The Ottoman Turks
It is one of history's little jokes, surely, that Turkey and the Ottoman Empire that it ruled had no part to play in the July crisis that brought the Great War. For this crisis could never have unfolded as it did if not for the profound impact that the empire of the Turks had had on the development of Eastern Europe. And no one would be affected by the war itself more profoundly than the Turks and the many peoples who, century after century, had been their unhappy subjects.
And with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, was the only reason the Hapsburg where in Bosnia at all, and there could have been no Kingdom of Serbia. There would have been no power vacuum in the Balkans. Russia and Austria-Hungary could never have been pulled into vacuum or into such dangerous conflict with each other.
To go back further, without the rise of the Ottomans the whole bitter saga of the Balkans would have been unimaginably different. The Turks ruled the peninsula for 500 years, reaching at their height westward into Italy, northward into Austria, Hungaryy, and Russia, and all the way around the Black Sea. For a time they seemed destined to conquer the whole Eastern half of Europe, if not the entire continent. When the great war began their empire, while maintaining only a toehold in Europe proper, still extended across the Middle East to the Arabian Peninsula.
When the empire reached its pinnacle, its decline began, with the life of a single man, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent(also known as Suleiman the Lawmaker). He ruled from 1520 to 1566 and led the Ottomans to their zenith both culturally and geographically. He was 10 generations removed from the Turkish-Mongol Chieftain named Osman who founded the dynasty 300 years before and give it his name. In everyone of those 10 generations, in a unbroken sequence of achievements that no other family has ever approached, the Ottoman Turks were led by yet another dynamic, heroic, conquering figure. Generation after generation, starting where Osman had 1st emerged from obscurity in what is now Eastern Turkey and from there moving outward in all directions, the dynasty took control of more and more of the world around it. The Sultans forced their way into Europe for the 1st time in 1354, and 99 years later they captured Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire. From the on Constantinople was their home.
The Ottomans continued their expansion for another century after taking Constantinople, conquering among other places all of Eastern Europe, South of the Danube. Suleiman's father, Selin I, doubled the size of the empire by winning a single battle that made him the master of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria. The domain that he passed on to Suleiman included among its major cities, Alexandria, Algiers, Athens, Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Smyrna. The Ottomans had become not only the political and military masters of the Islamic world but also-what put their supremacy beyond challenge-the custodians of Mecca and Medina and the other holy places associated with the Prophet Muhammad.
As its power increased, the dynasty evolved into something that was not a family in any ordinary sense of the term, but a chain of fathers and sons who never married. Instead of taking wives, the Sultans kept scores and even 100's of women who were property rather than spouses. These women lived as prisoners in a harem. They were allowed no contact with men except for the rulers who owned them and an army of custodians, many of them black Africans whose sexual organs had been removed surgically.
Suleiman, a contemporary of Henry VIII of England, took this strange heritage to a peak of vitality. Like his forebears, he was a warrior, personally leading his army in 13 campaigns. He pushed deeper into Europe, capturing Belgrade and Budapest and completing the conquest of the Balkans. He besieged Vienna, the keystone of Central Europe, and would have captured it too if torrents of rain had not made it impossible for him to bring his heavy guns north.
Suleiman had some 300 concubines, as well as a promising young son and heir named Mustafa, when he was given a red-haired Russian girl named Ghowren, who came to be known as Roxelana. She came into his harem as part of his share of the booty from a slave gathering raid into what is now Poland, and she must have been a remarkable creature.(Not surprisingly, in light of the power she aquired in Constantinople, she eventually won a 2nd new name "the witch".) Almost from the day of her arrival, Suleiman never slept with another woman. Eventually and amazingly, he did something that no Sultan had done in centuries; he married. Their love story would have been one of the great ones if it hadn't eneded up taking the dynasty and the empire in such a sordid direction.
Mustafa gave every indication of developing into yet another mighty branch on the family tree. At an early age he showed himself a bold military leader adored by his troops, a capable provincial governor, and a popular hero. But he stood in the way of the son whom Roxelana had bourne to(presumably) Suleiman, and so he was doomed. Working her wiles, Roxelana persuaded Suleiman that Mustafa was plotting against him. (Even though he wasn't) With his father looking on, Mustafa was overpowered and strangled by 5 professional executioners who's tongues had been slit and eardrums broken so that they would hear no secrets and could never speak of what they saw. And when Suleiman died some years later, master of an empire of almost increduble size and power, he was succeeded by Roxelana's son, Selin II. Nothing was ever the same again.
Selin the Sot was short and fat and a drunk. He never saw a battlefield and died after 8 years on the throne by falling down and fracturing his skull in his marble bath. His son, Murad III, was also a drunk and an opium addict as well; during a reign of 20 years he sired 103 children and apparently did little else. His heir, Mahomet III, begin his reign by ordering all fo his many brothers, the youngest of them mere children, put to death, thereby introducing that custom into Ottoman royal culture. Having done so he followed his father in devoting the rest of his life to capulation. And so it went. Every Sultan from Roxelana's son forward was a monster of degeneracy or a repulsive weakling or both.
The abruptness and premanence of the change, the sharpness of the contrast between the murdered Mustafa and his half brother Selin II, has give rise to speculation that perhap's Roxelana's son was not Suleiman's son at all.
In the post-Suleiman empire, a new breed of craven Sultans came to live in terror of being overthrown by rivals from within the dynasty. Appalling new traditions emerged, to be observed whenever one of them died. All the women of the deceased Sultan would be moved to a distant place and kept in even deeper solitude for the rest of their miserable lives. Any one happened to be pregnant would be murdered and the younger brothers and half-brothers of the new monarch were murdered as well.
The rulers erected a windowless building called the Cage in which thier heirs were confined from early childhood until they died or were put to death or, having been taught nothing about anything, were released to take their turns on the throne. The result was as inevitable as it was monstrous; an empire ruled year after year and finally century after century by utterly ignorant, utterly incompetent, sometimes half-imbecilic, half-mad men, some of whom spent decades in the Cage before their release and all of whom, after their release, were free to do absolutely anything they wanted, no matter how vicious, for as long as they remained alive. They commonly indulged their freedom to kill or maim for any reason-for playing the wrong music or for smoking, for example- or for no reason at all.
