In 1911 and 1912, as the Balkan states circled around the carcass of the Ottoman Empire, Sazonov encouraged them. ‘To have done nothing’, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘to further the attainment of their aim by Serbia and Bulgaria, would have meant, for Russia, not only a renunciation of her historic mission, but also a surrender, without resistance, to the enemies of the Slav nationalities, of a political position secured by age-long efforts.’40 He promoted the formation of the Balkan League and appears, like the sorcerer’s hapless apprentice, to have entertained the illusion that he could control it. When he told the Serbian and Bulgarian leaders that Russia did not want a war in the Balkans, they assumed that he did not really mean it. As the British chargé d’affaires in Sofia wrote on the eve of the First Balkan War:
The danger of the situation really lies in the fact that neither Bulgaria nor Serbia can believe that Russia could abandon her policy of centuries in the Balkans without even an attempt at resistance. The Balkan States have been brought together by Russia – true for a defensive purpose – but defensive and offensive are terms much akin under certain conditions. They are now working together and, once they are quite ready and think the moment opportune, it is not the withholding of loans by France, nor the admonitions of Russia nor of the whole of Europe that will hold them back. They care little whether they bring about a European war or not.41
When Hartwig warmly supported the Serbians’ ambitions for a Greater Serbia, Sazonov complained but did little to stop him. Nor was Sazonov prepared to stand up to his own strongly pro-Serbian public opinion even though he felt, as he admitted in his memoirs, ‘a certain fear lest the Government should find itself unable to control the course of events’.42 He also found Serbia difficult to deal with: ‘I did not always find that self-control and sober estimate of the dangers of the moment which alone could avert a catastrophe.’43 Russia was to find, as so often happens to great powers, that its much smaller and weaker client state was exigent, often with success, in demanding support from its patron. In November 1912, for example, during the First Balkan War, the Serbian leader Pašić, without consulting Russia, published a dramatic letter about Serbia’s aims in the London Times. His country, Pašić declared, must have a coastline of some fifty kilometres along the Adriatic. ‘For this minimum Serbia is prepared to make every sacrifice, since not to do so would be false to her national duty.’ Even the smallest Serbian presence on the Adriatic was, as Pašić knew well, anathema to Austria-Hungary. His letter was an attempt to put Russia into a position where it had no choice but to support Serbia.44 On this occasion the Russians eventually refused to be drawn in but Sazonov and his colleagues were going to face a similar dilemma with Serbia two years later. If they abandoned it in the face of Austria-Hungary’s aggression, Russia would appear weak; if Russia assured Serbia of its unwavering support, it might well encourage recklessness in Belgrade.
Austria-Hungary, the other great power most concerned about developments in the Balkans, shared Russia’s fear of appearing weak, but where Russia wanted stronger Balkan states, Austria-Hungary regarded the prospect with horror, especially when it came to Serbia. The mere existence of Serbia was a danger to the existence of the old multinational monarchy, acting as it did as a magnet, a model, and an inspiration for the empire’s own South Slavs. The ruling elites in Austria-Hungary, remembering all too well how the kingdom of Piedmont had taken the lead in uniting Italy and how Prussia had done the same with Germany, and at the expense in each case of Austria-Hungary, saw Serbia in the same dangerous role. (It did not help that Serbian nationalists felt much the same and that they called one of their more extreme newspapers Piejmont.) The activities of Serbia’s nationalist leaders after the 1903 coup in encouraging nationalist sentiments throughout the peninsula and within the empire itself had done much to exacerbate Austrian-Hungarian fears.
