The Sleepwalkers

10. Miles Ignotus (pseud.), ‘Italian Nationalism and the War with Turkey’, Fortnightly Review, 90 (December 1911), pp. 1084–96, here pp. 1088–91; Askew, Europe and Italy’s Acquisition of Libya, pp. 25, 27; Francesco Malgeri, Guerra Libica (1911–1912) (Rome, 1970), pp. 37–96.

11. On socialist jingoism at the time of the invasion, see Bennett, With the Turks, p. 7.

12. Bosworth, Italy, p. 151.

13. Pietro di Scalea to San Giuliano, 13 August 1911, cited in ibid., p. 158.

14. Thus Grey summarized his conversation with the ambassador in a subsequent letter to Sir Rennell Rodd, see Grey to Rodd, 28 July 1911, TNA FO 371/1250, fo. 311.

15. Bosworth, Italy, pp. 152–3.

16. Grey to Nicolson, London, 19 September 1911, BD, vol. 9/1, doc. 231, p. 274.

17. Bosworth, Italy, p. 159; Afflerbach, Dreibund, p. 693.

18. Cited in Bosworth, Italy, p. 160.

19. The ambassador was the former secretary of state for foreign affairs Marschall von Bieberstein, who strongly opposed the Italian campaign. On the tensions in German policy, see W. David Wrigley, ‘Germany and the Turco-Italian War, 1911–1912’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 11/3 (1980), pp. 313–38, esp. pp. 315, 319–20; also Malgeri, Guerra Libica, p. 138; Afflerbach, Dreibund, pp. 693–4.

20. Malgeri, Guerra Libica, p. 119.

21. Memorandum San Giuliano to Giolitti, Fiuggi, 28 July 1911, in Claudio Pavone, Dalle carte di Giovanni Giolitti: quarant’anni di politica italiana (3 vols., Milan, 1962), vol. 3, Dai prodromi della grande guerra al fascismo, 1910–1928, doc. 49, pp. 52–6.

22. Timothy W. Childs, Italo-Turkish Diplomacy and the War Over Libya (Leiden, 1990), pp. 44–5.

23. Report San Giuliano to Giolitti, 28 July 1911, in Pavone, Dalle carte, pp. 52–6.

24. Childs, Italo-Turkish Diplomacy, pp. 46–7.

25. Chevalier Tullio Irace, With the Italians in Tripoli. The Authentic History of the Turco-Italian War (London, 1912), pp. 11–12.

26. For a good account of the fighting around Tripoli in October and November 1911, despite a strong pro-Italian bias, see W. K. McLure, Italy in North Africa. An Account of the Tripoli Enterprise (London, 1913), pp. 60–109; on international reports of Italian atrocities and Arab resistance more generally, see Malgeri, Guerra Libica, pp. 195 and 165–94.

27. Texts of the treaties and the Imperial Ferman conceding autonomy in Childs, Italo-Turkish Diplomacy, pp. 243–53.

28. Sergio Romano, La Quarta Sponda: La Guerra di Libia, 1911–1912 (Milan, 1977), p. 14.

29. Malgeri, Guerra Libica, pp. 303, 306–8, 309.

30. Ibid., pp. 327–9.

31. Paul Cambon to Poincaré, 25 January 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 1, doc. 516, pp. 535–8, here p. 536.

32. On the failure of the ‘concert system’ in the last years before the war, see Richard Langhorne, The Collapse of the Concert of Europe. International Politics, 1890–1914 (New York, 1981), esp. pp. 97–107; Günther Kronenbitter, ‘Diplomatisches Scheitern: Die Julikrise 1914 und die Konzertdiplomatie der europäischen Grossmächte’, in Bernhard Chiari and Gerhard P. Gross (eds.), Am Rande Europas? Balkan – Raum und Bevölkerung als Wirkungsfelder militärischer Gewalt (Munich, 2009), pp. 55–66. F. R. Bridge, ‘Österreich(-Urgarn) unter der Grossmächten’, in Wandruszka and Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie, vol. 6/1, pp. 196–373, here pp. 329–32.

33. Rainer Lahme, Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1890–1894. Von der Gleichgewichtspolitik Bismarcks zur Allianzstrategie Caprivis (Göttingen, 1990), pp. 316–337, 494.

34. Cited in William L. Langer, The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1890–1894 (Cambridge, 1929), p. 83.

35. Treadway, Falcon and Eagle, pp. 88–9.

36. Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans. Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy, 1908–1914 (Toronto, 1981), p. 36.

37. Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913. Prelude to the First World War (London, 2000), p. 11.

38. Cited in Robert Elsie (ed.), Kosovo. In the Heart of the Balkan Powder Keg (Boulder, 1997), p. 333.

39. Figures calculated from Hall, Balkan Wars, p. 24.

40. Richard C. Hall, Bulgaria’s Road to the First World War (Boulder, 1997), pp. 78–9.

41. Alex N. Dragnich, Serbia, Nikola Pašić and Yugoslavia (New Brunswick, 1974), p. 101

42. Rapaport (Netherlands Consul-General) to Vredenburch (Netherlands minister in Bucharest, formally responsible for Serbia), Belgrade, 23 March 1913, NA, 2.05.36, 9 Consulaat-Generaal Belgrado en Gezantschap Zuid-Slavië.

43. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 161; Ivan T. Teodorov, Balkanskite voini (1912–1913). Istorischeski, diplomaticheski i strategicheski ocherk (Sofia, 2007), p. 182.

44. Teodorov, Balkanskite voini, pp. 259, 261.

45. Kiril Valtchev Merjansky, ‘The Secret Serbian-Bulgarian Treaty of Alliance of 1904 and the Russian Policy in the Balkans before the Bosnian Crisis’, MA thesis, Wright State University, 2007, pp. 19, 27, 52, 79.

46. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 175.

47. Rapaport to Vredenburch, Belgrade, 27 May 1913, NA, 2.05.36, doc. 9, Consulaat-Generaal Belgrado en Gezantschap Zuid-Slavië, 1891–1940.

48. Philip E. Mosely, ‘Russian Policy in 1911–12’, Journal of Modern History, 12 (1940), pp. 73–4; Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, pp. 12, 15.

49. Ronald Bobroff, Roads to Glory. Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits (London, 2006), pp. 23–4.

50. See David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, ‘Russian Foreign Policy: 1815–1917’, in D. C. B. Lieven (ed.), Cambridge History of Russia (3 vols., Cambridge, 2006), vol. 2, Imperial Russia, 1689–1917, pp. 554–74, here p. 573.

51. Cited in Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 27.

52. V. N. Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, trans. from the Russian into Serbian by Jovan Kachaki (Belgrade, 2009) pp. 238–9.

53. Hartwig to Neratov, Belgrade, 6 October 1911 in IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, part 2, doc. 545.

54. Mosely, ‘Russian Policy’, p. 74; for an account of these developments, see Edward C. Thaden, ‘Charykov and Russian Foreign Policy at Constantinople in 1911’, Journal of Central European Affairs, 16 (1956–7), pp. 25–43; also Alan Bodger, ‘Russia and the End of the Ottoman Empire’, in Marian Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1984), pp. 76–110; Bobroff, Roads to Glory, pp. 24–5.

55. Buchanan to Nicolson, St Petersburg, 21 March 1912, BD, vol. 9/1, doc. 563, pp. 561–2; Edward C. Thaden, Russia and the Balkan Alliance of 1912 (University Park, TX, 1965), pp. 56–7 and ‘Charykov and Russian Foreign Policy at Constantinople’, in id. and Marianna Forster Thaden, Interpreting History. Collective Essays on Russia’s Relations with Europe (Boulder, 1990), pp. 99–119.

56. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, pp. 26–7.

57. Ibid., pp. 30–31.

58. Sazonov to Izvolsky, St Petersburg, 2 October 1912, AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, l. 5.

59. Sazonov, conversation with Nekliudov, Davos, October 1911, cited in Thaden, Russia, p. 78.

60. For Sazonov’s belief that the Austrians would have occupied the Sanjak if the Russians had not ‘bound’ Vienna with a status quo agreement, see Sazonov, Confidential letter to the Russian ambassadors in Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade, Cetinje, Athens, Bucharest and St Petersburg, 18 October 1912, AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 79–81.

61. Katrin Boeckh, Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Kleinstaatenpolitik und ethnische Selbstbestimmung aufden Balkan (Munich, 1996), pp. 26–7; David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War. Europe 1904–1915 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 232–3.

62. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 45.

63. On the secret articles and the subsequent military convention of 12 May 1912, see Boeckh, Von den Balkankriegen, pp. 25–7; Thaden, Russia, pp. 56, 101, 103; Bobroff, Roads of Glory, pp. 43–4.

64. Sazonov to Benckendorff, 24 October 1912, transcribed in ‘Pervaya Balkanskaya voina (okonchanie)’, KA, 16 (1926), pp. 3–24, doc. 36, p. 9; see also Benno Siebert (ed.), Benckendorffs diplomatischer Schriftwechsel (3 vols., Berlin, 1928), vol. 2, doc. 698, pp. 462–3; David M. McDonald, United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia 1900–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), p. 180.

65. McDonald, United Government, Cambridge, MA, 1992 p. 181.

66. Radoslav Vesnić, Dr Milenko Vesnić, Gransenjer Srbske Diplomatije (Belgrade, 2008), p. 296.

67. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 234; Ernst Christian Helmreich, The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913 (Cambridge, MA, 1938), p. 153; Thaden, Russia, p. 113.