Throughout the 3 1/2 centuries from the death of Suleiman until the Great War, only one Sultan displayed some of the fire and strength of the men who built the empire. This was Murad III, who reigned from 1623 to 1640. He became Sultan when he was only 10 years old- to young to have been incapacitated by the cage-and he grew into a man of immense courage and physical power. He was the 1st Sultan since Suleiman to be a soldier, leading his army into Persia, where he savagely put down an uprising. He was also even more insanely cruel than most Sultans. In just 1 year of his reign, 1637, some 25,000 of the empire's subjects were executed, many of them by Murad's own hand. He claimed the right to kill 10 innocent people per day, and occasionally he would sit on the wall of his palace shooting randomly at passersby. At night he would make incognito visits to the taverns of Constantinople, where anyone found smoking would be executed on the spot.
Almost uniquely among the Ottomans, Murad produced no children, and on his deathbed he ordered the death of his brother and heir, Ibrahim, who had been living in the Cage from the age of 2. This order was not obeyed, Ibrahim being the last living member of the dynasty, but from that point there were few further signs of vitality in the Ottoman line. Ibrahim devoted himself to building up a harem of 280 young women. The acting on a dubious report that one of these women had become romantically involved with a eunich, so Murad had all of them drowned.
So it was not surprising that the empire rotted from within under this kind of leadership. And became an inviting target. Young General Napoleon Bonaparte 1st showed Europe just how impotent the Ottomans had become when in 1798 he invaded and almost effortlessley conquered Egypt. But he was driven out of Egypt by the British, with no help from the Turks. From this point on, the survival of the Sultans and their decaying empire depended less on themselves than on the jealousies and rivalries of the European powers.
The Ottomans hung on through the 19th century and that was only because Britain and France kept Russia from finishing them off. Even so, the 100 years leading up to 1914 brought uninterrupted losing wars; with the empire's own Turkish satraps as they tried for autonomy in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere; with Arab Chieftans seeking independence; with Persia; with the Christian peoples of the Balkans; and-four times between 1806 and 1878 with Russia hungering for Constantinople.
In 1830 the French seized control of Algeria in North Africa. At about the same time the British began building a power base in Arabi and the Persian Gulf. In 1853 Russia, tempted by what appeared to be easy pickings, invaded the Ottoman provinces nsouth of the Danube. The Ottoman presence in Europe might have come to an end then if not for the Crimean War, in which Britain and France intervened to stop the Russians.
Now Britain, fearful that its postion in the eastern Mediteranean and control of India might be lost if Russia broke through to the south, saved the Ottomans from destruction yet again in 1878. But by that time several European coutries, Britain included, were feasting on the Turkish empire's extremites. Austria-Hungary took possession of Bosnia and Herzehovina, literally preparing the ground for the Sarajevo assassination. France, with British support took Tunisia and Morocco in North Africa. Britain took Egypt and Cypus, and finally even Italy reached across the Mediteranean to grab Tripoli(today's Libya), along with islands in the Aregean and Mediterranean. Germany meanwhile, having arrived too late to share in the plunder, focused on building ties with the Turks. They began work on a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway and Kaiser Wilhelm II paid a state visit to Constantinople and Jerusalem.
In 1908, the year when Autria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, a group of would be reformers called the Young Turks(Their leader and army officer named Enver Pasha) seized control of the government in Constaninople and introduced a constitution. In 1912 the 1st Balkan War drove the Turks almost entirely out of the Balkans. This, and the failure of the Constantinople regime to deliver the reforms expected of it or to stop the disintegration of the empire, gravely damaged the prestige of the ruling faction, which was replaced by nationalist extremist(once again led by Enver). Some of it was regained the following year, however, when the 2nd Balkan War led to Turkey's recovery of the city of Adrianople on the European mainland. The Sultan was at least as ridiculous a figure as the sorriest of his predeceddors. No one even pretended that he matter.
In January 1914, Evner Pasha left the army to become minister of war, and in July he took his empire into a secret defensive alliance with Germany. Astonishingly in light of all the humiliations it had experienced, the Ottoman Empire of July 1914 was still bigger geographically than France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary combined. It still ruled Arabia, which soon would emerge as the world's greatest source of oil; If war did erupt no one knew if the empire would enter it or, if so, on which side. It would be a coveted ally- or a rich, probably easy conquest.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Friday, December 20, 2013
Born November 30, 1874 was a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th Century. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British Prime Minister to have received the Noble Prize in Literature, and was the 1st person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, The Sudan, and the 2nd Boa War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
At the forefront of politics for 50 years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the 1st World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of the Asquith Liberal Government. During the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active army service on the Western front as Commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliars. He returned to government as Minister of Manitions, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for Air. After the war, Churchill served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative Government of 1924-1929, controversially returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure on the U.K. economy. Also controversial was his opposition to increased home rule for India and his resistance to the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII.
Out of office and politically "in the wilderness" during the 1930's, Churchill took the lead in warning about Nazi Germany and in campaigning for rearonament. On the outbreak of the 2nd World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chambalain on May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister. His steadfast refusal to consider defeat, surrender, or compromise peace helped British resistance, especially during the difficult early days of the War when Britain stood alone among European countries in its active opposition to Adolf Hitler. Churchill was particularly noted for his speeches and radio broadcasts, which helped inspire the British people. He led Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured.
After the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition to the Labour Government. After winning the 1951 election, he again became Prime Minister, before retiring in 1955. Upon his death on January 24th, 1965, Elizabeth II granted him the honor of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of world statesman in history. Named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll, Churchill is widely regarded as being among the influential people in British history, consistently ranking well in opinion polls of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom.
