Despite being only a heartbeat away from the throne, Charles and Zita found that very little was expected of them in the tense weeks of July and August of 1914. They spent most of that time at Wartholz, left out of the planning and war councils that the emperor was holding. There was little doubt that factions in the imperial court would soon take over. The voices calling for swift and decisive action held the emperor’s ear, drowning out the few moderates who insisted on less drastic measures. Blame for the murders was placed squarely on Serbia’s shoulders. Crowds surrounded the foreign ministry “waving black and yellow flags and cheering any officer in uniform with wild enthusiasm.”764 Austria was so determined to wipe this fledgling kingdom off the map forever that they conveniently disregarded the fact that the murders were the work of a terrorist group—the Black Hand—and not the Serbian nation as a whole.
Wilhelm II knew immediately what would happen. He wrote to the Austrian foreign minister Count Berchtold, “If His Majesty the Emperor Franz Joseph makes a demand, the Serbian government must obey. If not, Belgrade must be bombarded and occupied until his wish is fulfilled. And rest assured that I am behind you and ready to draw the sword wherever your action requires.”765 During that tense summer, the German foreign ministry wrote to their embassy in London.
Austria is now going to come to a reckoning with Serbia.… We have not at the present time forced Austria to her decision. But neither should we attempt to stay her hand. If we should do that, Austria would have the right to reproach us with having deprived her of her last chance of political rehabilitation. And then the process of her wasting away and of her internal decay would be still further accelerated. Her standing in the Balkans would be gone forever.… The maintenance of Austria, and in fact of the most powerful Austria possible is a necessity for us.… That she cannot be maintained forever I willingly admit. But in the meanwhile we may be able to arrange other combinations.766
There was little doubt Austria would strike against Serbia. The fact that the Habsburg Empire perceived Serbia as a dangerous threat and wanted to wipe it off the map for years was widely known in political circles. In 1914, the Kingdom of Serbia was a nation still coming into its own. After wrestling its independence from the Turks in the nineteenth century, it doubled in size after the Balkan Wars of the early 1910s. The source of the poor Austro-Serbian relationship was the latter’s ongoing fiat of liberating Slavic groups living under foreign governments. The Serbian government proclaimed for years its intention of liberating all Slavs living under Austrian rule to form a southern Slavic state, or Yugoslavia, as it was called in Serbian. When Franz Ferdinand died, the general consensus was that Austria would attack Serbia while Europe was on its summer vacation, thereby slipping under the radar and failing to gain too much attention. In the end, Austria sent Serbia a carefully worded ultimatum on July 23 that was so constricting that the government in Belgrade would have no choice but to refuse, thereby opening the door for a military strike. Serbia had forty-eight hours to respond. The world held its breath to see what would happen next.
Part 3
The Great Tragedy
(1914–18)
14
The Call to Arms
(July–August 1914)
The response from Serbia came swiftly. Ten demands were set forth by the Austrians. Of those ten, Serbia agreed to two unconditionally, three with some conditions, four more were evaded with vague responses and diplomatic double-talk, and only one—in which Vienna would oversee investigating and adjudicating the archduke’s assassination—was rejected. Europe’s politicians were amazed by how conciliatory Serbia’s reply had been. “An excellent result for a forty-eight-hour [ultimatum],” Wilhelm inscribed on his own copy of the Serbian reply. “This is more than we could have expected! A great moral victory for Vienna.”767
Just as amazing was Austria’s refusal to accept the reply. Franz Joseph and his government declared Serbia’s response to be unsatisfactory even though most European diplomats considered it a massive success for Austrian foreign policy. Franz Ferdinand’s assassination was just the excuse the emperor needed to attack Serbia in an effort to protect Austria’s imperial status. Austria hoped that they would be able to issue their ultimatum and invade Serbia before the other Great Powers could intervene. Austria, it seemed, completely failed to realize how complex the series of alliances were that bound together the Great Powers.
