July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  THE COUNTDOWN FOR European war had now begun. According to joint agreements between the French and Russian general staffs, the Franco-Russian offensives against Germany would begin by M + 15 (August 14). Unless she wanted to leave her ally in the lurch, France would now have to mobilize as well. Germany, faced with hostile forces mobilizing on both her eastern and western borders, would respond by mobilizing, as she had indeed publicly pledged to do. To win time against the Germans, and with an eye on Britain, Sazonov insisted to Yanushkevitch that Russia should “proceed to the general mobilization as far as possible secretly and without making any public announcement concerning it.”31 Officially, Russia’s general mobilization would begin at midnight, at which time, the tsar’s directive stipulated, the army and navy would be “placed on a war footing”—but there was no reason to let the Central Powers in on the secret before then (or even afterwards).32 As for Russia’s French ally, Sazonov wired to Izvolsky another cryptic telegram announcing merely that, “as long as we do not receive a fully satisfactory reply from Austria via the German government as intermediary, we shall continue our military preparations.”33 Sazonov did inform Paléologue what had been decided at the Peterhof, but with a careful twist. Owing to “disquieting information concerning preparations of the German Army and Navy,” Paléologue wired misleadingly to Paris at nine fifteen pm on 30 July, “in consequence the Russian government has decided to proceed secretly to the first measures of general mobilization.”*34

  To Ambassador Benckendorff, in London, Sazonov sent an even more cryptic wire, the meaning of which can only be deciphered if we understand that Russia had resolved to go to war:

  It is a matter of the highest degree of importance that Turkey not receive the two Dreadnoughts “Rio de Janeiro” [aka the Sultan Osman I] and “Reshadieh” [Reshad V] being built for her in England. The construction of these ships is so far advanced, that the first of them could be sent off to Turkey within weeks. . . . Please make the English government aware of the overriding importance of this question for us, and impress upon them energetically that these ships must be retained in England.35

  Having decided on war, Sazonov needed to make certain that Russia would be able to seize Constantinople and the Straits—an impossibility if Turkey were to float these dreadnoughts.

  Meanwhile Russia’s still-secret general mobilization cranked into motion. At seven PM, the first confirmation telegrams from Russia’s military districts were wired back to Dobrorolskii. Commanders in the Warsaw District (Russian Poland), facing both Austria and Germany, received the general mobilization orders at eight PM and acted on them at once.36

  At almost the same hour, France’s government took a decisive step toward war. A report from French military intelligence on Thursday morning had convinced Army Chief of Staff Joffre that the Germans were moving “covering forces” to the frontier and that he must respond. The report was not true, but Joffre believed it. In the afternoon, a German newspaper, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, reported—erroneously—that Germany had already mobilized. Although Jules Cambon, France’s ambassador in Berlin, quickly relayed to Paris Foreign Minister Jagow’s denial of the report, the story heightened tensions in the French capital still further. After resisting Joffre’s demands all day, just before five PM (seven thirty PM Russian time), Viviani and Poincaré agreed to allow France to inaugurate couverture, or the covering of the border—with one important condition: France’s covering troops, Viviani insisted, were to be instructed to hold back ten kilometers (about six miles) from the frontier, so as to avoid border incidents.

  France’s vaunted “ten-kilometer withdrawal” was largely phony. According to a telegram that Viviani dispatched on Thursday night to his ambassador in London, Cambon was to tell Sir Edward Grey that the Germans had already sent covering troops “within several hundred meters” of the border, whereas France would hold her own “covering troops” back and “thus leave a strip of our national territory undefended against sudden aggression.” Curiously, there was no mention of “ten kilometers” in this misleading communication, nor in the orders transmitted to the French army at 4:55 PM, which stipulated only that “no troops or patrols under any pretext are to approach the frontier or go beyond [a] line” designated by fifty frontier villages.37 It was an entirely conventional premobilization maneuver, involving five army corps ordered to “cover” the German border (not to withdraw from it). Viviani revealed the real purpose of the “ten kilometers” in the last line of his telegram to Cambon: “In so doing we have no other reason than to prove to British public opinion and the British Government that France, like Russia, will not fire the first shot.”38

  The timing of all this was uncanny. Even as the French army was receiving orders to cover the German frontier, Russia was ordering general mobilization against Germany and Austria-Hungary. And yet, if the British were to believe Viviani’s protestations, it was the Germans who were mobilizing first! Franco-Russian deceptions ensured that German diplomats faced an uphill struggle to enlighten London as to what was really happening on Germany’s eastern and western frontiers.