68. Helmreich, Balkan Wars, pp. 156–7.

69. Conversation with Sazonov reported in Buchanan to Grey, 18 September 1912, BD, vol. 9/1, doc. 722, pp. 693–5, here p. 694.

70. Sazonov to Nekliudov, St Petersburg, 18 October 1912, AVPRI Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 69–70.

71. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, pp. 87–8.

72. Novoye Vremya, cited in Buchanan to Grey, 30 October 1912, BD, 9/2, doc. 78, pp. 63–6.

73. Sazonov to Izvolsky, Benckendorff, Sverbeev etc., 31 October 1912, KA, vol. 16, doc. 45, cited in Bobroff, Roads to Glory, p. 48.

74. Buchanan to Grey, 30 October 1912, BD, vol. 9/2, doc. 78, pp. 63–6; Sazonov to Krupensky (Russian ambassador in Rome), St Petersburg, 8 November 1912; Sazonov to Hartwig, St Petersburg, 11 November 1912, both in AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 110, ll. 121–121 verso.

75. Sazonov to Hartwig, ‘secret telegram’, St Petersburg, 11 November 1912, AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 121–2; ‘Note de l’ambassade de Russie’, 12 November 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 4, doc. 431, pp. 443–4; Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 97.

76. Pourtalès to Bethmann Hollweg, St Petersburg, 17 November 1912, PA-AA, R 10895.

77. Sazonov to Izvolsky, St Petersburg, 14 November 1912, in Friedrich Stieve (ed.), Der diplomatische Schriftwechsel Iswolskis, 1911–1914 (Berlin, 4 vols., 1925), vol. 2, Der Tripoliskrieg und der Erste Balkankrieg, doc. 566, p. 345.

78. Report by Buchanan dated 28 November 1912, cited in L. C. F. Turner, Origins of the First World War (London, 1973), p. 34; see also supporting comment from Pourtalès in Pourtalès to Bethmann Hollweg, St Petersburg, 17 November 1912, PA-AA, R 10895.

79. Buchanan to Nicolson, St Petersburg, 9 January 1913, BD, vol. 9, doc. 481, p. 383.

80. Cited in Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 109; on Russia’s inability more generally to ‘set and follow its own agenda’, see Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford, 2001), p. 20.

81. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 234; Helmreich, Russia and the Balkans, pp. 157–62.

82. Sazonov to Kokovtsov, ‘highly confidential’, St Petersburg, 23 October 1912, AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 46–46 verso.

83. Ibid., ll. 47–47 verso.

84. V. I. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya pervoi mirovoi voiny: Otnosheniya Rossii i Frantsii v 1912–1914 gg (Moscow, 1961), pp. 136–7.

85. Bruce W. Menning, ‘Russian Military Intelligence, July 1914.What St Petersburg Perceived and Why It Mattered’, unpublished typescript.

86. Laguiche to Ministry of War, St Petersburg, 16 December 1912, cited in Stevenson, Armaments, p. 237.

87. McDonald, United Government, p. 185.

88. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 260.

89. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, pp. 152–3.

90. On the response in Vienna to this overture, see Tschirschky to MFA Vienna, 28 December 1912; Zimmermann to Tschirschky, Berlin, 3 January 1913, Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Vienna, 2 January 1913, GP, vol. 34/1, docs. 12580, 12605, 12607, pp. 91, 117–9, 120–21.

91. On Russian military measures, see Grey to Buchanan, 2 January 1913; Buchanan to Grey, 30 December 1912, BD, vol. 9/2, docs. 438, 419; on ‘mobilization’, see Louis to Poincaré, 25 and 27 December 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 5, docs. 122, 131, pp. 142–3, 153.

92. On the situation in Austria, see Stevenson, Armaments, p. 262; on Russia: Pourtalès to Bethmann Hollweg, St Petersburg, 20 February 1913, PA-AA, R 10896.

93. On the crisis and the subsequent climbdown, see Lucius to Foreign Ministry, 23 December 1912, GP, 43/1, doc. 12570; Buchanan to Grey, 30 December 1912, Grey to Buchanan, 2 January 1913, BD, 9 (2), docs. 419, 438; Louis to Poincaré, 25 and 27 December 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 5, docs. 122, 131.

94. On the impact of the winter crisis on Austro-Russian Balkan relations, see Samuel R. Williamson, ‘Military Dimensions of Habsburg-Romanov Relations During the Era of the Balkan Wars’, in Béla K. Király and Dimitrije Djordjević (eds.), East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars (Boulder, 1987), pp. 317–37.

95. Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 7 January 1913, MAEB AD, Russie 3, 1906–1913.

96. V. I. Gurko, Cherty i Siluety Proshlogo. Pravitel’stvo i Obshchestvennost’ v Tsarstvovanie Nikolaya II v Izobrazhenii Sovremennika (Moscow, 2000), p. 241.

97. A. Yu Ariev (ed.), Sud’ba Veka. Krivosheiny (St Petersburg, 2002), p. 91.

98. S. E. Kryzhanovskii, Vospominaniia (Berlin, 1938), p. 20.

99. In 1910, Krivoshein even wrote to Stolypin asking for raised troop strengths along the Amur river valley on the eastern march of Russian settlement. Krivoshein to Stolypin, St Petersburg, 30 April 1910, RGIA, F. 1276, op. 6, d. 690, L 129–130 ob.

100. Ariev (ed.), Sud’ba Veka, p. 189.

101. H. H. Fisher (ed.), Out of My Past. The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov Russian Minister of Finance, 1904–1914, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 1911–1914, trans. Laura Matveev (Stanford, 1935), p. 349.

102. I. V. Bestuzhev, Bor’ba v Rossii po Voprosam Vneshnei Politiki Nakanune Pervoi Mirovoi Voiny (Moscow, 1965) pp. 74, 162; Krivoshein also clashed with Kokovtsov over subsidized credits for farmers, a measure Kokovtsov opposed in the name of fiscal rigour; on the political tensions generated on both sides by Russo-German trade relations, see Horst Linke, Das Zarische Russland und der Erste Weltkrieg. Diplomatie und Kriegsziele 1914–1917 (Munich, 1982), pp. 23–4.

103. Ariev (ed.), Sud’ba Veka, p. 189.

104. McDonald, United Government, p. 185.

105. Paul Miliukov, Political Memoirs 1905–1917, trans. Carl Goldberg (Ann Arbor, 1967), p. 177.

106. Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories (2 vols., London, 1923), vol. 1, p. 71.

107. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 19.

108. Cited in ibid., p. 28.

109. Ibid., p. 29.

110. Sazonov’s advice to Sofia: Sazonov to Nekliudov, St Petersburg, 31 October 1912; suspicions of France: Sazonov to Izvolsky, St Petersburg, 8 November 1912, both cited in Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, pp. 138, 142.

111. Thus Sazonov’s account of the Tsar’s view, cited in Teodorov, Balkanskite voini, p. 192.

112. Sazonov to Bobchev, 12 June 1913, cited in ibid., p. 233.

113. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 192; Teodorov, Balkanskite voini, pp. 42, 212.

114. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (ed.), Report of the International Commission to Enquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Washington, 1914), p. 264.

115. Hall, Balkan Wars, p. 135.

116. Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich, Bulgarien und die Mächte 1913–1915 (Stuttgart, 1985), pp. 21–26.

117. Panafieu to Pichon, Sofia, 20 January 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 9, doc. 118, pp. 139–41.

118. Savinsky to Sazonov, Sofia, 1 February 1914, IBZI, 3rd series, vol. 1, 157, pp. 144–8, esp. p. 147.

119. Friedrich, Bulgarien und die Mächte, p. 27.

120. Department note, conditions for a Bulgarian loan, Paris, 16 February 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 9, doc. 306, pp. 389–90.

121. Malenic to Pašić, Berlin, 30 June 1914, AS, MID – PO, 415, fos. 613–20.

122. Alexander Savinsky, Reflections from a Russian Diplomat (London, 1927), pp. 215–23; Dard (French minister in Sofia) to Doumergue (French foreign minister), Sofia, 18 May 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 10, doc. 246, pp. 379–82.

123. Friedrich, Bulgarien und die Mächte, pp. 33–5; Doumergue to Izvolsky, Paris, 30 May 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 10, doc. 305, p. 455.

124. Matthew A. Yokell, ‘Sold to the Highest Bidder. An Investigation of Diplomacy Regarding Bulgaria’s Entry into World War I (MA thesis, University of Richmond, 2010), pp. 33–5, viewed online at: https://dspace.lasrworks.org/bitstream/handle/10349/911/10HIS-YokellMatthew.pdf?sequence=1; Dard to Doumergue, Sofia, 29 May 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 10, doc. 302, p. 452.

125. Savinsky, Reflections, pp. 223–4.

126. Samuel R.Williamson, ‘Vienna and July 1914: The Origins of the Great War Once More’, in id. and Peter Pastor (eds.), Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), pp. 9–36, esp. p. 19.

127. Czernin to Berchtold, Bucharest-Sinaia, 22 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9902, pp. 173–6, here p. 174.

128. The conversation between Sazonov and Bratianu is reported in Sazonov, ‘Audience text for Nicholas II’, 18 June 1914, in IBZI, series 1, vol. 3, doc. 339, p. 296 (emphasis added); French Foreign Ministry, Department of Political and Commercial Affairs (Europe), ‘Note pour le Président du Conseil’, Paris, 11 July 1914, AMAE NS, Russie 46 (Politique étrangère. Autriche-Hongrie-Russie), fos. 312–4, here fo. 314.

129. Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 25 November 1913, MAEB AD, Russie 3 1906–1914.

130. Hartwig to Sazonov, Belgrade, 24 February 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, 314, pp. 311–13.

131. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 8–21 January 1914, AS, MID – PO, 416, fos. 420–21.

132. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 14–27 March 1914, ibid., fo. 451.

133. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 24 April–7 May 1914, ibid., fo. 475.

134. Descos (French minister in Belgrade) to Doumergue (French minister of foreign affairs), Belgrade, 6 April 1914, DDF, 3rd series (1911–1914), vol. 10, doc. 80, pp. 124–6.

135. Milos Bogičević, Die auswärtige Politik Serbiens 1903–1914 (3 vols., Berlin, 1931), vol. 1, p. 280; Friedrich Würthle, Die Spur führt nach Belgrad (Vienna, 1975), p. 28.

136. Hartwig to Sazonov, Belgrade, 14 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 7, pp. 5–6.

137. ‘Austrian Sympathies’, The Times, 18 October 1912, p. 5 col. B.

138. Boeckh, Balkankriegen, pp. 26–7.

139. F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo. The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866–1914 (London, 1972), p. 346; see also ‘Servia and the Sea’, The Times, 9 November 1912, p. 7, col. A.

140. [Wickham Steed], ‘The Problem of Albania’, The Times, 18 November 1912, p. 5 col. A. The Russian pan-Slav and nationalist press took a similar line.

141. Samuel R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills, 1991), pp. 127–8; Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo, p. 347; a fine detailed study of the Prochaska Affair is Robert A. Kann, Die Prochaska-Affäre vom Herbst 1912. Zwischen kaltem und heissem Krieg (Vienna, 1977).

142. Cited in Treadway, Falcon and Eagle, p. 125.

143. Friedrich Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg? Entspannung in den internationalen Beziehungen (Munich, 2002), p. 186.

144. Cited in Treadway, Falcon and Eagle, p. 137.

145. Rapaport to Vredenburch, Belgrade, 23 April 1913, NA, 2.05.36, 9, Consulaat-Generaal Belgrado en Gezantschap Zuid-Slavië 1891–1940.

146. Giers (Russian envoy to Montenegro) to Nicholas II, Cetinje [beginning of January] 1913 and 21 January 1913, GARF, Fond 601, op. 1, del. 785.

147. Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 11 April 1913, MAEB AD, Russia 3.

148. Buchanan to Nicolson, 1 May 1913, cited in Treadway, Falcon and Eagle, p. 148.

149. For the text of this resolution, see Robert Elsie, ‘Texts and Documents of Albanian History’, viewed online at http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts20_1/AH1913_2.html.

150. This narrative follows the sequence plotted in Samuel R. Williamson’s unpublished manuscript chapter, ‘Serbia and Austria-Hungary: The Final Rehearsal, October 1913’.

151. Statement by the Serbian minister in Vienna, Jovanović, to Neue Freie Presse, reported in ‘The Albanian Outbreak’, The Times, 27 September, 1913, p. 5, col. A; ‘Return of M. Pashitch to Belgrade; The Times, 1 October, p. 6, col. E.

152. Williamson, ‘Serbia and Austria-Hungary’, pp. 14–15.

153. ‘M. Pashitch in Vienna’, The Times, 4 October 1913, p. 5, col. C; Williamson, ‘Serbia and Austria-Hungary’, p. 19.

154. Williamson, ‘Serbia and Austria-Hungary’, p. 21.

155. ‘Servian Aggression in Albania’, The Times, 16 October 1913, p. 7, col. C.

156. Cited in Williamson, Austria-Hungary, p. 153.

157. Report on Sazonov’s comment in O’Beirne (British chargé d’affaires in St Petersburg) to Grey, St Petersburg, 28 October 1913, in BD, vol. 10 (i), doc. 56, p. 49.

158. Paul Schroeder, ‘Stealing Horses to Great Applause. Austria-Hungary’s Decision in 1914 in Systemic Perspective’, in Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (eds.), An Improbable War, pp. 17–42, esp. pp. 38–40.

159. Major von Fabeck to General Staff, Berlin, 11 February 1913, attached: draft of a letter from Moltke to Conrad, Berlin, 10 February 1913, PA-AA, R 10896.

160. Wilhelm II, marginal comment on a telegram from the Wolffsches Telegraphenbureau to Wilhelm II, Berlin, 4 November, 1912, in GP, vol. 33, pp. 276–7 (doc. 12321); Varnbüler to Weizsäcker, Berlin, 18 November 1812, HSA Stuttgart E50/03 206.

161. Wilhelm II, marginal comment on Kiderlen-Wächter to Wilhelm II, Berlin, 3 November 1912, in GP, vol. 33, pp. 274–6 (doc. 12320).

162. Wilhelm II to German Foreign Office, Letzlingen, 9 November 1912, in ibid., vol. 33, p. 302 (doc. 12348).

163. E. C. Helmreich, ‘An Unpublished Report on Austro-German Military Conversations of November 1912’, Journal of Modern History, 5 (1933), pp. 197–207, here p. 206. Thus Archduke Franz Ferdinand reported the content of the conversation; the Austrian ambassador Szögyényi reported a more aggressive posture, namely that the Kaiser had expressed a readiness to accept the risk of a war with all three Entente powers.

164. Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 250, 259; Helmreich, ‘Unpublished Report’, pp. 202–3.

165. Wilhelm II to Franz Ferdinand (draft), 24 February 1913, PA-AA, R 10896.

166. Szögyényi to MFA Vienna, Berlin, 28 October 1913, ÖUAP, vol. 7, doc. 8934, p. 512.

167. Velics to Berchtold, Munich, 16 December 1913, ibid., doc. 9096, p. 658.

168. Szapáry to Foreign Ministry, St Petersburg, 25 April 1914, ibid., doc. 9656, pp. 25–7.

169. Lawrence Sondhaus, Architect of the Apocalypse (Boston, 2000), p. 120.

170. Williamson, ‘Serbia and Austria-Hungary’, p. 23; Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grandseigneur and Staatsmann (2 vols. Graz, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 499–500.

171. Treadway, Falcon and Eagle, pp. 143–4, 145.

172. Ibid., pp. 150–56.

173. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 271; see also Williamson, Austria-Hungary, pp. 155–6.

174. Williamson, Austria-Hungary, pp. 157–8.

175. Norman Stone, ‘Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1900–1914’, Past & Present, 33 (April 1966), pp. 95–111; on infantry numbers, see Holger Herwig, The First World War. Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918 (London, 1997), p. 12.

176. Kronenbitter, Grossmachtpolitik Österreich-Ungarns, pp. 146, 147, 149, 154.

177. See the text of the convention in the appendix of George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance. France, Russia and the Coming of the First World War (Manchester, 1984), p. 271.

178. Ibid., pp. 250–52.

179. Hanotaux to Montebello (French ambassador to St Petersburg), Paris, 10 April 1897, DDF, series 1, vol. 13, doc. 193, pp. 340–46.

180. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 125.

181. For a discussion of these issues, to which my own account is substantially indebted, see Stefan Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich, 2009), pp. 246–50; see also Murielle Avice-Hanoun, ‘L’Alliance franco-russe (1892–1914)’, in Ilja Mieck and Pierre Guillen (eds.), Deutschland – Frankreich – Russland. Begegnungen und Konfrontationen. La France et l’Allemagne face à la Russie (Munich, 2000), pp. 109–24, here pp. 113–14.

182. Friedrich Stieve, Iswolski und der Weltkrieg. Auf Grund der neuen Doku menten-Veröffentlichung des Deutschen Auswärtigen Amtes (Berlin, 1924), p. 45.

183. On this issue, see D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), p. 48; Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 1, pp. 372–3; Thaden, Russia, pp. 115–18; for Poincaré’s apologetic account of these conversations which he denies had any political significance, see id., Au service de la France – neuf années de souvenirs (10 vols., Paris, 1926–33), vol. 2, p. 202.

184. Poincaré to Izvolski, Paris, 16 November 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 4, doc. 468, pp. 480–81.

185. Gerd Krumeich, Armaments and Politics in France on the Eve of the First World War. The Introduction of the Three-Year Conscription 1913–1914, trans. Stephen Conn (Leamington Spa, 1984), p. 28.

186. Paul Cambon to Jules Cambon, Paris, 5 November 1912, AMAE PA-AP, 43, fos. 251–7, here fo. 252.

187. Jules Cambon to Paul Cambon, Berlin, 14 December 1912, ibid., 100, fos. 178–180.

188. Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne. The French Army, 1871–1914 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 169–70.

189. Ibid.

190. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 28 March 1912, IBZI, series 3, vol. 2, part 2, doc. 699.

191. Risto Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands. Wie beurteilte die politische und militärische Führung der europäischen Grossmächte in der Zeit von 1905 bis 1914 die Kraft Russlands? (Helsinki, 1968), p. 235.

192. Krumeich, Armaments and Politics, p. 28; Mosely, ‘Russian Policy’, p. 84; Sergei Dmitrievic Sazonov, Les Années fatales (Paris, 1927), p. 57.

193. Raymond Poincaré, ‘Entretien avec M. Sazonoff’,August 1912,AMAE, AE NS, Russie 41, fos. 270–72, 282–3. For Sazonov’s account of the same meeting, which notes the French minister’s displeasure but observes that he soon found good reasons for appreciating the ‘great political importance’ of the Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, see Sazonov, Les Années fatales, p. 60.

