The First World War

by John Keegan

  It was the events of 31 July, therefore, the dissemination of the news of Russian general mobilisation, and the German ultimata to Russia and France, which made the issue one of peace or war. The day following, 1 August, the thirty-fifth since the murders, would bring Germany’s mobilisation against Russia—thus making, in the words of the German ultimatum to France, “war inevitable”—unless Germany withdrew its ultimatum to Russia, which was incompatible with its status as a great power, or Russia accepted it, which was incompatible with such status also. German mobilisation would, under the terms of the Franco-Russian Convention of 1892, require both to mobilise and, if either were attacked by Germany, to go jointly to war against her. As the hours drew out on 31 July—the twelve demanded for a response from Russia, the eighteen demanded from France—only a hair’s breadth kept the potential combatants apart. There was still a hope. The Russo-French Convention of 1892, strictly interpreted, required that Germany actually attack one country or the other before the two went to war against her. German mobilisation entailed only their mobilisation. Even a German declaration of war, unless followed by German military action, would not bring the treaty into force. Nevertheless, the Germans had warned France that their mobilisation meant war with Russia and the outbreak of war between great powers not followed by fighting was a state of affairs without credibility in early twentieth-century Europe. The twelve hours given by Germany to Russia for acceptance of the ultimatum was, by any rational calculation, the last twelve hours of available peace. It was, in France, an inexact twelve hours. Wilhelm Freiherr Schoen, the German ambassador to Paris, who came to communicate news of the ultimatum to Russia at the French foreign ministry at six p.m. on Friday 31 July, was unclear when the period began and ended—it was midnight to noon next day—but the exact delimitation was by then beside the point. War hovered half a day away.28

  That, by 31 July, was certainly the view of the French army. News, true or exaggerated, of German military preparations, had thrown even Joffre, “a byword for imperturbability,” into a state of anxiety. The loss of advantage was a fear that now afflicted him as acutely as it had Janushkevich on 29 July and Moltke on 30 July. He foresaw the secret approach of German troops to their deployment positions while his own soldiers were still in barracks, German reservists kitting out at their depots while his were still at home. On the afternoon of Friday 31 July, he handed to Messimy, the Minister of War, a short note which epitomises, better than any other document of the crisis of July 1914, the state of mind which possessed the military professionals of the age.

  It is absolutely necessary for the government to understand that, starting with this evening, any delay of twenty-four hours in calling up our reservists and issuing orders prescribing covering operations, will have as its result the withdrawal of our concentration points by from fifteen to twenty-five kilometres for each day of delay; in other words, the abandonment of just that much of our territory. The Commander-in-Chief must decline to accept this responsibility.29

  That evening he formally requested the President to order general mobilisation at once. His representation was debated by the cabinet next morning and the first day of mobilisation, to be 2 August, proclaimed at four o’clock that afternoon.

  The French had hoped to delay the proclamation until after the announcement of German mobilisation, in order to avoid any appearance of provocation. In practice, though the French order preceded the German, no such appearance was given, for the interval was only one of an hour. Moreover, two hours after that, the German ambassador in St. Petersburg delivered to Sazonov the declaration of war on Russia. The hour was soon after seven in the evening, local time, Saturday 1 August. The exchange took place in a mood of high emotion. There were mutual recriminations, accusations against others, regrets, embraces, tears. The ambassador left Sazonov’s room “with tottering steps.”30