General Helmuth von Moltke
Born May 23rd 1848, was also known as Moltke the Younger, he was a nephew of Field Marshal Count Moltke and served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906-1914. The Moltke's are often differentiated as Moltke the Elder and Moltke the Younger. Moltke the Younger's role in the developments of German war plans and the instigation of the 1st World War is extremely controversial.
Helmuth von Moltke was born in Mechlenburg-Scheverin and named after his uncle, Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke, future Field Marshal and hero of the wars of Unification. During the Franco-Prussian War, Moltke served with the 7th Gredadia Regiment, and was cited for bravery. He attended the war academy between 1875 and 1878 and joined the General Staff in 1880. In 1882 he became personal adjutant to his uncle, then Chief of the General Staff. In 1891, on the death of his uncle, Moltke became aide-de-camp to Wilhelm II, thus becoming part of the Emperor's inner circle. In the late 1890's he commanded first a brigade and then a division, finely being promoted to Lieutenant General in 1902. In 1904 Moltke was made Quartermaster General; in effect, Deputy Chief on Schbieffen's retirement. His appointed was controversial then and remains so today. The other likely candidates for the position were Hans Hartwig von Beseler, Karl von Bulow, and Colman Freiherr von der Goltz. Critics charge that Moltke gained the position on the strength of his name and friendship with the Kaiser. Certainly Moltke was far closer to the Kaiser than the other candidates. Historians argue, however, that Beseler was too close to Schbieffen to have succeeded him, while Bulow and Goltz were too independent for Wilhelm to have accepted them. Indeed, Motlke's friendship with the Kaiser permitted him latitude that others could not have enjoyed. Goltz, at least, saw nothing wrong with Moltke's performance as Chief.
But do to the stress of World War I, Moltke's health took a bad decline, so on October 25th, 1914, he was succeeded by Erich von Falkenhayn.
After being succeeded by Falkenhayn, Moltke was entrusted in Berlin with the office of Chief of the Home Substitute for the General Staff. Which had the task of organizing and forwarding the reserves and controlling the territorial army corps, corresponding to those at the front. Moltke's health continued to deteriorate and he died in Berlin on June 28th, 1916. He left a pamphlet entitled Die Schuld am Kriege(The Blame for the War), which his widow Eliza intended to publish in 1919. She was dissuaded from doing so because of the problems this might cause. The pamphlet was designed to show the "chaotic" nature of events leading up to the war, in order to counter allied accusations of deliberate warmongering in Germany. However, army Chiefs and the German Foreign Ministry were disturbed by its contents. General Wilhelm von Dommes was sent to advise Eliza von Moltke against publication. Having read the pamphlet he confided to his dairy that it "contains nasty stuff". Instead Eliza published the blander Erinnerwngen, Briefe, Dokumente, a collection of her husband's letters and documents. Other material was archived. Some was later destroyed in World War II, and the original pamphlet has not been since accessible.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Friday July 31
When they learned of Russia's mobilization-unofficial reports reached Berlin almost immediately-the German generals intensified their demands. Because Germany continued to be the only European power not to have undertaken any military preparations at all, and the situation was becoming intolerable. Even Britain was on the move, First Lord of the Admiralty Chruchill having ordered the Grand Fleet to take up a position in the North Sea from which it could respond quickly to any forays by the German High Seas Fleet and protect France's channel ports.
So many holes were appearing in Germany's war plans. No one has foreseen a situation in which Russia mobilized without declaring war, or in which war erupted between Germany and Russia with France waiting on the sidelines. No one had a clue as what to do. The generals, of course-Chief of Staff Moltke included-were all but howling for action. The generals argued that Germany was in a better position to win a 2-front war now, than it would be after a few more years of French and Russia military buildup, and with every passing day of delay it was being drawn deeper into a death trap. The Kaiser refused mobilization, but agreed to declare a State of Impending War, which put in motion a variety of measures(securing borders, railways, and Germany's postal, telephone, and telegraph systems, and recalling soldiers on leave) in the expectation that mobilization would follow within 48 hours. He did this with the same deep reluctance shown by Franz Joseph when asked to declare war on Serbia, and by Tsar Nicholas when begged for mobilization. Like his fellow emperors, he yielded only because the military men, now taking charge in Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, were insisting that there was no alternative.
Bethmann too, desperately worried about keeping Britain out of any war and bringing Italy in on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, agreed only when, minutes before noon, the earlier reports of Russia's mobilization were confirmed.
Berlin continued to ask Vienna to demonstrate some willingness to negotiate on the basis of various proposals being offered by London and St. Petersburg(such proposals had become numerous and complex), but Berchtold maintained his silence. Short-circuiting diplomatic channels, Kaiser sent a telegram directly to Franz Joseph, requesting his intervention. After conferring with Berchtold and Conrad, the Hapsburg Emperor replied that Vienna could not do more than it had already done. He didn't bother to explain that Austria-Hungary too was now caught in the snares of its own military planning. Just as Russia had been unable to limit its mobilization to Austria because(as the generals claimed) it had no plan that would permit it to do so, and just as Germany had no way of mobilizing without attacking its neighbors, Austria had no plan that would send its army into Belgrade but no farther.
But Conrad feared, as the Russian generals had feared before their mobilization and as Germany's generals would soon be fearing with equally fateful consequences, that attempting to change his arrangements could lead only to disorder. Vienna couldn't regard this as a tolerable option with Serbia mobilizing and the Russians assembling immense forces along their common border.
But Conrad was not in touch with reality. Even as war with Russia became likely, he remained obsessed with punishing Serbia. Just as foolishly, he clung to the delusion that Italy would be entering the war on the side of the Central Powers, providing hundreds of 1,000's of additional troops.
All options except the military ones were shutting down. Power was moving into the hands of the soldiers and away from the diplomats and politicians. The soldiers were motivated mainly by fear. And as the Austrian Ambassador to France had observed on Thursday in a message to Berchtold, "Fear is a bad counselor."
