The War that Ended Peace

by Margaret MacMillan

  The pressures on the British to declare themselves mounted. In Paris Poincaré told Bertie, the British ambassador, that if war broke out on the Continent Britain would almost certainly be drawn in to protect its interests – and if it were to say so now, Germany would almost certainly be deterred from attacking its neighbours. An increasingly desperate Paul Cambon haunted his friends in the Foreign Office and visited Grey to remind him that they had exchanged letters in November 1912 promising that their two countries would consult in a major crisis over what steps they might take together. The British Cabinet, however, was still unable to come to a firm decision about the policy it would adopt if war broke out on the Continent. The Liberals’ Foreign Affairs Committee, which had long been critical of Grey and suspicious of his secrecy on commitments to France, threatened Asquith with the withdrawal of its support if a decision were taken that Britain would intervene. One of its members wrote to Asquith to claim that up to nine-tenths of Liberal MPs would oppose the government. On the other hand, Grey and his fellow Liberal imperialists would probably refuse to serve in a government which did not support France. The Liberal leaders feared, with good reason, that the government could fall, leaving the way open for the Conservatives to take power.33

  On 31 July, a Friday, the Cabinet met again and decided only that it could not give Cambon any promises. Russia was already mobilising and, although they could not know it, Austria-Hungary was about to declare its general mobilisation and Germany was to take the first steps towards its own. In the meeting Grey continued to insist that Britain remained perfectly free to decide what it would do.34 Eyre Crowe disagreed. In a forceful memorandum the same day he argued:

  The theory that England cannot engage in a big war means her abdication as an independent State. She can be brought to her knees and made to obey the behests of any Power or group of Powers who can go to war, of whom there are several … The whole policy of the Entente can have no meaning if it does not signify that in a just quarrel England would stand by her friends. This honourable expectation has been raised. We cannot repudiate it without exposing our good name to grave criticism.35

  Outside the small circle of those who now controlled Britain’s fate, public opinion also remained divided but it appeared to be shifting towards intervention. The Times, for example, now argued that Britain had a moral obligation to France and Russia and that, moreover, it could not stand by while the balance of power on the Continent shifted in Germany’s favour.36

  While Britain was grappling with the dilemmas before it, Germany was making its own fateful decision to start mobilising. This was particularly dangerous to Europe’s peace because German mobilisation was unlike all others. Its beautifully co-ordinated and seamless steps – from declaring a state of siege or ‘imminent threat of war’, to ordering full mobilisation and organising the men into their units with their supplies, to finally launching its armies over the borders – made it almost impossible to stop once started. And the army was always ready, even in peacetime, to move at a moment’s notice; the communications office of the general staff was manned around the clock, had its own telephone exchange and was wired directly into the main post office and telegraph office.37 For Germany mobilisation was not a diplomatic tool; it was war itself. Although Bethmann and the Kaiser had resisted the army pressures to set the process going, by 31 July the military were starting to take over. Bethmann accepted this shift in power with resignation; the representative of Saxony in Berlin reported him saying: ‘The control has slipped out of the hands of the responsible monarchs and statesmen so that the mad European war would happen without the rulers or their people wanting it.’38

  Crucially Moltke, who had earlier agreed that mobilisation could still wait, had suddenly shifted ground the evening before. Falkenhayn wrote in his diary, ‘His changes of mood are hardly explicable, or not at all.’39 In fact, though, Moltke had good reason: Germany needed to be ready to take Liège before war was declared and he had received reports that the Belgians were hastily reinforcing it. (He had never informed the civilians of this part of the German war plans.)40 It may be too that he simply could no longer bear the tension of indecision. After ‘endless negotiations’ on 30 July between Bethmann and Falkenhayn the decision was taken to announce the ‘state of imminent threat of war’, the necessary preliminary stage of mobilisation, at noon the following day whether Russia had mobilised or not. At midnight one of his adjutants found a visibly agitated Moltke busy drafting a proclamation for the Kaiser. He feared, the chief of the general staff said, that Britain would intervene and that the conflict would be worldwide. ‘Few can have an idea of the extent, the duration and the end of this war.’41

