July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  It was an impressive performance by Viviani, who seemed to be warming to his role as foreign minister for the first time. He had given away nothing, while throwing a good deal of diplomatic smoke in the air. As Viviani himself noted in his own report of the encounter that he sent to France’s ambassadors, Baron Schoen had answered “that he did not know the developments which had taken place in this matter in the last twenty-four hours, that there was in them perhaps a ‘glimmer of hope’ for some arrangement . . . and that he was going to get information.”18 In any case, the German ambassador was nonplussed enough by Viviani’s ambiguous answers that he did not ask for his passports. Viviani’s misleading remarks, relayed by Schoen to Berlin, left the Germans guessing a little longer as to French intentions.

  Viviani may still have been harboring doubts himself. It is not entirely clear from the record when the pacifist-minded premier finally shifted toward belligerence. Judging from his refusal to issue even halfhearted warnings about Russian mobilization on Friday, 31 July, or to press harder for mediation with Austria, he may have given up hope for peace by then. This shift, however, may have been more in the line of passive resignation than active conversion to belligerence. Viviani had not, after all, agreed to order mobilization on Friday night. Nor had he done so in the Saturday morning cabinet meeting, despite the welcome news from Italy.

  Whether or not he had made up his mind beforehand, Viviani’s last resistance crumbled following his encounter with Schoen. The hostile audience may have gotten his blood up, or it may have simply confirmed suspicions he already harbored about German intentions. According to Joffre, when Viviani “returned to his seat” at the cabinet meeting, “he was now fully convinced that I was right, and in face of the dangerous preparations already made by the Germans, he was ready to sign the order for general mobilization.”19 Viviani’s only condition was that he and Poincaré draft a manifesto to the French people, explaining why the decision was made (i.e., for purely defensive reasons), insisting on national unity and the setting aside of party differences, and arguing—with an eye on the British public and government—that “mobilization is not war.” France’s general mobilization order was signed into law by Poincaré, Viviani, Messimy, and the naval minister.20

  At three thirty PM, Messimy’s aide, General Ebener, along with two officers delegated to deliver the order to the telegraph office, arrived at Rue Saint-Domingue to perform their duty. Messimy handed them the mobilization order “in dry-throated silence.” Everyone, he recalled, “conscious of the gigantic and infinite results to spread from that little piece of paper . . . felt our hearts tighten.”21 At three forty-five PM, the order was delivered to the central telegraph office in Paris and swiftly dispatched to all military commanders.

  At four PM, the first mobilization placards went up in Paris. Orchestras across the city played “The Marseillaise,” alongside the Russian and, as if in plaintive hope, British national anthems. Contributing to the air of gaiety, the boulevards were empty of cars—Messimy had already requisitioned them for the army. Crowds of patriotic Frenchmen glided through the streets. Reservists were seen marching to the Gare de l’Est, from where they would embark for the frontier, as French civilians waved and cheered. English and other foreign tourists mobbed the Gare du Nord, hoping to get out of France before the war began. The trains, one Briton recalled, were “packed to suffocation point.” Raymond Recouly recalled the moment when a “small blue paper” announcing mobilization was posted: “An innumerable crowd surged to and fro. ‘Mobilization is not war’ said M. Poincaré in his message to the people. To tell the truth no one believed him. If it was not war, it was certainly something terribly near to it.”22

  Soldiers on leave re-joining their garrisons in Paris as France mobilizes in 1914. Source: Getty Images.