194. Notes on various conversations, St Petersburg, 12 August 1913, AMAE, Papiers Jean Doulcet, vol. 23, Saint Petersbourg IV, Notes personnelles, 1912–1917, fo. 312.

195. Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands, p. 236.

196. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 12 September 1912, in Stieve, Schriftwechsel Iswolskis, vol. 2, doc. 429, pp. 249–52, here p. 251.

197. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 24 October 1912, cited in Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 137.

198. Poincaré to Izvolsky, 4 November 1912, in Narodnogo komissariata po inostrannym delam (ed.), Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnoshenii za 1910–1914 gg: sbornik sekretnykh diplomaticheskikh dokumentov byvshego Imperatorskogo rossiiskogo ministerstva inostrannykh del (Moscow, 1922), p. 297; see also Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 142.

199. Izvolsky to Sazonov (letter), Paris, 7 November 1912, in ibid., pp. 295–7; Stieve, Schrifwechsel Iswolskis, vol. 2, doc. 554, pp. 335–7, here p. 336 (emphasis added).

200. Rossos, Russia and the Balkans, p. 100.

201. Izvolsky to Sazonov, 17 November 1912, in Narodnogo komissariata po inostrannym delam (ed.), Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnoshenii za 1910–1914 g.g: sbornik sekretnykh diplomaticheskikh dokumentov byvshego Imperatorskogo rossiikogo ministerstva inostrannykh del (Moscow, 1922), pp. 299–300, doc. 169; on Poincaré’s assurances, see Stieve, Iswolski und der Weltkrieg, pp. 99, 121; id. (ed.), Schriftwechsel Iswolskis, vol. 2, doc. 567, p. 346; see also Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 146.

202. Izvolsky to Sazonov, 20 November 1912 and Izvolsky to Sazonov, 20 November, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, part 1, docs. 298 and 300.

203. Poincaré, Au service de la France, vol. 2, pp. 199–206, where the author accused Izvolsky of fashioning his conversations with the ambassador into ‘a picturesque and somewhat over-coloured tale’.

204. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, p. 256.

205. Alexandre Ribot, Note of 31 October 1912, AN, 563 AP 5, cited in ibid., p. 257.

206. ‘Note de l’État-Major de l’Armée’, 2 September 1912 and Paul to Jules Cambon, Dieppe, 3 September 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 3, dos. 359, 366, pp. 439–40, 449–51.

207. Paul Cambon to Jules Cambon, Paris, 5 November 1912, AMAE, PA-AP, 43, Cambon, Jules, Lettres de Paul à Jules 1882–1922, 101, fos. 251–7, here fos. 252–3.

208. Ignatiev to Zhilinsky (chief of the Russian General Staff), Paris, 19 December 1912, cited in Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 149.

209. Ibid., p. 149.

210. On Millerand as minister of war in January 1912–January 1913, see Marjorie M. Farrar, ‘Politics Versus Patriotism: Alexandre Millerand as French Minister of War’, French Historical Studies, 11/4 (1980), 577–609; on the minister’s earlier career as a moderate socialist, see Leslie Derfler, Alexandre Millerand. The Socialist Years (The Hague, 1977); for a balanced overview of the transition, see Marjorie M. Farrar, Principled Pragmatist: The Political Career of Alexandre Millerand (New York, 1991); there are interesting reflections on the tensions in Millerand’s career in Antoine Prost, Marie-Louise Goorgen, Noelle Gérome and Danielle Tartakowsky, ‘ Four French Historians Review English Research on the History of French Labour and Socialism’, The Historical Journal, 37/3 (1994), pp. 709–15, esp. p. 714.

211. Ignatiev to Zhilinsky, Paris, 4 December 1912, cited in Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 150.

212. Lucius to Bethmann Hollweg, St Petersburg, 8 January 1913, reporting a conversation with Sazonov, PA-AA, R 10896.

213. Raymond M. B. Poincaré, ‘Notes journalières’, 29 January 1914, BNF (NAF 16026), Poincaré MSS; Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 1898–1914 (Oxford, 1993), p. 239.

214. G. Wright, The Reshaping of French Democracy. The Story of the Founding of the Fourth Republic (New York, 1948), p. 10.

215. John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), p. 117.

216. For his relations with Foreign Minister Jonnart, see Paléologue’s diary entries 22 January and 13 February 1913, in M. Paléologue, Au Quai d’Orsay à la veille de la tourmente. Journal 1913–1914 (Paris, 1947), pp. 15, 42.

217. Cited in Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 120.

218. William C. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914 (New York, 1992), pp. 440, 444.

219. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 161.

220. Fuller, Strategy and Power, p. 439.

221. ‘8ème Conférence. Procès-verbal de l’entretien du 13 Juillet 1912 entre les Chefs d’État-Major des armées française et russe’, AMAE, AE NS, Russie 41, fos. 131–7, here fos. 134–5.

222. État-Major de l’Armée, 3ème bureau, ‘Note sur l’action militaire de la Russie en Europe’, ibid., fos. 255–63.

223. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 162.

224. Raymond Poincaré, ‘Entretien avec l’Empéreur – Chemins de fer stratégiques’; ‘Entretien avec M. Sazonoff – Mobilisation’, St Petersburg, August 1912, AMAE, AE NS Russie 41, fos. 278–9, 288.

225. Raymond Poincaré, ‘Entretien avec Kokowtsoff – Chemins de fer stratégiques’, St Petersburg, August 1912, ibid., fo. 280.

226. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 147.

227. S. R. Williamson, ‘Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913’, in Paul Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880–1914 (London, 1979), pp. 133–54, here pp. 134–6.

228. On the German version of the same conundrum, see Jonathan Steinberg, ‘A German Plan for the Invasion of Holland and Belgium, 1897’, in Kennedy (ed.), War Plans, pp. 155–70, here p. 162. Steinberg refers here to German strategic thinking, but the same problem confronted the decision-makers in Paris.

229. Hayne, French Foreign Policy, p. 266.

230. D. N. Collins, ‘The Franco-Russian Alliance and Russian Railways, 1891– 1914’, The Historical Journal, 16/4 (1973), pp. 777–88, here p. 779.

231. Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 25 February 1913, MAEB AD, Russia 3, 1906–13.

232. François Roth, ‘Raymond Poincaré et Théophile Delcassé: Histoire d’une relation politique’, in Conseil général de l’Ariège (ed.), Delcassé et l’Europe à la veille de la Grande Guerre (Foix, 2001), pp. 231–46, here p. 236.

233. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 151.

234. Delcassé to Pichon, St Petersburg, 24 March 1913, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 6, doc. 59, pp. 81–2; on the same question raised with Sazonov, see Delcassé to Jonnart, St Petersburg, 21 March 1913, ibid., doc. 44, p. 66.

235. Report of a conversation with Delcassé of 18 June 1914 by General Laguiche, military attaché in St Petersburg, in Georges Louis, Les Carnets de Georges Louis (2 vols., Paris, 1926) vol. 2, p. 126.

236. B. V. Ananich, Rossiya I mezhdunarodyi kapital 1897–1914. Ocherki istorii finansovykh otnoshenii (Leningrad, 1970), pp. 270–71.

237. On the Three Year Law and Poincaré’s role in getting it passed, see J. F. V. Keiger, Raymond Poincaré (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 152–3, 162–3; Krumeich, Armaments and Politics, pp. 112–13.

238. Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 144.

239. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 17 April 1913, 12 June 1913, MAEB AD, France 11, Correspondance politique – légations.

240. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 16 January 1914, ibid.

241. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 28 May 1914, ibid.

242. Keiger, France and the Origins, pp. 136–7.

243. Diary entry Thursday 18 April 1913 in Maurice Paléologue, Journal, 1913–1914, p. 103.

244. Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 136; on these events, see also the diary entries 16 April to 5 May 1913, in Paléologue, Journal, 1913–1914, pp. 100–124.

245. Krumeich, Armaments and Politics, passim.

246. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 9 June 1914, MAEB AD, France 12, Correspondance politique – légations.

247. On the growing opposition to the Three Year Law, see Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 16 January 1914, ibid.

248. On the collapse of the Ribot government on the day of its first appearance in parliament, see Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 13 June 1914, ibid.

249. Report by Captain Parchement on ‘stage’ in Vilna District in October 1912, cited in Pertti Luntinen, French Information on the Russian War Plans, 1880–1914 (Helsinki, 1984), p. 175.

250. Verleuil to [Pichon], Brolles, 7 July 1913, AMAE NS, Russie 42, fos. 58–60, here fo. 59.

251. Cited in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, pp. 271–3.

252. Charles Rivet, ‘Lettre de Russie: L’Effort militaire russe’, in Le Temps, 13 November 1913, cutting in Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 15 November 1913, MAEB AD, Russie 3 1906–1914.

253. Ibid., p. 275.

254. Laguiche to Dupont, 14 February 1914, cited in ibid., p. 279.

255. Paul Kennedy, ‘The First World War and the International Power System’, in Steven E. Miller (ed.), Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton, 1985), pp. 7–40, here p. 28.

CHAPTER 6

10. Bethmann to Foreign Office, Baltic Port, on board the Hohenzollern, 6 July 1912, GP, vol. 31, doc. 11540, pp. 437–8.

11. Klaus Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Aussenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler, 1871–1945 (Stuttgart, 1995), pp. 269–76.

12. Cf. Volker Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (Basingstoke, 1993), pp. 120–22 and Imanuel Geiss, ‘The German Version of Imperialism: Weltpolitik’, in G. Schöllgen, Escape into War? The Foreign Policy of Imperial Germany (Oxford, New York, Munich, 1990), pp. 105–20; here p. 118.

