July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  12

  Champagne Summit

  WEDNESDAY–THURSDAY, 22–23 JULY

  WEDNESDAY MORNING, 22 JULY, Poincaré was invited to visit the imperial family at the Villa Alexandria, a modest (by Romanov standards) brick cottage not far from the Peterhof. He found the four young archduchesses—Olga, Tatiana, Maria Nicolaevna, and Anastasia—“delightful in their perfect simplicity.” The tsarevich Alexis, ten years old, was pale in complexion and much shier than his sisters, although considering his hemophiliac condition, this was hardly surprising. While cruising the fjords of Finland with the tsar the week before aboard the Alexandria, Alexis had stumbled on the bottom rungs of a ladder. The resulting swollen ankle had caused him acute pain. His mother, Alexandra, was also in poor health, suffering from heart trouble and also neuropathia, which resulted from a displacement of her uterus. Because of these well-known maladies, Poincaré was half-expecting to encounter the tsarina’s notorious peasant faith-healer in the household. But Rasputin, as it turned out, had recently been stabbed in the stomach by a young woman while visiting his village at Pokrovskoie, and no one in the family knew where he was or how he was doing. (It later emerged that a surgeon had been sent from the capital to operate on him in a hospital in Tiumen; Rasputin’s rapid recovery would add to his growing legend as a healer.)

  Poincaré’s call was a welcome distraction for the ailing tsarina and her afflicted son. As a visiting head of state from the world capital of luxury goods, it was not hard for the president to please the girls with gifts of diamond watch-bracelets from Paris, which left them “open-mouthed with delight.” But it was Alexis who received the greatest honor, being presented with the Cordon of the Grand Cross, “duly measured for his childish figure”—the first foreign decoration the tsarevich had ever received. Tsar Nicholas II thanked the president profusely (although the gift was actually Paléologue’s idea). Poincaré also gave the boy furniture for his future library, as would befit a sovereign. It was well that the president had come prepared to please Alexis in the imperial villa, for the fragile tsarevich, still recovering from his swollen ankle, would not be able to join the delegation for the train journey to the military parade ground at Krasnoe Selo that afternoon.1

  Following the presentation of the gifts, Poincaré, accompanied by the tsar, headed back to Peterhof for a luncheon on the terrace with officers of the French squadron, Foreign Minister Sazonov, Russia’s ambassador to France Izvolsky, and Goremykin, chairman of the Council of Ministers. Among the honored guests was Count Fredericks, a general of cavalry who was also chancellor of the Imperial Orders, among many other honorifics relating to his role dispensing “all favors and gifts, all the reproofs and punishments” among the high Russian aristocracy. A man of legendary charm, Fredericks took it on himself to cheer up Viviani, whose sense of discomfiture was obvious to everyone. In addition to homesickness and anxiety over Mme Caillaux, the premier was having digestive difficulties and was worried about his liver. The Russians feared he was having some sort of nervous breakdown. Unlike the tsarevich, however, Viviani could not opt out of the afternoon program. He would have to endure it as best he could.

  At three thirty, the party boarded the imperial train at the Peterhof station for the half-hour journey to Krasnoe Selo. For all but Viviani, leaving the capital behind brought an easing of mood. The diplomatic business had been completed; now it was time for military parades and toasting. As Paléologue described the scene, “a blazing sun lit up the vast plain, tawny and undulating . . . bounded on the horizon by wooded hills. . . . The elite of Petersburg society were crowded into some stands. The light toilettes of the woman, their white hats and parasols made the stands look like azalea beds.” Led by Tsar Nicholas II on horseback, the imperial carriage carrying France’s president along with the tsarina and the four archduchesses proceeded through what seemed to Poincaré like “an interminable lane of troops.” The soldiers all greet their emperor with “the traditional shout.” The progress lasted, in all, about an hour and a half, during which time poor Viviani had to stand in front of the imperial tent. The only consolation was that, when the tsar and the president finally arrived, they, too, were forced to stand for the grand finale, which saw warplanes fly overhead as the military band played a series of French and Russian marches. A triple salvo of artillery blasts then announced the evening prayer. As the “sun was dropping towards the horizon in a sky of purple and gold,” Paléologue wrote in his diary, “a noncommissioned officer recited the Pater in a loud voice. All those men, thousands upon thousands, prayed for the Tsar and Holy Russia.” By the time the long ceremony was over, Viviani looked so sickly that Paléologue called a specialist doctor from town to inspect the suffering Frenchman.2

