July 1914: Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin

  Even if they had been true, they likely would not have swayed British opinion decisively. In the cabinet, all eyes were fixed on the Belgian frontier, which German troops might, or might not, cross en route for France.* Belgium’s own army had already begun mobilizing three days earlier, as if in defiance of all the powers. By Friday, the Meuse bridges had been wired for destruction; by Saturday, the fortress city of Liège had been armed, and the eastern viaducts and tunnels, facing German Trier and Aachen, were wired for demolition. While Belgium’s mobilization was theoretically a “call-up without deployment,” targeting neither France nor Germany, reports that the Germans had invaded Luxembourg, which reached the Belgian foreign ministry at six AM Sunday, were alarming. Germany’s minister in Brussels, Klaus von Below-Selaske, was asked for an explanation. His answer was not entirely reassuring: “Your neighbor’s roof may catch fire but your own house will be safe.”8

  Noninterventionists in England keenly hoped that this would remain true. Despite the dramatic events of the past few days, many Britons remained complacent on Sunday morning, happy in their ignorance. Owing largely to Sir George Buchanan’s lazy reporting from St. Petersburg, the picture even cabinet insiders had of events in Europe was murky and incomplete. True, Buchanan had wasted no time reporting Germany’s declaration of war on Saturday night, but he had neglected to mention that Russia had provoked this by ordering general mobilization on Thursday (and the Period Preparatory to War five days before that). The French, too, were deliberately misinforming London about such matters as the ten-kilometer withdrawal. On Saturday, Poincaré had gone so far as to tell Sir Francis Bertie, in what was almost certainly a conscious lie, that “the Emperor of Russia did not order a general mobilization until after a decree of general mobilization had been issued in Austria” (in fact, Russia’s had preceded Austria’s by twenty hours; her mobilization against Austria herself had preceded Austria’s general mobilization by three days).9 With such a distorted picture of events, it is understandable that no firm policy had been decided on in London.

  Yet, in light of the successful French and Russian manipulation of British opinion, the cabinet, surprisingly, was still leaning against intervention. As Prime Minister Asquith wrote on Sunday morning, “a good 3/4 of our party are for absolute non-interference at any price.” Grey confronted one Liberal MP and demanded what he would do if Germany invaded Belgium. “She won’t do it,” was the reply. Grey: “I don’t suppose she will, but supposing she does.” “She won’t do it,” came again the reply, like a metronome. Preoccupied with Ireland, ill-informed about events on the Continent, most Liberals did not want to hear about obligations to France, much less to Russia. Even Asquith, despite his Francophile sympathies, assured the German ambassador on Sunday morning that, although much would depend on what happened in Belgium, “we had no desire to intervene.”10

  At the same time, Paul Cambon was meeting with Sir Edward Grey. Presenting a report from Viviani of the German invasion of Luxembourg, the ambassador demanded that Grey use this in the cabinet to make a case for intervention. To his disappointment, not even this news could sway His Majesty’s foreign secretary. The integrity of Luxembourg, Grey argued, was upheld “collectively” by the powers in the Treaty of London of 1867, whereas England had guaranteed Belgium “severally and individually” in the 1839 treaty. So the cases were different. After hearing Grey’s latest elliptical sophistry, Cambon unburdened himself to Henry Wickham Steed, the foreign editor of the London Times: “I do not know whether this evening the word ‘honor’ will not have to be struck out of the English vocabulary.”11

  As if channeling the French ambassador, the Conservative opposition goaded the Liberal cabinet in a similar manner Sunday morning. Bonar Law, Unionist leader in the Commons, and Lord Landsdowne, on behalf of the Lords, issued a declaration that “It would be fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at this juncture.” As if to offer help, but with an obvious hint of menace in the direction of wavering cabinet Liberals, they added that “we offer our unconditional support to the Government in any measures they may consider necessary for this object.”12

