By Eric Vandenbroeck
The Real Russian
Origins of the First World War
With a similar title as above,
Sean Mcmeekin, received some well informed criticism.
McMeekin, not only greatly
exaggerated the significance of the preparatory period of war, he also ignored,
as we shall see, that responsibility for the outbreak of war rests
overwhelmingly on the shoulders of Berlin and Vienna.
In the winter of 1912–13, war would erupt in the Balkans and threatened
to drag in the great powers. Tensions mounted between Petersburg on the one
side and Vienna and Berlin on the other. At the very outset of the crisis, the
Russian foreign minister, Serge Sazonov, stressed to
the German ambassador in Petersburg, Count Pourtalès,
that Russia sought peace and was very open to compromise, but the one thing it
would never again tolerate was being faced with ultimatums or having its back
forced to the wall as in 1909.
Both French Ambassador Pourtalès and the
Austrian ambassador, Count Douglas Thurn, believed Sazonov
and made this reality very clear to their governments. Thurn repeated on
numerous occasions during the Balkan crisis that although the Russian
leadership sought and badly needed peace, it would accept even a nearly
hopeless war rather than face further humiliation: “The defeat of 1909 has left
far too deep a legacy here for any Russian government, however peacefully
disposed, to be able to survive any repetition of this event.” Nothing had
changed by July 1914, when Russia faced the choice between war and surrender to
an even more peremptory and humiliating Austro-German challenge. The
ambassadors of the Central Powers in Petersburg did their job, but their
masters in Berlin and Vienna chose to ignore them.
1914
In the first half of 1914, the Russian Foreign Ministry faced too many
immediate dangers to ponder long-term historical trends. The ministry was
actually rather relaxed about Serb-Austrian relations in the short term. Above
all, this was because the reports of the minister and the military attaché in
Belgrade stressed that Serbia’s political and military leaders well understood
their country’s great need for peace and were therefore determined to do
nothing to provoke Vienna. As for the Black Hand, not only Russian but also
Austrian reports from Belgrade stressed its threat to Nikola Pašić’s Radical government, rather than any danger of
terrorist acts on Habsburg territory. The assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand at Sarajevo came as a bolt from the blue.
The regrets conveyed to Vienna by Nicholas II and Foreign Minister Sazonov concerning the crime
committed at Sarajevo were genuine. Even Novoe Vremia carried an article by A. A. Stolypin, whose brother
had been assassinated three years before, denouncing the murder of the archduke
as barbarian savagery and a disgrace to the Slav cause in Austria. 1 Official
Russian responses to the assassination and Austria’s subsequent demands were
inevitably influenced by Russia’s own history and by awareness of the tangled
relationships between governments, military intelligence services, and underground
nationalist movements across the entire region. 2 In recent decades, many
Russian dignitaries and officials, including an emperor and a grand duke, had
been killed by terrorists. Some of their assassins had escaped abroad, and the
leaders of Russian revolutionary parties lived in foreign countries under the
protection of their laws. In 1914, both Lenin and Trotsky were living in
Austria.
Most germane were the activities of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS),
whose leader was Józef Piłsudski, the future
president of the interwar Polish republic. From its base in Austrian Galicia,
the PPS plotted assassinations of officials in Russian Poland and prepared for
sabotage and insurrection behind the Russian lines in the event of a
Russo-Austrian war. The PPS had its “terrorist” training school in Krakow.
Piłsudski and the PPS had close links
to Austrian military intelligence, to which they provided militarily useful
information from Russian Poland, receiving substantial consignments of arms in
return. The local Austrian police and its chief, Michał
Stanisław Flatau, in
Galicia were well aware of the PPS’s activities but pulled the wool over the
eyes of the central civilian authorities in Vienna. Galicia enjoyed
semiautonomous status and whatever the formal allegiance of local Polish
officials to Habsburg authority, they were unwilling to expose or hinder Piłsudski’s efforts. Periodic Russian protests to the
Austrian Foreign Ministry about the PPS’s activities got nowhere above all for
this reason. In fact, Petersburg was much better informed about goings-on in
Galicia than were the civilian authorities in Vienna. Colonel Alfred Redl, Russia’s main spy in the Austrian General Staff, had
access to many documents touching on the links between the Austrian army and the
PPS. Moreover, Piłsudski’s key negotiator with the
Austrian General Staff was an agent of the Russian domestic security police
(Okhrana). It is true that agents of foreign governments had not given
anti-Russian terrorists the weapons subsequently used to kill an heir to the
throne, which is what had happened as regards Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.
But no one in Petersburg in July 1914 knew that this had happened: the only
Russian official who seems to have suggested even the possibility of official Serbian
involvement in the crime was Aleksandr Giers, and he
did so not on the basis of any information but simply because— as he wrote— the
Serbian officer corps contained many “arrogant praetorians” who were capable of
anything. 3
Nikolai Shebeko had complained since arriving
in Vienna as ambassador in 1913 that some of the Russian consulates were in
disarray: the consulate in Bosnia was an extreme case, with the consul moribund
and his assistant living in Montenegro. The ambassador sent the embassy’s second
secretary, Prince Mikhail Gagarin, to Sarajevo to discover the background to
events surrounding Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and passed on his report to
Petersburg on July 16, 1914. Gagarin’s report stated correctly that the
assassins were Austrian subjects and that the Austrian authorities, having
shown gross incompetence as regards the archduke’s security, had an interest in
proclaiming that the murders were the result of a hideous conspiracy with its
roots abroad. Incorrectly, he wrote that the bombs thrown at Franz Ferdinand
were handmade. But he also stated that the overall political situation in
Bosnia was stable, the province had grown much more prosperous under Austrian
rule, and many prominent Serbs, let alone Croats and Muslims, were loyal to
Vienna. Genuinely threatening discontent was confined to the new Serb
intelligentsia. 4
On July 15, Shebeko reported that his
information suggested that the investigation had revealed nothing that could
justify a conflict between Vienna and Belgrade but that in general terms “it is
very possible that Austria together with Bulgaria will use the first suitable
occasion to decide the Serbian question, which is so vital to the monarchy, by
a single blow in an unexpected attack.” In reality, the investigation had
discovered clear evidence of involvement by Serbian officers and border police.
If pursued further, it would in time probably have exposed the role of Colonel Dimitrijević (Apis), the head of
Serbian military intelligence. It is, however, unfair to blame the Russian
government for not taking this into account. In the
weeks following the assassination, the Austrians pursued a policy of
disinformation, designed to lull the suspicions of foreign governments.
When they did finally release the results of their investigations, it was in
the form of a dossier provided to the great powers after a forty-eight-hour
ultimatum had already been delivered to Belgrade. Even then, Vienna was willing
neither to discuss the evidence with foreign governments nor to submit it to
any neutral judicial scrutiny. Given the recent memory of Austrian accusations
against Serbia supported by blatantly forged evidence, Petersburg could not be
blamed for regarding Austrian claims of Serb involvement in the assassination
with suspicion. 5
Actually, Vienna had a good case, which it failed to exploit to its own
advantage. The Austrians were correct to believe both that senior Serbian
officers had played a role in the crime and that no purely Serbian investigation
would get to the bottom of their involvement. Properly used, the investigation
into the crime at Sarajevo could have badly damaged the Serbian cause and
further widened the growing breach between Petersburg and London. But Vienna
was interested in destroying Serbia as an independent “factor of power,” not in
pursuing judicial investigations. The key decision makers in Vienna had been
convinced for some time that this could only be achieved through war.