In a display of German diplomacy at it ham-handed worst, Berlin informed London that if Britain remained neutral, Germany would promise to restore the borders of both France and Belgium(though not any overseas colonies that Germany might seize at the end of whatever war might ensue), this was ominous-no one had even mentioned Belgium until now.
Grey saw the offer as nothing better than a crude attempt at bribery, an insult to be rejected out of hand. his anger is transparent in his instructions to the British Ambassador in Berlin. "You must inform the German Chancellor that his proposal that we should bind ourselves to neutrality on such terms can not for a moment be entertained. He asks us in effect to engage to stand by while French colonies are taken and France is beaten so long as Germany does not take French territory as distinct from the colonies. From the material point of view such a proposal is unacceptable, for France could be crushed as to lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to Germany policy without further territory in Europe being taken from her. But apart from that, for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France would be a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover."
To this warning he added assurances that German assistance in averting war would be rewarded. "If the peace of Europe can be preserved and this crisis be safely passed," he said "my own effort would be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no hostile or aggressive policy would be pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately."
He appeared to be pointing toward fundamental changes in the overall system of European alliances, changes calculated to make this the last crisis of its kind. The implication was that until now Grey hadn't understood the intensity of Germany's fear of encirclement, but that his eyes had been opened.
Grey than took the next step that would give Bethmann much reason to regret having broached the question of Belgium. With the approval of the cabinet, he asked France and Germany to declare their intention to respect Belgian's neutrality in case of war. France was able to agree without difficulty. France's plan for an offensive against Germany were focused far to the south of Belgium in the area of Alsace-Lorriane, and Poincare understood that British support in case of war would be infinitely more valuable than any possible use of Belgium territory.
Germany, trapped by the inflexibility of its mobilization plan, was unable to respond at all. Thus was the 1st major step taken toward Britain's entry into the war. Germany now sent what would become known as its double ultimatum to France and Russia. This message warning that German mobilization "must follow in case Russia does not suspend every war measure against Austria-Hungary and ourselves withing 12 hours." France was asked for a declaration of neutrality. The deadline for responses was Saturday afternoon.
The double ultimatum was in part Berlin's desperate final effort to escape mobilization and in part effort to precipitate a breakdown in diplomatic relations to help justify the westward invasion that must follow mobilization. As directed to Russia, it was a straightforward request for cooperation. As directed to France, it was a kind of wild theatrical gesture aimed at making clear to the world that if war with Russia came, Germany and France would be at war also. It was intended to explain, in the court of public opinion, a German attack on France.
But what it really looked like was overbearing German bluster. The likelihood that Berlin never expected Paris to accept it is supported by the outrageous additional demand that the German Ambassador to France was instructed to make in case of acceptance; France's temporary surrender of its great fortress at Verdun and Toul, in return for a promise that they would be returned at the end of Germany's fight with Russia.
Now came the final flurry of Nicholas's-Kaiser's telegrams. The Kaiser told the Tsar that he was continuing to try to mediate in Vienna, and that "the peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the military measures which must threaten Germany and Austria-Hungary."
Once again, messages between the two emperors crossed in Midair. Nicholas told Kaiser that it was "technically impossible" to stop Russia's mobilization but that Russia did not want war and still did not see war as unavoidable. "So long as the negotiations with Austria on Serbia's account are taking place, my troops shall not take any provocative action. I give you my solemn word for this. I put all my trust in God's mercy and hope in your successful mediation in Vienna for the welfare of our countries and for the peace of Europe."
As soon as the Kaiser's message reached the Tsar, Nicholas sent back an answer. He said he understood that Russian mobilization might require Germany to mobilize as well. He said he accepted this, but it need not mean war. He asked the Kaiser for "the same guarantee from you as I gave you, that these measures do not mean war and that we shall continue negotiating for the benefit of our countries and universal peace dear to all our hearts. Our long proved friendship must succeed, with God's help, in avoiding bloodshed. Anxiously, full confidence await you answer."
It was obviously heartfelt and must have seemed the richest of opportunities. But nothing would come of it. Because of all that had already happened, nothing could.
When they learned of Russia's mobilization-unofficial reports reached Berlin almost immediately-the German generals intensified their demands. Because Germany continued to be the only European power not to have undertaken any military preparations at all, and the situation was becoming intolerable. Even Britain was on the move, First Lord of the Admiralty Chruchill having ordered the Grand Fleet to take up a position in the North Sea from which it could respond quickly to any forays by the German High Seas Fleet and protect France's channel ports.
So many holes were appearing in Germany's war plans. No one has foreseen a situation in which Russia mobilized without declaring war, or in which war erupted between Germany and Russia with France waiting on the sidelines. No one had a clue as what to do. The generals, of course-Chief of Staff Moltke included-were all but howling for action. The generals argued that Germany was in a better position to win a 2-front war now, than it would be after a few more years of French and Russia military buildup, and with every passing day of delay it was being drawn deeper into a death trap. The Kaiser refused mobilization, but agreed to declare a State of Impending War, which put in motion a variety of measures(securing borders, railways, and Germany's postal, telephone, and telegraph systems, and recalling soldiers on leave) in the expectation that mobilization would follow within 48 hours. He did this with the same deep reluctance shown by Franz Joseph when asked to declare war on Serbia, and by Tsar Nicholas when begged for mobilization. Like his fellow emperors, he yielded only because the military men, now taking charge in Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, were insisting that there was no alternative.
Bethmann too, desperately worried about keeping Britain out of any war and bringing Italy in on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, agreed only when, minutes before noon, the earlier reports of Russia's mobilization were confirmed.
Berlin continued to ask Vienna to demonstrate some willingness to negotiate on the basis of various proposals being offered by London and St. Petersburg(such proposals had become numerous and complex), but Berchtold maintained his silence. Short-circuiting diplomatic channels, Kaiser sent a telegram directly to Franz Joseph, requesting his intervention. After conferring with Berchtold and Conrad, the Hapsburg Emperor replied that Vienna could not do more than it had already done. He didn't bother to explain that Austria-Hungary too was now caught in the snares of its own military planning. Just as Russia had been unable to limit its mobilization to Austria because(as the generals claimed) it had no plan that would permit it to do so, and just as Germany had no way of mobilizing without attacking its neighbors, Austria had no plan that would send its army into Belgrade but no farther.
