Samuel R. Williamson's "The Origins of World War I" (1988) is exceptional for exploring not only pre-war tensions in the West, but also the importance of Eastern European politics to the outbreak of the First World War. Specifically, Williamson examines the nationalist pressures, military planning, imperial attitudes, and alliance structures, which greatly influenced these policymakers after 1911, the year of the Second Moroccan Crisis and the First Balkan War. Williamson explores the limited options available to these men in light of their fatalistic attitude towards war.
Balkan Tensions from 1912 to 1914
Balkan tensions from 1912 to 1914
World War I began in eastern Europe. The war started when Serbia, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany decided that war or the risk of war was an acceptable policy option. In the aftermath of the Balkan wars of 1912/13, the decision-makers in eastern Europe acted more assertively and less cautiously. The Serbian government displayed little willingness to negotiate with Vienna; in fact, some elements of the Belgrade regime worked to challenge, by violent means if necessary, Habsburg rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary, threatened anew by the Balkan problems, grew more anxious about its declining position and became more enamored of the recent successes of its militant diplomacy. Having encouraged the creation of the Balkan League and benefited from Serbia's military triumphs, Russian policymakers displayed a new aggressiveness toward their Danubian neighbor. The German leadership, for its part, fretted more than ever about its relative position in the European system and found the new Russian self-confidence troubling. Then came the Sarajevo assassinations on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife Sophie. Within a month of these deaths, Austria-Hungary and Serbia would be at war, followed by the rest of Europe shortly thereafter. [1]
Although the war began in eastern Europe, the events there have received only modest attention from historians. This neglect is not entirely surprising, given the Versailles "war guilt" clause against Germany and subsequent efforts to defend or denounce the war guilt accusations. The interwar documentary collections encouraged this emphasis on Germany and Anglo-German relations, as did post-1945 access to the Western archives. Since 1961 Fischer and the Hamburg school have clarified further the irresponsible nature of German policy before and during the July crisis. Yet most scholarship has eschewed a broader focus, such as that used by Fay and Albertini, concentrating instead on single countries or focusing almost exclusively on the west European origins of the war. Too much concentration on Berlin's role slights developments taking place in Austria-Hungary, Russia, Serbia, and the Balkan states in the months before July 1914. [2]
Recent articles, multi-volume background works, and new monographs by scholars on both sides of the Iron Curtain offer insights into the east European origins of the July crisis-the linkages between events there and the onset of the larger war. These new studies also help to illumine the motivations and behaviors of the decision-makers in Belgrade, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Budapest. [3] In seeking to prevent a future major war, the crisis of the summer of 1914 remains fundamental to an understanding of the issues of peace and war.
Historians often talk about the long-term origins of World War I-those physical, intellectual, emotional, and political activities that created parameters and left legacies that influenced the July crisis. Although these causes remain a central feature of all recent historical works, new research reveals an almost quantum alteration in our perception of the character and nature of the causes of the war. Recent studies-based upon rigorous archival research-make clear the dramatic changes that took place after 1911 in the relationships resulting from the alliances and ententes, military planning, imperial attitudes, nationalism, and confidence about the future of the governmental systems.
By 1912, the Triple Entente and Triple Alliance had been consolidated by the Bosnian crises of 1908-09 and the Moroccan tensions of 1911. Russia, Britain, and France formed, along with Russia's Serbian client, the Triple Entente; Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Germany comprised, with their secret ally King Carol of Rumania, the Triple Alliance. In the months before July 1914, these two groupings collided with each other on fundamental issues, although brief periods of cooperation and apparent détente existed.
From 1912 to the eve of the war, France and Russia worked to convert the Triple Entente into an alliance. Paris pressed London to confer with Russia about naval issues, while assiduously working to define their own military and naval arrangements with Britain. In the spring of 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the most insular of British foreign secretaries, and Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, agreed to start negotiations with St. Petersburg. Almost immediately German intelligence learned of this development. When asked about such conversations, Grey denied that any were underway. Berlin thus found itself unable to trust Grey's assurances about these talks and could only speculate that Britain had also made military and naval arrangements with France. [4]
During 1912 and 1913, the Franco-Russian alliance within the Triple Entente assumed new meaning. The French wanted immediate Russian pressure on Germany if war came and invested capital in railway construction that could be used to facilitate the movement of Russian troops. Raymond Poincaré, first as premier and then as president of France, brought new vigor to French diplomacy and spared no effort to strengthen the Paris-St. Petersburg connection. Despite socialist opposition, he even managed to secure passage of a three-year military service law that increased the number of French troops on active duty. [5]
Russo-Serbian relations had also grown closer in the years before Sarajevo. St. Petersburg had played mid-wife to the Balkan League, a pact signed in the spring of 1912 and directed against both the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy. Vigorous Russian diplomatic support, along with shipments of military supplies during the Balkan wars, buttressed the ties. In the spring of 1914, Nikola Pasic, the Serbian premier, depended upon Russian support in his disputes with the Serbian military. Indeed, when Pasic resigned in June 1914, the Russians pressured King Peter I to restore him to the premiership. [6]
The leaders of the Triple Alliance were also active in the months following the Agadir crisis over Morocco. In late 1911 Berlin and Vienna backed Rome in its war with the Ottoman Empire over Tripoli. At the end of 1912, the partners renewed the alliance for another five years and reinstituted military and naval planning, though neither Berlin nor Vienna expected much support from their southern ally. Furthermore, the three partners maneuvered for position with each other over a potential division of Turkish Asia Minor, and a new issue-Albania and its future-emerged after the Balkan wars as a point of friction between Vienna and Rome. [7]
Vienna's problems were not confined to Italy. The Balkan wars had shaken Vienna's confidence about German support if a crisis arose. On three occasions the Habsburgs had nearly gone to war; in each instance the Germans had counseled caution and prudence. To be sure, Kaiser Wilhelm II talked boisterously of strong action, but the German political leadership spoke about negotiation. As a result, there was considerable apprehension in Vienna over Berlin's possible behavior in a crisis involving either Serbia or Russia or both. [8]
The major problem confronting the Austro-German allies was not their own relationship, but evidence that Bucharest would probably defect from the alliance. If King Carol opted out, Austria-Hungary faced a new and nearly intolerable strategic situation. Furthermore, Rumanian nationalism, stirred by the successes of the month-long second Balkan war, demanded changes in the status of the three million Rumanians living in Transylvania under Magyar domination. Budapest, however, offered virtually no concessions. Thus the Rumanian problem, like the Serbian issue, encompassed both a domestic and a diplomatic dimension. For Vienna, distinctions between Aussenpolitik and Innenpolitik simply did not exist. Foreign policy provided much of the raison d'être for the Habsburg state, but foreign affairs also furnished most of the threats to its future. [9]
In a desperate effort to rescue the situation, Vienna sent Ottokar Czernin, a confidant of Franz Ferdinand, as minister to Bucharest in late 1913. Czernin achieved nothing. Then in June the czar and czarina visited Constantsa in Rumania. During the trip Serge Sazonov, the Russian foreign minister, actually crossed into Transylvania in a defiant show of support for the Rumanians living in Austria-Hungary. These events thoroughly alarmed Vienna. More than ever, Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold and his associates believed that Bucharest was lost to the alliance and that Russia was determined to cause problems at all costs. [10]