As soon as Austria-Hungary set its sights on punishing Serbia for the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the diplomatic and military alliances that bound the various monarchical powers to aid one another kicked into effect. With astonishing rapidity, the powers of Europe found themselves ready to wage war. Vienna’s determination to make Serbia pay compelled Serbia’s ally, Russia, to aid its Slavic neighbor. Imperial Germany bore down upon the Russian Empire for aiming its sights on Austria-Hungary. With Russia under threat from Germany, England and France were not far behind themselves in lockstep with their faraway ally, Russia. It was a fast-moving, complicated chess game involving the Great Powers for the highest stakes.768
The decision to declare war was not taken lightly by Nicholas II. The Slavophiliac tsar was compelled to honor Russia’s promise to defend Serbia. “As for ourselves, it is impossible to sit quietly and see Serbia being strangled like a kitten by a huge dog,” the tsar wrote to his maternal first cousin Prince Nicholas of Greece. He added, “We cannot afford to lose this war, as the triumph of Prussian militarism would mean the end of all liberty and civilization.”769 On the evening of July 25, the Russian General Staff initiated its official war preparations that allowed for military measures along frontier regions to be put in place.
Three days later, on July 28, the state press in Vienna released its “final and irrevocable” declaration: “The Royal Government of Serbia has not given a satisfactory reply to the Note presented to it by the Austro-Hungarian Minister in Belgrade on July 23rd, 1914, the Imperial and Royal government of Austria-Hungary finds it necessary to safeguard its rights and interests and to have recourse for this purpose to force of arms. Austria-Hungary therefore considers itself from this moment in a state of war with Serbia.”770
Queen Mary was dumbstruck by the news. “Austria has declared war on Servia!” she wrote. She was under no illusions about the consequences of declaring war. She wrote to her aunt Augusta in Neustrelitz, “God grant we may not have a European war thrust upon us, & for such a stupid reason too, no I don’t mean stupid, but to have to go to war on account of tiresome Servia beggars belief.”771 What began as an isolated problem in southeastern Europe became a political crisis that stretched across the continent and eventually around the world.
Within twenty-four hours, Russia upgraded from military preparations to a partial mobilization. In the hopes of deterrence through intimidation, Berlin wired a telegram to Saint Petersburg on July 30 stating that any further Russian military action would be met with an equal response from Germany. Emperor Wilhelm took Russia’s mobilization as perfidiousness from Nicholas II. Although Britain remained uncommitted at this point, Wilhelm and Dona were adamant that King George V would throw Britain’s lot in with Nicholas and Russia against them. In his telegrams to both men, Wilhelm made grandiose pronouncements of friendship and fidelity, but to his wife and ministers, he accused the king and tsar of colluding against Germany. He claimed they were manipulating the situation to destroy the German Empire. He denounced King George and the English as “a mean crew of shopkeepers revealed in their ‘true colours.’” Furthermore, he accused the king’s foreign minister of proving George to be “a liar.… At that, it is a matter of fact a threat combined with a bluff, in order to separate us from Austria and to prevent us from mobilising, and to shift the responsibility for the war.”772 The emperor wrote a chilling memo to Gottlieb von Jagow, his foreign minister, describing how deeply betrayed he felt.
So the celebrated encirclement of Germany has finally become an established fact, and the purely anti-Ger
man policy which England has been pursuing all over the world has won the most spectacular victory. England stands derisive, brilliantly successful; her long-mediated purely anti-German policy, stirring to admiration even him who it will utterly destroy! The [legacy of the] dead Edward [VII] is stronger than I who am still alive … Our agents and all such must inflame the whole Mahommedan [Islamic] world to frantic rebellion against this detestable, treacherous, conscience-less nation of shopkeepers; for if we are to bleed to death, England shall at all costs lose India.773
At midnight, the whole of the Russian army was mobilized. On an intimate level, Wilhelm II seethed with hatred. Politically, he was required to uphold his military alliance with Franz Joseph in the face of Russian aggression. Their two empires, along with Italy, formed the Triple Alliance, also known as the Central powers. On July 31, the German ambassador in Moscow was informed that total Russian mobilization took place the night before. At 1:00 p.m. that afternoon, Wilhelm ordered a full mobilization of German armed forces. It was only a matter of hours until a formal declaration of war was forthcoming.