But Conrad feared, as the Russian generals had feared before their mobilization and as Germany's generals would soon be fearing with equally fateful consequences, that attempting to change his arrangements could lead only to disorder. Vienna couldn't regard this as a tolerable option with Serbia mobilizing and the Russians assembling immense forces along their common border.
But Conrad was not in touch with reality. Even as war with Russia became likely, he remained obsessed with punishing Serbia. Just as foolishly, he clung to the delusion that Italy would be entering the war on the side of the Central Powers, providing hundreds of 1,000's of additional troops.
All options except the military ones were shutting down. Power was moving into the hands of the soldiers and away from the diplomats and politicians. The soldiers were motivated mainly by fear. And as the Austrian Ambassador to France had observed on Thursday in a message to Berchtold, "Fear is a bad counselor."
In a display of German diplomacy at it ham-handed worst, Berlin informed London that if Britain remained neutral, Germany would promise to restore the borders of both France and Belgium(though not any overseas colonies that Germany might seize at the end of whatever war might ensue), this was ominous-no one had even mentioned Belgium until now.
Grey saw the offer as nothing better than a crude attempt at bribery, an insult to be rejected out of hand. his anger is transparent in his instructions to the British Ambassador in Berlin. "You must inform the German Chancellor that his proposal that we should bind ourselves to neutrality on such terms can not for a moment be entertained. He asks us in effect to engage to stand by while French colonies are taken and France is beaten so long as Germany does not take French territory as distinct from the colonies. From the material point of view such a proposal is unacceptable, for France could be crushed as to lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to Germany policy without further territory in Europe being taken from her. But apart from that, for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France would be a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover."
To this warning he added assurances that German assistance in averting war would be rewarded. "If the peace of Europe can be preserved and this crisis be safely passed," he said "my own effort would be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no hostile or aggressive policy would be pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately."
He appeared to be pointing toward fundamental changes in the overall system of European alliances, changes calculated to make this the last crisis of its kind. The implication was that until now Grey hadn't understood the intensity of Germany's fear of encirclement, but that his eyes had been opened.
Grey than took the next step that would give Bethmann much reason to regret having broached the question of Belgium. With the approval of the cabinet, he asked France and Germany to declare their intention to respect Belgian's neutrality in case of war. France was able to agree without difficulty. France's plan for an offensive against Germany were focused far to the south of Belgium in the area of Alsace-Lorriane, and Poincare understood that British support in case of war would be infinitely more valuable than any possible use of Belgium territory.
Germany, trapped by the inflexibility of its mobilization plan, was unable to respond at all. Thus was the 1st major step taken toward Britain's entry into the war. Germany now sent what would become known as its double ultimatum to France and Russia. This message warning that German mobilization "must follow in case Russia does not suspend every war measure against Austria-Hungary and ourselves withing 12 hours." France was asked for a declaration of neutrality. The deadline for responses was Saturday afternoon.
The double ultimatum was in part Berlin's desperate final effort to escape mobilization and in part effort to precipitate a breakdown in diplomatic relations to help justify the westward invasion that must follow mobilization. As directed to Russia, it was a straightforward request for cooperation. As directed to France, it was a kind of wild theatrical gesture aimed at making clear to the world that if war with Russia came, Germany and France would be at war also. It was intended to explain, in the court of public opinion, a German attack on France.
But what it really looked like was overbearing German bluster. The likelihood that Berlin never expected Paris to accept it is supported by the outrageous additional demand that the German Ambassador to France was instructed to make in case of acceptance; France's temporary surrender of its great fortress at Verdun and Toul, in return for a promise that they would be returned at the end of Germany's fight with Russia.
Now came the final flurry of Nicholas's-Kaiser's telegrams. The Kaiser told the Tsar that he was continuing to try to mediate in Vienna, and that "the peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the military measures which must threaten Germany and Austria-Hungary."
Once again, messages between the two emperors crossed in Midair. Nicholas told Kaiser that it was "technically impossible" to stop Russia's mobilization but that Russia did not want war and still did not see war as unavoidable. "So long as the negotiations with Austria on Serbia's account are taking place, my troops shall not take any provocative action. I give you my solemn word for this. I put all my trust in God's mercy and hope in your successful mediation in Vienna for the welfare of our countries and for the peace of Europe."
As soon as the Kaiser's message reached the Tsar, Nicholas sent back an answer. He said he understood that Russian mobilization might require Germany to mobilize as well. He said he accepted this, but it need not mean war. He asked the Kaiser for "the same guarantee from you as I gave you, that these measures do not mean war and that we shall continue negotiating for the benefit of our countries and universal peace dear to all our hearts. Our long proved friendship must succeed, with God's help, in avoiding bloodshed. Anxiously, full confidence await you answer."
It was obviously heartfelt and must have seemed the richest of opportunities. But nothing would come of it. Because of all that had already happened, nothing could.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Thursday July 30th
The European public was now fully awake to the possibility of war. Runs on banks were becoming widespread. Austria, Germany, and Russia were all withdrawing their reserves from foreign banks. The financial markets in Berlin and Brussels had to be shut down because of panic selling.
Even the Kaiser and Tsar telegrams were beginning to go wrong. In one of his middle of the night messages, in a maladroit attempt to assure the Kaiser that Russia has no hostile intentions where Germany was concerned, Tsar Nicholas told him that "the military measures which have now come into force were decided on 5 days ago for reasons of defense on account of Austria's preparations." Wilhelm concluded from this that Russia "is almost a week ahead of us," and that "that means I have got to mobilize as well."
