The Origins of World War I

The Origins of World War I

1871-1914

Joachim Remak

(1967)

Chapter 4: Catastrophe: Sarajevo, the July Crisis and the Outbreak of War

The Shots of June: THE PREPARATIONS More than half a century after the double murder of Sarajevo, a fair number of essential facts surrounding the crime's origins and authorship still remain in doubt. Some of the participants have told stories in which they have freely mingled truth with fiction. Others have kept entirely silent. Others yet have been silenced. The account that follows can therefore claim no more than that it is based on the testimony of the more credible among the surviving witnesses, and that it appears to be the most likely among several possible versions. But with these reservations in mind, as we try to reconstruct the story, it would seem that at some point between late 1913 and early ]914, Dragutin Dimitrijevic, a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Serbian Army, decided that he wished Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary, to die.

Dimitrijevic was an interesting person. The official position he held was that of chief of intelligence of the Serbian army. Among the unofficial activities to which he devoted himself were the affairs of a secret society named Union or Death, an organization more popularly known, to the extent that it was known, as the Black Hand. The aim of the Black Hand, as of several other groups working in harmony or in competition with it, was the creation of a Greater Serbia, to include Bosnia-Herzegovina to the west, and Macedonia to the southeast. Toward this end, the Black Hand sponsored a substantial amount of propaganda and subversion in those regions. Toward this end, too, Dimitrijevic resolved on the death of Franz Ferdinand.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este was heir to a throne whose occupant, the Emperor Franz Joseph, was eighty-four years old and frail. Franz Ferdinand's accession to power might spell the end of Dimitrijevic's hopes; too much had been reported about the Archduke's political plans and ideas. The precise shape these plans would have taken must of necessity remain conjectural, but it would seem that in one form or another, Franz Ferdinand was ready to grant some notable concessions to the empire's Slavs. One scheme discussed would have provided for the establishment of Trialism, with the allotment of a role to the Slavs comparable to that played by the Germans and Magyars in the monarchy. Another involved the possible introduction of a more ,federal system along American or Swiss lines. Whatever their specific shape, the archduke's projected reforms had to be anathema to the Black Hand. The last thing that organization wished to see in Bosnia was happy Slavs. The foundation of its work was a discontented minority.

Dimitrijevic, then, had a fairly compelling motive for murder. He also had the opportunity. Franz Ferdinand, he learned, would be coming to Bosnia in June 1914 to attend some army maneuvers, at whose conclusion he would pay a state visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. In addition to motive and opportunity Dimitrijevic had the means: a group of three young nationalist Bosnians resident in Belgrade, Trifko Grabel, Nedjeljko Cabrinovic, and Gavrilo Princip, who were willing to kill and, if caught, take the consequences. After first being trained by the Black Hand in the use of firearms and bombs, the three were equipped with the requisite weapons (as well as with vials of cyanide, so that they could commit suicide once they had accomplished their mission) and smuggled back across the border into Bosnia, from where they openly traveled to Sarajevo.

Here, on the morning of June 28, 1914, they took up the stations planned for them along the route that the Archduke and his wife Sophie were scheduled to take on their trip through the city. It was a day of particular significance and bitter memories to any Serb, since it marked the anniversary of the fourteenth-century battle of Kossovo, or Blackbirds' Field, against the Turks that had brought an end to Serbian independence and placed the nation under Turkish vassalage. It had not been excessive tact that had guided the Austrians to choose this day of all days for the Archduke's visit. On the other hand, both the assassination and its details had been planned some time before the precise date of the Sarajevo visit was known. It was indignation directed in advance, not any sudden visions of Kossovo producing homicidal impulses too strong to resist that threatened the Archduke.

The three young men from Belgrade were augmented by a group of four local associates, although "augmented" may be a misleading term, since none of the four matched them in either resolution or courage. They had, one strongly suspects, been placed there mainly in order to give the crime the flavor of a more home-grown affair.

Not one of the seven, by the way, might have been able to take up his post that morning had a political decision made earlier in Belgrade gone just a bit differently. The facts-to the extent, again, that any "fact" about Sarajevo can truly be asserted-were these: some time in May, Nikola Pasic, Serbia's prime minister, learned about Dimitrijevic's plot. This knowledge confronted him with a truly unenviable choice. If he were to tell the Austrians nothing and allow the assassination to proceed, he risked incurring the gravest of diplomatic crises and quite possibly war. If, on the other hand, he were to warn Vienna in an effort to prevent the plot from succeeding, he would in so doing have to admit just what sort of anti-Austrian activities had been tolerated on Serbian soil. In fact, he would also risk incurring the open enmity of the Black Hand at a time when his government's relations with that organization happened to be strained enough as it was. A possible third choice, the dismissal of Dimitrijevic and the suppression of the Black Hand, apparently never struck Pasic as at all realistic, an estimate in which he very probably was right.

The compromise Pasic chose in the end, considering the dilemma that he faced, was as bad as it was comprehensible. He instructed the Serbian envoy in Vienna to look up the Austrian minister in charge of Bosnian affairs and suggest to him, in very general terms, that he consider a cancellation of the archducal visit. This, early in June, was what the envoy proceeded to do. Given the discontent among Bosnia's Serbs, he said, might it not be wiser to have the maneuvers take place in some other province of the Empire and to have Franz Ferdinand refrain from visiting Sarajevo. No, no, said his kindly and guileless Austrian host, there was no need to worry; according to his information, things had been very peaceful in Bosnia recently. This ended the conversation. The envoy's message had been so lacking in specific information, and the minister hence so unmoved by it (although he did try to humor his visitor by saying, as he showed him to the door, "Let us hope nothing does happen") that neither Franz Ferdinand nor the police were as much as informed of the envoy's call. Nor did Belgrade, even though aware of what had, or rather had not, taken place, ever revert to the matter.

That the Austrians, then, were not even aware of the fact that they had been warned was perfectly understandable. What was less so was that the security precautions taken in Sarajevo during Franz Ferdinand's visit were at best routine, and at worst very careless. Of the thousands of troops in the area for maneuvers, none were used to guard the streets. Instead, all security arrangements were left in the hands of the local police, who numbered no more than a hundred and twenty in all. This included uniformed police and plainclothes detectives, and while perhaps the force was not inordinately incompetent, they were certainly no more efficient than an average provincial

police force-whether in Sarajevo, Bosnia or in Dallas,

Texas-is likely to, be.