This is not to deny that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his
wife caused outrage in Austrian ruling circles. In the case of the foreign
minister, Leopold Berchtold, whose family was close
to the murdered couple, personal feelings were involved. For other decision
makers, it was the affront to the empire’s dignity that mattered. The real
point, however, was that for a number of years key figures in Vienna had
believed that Serbian nationalism was a threat to the monarchy, which only war
could solve. This feeling was greatly strengthened by the Balkan Wars. In
October 1913, the Austro-Hungarian Common Ministerial Council had agreed that
Serbia had to be destroyed as an independent state in order to restore
Austria’s position in the Balkans and stop the danger of South Slav
nationalism’s undermining Habsburg authority within the empire’s borders. As Berchtold explained at that time, the key difficulty was to
obtain German support for this policy. The Austrian premier, Count Karl von Stürgkh, added that the precondition for success had to be
“that we have been clearly injured by Serbia, because that can lead to a
conflict which entails Serbia’s execution.” Without such a pretext and without
Berlin’s support, military action against Serbia was impossible, which explains
why in early June 1914 the Austrian Foreign Ministry’s key “strategy paper”
outlining future short-term policy in the Balkans confined itself to advocating
not military but purely diplomatic measures. But the circumstances surrounding
Franz Ferdinand’s assassination provided exactly the scenario that the October
1913 ministerial conference had desired. Once the assassination occurred, most
of the key decision makers in Vienna were determined to have their war with
Serbia. They issued an ultimatum designed to be unacceptable, rejoiced when the
Serbs did not fully accept this ultimatum, and then embarked immediately on a
declaration of war and the bombardment of Belgrade on June 29 to ensure that no
time was allowed for great-power intervention to stop the conflict. 6
The crucial decision would, however, be made in Berlin. In July 1913,
the Austrians had proposed and the Germans had vetoed military action against
Serbia. True to this policy, the German ambassador in Vienna initially preached
restraint to the Austrians after the assassination in June 1914, only to be
roundly denounced by the kaiser. As a result,
Heinrich von Tschirschky became an advocate of
aggression, urging the Austrians not to lose any time in taking action. The
decisive moment came on July 5 and 6 when Count Alek Hoyos,
Berchtold’s chief lieutenant in the Foreign Ministry,
visited Berlin and received unconditional German agreement to support any
Austrian move against Serbia. In the case of William II, the assassination of
his friend and ally did have considerable influence on changing his stance on
Austrian action against Serbia. Even in the previous autumn, however, the
emperor had been ranting about the inevitable war between Teuton and Slav.
Since then, the Liman von Sanders episode and the big new Russian armaments programme had further excited him against Russia.
Typically, when war actually drew close, William began to retreat, but by then
it was too late: he had released forces that he could no longer control. 7
The support of the German army’s leaders for Austrian action needs no
explanation and represented no change in their stance: in the view of General
Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of the General Staff, even in 1913 it was in
German interests to start the inevitable European war as soon as possible. It
is the change in attitude of the civilian leadership, which above all means
Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg, that is the greatest and
most important puzzle. Undoubtedly, the chancellor too was swayed by talk of
racial struggle, by the Liman von Sanders crisis, and by the increase in
Russian armaments. He was also weighed down in July 1914 by an overwhelming
sense of pessimism and fear of growing Russian power.
The emperor’s emotional shifts and illusions were notorious, but just
how the chancellor succeeded in persuading himself in these terms remains
bewildering. Perhaps this reflected no more than the fact that both in the
Bosnian crisis of 1908– 9 and then again at moments during the Balkan conflicts
of 1912– 13, Russian foreign ministers had sometimes spoken strongly but had
always backed down when war threatened. Nevertheless, the chancellor’s hopes
for Russian inaction reflected an extraordinary degree of wishful thinking. In
1913, Bethmann Hollweg had written that “by any
objective analysis one must come to the conclusion that— given its traditional
relations with the Balkan states— it would be barely possible [for Russia] to
observe inactively Austro-Hungarian military action against Serbia without
appalling damage to its prestige.” In military terms, Russia was clearly better
prepared for war in 1914 than it had been a year before, so why its stance
should be more reticent than in the previous year is hard to conceive. 8
Germany’s agreement on July 5 and 6 to Austrian action against Serbia
was the single most decisive moment in Europe’s descent into war. Vienna was
assured that if Russia did intervene, then Germany would go to war in support
of Austria’s plan to destroy Serbian independence. Almost three weeks then
passed, however, before the Austrians acted. The first indication received by
Petersburg that on this occasion Berlin might well not restrain Vienna came
from the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, through Alexander Benckendorff, in a letter dated July 9. In line with his
overall approach in 1914, the foreign secretary’s view was that everything
possible should be done to reassure Berlin and avoid stirring up its fears and
nerves. 9
Real alarm began to develop in Petersburg on July 16 when warnings
arrived from two sources that a strong Austrian move in Belgrade was imminent.
One came from Nikolai Shebeko, who had lunched that
day with a retired Austrian ambassador, Count Heinrich Lützow.
Lützow had spent the morning with Berchtold
and Hoyos and gave the Russian ambassador a strong
indication of their intentions. Lützow himself was
very alarmed by the Austrian war party, whose boastful outpourings reminded him
of similar stupidities before the war of 1866 with Prussia. The veteran
Austrian diplomat believed that though a victorious war would prolong the
empire’s life for two generations, defeat would spell the end of the Habsburg
monarchy. 10
That evening, at a soiree in Petersburg, the Italian ambassador told
Maurice Schilling, head of the Chancellery, that if Russia wanted to stop
Austria from taking radical and irreversible steps against Serbia, it needed to
adopt a strong line and make its position “unequivocally” clear in Vienna
immediately.
Sazonov instructed Shebeko to warn Berchtold against
any assault on Serbian dignity or independence, the Russian foreign minister
adding that from his discussions with the French leaders (who were currently in
Petersburg) it was clear that France “is not disposed to allow the humiliation
of Serbia.” Sazonov himself spoke “in the most
decisive manner” to the Austrian ambassador in Petersburg, warning him of
“Russia’s determination not to allow under any circumstances encroachments on
Serbian independence.” After the conversation, Sazonov
recorded that the ambassador had been “gentle as a lamb.” 11
The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia and accompanying dossier on the
assassination at Sarajevo were not delivered to Sazonov
by Count Friedrich Szapáry, the Austrian ambassador,
until mid-morning on July 24. By then, however, the Russian Foreign Ministry
had intercepted and decoded Vienna’s instructions to Szapáry,
which were accompanied by the text of the ultimatum, so Sazonov
knew what was coming. The foreign minister was expecting a stern Austrian note,
but even so the terms and tone of the ultimatum probably surprised him as much
as they did Sir Edward Grey. The Austrian demands were phrased in categorical
and humiliating terms and fell into two categories. The first concentrated on
the crime at Sarajevo, stressing in particular the need for a judicial
investigation of the Serbian part in the conspiracy with the participation of
Austrian officials. It was difficult for the Serbian government to concede
this, and the results would have caused Belgrade great damage had the
investigation been thorough. Much worse, however, was the other half of the
ultimatum, which demanded the removal of all anti-Austrian propaganda in school
textbooks, the press, and private societies. Anti-Austrian propaganda in this
definition encompassed any statement of support for the unification of all branches
of the Serbian people. Once again, Austrian officials were to participate in
suppressing what the ultimatum referred to as this “subversive activity.” All
civilian and military officers who had taken part in this propaganda were to be
dismissed, with Vienna to supply a list of the men in question. 12
Because the great majority of educated Serbians were committed to the
ultimate unification of all Serbs under Belgrade’s rule, this demand amounted
to something close to a call for an Austrian protectorate. 13
For the first time ever, on the morning of July 24, the Russian foreign
minister telephoned the emperor to report on the ultimatum’s terms. Petr Bark,
the minister of finance, was about to have his weekly audience with Nicholas
II, who as always at this time of year was staying in his summer palace at Peterhof, thirty minutes’ drive from Petersburg. Bark’s
memoirs describe Nicholas’s response to Sazonov’s
call. According to Nicholas, the foreign minister had told him that the
ultimatum was brutally worded, “could not be complied with by Serbia,” and had
obviously been planned by Berlin as well as Vienna in order to bring on a
European war and exploit the Central Powers’ current military superiority.