  When confirmation of Russian mobilisation came in just before noon on 31 July Bethmann telephoned Wilhelm and obtained his permission to proclaim the ‘state of imminent threat of war’. At the War Ministry in Berlin, the military attaché from Bavaria wrote in his diary, ‘Everywhere beaming faces, shaking of hands in the corridors; one congratulates oneself for having taken the hurdle.’ The Bavarian ambassador cabled Munich to say ‘General Staff looks ahead to war with France with great confidence, expects to defeat France within four weeks.’42 The German public learned of the decision around 4 p.m. in the old Prussian way: a detachment of soldiers marched out from the palace in Berlin and stopped in the Unter den Linden, the great thoroughfare. The drummers beat their drums in each direction of the compass and an officer read out a proclamation. The German government also sent an ultimatum to Russia, which it knew would almost certainly be rejected, demanding that it stop all war preparations against both Germany and Austria-Hungary within twelve hours. When Bethmann met the representatives of all the German states the next morning to ask them to approve a war if Russia refused to back down, he assured them that he had worked to the very end for peace: ‘But we cannot bear Russia’s provocation, if we do not want to abdicate as a Great Power in Europe.’43 A second ultimatum went to France, giving it eighteen hours to promise that it would remain neutral in any conflict. As proof of its willingness to keep such a promise, France was to hand over its key frontier fortresses at Toul and Verdun. (Germany promised to hand them back in good order at the end of its war with Russia.) Germany also sent out telegrams to Greece, Rumania, and the Ottoman Empire to ask them what it would take to get them to join with the Triple Alliance in the coming war.

  As Germany prepared for war on two fronts, the actions of its most important ally caused it concerns as Austria-Hungary moved that part of its army already mobilised, some two-fifths of the total, towards Serbia in spite of reports coming in from 27 July onwards of increasing Russian military activity.44 Even after the general mobilisation order of 31 July substantial Austrian-Hungarian forces continued to go southwards into the Balkans. Conrad, with the wishful thinking that marked so many of his decisions, seems to have hoped that Russia would bring its forces up to Austria-Hungary’s frontiers and merely sit there while he defeated Serbia quickly.45 This was not how Germany saw it or what Germany needed.

  As often happens in alliances, war had brought to the fore the divergent interests of the partners. Austria-Hungary, while it had promised in peacetime to attack Russia as soon as possible, was obsessed with destroying Serbia. Germany, for its part, had little intention of diverting forces from the west to protect Austria-Hungary until France was defeated. It was essential from the German point of view that Austria-Hungary send as many forces northwards as possible against Russia. Moltke was already urging Conrad, his Austrian counterpart, to move his forces north and east, and on 31 July the Kaiser sent a strong telegram to Franz Joseph to say, ‘In this great struggle it is of primary importance that Austria should mobilise her main forces against Russia and not fragment herself through any simultaneous offensive on Serbia.’ And, the Kaiser went on, ‘Serbia plays, in this gigantic struggle where we stand shoulder to shoulder, a quite subsidiary role, requiring only a necessary minimum of defensive measures.’46 Conrad did not, however, redeploy
his troops from south to north until 4 August, a decision which was to lead to military disaster for Austria-Hungary.