SARAJEVO, JUNE 28 Even so, what followed that fateful Sunday, June 28, 1914, was not foreordained. The day's program for Franz Ferdinand and his party comprised first a reception at the city hall, followed by a visit to the local museum, then lunch at the governor's residence, and after that, the departure for Vienna. At about 10 A.M., the visitors set out on their way to the city hall. They were traveling in a number of open touring cars, with Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sophie, and the governor of Bosnia, General Potiorek, riding in the second car. They passed the first conspirator, one of the locally recruited boys, who in a flash decided that dearly as he wished to see Franz Ferdinand dead, he rather fancied the idea of staying alive himself; hence he did absolutel y nothing to disturb that arrangement. A minute or so later, the cavalcade passed the second conspirator. He was Nedjeljko Caqrinovic, one of the Belgrade-trained group. Cabrinovic drew his bomb from his pocket, struck its percussion cap against a lantern post, took careful aim at Franz Ferdinand's general's helmet with its green panache, and let go.

Two things happened next. One was that the driver of the archduke's car, seeing the black object hurtling at him, instinctively pressed his foot down on the accelerator, so that, with the car speeding forward, the bomb did not directly strike its intended victim. The other was that Franz Ferdinand, having also caught sight of Cabrinovic's missile, raised his hand to protect his wife. With this motion, he chanced to deflect the bomb, which fell into the street directly behind his car. There it exploded, injuring a number of spectators lightly and giving the governor's aide, riding in the next car, a head wound that looked serious enough to require his being taken to the hospital.

The plot, so painstakingly prepared by Dimitrijevic and his friends, appeared to have failed. Within. minutes, Cabrinovic was under arrest. The cars went on their way again, and not one of the remaining five conspirators that they passed had either the courage or the presence of mind to raise a hand against Franz Ferdinand.

At the city hall, once the formal reception was over (" All the citizens of the capital city of Sarajevo," said the mayor solemnly as his archducal guest fumed, "find that their souls are filled with happiness, and they most enthusiastically greet your Highnesses' most illustrious visit with the most cordial of welcomes") Franz Ferdinand, his aides, and the representatives of the local authorities went into a quick conference to decide how best to alter the remaining program for the day. One narrow escape was quite enough; there was no need even for an officer and a Habsburg to take additional risks.

Hurriedly, they considered; and rejected, three suggestions that in the event would very likely have saved the archduke's life and prevented a world war. One was to cancel the museum visit and to drive directly to the governor's residence. Another was that to be even safer, they drive back, at high speed, to Franz Ferdinand's hotel outside Sarajevo. Franz Ferdinand rejected both. He did not mind making some concessions for the sake of security, but he felt that he must visit Potiorek's wounded aide at the hospital before leaving Sarajevo. The next suggestion someone then put forward was to wait at the city hall until two companies of troops could be brought into town from the maneuver area and the streets cleared of spectators. This one was rejected by the governor. The troops, said Potiorek, were not in proper uniform to be lining the streets.

Still, the arrangements finally agreed on were sensible enough. The group would avoid the narrow side streets of the original route and instead drive first to the hospital by way of Sarajevo's main avenue, the Appel Quay, and then continue on to the museum by an equally unscheduled route. The plan might well have worked had it not been for two factors. One was that at the time the discussion was going on at the city hall, Princip crossed from the sun-drenched river side of the Appel Qqay where he had been standing, to the shaded side of the avenue and strolled a few steps down Franz Joseph Street, a shop- ping street that led off the Quay. The second was that no one informed the driver of Franz Ferdinand's car about the changed plans.

What happened next was this: Instead of driving straight down the Appel Quay, the car carrying Franz Ferdinand, his wife, and the governor turned into Franz Joseph Street, precisely as the chauffeur had originally been instructed to do. As it did so, Potiorek, realizing the error, leaned forward and called, "What is this? This is the wrong way! We're supposed to take the Appel Quay!"

The driver (a general's orders are a general's orders) put his foot on the brakes and began to back up. The maneuver put the car in a straight line with Princip. Princip stepped forward, drew his gun, and from a distance of not more than five feet, fired twice. No amount of planning could have provided him with a better target. One bullet pierced Franz Ferdinand's neck, while the other entered Sophie's abdomen. The Duchess, not wholly aware perhaps in the first second or so of what had been taking place, but seeing blood spurt from her husband's mouth, called, "For heaven's sake! What happened to you?" and slipped from her seat, her face falling between the Archduke's knees. Franz Ferdinand, turning to his wife despite the bullet in his neck, said "Sophie dear! Sophie dear! Don't die! Stay alive for our children!" Fifteen minutes later, both were dead.

-The Echo in Vienna Within hours, extra editions of the Viennese papers carried the story from Sarajevo. The news caused more political anger than personal sorrow. Franz Ferdinand had not been a widely beloved man- "nothing in his life became him like the leaving it"- but the political implications were obviously ominous. Initial information about the assassins might be scarce, but what was known was that they were ethnic Serbs, and they had committed their act in politically restive Bosnia with its border toward Serbia, facts quite sufficient to throw strong suspicions OR Belgrade. What was to be done now?

The men in charge of conducting the policies of Austria-Hungary were not sure. They were not exactly unaccustomed to Serbian-supported acts of terror, propaganda, and sabotage on Austrian soil, but this brazen act was something new, provided that the Serbian government could in fact demonstrably be connected with the two murders. Could it? Was the crime different in nature from previous provocations? Should Austria-Hungary now resort to arms, as some among the military had repeatedly suggested ever since the Annexation Crisis, even though Franz Ferdinand, on that and subsequent occasions, had consistently argued against war? The government did not quite know. Hence they would explore two matters first. One was Germany's attitude. Would Vienna be able to count on Berlin in case an Austro-Serbian conflict widened into general war, as well it might, since Russia could conceivably come to Serbia's aid? The other was the question of evidence. To pursue it, a senior official of the foreign ministry, Friedrich yon Wiesner, was charged with an investigation of the assassination. Would he ascertain what proof, not suspicion but proof, there was to connect the assassins with Belgrade.

By themselves, these reasons for delay were far from bad. Austria, unaided, was in no position to win a war against a Russo-Serbian coalition. Even against Serbia alone, it now turned out, the army was unprepared to strike quickly; mobilization would require at least two weeks. Also, it would be of considerable advantage to adduce proof of Belgrade’s culpability before making the first overt move. The United States, in 1962, waited very patiently until it could substantiate its charges against the Soviet Union before imposing its blockade on Cuba.) Yet in a way, a discussion of the merits of Vienna’s motives for procrastination is irrelevant, for the delay, no matter how defensible its reasons, turned out to be a disaster. In retrospect, it is obvious that if Austria had acted forcefully and decisively against Serbia on June 29, when the impact of the double murder was at its sharpest, the sympathies of the world would have been with the bereaved Dual Monarchy, and the very worst that might have happened would have been a limited war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Nor was it quite hard to see at the time that this should be so. Had the Austrian foreign ministry been in better hands, this very likely would have been the course followed.