Russia also antagonized Germany and Austria-Hungary more directly. The Liman von Sanders affair, a Russo-German dispute over whether the German general would have actual command over Turkish troops in Constantinople, embroiled St. Petersburg and Berlin for weeks in late 1913. The crisis created genuine concern in Berlin and accelerated a series of studies by the German general staff of Russian mobilization plans. For the first time since March 1909, the two Baltic powers were in direct confrontation, and this time St. Petersburg, not Berlin, was the protagonist. [11]
Relations between St. Petersburg and Vienna were more fragile still. The Austrians held the Russians partly responsible for the Balkan wars. Vienna had difficulty forgetting St. Petersburg's tactic in the fall of 1912, when it kept an additional 1.2 million troops on duty to check any Habsburg move against Serbia. Vienna had responded by calling up 200,000 reservists, stationing many of them in Galicia. The border tensions led to bank runs and public unrest in the Habsburg provinces; the potential conflict also prompted passage of emergency legislation in Austria and Hungary in December 1912 in the event that war should come. Not until March 1913, after extensive negotiations, did the two powers begin to demobilize troops and tensions abate. But the residual perceptions of the incident were not so easily altered, certainly not among the military leaders in either St. Petersburg or Vienna. [12]
Despite the growing tensions, there were moments of cooperation and concession. The rhetoric of Anglo-German relations was muted somewhat; the powers cooperated to keep the Balkan turmoil within bounds in the spring and summer of 1913. Austrians invested funds in a Russian armaments factory, and royal visits continued. Yet the clashes of 1911 and thereafter were not easily forgotten. The future of the Balkans and the Macedonian inheritance of the Ottoman Empire were significant issues. The Eastern Question and the fate of Ottoman holdings in the Balkans, the bane of British foreign secretaries in the nineteenth century, had now become a problem for all foreign ministers. [13]
No group of decision-makers recognized this new danger more quickly than the military commanders. Everywhere the doctrine of offensive warfare and the "short war illusion" prevailed. The French revamped their war plans after 1911 to conform to these doctrines. The Germans, British, and Austro-Hungarians further refined their offensive schemes in the belief that offensive warfare alone offered the possibility of quick success. No one probed the question of what would happen if success did not in fact come quickly at the start of a war. Sufficient intelligence information existed about the manpower pools and general intentions of the opposing powers; what remained uncertain was the location and timing of the deployment. Few realized that stalemate could also be the result of offensive operations. Nor were general staffs cognizant of their own differing conceptions of what mobilization actually meant for the other governments; for some it meant actual war and for others, the mere possibility of war. Questionable assumptions had now become dogma. [14]
No generals faced greater problems than did the Habsburg commanders after 1912. To the south, Serbia, their most formidable foe, had fought well in the Balkan wars, had virtually doubled its territory and population base, and possessed seasoned military leaders. Rumania's probable defection added another border to defend, and Bulgaria's defeat in the second Balkan war reduced its ability to offset either Serbia or Rumania. Reports from Berlin were even more disturbing; the Russians were shortening their mobilization timetables by five to seven days. Each day gained by the Russians endangered the Schlieffen-Moltke plan, in turn putting a higher premium on a Habsburg assault against Russia. In May 1914 General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, met Helmuth von Moltke, his German counterpart, to review the increased Russian threat. Conrad asked for more German troops in the east to protect Germany (and Austria-Hungary); Moltke pressed for more immediate Austro-Hungarian action against Russia with only secondary action against Serbia. The two generals failed to reach agreement. Conrad had always wanted to defeat the troublesome Serbians, yet he could not ignore the Russian threat. He never overcame this dilemma. [15]
After 1912 the European military and naval leaders grew less confident. Troop increases and the continuing naval race (though with less rhetoric) fueled fears, as did the sudden shifts of military fortune in the Balkans. Everywhere the military leaders warned their civilian superiors of the dangers of falling behind in the race for military supremacy. The militarization of attitudes and unspoken assumptions, even in Britain, grew more noticeable and pervasive. Militarism, despite occasional signs of pacificism, remained a dynamic factor. [16]
Closely linked with militarism was another long-term cause of war: imperialism. It was reinforced by ideas of Social Darwinism and racism as well. After the second Moroccan crisis in the summer of 1911, imperialism became more a Balkan phenomenon and less an Asian or African one. As the Eastern Question flared anew, the dangers for Europe, in the context of the rigidity of both the alliance and the entente, increased exponentially.
Three examples illustrate the dangerous changes. First, in the autumn of 1911, the Russians renewed their pressure on the Straits issue. Second, the Italians were reluctant to return Ottoman territory in the Aegean which they seized in their war with Turkey in 1912. Indeed, Rome and Berlin actually plotted to carve out potential gains in Asia Minor. Third, Bosnia and Herzegovina represented a special part of the Ottoman legacy. Annexed by Vienna in 1908 after thirty years of de facto Habsburg administration, the two provinces were Habsburg imperial gains at Ottoman expense. Bosnia and Herzegovina now became the focus of South Slav agitation for greater Serbian and/or Yugoslavian unity. Franz Joseph had, however, no intention of relinquishing the two provinces which represented the only gains of his long reign. Vienna would protect its acquisitions just as the British, French, and Italians had protected their gains from the gradual breakup of the Ottoman Empire. [17]
Nationalism as a long-term cause of World War I has received sustained historical attention. Nationalism and a mixture of chauvinism and racism were prevalent in both Europe and North America. In Germany, Britain, Russia, and France, nationalism often served as a centripetal factor. [18]
By contrast, in the Habsburg monarchy nationalism had a disruptive function. In Rumania, the impact of nationalism was growing, and St. Petersburg encouraged intensive campaigns among the Ruthenians in Galicia and Bukovina. Although pan-Slavic propaganda did not match the intensity of the challenge posed by the South Slav demands, Russia's subvention of pan-Slavism provided still one more reason for Vienna to distrust its northern neighbor. [19]
The Habsburgs' most dangerous threat from nationalism lay along its southern border. The victorious Balkan states stimulated a new self-confidence among the monarchy's South Slav citizens. Serbian and Croatian political leaders talked openly of greater Yugoslavian unity. In Croatia political violence intensified. The Balkan wars not only revolutionized the geographical situation; they also revived and accentuated feelings of South Slav unity. [20]
Vienna held Serbia directly (and the Russians less directly) responsible for much of the mounting friction. Their annoyance, indeed anger, had basis in fact. After the 1908-09 Bosnian crisis, Belgrade, in spite of commitments to the contrary, developed a propaganda machine to inculcate the ideals of Yugoslavian unity (under Serbian leadership) among the Slavs living in the Habsburg realms. Political cells like the Narodna Odbrana served as instruments for political activity. [21]
Far more dangerous, however, was a secret organization known as the Black Hand, a group of Serbian military and political figures sworn to a violent solution to the South Slav problem. Although Habsburg intelligence was aware of the Black Hand, it never fully appreciated the strength of its commitment to the use of violence. Among the members, none was more sinister than Dragutin Dimitrijevic (known as Apis), who participated in the 1903 murder of King Alexander of the Obrenovic dynasty. By 1912, Apis had become chief of Serbian military intelligence. Although it is unlikely that the exact details will ever be established, Apis played a major part in the plot against Franz Ferdinand. In his plans for the assassination, Apis and his associates exploited the nationalism of young students and the inability of the Pasic government to control the Black Hand. Serbia's sponsorship of South Slav agitation inside the Habsburg monarchy posed threats of an immediate and practical nature for the Habsburg leadership. For Vienna, Serbia represented the twin issues of state security and state survival.
