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Austria-Hungary In February 1913, the German Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke observed to the Secretary of State at the German Foreign Office, Gottlieb von Jagow, that there were two parties in Vienna, a war and a peace party, which kept each other in check. Austrian officers relaxing at a garden party in Vienna just before the war in 1914. The driving force behind the “war party” was Field Marshal, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austrian Chief of the General Staff of the imperial army. During 1913 he counselled war with Serbia 25 times. (Holger Herwig, The First World War, Bloomsbury 1996, pp.1921) (Imperial War Museum, Public Domain in the UK) In 1912 Tsar Nicolas II had said of Emperor Franz Josef that as long as he lived “there was no likelihood of any step being taken by Austria-Hungary that would endanger the maintenance of peace”. Opinions on the likelihood of an upcoming war Even after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo officials in Berlin believed that “it would not come to a war between Austria and Serbia”. The British Ambassador in Vienna reported that the army was “straining at the leash to go against Serbia” but he could not believe they would be “let slip”. The Russian ambassador in Vienna assured the British Ambassador that the Austrian government would not allow itself to be rushed into a war with Serbia, knowing that Russia would be impelled to intervene on Serbia’s behalf. The French Ambassador believed that the Emperor would restrain those within his government who wanted war. (G. Martel, The Month Changed the World: July 1914, Oxford 2014 Chapter 2) Archduke Franz Ferdinand Prominent in the Austrian “peace party” was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Imperial throne, who was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. When Conrad, the Chief of Staff, pressed for a preventive strike against Serbia in January 1913, as the second Balkan War began, the Archduke was reported to have said: “Conrad’s idea is madness. A war with Russia will finish us. If we move against Serbia, then we shall have war with Russia. … Tell Conrad that I categorically reject any further suggestions in that direction.” Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Imperial throne of Austria-Hungary (born 18 December 1863, died 28 June 1914). (Cited in C. von Bardolf, Soldat im alten Österreich, Jena 1938, p.177) Conrad von Hotzendorf & Leopold van Berchthold Left: Conrad von Hötzendorf Right: Count Leopold von Berchthold. (Public Domain in the European Union) After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf, called for an immediate mobilization of Austria-Hungary’s armed forces against Serbia. He was supported by the Foreign Minister, Count Leopold von Berchthold. Berchthold favoured an immediate invasion of Serbia on 7 July without a prior declaration of war. Berchthold’s proposal was rejected by the Emperor in spite of the fact that it had the support of the majority of his Council. The Emperor was reluctant to commit the AustriaHungary to war. His past had taught him to be cautious. He had led the Austrian army to defeat by French and Italian forces at Solferino in 1859. And in 1866 he had declared war on Prussia, against the advice of his General Staff, and lost. Ultimatum Serbian Government The emperor insisted that Berchthold confer with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Istvan Tisza, knowing that Tisza would be opposed to military action and that Vienna could not declare war without the approval of the government in Budapest. Tisza believed that any action against Serbia should be delayed until there was clear evidence of her direct involvement in the assassination. He feared that an invasion of Serbia might lead to nationalist uprisings amongst the other Slavic peoples of the Habsburg Empire and lead to war with Russia. Emperor Franz Josef I conferring with Count Istvan Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary. (Public Domain in Hungary and the USA) He insisted that all diplomatic avenues should be explored before military action was taken. A compromise was reached within the Imperial Council which led to an Ultimatum being presented to the Serbian government at 18.00 on 23 July, 1914. This contained a long list of demands to be met by Serbia and a requirement that the Serbian government should reply by 18.00 on 25 July. Great Britain Left: Prime Minister Herbert Asquith Right: Sir Edward Grey (Public Domain) By the summer of 1914 Sir Edward Grey had been Foreign Secretary for nearly nine years. He had negotiated the entente with France, an alliance with Russia and had chaired the London conference that brought about a peaceful conclusion to the 1st Balkan War. He also had the support of the imperialists within his own party (the Liberals) and most of the Conservative opposition party. Within the Foreign Office an influential anti-German faction had emerged. These included senior ministers and officials. Their anti-German position was a reaction to the Kaiser’s public support for the Boers in their war with Britain, Germany’s construction of battleships, the Kaiser’s interventions in the two Moroccan crises and colonial rivalry in China and Africa. Prevent the outbreak of war? But this antagonism towards Germany was not shared by the majority of the British Cabinet or Parliament, and certainly not in the British Embassy in Berlin. There was considerable support for an entente with Germany. Manchester Evening News – Monday 29 June 1914 (Image © Trinity Mirror. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.) After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Harold Nicolson, took the view that the act of political terrorism in Sarajevo “will have no serious consequences, outside Austria-Hungary”. Britain’s diplomats based in the Balkan countries shared his view that Vienna would protest and threaten but that Emperor Franz Josef would control those within the army and his council who favoured war with Serbia. British military intervention For most of the summer of 1914 the British cabinet was preoccupied with the introduction of devolved government in Ireland and the possibility of a civil war breaking out there. It did not greatly concern itself with what was happening in the Balkans until the AustroHungarian ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July. When the British Cabinet met on 29 July the majority favoured British neutrality in the event of an escalation of the conflict. They remained undecided as to how to respond if Germany attacked France through neutral Belgium. Winston Churchill, when he was serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-15) (Public Domain in the UK) When the Cabinet met again on 31 July, Grey and Churchill favoured British military intervention before Germany invaded Belgium and France. Most of the cabinet believed that British public opinion would not support this action but that opinion might change if Germany violated Belgian neutrality. British Cabinet divided When the British Cabinet met again on 1 August 1914 it was divided on how to respond to the crisis. The majority favoured a public statement that Britain would not enter the war under any circumstances. Sir Edward Grey threatened to resign if that happened. John Burns, who had been a radical trade unionist in the 1880s and then entered Parliament as a Liberal MP in 1892. He held government office form 1905 to 5 August 1914. (Public Domain in the USA) Next day the Cabinet authorised Grey to inform the French government that Britain would intervene if the Germans tried to make the English Channel the base for military operations against France. One member of the cabinet, John Burns (Minister Board of Trade) resigned arguing that this statement might be regarded as grounds for a German declaration of war against Britain. The peace party in cabinet By now a group within the Cabinet calling themselves variously the peace party and the neutralists were meeting privately to discuss a strategy for preventing Britain from getting involved in a European war. Lewis Harcourt, the Colonial Secretary, who saw himself as one of the leaders of the peace party wrote in his private journal that he and Lloyd George went to see the Prime Minister on 3 August and informed him that “we represented 8-10 colleagues who would not go to war for Belgium. P.M. listened, said nothing.” There follows an account of the Cabinet meeting that morning where Churchill [First Lord of the Admiralty] threatened to resign: ‘If Germany violates Belgian neutrality I want to go to war - if you don't I must resign’. Viscount Morley [Lord President of the Privy Council] said "if you do go to war I resign”. (Additional Harcourt Papers, Bodleian Library, 03.08.1914) Caricature of Lewis Harcourt, British Colonial Secretary (19101915) by Harry Furniss. (National Portrait Gallery London, Public Domain in the UK and the USA) Great Britain and Germany In fact only four members of Harcourt’s “peace party” resigned – not including Harcourt or Lloyd George – when the British cabinet met on the afternoon of 3rd August to discuss the news that Germany had presented Belgium with an ultimatum. The rest of the Cabinet agreed that Britain would have to intervene if Germany violated Belgian neutrality. The German government was informed that its ultimatum to Belgium should be withdrawn, otherwise “it will be war”. Crowd gathered outside Buckingham Palace in London after news of the Declaration of War against Germany at 23.00 on 4 August 1914. (National Archives, Public Domain in the UK.) France A cartoon in the British magazine Punch in 1906 showing John Bull turning his back on Germany (the Kaiser) and walking off with Marianne dressed in the French tricolour. (Public Domain in the USA) France’s relations with Germany from the 1870s until 1914 were always influenced to some degree by her defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and the loss of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. There was a strong nationalist, revanchist (revenge) movement in France led by politicians such as Clemenceau and Poincaré. But anti-German feelings tended to rise and fall with shifts in international events and relations. In 1898 colonial rivalry between France and Britain had led to the Fashoda incident when French colonial forces were deployed to challenge Britain’s occupation of Egypt. Delcassé, Minister for Foreign Affairs urged Germany to support France on this issue, and proposed an alliance between France, Germany and Russia. “For a time, the visceral distrust usually directed at Berlin was refocused on London”. But the price for German support was French recognition of German sovereignty in Alsace and Lorraine. France dropped all talk of a Franco-German alliance over Egypt and concentrated instead on seizing control of Morocco, supported by Britain if France accepted British control of Egypt. This opened the way for the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain in 1904 and the eventual emergence of two military alliances in Europe. The position of the doves within the French government became weaker when Raymond Poincaré became president in January 1913 and René Viviani became Premier and minister of foreign affairs. They shared the view of the French Chief of Staff General Joffre that