In one of those inopportune coincidences which play their part in human affairs, Austria-Hungary also had a new Foreign Minister in 1912 and, as in Russia, one who was weaker and less decisive than his predecessor. Leopold von Berchtold was one of the Dual Monarchy’s richest men and had married a Hungarian heiress. His family was old and distinguished and he was related to virtually everyone who counted in society. Although at least one of his ancestors had broken with convention to marry Mozart’s sister, who came from the middle classes, Berchtold himself was a terrific snob and something of a prude who found Edward VII barely acceptable in society. ‘Une royauté en décadence’, wrote Berchtold in his diary when the British king brought a former mistress to the elegant spa at Marienbad. ‘Return to the loathsome and unworthy Georgian tradition after the Victorian epoch of moral greatness.’45 Elegant and charming, with impeccable manners, Berchtold moved easily through society. ‘The beautiful poodle’, or so claimed one of his many critics, was more interested in his amusements and collecting exquisite objects than in high politics. Bad taste upset him; when he visited a new wing that Franz Ferdinand had constructed at one of his castles he found the marble ‘looked like head cheese and reminds one of a butcher’s’.46 Next to his family, to whom he was devoted, Berchtold’s great enthusiasm was for horse-racing. He had always wanted, he said, to be a government minister and win a great horse race. He achieved the former by catching Aehrenthal’s attention, first as a promising young diplomat and then as his likely successor, and the latter by lavish spending. Berchtold built his own race track, imported the best English trainers, and bought the best horses.
When Aehrenthal died, Franz Joseph’s choice for a successor was a limited one. It had to be someone of high social rank who was also acceptable to the heir to the throne and Franz Ferdinand’s opposition had already eliminated two likely candidates. Berchtold, who was in favour with both the uncle and nephew, and who had enjoyed a good record as Austria-Hungary’s ambassador in Russia, appeared the most suitable candidate and the dying Aehrenthal had begged him to take on his office.47 Berchtold himself had doubts about his ability to fill it. (So did his colleagues, one of whom said he would have been excellent as a high court official responsible for its elaborate ceremonies but was a disaster as a Foreign Minister.48) In his interview with the emperor Berchtold listed his own deficiencies. He was not familiar with the inner workings of the Foreign Ministry and he had never dealt with the Austrian parliament. Furthermore, as someone who saw himself as both Austrian and Hungarian, he was likely to be despised by both nationalities. Finally, he was probably not up to the physical demands of the office. He nevertheless took the position out of a sense of duty to his emperor.49
Berchtold was an intelligent man and an experienced diplomat but he had spoken truthfully. He lacked both confidence and determination. He took forever to make decisions, going round and round with his officials, even sometimes asking his children for their views.50 While he favoured peace, he found it difficult to stand up to the hawks, especially Conrad, who bombarded him with memoranda arguing for war, against Italy, or in 1912, 1913 and 1914, against Serbia.51 Berchtold also lacked the depth of knowledge he needed. He knew little about South Slav issues or the Balkans or such matters as the details of the alliance between Austria-Hungary and Italy.52 As a result he was intimidated by his more knowledgeable officials and tended, too much, to defer to their opinions. His own foreign policy views were simple and pessimistic: Austria-Hungary was menaced by hostile neighbours and had only one friend in Germany. Where he had once hoped for an understanding with Russia, he had become convinced since the crisis over Bosnia that there was little chance of that happening. Austria-Hungary must now see Russia, he believed, as ‘an enemy, who could certainly wait, but did not want to forget’.53
As the tensions and talk of war spread in the Balkans in the late summer of 1912, Berchtold tried to maintain the status quo there, urging the great powers to act together as the old Concert of Europe. If they could put pressure on the Ottoman Empire to reform its treatment of the Christians under its rule, the Balkan states would no longer have an excuse for war. It was a si
gn of how far Europe was now dividing itself into hostile camps that the initial reaction from Russia and France in the Triple Entente was one of suspicion and a determination not to let the Triple Alliance take the lead.54 Sazonov told the British ambassador in St Petersburg that Russia’s prestige in the Balkans would be seriously damaged if Austria-Hungary were seen to be taking over as the protector of the Christians.55