The decay in the effectiveness of the political structures of the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov regimes is noted as a final long-term cause of the war. After 1911, demands for constitutional change in Prussia increased, the growth of the socialist party frightened the established elites, and Kaiser Wilhelm II's ineffectiveness were matters of public comment. Certainly Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and his associates feared for the future of the existing political order. Much the same could be said of Russia where the abortive revolt of 1905 had already revealed the weaknesses of the czar's regime.
The future of Austria-Hungary after the death of Franz Joseph, an octogenarian, was already a matter of international speculation. In Vienna and Budapest, linked by a common monarch, common army, and common foreign policy, the blows of the Balkan wars and the prospect of Franz Ferdinand as ruler worried many. Yet the archduke desperately wanted the dynasty to survive, and he thought a pro-Russian foreign policy would help him achieve that goal. A force for peace during the Balkan wars, Franz Ferdinand had supported Berchtold's policy of militant diplomacy, but not militant action, against Conrad, his own protégé. The archduke's death removed a force for peace and provided the pretext for decisions in Vienna that launched the third Balkan war. Within these parameters, the decisions during late June and early July 1914 are critical. [22]
Many historians have devoted their attention to the July crisis, and any analysis here risks injustice to the complexity of historical thought concerning the events of that summer. To facilitate a systematic examination of that period, this essay focuses upon a number of key decisions taken during July. Each decision, one can argue, led to the next, and in the absence of any one of them, the crisis might have been averted. One may quarrel with the choices or the emphasis, but most will agree that the decisions discussed here were important, possibly decisive, on the road to war. [23]
The first steps toward war began in Vienna. The deaths of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie shocked Berchtold and the other civilian ministers who wanted action against Serbia. Strongly supporting this view were Conrad and General Alexander von Krobatin, the minister of war. They were joined from Sarajevo by General Oskar Potiorek, who exaggerated the post-Sarajevo unrest in Bosnia and Herzegovina to justify immediate military action against Belgrade. Put simply, Potiorek demanded that Vienna should go to war to protect the two provinces. Thus, in early July, well before Germany indicated strong support, Vienna planned retribution against Serbia. Only István Tisza, the Hungarian premier, disliked this prospect. [24]
With the conversion of Franz Joseph to a policy of retribution, Berchtold had the crucial support he needed within the Habsburg government. The emperor/king's decision stemmed in part from evidence of Belgrade's complicity in the murders, for police interrogations in Sarajevo had quickly established the conspiracy of Gavrilo Princip and his associates and the possible involvement of some members of the Serbian government. By July 3, Franz Joseph was talking of the need for action. For the next ten days, Tisza was his only senior adviser who remained unconvinced. But his reluctance to act should not obscure the fact that the Habsburg civilian and military leadership wanted to punish Belgrade for the deaths at Sarajevo. No pressure from Berlin was required for Vienna to reach that decision. [25]
The second step in the July crisis was Berlin's decision to support Habsburg military action against Belgrade. Kaiser Wilhelm II genuinely grieved over the Sarajevo victims and wanted action against Serbia, as did Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. Thus both men proved receptive to the Hoyos mission in which Vienna asked for assurances of German support and indicated its plan to take radical action against Serbia. On July 5 and 6 Berlin gave Vienna the backing it sought. In contrast to its earlier hesitations during the Balkan wars, this time Berlin supported Vienna's desire to act. Thus, by July 6 Berchtold had assurances from Berlin and, he hoped, a deterrent against possible Russian intervention. [26]
Why did the German leaders endorse Austro-Hungarian action against Serbia? Alliance loyalties, personal feelings, and Bethmann Hollweg's desire for an assertive German policy are among the traditional explanations. To these reasons have been added Germany's desire to intimidate the Triple Entente and to end Serbian affronts against its Habsburg ally. The German decision had many fateful consequences.
Vienna probably would not have gone to war without Berlin's assurances of support. However, the unilateral and provocative measures taken by Vienna during the Balkan wars, often with scant German knowledge, suggest that Berchtold and Conrad might well have staged some kind of military action (for example, a border incident or alleged bombardment of a Habsburg town) without a firm German guarantee. In any event, in July 1914 Austria-Hungary wanted action against Serbia; the Germans certainly did not discourage it; and they soon found themselves pulled into the crisis. [27]
Even though Vienna had obtained Berlin's pledge of support against Serbia by July 6, more than two weeks elapsed before the ultimatum was presented to Belgrade on July 23. A major factor explaining this delay lies in the organization of the Habsburg military. Early in his tenure as chief of staff, Conrad instituted a policy of "harvest" leaves to appease the monarchy's agrarian interests. This policy allowed soldiers to go home to help in the fields and then return to their duty stations for the annual summer maneuvers. In the days after Sarajevo, sizable numbers of Habsburg soldiers were scattered over the empire on harvest leave. Cancellation of the leaves would have alerted Europe to the impending military action, disrupted farm production, and risked confusion concerning the railway's mobilization plans. Conrad therefore decided to let the current leaves run their normal course, but to cancel any new harvest leaves. As a result, most of those leaves already granted would end by July 21 or 22. Conrad's decision gave Berchtold the parameters for the timing of the July crisis. [28]
Another cause of delay involved convincing Tisza to permit military action against Serbia. When the Common Ministerial Council met on July 7, the Magyar premier initially persisted in opposing military action but, by the end of the lengthy session, his resistance had weakened. Tisza then appealed to Franz Joseph, only to find that his sovereign was strongly committed to action. In his efforts to sway Tisza, Berchtold stressed Germany's support for action and, possibly more important, warned of Rumania's probable defection from the alliance. The foreign minister apparently suggested that a failure to deal with Serbia would encourage Bucharest to press the Transylvania issue ever more insistently. Whatever the arguments, Berchtold convinced Tisza that intervention was required. On July 15, the Magyar leader met with the Hungarian House of Deputies and openly hinted of the need for action. His only requirements were that Vienna would present an ultimatum to Belgrade and would pledge not to annex additional Slavic territory. [29]
A further reason for Vienna's delay was more prosaic. Poincaré and René Viviani, the French premier, were scheduled to be in St. Petersburg on a state visit from July 20 to July 23. Understandably, Berchtold wanted the ultimatum presented after the French had left St. Petersburg. As a result, it was finally delivered at 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, when the French leaders were at sea.