  The cabinet was bitterly divided when it met at eleven AM. The sense of occasion was tremendous. If meeting on Saturday was rare, convening on a Sunday was almost unheard of; no one could even remember the last time it was done. With Germany and Russia at war, and France and Germany poised on the knife’s edge, it seemed imperative to declare a policy of some kind. And yet Asquith knew that there was “a strong party . . . against any kind of intervention in any event,” led by Lord Morley’s Little Englander faction and the Right Honorable John Burns, president of the Board of Trade. Lloyd George, the chancellor of the Exchequer, was still wavering, although he seemed to be leaning toward Morley’s faction. On the other side, Churchill was poised to resign if the cabinet dithered any longer, with Bonar Law and the Conservatives cheering him on from the sidelines, ready to form a new government if this one fell. “We are on the brink of a split,” Asquith would write after the midday session.13 Churchill himself was convinced the government would fall, with a majority resigning over any nudge in the direction of intervention. “The grief and horror of so many able colleagues,” he recalled, “were painful to witness.”14

  To postpone an open breach, Grey made his case as gingerly as possible. He denounced the hypocrisy of the Central Powers, which had foiled his mediation efforts (the lack of positive responses to them from France or Russia was not mentioned) and “marched steadily to war.” Grey avoided, as he had all week, any discussion of Russia’s secret early military preparations or of the fact that St. Petersburg had been the first power to mobilize (if he had believed Bertie’s Saturday report, Grey may have erroneously thought the Austrians had mobilized first). He reminded his colleagues that, owing to joint agreements with Paris, France’s navy was concentrated in the Mediterranean, with the British fleet covering the Channel. The French had, in effect, left their northwestern coast undefended against the Germans. When these agreements had been negotiated by Grey and Cambon in 1912, Morley and the Little Englanders had insisted that this engagement was not “based on any agreement to cooperate in war.” Now they realized—as, surely, they should have known all along—that this was precisely what the agreements had intended to bring about. For what was the purpose of dividing the oceans into spheres of naval coverage if not to ensure cooperation in wartime? At last, Grey had found the issue on which to make or break the cabinet. “If the Channel is closed against Germany,” he argued, “it is in favor of France, & we cannot take half measures—either we must declare ourselves neutral, or in it.” If it was neutrality, then Grey would resign; if not, then he expected other resignations. He therefore “asked for a sharp decision.”15

  He did not quite get it. Around two PM, just as everyone was getting hungry, the cabinet agreed on a compromise that would allow it to adjourn for lunch. Even Morley was forced to admit that “we owed it to France” to defend the Channel. And so Grey was authorized to tell Paul Cambon that “if the German fleet comes into the Channel or through the North Sea to undertake hostile action against French coasts or shipping, the British fleet will give all the protection in its power.” The statement was conditional enough not to break up the cabinet, although it did prompt one resignation. With what Morley described as “remarkable energy, force, and grasp,” Burns of the Board of Trade insisted that a guarantee to defend the French coast was “neither more nor less than a challenge to Germany, tantamount to a declaration of war against her.”16 This, indeed, was the French ambassador’s own interpretation of Grey’s statement. As Cambon wired to Paris: “in truth a great country does not wage war by halves. Once it decided to fight the war at sea it would necessarily be led into fighting it on land as well.”17

  The true implications began to sink in among the remaining noninterventionists over lunch. Lord Morley dined with Lloyd George and Sir John Simon, the attorney general. The o
verall sentiment, Morley recalled, was that “Burns was right”: the cabinet “was being rather artfully drawn on step by step to war for the benefit of France and Russia.” Together, the men agreed to make a stronger stand when the cabinet reconvened at six thirty PM. Burns, having agreed at Asquith’s insistence to attend despite his resignation, would strengthen their hand.18

  Despite growing opposition, Asquith and Grey did not back down. Having already won everyone but Burns over to a naval commitment to defend the French coastline, they now pressed for armed intervention if the Germans violated Belgian neutrality. To keep the waverers on board, Grey agreed to make the case for belligerence in the Commons on Monday only if the Germans committed a “substantial violation” of Belgium, not merely a crossing of the small corner of Belgian territory that abutted Luxembourg. Implied, although not directly stated, was that Britain would intervene only if the Belgians themselves offered resistance to a German invasion. As Asquith put it, Britain could hardly be “more Belgian than the Belgians,” going to war with Germany if Brussels did not.19

  Opinion was far from unanimous. Morley threatened to follow Burns and resign. Sir John Simon complained that “the Triple Entente was a terrible mistake. Why should we support a country like Russia?” To Grey’s warning that France would be overwhelmed if Britain stayed out, Lloyd George retorted, “How will you feel if you see Germany overrun and annihilated by Russia?”20 As the cabinet broke up for the evening, the government seemed ready to fall. British belligerence hung by a thread.

