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War Declared:
Russian and German Intervention
The Austrian action precipitated the intervention of Russia.
Although for generations the principal Russian interest in the Balkans
and the Middle East had been the question of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles,
that question was dormant in July 1914. The Russian move was determined
by the other facet of its policy in the area: the tradition of defending
the Slavic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula against Turkish misrule or
German (Austrian) pressure. Since the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina
in 1908, Serbia had looked to Russia for help against AustriaHungary,
but Russia had not fully recovered from its defeat by Japan and the abortive
revolution of 1905, and Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolski and his successor,
Sergei Sazonov, put off the importunate Serbs with promises for the future.
The Russian government probably did not want war in 1914, for its army
was undergoing reorganization, and revolutionary symptoms (notably in
the form of strikes) were again in evidence. Nevertheless, it had to help
Serbia or see that country crushed by Austria.
Such an eventuality was contrary to the interest of Russia
and was strongly opposed by Russian public opinion. Sazonov believed (correctly,
as we now know) that the Austrian assurances of disinterestedness were
equivocal and insincere. He tried to have the terms of the Austrian ultimatum
modified, but to no avail; when he learned of the bombardment of Belgrade,
he ordered the partial mobilization of the Russian Army on July 29. This
decision, like the German decision of July 5 and the Austrian decision
of July 25, was taken without proper reflection, but its purpose was to
make clear that Russia would act if Austria attacked Serbia in earnest
(the Austrians did not plan to attack until August 12, but this was not
known in St. Petersburg). Sazonov's calculations doubly misfired. First,
the nev,s of partial mobilization did not deter Vienna ( and Berlin) from
the course chosen. In the second place, the Russian General Staff, which
had not been consulted, had no plan for partial mobilization and convinced
the foreign minister that it was impracticable, and that general mobilization
must be ordered. Nicholas II, with whom the final decision rested, wavered,
giving his consent on the evening of July 29 and then withdrawing it.
On July 30, he agreed, however, and the order was published on July 31.
The Russian general mobilization was ordered in the knowledge
that it would be followed by German mobilization, as the German government
had stated; in the German view, this meant war. Neither Austria nor Russia
regarded mobilization as necessarily meaning war. Germany took that position
because it planned to attack France first, defeat it in six weeks, and
then turn on Russia; therefore, so the German argument ran, Germany could
not afford to let Russia mobilize but must strike at once. In a sense,
then, Russia "willed the war" when it ordered mobilization,
and the Italian historian Luigi Albertini thought that the mobilization
was premature, for by July 30 the British government had come forward
with a plan that might have led to compromise and peace. Inasmuch as Germany
had forbidden even a partial Russian mobilization, however, Russia had
to mobilize or abdicate as a great power. The czar promised that his armies
would not attack so long as negotiations continued, but these assurances
seemed as dubious to Germany as the Austrian assurances about the integrity
of Serbia seemed to Russia.
At the beginning of the crisis, Germany urged that the
Austro-Serbian conflict be "localized," lest the operation of
the system of alliances turn it into a general war, and refused to restrain
its ally, which, in fact, it urged to act quickly. From the start the
plea of localization was rejected by Russia, France, and Britain because
they could not afford, as they saw their interests, to let Serbia be crushed.
The German government also rejected a British proposal for a conference
in London to try to find a solution for the Austro-Serbian conflict.
On July 28, the day on which Austria declared war on Serbia,
the German emperor changed his mind. He decided that the conciliatory
Serbian reply had removed "every reason for war," and he proposed
that Austria stop with the occupation of Belgrade and offer to negotiate.
On the following day, the British government came forward with an almost
identical proposal. By this time it began to seem likely that, contrary
to the original German calculations, Britain would be drawn into the war.
So the German government, on the evening of July 29, shifted its ground
and advised Vienna to accept the British proposal. Before the Austrian
government had replied, rumors of Russian mobilization began to reach
Berlin, and the chief of the German General Staff, Col. Gen. Helmuth von
Moltke, pressed for war (as is admitted by the two most objective German
students of the crisis: Herman Lutz, in Die europaische Politik in der
Julikrise 1914, 1930; and Alfred von Wegerer, in Der Ausbruch des Weltkrieges
1914, 2 vols., 1939) . On the evening of July 30, he pursuaded the chancellor
to relax the pressure on Berchtold to accept the British proposal, and
he himself telegraphed to the Austrian chief of staff, Gen. Baron (later
Field Marshal Count) Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf, urging the rejection
of the proposal and promising Germany's full support if war resulted.
Vienna did as Moltke desired and ordered Austrian general mobilization
on July 31, before news had been received of the Russian general mobilization.
According to Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn, the Prussian minister
of war, Germany could have waited a few days before reacting to the Russian
general mobilization. When official news of this step reached Berlin on
the morning of July 31, however, Moltke, with the help of William II (
who had experienced another change of mind), secured the consent of BethmannHollweg,
who had been resisting the generals, to the proclamation of a Kriegsgefahrzustand
( state of danger of war). This was the necessary preliminary to formal
mobilization, which was ordered on the following day, August 1. Whether,
without the intervention of Moltke, Austria would have accepted the British
proposal, and whether a compromise with Russia could have been reached,
no one can say; but it is clear that Moltke's interference prevented any
lastminute negotiations in the interest of peace.
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