-Germany’s Blank Check (July 5-6) A week after the murder, the Austrians had the answer to their first question. On Sunday, July 5, a special emissary sent by the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Count Leopold von Berchtold arrived in Berlin, bearing a personal letter from, Franz Joseph to William II. The Dual Monarchy, read the letter, (which was obviously inspired by Berchtold rather than by the privately much more reluctant Emperor) could withstand “the Pan-Slav flood” only if “Serbia’s role as a power factor in the Balkans is ended.” One would have to aim at the “isolation and diminution of Serbia." What would Germany's position be if Austria now followed such a course?

That morning the Austrian ambassador presented the letter to William at the New Palace in Potsdam. The Kaiser at first avoided comment. Then, after a sociable lunch with his visitor, he abandoned his reserve. Would the ambassador tell his sovereign that even in the event of "some serious European complications," Austria-Hungary could rely on "Germany's full support.” If Russia, to put the matter more specifically, should come to the aid of Serbia, then Germany would aid Austria. In fact, asked William II, why not strike against Belgrade right now? As matters stood, the Russians were "hardly ready for war and would certainly think very carefully before resorting to arms.”

In the afternoon, the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who had joined the others at the New Palace, confirmed his monarch's promise, and the ambassador was able to inform Berchtold of Germany's "blank check." The phrase was all too apt. The Austrians were free to fill in the amount on a form that the Germans had cosigned in advance.

There are several quite plausible explanations for this piece of German folly. The Emperor apparently thought that the Austrians would now proceed to act without further delay, and that, given the merits of their case against Serbia and Russia's relative unreadiness for war, whatever fighting there might be would be confined to Austria and Serbia. The German foreign minister, a less sanguine man, was not available for comment and counsel that weekend; he had recently gotten married and, was on his honeymoon in Switzerland. The Chancellor, who was there, was full of forebodings but felt that Germany had no alternative but to say Yes to the Austrians. "It is our old dilemma in any Austrian Balkan action," he grumbled to an aide a day later. "If we encourage them, they say that we pushed them into it. If we dissuade them, they say that we abandoned them.” And everything considered dissuasion was the worse evil, for “in case, they will draw close to the Western powers, whose arms are open, and we will lose our last powerful ally.”

These reasons deserve to be mentioned: it was neither utter blindness nor invincibility malevolence that made the Germans act as they did. Yet in a sense, they are as irrelevant as are the explanations for Austria’s procrastination. Half a century after the event, we ate still staggered by the ineptitude of the German response. For the risk- not the intent, but the risk- was the destruction of European peace, and with it, of imperial Germany itself. That risk was out of proportion to the possible again, and it did not take hindsight to know this. Bethmann's aide, after recording the words just cited, went on to note in his diary: “An action against Serbia could led to a world war. The Chancellor expects that such a war, no matter how it might end, will revolutionize all that exists."

Twenty-five years before that, Bismarck had written to his king: "Only some complications between Austral and Russia could involve Germany in a war with Russia. Since the cost of such a war, even under the most favor able of circumstances, would be unacceptable for Germany, we must endeavor to do what we can to prevent the Austrian war."

Bethmann had done less than that. The ultimate decision now lay with Austria.

-"There Is Nothing to Indicate …”: “The Weisner Investigation (July 13) At the foreign ministry in Vienna, Berchtold was delighted with the German promise. It was now or never, he thought, that the Hapsburg monarchy should move against Serbia. Twenty-four hours later, however, there arose a formidable obstacle to his plans. In a council of ministers held on July 7, Count Stephan Tisza, prime minister of the Hungarian half of the monarchy, sharply opposed war or any course of diplomatic action that might lead to war with Serbia.

Tisza was a devout Calvinist who abhorred the use force. " War," he wrote in a family letter in August 1914, "even if victorious, is terrible. To my soul, every war means misery, anguish, devastation, the shedding of innocent blood." Tisza was also a working Magyar politician who had no interest at all in "diminishing" Serbia. Hungary had enough dissatisfied minorities within its borders; he wished to acquire no more. It would be a grave mistake, he told the council of ministers, to force the issue with Serbia. A European war would be a "terrible calamity." And by the way, he would like to inquire where the Sarajevo police had been that bloody Sunday. It surely was “an unspeakable state of affairs if six or seven characters armed with bombs and guns could line the route of the murdered Heir to the Throne and not have the police observe or remove a single one of them."

Berchtold and his friends labored hard to change Tisza's attitude. An investigation of the Sarajevo police would have to wait, they said. What mattered now was to strike against Serbia; any "policy of hesitation or weakness" might lose Austtia-Hungary the future support of Germany. (The irony was unconscious, but both the Germans and the Austrians were talking themselves into risking their own destruction for fear of losing one another as an ally.) In the end, Tisza gave in, though only on condition that the monarchy would not annex "an inch of Serbian territory." The concession was readily granted, since it was meant to be broken from the moment it was made.

It had taken a week to persuade Tisza. Meanwhile, more precious time had been lost. World opinion was recovering from the initial shock of the double murder.

Perhaps it might be possible to revive some of the lost indignation by providing new details about the crime and, above all, by uncovering some clear evidence that would connect official Serbia with the plot. The person entrusted with that task had been Friedrich von Wiesner of the Austrian foreign ministry. To follow his investigation, we need to retrace our steps to June 28 for a moment.

Immediately after Cabrinovic's attempted, and Princip's successful attack, the two young men had followed the instructions they had received in Belgrade and attempted to commit suicide. It was Colonel Dimitrijevic's only really reliable assurance that, if arrested, they would not talk. However, no murder planned by remote control can be entirely perfect, and the cyanide capsules that Cabrinovic and Princip managed to swallow as they were being arrested and led to the police station caused them some modest' pain and discomfort, but did not prove fatal. For reasons unknown then, and likely to remain unknown in the future, the poison they had been given was defective.

The Sarajevo police, then, had Princip and Cabrinovic safely in custody; and in the days that followed, nearly all of the local fellow conspirators were arrested-some because they were routine suspects, others because one of Princip's friends talked too much. The authorities might now have found the evidence linking the assassins to Colonel Dimitrijevic, had it not been for the extraordinary skill with which Princip and his associates fended off the questions they were asked about Belgrade, a skill impressive even in the face of a certain lack of imagination with which the investigating judge was handling their interrogation.

Even so, the young men could not hide the fact that Princip and Cabrinovic had been recent visitors to Belgrade, nor could they very well deny that the bombs used had been of Serbian manufacture. (The guns were Belgian army issue.) In addition, the names of two men who had aided the assassins in Belgrade finally emerged from the questioning. They were those of Milan Ciganovie, a Serbian railroad employee, and of Voja Tankosic, a major in the Serbian army. But what the Sarajevo did not discover in this connection was as what they did. They never learned that Tankosic was Colonel Dimitrijevic's Black Hand aide; in fact, they were to remain wholly unaware of the existence of the and his organization.