The emperor did not trust his foreign minister’s interpretation of
events. Sazonov, he remarked, was prone to
exaggeration and excitement. Nicholas could not believe that his cousin in
Berlin would deliberately launch a European war, which would be a disaster for
the whole world, over a Balkan issue. William II’s desire for peace had always
seemed sincere not just in word but also in deed. In the end, compromises with
Germany had been achieved on every occasion in recent years, even in very
difficult cases. Nor, added Nicholas, had Berlin exploited Russia’s defenseless
position in 1905– 6, when aggression would have been certain to succeed. Bark
writes that he agreed with his monarch’s instincts.14
However, to do the foreign minister justice, also Paul Benckendorff and Anatolii Nekliudovhad had a similar reaction when they read the
Austrian ultimatum. Nekliudov’s case is especially
interesting because the minister in Stockholm was an experienced diplomat with
little faith in either Sazonov or the Russian army
and a man who believed that war would probably lead to defeat and revolution.
Nevertheless, wrote Nekliudov, Russia could never
surrender to the third Austro-German ultimatum in five years, nor could it
abandon all its influence in the Balkans, whose creation had demanded so much
effort and suffering from previous generations. If Russia surrendered now to
the Central Powers’ menace, “our public opinion could never understand nor
would it forgive the Imperial government if it agreed to such a thing.”15
Later on the morning of July 24, Sazonov
joined the French and British ambassadors for an early lunch at the French
embassy in Petersburg. Sir George Buchanan reported to London that the language
of Maurice Paléologue in particular (who in this case
stood accused of overstating his mandate) suggested that on this issue France
and Russia would fight even if Britain stayed out.16
The key moment that day in Petersburg was the meeting of the Council of Ministers
at 3: 00 p.m. Once again Petr Bark’s memoirs are the key source. Serge Sazonov spoke
first. He stressed Germany’s “systematic preparations” to build up its power so
it could impose its will not just in the Near East but in “all international
questions.” Ever since 1905, Russian military weakness had forced it “always to
give way when faced with Germany’s arrogant demands” and “to conduct
negotiations in a tone unsuitable for one of the great powers.”
Unfortunately, concessions and weakness had merely whetted the Germans’
appetite. If Russia gave way again and allowed the destruction of Serbia’s
independence, its prestige in the Balkans “would collapse utterly.” Having
sacrificed so much in the past to liberate the Balkan peoples, if it caved in now
and “failed to fulfil its historic mission, it would be considered a decadent
state and would henceforth have to take second place among the powers.” Far
from ensuring peace and Russian security, a further retreat now would merely
encourage later challenges, and Russia, already weakened and humiliated, “would
nevertheless be involved in war.” The Central Powers knew that Serbian
acceptance of the ultimatum would spell the end of the country’s independence
and were therefore expecting its rejection. They “were resolved to deal a
decisive blow at Russian authority in the Balkans by annihilating Serbia.” In
the foreign minister’s view, Russian security demanded that this effort be
resisted even at the cost of war, but he did not hide the fact that “war with Germany
would be fraught with grave risks because it was not known what attitude Great
Britain would take in the matter … Should Britain decide to remain neutral, the
situation would become extremely difficult for Russia and France, even if they
were adequately armed and prepared.” 17
Aleksandr Krivoshein, the minister of agriculture, spoke next, and Bark
writes that it was his statement that “was the most instrumental in influencing
our decisions.” He began by outlining the domestic implications of war. Russia
had faced near disaster in 1905 when the revolutionary movement “might well
have caused it to perish.” Only the army’s “loyalty to the crown” had saved the
situation. Since then, much had been achieved. Representative institutions had
allowed public participation in government, and the state’s finances were in
good repair. “However, our rearmament programme had
not been completed and it seemed doubtful whether our Army and our Fleet would
ever be able to compete with those of Germany and Austro-Hungary as regards
modern technical efficiency.” In fact, Russia would probably never achieve
industrial and cultural equality with the Central Powers. “On the other hand,
general conditions had improved a great deal in Russia during the past few
years, and public and parliamentary opinion would fail to understand why, at
this critical moment involving Russia’s vital interests, the imperial
government was reluctant to act boldly.” Krivoshein stated that “no one in
Russia desired war.” The disastrous consequences of the Russo-Japanese War had
shown the grave danger that Russia would run in the event of hostilities. But
he strongly endorsed the foreign minister’s warning that “concession was no
guarantee of peace.” Although war would present a “grave danger” to Russia,
Krivoshein believed that a firmer line than in recent years was the more likely
way to avoid it. 18
Petr Bark recalls that “Krivoshein’s speech made a profound impression
on the cabinet. He had touched us deeply and was, moreover, undoubtedly the
most influential member of the cabinet.” On the matter of war and peace, the
ministers of war, the navy, and finance had also to be asked their opinion.
Vladimir Sukhomlinov, the war minister, and Ivan Grigorovich, the navy minister, told the council that they
could not claim that Russia’s military forces were superior to those of Germany
and Austria. Nor could they deny that the rearmament programme
was by no means completed. Nevertheless,
“great improvements” had occurred since the war with Japan, and the state of
the armed forces did not rule out a firmer stance as regards Germany and
Austria. Petr Bark added that a finance minister always wanted peace and that
war must necessarily endanger “the financial and economic stability of the
country.” Nevertheless, “since the honour, dignity
and authority of Russia were at stake, the finance minister should adhere to
the opinions of the majority of the council.” The chairman of the council, Ivan
Goremykin, summed up the debate by stating that
Russia had to support Serbia but should urge Belgrade “to show a desire for
conciliation and to fulfill the Austrian government’s requirements in so far as
they did not jeopardize the independence of the Serbian state.” Firmness seemed
to be the likeliest way to preserve peace, but Russia must, if necessary,
accept the consequences of war. 19
Almost as interesting as what the ministers said at the meeting of July
24 was what they chose not to say in front of all their colleagues. On the eve
of the council’s meeting, the minister of war took aside Nicholas de Basily, deputy head of the Chancellery, and asked him to
pass on to Sazonov the realities of Russia’s current
military position: “Even with the support of France we would find ourselves
until 1917, and perhaps even until 1918, in a position of indisputable
inferiority with respect to the combined forces of Germany and Austria.
Consequently, we should do everything in our power to avoid war.” In his
memoirs, General Sukhomlinov subsequently claimed
that the situation was far different from 1909, because the Russian army could
now fight if it had to. Sukhomlinov was good at
evading responsibility for decisions behind a front of military bluster. In his
memoirs, he wrote, “I was a soldier and had to obey, once the army was summoned
to defend the country, and not get involved in arguments.” Had he sought to
plead military weakness as a reason to avoid war, “people would have had a
right to accuse me of cowardice.” The minister of the navy, Admiral Grigorovich, commented privately, “Our fleet is in no state
to measure up to the German navy … Kronstadt [the
naval fortress blocking maritime access to Petersburg] will not save the
capital from bombardment.” 20
Among the civilian ministers, after the council meeting Petr Bark
expressed his fears privately to his “patron,” Krivoshein: “All the advantages
arising out of a superiority in armaments were on Germany’s side and we were
obviously running serious risks.” Perhaps most striking is the silence of
Nikolai Maklakov, who as minister of internal affairs
was responsible for defending the regime from revolution. He was not requested
to speak at the meeting of July 24.