In the morning the leaders of the Russian General Staff came back to Sazonov with bad news. They told him there was no acceptable way of executing the kind of partial mobilization that the Tsar approved. Any such mobilization would have to be done off the cuff and would throw Russia's armed forces into a state of confusion that might leave them helpless in case of a German attack. In practical terms only general mobilization was possible, the couldn't wait any longer.
When the Chief of the General Staff telephoned the Tsar and again asked him to approve a general mobilization, Nicholas refused, saying that the question was closed. He had been persuaded grudgingly, to meet with Sazonov at 3 p.m. The meeting was a long one, with foreign minister arguing the generals case. Austria, Sazonov said was preparing to destroy Serbia and refusing to talk. Germany was playing a double game, appearing to restrain the Austrians but really just trying to buy time for its own preparations; Germany was far along with an undeclared mobilization of its own. Russia could not afford not to respond. Russia also could not mobilize in any way short of fully. Sazonov was wrong about almost everything except Austria's determination to attack Serbia. He was not lying, but he was dangerously misinformed.
Nicholas continued to refuse, and Sazonov continued to plead. The Tsar, conscious of the manitude of what he was being asked, agonized aloud. "Think of the responsibility which you are asking me to take!" he declared. "Think of the 1,000's and 1,000's of men who will be sent to their death!" Finally, Nicholas was worn down. He was a stubborn but not a strong man, and even the strongest of men would have found it difficult to resist when being told that war could no longer be avoided regardless of what they did and that nothing less than national survival was at stake. Perhaps Sazonov's most powerful argument-another falsehood that he believed to be true-was that a general mobilization would not necessarily drive Germany to war.
What neither Savonov nor Nicholas understood was that Russia's mobilization would arouse in Germany's generals a panic indistinguishable from the fears driving the Russians, and that those generals would demand a German response. Far worse, neither of them had nay way of knowing how fast the Germans would be able to mobilize, or how inflexible and therefore dangerous the German mobilization plan was. Not even Kaiser Wilhelm or Chancellor Bethmann understood. Clearly at this point Germany was literally incapable of mobilizing without invading its neighbors to the west and igniting the continental war that all of them dreaded. The final tragedy is that the Tsar's decision was based largely on the things that Sazonov told him about Germany's preparations for war, when in fact Germany remained the only one of the continental powers to have taken no military action at all.
Russia's general mobilization, decided just a little more than 48 hours after Austria's declaration of war on Serbia, added 900,000 active duty troops to the number that would have been affected by partial mobilization. It also called up the Russia reserves-a staggering total of 4 million men, enough to frighten any nation on earth. By making German mobilization-therefore war- a near- certainty, it drastically reduced the possibility that the Kaiser-Nicholas's telegrams or any of the other increasingly desperate efforts to defuse the situation(cables were flying among the capital cities around the clock) could produce results before it was too late. It all but ended the hope of negotiations, or of a compromise based on Stop-in-Belgrade.
Tragically, Russia's mobilization, while dictated by military considerations, was not only militarily unnecessary but counter productive. Tactically it was a gift to the Austrians(or would have been, if Conrad had taken advantage of it), relieving them of the anquish of not knowing whether they needed to prepare to fight the Russians or were free to focus on Serbia alone. Strategically it was an act of high folly. In no real sense had the security of Russia ever been threatened by the July crisis. Even the destruction of Serbia-something that certainly could have been averted without resorting to war-would have had little impact on Russia's strategic position. Russia would still have had the biggest army in the world by a huge margin, and it would still have been in the beginning stages of a program aimed at expanding that army by 40% within 3 years.
Tsar Nicholas was shown a telegram that the monk Rasputin had sent to Tsarina Alexandra. Because of Rasputin's distance from the capital, there was no way he could know what was happening in St. Petersburg or know what was happening in St. Petersburg or Vienna or elsewhere. Thus his telegram mystified everyone. It read "Let Papa(Rasputins name for Nicholas)not plan war," "With war will come the end of Russia and yourselves, and you will lose to the last man." The Tsar read it and tore it into pieces.
British foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, alarmed by the deepening seriousness of the crisis, finally stopped being so diplomatic as to be nearly incapable of saying anything. Speaking without the knowledge of the British Cabinet, he told Germany's Ambassador Lichnowsky that in his opinion, quite unofficially, "unless Austria is willing to enter upon a discussion of the Serbian question, a world war in inevitable," and that he would expect such a war to bring Britain in on the side of France and Russia. So when the Kaiser and Bethmann learned of this, they abandoned any lingering hopes that war if it came could be a "local one involving only Austria-Hungary and Serbia, so they intensified their attempts to restrain the Austrians. If Grey would have been this forthright just a few days earlier, Berlin almost certainly would have changed its position more quickly and firmly. Austria might then have deferred its declaration of war, and Russia would have had little reason to mobilize. Now it was all but to late. Also too late, Bethmann awakened to the fact that the Russians were laboring under a misunderstanding about Vienna's willingness to talk. Bethmann told Tschirschky to alert Bercthold to the problem, but things were happening so fast and diplomacy being submerged under the concerns of the generals, there was little chance that talks could get under way in time to avoid war.
Bethmann was peppering Tschirschky with telegrams, each one more urgent and exasperated than the last. In one he instructed the Ambassador to make clear to Berchtold that any Austro-Hungarian refusal to negotiate with Russia would be no only a 'serious error" but " a direct provocation of Russia's armed intervention." "We are of course, ready to fulfill the obligations of our alliance," he said in another, "but must decline to be drawn wantonly into a world conflagration by Vienna, without having any regard paid to our counsel.
But here again the remedies were coming too late-all the more so because Berchtold had withdrawn into an almost total silence. He was bent on war and wanted no discussion. The Tension continued to increase. President Poincare, concerned about jeopardizing France's alliance with Russia, sent assurances to St. Petersburg through Ambassador Paleologue hurried to tell Sazonov, not yet knowing that Russia had already mobilized(if Paleologue knew, he did not deign to inform Paris), Poincare also told the Ambassador to urge the Russians to proceed cautiously. Paleologue had no interest in doing this.
