July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  Still, the general air of frenzied activity at the Ballplatz was hard for Berchtold to hide, no matter how hard he tried. Diplomatic professionals across Europe had been expecting some kind of response from the dual monarchy ever since the Sarajevo outrage. Spies and informants were crawling over Vienna, hoping to tease out the truth about what Berchtold was up to. Ordinary journalists, too, were chasing down every source they could find to pick up the slightest hint about Austrian intentions. A single leak, from any source, that reached the ears of a hostile ambassador might ruin Berchtold’s plans by allowing France and Russia to coordinate a response to the forthcoming ultimatum during the Petersburg summit.

  In the end, it was Berchtold himself who slipped. As early as Monday, 13 July, the foreign minister had invited an old friend, Count Heinrich von Lützow, to sit in on his discussions with German ambassador Tschirschky and Count Johann Forgách, chief of section in the Ballplatz. Lützow, now sixty-two years old, had served as Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Italy from 1904 to 1910, but had thereafter been sent into early retirement. Because he was senior to Berchtold, the foreign minister treated the retired Lützow as a kind of “wise man” elder, outside the chain of command in the Foreign Ministry, who could offer him blunt advice without worrying about upsetting the chief. During the Monday audience, Lützow had warned Berchtold that the idea of “localizing” a conflict with Serbia was a “fantasy.”3

  So concerned was Lützow by what he had heard of Berchtold’s plans that he resolved to tell someone about it. The old diplomat left Vienna on Tuesday for his country estate, where, it happened, one of his closest neighbors was Britain’s ambassador to Vienna, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, with whom Lützow often dined. Over luncheon on Wednesday, 15 July, Lützow recounted for his British friend the conversation he had just had with Berchtold regarding the Balkan crisis. Lützow, de Bunsen recalled, “put on a serious face and wondered if I knew how grave the situation was.” The dual monarchy, Lützow warned de Bunsen, “was not going to stand Serbian insolence any longer. . . . A note was being drawn up and would be completed when the Sarajevo enquiry was finished. . . . No futile discussion would be tolerated. If Serbia did not at once cave in, force would be used to compel her.”4

  Britain’s ambassador wasted no time returning to Vienna to share this stunning coup with London. On Thursday, 16 July, de Bunsen reported to Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey that “a kind of indictment is being prepared against the Serbian Government for alleged complicity in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of the Archduke.” De Bunsen’s source, he informed Grey, was “language held by the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs to a friend of mine.” This “friend,” Grey learned, had further informed de Bunsen that “the Serbian Government will be required to adopt certain definite measures in restraint of nationalist and anarchist propaganda, and that Austro-Hungarian Government are in no mood to parley with Serbia, but will insist on immediate compliance, failing which force will be used. Germany is said to be in complete agreement with this procedure.”5 De Bunsen’s “friend,” he confessed the next day, was Lützow.

  Astonishingly, Berchtold does not seem to have told his adviser to keep his mouth shut when speaking with de Bunsen. As far as we can glean from Lützow’s memoirs, his own intention was to frustrate Berchtold’s designs by warning the British about what was brewing, in the hope that they might act to restrain Serbia, France, and Russia. If so, then he had committed an act of gross insubordination—except for the fact that, as a retired diplomat, he was not bound by the foreign minister’s instructions. As Berchtold’s senior, moreover, Lützow may not have felt the need to hew to a policy he clearly disagreed with. Whatever the truth about Lützow’s motivations, it does not speak well of Berchtold’s discipline that he spoke so freely with a retired diplomat, however senior, without expressly forbidding him from betraying his confidence to foreigners.

  De Bunsen sought out Berchtold on Friday to enquire further. Seemingly unaware that his colleague had just spilled the beans, the foreign minister put on an impressive display of insouciance. Berchtold had been utterly “charming,” de Bunsen reported happily to London. He promised to visit de Bunsen’s estate in the country shortly and invited the Briton to visit his own estate at Buchlau. Berchtold “never mentioned general politics or the Serbians.” Mostly, the Austrian seemed exercised by an upcoming horse race he had thoroughbreds running in. Showing characteristic British reserve, de Bunsen did not interrupt this amiable discussion to demand clarification on Lützow’s revelations about Austrian plans to send an ultimatum to Serbia. Nor did Grey, after receiving de Bunsen’s explosive dispatch from Vienna, press his ambassador for more information on the matter. In a follow-up dispatch sent on Saturday, 18 July, de Bunsen all but endorsed Berchtold’s protestations of innocence, reporting that the Italian ambassador had told him that he “does not believe that unreasonable demands will be made on Serbia” because neither the timid Berchtold nor the cautious Emperor Franz Josef “would sanction such an unwise proceeding.” De Bunsen then dropped the matter, at least in his correspondence with London.* British incuriosity, it appeared, had saved Austria’s foreign minister from the consequences of Lützow’s undisciplined tongue.6