Vienna used the hiatus of mid-July to mislead the other European governments about its intentions. After July 12 Berchtold restrained press comment about Serbia, and the journals in Vienna and Budapest recounted little about the adjoining state. Conrad went hiking in the mountains; Franz Joseph stayed at Bad Ischl; and the other Habsburg leaders carried out their customary duties. The Danubian monarchy appeared to have returned to normal. [30]
Berchtold had another motive for his deception. In mid-July, he discovered that on July 11 Berlin had informed Hans von Flotow, its ambassador in Rome, about the possibility of Habsburg action against Serbia. Shortly afterward, Flotow conveyed this message to Antonio San Giuliano, the Italian foreign minister; not surprisingly, San Giuliano cabled the information to Vienna. When the telegram reached Vienna, the Austrian codebreakers duly deciphered it, thereby exposing the indiscretion of both Germany and Italy. Berchtold could only assume that San Giuliano had also sent the same information to St. Petersburg and Belgrade. Henceforth, he gave Berlin no further details about his plans, including the text of the ultimatum, until the very last moment. Later, this secrecy would be held against Berchtold as a sign of duplicity; at the time, it appeared to be the only way he could maintain his options. [31]
The Common Ministerial Council met secretly in Vienna on July 19 to review the ultimatum. Although none present believed Belgrade could accept it, the ministers approved the ultimatum and concurrently affirmed their acquiescence to Tisza's demand that there would be no territorial annexations, only modifications of strategic boundaries in case of victory. Conrad reportedly said, when leaving the meeting, "We will see; before the Balkan war the powers also talked of the status quo-after the war no one worried about it. "[32] His cynicism matched the Habsburg approach to war. Vienna wanted war with Serbia in the summer of 1914; for that conflict the leaders were willing to risk a war with St. Petersburg but hoped (and believed) that Germany's support would deter the Russians. [32 Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, IV, 92. The meeting on July 19 took place at Berchtold's private residence, not at the Ballhausplatz. Conrad came in civilian clothes and in a private car.]
With the ultimatum delivered, Belgrade became the focus of activity. Although the reactions of the Pasic government have never been chronicled in detail, recently published Serbian documents for the pre-1914 years confirm that senior officials in the Serbian government were aware of Apis' conspiratorial activity in May and June and sought to stop it. Yet Pasics weakened political base made a public confrontation with the Serbian military or with Apis impossible. Apis, behind a carefully constructed non-answer to Pasics queries about reports of agents being smuggled across the border, essentially went his own way. After the assassinations, Pasic could not, of course, offer Apis to Vienna or do more than proceed as if he and the government had known nothing. [33]
On one point, however, the Serbian documents are definite-Serbia had no intention of accepting any Habsburg ultimatum that infringed in the slightest on Serbian sovereignty. On July 18 Pasic, probably alerted to Vienna's intentions by the Italian minister to Belgrade, prepared a memorandum stating unequivocally that Serbia would tolerate no infringement of its sovereignty. This defiant tone persisted through the discussions in Belgrade on July 24 and 25. Thus, contrary to earlier explanations which argued that the Russians had acted to stiffen the Serbian will to resist, the Serbian documents reveal a hard-line position in Belgrade that predates the ultimatum. In taking this stance, Pasic and his colleagues were obviously confident of Russian help. In July 1914, the Serbian government showed little willingness to compromise; that stance also contributed to the escalation of the crisis. [34]
Given this new background on the Serbian attitude and the messages sent from Rome, the state visit of Poincaré and Viviani to St. Petersburg assumes new importance. Indeed, some historians have long suspected that Poincaré's talks were more detailed and more relevant to the Balkan situation than either his memoirs or the official memoranda of the visit indicate. Since the Russians probably had broken the Italian code, just as the Austrians had, St. Petersburg must have known of Vienna's intentions.