On July 10, von Wiesner arrived in Bosnia. He studied all the material available to him in Vienna found it of little profit. He now spent day and night Sarajevo conferring with the authorities and going the files they had been accumulating. On the morning

of July 13, after four hours of sleep; Wiesner drafted dispatch for which Vienna had been waiting.

The body of his report mentioned the links he had been able to establish between the crime and Belgrade: the bombs, the assassins' associates Ciganovic and Tankosic

and the illegal border crossing that might not have been feasible without the aid of several Serbian frontier officials. The really crucial part of Wiesner's report, however, consisted of two short and fateful sentences, which he was to rue for the rest of his life. "There is nothing to indicate, or even to give rise to the suspicion," he wired, "that the Serbian goyemment knew about the plot, its preparation, or the procurement of arms. On the contrary, there are indications that this is impossible."

This, then, was the telegram for which the Austrians had been willing to postpone immediate, drastic action. Now that it had arrived, Vienna was worse off than it had been on June 28. Berchtold and the war party still felt that no matter what Wiesner might say, the time had come to move against Serbia-but where was the evidence that would convince anyone but the converted?

It was the triumph of Dimitrijevic's planning. Nor would the Austrians learn much more when the trail of the assassins was held in October. The defendants, on that occasion, handled themselves with the same courage, intelligence, and determination they had sown all along. Neither Princip nor Cabrinovic were sentenced to death. Both were under twenty and, under Austrian law, exempt from the death penalty. Some of their helpers were less lucky, and Princip and Cabrinovic themselves were to die in prison of tuberculosis a cruelly short time before the end of the war. Few members of the conspiracy survived them for long. Dimitrijevic, in fact, preceded them in death. In 1917, he was executed by his own government, apparently for engaging in one plot too many. As this is being written, only two are still known to be alive, local boys who were with Princip on the streets of Sarajevo on June 28. One, when last heard from was chairman of the department of history at the university of Belgrade, the other the curator of the Sarajevo museum he helped to prevent Franz Ferdinand from visiting that Sunday.

-No more cause for War? Austrian Ultimatum and the Serbian Reply (July 23-25)

Evidence or not, Berchtold, in mid July, was resolved to humiliating Serbia. An unrestrained Serbia, he felt, posed a vital threat to the Hapsburg monarchy, no matter who had sent Princip to Sarajevo. If there were no proof linking Pasic’s government to the assassination, that was a pity, but Sarajevo, after all, was merely one provocation among many. He would, in one last gamble to save the monarchy, confront Serbia with a number of all but unacceptable demands; and when these were predictable refused, he would set the army in motion against Belgrade.

What would Serbia’s allies do? The answer arrived even before Berchtold’s ministry was finished drafting its ultimatum to Serbia. Supposedly, the ultimatum was prepared in the strictest secrecy, and the Austrians certainly took great pains not to frighten their German ally with any advanced information about its contents. But rumors about what was going on in Vienna were spreading. On July 18, Serge Sazonov, Russia’s foreign minister, thought it necessary to take the Austrian ambassador aside and tell him that "Russia would not be indifferent to any effort to humiliate Serbia. Russia would not permit Austria to use menacing language or military measures against Serbia. In short: 'La politique de la Russie est pacifique mais pas passive.' "

But would Russia really dare to move? Austria had Germany's blank check; how could Russia cope with an Austro-German coalition? The answer came in terms as clear as those of Sazonov's warning. On, July 20, Raymond Poincare, President of the French Republic, arrived in St. Petersburg for a state visit. The next day, during a reception of the diplomatic corps, he asked the Austrian ambassador if he had any news of the Serbian affair, and on receiving.an evasive answer, said: "With a little good will, this Serbian business is easy to settle. But it can just as, easily become acute. Serbia has some very warm friends in the Russian people. And Russia has an ally, France."

Work on the Austrian ultimatum continued as though neither Sazonov nor Poincare had spoken. On July 23, it was finished. At 6 P.M. it was presented in Belgrade. It was a brutal document whose directness had few precedents in diplomatic history.

The Belgrade government, read the ultimatum, was to put an immediate stop to all Serbian sponsored subversive activities on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as well as to all anti-Austrian propaganda in Serbia itself. As a specific instance, the Narodna Odbrana, or National Defense, a secret organization pursuing Greater Serbian aims, was to be disbanded. Judicial proceedings, the ultimatum went on, were to be instituted against any person in Serbia who had been an accessory to the Sarajevo crime, with "agencies delegated by the Imperial and Royal [Austrian] Government" taking part in any investigation that might, in this connection, be undertaken in Serbia. Tankosic and Ciganovic (the two Serbian helpers mentioned by the assassins) were to be arrested "forth-with." The Serbian government was to cooperate in putting an end to the illegal traffic in arms across the border

and the Serbian officials who had aided Princip in crossing the border were to be punished.

The Serbian government had precisely forty-eight hours which to decide whether to accept or reject these demands: "The Austria-Hungarian Government expects a reply of the Royal Government by 6 P.M., Saturday July 25 at the latest."

Good as Austria-Hungary's basic case against Serbia was, it had been all but destroyed by the ultimatum's text and timing. For all the ultimatum's harsh language, there was no solid evidence linking the Serbian government with the assassination. Tankosic and Ciganovic were minor figures. Mention of the Narodna Odbrana was next to meaningless, since that organization, while once indeed as menacing as the Black Hand, had meanwhile turned respectable and by 1914 bore roughly the same relation to Colonel Dimitrijevic's group that Kropotkin's anarchism bore to Bakunin's. Fine points, perhaps, that might have gone unnoticed, had not so much time been allowed to pass since June 28. What people saw at the end of July 1914 was not an archduke gasping "Stay alive for our children's sake" to a wife who was bleeding to death as fast as he was, but a large nation bullying a small one.

It was hardly strange, then, that when the powers learned of the ultimatum to Serbia on the morning of July 24, they did not rush to Austria's side. The Russians, in fact, quickly did the opposite: in a meeting held that afternoon, the council of ministers gave its approval- which the Tsar endorsed a day later- to a proposal submitted by Sazonov stating that if such a move were to appear useful, several Russian army corps be mobilized against Austria. The British were more pacific. Sir Edward Grey proposed a conference between the four major, nations not directly involved- Germany, Italy, France, and Great Britain-to mediate the conflict. Other capitals withheld action for the time being. All now realized that Europe was facing a major crisis, but before making any irrevocable decisions, they would await the Serbian reply.

On July 25, at 5:58 P.M.-two minutes before Vienna’s ultimatum was about to expire-the Austrian envoy in Belgrade received that answer. In tone and content, it was remarkably conciliatory.

The Serbian government, the note promised, would, as soon as parliament met, introduce a press law providing the most severe penalties for any "incitement to hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy." It would dissolve the Narodna Odbrana even though, as the Serbians dryly noted, the Austrians had provided them with no proof of any illegal action on the part of that organization. It would "severely punish" the frontier officials who had allowed the Sarajevo assassins to cross into Austria. It would "reinforce and extend the measures which have been taken for preventing the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier."