Yet tensions between Maklakov and Krivoshein
became so acute during a meeting of the council later that week that a duel
nearly resulted. When General Serge Dobrorolsky
visited Maklakov on July 29 to collect his signature
on the orders for mobilization, he found the minister sitting in his office,
which contained so many icons that it appeared more like a chapel than a
government bureau. Maklakov spoke to Dobrorolsky about how greatly the revolutionaries would
welcome war, adding that “in Russia war cannot be popular with the mass of the
people and revolutionary ideas are dearer to the masses than a victory over
Germany. But one cannot escape one’s fate.” Nikolai Maklakov’s
own fate was to be one of the first former tsarist high officials to be shot by
the Bolsheviks, meeting his death with great courage. His brother and old
political opponent Vasili, a leading liberal
politician, subsequently took Nikolai’s children into his own home. 21
After the meeting of the Council of Ministers, Sazonov
met the Serbian minister, Miroslav Spalajković. The
message that Russia urged the greatest possible Petersburg went via Vienna and
that many of them were now being delayed or deliberately scrambled.
At eight o’clock on the following morning, Prime Minister Pašić, having returned to Belgrade shortly before, arrived
at the Russian legation. His view was that Serbia could neither accept nor
reject the ultimatum but must above all else try to gain time to allow the
great powers to intervene. 22
Whatever Petersburg’s advice, it seems unlikely that the Serbs would
simply have accepted the ultimatum in toto. In that case, Vienna would almost
certainly have rejected the Serbian response anyway and gone to war. It is in
any case naive to think that if the Serbs had simply accepted the ultimatum,
the crisis would have been resolved. On the contrary, to actually implement the
Austrian demands would have been extremely difficult and would have provided a
vast potential for conflict. One can imagine many different scenarios as
regards the impact on great-power relations of Austro-Serb disputes about how
to execute the terms of the ultimatum. For example, Italy’s advice to the Serbs
was that they should accept the ultimatum totally in order to gain time.
Vienna’s success would only be temporary because the great powers, with Italy
in the lead, would never accept the destruction of Serbian independence or of
the status quo in the Balkan Peninsula. It was of course precisely to avoid
this scenario that the Austrians were determined to destroy Serbia quickly
through war and present Europe with a fait accompli.
23
At eleven in the morning of July 25, Nicholas II chaired a meeting of
ministers to confirm and supplement the previous day’s recommendations of the
council. Of the civilian ministers, only Sazonov, Goremykin, Krivoshein, and Bark were invited, which says
something fundamental about whose opinions counted at this crucial moment. The
meeting occurred at Krasnoe Selo,
a short journey south of the capital by train, because this was where the
summertime manoeuvres and parades of the Guards and
the other troops of the Petersburg Military District took place. At this time
of year, the emperor lived in his summer palace at Peterhof
on the shores of the Gulf of Finland but traveled every day to Krasnoe Selo to inspect his
troops.
The meeting of July 25 confirmed the decisions of the previous day’s
Council of Ministers: Russia would the great powers should ask Austria to give
them time to review the dossier of evidence that had accompanied the ultimatum;
if Serbia considered resistance to be hopeless, then it should entrust its fate
to the great powers; if circumstances subsequently required, then the
mobilization of the four military districts facing Austria (Kiev, Odessa,
Moscow, Kazan) should be ordered; meanwhile, the minister of war should make
sure that the army’s supplies, plans, and equipment were ready for
mobilization. As regards the last point, the emperor formalized procedures by
ordering that the period preparatory to war come into effect from July 26.24
Most historians who study the crisis focus on diplomacy and end their
story with the outbreak of war. The soldiers are generally seen as an obstacle
to peace. Military plans and hopes for a rapid victory also failed, which
further encourages the historian to dismiss them. To understand the outbreak of
war, however, one needs to grasp why the military leaders thought and acted as
they did in July 1914.
One way to do this is to show how subsequent military operations
justified many of their concerns in the days running up to the outbreak of war.
The Russian military leaders were caught between the slowness of their
mobilization when compared with their enemies’ and the urgent need to intervene
quickly enough to stop the Germans from crushing France and winning the war.
The foolish promise in 1911 of the then chief of the General Staff, Iakov Zhilinsky, that the
Russians would attack Germany after the fifteenth day of mobilization tightened
the screw. The disaster that befell General Aleksandr Samsonov’s
Second Army at Tannenberg in August 1914 owed much to the fact that he advanced
without one-fifth of his infantry and without part of his cavalry
reconnaissance forces and his logistical tail. The leading Western historian of
the campaign comments, for example, that Samsonov’s
XIII Corps was destroyed partly because it went into the battle “half-blind”
for lack of its cavalry. 25
The story of Austrian and Russian perspectives on the Habsburg forces’
campaign against Serbia is even more relevant to what was happening in July
1914. Noting the deployment of six Austrian corps against Serbia during the
Bosnian crisis of 1908– 9, General Sukhomlinov told
the French military attaché that “Serbia is a trump card which it is important
to preserve for later.” The Serbian army’s remarkable performance in the Balkan
Wars and its subsequent growth along with Serbia’s population and territory
made this “trump card” more valuable than ever. Not surprisingly, a key Russian
staff conference in November 1912 underlined the crucial importance of not
allowing the Austrians to defeat Serbia and then turn on Russia with their
whole army. To achieve this end, the conference resolved that, first, Russia
must not “delay the moment of the announcement of mobilization, so that this
can be carried out more or less simultaneously with the enemy and, second, we
must tie the declaration of war to the calculation that the operations of the
Russian armed forces should be fully under way at a time when Austria has still
not finished its struggle with Serbia.” In July 1914, military priorities had a
big impact on Russian policy: rather than risk the extinction of its Serb and
French allies, Russia felt obliged to hurry forward with its military
preparations, thereby making war more likely to happen. 26
From the moment that the first information about Austrian deployments on
the southern front came into Petersburg on July 24, the Russian military
leadership was determined not to be left behind.
Austria’s planning had divided its army into three sections: one to
fight Serbia, another to hold the Galician front against Russia, and a third to
be committed initially against either Serbia or Russia according to
circumstances. Obsessed by the objective of crushing Serbia, Conrad von Hötzendorff, the Austrian chief of the General Staff,
initially sent the third echelon southward, only then to have to recall it at
the last moment and redirect it against the rapidly growing threat on the
Russian front. In the absence of these reinforcements, the Austrian offensive
against Serbia failed. But the combination of last-minute improvisation and an
inadequate railway network meant that this third echelon of reinforcements then
did not reach Galicia in time for the early battles with the Russians. In
essence, Conrad’s incompetence had wrecked Austrian offensive capability almost
before the war had begun. This contributed greatly to devastating losses and a
major defeat for the Habsburg armies. If the initial plans of the Russian chief
of staff on the southern front, Mikhail Alekseev, had not been watered down by
Petersburg, the Russians might actually have destroyed the Austrian forces on
the eastern front in the autumn of 1914, which would have had enormous
implications for the war’s outcome, tearing the Central Powers’ southeastern
front wide open at a time when German forces were entirely committed elsewhere.