This assumption in turn helps to explain a series of actions by both French and Russian officials during the crisis, suggesting a coordinated Franco-Russian policy based upon advance knowledge. On July 21 and 22, Poincaré deliberately and abruptly warned Friedrich Szápáry, the Habsburg ambassador to Russia, against any action by Vienna, while indicating strong French support for Serbia. The content of Poincaré's message alarmed the ambassador, the president's tone even more. Given the almost total black-out of news from Vienna about its intentions, Poincaré's warnings were probably prompted by the intercepted telegrams. Certainly, given the anti-Habsburg views of Miroslav Spalajkovic, the Serbian minister to Russia, the merest hint of action by Vienna would have prompted overtures to the French and the Russians for strong declarations of support. [35]
Similarly, throughout the crisis, the French apparently never cautioned St. Petersburg to urge Serbia to show restraint. The Russian military preparations on July 25, and thereafter, were those of a government supremely confident of French support; that confidence could have come only from Poincaré and Viviani in a series of discussions in St. Petersburg. Thus, the provocative Russian diplomacy of 1912 would be repeated anew, this time with advance French approval. [36]
In Belgrade on July 23, Wladimir Giesl von Gieslingen, the Austro-Hungarian minister, delivered the forty-eight hour ultimatum. Pasic, campaigning for the general elections in the countryside, returned home to draft a reply. His response stunned even the Habsburgs. He accepted most of Vienna's demands, thus winning European sympathy, while carefully evading the essential demands. Above all, Pasic could not agree to a police investigation of the assassinations, for he knew where such an inquiry could lead. Otherwise, Pasic was so acquiescent that Serbia almost appeared to be the injured party in the proceedings. In any event, the Austrians immediately rejected Belgrade's answer as insufficient and issued orders on July 25 for partial mobilization to begin on July 28. [37]
The senior Russian ministers, meanwhile, met in St. Petersburg on July 24 and 25 to consider their options. Their conclusions can easily be construed as belligerent, provocative, and ill-designed to keep the crisis in check. Furthermore, their decisions were taken before St. Petersburg knew either the Serbian reply or the Austrian response to Serbia. With the czar's approval, the ministers agreed to a series of pre-mobilization measures: military cadets were promoted early, protective measures were instituted along the borders, and troops in the east were ordered to prepare to move west. From July 25 to July 30 Serbian officials in Russia sent detailed reports of Russian military measures and referred to them as partial mobilization. Simply put, the Russians initiated a series of military measures well in advance of the other great powers, although Austria-Hungary's partial mobilization came shortly after the Russian initiative. These measures, moreover, were the equivalent of a partial mobilization and accelerated the crisis far more than recent historiography has usually conceded. The Russian measures upset both Habsburg and German assumptions about St. Petersburg's probable behavior in the crisis. Furthermore, the steps disrupted the timetables in Vienna and Berlin, thus reducing the options that were available and, of course, the time to consider them. [38]
The final stage of the third Balkan war began with Austria's declaration of war on July 28 and the desultory shelling of Belgrade that same night. There was little further hostile action for several days. Neither Vienna nor Belgrade showed the slightest willingness to negotiate or to consider half-way measures. Talk of a "Halt in Belgrade" as a Habsburg military objective got nowhere with Conrad, who wanted a total reckoning with Serbia. The once reluctant Tisza now zealously pressed Conrad for action, fearing possible Rumanian movement into Transylvania against the Magyars. Already at war with Serbia, Vienna had risked the wider war that would soon follow. [39]
At this point in the July crisis the diplomatic activity shifted abruptly from eastern to western Europe and to Anglo-German efforts to contain the escalating hostilities. Wilhelm remained as fickle as ever. Returning from his North Sea cruise, the kaiser praised the Serbian response to Austria's ultimatum and suggested a resolution of the crisis. Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg now wavered too; at moments Berlin sought to restrain Vienna, but the German leadership did not abandon Vienna or act responsibly to avert the crisis.
Grey was not much more helpful. Whether a more assertive British policy-action or inaction-would have decisively influenced the crisis has long fascinated historians. It can be argued that the rapidity of the crisis played a major role in the outcome, perhaps a more decisive role than Jervis suggests elsewhere in this volume. [40] Throughout the crisis, Grey failed to appreciate Vienna's desire for war. Accustomed to treating Vienna as an appendage of Berlin, Grey and his hard-line, anti-German associates believed Berlin could control Vienna. But the third largest state in Europe, with a population of fifty million, with two proud governments, and a proud monarch, wanted a resounding defeat of the Serbians. Grey's failure to acknowledge the differences between this crisis and earlier ones constitutes a major failure of perception that severely reduced Britain's ability to manipulate the crisis toward a peaceful solution. In fact, after August 1, the British leaders, like their counterparts on the Continent, sought chiefly to make their actions appear defensive in nature. Just as the Russians obliged the Germans to enter the war, so too the Germans would oblige the British by invading Belgium on their way to France. [41]
In the final days of July, Russia's general mobilization made containment of the crisis an impossibility. Historians have devoted ample attention to Russia's call for general mobilization on July 30. A frequent theme has emerged: why, if the Russians had partially mobilized during the first Balkan war, could they not have done so again? The Serbian documents offer a new interpretation of this issue. A partial mobilization was impossible because the steps St. Petersburg had ordered after July 25 were effectively already those of a partial mobilization. After the preparatory measures, only full mobilization remained. Czar Nicholas agreed to this step on July 29, but on receipt of a letter from Kaiser Wilhelm II, the czar rescinded the order. With difficulty, Sazonov and the generals convinced the czar to reissue the order on July 30. The headquarters' troops allegedly then tore out the telephones to prevent any further delays. With Russian mobilization, Berlin faced the dilemma of a two-front campaign. Wilhelm and his associates proceeded to set in motion their own plans, plans that guaranteed a European conflict. [42]
In Vienna, meanwhile, the war plans unfolded. Conrad remained transfixed with plans for an attack on Serbia. In the north, along the Russian frontier, he planned to leave only minimal defensive forces. He persisted in his intentions despite mounting evidence that the Russians would not stand aside. His southward gaze remains almost inexplicable. Only months before, in the spring, he had worried about the Russian threat and about the implications of recent Russian behavior in the Balkan wars. Yet, he disregarded reports reaching Vienna of Russian preparations, perhaps because of his long-standing distrust of diplomats and his own desire for war. The sooner the troops were engaged, the more likely it was that Conrad would succeed in precipitating the war that he had advocated since the Bosnian crisis of 1908. And the fastest way to engage the troops was to send them south to fight against the Serbian forces. Later, when he could not ignore the movement of Russian troops toward the Habsburg lands, Conrad had to order most of the Habsburg troops to return to fight in Galicia. Not surprisingly, the soldiers were fatigued by the time that they faced the Russian units. [43]
Conrad's desire for war set him apart from most of the other actors in the July crisis. Whereas many would accede to the developing situation with regret or caution, he welcomed the crisis. Anxious to settle scores with the Serbians, the Habsburg chief of staff made a difference in the decision-making process. Of all of the central actors in 1914, Conrad alone could have-by saying no to Berchtold or expressing hesitation to Franz Joseph or accepting some modified "Halt in Belgrade" - brought the crisis to a more peaceful conclusion. Conrad, however, did not, and that raises in stark relief the role of the individual in history. In this instance, Conrad's military ambitions were motivated, possibly, by his own desire to be a military hero and thus be able to marry Gina von Reininghaus, the woman he loved but could not wed because she was already married (and the mother of six children). Between 1907 and their nuptials in 1915, Conrad wrote literally thousands of letters to Gina, many mailed, others not. In several his theme is: if war comes and I am a hero, then I can marry Gina. But first he had to have the war. In the summer of 1914, he finally got his war and a year later his bride. [44]
While Conrad delayed any shift of his forces from the south to the north, Berlin attempted to cope with the Russian mobilization. Those decisions opened the final stages of the July crisis. Faced with the two-front war, the German leadership demanded that the Russians and French cease their preparations. But neither yielded to German pressure. The German high command pointed to unambiguous evidence of extensive Russian military activity; the Schlieffen-Moltke plan demanded action. On August 2, in scenes far distant from Sarajevo, Germany moved against Luxembourg and, one day later, against Belgium. With Germany's violation of Belgium neutrality, Grey pressed the British government to intervene. Thus the third Balkan war became World War I.
The outbreak of World War I saw a fusion of long-term causes with short-run tactical decisions. Although the momentum of the crisis differed from capital to capital, the limited options available to the policymakers are explicable only when the eastern European dynamics are considered. Alliance loyalties, the pressures of the military bureaucrats, and the juxtaposition of different perceptions with personal motivations made the chances of peace extremely remote in the last days of July and early August 1914.