  From the parade field, the party then proceeded to the nearby estate of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, inspectorgeneral of cavalry. Grandson of Tsar Nicholas I, his namesake, Grand Duke Nicholas was a prince of the blood, whom many Russians wished had been in line for the imperial succession (his father was the third son of Nicholas I, rendering the father third in line, and his son, in turn, still further back). Although wholly loyal to Nicholas II, the grand duke was a stronger personality who, at six foot six inches tall, literally towered over other men (after he took over as commander in chief of Russia’s armies, he had aides put signs above the door at headquarters, reminding him not to bump his head).3 A fervent Francophile, Grand Duke Nicholas was happy to host the French delegation for a dinner banquet, just as he had on Poincaré’s earlier visit in 1912.

  Paléologue was one of the first to arrive. “Three long tables,” he observed, “were set in half-open tents around a garden which was in full flower. The beds had just been watered and from them the fresh scent of flowers . . . rose into the warm air.” As he was admiring the scene, France’s ambassador was “given a boisterous welcome” by the two “Montenegrin Princesses,” Anastasia Nicolaievna, wife of Grand Duke Nicholas, and her sister, Militiza, as they put the final decorations on the tables. It was Anastasia and Militiza who had first introduced the tsarina to Rasputin. Their influence at court was considerable.

  The two princesses were happy to see Paléologue. As soon as they finished sprucing up the banquet tables, they both rushed over to the ambassador and all but drooled over him with compliments. One princess carried around a box of soil from “occupied” German Lorraine, which she had visited two years earlier; the other, Paléologue learned, had decorated the tables with thistles—also from Lorraine (apparently she had planted her garden with sacred plants from its Teuton-occupied soil). “We are passing through historic days, blessed days!” the princesses exclaimed, before informing France’s ambassador that, during the military review the grand duke would put on for them tomorrow, “the bands will play nothing but the Marche Lorraine and Sambre et Meuse.”

  When the champagne started flowing, the mood grew more euphoric still. Grand Duchess Anastasia, as if taking Paléologue into confidence, told France’s ambassador that “there’s going to be war. There’ll be nothing left of Austria. You’re going to get back Alsace and Lorraine. Our armies will meet in Berlin. Germany will be destroyed!” She may have been just warming up, but a “stern gaze” from Tsar Nicholas II cut off this belligerent reverie. Anastasia was, after all, married to the host, a possible commander in chief of the Russian armies. “I must restrain myself,” she told Paléologue with a hint of conspiracy. “The Emperor has his eye on me.”4

  Poincaré, occupied most of the time in conversation with the tsar, had a less interesting evening than his ambassador. The president, too, however, noticed the Montenegrin princesses—and not just their beauty. Before and after the dinner, they “plied [him] unceasingly with questions” about Austria and the Balkan crisis. Regretfully, Poincaré told them, he had no answers, assuring them only that he was equally as anxious as they. He did not tell them that earlier that day, he had received a disquieting report from his ambassador in Rome, passing on Italian intelligence that “Germany will mak
e no effort to restrain Austria. In Vienna, they believe that Russia will let Serbia be violated.”5 Lending credence to this report of Austrian arrogance in the face of expected Russian passivity, Anastasia and her sister whispered warnings in the president’s ear about Sazonov, whom they believed to be cowardly and weak. These suggestions dovetailed well with Poincaré’s own concerns. In part because he had spent so much of the summit speaking with the tsar, the president had come to believe that Russia’s sovereign was “more decided” than his foreign minister on a course of defending Serbia.6 Poincaré and the princesses were unaware that Sazonov had, the preceding evening, issued an explicit threat to Vienna, via Pourtalès, that “there must be no talk of an ultimatum.”