27
The Russian period preparatory to war was the product of the Bosnian
crisis, owing something to warnings from the military attaché in Berlin,
Colonel Mikhelson, that “the preparedness for
mobilization of the German army is so great that we cannot count on knowing in
time that mobilization is under way,” a point he illustrated with reference to
the entirely undetected preliminary warnings that had gone out to commanders of
German military districts during the recent Moroccan crisis. Although the law
on the preparatory period was only finally confirmed in March 1913, that was
not because of disagreements as to its essence but just another episode in the
struggle between Kokovtsov and Sukhomlinov
over funding the army. The law’s preamble stated its core aim, which was to use
a period of diplomatic crisis that put peace at serious risk in order to take
all preliminary measures to ensure that any subsequent mobilization and
concentration of military forces went smoothly. Above all, this meant ensuring
that personnel, equipment, and supplies were in place and adequate when the
orders for mobilization arrived. A limited recall of reservists in the frontier
districts was allowed, above all to provide a military screen near the border
behind which the Russian armies could concentrate and deploy. 28
In the context of the July 1914 crisis, too much significance should not
be ascribed to the arrangements authorized for the period preparatory to war,
especially as regards the recall of reserves. This mattered on the
Russo-Austrian front because the Russians were worried at the prospect of an
early Austrian offensive, which would disrupt the concentration and deployment
of the Russian forces. Creating a thick screen to stop the Austrians seemed
vital. But this was barely an issue on the Russo-German front. In fact, the
long delay before Russian forces could advance into Germany was owed to the
time it would take to recall reservists in the much larger military districts
of the Russian interior and then—above all— to move troops from the Russian
heartland to the border region. This was a matter of three weeks or more, and
no Russian advance could commence until these troops had arrived. The period
preparatory to war did not, however, allow either the recall of reservists in
the military districts of the interior or the movement of troops from these
districts to the border. It is true that the chief of the General Staff,
Nikolai Ianushkevich, told his subordinates that
where necessary they could go beyond the strict letter of the law, but there
was no way in which this could affect the recall of reservists in the military
districts of the interior. The only way in which this could be done was to
paste up the red mobilization posters across the length and breadth of the
Russian interior, including Petersburg and Moscow. No one has suggested that
this was done during the period preparatory to war in July 1914. In fact, as
late as 4 p.m. on July 29 the German General staff itself reported that no
significant number of reservists had yet been recalled in the Vilna or
Petersburg districts, a statement that further undermines the argument that the
measures taken by Russia under the terms of the period preparatory to war
played a suficient role in alarming Berlin or
bringing on the conflict. 29
Contrary to McMeekin’s suggestion there is no evidence in the Russian
archives of any unusual troop movements from the interior to the western
frontier region. In the orders distributed to commanders from the chief of the
General Staff on July 25, 1914, top priority was given to getting units back to
their depots from their summer camps. 30
The period preparatory to war came into force early on July 26. For the
following two days, Sazonov’s moods ebbed and flowed,
but the overall situation further darkened. Vienna accompanied its rejection of
the Serbian response to the ultimatum with mobilization against Serbia on July
25 and a declaration of war on July 28. It opened hostilities on the next day
by bombarding Belgrade. Austrian determination to destroy Serbia before the
other great powers could intervene was clear. No outsider could know just how
lethargic and incompetent Vienna was to be in mounting its onslaught on Serbia
and deploying its armies in Galicia. The Russian military leadership was
influenced by its memories of large-scale, secret Austrian mobilization and
deployment in Galicia in the winter of 1912– 13. As is always likely to happen
at moments of crisis, Russian military intelligence rather overestimated the
scale of the initial Austrian mobilization in July 1914, which aroused all its
traditional fears of being preempted by an Austrian attack from Galicia. These
fears were not illusory. Despite the great delays caused by Conrad von Hötzendorff’s incompetence, the Russian Guards Corps and
Third Caucasian Corps arrived only just in time to keep the Austrians out of
the vital railway hub at Lublin.31The two key agents within the Austrian army
whom the Russians had used in 1913 were both gone. In any case, unlike in 1912–
13, the crisis unfolded far too quickly for the Russians to get accurate
information from agents in Austria. Nor could Petersburg obtain any help from
Berlin: all Russian attempts to get Germany to intervene to slow the Austrian
plunge into war were met with claims that the conflict must be localized— in
other words, Russia had to leave Serbia to its fate.
Assurances that Vienna’s occupation of Serbian territory would only be
temporary were of no comfort; as Baron Schilling commented, the Austrians had
occupied Bosnia for thirty years before annexing it. An additional worry was
that a victorious Austria could easily decide to bribe Bulgaria with Serbian
territory, thereby winning over Sofia for the Central Powers. Austrian
treatment of Serbia would be a strong warning to Romania that irredentist
agitation had its risks and Russian protection was a chimera. Meanwhile, the
Young Turk leaders in Constantinople would be confirmed in their existing view
that Germany and its allies were the most powerful force in Europe and that
Turkey must seek their protection. Russian diplomats in the Balkans and
Constantinople made all these points. Faced with this threat, the Russian
government, not surprisingly, responded to Austria’s declaration of war on
Serbia with an order to mobilize the four military districts facing the
Habsburg monarchy. In this era of armed diplomacy, what other means did Russia
have to show serious intent to Germany and Austria? In so doing, however, the
Russians moved much further down the slippery slope that led from rival
military preparations to actual war. 32
The crisis reached its denouement on July 30 and 31 as two contradictory
currents collided. On the one hand, the rival military leaderships began to
exert ever greater influence as war seemed increasingly near and probable. On
the other hand, from the night of July 29– 30 Berlin at last began to exert
pressure on Vienna to accept mediation and halt its invasion of Serbia after
occupying Belgrade as a gauge that Serbia would honour
its commitments. A number of factors were involved here. Italy had made clear
its refusal to support its German and Austrian allies. Russia’s partial
mobilization alerted the Germans to the fact that it would almost certainly be
impossible to localize any Austro-Serb conflict. In itself, that would not have
deterred Germany, most of whose leaders were fully willing to face a war with
France and Russia. But that war had to be presented to the German people as
defensive, and British intervention was greatly feared, at least by most of the
civilian leadership. Late in the evening of July 29, dawning awareness that
British neutrality could not be relied on was confirmed by a telegram from
Prince Lichnowsky, the ambassador in London, passing
on Sir Edward Grey’s warning that although Britain was little concerned about
the fate of Serbia or even Russia, if Germany went to war with France, then the
British were unlikely to stand aside. Berlin’s response to the threat of
British intervention supports Sazonov’s belief that
London held much the best chance of deterring Berlin from aggression. 33
The former German foreign secretary Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter
had the useful habit of stating bluntly realities that other diplomats
expressed in euphemisms. Shortly before his death in 1912, he told the Austrian
ambassador in Berlin that “in a great European war that blew up as a result of
a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia, it would not be hard for Germany
in alliance with Austria-Hungary to squash Russia and France, but if a third
enemy of England’s power was added, then the chances of success would be very
questionable.” By the time that Bethmann Hollweg had
understood the reality of Britain’s probable intervention, it was, however,
already too late. Reining in Vienna at this stage would be very difficult. And
in any case, the German military leadership with its very narrow operational
perspectives was always less worried about the threat of British intervention
in a European war than were the diplomats or the navy. Even as Bethmann Hollweg began to suggest moderation to Vienna, the
chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, was urging the Austrians
forward and calling for mobilization against Russia. 34
Yet unlike in the German case, Austrian and Russian planning did not
require that mobilization lead inexorably to war without any possibility of a
pause. Looked at from Berlin, however, the Russian situation seemed confusing
and ominous: reports poured in of troop movements as four districts were
mobilized, some troops moved up to the frontier to screen mobilization, and
many units still scrambled to get back to their depots from summer camps. In
reality, things were not as alarming as they seemed to the Germans. So long as
the Petersburg and Warsaw military districts were not mobilized, Russian
preparations for war against Germany could not get very far. Both these
military districts faced special problems. Mobilizing the Guards Corps in the
Petersburg Military District meant drawing in reserves from the length and breadth
of the empire. The situation in the Warsaw Military District was most
complicated of all because in this case three fronts needed to be formed, with
Russian armies deploying to invade Galicia in the south, Silesia in the west,
and East Prussia in the north. Partial mobilization against Austria alone would
throw the Warsaw Military District’s plans into chaos. As we shall see, in part
for this very reason, the Russian leadership at this point was locked in a
debate as to whether the mobilization already ordered against Austria would
wreck subsequent military preparations for a war against Germany. If the
generals were correct, then, ironically, the German General Staff should have
welcomed Russia’s partial mobilization and waited for the moment when the last-minute
improvisations it required had the same chaotic effects on Russian movements as
Conrad von Hötzendorff’s bungling caused in Austria.