a strong French army was needed that would be able to counter a German offensive. Théophile Delcassé and the French Foreign Office Delcassé built up a network of ambassadors who shared his views and together they made and implemented French foreign policy during his time as Minister for Foreign Affairs. By 1911 there French Ambassadors who favoured a rapprochement with Germany and greater economic cooperation to reduce tensions between the two countries that had arisen because of the Entente Cordiale with Britain. Théophile Delcassé, Minister for Foreign Affairs in France (1898-1906) (Library of Congress, Public Domain in the USA) However, there was also a group of permanent officials in the French Foreign Office who were strongly antiGerman. They saw German foreign policy as full of menace, tricks and cunning ploys designed to isolate France. They stirred up the French and therefore German media from 1911. This added to public support for war. (M.B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, OUP 1993, p.199). Germany Cartoon by American Robert Satterfield showing a bull representing the “war mad party” in Germany accompanied by the Kaiser rushing downhill while being encouraged to show a little more speed. (Public Domain of the United States of America.) On 8 December 1912, just a few days after hostilities in the First Balkan War had ceased and just before the London Conference convened to agree a peace treaty, Kaiser Wilhelm II had held a special ‘war cabinet’ meeting in Berlin. Senior Generals and Admirals attended but the Chancellor, Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg, was not present. According to a report the Kaiser set the scene: “Austria must deal firmly with the Slavs living outside its borders (the Serbs) if it does not want to lose control over the Slavs under the Austrian monarchy. If Russia were to support the Serbs, which she is apparently already doing…war would be inevitable for us” General von Moltke responded: “I consider a war inevitable – the sooner, the better. But we should do a better job of gaining popular support for a war against Russia.” General Helmuth von Moltke and Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz Admiral von Tirpitz, while still supporting war, advocated postponing the decision for 18 month. He believed that if Germany went to war with Russia then Britain and France would support her ally and Germany would need to be ready for a naval war with Britain. Moltke protested that even if the navy was not ready “the army’s situation would continue to worsen, since due to our limited financial resources our opponents are able to arm themselves more rapidly.” The Kaiser sided with Tirpitz and, as Müller recorded, “That was the end of the meeting. There were almost no results.” Left: General Helmuth von Moltke Right: Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (Translation of an entry from the diary of Admiral von Müller, 8 December 1912 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg (BArch N 159/4 Fol. 169-171)). Fischer, and a number of other historians, have regarded this meeting as evidence that Germany was planning for war 18 months before war was actually declared. Schlieffen Plan There were indeed advocates of war within the imperial cabinet and for more than a decade before 1914 the High Command were pressing for a significant increase in military and naval budgets but encountered opposition in the Reichstag and from the Chancellor and Treasury Minister. (Clark p.216.) They called for a ‘preventive war’ – a war against their enemies before their enemies could wage war on them. But the evidence also suggests that the Kaiser, his Chancellor and civilian ministers in the Imperial cabinet blocked those demands [Mombauer, pp.108ff] The so-called Schlieffen Plan drawn up in 1905 by General Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of General Staff. It was based on the belief that if the country went to war it would have to fight on two fronts against France and Russia and that France would be quicker to defeat while Russia would take longer to mobilize. (Public Domain in the USA) It is certainly the case that plans for war – notably the Schlieffen Plan – had been drawn up but, according to some historians, there is a subtle but important difference making plans to start a war and making plans in order to be ready for a war. Germany was not alone in preparing for a war in 1914. The French had Plan 17, the Austro-Hungarians had Plan B for the Balkans and Plan R for Russia, and Russia had Plan G if attacked by Germany and Plan A (or 19) if Germany began the war by attacking France. Kaiser Wilhelm II The personalities of Wilhelm II and Bethmann-Hollweg are important here. The Kaiser, as supreme commander believed that he took the lead on military and foreign policy. In practice, ministers, diplomats and military advisers often agreed with him but delayed taking action in the anticipation that he would change his mind or forget what he had demanded. As one historian has observed: “He always backed down when the moment of truth arrived. In the face of clear and determined opposition his confidence would evaporate”. [G. Martel, The Month that Changed the World 1914, p.25.]