  The burgeoning atmosphere of belligerence in the Franco-Russian camp was given an even sharper jolt after the French delegation awoke in their tents the next morning. Even Viviani, invigorated by the country air, was feeling better on Thursday. The military review to be held that morning was, in a sense, the point of the whole summit: a demonstration of the might and unity of the alliance. Anastasia had not misspoken when she promised Paléologue that the band would play nothing but French marches. As the ambassador recorded in his diary,

  Review at Krasnoïe-Selo this morning. Sixty thousand men took part. A magnificent pageant of might and majesty. The infantry march past to the strains of the Marche de Sambre et Meuse and the Marche Lorraine.

  What a wealth of suggestion in this military machine set in motion by the Tsar of all the Russias before the President of the allied republic, himself a son of Lorraine!

  The Tsar was mounted at the foot of the mound upon which was the imperial tent. Poincaré was seated on the Tsaritsa’s right in front of the tent. The few glances he exchanged with me showed me that our thoughts were the same.7

  Following the review, everyone retired to the tsar’s tent for a grand luncheon of Russian zakuski and caviar. Russia’s sovereign insisted that Grand Duke Nicholas introduce the president to “several of the more important generals” in Russia’s army, which he did, before the party returned to the Peterhof for a brief rest. At six PM, Nicholas II took the French delegation aboard his yacht, the Alexandria, which would escort them out to the France, harbored at Kronstadt for the return voyage. This time it was Poincaré who hosted the tsar for a farewell dinner banquet, aboard the France.

  President Poincaré and Tsar Nicholas II, inspecting a Russian Naval Guard of Honor at the Franco-Russian summit in July 1914. Source: Getty Images.

  The setting was spectacular. Although a “momentary squall” had damaged the floral arrangements, the tables were still laid out with all the elegance the French crew could muster. The deck, Paléologue observed, “had a kind of terrifying grandeur with the four gigantic 304 mm guns raising their huge muzzles above the heads of the guests.” As if to remind the ambassador of their conversation of the previous night, “the Grand Duchess Anastasia raised her champagne glass towards me more than once,” Paléologue noticed, “indicating with a sweep of her arm the warlike tackle raised all about us.” As usual, the tsar and the president were engrossed in conversation all night, both at dinner and afterwards on the bridge, where they remained alone for “what seemed like an eternity.” No one could be sure of what they were talking about, but it was clearly something important.

  In between the first and second courses, Viviani had a message delivered to Paléologue. Having evidently recovered his morale—or remembered his brief as foreign minister—Viviani ordered his ambassador to draw up a communiqué for the press, summarizing the conclusions of the summit. Paléologue did what he was told, scribbling a short draft on his dinner menu, to the effect that “the two governments have discovered that their views and intentions for the maintenance of the European balance of power, especially in the Balkan peninsula, are absolutely identical.” Viewing this as the kind of “neutral and empty phraseology suitable for documents of this kind,” the ambassador was taken aback when Viviani objected to the last phrase, stipulating that French and Russian interests in the Balkans were not “absolutely identical.” Paléologue wrote up another draft, which asserted that the two allies were in “entire agreement in their views on the various problems which concern peace and the balance of power in Europe . . . particularly in the East” (few could have doubted that this meant Serbia). This bland, yet suggestive, communiqué was heartily approved by the president, the tsar, Viviani, Sazonov, and Izvolsky. Poincaré’s own farewell toast, which declared that France and Russia “have the same ideal of peace in strength, honour, and self-respect,” was equally bland but, delivered with his customary forcefulness, was received by the Russians with “thunderous applause.”8

  As the Imperial Guard shouldered arms for the tsar’s exit onto the waiting Alexandria, prior to the departure of the France at eleven PM, all seemed well in the Franco-Russian alliance. While Poincaré still harbored doubts about Sazonov, he was now confident that the tsar would remain firm in the face of whatever the Austrians threw at him. The Russians, meanwhile, were assured of France’s full support for any strong stand they might take against Vienna. The next move was up to Berchtold.

