July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  Some or all of this may be true. Following the fait-accompli policy, neither Bethmann nor Jagow was inclined to put the brakes on Vienna. They also had good motivation to hide the worst news from the kaiser. This does not explain, however, why they would have kept Moltke, too, in the dark; he was hardly one to shrink from a challenge. Nor was there any reason to conceal bad news from the other military leaders. In the end, the simplest explanation is the most convincing. Bethmann did not lay out the full picture of the international situation in Potsdam on Monday afternoon because he did not have it. Having to play catch up after returning to Berlin on Saturday, he had not yet digested all of Sunday’s dispatches by the time he met the kaiser at Wildpark Station at 1 PM Monday—nor, of course, any of Monday’s key dispatches, which began arriving in the late afternoon. Tschirschky’s report announcing that Austria was about to declare war on Serbia was deciphered at the Wilhelmstrasse at 4:37 PM, about the same time the Potsdam meeting was concluding. The reports from Russia announcing Monday’s alarming mobilization news began arriving only after 7 PM. So desperate was Lichnowsky, Germany’s Anglophilic ambassador to London, to cling to his hopes for peace, meanwhile, that he failed to mention the critical news about the holding together of the British fleet in any of his three Monday dispatches. It may be, of course, that Lichnowsky had not yet learned of Churchill’s action; in any case he did not report it.*19 Bethmann therefore remained unaware of the day’s three key pieces of news while at Potsdam, in part because the kaiser himself had insisted on being briefed immediately on his return. Had everyone waited three or four hours, the meeting might have taken on a very different air.

  Of course, Bethmann had given the kaiser a selective, self-serving reading of the weekend’s confusing dispatches, and he might have done the same with Monday’s more unambiguously negative ones. So wedded was the chancellor to localization, and more broadly to the English rapprochement on which he had staked his entire foreign policy, that he seemed to be regarding the whole unfolding crisis through rose-colored glasses. By Monday night, however, not even Bethmann could ignore the signs, which all pointed toward a general conflagration. True, Austria’s plan to declare war immediately on Serbia, reported by Tschirschky, was ostensibly good news—the Germans had been demanding this for weeks. But the belated timing could not have been worse. With more disturbing news coming in every hour about far-reaching Russian mobilization measures, the hoped-for localization of the Austro-Serbian conflict looked like a mirage.

  On top of this, Serbia’s cleverly crafted reply to the Austrian ultimatum, initially lost in the flurry of weekend events, was now receiving serious attention in Europe’s capitals—especially at the Foreign Office in London, where Grey had returned Monday from Itchen Abbas. Already skeptical of Austrian intentions, the foreign secretary was floored by the Serbian reply, which he thought had met the Austrian demands “to a degree which he would never have thought possible.” Lichnowsky had found Grey “in a bad temper” on Monday. The foreign secretary was clearly losing patience with the Austrians—and with the Germans, whom he thought were doing nothing to hold them back. “The key to the situation,” Grey emphasized, “is Berlin and if Berlin seriously means peace, Austria can be restrained from pursuing a foolhardy policy.”20 He therefore requested that the Germans mediate at Vienna, working toward some kind of “agreement between Vienna and St. Petersburg on the basis of the Serbian note.” If no such agreement was reached and there was “an Austrian passage of arms with Serbia,” Grey told the German ambassador, then he would hold Berlin responsible.21 Taking an uncharacteristically sharp tone, Lichnowsky therefore warned Jagow and Bethmann that “if war comes in these conditions, we shall have England against us.”22

  Bethmann’s ultimate nightmare, a breach with Britain that left Germany opposed by three major powers in a European war, now stared him in the face. Encouraging the Austrians had all along been what the chancellor called a “calculated risk,” a kind of colossal bluff. As Bethmann had told his private secretary, Kurt Riezler, at Hohenfinow shortly after giving Vienna her blank check, there were three possible scenarios. The first was localization: a punitive Austrian strike that would erode Serbian prestige and lead to a favorable Balkan realignment, with Bulgaria and Romania falling in with the Central Powers. It is not that Bethmann necessarily expected that this would come to pass. He saw the second scenario, a “continental” war pitting Germany and Austria against France and Russia, as about as likely. Such a conflict posed manifest dangers, but it could also allow Germany to “break the iron ring of encirclement,” if it could humiliate France, weaken Russia, and strengthen Austria. The last possibility was the worst of all: Britain would join France and Russia, turning the conflict into a world war. The odds against Germany winning the latter would be almost insurmountable. Urging on the Austrians against Serbia thus constituted, the chancellor had warned Riezler in a flourish of his characteristic fatalism, a “leap in the dark.”23