  Sazonov’s dissembling, along with Viviani’s ruse about the ten-kilometer withdrawal, won precious time for France and Russia in the mobilization race against Germany. As long as the news of Russia’s general mobilization remained secret, Moltke’s hands would remain tied in Berlin, as the army chief of staff would have no justification for ordering Kriegsgefahrzustand, much less German general mobilization. A secret this big, however, could not remain secret for long.

  * It is true that the tsar’s diary entries on these momentous days were marked by triviality. Thus, on Wednesday, 29 July: “played tennis; the weather was magnificent.” On Thursday, 30 July: “The weather was hot. . . . Had a delightful bathe in the sea.” Still, these entries tell us little about the tsar’s state of mind when he was making the key decisions.

  * Aside from the part about him “breaking down completely,” and when it took place, Pourtalès’s account of the meeting agrees with Sazonov’s. That the meeting took place between eleven AM and noon is confirmed by the numbering of Pourtalès’s telegrams to Berlin.

  ** Sazonov may have been referring to the return of Germany’s Baltic fleet from Norway to Kiel, ordered by the kaiser on Monday. But this was hardly “in the direction of the Gulf of Finland”—a body of water nearly a thousand miles distant from Kiel.

  * This critical passage in Paléologue was purged from the original Yellow Book published by the French government after the war, in order to rebut German accusations that Paris had prior knowledge of Russia’s “secret” decision for general mobilization.

  21

  Last Chance Saloon

  FRIDAY, 31 JULY

  MOLTKE ROSE AT DAWN Friday morning in an uneasy state of mind. At around eleven PM Thursday night, he had picked up alarming reports of Russian war preparations near the Prussian frontier, but he had no confirmation of general mobilization. Bethmann, still waiting for a firm answer from Berchtold about accepting mediation on the basis of a “Halt in Belgrade,” had been alarmed enough when Moltke shared this intelligence to suspend his latest urgent instructions to his ambassador in Vienna.*1 The chancellor had also agreed to give Moltke an answer on the proclamation of Kriegsgefahrzustand by noon Friday. Before taking the final plunge, however, Bethmann wanted proof that Russia had taken the fateful step toward war.

  At seven AM, Moltke rang General Hell, commander of the German XX Army Corps at Allenstein, to get the latest intelligence on the border. “Have you the impression that Russia is mobilizing?” he asked. Hell replied swiftly: “Yes, I have thought so for several days.” Moltke asked for evidence. “The frontier is hermetically sealed,” Hell offered, and “nobody crosses in either direction. Since yesterday they have been burning the frontier guard-houses, and red mobilization notices are said to be posted up in Mlava.” This was the news Moltke was waiting for, except that he wanted not a rumor that the placards were up, but an actual placard for proo
f. “Why have you not got hold of one of the notices?” he asked. The answer was simple: the frontier was sealed. Moltke therefore ordered General Hell: “You must get me one of those red notices; I must make certain whether they are mobilizing against us. Till then I cannot obtain the promulgation of a mobilization order.”2

  There are several observations to be made here. First, Moltke, reading the intelligence on Russia’s mobilization, had made up his mind that war was imminent. This was already evident in his wire to Conrad on Thursday afternoon, in which he demanded that Austria shift to mobilization Plan R against Russia. His goal in demanding proof of Russian mobilization was plainly to gain a pretext to mobilize—as soon as possible.