13. Thus Bethmann’s ‘Sketch of a Conceivable Formula’ for the Anglo-German negotiations, cited in R. Langhorne, ‘Great Britain and Germany, 1911– 1914’, in Francis Harry Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 288–314, here pp. 293–4.

14. Niall Ferguson, Pity of War (London, 1998), p. 72; Langhorne, ‘Great Britain and Germany’, pp. 294–5.

15. R. Langhorne, ‘The Naval Question in Anglo-German Relations, 1912– 1914, Historical Journal, 14 (1971), pp. 359–70, here p. 369; cf. Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions. German Policies from 1911 to 1914, trans. Marian Jackson (London, 1975), pp. 123–31.

16. R. J. Crampton, Hollow Détente. Anglo-German Relations in the Balkans, 1911–1914 (London, 1980), pp. 56–8, 72–3; Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, p. 103.

17. On the mission’s objectives and Haldane’s ‘disavowal’ by the British government, see B. D. E. Kraft, Lord Haldane’s Zending naar Berlijn in 1912. De duitsch-engelsche onderhandelingen over de vlootquaestie (Utrecht, 1931), pp. 209–11, 214–17, 220–21; draft note to the German government, March 1912, cited in Gregor Schöllgen, Imperialismus und Gleichgewicht. Deutschland, England und die orientalische Frage, 1871–1914 (Munich, 1984), p. 330.

18. Kraft, Zending naar Berlijn, p. 246.

19. Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy. Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 258.

20. Nicolson to Bertie, 8 February 1912, TNA FO 800 / 171, cited in Steiner, Foreign Office, p. 127.

21. Bertie to Nicolson, Paris, 11 February 1912, cited in Thomas Otte, The Foreign Office Mind. The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 (Cambridge, 2011), p. 364; on Nicolson’s involvement in and commitment to the Anglo-Russian Convention, see Keith Neilson, ‘“My Beloved Russians”: Sir Arthur Nicolson and Russia, 1906–1916’, International History Review, 9/4 (1987).

22. Jonathan Steinberg, ‘Diplomatie als Wille und Vorstellung: Die Berliner Mission Lord Haldanes im Februar 1912’ in Herbert Schottelius and Wilhelm Deist (eds.), Marine und Marinepolitik im kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1871–1914 (Düsseldorf, 1972), pp. 263–82, here p. 264; on the mission and its failure, see also Michael Epkenhans, Die wilhelminische Flottenrüstung. Weltmachtstreben, industrieller Fortschritt, soziale Integration (Munich, 1991), pp. 113–37; David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe 1904–1914 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 205–7.

23. Goschen to Nicolson, Berlin, 20 April 1912, TNA FO 800/355, fos. 20–22.

24. ‘Foreign Affairs. The Morocco Crisis. Sir E. Grey’s Speech’, The Times, 28 November 1911, p. 13, col. B.

25. Kühlmann to Bethmann, London, 14 October 1912, GP, vol. 33, doc. 12284, p. 228; see also the discussion in Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich, Vermiedene Kriege. Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg and Ersten Weltkring 1856–1914 (Munich,1997), p. 650.

26. Crampton, Hollow Détente.

27. Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, pp. 89, 122; Paul W. Schroeder, ‘Embedded Counterfactuals and World War I as an Unavoidable War’, pp. 28–9.

28. Ronald Bobroff, Roads to Glory. Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits (London, 2006); on French concerns about George V: Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 11 April 1913, MAEB AD, France 11, Correspondance politique – légations.

29. Ira Klein, ‘The Anglo-Russian Convention and the Problem of Central Asia, 1907–1914’, Journal of British Studies, 11 (1971), pp. 126–47, here p. 128.

30. Ibid., p. 141.

31. Grey to Buchanan, London, 11 February 1914, Grey to Buchanan, London, 18 March 1914, TNA, Grey Papers, FO 800/74, cited in Thomas McCall, ‘The Influence of British Military Attachés on Foreign Polich Towards Russia, 1904–1917’, M.Phil thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011, p. 53.

32. Prince Max von Lichnowsky, My Mission to London, 1912–1914 (London, 1918), p. 29.

33. Steiner, Foreign Office, pp. 121–40, 49; Otte, Foreign Office Mind, p. 380.

34. McCall, ‘British Military Attachés’, pp. 33–75.

35. Hamilton to Haldane, 1 September 1909, cited in ibid., p. 60.

36. Notes by H. A. Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post, on a confidential interview at the FO, probably with Sir William Tyrrell, cited and analysed in Keith M. Wilson, ‘The British Démarche of 3 and 4 December 1912: H. A. Gwynne’s Note on Britain, Russia and the First Balkan War’, Slavonic and East European Review, 60/4 (1984), pp. 552–9, here p. 556.

37. Nicolson to Goschen, London, 15 April 1912, BD, vol. 6, doc. 575, p. 747.

38. Nicolson to Goschen, London, 25 May 1914, TNA, FO fos. 162–14, here fo. 163. 800/374.

39. Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, pp. 82–3, Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 180.

40. Cited in Steiner, British Foreign Office, p. 134; on Nicolson’s views more generally, see pp. 128, 129, 131, 133, 134, 136–7; Otte, Foreign Office Mind, p. 384.

41. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 14 April 1914, MAEB AD, France 11, Correspondance politique – légations.

42. Otte, Foreign Office Mind, pp. 358–9, 387–8.

43. Nicolson to Bunsen, London, 30 March 1914, TNA, FO 800/373, fos. 80–83, here fo. 83.

44. These aspects of the international system are explored in Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, and Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (eds.), An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1914 (Oxford, 2007), both passim.

45. Jules Cambon to Poincaré, Berlin, 28 July 1912, AMAE, PA-AP, 43, Cambon Jules 56, fo. 45.

46. Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 145, 211, 281.

47. Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 159–63.

48. Ibid., p. 247.

49. For German readings of attitudes among senior Russian commanders, see e.g. Pourtalès to Bethmann Hollweg, St Petersburg, 20 November 1912; Griesinger (German minister in Belgrade) to Bethmann Hollweg, 5 February 1913; the quotation is from Romberg (German minister in Bern) to Bethmann Hollweg, Bern, 1 February 1913, reporting a conversation between the Russian military attaché in the city and a member of the Austro-Hungarian legation, all in PA-AA, R 10895.

50. The Times, 3 December 1912, p. 6, col. B.

51. Ibid.

52. Cited in Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II (2 vols., Chapel Hill, 1989 and 1996), vol. 2, Emperor and Exile, 1900–1941, p. 186; on Bethmann’s speech and its significance, see Dülffer, Kröger and Wippich, Vermiedene Kriege, pp. 652–4.

53. For a full reconstruction of the meeting and a discussion of its significance, see J. C. G. Röhl, ‘Dress Rehearsal in December: Military Decision-making in Germany on the Eve of the First World War’, in id., The Kaiser and His Court. Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 162–89, here pp. 162–3.

54. Röhl, ‘Dress Rehearsal’, passim; also id., ‘Admiral von Müller and the Approach of War, 1911–1914, Historical Journal, 12 (1969), pp. 651–73. Röhl’s reading of the ‘war council’ of December 1912 as the moment at which the countdown was started for a war planned in advance by Germany is a minority view. At a conference in London in October 2011 (‘The Fischer Controversy 50 Years On’, 13–15 October 2011, German Historical Institute London), Röhl radicalized the argument, suggesting that the War Council was the moment at which the Germans decided not to wage war immediately, but to ‘postpone’ it until the summer of 1914, an argument expounded earlier by Fischer, War of Illusions, pp. 164, 169. The postponement thesis is also central to the argument presented in the third volume of Röhl’s biography of the Kaiser, see J. C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II. Der Weg in den Abgrund, 1900–1941 (Munich, 2008).

55. Röhl, ‘Dress Rehearsal’; Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 288–9; F. Fischer, ‘The Foreign Policy of Imperial Germany and the Outbreak of the First World War’, in Schöllgen, Escape into War?, pp. 19–40; here p. 22; M. S. Coetzee, The German Army League (New York, 1990), pp. 36–7; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, ‘Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy before 1914’, Central European History, 6 (1973), pp. 3–43, here pp. 12–14.

56. E. Hölzle, Die Selbstentmachtung Europas. Das Experiment des Friedens vor und im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen, 1975), pp. 180–83; Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 289.

57. Jagow to Lichnowsky, Berlin, 26 April 1913; Jagow to Flotow, Berlin, 28 April 1913, GP, 34/2, pp. 737–8, 752; on submarine building and other naval measures, see Holger H. Herwig, ‘Luxury’ Fleet. The Imperial German Navy, 1888–1918 (London, 1980), pp. 87–9; Gary E. Weir, ‘Tirpitz, Technology and Building U-boats 1897–1916’, International History Review, 6 (1984), pp. 174–90; Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford, 2001), pp. 53–5.

58. Moltke to Bethmann and Heeringen, 21 December 1912, cited in Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 291–2.

59. David Stevenson, ‘War by Timetable? The Railway Race Before 1914’, Past & Present, 162 (1999), pp. 163–94, here p. 175.

60. Peter Gattrell, Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900– 1914. The Last Argument of Tsarism (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 133–4.

61. Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914–18 (Düsseldorf, 1961), p. 48.

62. See Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 298, 314; I. V. Bestuzhev, ‘Russian Foreign Policy, February–June 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1/3 (1966), pp. 93–112, here p. 96.

63. Paul Kennedy, ‘The First World War and the International Power System’, in Steven E. Miller (ed.), Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton, 1985), p. 29.