  Yet the irrevocable did not yet seem done. The Tsar still hoped, on the strength of a telegram from the Kaiser begging him not to violate the German frontier, that war could be averted. The Kaiser, meanwhile, had fixed on the belief that the British would remain neutral if France were not attacked and was ordering Moltke to cancel the Schlieffen Plan and direct the army eastward. Moltke was aghast, explained that the paperwork would take a year, but was ordered to cancel the invasion of Luxembourg, which was the Schlieffen Plan’s necessary preliminary.31 In London this Sunday 1 August, the French ambassador, Paul Cambon, was thrown into despair by the British refusal to declare their position. Britain had, throughout the crisis, pursued the idea that, as so often before, direct talks between the involved parties would dissolve the difficulties. As a power apart, bound by treaties with none, it had concealed its intentions from all, including the French. Now the French demanded that the understanding between them and the British be given force. Would Britain declare outright its support for France and, if so, on what issue and when? The British themselves did not know. Throughout Saturday and Sunday 2 August, the cabinet debated its course of action. The treaty of 1839, guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, would force it to act, but that neutrality was still intact. It could give no firm answer to France, any more than it could to Germany, which had requested a clarification on 29 July. Precautionary measures had been taken; the fleet had been sent to war stations, France was even secretly assured that the Royal Navy would protect its Channel coast; but further than that the cabinet would not go. Then, on 2 August, Germany delivered the last of its ultimata, this time to Belgium, demanding the use of its territory in operations against France and threatening to treat the country as an enemy if she resisted. The ultimatum was to expire in twenty-four hours, on Monday 3 August. It was the day Germany also decided, claiming violation of its own territory by French aircraft, to present France with a declaration of war. The expiry of the ultimatum to Belgium, which the British cabinet had finally resolved would constitute a cause for war, proved the irrevocable event. On Tuesday 4 August, Britain sent an ultimatum of its own, demanding the termination of German military operations against Belgium, which had already begun, to expire at midnight. No offer of termination in reply was received. At midnight, therefore, Britain, together with France and Russia, was at war with Germany.

  The First World War had still not quite begun. The Austrians succeeded in delaying their declaration of war on Russia until 5 August and were still not at war with Britain and France a week later. Those two countries were driven to make up the Austrians’ mind for them by announcing hostilities on 12 August. The Italians, Triple Alliance partners to Austria-Hungary and Germany, had stood on the strict terms of the treaty and declared their neutrality. The Serbs, cause of the crisis in the first place, had been forgotten. War was not to come to their little kingdom for another fourteen months.

  FOUR

  The Battle of the Frontiers and the Marne

  STATESMEN WERE FILLED with foreboding by the coming of war but its declaration was greeted with enormous popular enthusiasm in the capitals of all combatant countries. Crowds thronged the streets, shouting, cheering and singing patriotic songs. In St. Petersburg the French ambassador, Maurice Paléologue, found his way into the Winter Palace Square, “where an enormous crowd had congregated with flags, banners, icons and portraits of the Tsar. The Emperor appeared on the balcony. The entire crowd at once knelt and sang the Russian national anthem. To those thousands of men on their knees at that moment the Tsar was really the autocrat appointed of God, the military, political and religious leader of his people, the absolute master of their bodies and souls.”1 The day was 2 August. On 1 August a similar crowd had gathered in the Odeonsplatz in Munich, capital of the German kingdom of Bavaria, to hear the proclamation of mobilisation. In it was Adolf Hitler who was “not ashamed to acknowledge that I was carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment and … sank down upon my knees and thanked Heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the favour of having been permitted to live in such times.”2 In Berlin the Kaiser appeared on his palace balcony, dressed in field-grey
uniform, to address a tumultuous crowd: “A fateful hour has fallen upon Germany. Envious people on all sides are compelling us to resort to a just defence. The sword is being forced into our hands … And now I command you all to go to church, kneel before God and pray to him to help our gallant army.” In the Berlin cathedral, the Kaiser’s pastor led a huge congregation in the recitation of Psalm 130 and at the Oranienstrasse synagogue the rabbi conducted prayers for victory.3

  There were to be similar scenes in London on 5 August. In Paris it was the departure of the city’s mobilised regiments to the Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord which brought forth the crowds. “At six in the morning,” an infantry officer reported,

  without any signal, the train slowly steamed out of the station. At that moment, quite spontaneously, like a smouldering fire suddenly erupting into roaring flames, an immense clamour arose as the Marseillaise burst from a thousand throats. All the men were standing at the train’s windows, waving their képis. From the track, quais and the neighbouring trains, the crowds waved back … Crowds gathered at every station, behind every barrier, and at every window along the road. Cries of “Vive la France! Vive l’armée” could be heard everywhere, while people waved handkerchiefs and hats. The women were throwing kisses and heaped flowers on our convoy. The young men were shouting: “Au revoir! A bientôt!”4