  EVEN AS THE BRITISH CABINET was debating what to do in case the Germans violated Belgium, Klaus von Below-Selaske was en route for the Belgian Foreign Ministry to propose that she do so. At 2:05 PM, Jagow had wired, ordering him to open the sealed envelope sent to him several days previously. Dressed up with specious warnings that the French were preparing to attack Germany by way of the Meuse River valley, the note demanded that Belgium answer within twelve hours—by 8 AM Monday—whether she would resist the movement of German troops through her territory. While “intending no acts of hostility towards Belgium,” and promising to evacuate her territory “as soon as peace is concluded,” the note stipulated that, if opposition were encountered, it would be met by force.21 The ruse was transparent. It was an ultimatum.

  The Belgian cabinet met at nine PM, presided over by King Albert himself. It faced a dreadful dilemma. Submitting to the German ultimatum would forfeit national honor. And yet Belgium had but six infantry and one cavalry divisions to face the might of Germany—possibly as much as several dozen divisions. Of course, once the Germans invaded, Belgium might count on French and possibly British aid, but this would likely come too late to affect the outcome. King Albert was himself convinced that “our answer must be ‘no,’ whatever the consequences. Our duty is to defend our territorial integrity.” But he realized that a hostile German invasion would bring devastation upon his people. It was hardly the kind of decision one wanted to rush into. At ten PM, most cabinet members were dismissed and the military chiefs called in for their input. While there remained considerable debate over the plan of deployment, opinion on the ultimatum was unanimous: the answer could only be no.22

  At midnight, the ministers dispersed, and a drafting committee set to work on the reply. Below-Selaske, desperate for news, showed up at the Foreign Ministry at one thirty AM, reporting that the French army had crossed the German frontier “in a breach of international law” (that is, before war had been declared; the Germans were fanatics on this point).23 As French troops had reportedly crossed German, not Belgian, territory, Below-Selaske’s complaint was dismissed as irrelevant. It was obvious that the German simply wanted an answer on which way the Belgians would go. At two thirty AM, the final text of the reply was approved. The “infringement of [Belgium’s] independence with which the German Government threatens her,” the note declared, “would constitute a flagrant violation of international law. No strategic interest justifies such a breach of law. Were it to accept the proposals laid before it, the Belgian Government would sacrifice the nation’s honor while being false to its duties toward Europe.” While expressing a hope that the Germans might change their minds, the note concluded that, “if this hope were disappointed, the Belgian Government is firmly resolved to repel every infringement of its rights by all the means in its power.”24

  As everyone turned in on Sunday night, policymakers in Berlin, London, and Paris were awaiting news from Belgium with almost unbearable anxiety. By morning, they would have it.

  * While Bethmann knew in a general sense about the planned march through Belgium, it is true that he learned of the M + 3 assault on Liège only on Friday, 31 July.

  * So incompetent was German diplomacy that this treaty was invalid even before Wangenheim signed it. Because Germany had declared war on Russia (and not the other way around), the casus foederis did not, technically, apply to any of her allies, not even Austria-Hungary. The clever Ottoman grand vizier, it seems, knew this: Turkey did not declare war on Russia until months later, despite furious protests from Berlin.

  * In a sense, it was curious that no one in London seemed much exercised by the violation of Luxembourg’s neutrality, guaranteed by a treaty also signed in London in 1867. But then Luxembourg was tiny and landlocked, whereas Belgium was Britain’s main continental buffer along the English Channel. Sentiment and sympathy there might have been regarding the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, but not national interest.