  WITH THE RUSSIANS, Berchtold would not be so lucky. Foreign Minister Sazonov was in the Russian countryside, incommunicado, until Saturday, but during his absence his ambassador to Vienna, Nikolai Shebeko, would display much greater curiosity—and suspicion—than did his British counterpart. While Shebeko, as a “hostile” ambassador, was not favored with the confidence of Lützow, much less Berchtold’s, he was favored with that of the British ambassador, who passed on the gist of Lützow’s story to the Russian. As Shebeko later recalled, on Thursday afternoon, 16 July, he learned from de Bunsen that “there had been a discussion” earlier that week at the Ballplatz, between Berchtold and Forgách, “on the terms of a note which, when the inquiry would have terminated, the Austrian Government had decided to present to the Serbian Government. This note was drafted in extremely stiff terms and contained demands unacceptable to any independent State.”7 Although he was not able to confirm this independently, Shebeko was confident enough of his source to inform the Russian Foreign Ministry that “information reaches me that the Austro-Hungarian government at the conclusion of its inquiry intends to make certain demands on Belgrade, claiming that there is a connection between the question of the Sarajevo outrage and the pan-Serb agitation within the confines of the monarchy.” Unlike his British counterpart, Shebeko was in no doubt as to the gravity of the moment. He asked Sazonov urgently to inform “the Vienna cabinet” as to “how Russia would react to the fact of Austria’s presenting demands to Serbia such as would be unacceptable to the dignity of that state.” The Habsburg ambassador to Russia, the Hungarian Count Friedrich Szapáry, Shebeko further informed Sazonov, had left Vienna the previous evening (Wednesday, 15 July), and would arrive in Petersburg shortly.8

  Britain’s ambassador had first picked up the hint of Austrian intentions from Lützow, but it was the Russians who would make use of the information. Russian cryptographers had, over the past several years, broken many of Austria’s diplomatic codes. While Berchtold had been careful to forbid the sending of cables to Petersburg mentioning the ultimatum itself, he had been less careful regarding its timing. On Tuesday, 14 July, Berchtold had wired directly to the Austro-Hungarian embassy in Petersburg, demanding to know when the French delegation would leave town following Poincaré’s summit with the tsar. This suspicious telegram had been decoded by Russian cryptographers by Tuesday evening. Knowing now what to look for, the Russians then intercepted two more reply telegrams on Thursday and Friday, 16–17 July, which informed Berchtold that Poincaré would embark at sea on his return voyage to France on the evening of Thursday, 23 July.9 From Shebeko (via de Bunsen and Lützow) the Russian Foreign Ministry was able to learn—roughly at least—what Berchtold intended to do. From their own cryptographers, the Russians learned exactly when he planne
d to do it. When Sazonov returned from the country, he would have a great deal to catch up on.

  The man working the wires in Sazonov’s absence was his chief of staff, Baron Moritz Schilling. Equivalent in rank and function to Zimmermann in Berlin and Hoyos in Vienna, Schilling would play a role no less important than they in the unfolding diplomatic drama. Even before reading Shebeko’s ominous Thursday dispatch from Vienna, Schilling had begun to have his own suspicions about Austrian intentions based on a conversation he had that very night with the Italian ambassador to Russia, Marquis Carl Carlotti di Riparbella. Carlotti had told Schilling that “it was his impression that Austria was capable of taking an irrevocable step with regard to Serbia based on the belief that, although Russia would make a verbal protest, she would not adopt forcible measures for the protection of Serbia.” Schilling himself felt that Russia was “firmly determined not to permit any weakening or humiliation of Serbia,” but he thought it best if Italy, as an ally (nominally, at least) of Austria-Hungary, or better still Germany, put this warning to Vienna on Russia’s behalf. If the Russians themselves “made such a declaration in Vienna,” Schilling explained to Carlotti, “it would perhaps be regarded as an ultimatum, and so render the situation more acute.” Then, too, Schilling, as a mere chief of staff, was not authorized to stipulate as to Russian policy. He would, however, immediately upon his return to town, inform Russia’s foreign minister of Carlotti’s warning.10