  All too soon, for most of the young men, the summons to follow would come. Reservists not yet called were already putting their affairs in order; in most armies the day before the stipulated date for reporting was a “free day” for farewells to family and employer. “Complete strangers,” recorded Richard Cobb, the great historian of France, “could be heard addressing one another in bizarre fashion, as if Parisians had all at once become figures out of Alice [in Wonderland]: playing cards, days of the week, or dates in a new sort of calendar. ‘What day are you?’ And, before the other could get in an answer, ‘I am on the first’ (as if to suggest: ‘beat that’). ‘I am the ninth’ (‘Bad luck, you’ll miss all the fun, it’ll be over by then’). ‘I am the third, so won’t have to wait too long.’ ‘I am the eleventh’ (‘You’ll never make Berlin at that rate’).”5 A German officer-candidate reservist gives a more prosaic account of how the procedure swept up the individual. He was on business in Antwerp. His military document told him he had to report

  to the nearest regiment of field artillery on the second day of mobilisation … When I reached Bremen on 3 August, my family was frantic. They thought the Belgians had arrested and shot me … on 4 August, I presented myself to the army as a reservist and was told I now belonged to Reserve Field Artillery Regiment No. 18, which was forming in Behrenfeld near Hamburg, about seventy-five miles [away]. Relatives were not allowed near the building where we had to assemble. As soon as I could I gave a message to a little boy so my family knew … Relatives were not allowed on the railway platform either, only Red Cross people who gave us free cigars, cigarettes and candy. On the troop train I was glad to see friends I knew well from my rowing and tennis clubs … On 6 August I was issued my field-grey uniform which I had never worn before. The colour was grey-green with dull buttons, the helmet was covered with a grey cloth so that the ornaments would not glitter in the sun and the high riding boots were brown and very heavy … All soldiers and most of the officers were reservists but the commanding officer was a regular … Most of the NCOs were regulars. The horses were reservists, too. Owners of horses—sportsmen, businessmen and farmers—had to register them regularly and the army knew at all times where the horses were.6

  Horses, like men, were mustering in hundreds of thousands all over Europe in the first week of August. Even Britain’s little army called up 165,000, mounts for the cavalry and draught animals for the artillery and regimental transport waggons. The Austrian army mobilised 600,000, the German 715,000, the Russian—with its twenty-four cavalry divisions—over a million.7 The armies of 1914 remained Napoleonic in their dependence on the horse; staff officers calculated the proportion between horses and men at 1:3. Walter Bloem, a reserve officer of the 12th Brandenburg Grenadiers, packed as much luggage for his two horses as himself when he mobilised at Stuttgart: “my trunk, my brown kitbag, and two boxes of saddlery … with the special red labels. ‘War luggage. Immediate’ ” before sending them ahead by train to Metz on the French border.

  Trains were to fill the memories of all who went to war in 1914. The railway section of the German Great General Staff timetabled the movement of 11,000 trains in the mobilisation period, and no less than 2,150 fifty-four-waggon trains crossed the Hohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine alone between 2 and 18 August.8 The chief French railway companies, Nord, Est, Ouest, PLM, POM, had since May 1912 had a plan to concentrate 7,000 trains for mobilisation. Many had moved near the entraining centres before war began.