  Viviani himself had a similar premonition. Just before four PM, he called on Messimy to ask whether mobilization could be postponed a little longer. The only news he had received since midday was a message from Paléologue claiming that Germany would order mobilization on Sunday. This confirmation that a terrible war was about to begin may have stirred Viviani’s conscience.* To his regret, Messimy replied that “the order had already gone and that the first measures were being carried out. It was too late, the mechanism had been set in motion.”23

  IN BERLIN, BETHMANN WAS CLINGING to hopes just as forlorn as Viviani’s. Although Germany’s ultimatum deadline to Russia would expire only at noon, when he awoke on Saturday morning Bethmann received a preliminary reply that was not encouraging. Ambassador Pourtalès, after receiving the ultimatum at 11:10 PM, had presented it to Sazonov at midnight. The Russian foreign minister repeated his exhortation of two nights previously, that “it was impossible on technical grounds to stop [Russia’s] war preparations.” Playing for time, Sazonov insisted that “the meaning of Russian mobilization could not be compared to [Germany’s],” the implication being that it could stop short of war.24

  Bethmann was not impressed by Sazonov’s sophistry about general mobilization not meaning war. Addressing the Bundesrat Saturday morning—a higher parliamentary body whose endorsement, unlike the Reichstag’s, was constitutionally necessary before a declaration of war—the chancellor informed the deputies that “Russia tries to make out that her mobilization is not to be regarded as an act of hostility against us.” Meanwhile, he informed the Bundesrat, France was also undertaking serious war preparations. If Germany took Sazonov’s assurance at face value, Bethmann warned, she would “lose advantage of our greater speed of mobilization, putting us then in danger of having, in the immediate future, fully mobilized, battle-ready armies on our eastern and western frontiers,” ready to take “entire provinces of East Prussia, even while, in the West, the Rhineland was endangered.” For this reason, the chancellor informed the Bundesrat, he had dispatched a twelve-hour ultimatum to Russia and a note to Paris demanding clarification as to French intentions. “If the Russian reply is unsatisfactory,” he declared, “and there is no absolutely unambiguous declaration of neutrality from France,”

  then the Kaiser will have the Russian Government informed that he must regard himself as in a state of war with Russia brought on by Russia herself, and to France he will have the statement made that we are at war with Russia and that, as France does not guarantee her neutrality, we must assume that we are also in a state of war with France. . . . We have not willed the war, it has been forced upon us.

  The Bundesrat voted unanimous support for the chancellor. “If the iron dice now must roll,” Bethmann concluded his remarks, “then may God help us.”25

  The noon deadline passed without further reply from Russia. Germany’s state secretary, Jagow, therefore drew up a (French-language) declaration of war on Russia, which he wired to Pourtalès at 12:52 PM. Aside from some preliminaries having to do with the failure of mediation efforts, the document was fairly straightforward, citing Russia’s general mobilization, and failure to stop it, as casus belli. The only twist was that, not knowing whether Sazonov would still give a formal answer (his midnight reply had been ambiguous) or simply remain silent, a sort of “choose one” clause was included, where Pourtalès could circle either “having refused” or “having not felt it necessary to reply” as grounds for ending diplomatic relations. In either case, however, the ambassador was to inform Sazonov that “H. M. the Emperor, my august Sovereign, in the name of the Empire, accepts the war which has been thrust upon him.” To give time for both transmission and decoding, and—just possibly—second thoughts from Sazonov or the tsar, Pourtalès was instructed to hand the note to the Russian government at 5 PM Central European Time (6:30 PM Russian time). So the deadline had some time to run still.26

  The French deadline of one PM (two PM Berlin time), too, passed without reply, other than Viviani’s vague declaration that “France will act in accordance with her interests.” While Bethmann and Jagow could not have seen either this or Sazonov’s declaration as grounds for hope, they agreed to hold back. Fran
ce, Bethmann wired to Schoen, could have another two hours to answer: until three PM (four PM Berlin time).27

  There was good reason for the Germans to wait. Whereas both France and Russia were able to mobilize against Germany while claiming, at least, that doing so did not “mean war,” the timetable of Moltke’s plan meant that German general mobilization was more serious. If Germany mobilized on Saturday afternoon, troops from the Sixteenth Division at Trier were to move into neutral Luxembourg (although not yet Belgium) overnight, in order to seize control of her railways (already, by treaty, under German management) and deny them to the French. An ultimatum had already been dispatched to the German ambassador in Brussels, demanding that Belgium allow the free passage of German troops, although it would not be presented to the Belgian government until the following night, giving Brussels time to answer before the Germans would cross the Belgian border on M + 3. While no German troops would violate Belgian territory for three days—and French territory for two weeks later still—the move into Luxembourg would be an unambiguous act of war (even if not, in the first instance, against France or Russia). For Germany to mobilize was therefore a decision of tremendous gravity. Perhaps, Bethmann hoped, there was still time for someone in Paris or Petersburg to develop cold feet.