64. Militär-Bericht Nr. 28, St Petersburg, 8–21 May 1914 (copy for the Reich Admiralty), BA-MA Freiburg, RM5/1439. I am grateful to Oliver Griffin for sending me a photocopy of this document. Moltke’s views (of 15 December 1913 and 11 July 1914) are cited in Stevenson, ‘War by Timetable?’, p. 186.

65. Matthew Seligmann and Roderick McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic (London, 2000), pp. 142–4.

66. Ferguson, ‘Public Finance and National Security. The Domestic Origins of the First World War Revisited’, Past & Present, 142 (1994); on Moltke’s calls for preventive war in 1908–9, see Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht, pp. 49–50; id., War of Illusions, p. 88; Norman Stone, ‘Moltke-Conrad: Relations Between the German and Austro-Hungarian General Staffs’, Historical Journal, 9 (1966), pp. 201–28; Isabel V. Hull, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and the “Liebenberg Circle”’, in J. C. G. Röhl and N. Sombart (eds.), Kaiser Wilhelm II. New Interpretations (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 193–220, esp. 212; Holger H. Herwig, ‘Germany’, in Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig (eds.), The Origins of World War I (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 150–87, esp. p. 166.

67. Dieter Hoffmann, Der Sprung ins Dunkle oder wie der 1. Weltkrieg entfesselt wurde (Leipzig, 2010) see esp. the table on pp. 325–330.

68. Cited in Stefan Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich, 2009), p. 276.

69. Henry Wilson, marginal comment on a staff summary of the latest dispatch from Colonel Knox in St Petersburg, 23 March 1914, TNA, WO 106/1039.

70. Kevin Kramer, ‘A World of Enemies: New Perspectives on German Military Culture and the Origins of the First World War’, Central European History, 39 (2006), pp. 270–98, here p. 272; on the relationship between the fear of war and the readiness for it, see also Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, p. 57.

71. Bethmann Hollweg to Eisendecher, 26 December 1911 and 23 March 1913, both cited in Konrad H. Jarausch, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, 2/1(1969), pp. 48–76.

72. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 195.

73. Falkenhayn to Hanneken, 29 January 1913, cited in Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich, 1994), p. 102 (Falkenhayn would become minister of war on 7 June 1913).

74. Ibid., p. 76.

75. On the primacy of civilian leaders in 1914 Europe, see Marc Trachtenberg, ‘The Coming of the First World War: A Reassessment’, in id., History and Strategy (Princeton, 1991), pp. 47–99.

76. Anon., Deutsche Weltpolitik und kein Krieg! (Berlin, 1913).

77. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 278.

78. Strachan, First World War, p. 33.

79. On German policy options, see Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, pp. 277–82.

80. Mehmet Yerçil, ‘A History of the Anatolian Railway, 1871–1914’, PhD thesis, Cambridge, 2010.

81. Marschall von Biberstein to Bethmann, Constantinople, 4 December 1911, GP, vol. 30, doc. 10987.

82. Carl Mühlmann, Deutschland und die Türkei 1913–1914. Die Berufung der deutschen Militärmission nach der Türkei 1913, das deutsch-türkische Bündnis 1914 und der Eintritt der Türkei in den Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1929), p. 5.

83. Yerçil, ‘Anatolian Railway’, p. 91.

84. Ibid., pp. 95–120.

85. Helmut Mejcher, ‘Oil and British Policy Towards Mesopotamia’, Middle Eastern Studies, 8/3 (1972), pp. 377–91, esp. pp. 377–8.

86. Cited in J. C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II. The Kaiser’s Personal Monarchy, 1888–1900, trans. Sheila de Bellaigue (Cambridge, 2004), p. 953.

87. On German interest in pan-Islamism as an instrument of foreign policy, see Sean McMeekin, The Berlin–Baghdad Express. The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898–1918 (London, 2010), pp. 7–53.

88. Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht, p. 54.

89. Herbert Feis, Europe, The World’s Banker 1870–1914 (New York, 1939), p. 53; Ulrich Trumpener, Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914–1918 (Princeton, 1968), pp. 3–11; Harry N. Howard, The Partition of Turkey, 1913–1923 (Norman, 1931), pp. 49–50.

90. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, pp. 281–2.

91. On ‘Goltz Pascha’ and other German military advisers in Constantinople before Liman, see Bernd F. Schulte, Vor dem Kriegsausbruch 1914. Deutschland, die Türkei und der Balkan (Düsseldorf, 1980), pp. 17–38.

92. Mühlmann, Deutschland und die Türkei, pp. 10–11; Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 297.

93. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege (2 vols., Berlin, 1919), vol. 1, pp. 88–9.

94. On the officially inspired press campaign in Novoye Vremya, see David MacLaren McDonald, United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), p. 191; on the determination of the Ottoman authorities to use the German mission to improve their armed forces and thereby guard against further annexations, see Sverbeyev (Russian ambassador to Berlin) to Sazonov, 16 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 21, pp. 22–3.

95. Tatishchev to Nicholas II, Berlin, 6 November 1913, GARF, Fond 601, op. 1, del 746 (2).

96. Cited from Bazarov’s report of 16 December 1913, in Fischer, War of Illusions, p. 334. How Bazarov learned of the content of this speech is unclear.

97. Pourtalès to German Foreign Office, 28 November and 5 December 1913, GP, vol. 38, docs. 15457, 15466; Mühlmann, Deutschland und die Türkei, p. 12.

98. Cited in Lichnowsky, My Mission to London, p. 14.

99. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, pp. 125–6; Fischer, War of Illusions, pp. 147–8.

100. Sazonov to Demidov (Russian minister in Athens), St Petersburg, 16 October 1912, with copies to Constantinople, Paris and London; Sazonov to Girs, St Petersburg, 18 October 1912; Sazonov to Russian ambassadors in Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna and Rome, 5 October 1912, all in AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 14, 20, 22.

101. Sukhomlinov to Neratov, 11 August 1911, IBZI series 3, vol. 1, doc. 310, pp. 375–8, here p. 376.

102. Sazonov to Izvolsky, 4 November 1912 (copies to London and Constantinople); Sazonov to Girs (ambassador in Constantinople), ‘secret telegram’, St Petersburg, 2 November 1912, both in AVPRI, Fond 151 (PA), op. 482, d. 130, ll. 96, 87.

103. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, pp. 52–3.

104. Sazonov to Kokovtsov and service chiefs, 12 November 1912, cited in ibid., p. 55.

105. Sazonov to Nicholas II, 23 November 1912, cited in Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 126.

106. Ia. Zakher, ‘Konstantinopol i prolivy’, KA, 6 (1924), pp. 48–76, here p. 55, and 7 (1924), pp. 32–54.

107. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, pp. 76–95.

108. Sazonov to Russian chargé d’affaires, London, 7 December 1913, in B. von Siebert (ed.), Graf Benckendorffs diplomatischer Schriftwechsel (Berlin, 1928), vol. 3, doc. no. 982, pp. 208–9.

109. D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), p. 47; Etter (Russian chargé d’affaires, London) to Sazonov, London, 14 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 3, pp. 2–3.

110. Louis Mallet to Edward Grey, London, 23 March 1914, TNA FO 800/80; Great Britain, House of Commons Debates, 1914, vol., 59 cols. 2169–70, both cited in William I. Shorrock, ‘The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon: The Railroad Question, 1901–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1/2 (1970), pp. 133–53, here p. 153; see also Stuart Cohen, ‘Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1903–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9/2 (1978), pp. 171–81, esp. pp. 174–7.

111. Note of understanding between HE Khourshid Pasha, minister of the navy, in the name of the Ottoman government and Admiral Limpus, 25 May 1912, Limpus Papers. Caird Library, NMM, LIM/12; on Limpus’s appointment, see also Paul G. Halpern, The Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1971), p. 321.

112. See ‘Instructions for Hallifax Bey’, 11 May 1914, ibid., LIM/9.

113. Limpus to Ottoman Admiralty, 5 June 1912, ibid., LIM 8/1 (letter-book), fos. 63–7.

114. Limpus to Ottoman Admiralty, 5 June 1912, ibid., LIM 8/1 (letter-book), fos. 68–9.

115. Delcassé to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 29 January 1914, AMAE NS, Russie 42, fos. 223–4; see also Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 15 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 12, pp. 12–14, reporting French opposition to a Russian financial boycott of the Ottoman Empire.

116. lzvolski to Sazonov, Paris, 18 December 1913; Izvolski to Sazonov, Paris, 18 December 1913, in Stieve (ed.), Der diplomatische Schriftwechsel Izwolskis, vol. 3, docs. 1179, 1181, pp. 425–5, 428–31; Dülffer, Kröger and Wipplich. Vermiedene Kriege, pp. 663–4.

117. Sazonov to Benckendorff, St Petersburg, 11 December 1913, in Benno Siebert (ed.), Benckendorffs diplomatischer Schriftwechsel (3 vols., Berlin, 1928), vol. 3, doc. 991, p. 217.

118. On this report, see McDonald, United Government, p. 193; on the ‘focusing’ effect of the Liman affair, see Strachan, First World War, p. 61.

119. M. Pokrowski, Drei Konferenzen. Zur Vorgeschichte des Krieges, trans. Anon ([Berlin], 1920), pp. 34, 38.

120. Ibid., p. 42.

121. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 298.

122. Pokrowski, Drei Konferenzen, pp. 39, 41; on Sazonov’s role in these discussions, see Horst Linke, Das Zarische Russland and der Erste Weltkrieg. Diplomatie and Kriegsziele 1914–1917 (Munich, 1982), p.22.