  Riezler’s diary entries following Bethmann’s return to Berlin suggest a similar fatalism, as the beleaguered chancellor was rapidly overwhelmed by bad news. Bethmann, Riezler recorded on Saturday, “sees a fate greater than human power hanging over Europe and our nation.” At other times, he saw this “fate” not as supernatural but as outside his own control. It was not Germany, he kept repeating to himself and to Riezler, but rather Russia “on which the European peace solely depends.” On Sunday, Bethmann insisted that “only compelled by dire necessity will we unleash the sword, but then with the clear conscience that we bear no guilt for the nameless misfortune which war must bring to Europe’s peoples.”24

  This was a rationalization, as Bethmann would have realized if he were thinking clearly. If he truly enjoyed a clear conscience, he would not have been so wracked with doubts as the crisis hurtled toward war. While neither Bethmann nor the kaiser was solely to blame for the war clouds now darkening Europe’s horizon, Grey was not wrong to point to Germany as the focal point for war or peace on Monday, 27 July. True, Russia was secretly mobilizing, almost certainly with French connivance and British—well, indifference. But the power about to actually declare war on another sovereign state was not Russia but Austria-Hungary. And the Austrians would never take this fateful final plunge without approval from Berlin. Why else had Berchtold directed Tschirschky to inform Bethmann about the impending declaration of war on Serbia, if not to ask for German permission? With localization evidently a fantasy, with Britain all but lost to the Entente, with the Germans’ fait-accompli stratagem rendered effectively obsolete by weeks of delay in Vienna, the time to take a step back and call off the Austrians was that moment—Monday night. The next day would be too late.

  It must have been an evening of excruciating tension. As Riezler recorded in his diary, there was “immense commotion at the Wilhelmstrasse. Nobody sleeps. I see the chancellor only for seconds.”25 Bethmann’s dilemma was acute. If he called off Austria’s war with Serbia now—after Vienna had finally given the Germans the fait accompli they had been demanding for weeks—the chancellor might well rupture the alliance with Austria-Hungary, Germany’s only true ally. If, however, he allowed the Austrians to declare war as planned on Tuesday, then the long-feared breach with London might result, turning Britain from disinterested neutral into likely enemy in a European war.

  Faced with such unappealing options, Bethmann, unsurprisingly, chose a third. Rather than call off the Austrians, he passed on to the Ballplatz Grey’s new proposal for German mediation in Vienna “on the basis of the Serbian note,” while signaling that he was passing it on under duress. “After our having declined an English proposal for a conference” (Grey’s four-power idea, targeting Austria, Russia, and Serbia equally), Bethmann informed Tschirschky, Germany’s ambassador to Austria, in a telegram dispatched from the Wilhelmstrasse just before midnight, “it is impossible for us to reject this English suggestion a limine. By a rejection of all mediatory action we should be held responsible for the conflagration by the who
le world and be represented as the real warmongers.” Germany’s position, the chancellor continued, was “all the more difficult as Serbia has apparently yielded so much. We cannot therefore reject the role of mediator and must submit the English proposal to the Vienna cabinet for consideration.” For good measure, Bethmann asked that Tschirschky also remind Berchtold of “M. Sazonov’s desire to negotiate directly with Vienna,” of which he had learned from Pourtalès. In this way the chancellor covered his British flank, furnishing evidence that Germany was not opposed to mediation, while still not quite pulling the rug out from under Austria’s impending war with Serbia (which subject he did not mention at all).26