What broader conclusions can be drawn from the July crisis about the origins and prevention of major wars? A few deserve emphasis, even if they are familiar. Nationalism and ethnic arrogance should never be underestimated. The powerful, emotive forces of prestige and survival press statesmen to take chances that ostensibly rational actors might not take, especially when the civilian ministers fail to comprehend the ramifications of military planning or its illusory nature. Even Berchtold and the other senior Habsburg statesmen, well versed in crisis management after the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, never fully probed the logic of Conrad's plans. The offensive ideology swept aside any doubts harbored by the civilian leadership and left them no time to ponder and reconsider.
The alliance and entente structures likewise placed a premium upon action. To be sure, the arrangements seemingly offered protection to their members. The alliances, however, could also coerce a state into taking action simply for the sake of the alliance. Strong, tight alliances may in fact be more dangerous to peace than loose, ambiguous ones where the actors must negotiate among themselves before taking action.
A number of conclusions can be drawn concerning the July crisis. First, "satisficing" as a decision-making process was evident everywhere; the statesmen repeatedly took the first suitable option, not necessarily the best option. [45] An economist model of decision-making was seldom seen during the weeks after Sarajevo; instead, a series of reactive decisions were taken by statesmen in Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. Cost-benefit analysis, such as occurred during the Cuban missile crisis, may take place if the time parameters of a crisis are known. But such a process is unlikely (and the Cuban missile crisis is not a good guide for decision-making during a crisis), because in most international crises the dénouement can be projected only at an unspecified future time, not at a specific future time. In most crises, this is not possible, and, certainly in 1914, the statesmen had no time carefully to consider their decisions, the Habsburg leadership excepted, once the ultimatum was delivered in Belgrade on July 23.
Second, the events of July reaffirm the power of perceptions and past experience in assessing current situations. In 1914 a group of leaders, all experienced in statecraft, power, and crisis management, deliberately made decisions that risked or assumed war. Statesmen and generals cast the die because of their fears and apprehensions about the future. No group had less confidence than the Habsburg leaders, who had been battered by the Balkan wars, Serbian expansion, and the loss of Franz Ferdinand, their experienced heir apparent. The Habsburg policymakers desperately desired to shape the future, rather than let events control them. The prospect of domestic disintegration, exacerbated by foreign intervention from the north and south, made war an acceptable policy option. Frustration and fear were a fatal and seductive combination for Vienna and Budapest. The Habsburg decision, backed by the Germans for their own reasons, gave the July crisis momentum and a dynamic that rendered peace the first casualty.
But the willingness of the Habsburg leadership to rescue a sagging dual monarchy by resorting to force had echoes elsewhere in Europe. In each capital, and despite the recent Balkan wars, the policymakers adopted a fatalistic, almost reckless, approach to the crisis. A convergence of offensive military strategies, fears about the future, and an unwillingness to consider other less dangerous options formed the perceptual agenda for the governmental leaders; peace had little chance once Vienna decided war was an acceptable option.
The war of 1914 began as a local quarrel with international ties; those ties converted it into a major conflagration. Therein lies possibly the most salient lesson of the July crisis: a local quarrel does not always remain a local issue. Peace is more easily maintained if one avoids even the smallest incursion into war, for, once the barrier of peace is broken, the process of diplomacy in restoring peace or preventing a larger war is infinitely more difficult. The maintenance of peace requires an aggressive commitment to imaginative diplomacy and to continual negotiation, not spasms of despair and the clash of military action in the hope for something better. Something better is almost always something worse, as all of the European governments discovered in World War I. [46]
[1] The most perceptive recent study is James Joll, The Origins of the First World War (New York, 1984). For a survey of the issues, see Williamson, The Origins of a Tragedy: July 1914 (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1981). See also Steven E. Miller (ed.), Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War: An International Security Reader (Princeton, 1985).
[2] Fritz Fischer's two major works are Griff nach der Weltmacht (Düsseldorf, 1961) and Krieg der Illusionen (Düsseldorf, 1969); both are available in translation. See also idem, Juli 1914: Wir sind nicht hineingeschlittert: Das Staatsgeheimnis um die Riezler-Tagebücher: Eine Streitschrift (Hamburg, 1983). Among his students, see Imanuel Geiss (ed.), Julikrise und Kriegsausbruch 1914: Eine Dokumentensammlung (Hannover, 1963-64), 2v, and his English selection of documents, July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: Selected Documents (New York, 1967). Sidney B. Fay, The Origins of the World War (New York, 1928), 2v; Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914 (London, 1952-57), 3v.
[3] Published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences and edited by Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch, the series on Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848-1918 has volumes on the economy, nationalities, administration, and religion; one on the army will appear soon. József Galántai, Die OUML;sterreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie und der Weltkrieg (Budapest, 1979); István Diószegi, Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz: Studies on the Austro-Hungarian Common Foreign Policy (Budapest, 1983). For a recent East German view, see Willibald Gutsche, Sarajevo 1914: Vom Attentat zum Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1984). For Western scholarship, see Francis Roy Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866-1918 (London, 1972); John D. Treadway, The Falcon and the Eagle: Montenegro and Austria-Hungary (West Lafayette, Ind., 1982); Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (London, 1975); Richard Crampton, The Hollow Detente: Anglo-German Relations in the Balkans, 1911-1914 (London, 1979). See also Williamson, "Vienna and July 1914: The Origins of the Great War Once More," in Peter Pastor and Williamson (eds.), Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), 9-36. E. Willis Brooks has brought the following recent Russian titles to my attention: Iurii Alekseevich Pisarev, Velikie derzhavy i Balkany nakanune pervoi mirovoi voiny [The Great Powers and the Balkans on the Eve of the First World War] (Moscow, 1985); Andrei Sergeevich Avetian, Russko-germanskie diplomaticheskie otnosheniia nakanune pervoi mirovoi voiny, 1910-1914 [Russo-German Diplomatic Relations on the Eve of the First World War, 1910-1914] (Moscow, 1985).
[4] Zara Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1977); Francis Harry Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977); Keith M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904-1914 (Cambridge, 1985); Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); Paul Halpern, The Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971). Bernt von Siebert, third secretary of the Russian embassy in London, was the source of Berlin's information; see Fischer, Krieg, 632-635.
[5] John F. V. Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983); Gerd Krumeich (trans. Marion Berghahn), Armaments and Politics in France on the Eve of the First World War: The Introduction of Three-Year Conscription, 1913-1914 (Dover, N.H., 1984); Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, 1984); Thomas Hayes Conner, "Parliament and the Making of Foreign Policy: France under the Third Republic, 1875-1914," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Chapel Hill, 1983).