123. Buchanan to Grey, 3 April 1914, cited in Lieven, Russia and the Origins, p. 197.

124. Concluding marginal comment to Pourtalès to Bethmann, St Petersburg, 25 February 1914, GP, vol. 39, doc. 15841, p. 545; see also the discussion in Dülffer, Kröger and Wippich, Vermiedene Kriege, p. 670.

125. Cited in McDonald, United Government, p. 193.

126. Sergei Dmitrievich Sazonov, Fateful Years, 1909–96: The Reminiscences of Serge Sazonov, trans. N. A. Duddington (London, 1928), p. 80.

127. Liszkowski, Zwischen Liberalismus und Imperialismus. Die Zaristische Aussenpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg im Urteil Miljukovs und der Kadettenpartei, 1905–1914 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 224–5.

128. Mallet to Grey (no. 400), 2 June 1914, and minutes by Russell and Crowe, 9 and 14 June 1914, cited in Thomas Otte, Foreign Office Mind, pp. 378–9.

129. Lieven, Russia and the Origins, pp. 42–6; see also Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 129.

130. Bobroff, Roads to Glory, p. 151; id., ‘Behind the Balkan Wars’, p. 78.

131. ‘Journal der Sonderkonferenz, 8. Februar 1914’, in Pokrowski, Drei Konferenzen, pp. 47, 52.

132. Ibid., pp. 52–3.

133. Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 128.

134. Stephen Schröder, Die englisch-russische Marinekonvention (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 97–101; Linke, Das Zarische Russland, pp. 28–30.

135. Cited in Schröder, Die englisch-russische Marinekonvention, p. 128.

136. William A. Renzi, ‘Great Britain, Russia and the Straits, 1914–1915’, Journal of Modern History, 42/1 (1970), pp. 1–20, here pp. 2–3; Mustafa Aksakal, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914. The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008), p. 46.

137. Sazonov to Hartwig, cited in Friedrich Stieve, Iswolski and der Weltkrieg, auf Gund der neuen Dokumenten-Veröffentlichung des Deutschen Auswärtigen Amtes (Berlin, 1924), p. 178.

138. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 14 April 1914, MAEB AD, France 11, Correspondance politique – légations.

139. On the centrality of this idea to Sazonov’s thinking, see Bobroff, Roads to Glory, pp. 151–6.

140. John H. Herz, ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’, World Politics, 2/2 (1950), pp. 157–180, here p. 157; on the relevance of this problem to the crisis of 1914, see Jack L. Snyder, ‘Perceptions of the Security Dilemma in 1914’, in Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore, 1989), pp. 153–79; Klaus Hildebrand, ‘Julikrise 1914: Das europäische Sicherheitsdilemma. Betrachtungen über den Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges’,Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 36 (1985), pp. 469–502; Gian Enrico Rusconi, Rischio 1914. Come si decide una guerra (Bologna, 1987), pp. 171–87.

141. Nicolson to Cartwright, London, 18 March 1912, TNA, FO, 800/354, fos. 253–4.

142. Sazonov, Les Années fatales, p. 63.

143. Bertie to Grey, Paris, 26 November 1912, in BD, vol. 9/2, doc. 280, p. 206.

144. Prince Max von Lichnowksy, Heading for the Abyss (New York, 1928), pp. 167–8, italics as in original.

145. Ibid., pp. 167–8, italics as in original.

146. Cambon to Poincaré, London, 4 December 1912, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 4, doc. 622, pp. 642–3; see also Wilson, ‘The British Démarche’, p. 555.

147. Schroeder, ‘Embedded Conterfactuals’, p. 37.

148. Report of a conversation with Witte by a special agent of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, forwarded in Müller to Bethmann Hollweg, Hamburg, 21 February 1913, PA-AA, R 10137, Allgemeine Angelegenheiten Russlands, 1 January 1907–31 December 1915; for another report arguing that war was popular only with a small part of the Russian elite, see Kohlhaas (German consul-general in Moscow), memorandum, Moscow, 3 December 1912, PA-AA, R 10895.

149. On this tendency in British policy, see Christopher John Bartlett, British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (London, 1989), p. 20; Paul W. Schroeder, ‘Alliances, 1815–1914: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management’, in Klaus Knorr (ed.), Historical Dimension of National Security Problems (Lawrence, KS, 1976), pp. 227–62, here p. 248; Christel Gade, Gleichgewichtspolitik oder Bündnispflege? Maximen britischer Aussenpolitik (1909–1914) (Göttingen, 1997), p. 22; on France’s abandonment of a ‘balance of power’ policy, see Bovykin, Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 133.

150. Grey to Bertie, London, 4 December 1912, BD, vol. 9/2, doc. 328, p. 244; Grey said much the same to Ambassador Buchanan in St Petersburg, see Grey to Buchanan, 17 February 1913, ibid., doc. 626, p. 506.

151. On British suspicion of Austrian designs, the assumption that Vienna was a satellite of Berlin and the dysfunctionality of the Austro-Hungarian system, see Kiessling, Gegen den grossen Krieg?, pp. 127–9; Strachan, First World War, p. 81.

152. Katrin Boeckh, Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Kleinstaatenpolitik und ethnische Selbstbestimmung auf dem Balkan (Munich, 1996), pp. 121, 131; V. N. Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, trans. from the Russian into Serbian by Jovan Kachaki (Belgrade, 2009), p. 244; Pašić to Sazonov, 2 February 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 161, pp. 149–50. On these deliveries, which took some time to work their way through the Russian system: Sukhomlinov to Sazonov, 30 March 1914; Sazonov to Hartwig, St Petersburg, 9 April 1914; Sazonov to Hartwig, St Petersburg, 14 April 1914; Hartwig to Sazonov, 28 April 1914 – all in IBZI, series 1, vol. 1, doc. 161, pp. 149–50; ibid., series 1, vol. 2, docs. 124, 186, 218, 316, pp. 124, 198, 227–8 and 309.

153. Miranda Vickers, The Albanians. A Modern History (London and New York, 1999), p. 70.

154. Mark Mazower, The Balkans (London, 2000), pp. 105–6.

155. Notes on conversation with André Panafieu by Jean Doulcet, secretary at the French embassy in St Petersburg, St Petersburg, 11 December [1912], AMAE, Papiers Jean Doulcet, vol. 23, Notes personnelles, 1912–1917; Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, p. 239.

156. Nicolson to Hardinge, London, 1 February 1912, cited in Richard Langhorne, ‘Anglo-German Negotiations Concerning the Future of the Portuguese Colonies, 1911–1914’, Historical Journal, 16/2 (1973), pp. 361– 87, here p. 371.

157. Schoen to Bethmann Hollweg, Paris, 22 March 1912, GP, vol. 31, doc. 11520, pp. 396–401, here pp. 400–401.

158. Sazonov, Les Années fatales, p. 61.

159. Bethmann, Betrachtungen zum Weltkrieg, vol. 2, p. 133.

160. On the ‘hardening’ of officer masculinity before 1914, see Markus Funck, ‘Ready for War? Conceptions of Military Manliness in the Prusso-German Officer Corps before the First World War’, in Karen Hagemann and Stephanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), Home/Front. The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany (New York, 2002), pp. 43–68.

161. Rosa Mayreder, ‘Von der Männlichkeit’, in Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, Essays ed. Hana Schnedl (Munich, 1981), pp. 80–97, here p. 92.

162. Christopher E. Forth, The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis in French Masculinity (Baltimore, 2004); see also the essays in Hagemann and Schüler-Springorum (eds.), Home/Front, esp. Karen Hagemann, ‘Home/Front.The Military,Violence and Gender Relations in the Age of the World Wars’, pp. 1–42; on elite masculinities in Anglo-German comparison, see Sonja Levsen, ‘Constructing Elite Identities. University Students, Military Masculinity and the Consequences of the Great War in Britain and Germany’, Past & Present, 198/1 (2008), pp. 147–83; on tensions within hegemonic models of masculinity, Mark Connellan, ‘From Manliness to Masculinities’, Sporting Traditions, 17/2 (2001), pp. 46–63.

163. Samuel R.Williamson, ‘Vienna and July: The Origins of the Great War Once More’, in id. and Peter Pastor (eds.), Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), pp. 9–36, esp. pp. 13–14.

164. Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, p. 241.

165. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (2 vols., Graz, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 374, 455, 475 n. 14, 500, 520.

166. Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, p. 244.

167. Joachim Radkau, Das Zeitalter der Nervosität. Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler (Munich, 1998), pp. 396–7.

168. Georg Jellinek, System der subjektiven Öffentlichen Rechte (Freiburg. 1892), pp. 8–17, 21–8; on Jellinek’s ‘normative Kraft des Faktischen’, see Oliver Lepsius, Besitz und Sachherrschaft im öffentlichen Recht (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 176–9.

169. Denis Diderot, ‘Composition in Painting’, Encyclopédie, vol. 3 (1753), in Beatrix Tollemache, Diderot’s Thoughts on Art and Style (New York, 1893–1971), pp. 25–34.

170. Tatishchev to Nicholas II, Berlin, 28 February 1914 and 13 March 1914, GARF, Fond 601, op. 1, del 746 (2).

CHAPTER 7

10. Cited in Remak, Sarajevo, p. 131.

11. Cited in ibid., p. 134.

12. The recollections are those of the Yugoslav head of the Sarajevo tourist bureau, as recorded by Rebecca West when she visited the city in 1936–7, see West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, pp. 333, 350.