  By the afternoon of 1 August, a Saturday, still no reply had come from Russia to the German ultimatum. The patriotic demonstrations of earlier in the week had been dying down and the German public was waiting for developments with apprehension, even depression. A journalist reported that, in Frankfurt, ‘Over everything lies an enormous seriousness, a frightening peace and quiet. Inside their quiet rooms wives and young women sit with their serious thoughts concerning the new future. Separation, a great fear of the horrible, a fear of what may come.’ Housewives started to hoard food and there were runs on banks as people withdrew their savings. The Kaiser was now under great pressure to declare a general mobilisation from his generals who saw time slipping away while Russia’s armies grew, and from his own wife who told him to be a man. He signed the order at 5 p.m.47 Shortly afterwards he made a speech from the balcony of his Berlin palace: ‘From the depths of my heart I thank you for the expressions of your love, of your faithfulness. In the battle now lying ahead of us, I see no more parties in my Volk. Among us there are only Germans …’ He was cheered, far more than he usually was; Germans of all political persuasions were now ready to defend their homeland against the Russians who, at this point, were singled out as the main enemy. In spite of later nationalist mythmaking about a huge upsurge in patriotic enthusiasm as the war became reality, the public mood seems to have been one of resignation as much as anything else.48

  Shortly after the Kaiser signed the general mobilisation order, a telegram arrived from Lichnowsky. According to the ambassador, Britain had promised to remain neutral if Germany did not attack France. The news, said one observer, was ‘like a bomb’. The Kaiser and perhaps Bethmann were relieved. Turning to Moltke, Wilhelm said cheerfully, ‘So we simply deploy the whole army in the East!’ The mood in the room rapidly turned stormy. Moltke refused to contemplate the possibility of deploying only against Russia. The deployment in the west could not be stopped without disrupting the plans and so ending any chance of success in the coming war against France. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘our patrols have already entered Luxembourg and the Division from Trier is to follow immediately.’ And he bluntly told the Kaiser, ‘If his Majesty insisted on leading the entire army to the East then he would not have an army that was ready to strike but a messy heap of disorderly, armed men without supplies.’ Wilhelm replied, ‘Your uncle would have given me a different answer.’49

  There has been a debate ever since over whether Moltke was right, that it was too late for Germany to go to war on one front alone. General Groener, head of the general staff’s Railway Department at the time, maintained afterwards that it would have been feasible.50 In the event, a compromise was patched up; deployment on both fronts would continue as planned but the German armies in the west would halt just before the French border until France’s position was clearer. Moltke never really recovered from the psychological battering he received that day. When he returned home, recalled his wife, after the Kaiser’s request for a partial mobilisation, ‘I saw immediately something terrible had happened here. He was purple in the face, his pulse hardly countable. I had a desperate man in front of me.’51

  Later that night a second telegram from Lichnowsky came in to say that his earlier one had been mistaken; the British were insisting that there be no German invasion of Belgium nor an attack on France and, furthermore, German troops designated for an attack on France in the west must not be moved to the east to be used against Russia. When Moltke went back to the royal palace in Berlin to get permission to resume the movement against Belgium and France, the Kaiser, who was already in bed, said curtly, ‘Now do as you please; I don’t care either way,’ and turned over to go to sleep.52 There was still no sleep on that fateful day for the Kaiser’s ministers who sat up to the early hours of the next morning in a debate over whether going to war with Russia required a formal declaration. Moltke and Tirpitz did not see the necessity but Bethmann, who argued ‘otherwise I cannot pull the Socialists along’, won what was to be one of his last victories over the military.53 A declaration of war was to be prepared and cabled to Pourtalès in St Petersburg. With Germany’s decision to mobilise, three of the five great European powers had now begun their general mobilisations and were either already formally at war, as in Austria-Hungary’s case, or about to be so in the case of Russia and Germany. Of the remaining three, Italy was choosing neutrality, France had decided to ignore the German ultimatum and start its own general mobilisation on 2 August, and Britain still had not decided what to do.