  On Friday, 17 July, Schilling learned of Shebeko’s Thursday dispatch and of the decoded messages to and from Vienna regarding the timing of Poincaré’s departure from Petersburg. As if to crystallize Schilling’s worst suspicions about Austrian intentions, Ambassador Szapáry, fresh in from Vienna, called at Chorister’s Bridge and “expressed a desire to see Sazonov as soon as possible.” Szapáry did not say why he urgently needed to see Russia’s foreign minister, but it was not hard for Schilling to guess. Sazonov, Schilling informed the Austrian ambassador, was still at his country estate near Grodno, although he was expected back early next morning. Schilling penciled Szapáry in for an eleven AM meeting at Chorister’s Bridge.11

  Sazonov returned to Petersburg on schedule Saturday morning. To get him up to speed on the latest developments before his audience with Szapáry, Schilling met him right at the train station. En route to the Foreign Ministry, Sazonov’s chief of staff read out for him the contents of the Thursday dispatch from his ambassador in Vienna. It was not hard to draw the connection between Shebeko’s warning that Austria was about to “present demands to Serbia such as would be unacceptable to the dignity of that state” with Szapáry’s urgent demand for an audience with him. After all, Shebeko’s telegram linked the two implicitly by asking Sazonov urgently to inform Vienna “how Russia would react,” before informing Sazonov that Szapáry was on his way to Petersburg. Schilling also recounted for his boss the gist of his conversation with Carlotti, which seemed to confirm the worst. Sazonov, Schilling wrote later that day in a diary he kept for the Foreign Ministry, “was troubled by this information, and agreed with Baron Schilling as to the necessity of forewarning Austria regarding the determination of Russia on no account to permit any attempts against the independence of Serbia.” Russia’s foreign minister, Schilling continued, “formed the resolve to express himself in the most decided manner to [Szapáry] regarding this matter.”12

  When Sazonov received the Austro-Hungarian ambassador at eleven AM, however, he seemed to backtrack on his vow to stand firm. The Russian, Szapáry reported to Vienna, “carefully avoided raising the subject of Austria’s relations with Serbia.” Szapáry himself was under strict orders from Berchtold not to give any hint of the upcoming ultimatum, and so Sazonov’s reticence to bring it up naturally put a damper on the conversation. Seeking to draw the Russian out, Szapáry tried gamely to invoke the “monarchical principle.” While Sazonov “made no effort to contradict” him, Szapáry was not able to lure the Russian into any belated expression of sympathy for the Sarajevo outrage. Instead, Sazonov changed the subject, warning Szapáry that “the latest news from Vienna had disquieted him,” without spelling out what news he was talking about. Gingerly, Sazonov tried to draw Szapáry out by declaring that “Vienna would never be able to establish proof of Serbian tolerance for machinations,” such as those that produced the Sarajevo incident. To this, Szapáry replied carefully that, while the final results of the Austrian investigation were not yet in, “every government must be held responsible, to a certain degree, for acts emanating from its territory.” Knowing that Sazonov had opposed this very proposition in previous conversations with Czernin, the Austrian legation secretary, Szapáry tried to corner him into a firm declaration of policy, but the Russian simply changed the subject again.

  Overall, Szapáry reported to Vienna, Russia’s foreign minister “gave no impression” of having settled on a firm policy. Meanwhile, Sazonov himself, shortly after the meeting, told Schilling that Szapáry had been “as docile as a lamb.”13 Circling each other like wary adversaries careful not to expose their flanks, the two diplomats had somehow made it through the awkward encounter without once losing their tempers—and without, it seemed, revealing a thing.