  Second, despite his act of diplomatic insubordination in communicating directly with Conrad in Vienna, Moltke was still bowing to civilian authority in Berlin. He needed a red placard as indisputable proof so that Bethmann—and the kaiser—would allow him to proclaim Kriegsgefahrzustand, something he could not authorize on his own. Even at seven Friday morning—nearly sixteen hours after the tsar had finally bowed to the Russian war party in Petersburg, and twelve hours after the French had covered the German border—the German government had not inaugurated even premobilization of her armed forces. Mere rumors of what Russia had done, picked up on Thursday night, were not sufficient, nor was a firsthand report by phone from a ranking general in Allenstein. German standards of proof were higher than that.

  Third, Sazonov’s instinct—to keep Russia’s general mobilization secret—was diplomatically and strategically sound. The Germans were tying themselves in knots trying to figure out what was going on, wasting valuable time in the process. Meanwhile, any protests the Germans might mount in London would fall flat, as long as British diplomats did not themselves know about the momentous events of the past night.

  The latter was made painfully clear in Bethmann’s first audience on Friday morning, with Britain’s Ambassador Sir Edward Goschen. Goschen arrived at the Wilhelmstrasse unprompted just before ten, although, as the chancellor told him, he had been about to summon him anyway. Goschen’s own intention was to pass on Grey’s emphatic refusal of Bethmann’s embarrassing “neutrality” bid from two nights ago, but Bethmann, with more pressing matters on his mind, paid this little mind. He told Goschen that he had just received “news from the Russian frontier which, if confirmed, would create a very grave and dangerous situation and might oblige Germany to make a serious communication to the Russian Government.” The news was this: the Russians “had destroyed their customs houses on the German frontier, and had carried off their money chests into the interior.” Goschen, unimpressed, retorted that “these proceedings, if true, seemed to me to be not so much a menace to Germany, as measures of precaution . . . to meet all emergencies.” Bethmann countered, “on the contrary that, taken with other reports which had reached him both from Russia and Sweden, the above news threatened general mobilization.”3 The chancellor then issued a pointed warning, which Goschen passed on to London: “If the news he had received proved true, and [Russian] military measures were also being taken against Germany . . . he could not leave his country defenceless while other powers were gaining time. He was now going to see the Emperor and he wished me to tell you that it was quite possible that in a very short time, perhaps even today, they would have to take some very serious step.”4

  Of course, as we know today, Bethmann was correct in his suspicion, and Britain’s ambassador—owing to a week of misleading reports from the gullible Buchanan in Petersburg—was wrong. But, lacking the magic red placards as proof, Bethmann had no way of convincing Goschen or Grey.

  After Goschen left, Bethmann huddled in conference with Moltke and Falkenhayn. Before Moltke’s own sources could confirm the news from Russia, at 11:40 AM a telegram from Pourtalès was decoded, announcing: “General mobilization army and navy ordered. First day of mobilization 31 July.”5 Here, at last, was proof. Bethmann agreed that Kriegsgefahrzustand be proclaimed, provided that the sovereign approved. The chancellor got Wilhelm on the phone at once and read out Pourtalès’s telegram. The kaiser then motored from Potsdam to Berlin and signed the order inaugurating Kriegsgefahrzustand or “Imminent Danger of War,” operative at 3 PM. This put German railways under full military control; inaugurated martial law and military censorship; cancelled all leaves, returning troops to their garrisons; strengthened frontier defenses; and suspended postal traffic across the border.6 Kriegsgefahrzustand was equivalent in every way to Russia’s Period Preparatory to War except in its Germanic efficiency. Although the Russians had a six-day head start in premobilization, the tighter timetable of Kriegsgefahrzustand meant that they would likely have only a two- or three-day advantage in general mobilization. Barring a miracle, German general mobilization—and war—would now follow in two days’ time.