When war finally broke out in the Balkans at the end of September, Austria-Hungary’s leadership still seems to have been taken by surprise, with its military attachés in both Belgrade and Constantinople off on holidays.56 The Balkan League’s string of quick victories caused intense worry and much anxious debate in Vienna. The Common Ministerial Council, which gave Austria-Hungary what unity it had, had been dragging its feet on proposed new military expenditures; now it voted a large sum for new artillery and fortifications. As it became clear that the Ottoman Empire was going to lose most if not all of its remaining European territories and that the old order in the Balkans was dead, the pressing question for Austria-Hungary was what the new one would look like. A greater Bulgaria was acceptable and an independent Albanian state desirable because it would block Serbia from the Adriatic and was also likely to be a client state of Austria-Hungary. A much bigger Serbia or Montenegro, however, and the resulting increase in Russia’s influence in the Balkans were certainly not what Vienna wanted to see on its southern borders. Serbia’s demands included the Sanjak, which would give it a common border with Montenegro, part of Kosovo, and access to the Adriatic. It was bad enough that Montenegro had a tiny piece of the Adriatic coast but if Serbia pushed westwards to the sea, Austria-Hungary’s dominant position in the Adriatic, already challenged by Italy, would face a new threat. Its naval base at Pula which had already absorbed a good deal of Austria-Hungary’s resources might well become useless and the very important port of Trieste, at the head of the Adriatic, could be strangled. Public opinion, already hostile to Serbia, was further inflamed by reports that the Serbians had captured an Austrian-Hungarian diplomat as they advanced into Ottoman territory and were treating him badly, even, it was rumoured, castrating him. (He turned out to be unharmed.)57
If his government failed to act to bring Serbia and Montenegro under control, warned General Blasius Schemua, Conrad’s replacement for a brief period as chief of staff, Austria-Hungary could say goodbye to its great-power status.58 Conrad, who was very depressed at Serbia’s successes (the muscles in his face were twitching incessantly, said a friend),59 sent his usual long memoranda, this time more vehement than ever, urging that Serbia be destroyed. Berchtold, with support from the emperor and, at first, from Franz Ferdinand, resisted but he set out Austria-Hungary’s minimum aims to the other powers: the establishment of an independent and large Albania and Serbia to be blocked from acquiring a piece of the Adriatic coast. The latter, unfortunately for the peace of Europe, was a Serbian demand that Russia initially supported in order to demonstrate its firm backing for its client state.
Russia found itself in an awkward position. Its military leaders estimated that the country would not be ready for a major war for another couple of years, yet Russia could not stand by and see the Balkan states pushed around by Austria-Hungary.60 In an effort to deter Austria-Hungary and its ally Germany, Russia used a tactic it was to use again in the summer of 1914. At the end of September 1912, at precisely the same moment that the Balkan states were mobilising their armies, the Russian military carried out what it described as a trial mobilisation in its westernmost Warsaw military district which bordered both Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Russians also extended the service of conscript troops who had been due to be released, which had the effect of increasing the number of active soldiers by some 270,000.61
The Russian actions brought a response from Austria-Hungary where there was mounting gloom over the collapse of the status quo in the Balkans and the growing power of Serbia, Montenegro and, to a lesser extent, Bulgaria. At the end of October Berchtold had a long and difficult meeting with his colleagues – the ministers for the Dual Monarchy’s military and shared finances – in the Common Ministerial Council. The meeting considered war with the Balkan League as a serious possibility and it was agreed to ask the emperor to send considerable reinforcements to the forces already in Bosnia.62 Shortly afterwards, Berchtold visited Italy where he tried to persuade the Italians to support Austria-Hungary. (He also cheered himself up by visiting antique stores and art galleries.)63 In November, as the Balkan League consolidated its victories over the Turks, Austria-Hungary responded to Russia by putting its troops in Bosnia and Dalmatia on a war footing. It also increased its garrisons in Galicia near the border with Russia, something which caused panic among the locals, who feared war was about to break out.64
Europe did indeed move closer to a general war. In Russia’s ruling circles, Sazonov later wrote in his memoirs, there was a firm conviction that the time had come to settle accounts with Austria-Hungary and get revenge for the Bosnian fiasco.65 On 22 November, two days after the measures by Austria-Hungary, the tsar chaired a meeting with his top military commanders from the key western parts of Russia who had been urging the government to strengthen their forces and arguing for a military showdown with Austria-Hungary.66 As for Nicholas, in the opinion of the British ambassador, he was even more a Panslavist than his government and had reportedly said that he would not endure a second humiliation like the one Russia had suffered over Bosnia.67 At the meeting it was decided to mobilise the whole of the Kiev military district which covered west Ukraine as well as a large part of the Warsaw district in Russian Poland. And preparations were also to be made to mobilise the Odessa district bordering on the Black Sea. Sukhomlinov, as War Minister, did not bother to inform his civilian