  Of course, Bethmann was the author of his own dilemma. It was not simply that his fait-accompli policy vis-à-vis Vienna had brought things to this pass in the first place. It was also the chancellor’s insistence that German mobilization must be accompanied by declarations of war. The paradox of Moltke’s mobilization plan was that it required immediate action in the direction of France and only a defensive posture on the Russian border. But because Russia was the power providing the casus belli, it was necessary to declare war on her first, before France, even though German troops had no immediate plans to attack Russia. Then, Germany must declare war on France before beginning hostilities against her. Declaring war first was diplomatic suicide, as Bethmann himself realized after the war: “by so doing we appeared as the aggressors,” especially to Britain.28 In fact, it was worse than this, because, as the naval secretary, Tirpitz, recalled explaining to Bethmann, both Italy and Romania had treaties with Germany, dating back to Bismarck’s time, that obliged them to come to her aid if she were attacked. “By our declaration of war on Russia,” Tirpitz pointed out, the Germans would “give the Romanians the right to leave us alone in the war.” In the same way, a declaration of war on France would allow Italy to go her own way. Moreover, even given the inevitability of war with Russia, by declaring war first Germany would “inspire the [Russian] moujik with the conviction that the kaiser intended to attack the White Tsar.” Tirpitz asked “why the declaration of war had to coincide with our mobilization.” Bethmann’s answer was that mobilization required Germany to “send troops over the frontier,” which was by definition an act of war. In a kind of reductio ad absurdum of Germanic propriety by which diplomacy was made the servant of military necessity, the chancellor thereby reduced the question of declaring war to a tautology. It must be done, because it must be done. Bethmann knew it spelled strategic doom for Germany. But the logic remained unassailable. He would not be budged.29

  As the day wore on without word from Paris or Petersburg, tensions in Berlin grew acute. Crowds were milling about the city. The air, one journalist observed, “was electric with rumor. People told each other Russia had asked for an extension of time. The Bourse writhed in panic. The afternoon passed in almost insufferable anxiety.”30

  Compounding the anxiety in the General Staff was the latest intelligence from the eastern front. By Saturday, Russia’s mobilization was so far advanced that German reconnaissance could identify specific Russian units in the order of battle.31 At four PM, Falkenhayn, the Prussian minister of war, unsure why mobilization still had not been declared four hours after the expiration of Russia’s deadline, sought out Bethmann. He demanded that the chancellor convince the kaiser to mobilize immediately. “After considerable resistance,” Falkenhayn recalled, “he consented and we rang up Moltke and Tirpitz.” The kaiser then summoned everyone to the palace in Charlottenburg. At five PM on Saturday, 1 August, Germany’s sovereign signed the order for general mobilization—the last of the four principal belligerents to do so. He gave Falkenhayn a long handshake. Both men, Falkenhayn remembered, “had tears in their eyes.”32

  Scarcely had this momentous decision been made than Jagow appeared, having raced over from the Wilhelmstrasse to tell everyone that “a very important dispatch had come in from England which would soon be decoded and brought along.”33 He was referring to Lichnowsky’s 11:14 AM telegram, which had been received at 4:23 PM. Not wanting to give Bethmann and the kaiser another chance to back down, Moltke, his face now “bathed in perspiration,” left with Falkenhayn to transmit the mobilization order to the army, without waiting to hear Jagow’s news from London.34

  Ten minutes later, they were summoned back. To general astonishment, Jagow informed everyone that Sir Edward Grey had promised “that in the event of our not attacking France, England, too, would remain neutral and would guarantee France’s passivity.” The news, General Lyncker, chief of the military cabinet, recalled, “hit everyone like a bomb.” It suddenly appeared that Germany would only have to fight, in Lyncker’s words, “one opponent instead of three.”35 No wonder Moltke, on his return to the palace, found everyone “in a joyful state of mind.” The kaiser, overcome with relief, exclaimed aloud, “Now we can go to war against Russia only. We simply march the whole of our army to the East!”36

  German mobilization is proclaimed in 1914. Source: Getty Images.

