Boston and Sydney, 1980), pp. 33–92, and P. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980), pp. 444 and 451.

  85.G. C. Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge, 2009), p. 43. Royal Navy: twenty dreadnoughts and ten battlecruisers, including one Australian; twenty-six of these ships were in home waters, three battlecruisers were in the Mediterranean and one was in the Pacific. Kriegsmarine: thirteen dreadnoughts and five battlecruisers. All these ships were in home waters except for one battlecruiser in the Mediterranean.

  86.See H. Strachan, The First World War. Volume I: To Arms (3 vols., Oxford, 2001), i, p. 27, and, for the French ambassador’s appeal, Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 540–41.

  87.Mulligan, Origins, pp. 129–30, and Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 291–8. For the 1911 intake, see M. Ingenlath, Mentale Aufrüstung. Militarisierungstendenzen in Frankreich und Deutschland vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt and New York, 1998), p. 155, fn. 81.

  88.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 204–10, and Mulligan, Origins, pp. 71–4.

  89.N. Stone, ‘Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1900–1914’, Past and Present 33 (April 1966), p. 107, and Herrmann, Arming of Europe, pp. 234 and 237.

  90.See Herrmann, Arming of Europe, pp. 183–91.

  91.For the German political system, see T. Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 1866–1918. Machtstaat vor der Demokratie (Munich, 1998), pp. 85–109. For European franchises, see Ferguson, Pity of War, p. 29.

  92.N. Ferguson, ‘Public Finance and National Security: The Domestic Origins of the First World War Revisited’, Past & Present 142 (February 1994), pp. 153–68, and Herrmann, Arming of Europe, pp. 190–91.

  93.Ferguson, ‘Public Finance and National Security’, p. 149.

  94.Herrmann, Arming of Europe, p. 183.

  95.D. Stevenson, ‘War by Timetable? The Railway Race before 1914’, Past & Present 162 (February 1999), pp. 178 and 186.

  96.Kaiser Wilhelm II to Prince Henry of Prussia, 12 December 1912, reproduced in J. C. G. Röhl, ‘Die Generalprobe. Zur Geschichte und Bedeutung des “Kriegsrates” vom 8. Dezember 1912’, in W. Alff (ed.), Deutschlands Sonderung von Europa, 1862–1945 (Frankfurt am Main, Bern and New York, 1984), p. 184.

  97.See J. C. G. Röhl, ‘Admiral von Müller and the Approach of War, 1911–1914’, The Historical Journal 12(4) (December 1969), pp. 661–2.

  98.Ibid., p. 664.

  99.For the meeting as a turning point for the Kaiser, see especially I. V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888–1918 (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 261–5. For its lack of concrete results, see Strachan, First World War, i, pp. 52–5.

  100.Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 132–9.

  101.K. H. Jarausch, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History 2(1) (March 1969), p. 58.

  102.For Russian fears about the consequences of the German military mission, see McMeekin, Russian Origins, pp. 31–3. For the newspaper articles, see Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 140.

  103.Strachan, First World War, i, pp. 62–3.

  104.Bethmann Hollweg, quoted in Jarausch, ‘Illusion of Limited War’, 48. For the military’s pressure for preventative war, see A. Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001), p. 172. For Falkenhayn’s desire for a preventative war, see Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, pp. 101–2.

  105.See esp. Mulligan, Origins, pp. 89–90, for the effect of the Anglo-Russian naval talks on German decision-making. Also Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 157, and Clark, Sleepwalkers, p. 422.

  106.See, for example, Strachan, First World War, i, p. 63.

  107.See Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 418–19.

  108.Jarausch, ‘Illusion of Limited War’, pp. 58–61.

  109.Grey, quoted in Z. S. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (London and Basingstoke, 1977), pp. 221–2.

  110.Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 174–5. See also D.A. Rich, ‘Russia’, in R. F. Hamilton and H. Herwig (eds.), The Origins of World War I (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid and Cape Town, 2003), p. 218.

  111.F. Fellner, ‘Der Krieg in Tagebüchern und Briefen. Überlegungen zu einer wenig genützten Quellenart’, in K. Amann and H. Lengauer (eds.), Öster
reich und der Große Krieg, 1914–1918. Die andere Seite der Geschichte (Vienna, 1989), p. 209.

  112.Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 165.

  113.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 47–64 and 457–69.

  114.Conversation between Berchtold and the Russian chargé d’affaires, 24 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 173–4.

  115.Minutes of the Council of Ministers, 19 July 1914, in ibid., pp. 140–41. Also Williamson, Austria-Hungary, p. 212.

  116.Fischer, Germany’s Aims, pp. 62–71.

  117.Wilhelm II to Jagow and Bethmann Hollweg to Tschirschky, both 28 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), July 1914, pp. 256–7 and 259–60. Also Fischer, Germany’s Aims, pp. 71–2, Clark, Sleepwalkers, p. 523, and H. Herwig, ‘Germany’, in Hamilton and Herwig (eds.), Origins of World War I, p. 178.

  118.Strachan, First World War, i, pp. 78 and 80, and N. Stone, ‘Die Mobilmachung der österreichisch-ungarischen Armee 1914’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 16(2) (1974), pp. 73–4 and 78. Fischer is especially clear on the problems caused to the German policy of localization by Austria-Hungary’s slow move to military readiness. Fischer, Germany’s Aims, p. 74.

  119.Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp. 481–2.

  120.S. R. Williamson and E. R. May, ‘An Identity of Opinion: Historians and July 1914’, The Journal of Modern History 79(2) (June 2007), p. 369.

  121.Prince Troubetzkoi quoted in K. Wilson, ‘Hamlet–With or Without the Prince: Terrorism at the Outbreak of the First World War’, The Journal of Conflict Studies 27(2) (2007). Accessed at: http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/10541/11751#no40 on 18 July 2013. For Troubetzkoi’s acute understanding of broader Russian foreign policy, see Lieven, Russia, pp. 91–101.

  122.Lieven, Russia, pp. 141–2.

  123.Ibid., pp. 149–50.

  124.McMeekin, Russian Origins, pp. 54–64. For details of the Period Preparatory to War and a more sympathetic interpretation, see also Lieven, Russia, p. 144.