colleagues of this dramatic and risky decision. It would be best, he told them, that they should learn from the tsar himself what he had in mind. The following day, when the civilians including Sazonov and Kokovtsov, who was now Prime Minister, were summoned to the tsar’s study at his palace outside St Petersburg they were appalled at what they heard. Nicholas told them he had taken his decision and that the telegrams for the mobilisation were ready to go out. Russia was, he pointed out, only mobilising against Austria-Hungary at this point and he had hopes that Wilhelm might support him in forcing Austria-Hungary to behave sensibly. Kokovtsov denounced the planned mobilisation; it meant risking a war with both Austria-Hungary and its ally Germany and Russia simply was not ready. Sazonov too, for all his enthusiasm for the Slav cause, also had cold feet and had become noticeably more restrained in his support of Serbia, telling the Austrians and the Italians, for example, that Russia no longer supported Serbia getting a port on the Adriatic. As the British ambassador said unkindly, ‘Sazonov is so continually changing his ground that it is difficult to follow the successive phases of pessimism and optimism through which he passes.’68 On this occasion, the civilians successfully resisted pressure from the military and the planned mobilisation was shelved, although the number of active troops was again increased by extending the term of military service.69 Sukhomlinov, who by virtue of his office knew Russia’s military weaknesses all too well, continued nevertheless to argue that war with Germany and Austria-Hungary was inevitable and that it might be best to get it over with. ‘Tell them in Paris’, he told the French military attachés in St Petersburg, ‘that they can rest assured, everything is ready here, without fuss; you will see.’70
While the Russians were flirting with danger, another set of equally portentous meetings was going on in Berlin. Franz Ferdinand and Schemua, the then Austrian chief of staff, had arrived to ask for assurances of German support in case of Russian attack. The German Chancellor, Bethmann, and Kiderlen, the Foreign Secretary, initially hoped to strike a balance between working with Britain to calm the international tensions over the Balkans but showing support for Austria-Hungary. At the same time they intended to restrain their ally from going too far, for example in annexing the Sanjak which Austria-Hungary had
renounced in 1908. Nor did the German leaders wish to see the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, where Germany had significant interests including the beginnings of the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway.71 The Kaiser, as always unpredictable, had initially been hostile to the Ottomans, on the grounds that the present leadership had revolted against ‘my friend the Sultan’, and had been sympathetic to the Balkan League, even for a time referring to the man he called ‘the sheep stealer of the Black Mountains’ as ‘His Majesty the King of Montenegro’.72 By the time of Franz Ferdinand and Schemua’s November visit, however, Wilhelm had swung round to outright support of Austria-Hungary. Indeed, in the conversations that took place, first in Berlin and then at his hunting lodge in the east, he went further than his own government would have liked and promised his visitors German support if a war broke out between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkans. A week later Bethmann told the Reichstag that Germany would stand by its ally, although he carefully avoided going into specifics.73 In Silesia, near the Russian border, German families made plans to move west, away from the expected invasion, while in Berlin high officials were said to be putting their money into Swiss banks for safety. Tirpitz asked his senior officers what preliminary steps could be taken before a complete naval mobilisation and, in a foreshadowing of what was to be his more complete psychological collapse in 1914, Moltke, the chief of the German general staff, was noticeably both nervous and lethargic.74
Across Europe the stock markets grew jittery and the press filled with reports of troop movements and other military preparations. ‘The air is dense with rumours’, reported the Times correspondent from Vienna, ‘not all of which merit credence. Taken together they show, however, that the conflict in the Near East is approaching the stage when European Governments will need perspicacity and prudence if it is to be prevented from becoming a European conflict.’75 Austria-Hungary ordered its diplomats in Belgrade, Cetinje and St Petersburg to pack up their most important papers and be ready to leave in case of war. (They were able to use the same orders two years later.)76 On 7 December, shortly after the armistice in the Balkans, Conrad was reappointed as Austria-Hungary’s chief of the general staff. He rushed to share the news with his beloved Gina but when he saw her he put his head in his hands and could not speak. Austria-Hungary now faced much greater problems than before in the Balkans, he told her; the Balkan states were much stronger.77 He nevertheless continued to put pressure on Berchtold for military action against Serbia and Montenegro and, for the time being, he had the support of Franz Ferdinand, more usually, like Berchtold, a voice for moderation.78
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