[6] Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo (New York, 1966), 385-388; Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans (Cambridge, 1983), II, 106-112; HansUUML;bersberger, OUML;sterreich zwischen Russland und Serbien (Köln, 1958); Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy, 1908-1914 (Toronto, 1981). Publication of the Serbian diplomatic documents, now in progress, will facilitate a study of Serbo-Russian relations before 1914.
[7] Michael Behnen, Rüstung-Bündnis-Sicherheit: Dreibund und informeller Imperialismus, 1900-1908 (Tübingen, 1985); Richard Bosworth, Italy and the Approach of the First World War (New York, 1983) and Italy, the Least of the Great Powers (Cambridge, 1979). On Habsburg concerns about Albania, see Ludwig Bittner and UUML;bersberger (eds.), OUML;sterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise 1908 bis zum Kriegsausbruch (hereafter Aussen) (Vienna, 1930), VII, VIII; Bridge, "'Tarde venientibus ossa': Austro-Hungarian Colonial Aspirations in Asia Minor, 1913-14," Middle Eastern Studies, VI (1970), 319-330.
[8] Fischer, Krieg, 289-323; Bridge, Sadowa, 360-368; Erwin HÖlze, Die Selbstentmachung Europas (Frankfurt am M., 1975), 269-278; Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (Graz, 1963), II, 520-539.
[9 ] Keith Hitchins, "The Nationality Problem in Hungary: István Tisza and the Rumanian National Party, 1906-1914," Journal of Modern History, LIII (1981), 619-651; Gheorghe Nicolae Cazan and Serban Radulescu-Zoner, România si Tripla Alianta, 1878-1914 (Bucharest, 1979).
[10] Czernin to Berchtold, 22 June 1914, Aussen, VIII, no. 9902; also Czernin to Berchtold, 22 June 1914, Berchtold Archiv, no. 9, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna; Hantsch, Berchtold, II, 545-557.]
[11] Fischer, Krieg, 481-515; Stone, "Austria-Hungary, " in Ernest R. May (ed.), Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars (Princeton, 1984), 43-48; Holger Herwig, "Imperial Germany," ibid., 86-92; William C. Fuller, Jr. "The Russian Empire," ibid., 115-123.]
[12] Ernst Christian Helmreich, The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), 157-164, 281-290; Williamson, "Military Dimensions of Habsburg-Romanov Relations during the Era of the Balkan Wars," in Béla K. Király and Dimitrie Djordevic (eds.), East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars (New York, 1987), 318-337.
[13] Paul Kennedy, The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 (London, 1980); Steiner, Britain, 42-78. Cf. Volker R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York, 1973), 165-185; Fischer, Krieg, 613-635.
[14] Snyder, Ideology; Joll, Origins, 58-91; Lancelot L. Farrar, Jr., The Short War Illusion (Santa Barbara, 1973); Stone, Eastern; Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne: The French Army, 1871-1914 (Cambridge, 1981); Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow. I: The Road to War, 1904-14 (London, 1961); Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, Ind., 1976); Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (Baltimore, 1981); Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914 (London, 1979); Williamson, Politics.
[15] Conrad's memoirs are valuable. See his Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 1906-1918 (Vienna, 1921-25), III, 665-675; Rothenberg, Army, 172-176; Stone, "Die Mobilmachung der Österreichisch-ungarischen Armee 1914," Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, XVI (1974), 67-95. See also Kurt Peball's edition of Conrad's private notes, Private Aufzeichnungen: Erste Veröffentlichungen aus den Papieren des k.u.k. Generalstabs-Chef (Vienna, 1977).
[16] Joll, "1914: The Unspoken Assumptions," in Hannesjoachim Wilhelm Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims (New York, 1972), 307-328. On the peace movement in Germany, see Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace Movement in German Society, 1892-1914 (Princeton, 1975).
[17] Little has been written about the two provinces, but the following books are helpful: Peter F. Sugar, Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1918 (Seattle, 1963);Robert J. Donia, Islam under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina, 1878-1914 (New York, 1981).
[18] Keiger, France; Fischer, Krieg; Bosworth, Italy and the Approach; Steiner, Britain, treat the issue of nationalism. For Russian attitudes, see Dominic C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (New York 1983).
[19] Two excellent recent studies are Raymond Pearson, National Minorities in Eastern Europe, 1848-1945 (London, 1983); Wandruszka and Urbanitsch (eds.). Die VÖlker des Reiches (Vienna, 1980), 2v. See also Robert A. Kann and Zdenek V. David, The Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918 (Seattle, 1984).
[20] Jelavich, History, II, 79-112; Dedijer, Road, 160-284; Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, 1984).
[21] Dedijer, Road, 261-284. See also Friedrich Würthle, Die Spur führt nach Belgrad: Die Hintergrüde des Dramas von Sarajevo 1914 (Vienna, 1975).
[22] On internal pressures and the causes of war, see Arno J. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (New York, 1981), 275-329. See also Joll, Origins, 92-122. On Germany, see Fischer, Krieg, 289-323, 663-738; David Kaiser, "Germany and the Origins of the First World War," Journal of Modern History, LV (1983), 442-474; Konrad Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, 1973), 153-170. On Russia, see Lieven, Russia, 139-151. On Austria-Hungary, see the period piece, Henry Wickham Steed, The Hapsburg Monarchy (London, 1914, 2nd ed.); Arthur J. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1951); Joachim Remak, "The Healthy Invalid: How Doomed Was the Habsburg Empire?" Journal of Modern History, XLI (1969), 127-143; idem, "1914: The Origins of the Third Balkan War Reconsidered," ibid., XLII (1971); Robert A. Kann, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand Studien (Vienna, 1976), 15-25; Williamson, "Influence, Power, and the Policy Process: The Case of Franz Ferdinand," The Historical Journal, XVII (1974), 417-434.
[23] Joll, Origins, has the most current bibliography; Dwight E. Lee, Europe's Crucial Years: The Diplomatic Background of World War I, 1902-1914 (Hanover, N.H., 1974); Leonard Charles Frederick Turner, Origins of the First World War (New York, 1970); Stephan Verosta, Theorie und Realität von Bündnissen (Vienna, 1971).
[24] Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, IV, 13-36; Hantsch, Berchtold II, 557-569; Leon von Bilinski, Wspominienia i dokumenty, 1846-1922 [Memoirs and Documents, 1846-1922] (Warsaw, 1924), I, 274-278; Potiorek's reports from Sarajevo are found in part in Aussen, VIII. See also Potiorek's separate reports to the military leadership in Nachlass Potiorek, Kriegsarchiv, Vienna.