  More quietly still, Jagow (presumably with Bethmann’s tacit approval, if not outright connivance) sought to reassure Berchtold, in off-the-cuff remarks made to the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, that Germany would not really hold Austria to account over England’s mediation proposals. Jagow, Ambassador Szögyény reported to the Ballplatz at nine fifteen PM, told him “in a strictly confidential form that in immediate future mediation proposals from England will possibly (eventuell) be brought to Your Excellency’s knowledge by the German government.” Jagow did not indicate which of Grey’s proposals was meant: the four-power conference or the idea of German mediation at Vienna on the basis of the Serbian reply (in the event, it was the latter that Bethmann passed on to Tschirschky several hours later). He did not really need to, as his real purpose was to assure Berchtold that “the German government . . . tenders the most binding assurances that it in no way associates itself with the proposals, is even decidedly against their being considered, and only passes them on in order to conform to the English request.” The reason was straightforward. “It is of the greatest importance,” Jagow explained to Szögyény, “that England at the present moment should not make common cause with Russia and France.”27 The Germans, that is, wanted plausible deniability with London, but meanwhile, Austria could go ahead in her war with Serbia.

  The cynicism with which Bethmann forwarded Grey’s mediation proposals to Vienna has come in for well-deserved opprobrium among historians.28 And yet it is not entirely clear what the chancellor’s maneuver proves, beyond that he was trapped in an impossible policy dilemma and tried, clumsily, to climb out. As his critics point out, Bethmann could indeed have pulled back from the brink and forced the Austrians, against their will, to negotiate. Conrad, Austria’s army chief of staff, might even have gone along with this, knowing that Austria’s cumbersome mobilization meant that he could not invade Serbia until 12 August anyway. It was not Conrad, though, who was insisting on declaring war immediately; it was Berchtold. Were Bethmann to rebuke him now, Berchtold would be humiliated. So, too, would Bethmann himself; the fait accompli was, after all, his policy (and the kaiser’s, although the nature of German court politics meant that Bethmann alone would be blamed if the policy went wrong). For the chancellor to unwind it now would all but necessitate his resignation—a resignation he had in fact offered on Saturday. Instead, Bethmann was now eating the broth he had cooked, just as the kaiser had ordered him to.

  Bethmann’s critics also fault him for being dishonest with Grey, by pretending that he was sincerely trying to pressure the Austrians to negotiate. But what else could Bethmann have done? Having chosen a policy course requiring Germany to back Vienna, he stuck to it now. If he was trying to deceive Grey about this, it was for the obvious reason that Grey had made an impossible demand of him. Why, indeed, was an ostensibly neutral England demanding so forcefully that Germany mediate at Vienna, but not that France mediate at St. Petersburg? When Grey had demanded the latter back on Saturday—mediation between Austria and Russia, in which France was expected to pressure the latter—the French and Russian ambassadors had both rejected the proposal outright, and yet Grey had not responded to their rejection by threatening them with war, as he now implicitly threatened Germany. Indeed, France and Russia had not responded to Grey’s four-power proposal on Sunday either (Bienvenu-Martin did accept it on Monday afternoon, but only on the condition that the Germans intervene at Vienna first).29 The Germans had rejected Grey’s second, four-power conference proposal just as publicly and frankly as they had accepted his first, for outside mediation between Austria and Russia. If they were now treading more carefully around the third (Grey’s idea of using the Serbian reply note as the basis for German mediation at Vienna), it was for good reason.

  No matter whether the Germans said yes or no, Grey had concluded—as he told Lichnowsky—that Germany alone would decide the question of war and peace, while exonerating France and Russia, despite their not yet having accepted any of his proposals! In the same conversation, Grey had “confirmed” to Lichnowsky that “no Russian call-up of reserves has taken place.”30 This statement was not only blatantly untrue; its very formulation signaled bias to the Germans. (How could Grey possibly have “confirmed” something in a faraway country not to have happened? Only by taking Russian denials at face value.) Declaring himself, and by implication Britain, impervious to any evidence of Russia’s warlike intentions, Grey had already taken sides, despite his pose of disinterestedness. Small wonder that Bethmann resorted to deceit. Grey had rigged the diplomatic game over Britain’s belligerence in such a way that Germany could not possibly win if she played it straight.