  Bethmann, Falkenhayn, and Moltke understood this, although it is by no means clear that their sovereign did. Kaiser Wilhelm II, prone to mood swings in the best of times, was swerving wildly back and forth between abject war lust and plaintive desperation for peace. Just past seven PM Thursday evening, upon reading (after nearly twenty-four hours’ delay) the Pourtalès telegram in which Sazonov had declared that Russia’s mobilization “could no longer be reversed,” the kaiser had unleashed one of his most furious tirades ever. “England, France, and Russia,” he wrote in the margins, “are in league to wage a war of annihilation against us, taking the Austro-Serbian conflict as a pretext.” Concluding (again) that all hope for peace was lost, he wrote, “Now this whole trickery must be ruthlessly exposed and the mask of Christian peaceableness roughly and publicly torn off the face [of England]! . . . And our consuls in Turkey and India, agents, etc., must fire the whole Mahometan world to fierce revolt against this hateful, lying, unprincipled nation of shopkeepers; for if we are to bleed to death, England shall at least lose India.”7

  Extreme rhetoric (and visions of Islamic holy war) aside, the kaiser’s basic intuition, once more, was correct. Just as his angry marginalia of Thursday morning had accurately divined the chronology of Russia’s war preparations, so now, on Thursday evening, did he grasp the essence of the dire strategic situation better in his fevered state of mind than later, when he had calmed down. At the very time he was scribbling these bloodthirsty marginalia—seven PM on Thursday, 30 July—Russia’s general mobilization against Germany and Austria-Hungary was cranking secretly into motion, although neither the kaiser nor his advisers would learn this until the next morning. At the same hour, meanwhile, France had ordered her troops to cover the German border. Unhinged as the kaiser’s anti-English outburst was, Britain’s pose of neutrality (“trickery . . . mask of Christian peaceableness”) was indeed hollow, as borne out by her biased negotiating posture, ignorance of Russian war preparations, and Grey’s recent threat (as against Grey’s frequent, and disingenuous, vows of neutrality). It was when his inner demons took over that Kaiser Wilhelm II saw things most clearly.

  On Friday morning, by contrast, Germany’s sovereign fell prey again to happy illusions. Shortly before learning of Russia’s general mobilization around noon, he penned one more telegram to the Peterhof, warning the tsar that he had received “authentic news of serious preparations for war on my eastern frontier.” Again putting his faith in Nicky’s goodwill, Willy concluded with a plea that “the peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the military measures which must threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary.”8 Even after learning of Russian general mobilization, the kaiser wrote to George V at Buckingham Palace (burying his white-hot anger against Albion of the night before), thanking the king for his “kind telegram” of the night before and promising that he was still “working at” mediation in Vienna. His efforts were made difficult, however, by the fact that “this night Nicky has ordered the mobilization of his whole army and fleet.” With remarkable—and misleading—understatement, the kaiser then informed England’s sovereign that he was “off to Berlin to take measures fo
r ensuring safety of my eastern frontiers, where strong Russian troops are already posted.”9

  Of course, these “measures” went much further than “ensuring the safety” of Germany’s eastern frontier. Germany’s premobilization, if not interrupted, would lead inexorably to general mobilization, targeting also her western frontier—facing France and Belgium. The kaiser did not fully understand this, but his chancellor did. As Bethmann had told Tirpitz and Falkenhayn on Thursday, “proclamation of imminent danger of war meant mobilization and this in our circumstances—mobilization on both fronts—meant war.”10 It was precisely because he viewed Kriegsgefahrzustand as tantamount to war that the chancellor had delayed ordering it for so long.

  Now that the decision had been made, Bethmann wasted no time relaying it to his ambassadors. Unlike Sazonov, who had continued dissembling with even Izvolsky, Russia’s most senior diplomat, after the tsar had proclaimed general mobilization, Bethmann simply told the truth. By three thirty PM on Friday, he had informed his ambassadors in Vienna, Petersburg, Paris, Rome, and London about the proclamation of Kriegsgefahrzustand, and that Germany had been forced to take this measure in response to Russian general mobilization. Bethmann further informed his ambassadors that he was sending Russia a twelve-hour ultimatum to rescind her general mobilization and demobilize (beginning at midnight and expiring at noon on Saturday, 1 August), failing which Germany would be forced to mobilize herself. All this, the chancellor instructed his diplomats, was to be made public. Schoen, in Paris, was asked to discern by noon Saturday what France’s attitude was in the case of European war. In this way, Europe was first made aware that war was about to begin—not by the Russians, who were the first to mobilize, but by the Germans, who informed everyone about what Russia had done in secret and then, for good measure, about their own response to it.11