35
Of course such judgments have nothing to do with the only reality
visible from Berlin by July 29, which was that major Russian military
preparations were under way. Amid the speed and confusion of developments, it
is not sinister or even surprising that military observers in Berlin played
down the fact that the three Russian military districts facing Germany had still
not mobilized by midday on July 30. All judgments about the actions of
statesmen and soldiers in these days have to take into account the fact that
they were operating under extreme pressure, with very imperfect information and
often with minimal sleep. But to blame this climate of fear and confusion on
the Russians makes no sense. On the contrary, it was the inevitable result of
an Austro-German strategy that called for immediate and rapid war against
Serbia, partly deluded itself into believing that this was achievable without
Russian and French intervention, and fobbed off all attempts by entente
diplomacy to gain sufficient time to negotiate and avoid catastrophe until it
was too late. By the time that Berlin perhaps opened a small window of opportunity
on July 30, Germany and Austria had done everything possible to persuade the
Russian leadership that the Central Powers were bent on war and that conflict
was unavoidable. In Petersburg, much of the drama of July 30 and 31 revolved
around whether Russia should stick to just a partial mobilization against
Austria or should on the contrary mobilize all its forces. No one in the
Russian leadership believed that Germany would remain passive if Russia
mobilized all its military districts. The Russian army could stand fully
mobilized and concentrated on the empire’s borders for weeks. On the contrary,
the Schlieffen Plan— Germany’s only war plan— had boxed Berlin into the
necessity of declaring war and invading Belgium and Luxembourg almost the
moment that mobilization was proclaimed as the first stage in delivering a
knockout blow to France. Because Serge Sazonov did
not fully grasp the realities even of Russian mobilization, he might not have
completely understood the “logic” of German military planning.
But by the afternoon of July 29, Sazonov and
his key advisers in the Foreign Ministry had come to the conclusion that war
could no longer be avoided. Austria was seen—correctly— as hell-bent on
attacking Serbia. Berlin had done nothing to stop it and seemed from the
Russian perspective even to be egging it on. Meanwhile, the German ambassador
in Petersburg, Count Pourtalès, had just delivered to
Sazonov his government’s demand that unless Russia
ceased its military preparations, German mobilization and war must follow. In
their shoes, I too would have decided that war could not be avoided. 36
This issue was so urgent for Sazonov and his
advisers because the Russian military leadership was now emphasizing that any
partial mobilization against Austria would disrupt what it saw as the
inevitable general mobilization that must follow shortly. The chief of the
General Staff, Nikolai Ianushkevich, had failed to
make this point when the Council of Ministers had initially supported the idea
of partial mobilization on July 24 in order to warn Austria of Russia’s
determination to support Serbia without directly threatening Germany. New in
the job, he lacked either the knowledge or the strength of will to stand up
against Sazonov’s use of military measures for
largely diplomatic purposes. The head of the Mobilization Section of the
General Staff, General Serge Dobrorolsky, immediately
protested, but by then Ianushkevich had already
committed himself to supporting Sazonov’s strategy.
37
What had been a merely theoretical proposition on July 24 became a
reality with the decision to mobilize the four military districts facing
Austria on July 28. By then too, the quartermaster general, Yuri Danilov, had
returned from leave, and he was far more forceful and better informed than Ianushkevich in arguing that partial mobilization would be
fatal. Whether he was correct is difficult to judge at this distance, but there
is no reason to doubt that the generals were entirely sincere in their
conviction that partial mobilization would lead to disaster. In Russia, as
elsewhere at that time, the army’s leadership monopolized expertise on all
military questions. On the other side, urging the case against general
mobilization, was Ivan Goremykin, the chairman of the
Council of Ministers, who had a meeting with Nicholas II on the morning of July
29. But even the retired ambassador Roman Rosen, who was lobbying furiously
against general mobilization, believed that by July 29 the chances for peace
were very slim. 38
In the afternoon of July 29, Nicholas II agreed to the pleas of his key
military and civilian advisers and sanctioned general mobilization, only to
reverse his decision at the last minute that evening after receiving what
appeared to be a glimmer of hope for peace in the form of a telegram from his
cousin William II in Berlin. “In extreme agitation,” the emperor insisted that
“everything possible must be done to save the peace. I will not become
responsible for a monstrous slaughter.” At eleven in the morning of July 30, Sazonov, Krivoshein, the minister of agriculture, and Ianushkevich conferred; Ianushkevich
and Sukhomlinov, the minister of war, subsequently
attempted on the telephone to persuade the emperor to return to general
mobilization, but to no avail. There is no reason to accuse the civilian or
military leaders of warmongering: they were genuinely terrified that delay, let
alone the continuation of partial mobilization, might do Russia fatal damage in
a war they now considered to be inevitable. The ministers even co-opted Mikhail
Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, to write a
memorandum for Nicholas II urging the need for general mobilization.
Nicholas was faced by the united pressure not just of his generals but
also of the Foreign Ministry, the de facto head of the domestic government, and
the spokesman of the Duma and public opinion. In many ways, the surprise is
that the emperor held out on his own for so long. 39
Only after Sazonov went to the Peterhof palace and spoke to Nicholas for an hour from
three o’clock in the afternoon of July 30 did the monarch finally give way,
accompanying his surrender with the words “This means to send hundreds of
thousands of Russian men to their deaths.” A member of Nicholas’s household
recalled the emperor’s appearance as the crisis reached its denouement: “I was
struck by his very exhausted appearance: the features of his face had changed,
and the small bags that appeared under his eyes when he was tired seemed far
bigger.” As war grew ever nearer, the empress Alexandra and her daughters spent
much of their time in church, praying for peace. In the hours before the German
declaration of war on Russia (August 1), Nicholas joined them: “In church he
prayed very hard that God would spare his people this war, which seemed so
close and unavoidable.” By then, a miracle was indeed the only possible source
of hope. 40
In German propaganda and sometimes in the works of historians, the fact
that Russia was first to authorize general mobilization is used as an argument
for pinning responsibility on Petersburg for the outbreak of war. At the time,
this was an important means for the German government to disclaim
responsibility before its own people and particularly before German socialists.
In so doing, it could play on the revulsion of left-wing elements in the
country for the tsarist regime and on an older and deeper current of fear in
German culture about the threat of Russia’s barbarian hordes. Subsequently,
blaming Russia was a useful element in German rejection of the war-guilt
clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.
Yet there is a little truth in this accusation. By July 30 and 31, the
only way to avoid war would have been for Chancellor Bethmann
Hollweg to force the Austrians to accept the British proposal for mediation.
Given the mood in Vienna, this could have been achieved only by a direct,
sustained, and credible threat by the chancellor to abandon Austria should it
ignore German advice. In reality, German pressure on Austria during these two
days never amounted to this. The impact of Bethmann
Hollweg’s advice to the Austrians was also being undermined both by the German
ambassador to Vienna, Tschirschky, and by Moltke’s
plea to the Austrian leadership to ignore the chancellor and plunge ahead into
war. Had Bethmann Hollweg committed himself to
threatening the Austrians directly, it is by no means certain that the
mercurial William II would have supported him throughout the resultant furor.