  Moltke was speechless. His plan had no provision for reversing the direction of German mobilization 180 degrees from west to east. His intricate timetable, which one historian elegantly described as “precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time,” would be wrecked.37 “Your Majesty,” Moltke protested after recovering himself, “the deployment of an army of a million men cannot be improvised. . . . If Your Majesty insists on leading the whole army to the east it will not be an army ready for battle but a disorganized mob of men with no arrangements for supply.” Besides, France would remain fully mobilized on Germany’s western frontier and she would hardly leave Germany alone if she struck Russia. “Your uncle,” Kaiser Wilhelm II replied angrily, “would have given me a different answer!” This remark “wounded me deeply,” Moltke later remembered: as he told the kaiser sheepishly, he had never considered himself “to be the equal of the field marshal.” Over Moltke’s strenuous objections, the kaiser insisted that his chief of staff sign an order to the commander of the Sixteenth Division in Trier to halt his imminent march into neutral Luxembourg. Moltke refused to sign, but an unofficial order was given by aides over the phone at 6:40 PM.38

  Meanwhile, the heated discussion over the British proposal continued. Falkenhayn pulled Moltke aside to assuage his hurt feelings. He agreed with the chief of staff that there was no way to reverse the mobilization against France, but he insisted that they humor the kaiser so long as England’s offer was on the table. Moltke, though chastened, agreed to consider it. Tirpitz pointed out to everyone that, whether Grey’s proposal “was a bluff or not a bluff,” if the Germans refused to parley, their refusal would be published in London, “putting us flagrantly in the wrong.” The kaiser agreed. Whether or not Grey was sincere, it seemed imperative to reply, to show good faith.39

  And so Bethmann and Jagow, with input from Moltke and Falkenhayn, began writing up urgent pleas to London on the basis of Grey’s offer. The first was a sovereign-to-sovereign appeal in which Kaiser Wilhelm II informed King George V that he had “just received the communication from your Government offering French neutrality under guarantee of Great Britain. Added to this offer,” the message continued, “was the enquiry, whether under these conditions Germany would refrain from attacking France.” The kaiser confessed that Germany’s mobilization against France and Russia could
no longer, “on technical grounds,” be halted, but he promised that “if France offers me neutrality which must be guaranteed by the British fleet and army I shall of course refrain from attacking France and employ my troops elsewhere.” As a pledge of German good faith, the kaiser assured King George that “the troops on my frontier are in the act of being stopped by telegraph and telephon[e] from crossing into France.”40

  This was untrue. German troops were not expected to cross the French frontier for nearly two weeks, and so there was no need to “stop” them from doing so now. Bethmann tacitly admitted this in his own telegram to Grey, which, in order to give England time to negotiate with Paris, promised that German troops would refrain from crossing the French frontier until Monday, 3 August, at seven PM.41 (This, too, was misleading—it was Belgium’s frontier they would cross on Tuesday morning, not France’s.) Because this telegram was sent almost simultaneously with the kaiser’s, the intention was obviously to connect the idea that German troops were “being stopped by telegraph” with the pledge that they would not enter France. In fact these promises meant nothing, as they simply reflected the prerogatives of Moltke’s mobilization plan.

  The kaiser had, of course, already taken steps to “stop troops” from crossing frontiers—the Sixteenth Division, slated to move into Luxembourg—but he could hardly reveal this to the British, as it would betray Germany’s intention to violate neutral territory. Nor could he get his chief of staff to sign the order (although instructions had already been given over the phone). Failing to receive satisfaction from Moltke, the kaiser dismissed him just before eight PM. The chief of staff was “crushed” as he left the palace; he “burst into tears of abject despair.” He went home, sat on his bed, and pouted.42