In fact, the Serbian note agreed to just about all of the demands of the Austrian ultimatum. There were only two exceptions. One concerned the arrest of Ciganovic, the other the investigation into the origins of the assassination. Tankosic, said the note, had been taken into custody, but Ciganovic, unfortunately, had managed to evade arrest. As for any participation of the Austro-Hungarian agencies in investigating the crime on Serbian soil, the government regretted that it was unable to "accede to such an arrangement, as it would be a violation of the Constitution and of criminal procedure."

Compliance on either point might, of course, have meant disaster to the Serbians. Belgrade was neither in a position to permit an investigation that might uncover a trail leading to the chief of Serbian army intelligence, nor could it afford to have the Austrian police interrogate Ciganovic. Ciganovic, who held an Austrian passport and whose extradition, unlike Tankosic's, could therefore not well be denied, had accordingly been warned some weeks before to vanish from sight; and while the precise circumstances of his disappearance may never become public knowledge, there is some room for impugning the zeal with which the Belgrade police set about the task of finding him.

At the time, both seemed minor points. The mood, rather, was one of relief at Serbia's concessions, apparent and real. William II expressed the feelings of many when he wrote after reading the note: “A brilliant performance for a time limit of only 48 hours! A great moral success for Vienna, but with it, all reason for war is gone. ..."

He had misread Austria's intentions even more badly than Serbia's reply. For the Austrians fully intended to take offense, no matter what Pasic might say to them. Within minutes of being handed the Serbian note, and after no more than a glance at its contents, the Austrian envoy told Pasic that he considered the document unsatisfactory and that he, therefore, had "the honor to inform Your. Excellency....that from the moment this letter reaches Your Excellency the rupture in the diplomatic relations between Serbia and Austria-Hungary will have the nature of a fait accompli." At 6:30, 32 minutes after the receipt of the note, the envoy and his staff were at the Belgrade terminal, catching the train home. Three-and-a-half hours later, the Austrian chief of staff received Imperial orders to mobilize the armed forces of Austria- Hungary against Serbia.

-Peace or War? The Small War Begins (July 25-28)

Europe began to prepare for the worst, while still hoping for the best. Earlier on July 25, the Tsar had given his approval to Russia's partial mobilization. (The extent to which this decision strengthened Pasic in his resolve to resist full compliance with the Austrian demands has remained subject to much scholarly debate.) Later that day, the French, very discreetly, lest they be accused of aggressive intentions, took some precautionary military measures. A day later, the admiralty in London ordered the British fleet, which had been assembled in review and was ready to disperse, to remain at its stations. But at the same time, the statesmen were trying for peace, or at least for a localization of the conflict.

The Germans concentrated on ways of restricting the conflict, if war should come, to the original parties of the dispute, Austria and Serbia. The Tsar had the sudden inspiration of submitting the whole matter to the national Tribunal of Justice at the Hague. The more practical British-the Tsar's suggestion, in fact, never passed beyond Sazonov's desk-reverted, in a more precise form now, to their earlier idea of a four power conference: let the ambassadors of France, Germany, and Italy in London, said Sir Edward Grey on July 26, meet with him and search for ways to resolve the conflict. The Italians promptly accepted the proposal. So did the French although with a notable lack of enthusiasm. The Germans alone, on July 27, refused. It was their greatest blunder since the day of the blank check; they were still under the illusion that they could localize the conflict.

It did not take them long to recognize their error. Later that same day, after a hard look at the diplomatic dispatches that had been pouring in, the Germans faced the bitter truth that if Austria and Serbia were to fight, so would Russia, France, and quite possibly Great Britain. Now the Germans radically altered their course. Might it not be wise, they urgently asked Vienna on the evening of July 27, to accept the Serbian reply as a basis for negotiation?

It was too late. Come what may, the Austrian government was resolved to end what it considered the Serbian threat to the empire's survival. On Tuesday, July 28, without any further consultation with Berlin, the Habsburg monarchy declared war on the kingdom of Serbia.

-Mobilization Means War": The Intervention of Russia (July 25-29) The small war had begun. Frantically, Europe’s leaders tried to prevent a larger one.

The historian, in recounting their efforts, is aware of a basic problem of historiography, that any comprehensive narrative of what took place in the ministries and palaces of Europe during the days following July 28 must of necessity contain some element of falsehood. For what in print is likely to look neat and logical, in truth, more often than not, was chaotic or at best improvised. Decisions were made with no time for proper reflection, messages crossed each other, and some of the most fateful errors were committed from motives no more profound or sinister than lack of information or sleep. It is with this mind that we should view the events that occurred between

the last days of July and the opening days of August 1914.

One of the most sensible proposals for saving the general peace now came from the Kaiser. In normal times, William II could be insufferable, a crowned buffoon without peer; in this moment of crisis, he was acting with as clear a head as anyone. Let the Austrians, he proposed on July 28, halt their armies when they reached Belgrade, and suspend the war. With Serbia's capital as a "pledge," the Austrians could be sure of obtaining some genuine satisfaction from Pasic's government. Meanwhile, there would be a breathing spell, and the powers would be able to gather sensible peace talks.

Grey rather found himself in sympathy with the suggestion but Bethmann at first failed to urge it on the Austrians with anything like real vigor. Berchtold remained silent, nor did he respond when Bethmann, on July 29, finally grew more insistent. The time was past when anyone could tell the Austrians just what they might or might not do about the Serbian issue, even if, as now seemed more apparent by the hour, this meant incurring the gravest risk of Russian intervention.

To prevent this sort of extension of the war, the Kaiser on July 29, sent a telegram to his cousin, the Tsar. Would "Nicky," said "Willy" (salutation and signature are those of the text) realize that he, his Berlin friend and relative was exerting his "utmost influence to induce the Austrians

to arrive at a satisfactory solution with you. I confidently hope that you will help me in my efforts." Nicholas II, it so happened, had been sending a very similar appeal to the Kaiser at just about the same moment, begging him, "in the name of our old friendship," to do what he could "to stop your allies from going too far and to avoid a calamity such as a European war." William II quickly replied that he would, but that one obstacle lay in Russia's apparent military preparations. Berlin was hearing rumors about a Russian mobilization against Austria; if true, the Kaiser warned, this might end all hopes for peace.

It was a point on which the Tsar was willing to accommodate his cousin. But in so indicating, he made a fatal admission. "The military measures which have now come into force," he wired back during the night of July 29 to 30, were no sudden anti-Austrian gesture, but had been "decided on five days ago for reasons of defense on account of Austria's preparations."

The Kaiser was furious. "My work," he said, "is at an end." Here he had been trying to mediate, and what had the Russians done but use his efforts as a cover for obtaining a five days' start in military preparations. Worse was to come. To understand it, it is necessary to go back a few days and deal with the matter of Russia's mobilization in a certain amount of detail.