That night, Wilhelm presided over another important matter, one that had important dynastic implications for the Hohenzollerns. Since the beginning of May, Dona had been planning Prince Oscar’s wedding to Countess Ina, but the outbreak of war changed all that. As an officer in the military, Oscar knew that, with his regiment now mobilized, he would have to take up his command at the front lines. Those in the Prussian court who were against Oscar and Ina’s marriage—led by the petty, vindictive Eitel-Fritz—sought to have the prince shipped out to the forward mobilization zone immediately. Oscar knew that if he did not act quickly, he might never get his chance to marry the woman he loved—or worse, she could become a casualty of the war. On July 31, Ina returned to Berlin. That night, she and Oscar were married in a last-minute wedding before the prince joined his regiment. It was a very small, private ceremony at Bellevue Palace, in the central Tiergarten area of Berlin. Wilhelm upheld the traditions which were so dear to him and elevated his newest daughter-in-law to the rank and title Countess von Ruppin, thereby giving her greater precedence at court, though he still refused to raise her to a princess.
Any hopes for a peaceful resolution to this international crisis were smashed the next day when the German Empire declared war on Russia. All eyes were on the imperial family, who were still at sea aboard their yacht, the Standart. When a pale-looking Nicholas II broke the news that they were at war, Alexandra was deeply shaken. She “began to weep, and the Grand-Duchesses likewise dissolved into tears on seeing their mother’s distress.”774 Alexandra telephoned her old friend Sophie Buxhoeveden with the news.
“Good heavens!” Sophie said. “So Austria has done it!”
“No, no,” Alexandra replied. “Germany. It is ghastly, terrible—but God will help and will save Russia.”775
On August 2, the tsar, tsarina, and their daughters arrived in Saint Petersburg aboard their yacht. Upon their arrival, they received “a thunderous ovation.” The masses shouted, “Batiushka, Batiushka, lead us to victory!”776 That afternoon, all the Romanovs, their courtiers, officials, and aristocrats converged on the Winter Palace for the tsar’s public declaration of war against Germany. More than five thousand people assembled in one of the palace’s massive halls. Nicholas II’s aunt Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna vividly recalled the war congress at the Winter Palace that day. “Hands in long white gloves nervously crumpled handkerchiefs,” she saw as she entered the hall, “and under large hats … many eyes were red with crying. The men frowned thoughtfully, shifting from foot to foot, readjusting their swords, or running their fingers over the brilliant decorations pinned on their chests.”777 Afterward, the imperial family attended a Te Deum before appearing on the palace balcony where “a scene of almost mythic proportions unfolded.” An estimated quarter of a million people fell on their knees crying out “God save the Tsar!” One witness recalled that to “those thousands of men on their knees at that moment, the Tsar was really the autocrat appointed of God, the military, political and religious leader of his people.”778 The Duma professed its undying loyalty to the tsar. They even went so far as to pass an exorbitant budget to finance the war effort. A misleading, inflated sense of euphoria swept Russia, the likes of which had not been seen since Napoleon invaded in 1812. At some point that day, Nicholas sat down to send a note to King George: “In this solemn hour I wish to assure you once more that I have done all in my power to avert war.”779
The next day, August 3, Germany declared war on France. That same day, Dona’s son Adalbert married his second cousin Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, whom he had courted for several years. Adalbert was not married in Berlin in the presence of his family. Instead, he and Adelaide were married in the chapel at the German naval base of Wilhelmshaven in Schleswig-Holstein. Adalbert was one of the most decorated members of the Prussian royal family. He was a lieutenant on board the SMS Luitpold at the time. When he was informed that war broke out and he would be sent into combat, he was eager to make Adelaide his wife as quickly as possible. Their simple military wedding was attended by a few officers and was performed by the Wilhelmshaven chaplain. Unlike with Ina, both Wilhelm and Dona heartily approved of Adalbert’s royal wife.