Now Paris and St. Petersburg continued to receive reports of extensive military preparations withing Germany, reports that were untrue. France was beginning to prepare, but doing so extremely tentatively, to avoid alarming the Germans or, what Poincare cared about even more at this point, giving the British any cause to see France as an aggressor. No reserves were called up, and no movement of troops by train was permitted. Determined to bring Britain to France's assistance if war started, and mindful that this would require casting Germany in the role of aggressor, Poincare ordered that all troops be kept 6 miles back from the border.
So when the French Commander in Chief, General Joseph Joffre, requested permission to mobilize, he was refused. Even limited movements of troops towards the 6 mile limit were not permitted-until Joffre, later in the day, threatened to resign.
Poincare summoned the British Ambassador to his office. He asked for a firmer line in London. he said that if Britain would declare its intention to support France, Germany might be deterred and war averted. The Ambassador, aware of how divided the government in London remained, was able to say nothing more than "how difficult it would be for His Majesty's government to make such a statement."
General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German Staff, checked on the status of Austria's mobilization. When he learned that Conrad was still deploying unnecessarily large numbers of his mobilized troops to the south-the field marshal continued to be unable to put aside his dream of invading Serbia-Moltke panicked. As things stood, the Austria troops on the Russian border would, if fighting began, be outnumbered by 2 to 1. Moltke sent a wire to Conrad, urging him to shift his main force to the north to mobilize against Russia in effect. Unless Conrad did so, Germany, in beginning a war against France, would be unprotected in its rear.
Now getting into matters that were not suppose to be the business of generals, Moltke also warned Conrad that Vienna must refuse to be drawn into the Stop-in-Belgrade proposal. That proposal of course was exactly what Bethmann had been pushing Berchtold to accept. "What a joke!" Berchtold exclaimed when he learned of Moltke's warning. "Who's in charge in Berlin?"
At 9 p.m. Moltke took Erich von Falkenhayn, the War Minister, with him to the Chancellor's office. They told Bethmann that German mobilization had become imperative, that a postponement would put the country at risk, and that at a minimum a State of Imminent War(Germany's version of a Period Preparatory to War) must be declared. Bethmann, reluctant to commit to military action, but equally unwilling to assume responsibility for Germany undefended, promised a decision by noon on Friday. He too was coming to regard was as inevitable, and his focus was shifting from preserving the peace, to preparing for hostilities. Knowing that Conrad had declared Stop-in-Belgrade to be infeasible and was supported in this by Berchtold, he, like Moltke, was yielding to a fatalistic acceptance of the notion that if Germany's enemies were determined to make war, now was better than later.
The European public was now fully awake to the possibility of war. Runs on banks were becoming widespread. Austria, Germany, and Russia were all withdrawing their reserves from foreign banks. The financial markets in Berlin and Brussels had to be shut down because of panic selling.
Even the Kaiser and Tsar telegrams were beginning to go wrong. In one of his middle of the night messages, in a maladroit attempt to assure the Kaiser that Russia has no hostile intentions where Germany was concerned, Tsar Nicholas told him that "the military measures which have now come into force were decided on 5 days ago for reasons of defense on account of Austria's preparations." Wilhelm concluded from this that Russia "is almost a week ahead of us," and that "that means I have got to mobilize as well."
In the morning the leaders of the Russian General Staff came back to Sazonov with bad news. They told him there was no acceptable way of executing the kind of partial mobilization that the Tsar approved. Any such mobilization would have to be done off the cuff and would throw Russia's armed forces into a state of confusion that might leave them helpless in case of a German attack. In practical terms only general mobilization was possible, the couldn't wait any longer.
When the Chief of the General Staff telephoned the Tsar and again asked him to approve a general mobilization, Nicholas refused, saying that the question was closed. He had been persuaded grudgingly, to meet with Sazonov at 3 p.m. The meeting was a long one, with foreign minister arguing the generals case. Austria, Sazonov said was preparing to destroy Serbia and refusing to talk. Germany was playing a double game, appearing to restrain the Austrians but really just trying to buy time for its own preparations; Germany was far along with an undeclared mobilization of its own. Russia could not afford not to respond. Russia also could not mobilize in any way short of fully. Sazonov was wrong about almost everything except Austria's determination to attack Serbia. He was not lying, but he was dangerously misinformed.
Nicholas continued to refuse, and Sazonov continued to plead. The Tsar, conscious of the manitude of what he was being asked, agonized aloud. "Think of the responsibility which you are asking me to take!" he declared. "Think of the 1,000's and 1,000's of men who will be sent to their death!" Finally, Nicholas was worn down. He was a stubborn but not a strong man, and even the strongest of men would have found it difficult to resist when being told that war could no longer be avoided regardless of what they did and that nothing less than national survival was at stake. Perhaps Sazonov's most powerful argument-another falsehood that he believed to be true-was that a general mobilization would not necessarily drive Germany to war.
What neither Savonov nor Nicholas understood was that Russia's mobilization would arouse in Germany's generals a panic indistinguishable from the fears driving the Russians, and that those generals would demand a German response. Far worse, neither of them had nay way of knowing how fast the Germans would be able to mobilize, or how inflexible and therefore dangerous the German mobilization plan was. Not even Kaiser Wilhelm or Chancellor Bethmann understood. Clearly at this point Germany was literally incapable of mobilizing without invading its neighbors to the west and igniting the continental war that all of them dreaded. The final tragedy is that the Tsar's decision was based largely on the things that Sazonov told him about Germany's preparations for war, when in fact Germany remained the only one of the continental powers to have taken no military action at all.
Russia's general mobilization, decided just a little more than 48 hours after Austria's declaration of war on Serbia, added 900,000 active duty troops to the number that would have been affected by partial mobilization. It also called up the Russia reserves-a staggering total of 4 million men, enough to frighten any nation on earth. By making German mobilization-therefore war- a near- certainty, it drastically reduced the possibility that the Kaiser-Nicholas's telegrams or any of the other increasingly desperate efforts to defuse the situation(cables were flying among the capital cities around the clock) could produce results before it was too late. It all but ended the hope of negotiations, or of a compromise based on Stop-in-Belgrade.