  Travellers coming in [to Paris] from Melun brought extraordinary accounts of empty, stationary trains, engineless, and often of mixed provenance, the carriages from different companies strung up together, passenger ones mixed up with guard trucks, many with chalk marks on their sides … waiting on side-lines the whole way from the chef-lieu of the Seine-et-Marne to the approaches of the Gare de Lyon. Equally bizarre were the reports brought in by travellers to the Gare du Nord of the presence along the immense sidings of Creil of several hundred stationary locomotives, smokeless and passive.9

  They were not long stationary. Soon they would be moving, filled with hundreds of thousands of young men making their way, at ten or twenty miles an hour and often with lengthy, unexplained waits, to the detraining points just behind the frontiers. Long prepared, many of the frontier stations were sleepy village halts, where platforms three-quarters of a mile long had not justified the trickle of peacetime comings and goings. Images of those journeys are among the strongest to come down to us from the first two weeks of August 1914: the chalk scrawls on the waggon sides—“Ausflug nach Paris,” and “à Berlin”—the eager young faces above the open collars of unworn uniforms, khaki, field-grey, pike-grey, olive-green, dark blue, crowding the windows. The faces glow in the bright sun of the harvest month and there are smiles, uplifted hands, the grimace of unheard shouts, the intangible mood of holiday, release from routine. Departure had everywhere been holidaylike, with wives and sweethearts, hobble-skirted, high-waisted, marching down the road to the terminus arm-in-arm with the men in the outside ranks. The Germans marched to war with flowers in the muzzles of their rifles or stuck between the top buttons of their tunics; the French marched in close-pressed ranks, bowed under the weight of enormous packs, forcing a passage between crowds overspilling the pavements. One photograph of Paris that first week of August catches a sergeant marching backwards before his section as they lean towards him, he like a conductor orchestrating the rhythm of their footfalls on the cobbles, they urgent with the effort of departure and the call to arms.10 An unseen band seems to be playing “Sambre-et-Meuse” or “le chant du départ.” Russian soldiers paraded before their regimental icons for a blessing by the chaplain, Austrians to shouts of loyalty to Franz Joseph, symbol of unity among the dozen nationalities of his creaking empire. In whichever country, mobilisation entailed enormous upheaval, the translation of civil society into the nation in arms. The British army, all-regular as it was, stood the readiest for war; once its reservists were recalled, it was prepared to deploy. “We found the barracks full of Reservists—many still in civilian dress—and more were flocking in by almost every train,” wrote Bandsman H. V. Sawyer of the 1st Rifle Brigade at Colchester on 5 August. “Fitting them out with uniform, boots and equipment was proceeding rapidly but in some cases was no easy job. I remember one man in particular who must have weighed eighteen stone … It was hard on the Reservists, leaving good jobs and comfortable homes to come back to coarse uniforms and heavy boots.”11

  Bandsman Shaw packed his peacetime kit and sent it home by rail. “As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered. But I wasn’t to know that I’d packed that lovely dark green review order tunic for
the last time in my life.”12 In Paris Lieutenant Edward Spears, 11th Hussars, on exchange from the British to the French army, changed into khaki. “ ‘How funny you look, disguised as a dusty canary,’ observed the female concierge who let me in at one of the more obscure entrances to the Ministère de la guerre. This was disappointing, but one became used to the fact that for a long time the French thought that to go to war in a collar and tie [British officers wore an open-necked tunic in service uniform] represented an attitude of levity quite out of keeping with the seriousness of the situation.”13 The British, as a result of the Boer War, had decided on a sartorial revolution the French had not been able to make. Despite much experiment and debate, it went garbed for war in 1914 much as it had done in 1870, almost as under Napoleon. The heavy cavalry wore brass helmets with a long horsehair plume, the light cavalry frogged jackets and scarlet trousers; some of the heavy cavalry were burdened with breastplates unchanged in pattern from Waterloo. The light cavalry of the Armée d’Afrique were dressed in sky-blue tunics, the Spahis in flowing red cloaks, the Zouaves in baggy red breeches and Turkish waistcoats. Most conspicuous of all, because of their numbers, were the infantry of the metropolitan army. Under long, turned-back blue greatcoats, their legs were encased in madder-red trousers tucked into calf-length boots.14 All was made of heavy wool; the stifling weight of antique uniforms was to prove one of the additional ordeals of combat in the sun-drenched autumn of 1914.