The Austrians would have been justifiably outraged by what would have been a
betrayal of the German promise of unlimited support on which their whole
strategy in July 1914 had been based. If William had supported Bethmann Hollweg, then both men would have been execrated
for their weakness by most of the civilian and military leadership in Berlin,
not to mention by much of German public opinion. The Russian general
mobilization actually got Bethmann Hollweg off the
hook and allowed him to present the conflict to the German public as a war of
defense against aggressive tsarism. Inevitably, Russia’s mobilization was
quickly met by a German ultimatum, followed on August 1 by a declaration of war
against Russia. Because German military planning took for granted the fact that
France and Russia would fight together in all circumstances and aimed at rapid
victory over the French, the declaration of war on France and the invasion of
Belgium followed immediately. On August 4, to the surprise of many Russians and
the vast relief of Sazonov, Britain joined the
conflict. 41
If one concentrates on the July crisis, then responsibility for the
outbreak of war rests overwhelmingly on the shoulders of Berlin and Vienna.
German policy accepted enormous risks and made fundamental miscalculations, and
nevertheless as these risks and miscalculations became clear between July 29
and July 31, it chose to plunge forward into war. It is true that even by July
29 diplomacy was becoming increasingly entangled by military preparations for
war. Even in this respect, Germany was most at fault. Only there did mobilization
require immediate declarations of war and the crossing of international
borders.
1 . Newspaper Novoe Vremia,
no. 13743, June 17/ 30, 1914, p. 4.
2 . Including crucially and tragically the case of the Armenians and of
Russo-Turkish relations; on this, see M. Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The
Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908– 1918 (Cambridge,
U.K., 2011), chaps. 2 and 3.
3 . A key text here
is Bachmann, Ein Herd der Feindschaft gegen Russland,
esp. pp. 57– 58, 66– 95. The Russian Foreign Ministry archive also contains
many examples of Russian complaints and of their detailed knowledge about PPS
activities and links to the Austrian General Staff; see, for example, Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (Archive of the Russian Empire’s Foreign Policy) in
Moscow (henceforth AVPRI), Fond 151. See list of other abbreviations below, Opis 482, Delo 3717, listy 33ff., Minister of Internal Affairs Makarov to Kokovtsov, Oct. 18, 1912 (OS).
4 . Shebeko to Sazonov
covering a report by Gagarin to Shebeko, July 3/ 16,
1914, nos. 247 and 248, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, pp. 298– 311. AVPRI, Fond
813, Opis 1, Delo 445, Shebeko to Schilling, March 27/ April 9 and June 25/ July
9, 1914, listy 116 and 119, on the failings of
Russian consuls in general and of the consulate in Sarajevo in particular.
5 . Shebeko to Sazonov,
July 2/ 15, 1914, no. 236, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, pp. 283– 84.
6 . Protocol of the Common Ministerial Council, Oct. 3, 1913, no. 8779,
in OUA, vol. 7, pp. 397– 403; Matschenko Memorandum,
n.d., no. 9918, in OUA, vol. 8, pp. 186– 95.
7. For a narrative of the Hoyos mission, and
I. Geiss, ed., July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: Selected
Documents (New York, 1967), pp. 54– 88.
8 . Bethmann Hollweg to Berchtold,
Feb. 10, 1913, no. 12818, in GP, vol. 34, pp. 346– 48. Konrad H. Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann
Hollweg and the Hllbris of Imperial Germany.Enigmatic Chancellor, 1973.
9 . Benckendorff to Sazonov,
June 26/ July 9, 1914, no. 146, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, pp. 188– 93.
10 . Shebeko to Sazonov,
July 3/ 16, 1914, no. 247, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, p. 298. This was not the
first time that Lützow had expressed such fears to
foreign observers; see Svatkovsky’s report of Dec.
24, 1913/ Jan. 6, 1914, in AVPRI, Fond 138, Opis 467,
Delo 745, list 5. Schebeko,
Souvenirs, p. 213.
11 . Schilling’s daily record is published in English in full as How the
War Began in 1914: Being the Diary of the Russian Foreign Office from the 3rd
to the 20th (Old Style) of July 1914 (London, 1925), with Schilling himself
writing an introduction. In this case Daily Record, July 3/ 16, 1914, no. 245,
in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, pp. 296– 97; Daily Record, July 5/ 18, 1914, no.
272, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 4, p. 329; Sazonov to Shebeko, July 9/ 22, 1914, no. 322, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol.
4, p. 381. On Italian warnings about credibility, see, for example, Krupensky to Sazonov, July 11/
24, 1914, no. 27, July 13/ 26, 1914, no. 95, and July 17/ 30, 1914, no. 297, in
MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 5, pp. 49, 124, 266– 67.
12 . The ultimatum and its supporting dossier of documents are Berchtold to Giesl, July 20,
1914, no. 10395, and Berchtold to Austrian missions,
July 25, 1914, no. 10654, in OUA, vol. 8, pp. 665– 704. Vasili
Strandman, the chargé d’affaires
in Belgrade, writes that his own telegram summarizing the terms of the
ultimatum was delayed by the Austrians and only arrived in Petersburg after Sazonov’s meeting with Szapáry:
CUBA, Sviatopolk-Mirsky Collection, Balkan
Reminiscences, p. 367.
13 . J. E. Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse
of Empire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914– 1918 (Cambridge, U.K., 2009), is a
fascinating account of just how radical (and reactionary) were the Habsburg
army’s intentions when it came to the eradication of Serbian national
consciousness.
14 . P. Bark, Memoirs, chap. 7, pp. 1– 3, 25– 26, Bark Collection, CUBA.
15 . Ibid., pp. 1– 6. CUBA, Benckendorff
Collection, box 19, Paul to Alexander Benckendorff,
July 28/ Aug. 10, 1914. A. Nekliudoff, Diplomatic
Reminiscences (London: John Murray, 1920), pp. 298– 99.
16 . Buchanan to Grey, July 24, 1914, no. 101, in BD, vol. 11, pp.
17 . Bark, Memoirs, chap. 7, pp. 7– 13.
18 . Ibid., pp. 13– 16.
19 . Ibid., pp. 17– 21.
20 . Basily, Memoirs, p. 91. V. Sukhomlinov, Vospominaniia
(Berlin, 1924), pp. 284– 86. S. Dobrorolsky, “La mobilisation de l’armée russe
en 1914,” Revue d’Histoire de la Guerre Mondiale 1 (1923), pp. 53– 69.
21 . P. Bark, Memoirs, Bark Collection, CUBA, chap. 7, p. 22. S. Dobrorolsky, Mobilizatsiia russkoi armii v 1914 godu (Moscow, 1929), pp. 147– 49.
22 . Vasilij Štrandman
[Basil deStrandman], Balkanske.
Uspomene [Balkan Reminiscences], pp. 349– 50, 357–
61.
23 . Krupensky to Sazonov,
July 13/ 26, 1914, no. 95, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 5, p. 124.
24 . On Nicholas’s movements and the makeup of the meeting on July 25,
see the Kamer-furerskii zhurnal
for that day: GARF, Fond 601, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 1594, listy 71ff. For the
resolutions of the meeting of July 24, see no. 19, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 5,
pp. 38– 40. For the introduction of the period preparatory to war, see July 12/
25, 1914, no. 42, in MOEI, pp. 59– 60.
25 . On XIII Corps but also on the Russian sacrifice of safety to speed
in general, see Menning, Bayonets Before Bullets, pp.
231, 243– 45. Zaionchkovsky, Podgotovka,
pp. 279, 311– 14. A. Kersnovsky, Istoriia
russkoi armii, 3 vols.
(Belgrade, 1935), vol. 3, pp. 624– 25.
26 . MDSH, carton 7N 1535, “Armée russe: Renseignements
généraux, 1910– 1914,” no. 44, Matton
report, June 13/ 26, 1909, p. 3; A.M. Zaionchkovskii,
Podgotovka Rossii k mirovoi voine (Moscow: Shtab. RKKA, 1926), pp. 271ff.
27 . Menning, “War Planning and Initial
Operations in the Russian Context.” The first report on Austrian troops’
deployment to the southern border came from Consul General Priklonsky
in Budapest on July 24: Priklonsky to Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, July 11/ 24, 1914, no. 34, in MOEI, 3rd ser., p. 53. On the eastern
front, see Stone, Eastern Front, and M.