. Bethmann-Hollweg was viewed with mistrust by the Prussian High Command. They saw him as a compromiser. His attempts to find a diplomatic compromise over the naval arms race had been bitterly opposed by the German admiralty. In domestic politics he was trying to maintain a balance between the reactionary right and the liberals and social democrats in the Reichstag. Kaiser Wilhelm II in military uniform, his preferred mode of dress in public. (Public Domain in Finland.) When it looked as though the Serbs had conceded almost every point in the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, both the Kaiser and his Chancellor were reported to have been relieved. The Kaiser informed his ministers that Serbia’s response meant that “every cause for war collapsed.” The Chancellor informed the other Great Powers that Germany was willing to mediate between Austria and Russia. Russia Tsar Nicholas II came to the Imperial throne of Russia in 1894 following the sudden death of his father from a kidney disease. He was 26 and little had been done to prepare him for rule. Ffrom the start he made it clear that “I shall maintain the principle of autocracy just as firmly and unflinchingly as it was preserved by my unforgettable dead father”. (M.T. Florinsky, The End of the Romanov Empire, New York 1961). Nicholas II, last Tsar of All the Russias, 1868-1918. (Public Domain in Russia and the USA) In practice, however, he was indecisive and lacked a coherent set of policies that he wanted to achieve. One observer close to government reported that it was widely held that “He has no character… he agrees with each of his ministers in spite of the fact that they represent the opposite of one another”. (quoted D.M. McDonald, United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia: 1900-1914, London, 1992 p.16). War and growing Unrest Russia lost a war with Japan in 1905. In Russia there was growing unrest. For some time a movement had been emerging which was calling for more civil rights and greater political equality. On 22 January 1905 (which came to be known as Bloody Sunday) there was a march of thousands of workers to the Winter Palace to ask the Tsar for the creation of more democracy and rights. The demonstrators were denied access to the Palace Square and the official number killed was 92 with several hundred wounded but estimates varied widely. Protest strikes led to the setting up of a Duma (Parliament), but by 1906 Tsarist absolute rule had been reinstated. Painting by unknown artist of Father Gapon leading the demonstrators in front of the Narva Gate in St Petersburg,22 January, 1905. (Public Domain in the USA) As in the other Great Powers at this time, a’ war party’ and a ‘peace party’ emerged. But in the case of Russia there was a major difference. The conservatives, led by Count Vladimir Kovotsov, were the peace party. They were aware of Russia’s internal problems and rejected, as Kovotsov put it ‘an active foreign policy at the expense of the peasant’s stomach’. [Lieven, Nicholas II, p.82] The core of the war party were the liberal nationalists and supporters of pan-Slavism. They had supported the Tsar’s expansion to the east and now favoured support for Slavs in the Balkans and open access to the Mediterranean through the Turkish Straits for Russia’s warships. Mobilisation of Russian Forces When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the Tsar’s Council took the view that this would not lead to another war in the Balkans. The situation changed when the Russian Council saw the Austrian ultimatum to the Serbian government. On 24 July Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov met with the Austrian Ambassador and warned that these demands on Serbia were unacceptable. “What you want is war and you have burnt your bridges behind you”. The Tsar inspecting his troops after the partial mobilisation of Russian forces in July 1914. (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/ object/205088130. All Rights Reserved except for Fair Dealing exceptions otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.) After the meeting Sazanov advised the Tsar to sign the order to mobilise the army. Although the Tsar hesitated for a while the Army High Command and his Ministers were all advising mobilisation. On the afternoon of 30 July, 1914, following a series of telegrams between himself and the Kaiser, the Tsar signed. Turning to Sazanov he said: “You are right, there is nothing else left than to prepare ourselves for an attack. Transmit to the chief of the general staff my orders of mobilisation.” S. Sazanov, Fateful Years 1909-1916. On 1 August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia. Serbia Serbia had gained virtual independence from the Ottoman Empire through an uprising led by Miloš Obrenović in 1815 although her formal independence was not recognised internationally until the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Throughout the period 1815-1914 Serbian politics was marked by dynastic rivalries between the Karađorđević and Obrenović families and their supporters. The Obrenović family aligned with Austria-Hungary while the Karađorđević family had close ties to Russia and France. On 28-29 May 1903 a coup overthrew the Obrenović regime. King Alexandar Obrenović and his wife Draga were assassinated in the royal palace by a group of army officers led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević. The conspirators also killed the prime minister and the army minister. The conspirators belonged to a group of middle-ranking army officers who had formed a secret society in August 1901 known as Ujedinjenje ili smrt (Unification or Death), which was unofficially known as the ‘Black Hand’. They were committed to the unification of the South Slavs under Serbian rule. The National Assembly then decided to send a mission to Geneva to inform the exiled Prince Peter Karađorđević that he had been elected king by the Parliament. He was crowned on 21 September 1904. The new democractic government needed the support of the army to survive. A map of the Principality of Serbia after the Treaty of Berlin 1878. In 1882 it became a Kingdom. (GNU Free Documentation License)