On July 24, a prominent German businessman and friend of the Kaiser, Albert Ballin, in London for a brief visit, was having dinner with two British acquaintances of his. They were the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and Churchill's colleague in the war department, Lord Haldane. "I remember," Ballin said to them, "old Bismarck telling the year before he died that one day the great European war would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans." The forecast seemed about to come true. Everything, said Ballin, depended on the Tsar now: What would Nicholas do if Austria were to chastise Serbia? "If Russia marches against Austria, we must march; and if we march, France must march, and what would England do?"

What the Tsar would do was suggest to the Serbians, in the aftermath of Berchtold's ultimatum, that while they should give no gratuitous offense to the Austrians, they might also rest assured that Russia would not remain indifferent to their fate. The Russians calculated that they could not afford a repetition of the Annexation Crisis, which had left the Serbians with the feeling of having been deserted by their Slavic protector. It was-or so it seemed to the men who made policy in St. Petersburg -a choice between taking the risk of war or accepting a major blow to Imperial Russia's prestige and power in the Balkans.

What the Tsar also would do, as we have seen, was to give his advance approval, on July 25, to Russia's partial mobilization against Austria in case of need. To this he added, on that same day, his agreement to issuing the necessary secret orders for a "period preparatory to war." Leaves were to be cancelled, reservists called, Russia's harbors closed-in short, the country would begin to prepare for mobilization. These were some of the measures that had so upset the Kaiser, yet they had seemed essential to Russia's military. War was a possibility, and Russia a vast country. Moving the Russian armed forces to their battle stations would take a very long time, and the nature of modern war was such that the power capable of striking the first blow would have an intolerable ad- vantage. To recall Bret Harte's advice:

Blest is the man whose cause is just;

Thrice blest is he who gets his blow in fust.

Under normal circumstances, the Germans and the Austrians, with their better railroad system and their generally more efficient military machine, would have just that advantage. Hence, the need on Russia's part to begin preparing before they did.

On July 28, Sazonov decided that the time had come to go beyond the steps of the "period preparatory to war” and to cash in the Tsar's three-day-old blank check. Russia, he informed the powers that day was beginning the partial mobilization of her armed forces toward Austria. Several considerations accounted for this decision. One was the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia,

which had come after several urgent appeals of his to Berchtold for the opening of Austro-Russian talks simply gone unanswered. Another was a French reassurance of support. In this moment of supreme danger, the French were doing no more to restrain their Russian ally than the Germans had done to hold back the Austrians.

There were, in the French case, more extenuating circumstances than in that of the Germans. Poincare, President of the Republic, and Viviani, prime minister and foreign minister as well, were at sea, returning from their Russian state visit, and out of regular communication with Paris and Petersburg. "Not to have exact information about anything," Poincare later wrote about the voyage,

not even to have the essential data in hand as to the problem that was to be resolved, caused M. Viviani not only mental but physical suffering. He paced the France's deck in his agitation, silent for long periods, then returning at intervals affectionately to pour his anguish into my ear.

In Paris, Bienvenu-Martin, minister of justice and acting foreign minister in Viviani's absence, knew little of what was going on, and did not really understand the true seriousness of the crisis. In Petersburg, Paleologue, the French ambassador, and a strong advocate of the Franco- Russian alliance, was pursuing a policy of his own. He deliberately misinformed Paris about what was taking

place in Russia. He also gave promises of support to the Russians which exceeded his instructions. This fairly complex background, however, did not particularly concern or interest Sazonov. What did concern and interest him was what France's official spokesman at Petersburg told him, and that was clear enough. To quote from the diary entry for July 28 of Baron Schilling, Sazonov's chef de cabinet: "On the instructions of his Government, the French Ambassador acquainted the Foreign Minister with the complete readiness of France to fulfill her obligations as an ally in case of necessity."

Yet another reason deserves to be mentioned for Russia's decision to begin mobilization: Sazonov, while no fool, was no Nesselrode or Gorchakov either. He was, in fact, no more of a man to have in charge in time of crisis than was Berchtold in Vienna. He was given to moods, and worse, to gambles and to dubious judgments and he may well have thought that partial mobilization would prevent general war, since it would frighten the Austrians without threatening the Germans.

Things would not work that way. Partial mobilization, he was to learn apparently within hours of deciding on it, was an illusion. The sad and simple fact was that the Russian general staff had no plan for it.

The partial mobilization that Sazonov had in mind would have placed four Russian military districts facing Austria on a war footing. This would have been a provocation. (The Austrians, after all, had restricted their military moves to Serbia and been careful to take no preparatory measures against Russia.) But given its limited scope, it might have been a tolerable provocation. "Might have been," for what now came to light was that the Russian general staff had failed to make any provisions for a limited mobilization against Austria alone. It had not been able to conceive of a war that would not be fought against both of the Central Powers; hence, all its plans provided for general mobilization, that is for mobilization against Germany as well as against Austria.

Then why had the army, in the council of ministers of July 24 where partial mobilization was first tentatively decided on, not said so? It had not, because the chief of the general staff, General Janushkevich, was relatively new to his post-he had assumed it only five months previously-and was still unfamiliar with his office's mobilization plans. Some of his subordinates, better informed than he,

soon told him that partial mobilization was next to impossible. It would have to be improvised (a difficult thing to do with a railroad timetable) and lead to nothing but confusion and disorder. It would have to be general mobilization or nothing.

When Sazonov now presented his decision for mobilization partial, Janushkevich had to tell him the bitter truth. No matter what the foreign minister may thought privately about the intelligence of generals, seemed too late for him to draw back. Had he known on July 24 that partial mobilization was a myth, he might have chosen a very different course of diplomatic action. But he had not known, and by July 28, he felt irretrievably committed to a policy of strength. He therefore did nothing to counteract the pressure that the military proceeded to put on the Tsar to agree to general mobilization.

On July 29, they had the agreement they wanted. That morning, the Tsar signed the order for general mobilization. Fortunately, it did not go out immediately. Under the rules, the ministers of war, the navy, and the interior were required to countersign it. Prenuclear societies, too, took their precautions, although they could be more leisurely about it, and it was not until evening that the three men had been located. All signed reluctantly. The minister of war knew full well how sadly prepared his army was. His colleague in the navy department realized that his fleet was no match for Germany's. The minister of the interior sensed that war for Russia might be the prelude to revolution. But, making the sign of the cross, he, as the others had done, signed.

What they also knew was that they had, in effect, been putting their signatures to a declaration of war. No international law specifically stated that mobilization automatically equaled war. It did not have to; the implications were clear.