  Of course, Grey did not believe himself to be lying when he kept denying that Russia was mobilizing. He had little to go on beyond the reports of his ambassador, and these were about as ill-informed as diplomatic dispatches could be. Buchanan had reported, on Sunday evening at 8 PM, that the “Governments of St. Petersburg and Moscow have been placed in a ‘state of extraordinary protective activity.’” But he qualified this report immediately by claiming that this had been done “ostensibly in view of strikes” (this is what Sazonov must have told him). All he offered Grey in the way of critical acumen was that the measure might have been connected to “intending mobilization.”31 But then even this watered-down interpretation was undercut when Buchanan failed to follow up on the matter. In a dispatch filed from Petersburg on Monday night at 8:40 PM, by which time dozens of reports on Russia’s secret mobilization measures had arrived in Berlin and Vienna, Buchanan did not so much as mention a single rumor about mobilization.32 So far as Grey knew, he was therefore acting in good faith. He thought he was averting an unnecessary war by making a reasonable demand for German mediation in Vienna, as Austria appeared to be the only power threatening the peace of Europe. In reality, he was putting the screws exclusively on Germany while ignoring Russia’s threatening moves on the Austrian and German frontiers.

  Grey was just as ignorant, apparently, of Britain’s own war preparations. After ordering the fleet at Portland not to disperse as planned, on Monday night Churchill had gone further still, wiring to all of Britain’s naval commanders:

  EUROPEAN POLITICAL SITUATION MAKES WAR BETWEEN TRIPLE ENTENTE AND TRIPLE ALLIANCE POWERS BY NO MEANS IMPOSSIBLE. BE PREPARED TO SHADOW POSSIBLE HOSTILE MEN OF WAR AND CONSIDER DISPOSITIONS OF H.M. SHIPS UNDER YOUR COMMAND FROM THIS POINT OF VIEW. MEASURE IS PURELY PRECAUTIONARY. NO UNNECESSARY PERSON IS TO BE INFORMED. THE UTMOST SECRECY IS TO BE OBSERVED.33

  Churchill, by sending this secret message without approval from the cabinet, had committed an act of insubordination. Yet his behavior was more honest about British intentions than that of Sir Edward Grey, who, against the logic of his own biased diplomacy, continued denying that such a thing as a Triple Entente existed. Grey’s desire for peace was genuine, but it was hardly helped along by his flimsy pose of neutrality.

  Good intentions in diplomacy avail little without good intelligence. In his knowledge of Russian military preparations, Grey was two full days behind events, and falling further behind. France’s peace-minded premier, stuck on board the France, was no better off. Germany’s Ambassador Schoen was not wrong to inform Berlin that Viviani intended to influence Petersburg, but Bethmann was deeply mistaken if he really believed that the premier’s efforts would amoun
t to anything. Viviani did succeed in getting one official message to his ambassador, Paléologue, on Monday, reaffirming France’s support for Russia in the current crisis—though adding, in a personal touch (this phrase was not in the original Quai d’Orsay draft), that she was offering this support “in the interests of general peace.”34 Whether or not this message was intended to stiffen or weaken Russia’s posture vis-à-vis Germany and Austria, it was certainly not going to convince Sazonov to rescind mobilization measures Russia had already taken, about which Viviani seems to have been just as oblivious as Grey.

  On the German side, Kaiser Wilhelm II, as a result of Bethmann’s dithering, was also two or three days behind. He had seen the text of the Austrian ultimatum only on Sunday and had still not seen Serbia’s reply when he went to bed Monday night. All three men, though for different reasons, would dearly have loved to prevent the European war that now seemed imminent. The lack of up-to-date information rendered them impotent in the face of onrushing events.

  * That news of the holding together of the British fleet reached Berlin on Monday, 27 July, is asserted by nearly all historians of the July crisis, although it is not confirmed by any contemporary source. Lichnowsky’s three dispatches from London sent this day do not mention it. According to the German official history, two telegrams were received from the German naval attaché in London on English naval preparations—on Tuesday, 28 July.