Patriotic fervor surged across the German Empire. The anti-Wilhelmine Left and Socialist parties silenced themselves. At a gathering in the throne room of the Stadtschloss, the Reichstag transferred its power to the Bundesrat. Wilhelm and the council of German princes now had direct control over the empire. They were even allowed to levy taxes to fund the war effort if needed, typically a highly controversial issue. At the time, Wilhelm and Augusta Victoria were at the Neues Palais in Potsdam, but on August 4, the royal family made the short journey in open motorcars to the Stadtschloss in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of cheering people took to the streets. “It was a scene of the wildest enthusiasm,” wrote a South African doctor who was in Berlin at the time. “The picture of the Emperor is a vivid memory. He did not bow once in acknowledgment of the shouts of the crowd. The Crown Prince nodded, and his wife nodded and smiled continually, but the Emperor sat with one hand at his golden helmet, stern and inscrutable, a figure of destiny. There was not during the whole time the faintest flicker of a smile.”780 Once they arrived at the palace, Wilhelm, Dona, and the crown prince appeared on the balcony, where the enthusiasm of the crowds continued. Standing there, Wilhelm announced to the people gathered below, “When it comes to war, all [political] parties cease and we are all brothers. If this or that party has attacked me in peace time, I now wholeheartedly forgive them.”781
Despite the emperor’s magnanimous words, some historians have commented that most of the people were cheering for Dona who, by 1914, was the “most loved member of the royal family.”782 Her unpretentious upbringing and simple, traditional values allowed the people to feel connected with their empress. One of the Potsdam courtiers asserted that “of the crowned heads of Europe of the present day the Empress Augusta Victoria is, perhaps, the most popular with her subjects, with the exception of Queen Mary of England.”783 Even in the United States, Dona was highly regarded. A special article published in the New York Times in 1913 sang her praises: “No Other Consort of a Prussian Ruler Ever Wielded Such a Beneficent Influence Over Her Husband, or Made Such an Impression Upon the People, by Whom She Is Regarded with Profound Affection.”784
On the day the royal family rode into Berlin, the city reached “a state of feverish excitement.” The train stations were congested with troops leaving for the front. One witness described it as nothing short of “an armed camp, and the platforms were packed with departing troops, accompanied by their families and relations.” Anti-Russian and anti-British sentiments were running high. When the imperial train transporting Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna back to Russia from England arrived, a frightening scene unfolded as “near chaos broke out.” Mobs of people began shouting insults and obscenities. After Minnie pulled all the blinds
down over her compartment windows, the crowds began attacking the train, breaking windows, and tearing parts off the exterior. Only quick thinking on the part of local police prevented the dowager empress from being harmed. Emperor Wilhelm could not detain Minnie in Germany, but he did refuse “to give passage to the Imperial train, ordering it to leave German soil by the shortest route—to be diverted to the Danish frontier.”785 This situation only deepened the Russian imperial family’s antipathy not only for Wilhelm but for all things German.
As scenes played themselves out in Berlin with the Hohenzollerns and the dowager empress, German troops invaded Belgium and Luxembourg in a plan to sweep in and seize Paris as quickly as possible. Great Britain had been a guarantor of Belgian neutrality since 1839. Its invasion forced the British to serve Germany with their own ultimatum. Queen Mary wrote gravely on August 4, “At 12. we sent an ultimatum to Germany & at 7 p.m. she declared war on us. It is too dreadful but we could not act otherwise. We went on to the [palace] balcony at 8 p.m. & again at 11.15. after the news of war having been declared was out.”786 Britain had been slow to involve itself because it considered the conflict a continental war that would have little impact on British imperial interests. Most of the prime minister’s cabinet was against the war because they erroneously believed that a European conflict would be fought mostly on land; there had not been a major naval conflict among the Great Powers since the Crimean War of 1853–56. In 1914, Britain’s standing army numbered only seventy thousand men, compared to Germany’s or Russia’s, which were in the millions. It was only after Belgium’s neutrality was violated that public opinion turned unanimously in favor of war. When George V signed the declaration, he did so on behalf of Britain’s vast empire and its more than four hundred million inhabitants. In the span of only a few days, the British army swelled into the millions also.
Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires Page 38