  The 1st of August was the start of a bank holiday weekend for the British. Many families had gone to the seaside and in London Madame Tussaud’s was advertising new waxworks exhibitions for the holiday-makers: ‘The European Crisis. Lifelike Portrait Models of H.I.M. the Emperor of Austria, King Peter of Servia, and other reigning Sovereigns of Europe. The Home Rule Crisis. Sir Edward Carson, Mr. John Redmond, and other Celebrities. Naval and Military Tableaux. Delightful Music. Refreshments at Popular Prices.’54 There was little holiday mood in the corridors of power in Whitehall and this time an increasingly morose Grey was not able to slip away to his country cottage.

  One piece of bad news followed another. The City of London was panicking. The bank rate had doubled overnight and hundreds of people had queued in the courtyard of the Bank of England to change their paper notes for gold. The management of the Stock Exchange had decided to close until further notice (and it was to remain closed until the following January). Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Asquith had held a meeting with leading businessmen in an attempt to reassure them that the government would intervene if necessary to stabilise the economy. From the Continent came reports of armies on the move and stories, false as it turned out, that German troops were already crossing the French frontier. In a private letter to Nicolson at the Foreign Office, Goschen, the British ambassador in Berlin, wrote plaintively, ‘It’s all very terrible! All my servants will have to go I suppose and I shall remain with my English valet and Swiss aide-cuisinier. I hope you’re not as tired as I am.’55

  The Cabinet met in the late morning of Saturday 1 August. ‘I can honestly say that I have never had a more bitter disappointment,’ wrote Asquith to Venetia Stanley afterwards – but he was talking about not being able to meet her during the week. The international crisis, he went on, was no closer to being resolved and the Cabinet remained undecided on what to do. One group that morning still took what Asquith described in his letter as ‘the Manchester Guardian tack’ – that Britain should declare that it would not join a continental war under any circumstances – and on the other side were Grey and his supporters such as Churchill and Asquith himself who refused to rule out war. Grey had hinted again at resignation if the Cabinet adopted a firm policy of nonintervention. In the middle and as yet undecided was the pivotal figure of Lloyd George, who was temperamentally inclined towards peace but who had a lively sense of Britain’s need to maintain its position as a great power. The meeting could only agree that it would not ask Parliament to approve sending the British Expeditionary Force to France.56

  After the Cabinet meeting Grey saw Cambon, who had been waiting anxiously at the Foreign Office for news of Britain’s intentions. The French ambassador pointed out the grave peril that his country now faced from German armies on land and with the German navy able to threaten its Atlantic coasts which France had left bare, so Cambon claimed with a certain amount of exaggeration, as a result of its agreement with Britain which had undertaken to protect them. Grey gave him little comfort, waving, yet again, the free hand in front of him. Belgium’s neutrality was important to the British, however, and the Foreign Secretary intended to ask the House of Commons on Monday, if the Cabinet agreed, to affirm that Britain would not allow a violation of that neutrality. Cambon pointed out that French opinion was going to be very disappointed at Britain’s delayed response and, according to G
rey’s account of the meeting, gave a warning: ‘If we did not help France, the entente would disappear; and, whether victory came to Germany or to France and Russia, our situation at the end of the war would be very uncomfortable.’57 Afterwards Cambon staggered into Nicolson’s office white in the face and able to say only, ‘They are going to abandon us, they are going to abandon us [Ils vont nous lâcher, ils vont nous lâcher].’58 To a friendly British journalist who visited him at the French embassy, he said, ‘I wonder whether the word “honour” should be stripped from the English vocabulary.’ Nicolson rushed upstairs to ask Grey whether Cambon was speaking the truth about their meeting. When Grey said that he was, Nicolson said bitterly, ‘You will render us … a by-word among nations,’ and protested that the Foreign Secretary had always given Cambon the impression that if Germany were the aggressor Britain would take France’s side. ‘Yes,’ replied Grey, ‘but he has nothing in writing.’59 That night, Crowe, who was a strong advocate in the Foreign Office for intervention, wrote to his wife: ‘The government has finally decided to run away, and desert France in her hour of need. The feeling in the office is such that practically everyone wants to resign rather than serve such a government of dishonourable cowards.’60