Tragically, Russia's mobilization, while dictated by military considerations, was not only militarily unnecessary but counter productive. Tactically it was a gift to the Austrians(or would have been, if Conrad had taken advantage of it), relieving them of the anquish of not knowing whether they needed to prepare to fight the Russians or were free to focus on Serbia alone. Strategically it was an act of high folly. In no real sense had the security of Russia ever been threatened by the July crisis. Even the destruction of Serbia-something that certainly could have been averted without resorting to war-would have had little impact on Russia's strategic position. Russia would still have had the biggest army in the world by a huge margin, and it would still have been in the beginning stages of a program aimed at expanding that army by 40% within 3 years.
Tsar Nicholas was shown a telegram that the monk Rasputin had sent to Tsarina Alexandra. Because of Rasputin's distance from the capital, there was no way he could know what was happening in St. Petersburg or know what was happening in St. Petersburg or Vienna or elsewhere. Thus his telegram mystified everyone. It read "Let Papa(Rasputins name for Nicholas)not plan war," "With war will come the end of Russia and yourselves, and you will lose to the last man." The Tsar read it and tore it into pieces.
British foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, alarmed by the deepening seriousness of the crisis, finally stopped being so diplomatic as to be nearly incapable of saying anything. Speaking without the knowledge of the British Cabinet, he told Germany's Ambassador Lichnowsky that in his opinion, quite unofficially, "unless Austria is willing to enter upon a discussion of the Serbian question, a world war in inevitable," and that he would expect such a war to bring Britain in on the side of France and Russia. So when the Kaiser and Bethmann learned of this, they abandoned any lingering hopes that war if it came could be a "local one involving only Austria-Hungary and Serbia, so they intensified their attempts to restrain the Austrians. If Grey would have been this forthright just a few days earlier, Berlin almost certainly would have changed its position more quickly and firmly. Austria might then have deferred its declaration of war, and Russia would have had little reason to mobilize. Now it was all but to late. Also too late, Bethmann awakened to the fact that the Russians were laboring under a misunderstanding about Vienna's willingness to talk. Bethmann told Tschirschky to alert Bercthold to the problem, but things were happening so fast and diplomacy being submerged under the concerns of the generals, there was little chance that talks could get under way in time to avoid war.
Bethmann was peppering Tschirschky with telegrams, each one more urgent and exasperated than the last. In one he instructed the Ambassador to make clear to Berchtold that any Austro-Hungarian refusal to negotiate with Russia would be no only a 'serious error" but " a direct provocation of Russia's armed intervention." "We are of course, ready to fulfill the obligations of our alliance," he said in another, "but must decline to be drawn wantonly into a world conflagration by Vienna, without having any regard paid to our counsel.
But here again the remedies were coming too late-all the more so because Berchtold had withdrawn into an almost total silence. He was bent on war and wanted no discussion. The Tension continued to increase. President Poincare, concerned about jeopardizing France's alliance with Russia, sent assurances to St. Petersburg through Ambassador Paleologue hurried to tell Sazonov, not yet knowing that Russia had already mobilized(if Paleologue knew, he did not deign to inform Paris), Poincare also told the Ambassador to urge the Russians to proceed cautiously. Paleologue had no interest in doing this.
Now Paris and St. Petersburg continued to receive reports of extensive military preparations withing Germany, reports that were untrue. France was beginning to prepare, but doing so extremely tentatively, to avoid alarming the Germans or, what Poincare cared about even more at this point, giving the British any cause to see France as an aggressor. No reserves were called up, and no movement of troops by train was permitted. Determined to bring Britain to France's assistance if war started, and mindful that this would require casting Germany in the role of aggressor, Poincare ordered that all troops be kept 6 miles back from the border.
So when the French Commander in Chief, General Joseph Joffre, requested permission to mobilize, he was refused. Even limited movements of troops towards the 6 mile limit were not permitted-until Joffre, later in the day, threatened to resign.
Poincare summoned the British Ambassador to his office. He asked for a firmer line in London. he said that if Britain would declare its intention to support France, Germany might be deterred and war averted. The Ambassador, aware of how divided the government in London remained, was able to say nothing more than "how difficult it would be for His Majesty's government to make such a statement."
General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German Staff, checked on the status of Austria's mobilization. When he learned that Conrad was still deploying unnecessarily large numbers of his mobilized troops to the south-the field marshal continued to be unable to put aside his dream of invading Serbia-Moltke panicked. As things stood, the Austria troops on the Russian border would, if fighting began, be outnumbered by 2 to 1. Moltke sent a wire to Conrad, urging him to shift his main force to the north to mobilize against Russia in effect. Unless Conrad did so, Germany, in beginning a war against France, would be unprotected in its rear.
Now getting into matters that were not suppose to be the business of generals, Moltke also warned Conrad that Vienna must refuse to be drawn into the Stop-in-Belgrade proposal. That proposal of course was exactly what Bethmann had been pushing Berchtold to accept. "What a joke!" Berchtold exclaimed when he learned of Moltke's warning. "Who's in charge in Berlin?"
At 9 p.m. Moltke took Erich von Falkenhayn, the War Minister, with him to the Chancellor's office. They told Bethmann that German mobilization had become imperative, that a postponement would put the country at risk, and that at a minimum a State of Imminent War(Germany's version of a Period Preparatory to War) must be declared. Bethmann, reluctant to commit to military action, but equally unwilling to assume responsibility for Germany undefended, promised a decision by noon on Friday. He too was coming to regard was as inevitable, and his focus was shifting from preserving the peace, to preparing for hostilities. Knowing that Conrad had declared Stop-in-Belgrade to be infeasible and was supported in this by Berchtold, he, like Moltke, was yielding to a fatalistic acceptance of the notion that if Germany's enemies were determined to make war, now was better than later.
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