In 1892, after signing the Military Convention that had just been concluded between his country and Russia, the French delegate, General Boisdeffre (he was, at that time, the deputy chief of the French general staff) had had this to say to the Tsar: ”Mobilization is a declaration of war. To mobilize is to oblige's one's neighbor to do the same. Mobilization causes the carrying out of strategic transport and concentration. Otherwise, to allow a million men to mobilize on one's frontiers without at once doing the same oneself is to forfeit all possibility of following suit, is to put oneself in the position of an individual with a pistol in his pocket who allows his neighbor to point a weapon at his head without reaching for his own." To which Nicholas' predecessor, Alexander III, had replied: "That is how I too understand it.”

Yet there was still time to put down the weapon. At this point, just about everyone, it seemed, was warning everyone else in Europe to do so. Lord Grey, that Wednesday, July 29, was telling the German ambassador in London that if Germany and France were to be drawn into the Austro-Serbian conflict, England might be unable to stand aside. The Russians, with their military measure, were putting the Austrians on notice. The Germans, by means of the Kaiser's latest "Dear Nicky" telegram, were telling the Russians that their military preparations were jeopardizing the peace. What was more, one person was actually listening. On the evening of July 29, a moment before the orders he had signed that morning were about to go out, the Tsar instructed his generals to cancel general mobilization, and to replace it-whether this be practical or not-with partial mobilization again.

-Finding, Suicide; Motive, Fear of Death- A Time of Ultimatums (July 30-31)

That was on Wednesday. On Thursday, July 30, the Tsar had changed his mind once more. Both his generals and his foreign minister had given him no peace. What the hour demanded, they insisted, was general mobilization take said Nicholas II. "Think of the thousand and thousands of men who will be sent to their death!" He was thinking of them, said Sazonov, but diplomacy's work was done; war was coming. What mattered now was that Russia be prepared.

Late that afternoon, the Tsar surrendered. Sazonov rushed to another room to telephone the chief of staff with the news. "Now," he ended their conversation, " you can smash your telephone. Give your orders, General- and then disappear for the rest of the day."

General mobilization was on again, and no telephone, smashed or whole, would ring to announce any orders to undo it. Most writers have been liberal with their criticism of Nicholas II for his behavior in this time of crisis. But only an extraordinarily strong man could ultimately have resisted the massed opinions of both diplomatic and military experts, and only a very callous man would have hesitated again before giving orders as fateful as these.

The Germans, when they heard the news, were close to panic. Earlier that day July 30, when he had learned of Russia's partial mobilization, the Kaiser's first anguished comment had been, "That means I have got to mobilize as well." The situation now was infinitely worse. The Russians were moving against them, the Germans, not just against the Austrians. And what would France do but support her Eastern ally? Here it was, the old nightmare of a two-front war, and it was real.

There was only one possibility, the Germans had long thought, of winning such a war. It lay in offsetting the overwhelming advantage in men and material that France and Russia held with speed. If they, the Germans, were to move quickly against the French and to defeat them in a matter of at most six weeks, they might then be able to rush their troops to the east just before the Russians had fully brought their forces into position. To allow the Russians to proceed with their general mobilization and thereby let Germany's only chance of victory slip away seemed intolerable. Or so the military experts in Berlin argued, and as in St. Petersburg, it was they who had the last word.

In the afternoon of Friday, July 31, two ultimatums went out from Berlin, one to Russia, the other to France. Would the Russians, stated the dispatch to St. Petersburg, suspend mobilization within twelve hours or face German mobilization and, by implication, war. Would the French, stated the dispatch to Paris, within eighteen hours give a promise of neutrality in the event of a Russo-German war. Should the French reply be affirmative-an unexpected contingency, since the ultimatum was no more meant to be accepted than Austria's ultimatum to Serbia had been -would they hand Germany the fortresses of Toul and Verdun in token of their good faith. Meanwhile, the Germans were preparing for the all too probable next step by proclaiming, that Friday, a "Threatening Danger of War," which meant that they were taking preliminary military measures just short of mobilization.

“…And what would England do?" Both Haldane and Churchill had evaded a direct response to Ballin's question, but the answer, though still not final, was becoming fairly plain: Britain, too, was preparing to intervene. On July 31, Lord Grey asked both Germany and France for assurances that they would respect the neutrality of Belgium. The French quickly replied in the affirmative; the Germans were silent. The same day, Sir Eyre Crowe sent a long memorandum to Lord Grey. If, as seemed more likely than not, France and Germany should go to war, then Britain too should fight. "The theory," wrote Crowe,

that England cannot engage in a big war means her abdication as

an independent State....The argument that there is no written bond binding us to France is strictly correct. There is no contractual obligation. But the Entente has been made, strengthened, put to the test and celebrated in a manner justifying the belief that a moral bond was being forged. 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 honorable expectation has been raised. We cannot repudiate it without exposing our good name to grave criticism.

Almost imperceptibly, everyone's gaze shifted to Germany. The original causes of the crisis no longer seemed very important. On that same July 31, some eighteen hours after Russia's mobilization. Austria-Hungary ordered general mobilization. Hardly anyone paid any attention. To Russia and the Entente alike, Germany was becoming the main enemy. The Germans were paying the price for the distrust and friction that, through design or clumsiness, had been allowed to accumulate the past two decades.

-War (August 1-4) The events following Russia’s mobilization and Germany's resort to ultimatums have something anti-climactic about them. The suicide pacts had been made; what was happening now, or so it seems in retrospect, was that the weapons were being raised, and raised with such resolution and speed that there was no chance for second thoughts.

On Saturday afternoon, August 1, the French, after rejecting the German ultimatum, ordered general mobilization. A quarter of an hour later, the Germans followed suit; there had been no reply from St. Petersburg to their ultimatum of the previous day. At about six o'clock that evening, the German ambassador, Count Pourtales, called on Sazonov. Was there truly no hope of a favorable Russian reply to the German demand that mobilization cease? There was not, said Sazonov. "In that case," said Pourtales, "I am instructed to hand you this note." He then gave Sazonov the German declaration of war on Russia, went to the window, and broke into tears.

It was up to the generals now. Their time to weep would come too; but at the moment, the generals, whether Russian, Austrian or German wanted but one thing: to move! The day before Pourtales's final visit, a significant scene had taken place in Vienna. In the midst of Bethmann's appeals to Berchtold to continue negotiating, a telegram had arrived from Count Moltke, chief of the German general staff, for his Austrian counterpart in Vienna, Count Conrad. Stand firm, said the telegram. Do not negotiate; "mobilize immediately against Russia." When Conrad showed the message to Berchtold, the foreign minister was taken aback. "Who is in charge?" he said. "Moltke or Bethmann?"