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers: Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste
Weltkrieg (Graz, 1994). On Alekseev, see the memoirs and other documents
edited by his family: V. Alekseeva-Borel, Sorok let v riadakh russkoi imperatorskoi armii: General M. V. Alekseev (Moscow, 2000).
28 . AVPRI, Fond 133, Opis 470, Delo 14, listy 67– 69, Mikhelson to Osten-Sacken, Nov.
14/ 27, 1908. AVPRI, Fond 138, Opis 467, Ed. Khr. 303/ 306, listy 2ff., has a
covering letter from Sukhomlinov to Sazonov, dated May 2, 1912 (OS), explaining the history of
this legislation and then a copy of the law itself. McMeekin, Russian Origins
of the First World War, chap. 2, greatly exaggerates the significance of the
preparatory period.
29 . For a published copy of the law, see CGS to Foreign Ministry, July
12/ 25, 1914, no. 80, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol. 5, pp. 97ff. The French General
Staff’s reports on Russian mobilization are very useful: MDSH, carton 7N 1535,
June 1912, report by Captain Wehrlin, “Les caractéristiques de l’armée
russe,” pp. 1– 21, which is about the mobilization and concentration of the
Russian army. See also, for example, the 1913 “Notice statistique
sur l’armée russe”; the section on mobilization is on
pp. 47ff. Apart from analyses like the two mentioned that were prepared within
the General Staff, the reports of French officers attached to Russian units
also often contained valuable information about mobilization. The estimate for
the Vilna District’s reservists comes, for example, from a report by Captain Perchenet, who spent six months in the district in 1912:
“Rapport du Capitaine Perchenet à la suite du stage
accompli dans la circonscription de Vilna d’avril à octobre 1912,” section
on mobilization, pp. 1– 5. On the German General Staff report of July 29 see
page 293 of Anscar Jansen, Der weg
in den ersten weltkrieg
(Marburg, 2005).
30 . Ianushkevich’s orders to commanders are
in Journal of the General Staff Committee, July 12/ 25, 1914, no. 79, in MOEI,
3rd ser., vol. 5, pp. 95– 96. On the absence of troop movements see Enteni Geivud (Anthony Heywood),
“Iiul’ 1914– 90: Sekretnaia
mobilizatsiia’ v. Rossii,”
Rodina, 8, 2014, pp. 24– 25.
31
. On Lublin, see O.R. Airapetov,
Uchastie Rossiiskoi Imperii v Pervoi Mirovoi Voine (1914- 1917): 2014 ,
vol. 1, p. 128.
32 . Schilling, How the War Began in 1914: Being the Diary of the
Russian Foreign Office from the 3rd to the 20th (Old Style) of July 1914
(London, 1925), with Schilling himself writing an introduction. MOEI, 3rd ser.,
vol. 5, reproduces the record in separate daily extracts. It is a good source
on Russian perspectives on the crisis and was not “doctored”; see nos. 25, 51,
121, 172, 224, 284, 349, 396, pp. 45– 48, 67, 146, 182, 212– 15, 256– 58, 294,
326– 28. Schilling’s comment on the “temporary” occupation of Bosnia is in no.
121, July 14/ 27, 1914, p. 146. The opinions of Russia’s representatives in
Constantinople and Sofia are of particular interest: M. N. Giers
to Sazonov, July 14/ 27, 1914, no. 154, pp. 168– 69,
and Savinsky to Sazonov,
July 16/ 29, 1914, no. 251, pp. 233– 34.
33 . Lichnowsky’s telegram to Jagow and Bethmann Hollweg’s
subsequent telegram to Tschirschky calling for
moderation in Vienna are nos. 130 and 133 in Geiss, July 1914, pp. 288–90, 291–
92.
34 . Kiderlen’s words are from Szyogeny to Berchtold, Jan. 15,
1913, no. 5392, in OUA, vol. 5, pp. 454– 55.
35 . Once again, the French sources on Russian mobilization are
invaluable; see, for example, Wehrlin, “Les caractéristiques de l’armée
russe,” June 1912, pp. 1– 21.
36 . Daily Record, July 16/ 29, 1914, no. 224, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol.
5, pp. 212– 15; Behrens to CNGS, July 13/ 26, 1914, no. 99, in MOEI, 3rd ser.,
vol. 5, pp. 128– 30. Marina Soroka, Britain, Russia
and the Road to the First World War: The Fateful Embassy of Count Aleksandr Benckendorff (1903-16) , (Cambridge, U.K., 2014), pp. 167–
98, esp. pp. 180– 97, pp. 251– 52.
37 . For Dobrorolsky’s view, see S. Dobrorolsky, “La Mobilisation de l'armée russe,” pp. 64– 68;
Dobrorolsky, Mobilizatsiia, pp. 5, 93– 95.
38 . Nicolas de Basily, Diplomat of Imperial
Russia, 1903-1917: Memoirs, 1973, p. 99, describes a discussion with Danilov on
July 30. Rosen, Forty Years of Diplomacy, vol. 2, pp. 163– 70. Rosen writes
that Goremykin met Nicholas on July 30, but the kamerfurerskii zhurnal gives the
date as July 29: GARF, Fond 601, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 1594, listy 71ff.
39 . Daily Record, July 17/ 30, 1914, no. 284, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol.
5, pp. 256– 58.
40 . Ibid.; Sazonov, Vospominaniia
(Rossiia v memuarakh diplomatov), 1991,p. 248. GARF, Fond 601, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 1594, listy 71ff. (kamerfurerskii zhurnal); P. Gilliard, Trinadtsat’
let pri tsarskom dvore (Paris, n.d.), p. 83.
41 . Daily Record, July 16/ 29, 1914, no. 224, in MOEI, 3rd ser., vol.
5, pp. 212– 15. Bethmann Hollweg to Pourtalès, July 29, 1914, no. 127, in Geiss, July 1914, p.
285. Albertini, Origins, vol. 3, pp. 28– 31.
List of Abrevations.
AAA: Arkhiv Akademii
Nauk (Archive of the Academy of Sciences), St.
Petersburg.
AVPRI: Arkhiv vneshnei
politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (Archive of the Russian Empire’s Foreign Policy),
Moscow.
BD: British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898– 1914, ed. G. H.
Gooch and H. V. Temperley, 11 vols. (London,
1926–38).
CUBA: Columbia University Bakhmeteff Archive,
New York.
GARF: Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Rossiiskoi Federatsii
(State Archive of the Russian Federation), Moscow.
GP: Die grosse Politik der europäischen Kabinette, 1871– 1914, ed. J. Lepsius et al., 40 vols.
(Berlin, 1922– 27).
KA: Krasnyi
Arkhiv (Moscow, 1922– 40).
MDSH:
Ministère de Défense, Service Historique (French Military Archive), Paris.
ME:
Moskovskii Ezhenedel’nik (Moscow, 1906– 10).
MOEI:
Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia v epokhu imperializma, 2nd and 3rd ser. (Moscow, 1931– 40).
NA: National Archives, Kew, London.
OUA: Österreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise bis zum
Kriegsausbruch 1914, ed. L. Bittner and H. Uebersberger, 9 vols. (Vienna,
1930).
RGAVMF:
Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv voenno-morskogo flota (Russian State Naval Archive), St. Petersburg.
RGB OR: Rossiiskaia natsional’naia
biblioteka, Otdel rukopisei (Russian National Library, Manuscripts Section),
Moscow.
RGIA: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi
istoricheskii arkhiv
(Russian State Historical Archive), St. Petersburg.
RGVIA: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi
voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv
(Russian State Military-Historical Archive), Moscow.
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