  Because Szapáry, not Schilling or Sazonov, had called for the Saturday meeting, the whole thing was clearly the Austrians’ idea. The intention is not hard to fathom: Berchtold wished to find out whether the Russians knew what he was up to. A corollary motive was probably for Berchtold to put Sazonov off his guard, lulling the Russian to sleep so as to snuff out any possibility that he might get wind of the Serbian ultimatum before, or worse still during, the summit with French president Poincaré, which would begin on Monday. In both aims, Ambassador Szapáry had apparently succeeded. Sazonov had not confronted the ambassador with any serious allegation about Austrian intentions, nor raised his voice, nor indeed done anything to suggest that he had the faintest clue of what Berchtold was up to. Sazonov’s “docile as a lamb” remark, although unknown to the Austrians, suggested that Berchtold’s plan had worked perfectly.

  All was not, however, quite what it seemed to be in this dance of diplomatic misdirection. Sazonov was being as cagey as Szapáry. Just as Berchtold wanted to be sure the Russians did not know what he was up to, so did the latter not want the Austrians to know that they were cottoning to the game. Later Saturday afternoon, Sazonov spoke more frankly to Britain’s ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, of the “great uneasiness which Austria’s attitude towards Serbia was causing him.” When the British ambassador asked him to clarify what he meant, Sazonov responded that “anything in the shape of an Austrian ultimatum to Belgrade could not leave Russia indifferent, and she might be forced to take some precautionary military measure.”14 Within eight hours of his return to Petersburg from holiday, and little more than twenty-four hours before he would host President Poincaré and Premier Viviani at a high-level summit of the Franco-Russian alliance, Russia’s foreign minister was already contemplating a military response to the expected Austrian ultimatum to Serbia.

  Sunday morning, Sazonov went to Peterhof Palace to debrief the tsar on the unfolding crisis. Significantly, he had Nicholas II read over the text of Shebeko’s 16 July telegram, alerting Russia’s sovereign that some kind of ultimatum to Belgrade was being worked up in Vienna. Following his conversation with Sazonov, the tsar scribbled in the margins of Shebeko’s telegram: “In my opinion a State should not present any sort of demands to another, unless, of course, it is bent on war.”15 That very morning, Berchtold was convening the Ministerial Council in Vienna to draw up the terms of Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia.

  * Curiously, on the evening of Saturday, 18 July, shortly after the British ambassador had parroted Berchtold’s confession of innocence without objection, de Bunsen’s wife recorded in her diary: “A strong note with ultimatum Lützow told M[aurice de Bunsen] is to be sent in the next week probably not acceptable to Serbia.”

  9

  War Council in Vienna (II)

  SUNDAY, 19 JULY />
  AFTER TISZA CONVERTED to the war party on Tuesday, Austria’s foreign minister had been forced to wait five agonizing days before his plan could be put into motion. Keeping a secret of this magnitude was not easy for a sociable man like Berchtold, who had never been known for message discipline. He remained unaware that Lützow, an old friend, had betrayed him to the British ambassador (and via him, to the Russians). As far as Berchtold knew as he awoke on Sunday morning, Austria had kept the other powers entirely in the dark—even the Germans, who had been told nothing more since Berchtold had informed Ambassador Tschirschky of Tisza’s conversion on Tuesday, 14 July. So long as Tisza stayed true to his word, on Sunday the Ministerial Council could finally draft the text of a forty-eight-hour ultimatum to Serbia, behind which the imperial government would stand united. The note could then be dispatched to the Austrian legation in Belgrade anytime in the next four days, so long as it was under seal, with strict instructions not to be opened until Thursday, 23 July.

  Despite the appearance of success so far, Berchtold was taking no chances on Sunday. To keep the gathering secret from foreign ambassadors, the foreign minister had ordered elaborate security measures. With the Hungarian Diet still in session in Budapest, Berchtold invented a cover story to explain Tisza’s presence in Vienna. The press was told that the Hungarian minister-president had been tasked by the Diet with getting more information on the latest Balkan developments—not an implausible scenario. Chief of Staff Conrad, on vacation in the South Tyrol, had returned late Saturday evening in order, he told anyone who asked, to visit a son who was ill and bedridden. The other ministers—Biliński, Krobatin, Stürgkh—were all based in Vienna, and so no explanation of their being in town was needed. To further allay suspicions, the meeting was held at Berchtold’s private residence in Vienna, the delightfully named Strudelhof, rather than at the Ballplatz. In true cloak-and-dagger style, everyone arrived in unmarked cars so as not to tip off the neighbors.1