Moltke, of course. Ever since Russia's final decision to mobilize, the German generals had been impatient to begin military operations. They saw no other chance of victory except to strike first. They wished to defeat France rapidly and decisively while holding the defensive in the East and only then to shift their forces to attack the Russians. The question of course was how the Germans could manage to win such a victory over a France whose army was among Europe's best and whose border was heavily fortified. A plan, completed by the general staff under its then chief, General von Schlieffen, in 1905 provided a theoretical answer. The German army would circumvent the French fortifications by moving through Luxembourg and Belgium and take the French forces by surprise from the North. Would this violate Germany's treaty obligations toward Belgium? It would, but then, what was the alternative? Possibly, barely possibly, this was a justifiable counter-question for a professional soldier to raise. Possibly also, one should not be too astonished to find only the briefest references to the probable political repercussions of the violation of Luxembourg’s neutrality (“no important consequences other than protests") in Schlieffen's memorandum of 1905 and none to those of Belgium's. What, however, of Germany's diplomats, should have known better?

German diplomats, in the post-Bismarck epoch, did not normally care to argue with German generals. If that was what the gentlemen of the general staff held to be essential, said the gentlemen of the Wilhelmstrasse, then that was what German diplomacy must reconcile itself to. To quote the reported comment of Baron von Holstein , one of the senior officials of the German foreign ministry: "If the Chief of the General Staff, and particularly a strategic authority like Schlieffen, thought such a measure to be necessary, then it would be the duty of diplomacy to adjust itself to it and to prepare for it in every possible way." To which we might add "adjust, yes; prepare, no,” since at no time between the plan's first draft and 1914 did the foreign ministry lay the least diplomatic groundwork for it.

With the decision to go to war against Russia, the general staff's Western war games became dead earnest. On Saturday, August 1, German troops invaded Luxembourg. On Sunday, August 2, at 7 P.M., the German envoy in Brussels presented an ultimatum to the Belgian foreign minister. (It was drafted mainly by Moltke; the foreign ministry had not prepared so much as the necessary diplomatic note in advance.) Germany, stated the note, to anticipate a French attack and "acting under a dictate of self-preservation," must march through Belgium. Should Belgium agree, the Germans would evacuate all Belgian territory upon the termination of the war and make restitution for any damage done? Should Belgium resist, "Germany would be obliged, to her regret, to regard the Kingdom as an enemy.”? Could the Belgians give an unequivocal answer within twelve hours?

This was worse than either a crime or a blunder. It was a disaster. The Germans were not only drawing the Belgians into the war against them; they were destroying all hopes of British neutrality. Quite possibly, England would sooner or later have joined Germany's enemies in any event, but owing to Berlin's lack of judgment, we will never know for certain. The violation of Luxembourg's neutrality had not disturbed the British unduly. (Here, for once, Schlieffen had been right.) It was true that Britain was signatory to a treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Luxembourg, but the country was very small and possessed no coastline facing the channel. Belgium was different. The day before, the British cabinet had still been divided over what course of action to take. Pressures to intervene were coming from many sides: from the French, from the Conservative opposition in parliament, from the professionals in the foreign office. But the most that Grey had been willing to do had been to promise some naval support to the French in case the German fleet should sail into the channel to attack French shipping or the French coast. The ultimatum to Belgium radically altered the situation. Britain, as a signatory to the Treaty of 1839, was one of the guarantors of Belgian neutrality (Prussia, and hence Germany, was another) and in 1914 as in 1839, Britain considered the defense of Belgium's channel ports all but a part of the defense of the realm. On August 2, the British cabinet decided that if the Germans were indeed to violate Belgian neutrality, and if the Belgians were to resist, Britain would intervene.

Within forty-eight hours, there were no "ifs" left. On Monday, August 3, the Belgians rejected the German ultimatum and called on the signatories of the treaty of 1839 for aid. That same day, the Germans began the invasion of Belgium and, on the mendacious pretext that the French had attacked German territory, declared war on France. On Tuesday, August 4, the British sent an ultimatum to Berlin. Would the Germans, within five hours, give an assurance that they were ceasing their attack on Belgium; if not, the British would sever relations.

The Germans rejected the ultimatum. The quick defeat of France, they said, was a matter of life and death to them. One is struck by the ingenuousness of the German response. What the Germans were doing, in effect, was asking the British to understand the requirements of the Schlieffen Plan, and then acting aggrieved when the British did not. The step that Britain was contemplating, said Bethmann, as the British ambassador paid his farewell call on him, "was terrible to a degree, just for a word 'neutrality,' a word which in war time had so often been disregarded-just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was making war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her."

Poor honest Bethmann, providing Allied propaganda with some of its most telling quotations. We have become somewhat less solicitous today over the universal observance of international law, but 1914 was another age. That same August 4, Bethmann rose in the Reichstag to say a few more words that, for his country's good, should forever have remained unspoken.

Gentlemen. we are now in a state of self-defense, and necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxembourg, and perhaps have already entered Belgian territory.

Gentlemen, that is a breach of international law. ...The wrong-I speak openly-the wrong we thereby commit we will try to make good as soon as our military aims are attained. He, who is menaced the way we are, and is fighting for his most precious possessions, can turn his mind only to how he might battle his way out.

At midnight, on August 4, Great Britain declared war on Germany. The Austro-Serbian conflict had escalated before the term had been invented.

Before it was over, the war would have expanded into a truly global conflict. The Central Powers were to gain only two more allies: Turkey, which entered the war in

November 1914, and Bulgaria, which came in the next year. The Triple Entente, on the other hand, managed to draw in half the world on its side. Within the next three years, to mention only the major belligerents, Italy (which found new Allied promises more persuasive than old treaty commitments), Portugal, Rumania, Japan, the United States, and China were to join the Allied side.

The generals were in charge, and in August of 1914, a vast majority of people were deliriously happy that this should be so. The declarations of war seemed to have purified the air. In the various capitals of Europe, the crowds gathered-patriotic, fervent, elemental; a thirst for victory and ready for sacrifice. "Whoever failed to see Paris this morning and yesterday," wrote Charles Peguy on August 3, "has seen nothing."1 He would not try to describe his journey to the front, wrote a French officer that same week; "sunshine cannot be reproduced adequately on a painting."2

A few days earlier, after Berchtold had made his irrevocable decision on Serbia, the Bohemian writer Johannes Urzidil was walking through the streets of Prague. Coming to a tobacco shop, he noticed a group of people congregating around a telegram posted in the window:

"War Declared"

No one spoke. Then I suddenly heard three lone words: "Gott sei Dank"-"Thank God."

The speaker was an Austrian first lieutenant. He did not try to give any reasons why one should especially thank God for this declaration of war. What will have become of him? …

All I know is that the words "Thank God" soon changed into the much more fitting ones: "God help us!" 3

1 Quoted in Paul Marie de la Gorce, The French Army (George Braziller, New York, 1963), p. 94.

2 Quoted in Richard Thoumin, The First World War (G. B. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1963), p. 31.

3 Johannes Urzidil, "In Prag," Der Monat (August 1964), p. 41.