[25] On the investigation in Sarajevo, see Würthle, Spur, and idem, Dokumente zum Sarajevoprozess: Ein Quellenbericht (Vienna, 1978). For one indication of Franz Joseph's thinking, see Heinrich von Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, 2 July 1914, in Max Montgelas and Walther Schücking (eds.), Outbreak of the World War: German Documents Collected by Karl Kautsky (New York, 1924) (hereafter Kautsky Documents), no. 11; Kann, Kaiser Franz Joseph und der Ausbruch des Weltkrieges (Vienna, 1971). On Tisza see Galántai, Weltkrieg, 251-278; Gabor Vermes, István Tisza: The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist (New York, 1985), and Burián's diary entries for 7-14 July 1914, in István Diószegi, "Aussenminister Stephen Graf Burian: Biographie und Tagebuchstelle," Annales: Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinesis, Sectio Historica, VIII (1966), 205-206.
[26] Fischer, Krieg, 686-694; Fritz Fellner, "Die 'Mission Hoyos'," in Vasa Cubrilovic (ed.), Recueil des trauvaux aux assises scientifiques internationales: Les grandes puissances et la Serbie à la veille de la Première guerre mondiale (Belgrade, 1976), IV, 387-418; Albertini, Origins, II, 133-150.
[27] See Fritz Stern, "Bethmann Hollweg and the War: The Limits of Responsibility," in Leonard Krieger and Stern (eds.), The Responsibility of Power (Garden City, 1967), 271-307. Fay argued that Austria-Hungary pulled Berlin along (Origins, II, 198-223).
[28] General Staff memorandum, "Vorbereitende Massnahmen," n.d, but seen by Conrad on 6 July 1914, Generalstab: Operations Buro, faszikel 43, Kriegsarchiv, Vienna; Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, IV, 13-87.
[29] Galántai, Weltkrieg, 258-271. See also Norman Stone, "Hungary and the Crisis of July 1914," Journal of Contemporary History, I (1966). 153-170; Fremdenblatt, 6 July 1914.
[30] Berchtold used the Literary Bureau of the foreign ministry to help with the press; his efforts were generally successful, but the stock market continued to show signs of uneasiness.
[31] Gottlieb von Jagow to Flotow, (tel.) 11 July 1914, Kautsky Documents, no. 33; Habsburg ambassador in Rome, Kajetan von Mérey to Berchtold, (tel.) 18 July 1914, Aussen, VIII, no. 10364; Berchtold to Mérey, (tel.) 20 July 1914, ibid, no. 10418. San Giuliano to Berlin, St. Petersburg, Belgrade, Vienna, (tels.) 16 July 1914, in Italian Foreign Ministry, I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani (1908-1914), XII, no. 272.
[33] I am indebted to Dragan Zivojinovic for help with the documents. Dedijer, who edited the July volume of documents, drew upon them in Road to Sarajevo. The volume of documents is Dedijer and Zivota Anic (eds.), Documents sur la politique exterieure du Royaume de Serbie [Dokumenti o spoljnoj politici kraljevine Srbije, 1903-1914] (Belgrade, 1980). For 14 May-4 August 1914, see VII, pt. II. The general series was under the editorial direction of Vasa Cubrilovic. On knowledge of some kind of activity, see Protic (minister of the interior) to Pasic, 15 June 1914, ibid., no. 206; report from Sabac county on smuggling of arms across the border, 16 June 1914, ibid., no. 209; Apis to Putnik (chief of the Serbian general staff), 21 June 1914, ibid., no. 230; Putnik to Pasic, 23 June 1914, ibid., no. 234. On Pasics attempts to curb the activity, see Pasic to Putnik, 24 June 1914, ibid., no. 254.
[34] Pasic to all Serbian missions abroad, (tels.) 18 July 1914, Documents, no. 462.
[35] See Szápáry to Berchtold, (tels.) 21 July and 22 July 1914, Aussen, VIII, nos. 10461, 10497. On the Russian documents for the Poincaré visit, see Otto Hoetzsch (ed.), Die internationalen Beziehungen in Zeitalter des Imperialismus (Berlin, 1932-1934), V, nos. 1, 2. On the French records for the visit, see Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Documents diplomatiques français, 1871-1914 (Paris, 1936), X, no. 536 which refers only to Anglo-Russian naval talks; the editors of the volumes indicate that they could find no other records. On this issue, see Albertini, Origins, II, 188-203.
[36] Lieven, Origins, makes no mention of the French visit, in keeping with his general view of the lack of Russian activism during the crisis (140-141 ); cf. Keiger, Origins, 150-152.
[37] The ultimatum and the Serbian reply have been frequently reprinted. See Geiss, July 1914, 142-146, 201-204.
[38] Lieven describes some of the measures, Origins, 141-151; Snyder, Ideology, 183-198; Stone, Eastern, 37-60; Ulrich Trumpener, "War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914," Central European History, IX (1976), 58-85. Cf. Fischer, Krieg, 704-709. On the Serbian reports, see, e.g., Spalajkovic to Pasic, (tels.) 25, 26, 29 July 1914, Dedijer and Anic (eds.), Documents, nos. 570, 584, 673. See also Risto Ropponen, Die russische Gefahr (Helsinki, 1976), 180-206.
[39] Galántai, Weltkrieg, 344-373; Hantsch, Berchtold, II, 618-647. Pasic indicated he would concede nothing; note by Pasic, dated 27 July 1914 on telegram from Berlin of the same date (Dedijer and Anic [eds.], Documents, no. 588).
[40] Robert Jervis, "War and Misperception " Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XVIII (1988), 675-700.
[41] Steiner, Britain, 220-241; also Albertini, Origins, III, 521-525; Bridge, Great Britain, 211-218.
[42] The Serbian documents report extensive military steps by the Russians after July 25; e.g., Spalajkovic to Pasic, (tel.) 26 July, 1914, Dedijer and Anic (eds.), Documents, no. 585. Albertini summarized the Russian mobilization arguments well in Origins, II, 528-581. See also Fischer, Krieg, 704-729.
[43] Stone, "Die Mobilmachung," 176-184; see also Williamson, "Theories of Organizational Process and Foreign Policy Outcomes," in Paul G. Lauren (ed.), Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy (New York, 1979), 151-154; Jack S. Levy, "Organizational Routines and the Causes of War," International Studies Quarterly, XXX (1986), 193-222.
[44] For a discussion of Conrad's relationship with Gina, see Williamson, "Vienna and July 1914," 13-14. See also Gina Conrad's indiscreet, Mein Leben mit Conrad von HÖtzendorf (Leipzig, 1935).
[45] Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, 1971), 72.
[46] On the problem of maintaining peace over long decades, see John Lewis Gaddis, "The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System," International Security, X (1986), 99-142.
From: Samuel Williamson, The Origins of World War I (1988) © 1988 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., is Professor of History and Provost of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Origins of a Tragedy: July 1914 (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1981). Reproduced by permission.