  13

  Anti-Ultimatum and Ultimatum

  THURSDAY, 23 JULY

  AT THE TIME POINCARÉ and the tsar were saying their goodbyes aboard the France Thursday evening, Berchtold’s “radio silence” appeared to be working. Sazonov’s cagey act in his weekend audience with Szapáry suggested that Lützow’s leak to the British ambassador had not reached Russian ears, at least not by Saturday, 18 July. Berchtold had learned of the dramatic confrontation between Szapáry and Poincaré at the Winter Palace on Tuesday, 21 July, which suggested that the French, at least, had a rough idea of what was coming—but then Szapáry had pointedly contrasted the French president’s belligerent posture with the “reserved and cautious attitude” taken by Sazonov on Saturday. True, Szapáry had warned Berchtold that the French president’s presence in Petersburg would “have anything but a calming effect,” but Poincaré had a reputation as a hothead. His warning to Vienna that Russia had a “friend” in France may not have reflected more than Poincaré’s own wish for the Russians to stand firm; whether they would do so was another question. Meanwhile, Sazonov’s own threat that “there must be no talk of an ultimatum,” issued later Tuesday evening to Pourtalès, remained unknown to the Austrians: Pourtalès’s report, sent by post, was not received in Berlin until the morning of Thursday, 23 July, and forwarded on to Tschirschky, in Vienna, only a week after that. So far as Berchtold knew, then, the Russians were still in the dark.

  He was wrong. Even while the Montenegrin princesses had been questioning Sazonov’s manhood at Krasnoe Selo on Wednesday evening, the Russian foreign minister had rushed back to town to send off a strong message to Ambassador Shebeko in Vienna, wired off at four AM on Thursday, 23 July. Earlier on Wednesday, Sazonov had received a disturbing report from Rome, passing on the belief of Italy’s foreign minister “that Austria was preparing a great blow and aims to annihilate Serbia.”1 Informing Shebeko that he had credible information that “Austria was planning to undertake measures against Serbia,” Sazonov instructed his ambassador to warn Vienna “cordially but firmly” of the “dangerous consequences which must follow any such measures incompatible with the dignity of Serbia.” Giving this warning stronger diplomatic point, Sazonov informed his ambassador that “from my discussions with [Poincaré] it clearly emerges that also France . . . will not tolerate a humiliation of Serbia.” Russia’s foreign minister may not yet have convinced Poincaré—or Berchtold—of his own firmness, but France’s president had left Sazonov in no doubt about his own. The French ambassador to Austria, Sazonov told Shebeko, would shortly make an identical warning to the Ballplatz. He said he also hoped that Britain’s ambassador to Vienna, de Bunsen, would “speak in the same sense,” although he did not yet have confirmation of this.2

  Sazonov was not speaking alone when he issued this warning. Sometime during the summit�
�neither he nor Poincaré ever revealed when—Russia’s foreign minister had agreed with France’s president on the terms of an “anti-ultimatum ultimatum” to Vienna. Poincaré’s version was almost identical to Sazonov’s—only, true to the Frenchman’s reputation, his language was still stronger. Alfred Dumaine, France’s ambassador to Vienna, was instructed that “no avenue must be neglected to prevent an [Austrian] demand for retribution or any set of conditions foisted [on Serbia] which might . . . be considered a violation of her sovereignty or her independence.” As we might expect, the unequivocal language of this veiled threat was not to the liking of Viviani, who, as foreign minister, agreed to send it to Dumaine “only with reluctance” (avec peu d’empressement). Send it off Viviani did, however, from the switchboard of the France, shortly after its departure from Kronstadt, in the wee hours of Friday morning.3 (Sazonov and Poincaré apparently had decided to stagger the delivery of their joint anti-ultimatum ultimatum, so as to avoid the impression that they were “ganging up” on Berchtold.)4

  In their dithering over the Serbian ultimatum, the Austrians had outsmarted themselves, allowing France and Russia to coordinate a joint response to it during a highest-level government summit. Owing to Berchtold’s trick of waiting until the French delegation departed, the timing of the dispatch of France’s warning—sent off before France’s government had been formally notified of the ultimatum—proves that Poincaré and Viviani had prior knowledge of Austrian plans, contrary to their later protestations. It also meant, however, that the French warning would not arrive in Vienna until Friday, 24 July, the day after the actual ultimatum was given to Serbia. It could thus have had no deterrent effect on Berchtold.