  24

  Sir Edward Grey’s Big Moment

  MONDAY, 3 AUGUST

  BY MONDAY MORNING, news of the German ultimatum to Brussels had reached London, although it was not yet clear what Belgium’s response had been. Bonar Law and Lord Landsdowne met with Asquith to reconfirm Conservative support for intervention. Public opinion seemed to be shifting in their direction. As Lloyd George recalled, “the war had leapt in popularity between Saturday and Monday . . . the threatened invasion of Belgium had set the nation on fire from sea to sea.” The chancellor of the Exchequer, always adept at reading shifts in the popular mood, now came over to the war party.1

  Not everyone felt the same way. Morley and Simon both sent Asquith resignation letters on Monday morning (although they did promise to attend that day’s cabinet). Even Sir Edward Grey seemed to be having cold feet. Scheduled to address the Commons in the afternoon, he had stayed up late the night before, jotting down notes for his speech. When he arrived at the Foreign Office around ten AM, the German ambassador was waiting for him, desperate for news on which way Britain would go. Grey was almost apologetic, leaving Lichnowsky with the impression that, although Britain would “not be able to regard the violation of Belgian neutrality calmly,” he, personally, “would like, if at all possible, to remain neutral.” Lichnowsky, hoping to give Grey grounds for doing so, promised that Germany, “even in the event of a conflict with Belgium . . . would maintain the integrity of Belgian territory,” and that, providing England stayed neutral, the German fleet would not attack France’s northern coastline. Grey listened politely but promised nothing.2

  When the cabinet met at eleven AM, the very gravity of the moment did much to dissolve the bitterness of the weekend. Everyone knew that Grey was going to address the Commons at three PM, and everyone knew, more or less, what he would say about Britain’s obligations regarding Belgium. Burns had already gone; Morley and Simon were going, too. Now, the first commissioner of works, Lord William Beauchamp—“Sweetheart,” as Asquith called him—announced that he, too, would resign.* Lloyd George, having switched sides, made a “strong appeal” to the waverers “not to go, or at least to delay it.” It was, Asquith wrote after the session, “a rather moving scene in which everyone all round said something.”3

  Ordinarily, a wave of resignations like this would be enough to sink a government, but with a European war on the immediate horizon, they had the opposite effect, convincing the remaining ministers to stand firm. With the deck cleared of the most vociferous noninterventionists, the cabinet
at last approved Churchill’s previous, unauthorized mobilization of the British fleet. When news arrived confirming the German ultimatum, and that “Belgium has refused categorically,” Asquith (in his temporary role as secretary of state for war) ordered the army to mobilize, too. Most important, Grey was authorized to tell the Commons that afternoon that Britain would defend the French coast against German attack and that she would take action if Germany invaded Belgium. Simon and Beauchamp, overwhelmed with emotion, withdrew their resignations (although Morley did not). Even Morley agreed to “say nothing today,” to attend the Commons debate, and not to walk out in protest when His Majesty’s foreign secretary made his case. At two PM, the cabinet broke up to give everyone time to dine and to allow Grey to gather his energy for his speech.4

  Anticipation for the big event had been building all day. Since 1871, the first Monday in August had been a bank holiday in England. Most years, this meant the city would be empty, with vacationers staying away for a third day. But with the cabinet in constant session owing to the war crisis, the tourist traffic had reversed course. Masses had descended on London, keen for news. The weather remained superb, so even in the city people were enjoying the outdoors. By afternoon, the crowd of pedestrians in Westminster, Lloyd George recalled, “was so dense that no car could drive through it.” “Had it not been for police assistance,” he wrote, “we could not have walked a yard on our way.”5

  By three PM, the House of Commons was “crowded to the roof and tense with doubt and dreadful expectation,” the historian G. M. Trevelyan recalled. For the first time since 1893, every member was in attendance. The diplomatic gallery was packed (although Lichnowsky was not there). So many visitors wanted to witness history that extra chairs had to be brought into the gangway. All eyes were on Sir Edward Grey as he rose to speak—especially those of Ambassadors Benckendorff and Cambon, desperate to learn at last whether England would join Russia and France. The endless crisis meetings had taken a severe toll on Grey, who was normally accustomed to regaining his strength in the country each weekend. To those close enough to see his face, he looked “pale, haggard, and worn.”6 In Grey’s own recollection of the moment in his memoirs, he strikes an oddly passive note, as if he were merely submitting to fate rather than shaping world-historical events: “I do not recall feeling nervous. At such a moment there could neither be hope of personal success nor fear of personal failure. In a great crisis, a man who has to act or speak stands bare and stripped of choice. He has to do what it is in him to do; just this is what he will and must do, and can do no other.”7 Grey’s elliptical manner of speaking, his inability to simply come out and say what he meant, had long infuriated ambassadors trying to tease out an understanding of British policy. This speech would be no different.