Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914. Max Hastings
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‘Part of your demands we have accepted, for the rest we place our hopes on your loyalty and chivalry as an Austrian general. With you we have always been very satisfied.’ The Serbs accepted all Vienna’s harsh terms save its requirement for Austrians to be granted authority on their soil. When this response became known in western Europe, there were some brief delusions that war was averted. ‘People are relieved and at the same time disappointed to hear that Serbia is giving in,’ wrote André Gide. But Vienna made no pretence of desiring a peaceful outcome: whatever the Serbian response, Baron Giesl had been instructed to remove himself to the border at Zemun by the 6.30 train.
News that the ultimatum had not been accepted in totality prompted an explosion of frivolous glee in Vienna, where crowds surged through the streets until the small hours. It has recently been suggested that Serbia’s Nikola Pašić was also secretly enthused about a war that would commit Russia in support of Serbia’s pan-Slav ambitions; while this is remotely possible, it is again wholly unproven and unprovable. But the Serbs knew their response would not satisfy Vienna, and their own mobilisation orders had been dispatched four hours earlier, at 2 p.m. That night government official Jovan Žujović, now in uniform, boarded a train carrying the General Staff eastward to the army’s concentration area, while his brother, a doctor, reported to a divisional field hospital. After two recent conflicts and a mobilisation, the Serbs were more familiar with the routines than any other nation in Europe. But their army had not yet re-equipped after the Second Balkan War, and the government knew how ill-stocked were its arsenals – a further reason for doubting that Pašić welcomed hostilities.
Next morning Berchtold informed his Emperor – mendaciously – that the Serbs had fired on Austria’s Danube steamers. Old Franz Joseph promptly signed the Empire’s mobilisation order, saying enigmatically, ‘Also doch!’ – ‘So, after all!’ Since the crisis began, his ministers had seriously debated only two matters: diplomatic measures to ensure German support, and the mechanics of Serbia’s dismemberment after its conquest. Belgrade, the country’s sole city of any stature, was to be annexed to the Hapsburg Empire, together with some additional territory. Other portions would be offered to Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro, to reconcile them to the new dispensation. Serbia would thus cease to trouble the world; the pan-Slav movement would be deprived of its prime mover. Both Austria and Germany repeatedly lied about these intentions, assuring the Russians and the world that the Hapsburg government had no plans for imposing territorial changes.
Count István Burián wrote that ‘across the whole of Europe our steps are rumbling like a storm which truly will decide our destiny’. Theodor Wolff, editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, asserted that the increasingly frenzied response to the appearance of each special edition on the streets of the capital reflected not merely a hunger for news, but each man’s unwillingness to be alone, his yearning to share his own fears with others: ‘Suddenly the crowds move. A couple of delivery vans appear, stormed by throngs of people. Some hold a white paper, others stare over their shoulders … People stand in their autos and carriages, hanging out over the street, staring, waiting for certainty … Never before has there been so much reading in the streets … Everyone does it, the flower-sellers in front of Café Kranzler as eagerly as the elegant lady inside the café itself.’
An extra edition at 9.30 p.m. on the 25th reported that the Serbs had rejected Vienna’s ultimatum. Few people cheered; most simply went home. But crowds gathered in front of the Austrian and Italian embassies screaming patriotic slogans: ‘Down with Serbia!’ Nationalists sang outside the chancellor’s office. Café orchestras played ‘Deutschland über alles’. In Wolff’s words, ‘the music rose sublimely to the heavens’, followed by Austria’s anthem ‘Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser’. Kurt Riezler wrote: ‘in the evening and on Sunday people were singing. The chancellor is much moved, deeply stirred and strengthened, especially since news [of such displays of popular emotion] is coming in from across the Empire. Among the people [there is] an enormous, if confused, urge for action, a yearning for a great movement … to rise up for a great cause, to show one’s powers.’
Joffre, France’s chief of staff and commander-in-chief, found civilian politicians nervous, as well they might be, facing a huge crisis with the president and premier still abroad. The general told Messimy, the war minister, that he was quite prepared to handle a mobilisation in their absence: ‘Monsieur le Ministre, if we have to make war we shall do so.’ Messimy responded emotionally: ‘Bravo!’ On 25 July, without reference to Joffre, the minister telegraphed an order for all senior officers on leave to return to their units, which caused the general testily to remind him that there was a proper sequence for such measures, which Messimy had pre-empted. That night, French intelligence learned that German officers in Switzerland had been recalled from leave; guards were being placed on key bridges across the Kaiser’s empire. It was nonetheless decided not to recall vacationing French soldiers, many of whom were still needed at home for the harvest.
In London Sir Edward Grey still harboured a huge though scarcely ignoble delusion: that Germany would exercise its influence upon Vienna to prevent a Balkan quarrel from escalating into a general European conflict. But that night of the 25th, the head of the Foreign Office’s East and West Department, Sir Eyre Crowe, warned of the gravity of the situation. He wrote that everything now hinged upon the vital question of ‘whether Germany is or is not determined to have this war now’, and urged that the most likely way of preventing disaster was for Britain to make plain that it would not remain neutral in a conflict that engaged France and Russia. But at that moment there was no possibility that the cabinet or the House of Commons would have endorsed any such commitment, even had Grey asked for it – as he did not.
Europe now had a war: only its scale remained to be determined. Everything turned upon Russia. Jules Cambon, the French ambassador in Berlin, told his Belgian counterpart: ‘Today the fate of France and the conservation of the peace of Europe depend upon a foreign will, that of the Tsar. What will he decide? And upon what advice? If he decides for war France, the victim of her alliance, will follow the destiny of her ally on the battlefields.’ It was taken for granted that Serbia would not have dared to reject even a part of Austria’s ultimatum without being confident of Russia’s support. At 1 a.m. on 26 July St Petersburg placed Russian Poland under martial law. Later that day, critical pre-mobilisation orders were issued. The army required a fortnight to be ready to fight, a month to be fully deployed, and thus every hour counted. Sazonov wanted only partial mobilisation; Russia had taken this same step in 1912 without precipitating a war. It seemed prudent to avoid directly provoking the Germans, and thus to hold back from activating the troops of Warsaw district, closest to their frontier. But when Danilov the quartermaster-general returned from the Caucasus that day, he explained to the foreign minister that a limited mobilisation would critically impede the full process.
On the 26th also, the minister of internal affairs published an order prohibiting publication or public mention of information about the armed forces, under the terms of Russia’s treason laws. Notice was given that lighthouses and navigation lights were being doused in all Russian waters save the inland Caspian and Azov seas. The naval base at Sebastopol was closed to shipping, and Russian vessels at sea were instructed to halt radio transmissions. A series of domestic restrictions was introduced, starting with a 10 p.m. closure order for all St Petersburg restaurants. Next day all Germans and Austrians on Russian soil were ordered to settle their affairs and leave the country forthwith. From the 27th also, shipping in the Black Sea was warned that any craft steaming inshore during the hours of darkness was liable to be fired upon.
Soldiers began to move. Outside Moscow, the Sumskoi Hussars were recalled from exercises to barracks, where horses were reshod, campaign uniforms issued, harness and equipment checked. Men locked their personal possessions into chests which were labelled with the names and addresses of their next of kin. The officers’ mess silver was sent to the State Bank for safekeeping, and cherished regimental banners were presented to a museum. The Serbian military attaché to Berlin noted that he travelled across Germany on 26–27 July without observing any warlike activity, but on crossing into Russian territory ‘we noticed mobilisation steps being taken on a grand scale’. When Sir George Buchanan questioned Sazonov about Russia’s scurrying soldiery, the foreign minister responded soothingly that they were merely responding