13. Deposition by Oskar Potiorek, in Kohler (ed.), Der Prozess, pp. 156–7.

14. Cited in Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, p. 15; Rudolf Jeřábek, Potiorek. General im Schatten von Sarajevo (Graz, 1991), pp. 82–6.

15. Kohler (ed.), Der Prozess, p. 30.

16. Deposition by Oskar von Potiorek, in ibid., p. 157.

17. Deposition by Franz von Harrach, in ibid., p. 159.

18. Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von gestern. Erinnerungen eines Europäers (2nd edn, Hamburg, 1982), p. 251.

19. R. J. W. Evans, ‘The Habsburg Monarchy and the Coming of War’, in id. and H. Pogge von Strandmann (eds.), The Coming of the First World War (Oxford, 1988), pp. 33–57.

20. Diary entry 17 September 1914 in Rosa Mayreder, Tagebücher 1873–1936, ed. Harriet Anderson (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 145.

21. Prince [Alfons] Clary[-Aldringen], A European Past, trans. Ewald Osers (London, 1978), p. 153.

22. Diary entry 1 June 1914 in Arthur Schnitzler, Tagebücher 1913–1916, ed. P. M. Braunwarth, R. Miklin, S. Pertlik, W. Ruprechter and R. Urbach (Vienna, 1983), p. 117.

23. Biliński, Wspomnienia i dokumenty, vol. 1, p. 276.

24. Shebeko to Sazonov, 1 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 46, p. 52.

25. Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk, trans. Cecil Parrott (London, 1974; repr. 2000), p. 4.

26. Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March, trans. Michael Hofmann (London, 2003), p. 327.

27. Robert A. Kann, ‘Gross-Österreich’, in id., Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand Studien (Munich, 1976), pp. 26–46, here p. 31.

28. Count Ottokar Czernin, In the World War (London, 1919), p. 36.

29. Rudolf Kiszling, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este. Leben, Pläne und Wirken am Schicksalsweg der Donaumonarchie (Graz, 1953), pp. 49–50.

30. Robert Hoffmann, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand und der Fortschritt. Altstadterhaltung und bürgerliche Modernisierungswille in Salzburg (Vienna, 1994), pp. 94–5.

31. Diary entries 28 June and 24 September 1914, in Schnitzler, Tagebücher, pp. 123, 138.

32. See Bernd Sösemann, ‘Die Bereitschaft zum Krieg. Sarajevo 1914’, in Alexander Demandt (ed.), Das Attentat in der Geschichte (Cologne, 1996), pp. 295–320.

33. Djordjević to Pašić, Constantinople, 30 June 1914, AS, MID – PO, 411, fos. 744–8, here fos. 744–5.

34. Shebeko to Sazonov, 1 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 47, p. 53.

35. See, for example, ‘Die Ermordung des Thronfolgerpaares’, in Prager Tagblatt, 29 June 1914, 2nd Extra-Ausgabe, p. 1; ‘Ermordung des Thronfolgerpaares’, in Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 29 June 1914, p. 2; ‘Die erste Nachricht’, ‘Das erste Attentat’, ‘Das tödliche Attentat’, in Pester Lloyd, 29 June 1914, p. 2; ‘Die letzten Worte des Erzherzogs’, in Vorarlberger Volksblatt, 1 July 1914, p. 2.

36. ‘Franz Ferdinand über Seine Ehe’, in Die Reichspost, 30 June 1914, afternoon edition, p. 4.

37. Karl Kraus, ‘Franz Ferdinand und die Talente’, Die Fackel, 10 July 1914, pp. 1–4.

38. See, for example, ‘Nichtamtlicher Teil’, in Wiener Zeitung, 29 June 1914, p. 2.

39. ‘Ermordung des Thronfolgerpaares’, in Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 29 June 1914, p. 1; ‘Die Ermordung des Thronfolgers und seiner Gemahlin’, in Die Reichspost, 29 June 1914, p. 1; on the archduke as carrier of the Habsburg future, see also, ‘Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand. Das Standrecht in Sarajevo’, in Neue Freie Presse, 30 June 1914, p. 1.

40. Józef Galántai, Hungary in the First World War (Budapest, 1989), pp. 26–7.

41. Franz Kafka, Tagebücher, ed. Hans-Gerhard Koch, Michael Müller and Malcolm Pasley (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), p. 543.

42. Cited in Remak, Sarajevo, p. 183.

43. Ibid., p. 186.

44. Potiorek to Biliński, Sarajevo, 29 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9947, pp. 213–14, here p. 214.

45. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols. Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, pp. 55, 97–8.

46. Remak, Sarajevo, pp. 194–6, 198.

47. Potiorek to Biliński, Sarajevo, 28 June 1914; Potiorek to Biliński, Sarajevo, 28 June 1914; Potiorek to Biliński, Sarajevo, 29 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, docs. 9939, 9940, and 9947, pp. 208, 209, 213–14; on Potiorek’s need to assuage his possibly unconscious feelings of guilt in connection with the murders by ordering the arrest of all supposedly suspect Serbs in Bosnia, see Jeřábek, Potiorek, p. 88.

48. Wilhelm Ritter von Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 29 June 1914; Wilhelm Ritter von Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 29 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, docs. 9941, 9943, pp. 209–10, 210–12.

49. Potiorek to Krobatin, Sarajevo, 29 June 1914, ibid., doc. 9948, p. 214; on Potiorek’s insistence on Belgrade’s complicity in the crime, see also Roberto Segre, Vienna e Belgrado 1876–1914 (Milan, [1935]), p. 48.

50. Wilhelm Ritter von Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 29 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9943, pp. 210–12.

51. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 29 June 1914, ibid., doc. 9943, pp. 210–12.

52. Heinrich Jehlitschka to MFA Vienna, telegram, Üsküb, 1 July 1914, ibid., doc. 9972, pp. 237–40, here p. 239.

53. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 30 June 1914, ibid., doc. 9951, pp. 218– 19. Similar reports were sent from other parts of Serbia: see, for example, Report of the consulate manager Josef Umlauf in Mitrovica, 5 July 1914, ibid., doc. 10064, pp. 311–12.

54. Attachments to Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 1 July 1914, ibid., doc. 9964, pp. 232–4; pamphlet published by Straza on 30 June, HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg, 810, fo. 78.

55. In fact the ‘warning’ was couched in vague generalities, no details of the plot were provided and Jovanović spoke to Biliński, not to Berchtold; transcript from Stampa, 30 June 1914, ibid., fo. 24.

56. Jovanović (Serbian minister in Vienna) to Pašić, Vienna, 1 July 1914; see also same to same, Vienna, 6 July 1914, AS, MID – PO, 411, fos. 659, 775.

57. Djordjević (Serbian minister in Constantinople) to Pašić, Constantinople, 29 June 1914. Djordjević reported that the Romanian minister in Constantinople had warned that the Serbian press should be careful ‘not to celebrate this act, but to condemn [it]’; Djordjević disagreed and urged Pašić to aim for a tone of ‘dignified reserve’; Vesnić to Pašić, Paris, 1 July 1914, ibid., 411, fos. 662, 710.

58. Mark Cornwall, ‘Serbia’, in Keith M. Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London, 1995), pp. 55–96, here p. 62.

59. On Pašić’s denial, see Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 99; Djordje Stanković, Nikola Pašić, saveznivi i stvaranje Jugoslavije (Zajecar, 1995), p. 40.

60. See report Czernin (Austro-Hungarian minister in St Petersburg) to MFA Vienna, St Petersburg, 3 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10017, pp. 282–3; full transcript of the article in Vecherneye Vremya, 29 June 1914, ibid., doc. 10017, pp. 283–4.

61. Szapáry to MFA Vienna, St Petersburg, 21 July 1914, ibid., doc. 10461, pp. 567–8.

62. Consul-General Heinrich Jehlitschka to MFA Vienna, telegram, Üsküb, 1 July 1914, ibid., doc. 9972, pp. 237–40, here p. 239.

63. Pašić to all Serbian legations, Belgrade, 1 July 1914; Pašić to all Serbian legations, Belgrade, 14 July 1914, in DSP, vol. 7/1, docs. 299, 415.

64. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 3 July 1914; Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 3 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, docs. 10000, 10004, pp. 274, 276.

65. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 30 June 1914, ibid., doc. 9950, p. 218.

66. Neue Freie Presse, 7 July 1914 (no. 17911), p. 4, col. 1.

67. Cornwall, ‘Serbia’, passim.

68. On the policy of haughty silence, see, for example, Hartwig to Sazonov, 9 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 148, p. 147.

69. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, 30 June 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9951, pp. 218–19.

70. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grandseigneur und Staatsmann, (2 vols., Graz, 1963), vol. 2, p. 557.

71. Cited in ibid., p. 558.

72. Ibid., p. 559.

73. Biliński, Wspomnienia i dokumenty, vol. 1, p. 238.

74. See for example, Biliński to Potiorek, Vienna, 30 June and 3 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, docs. 9962, 10029, pp. 227–31, 289–91.

75. See the account of the meeting of 13 October 1913 in Conrad von Hötzendorf, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 1906–1918 (5 vols., Vienna, 1921–5), vol. 3, pp. 464–6.

76. John Leslie, ‘The Antecedents of Austria-Hungary’s War Aims. Policies and Policy-makers in Vienna and Budapest before and during 1914’, in Elisabeth Springer and Leopold Kammerhold (eds.), Archiv und Forschung. Das Haus-Hof und Staatsarchiv in seiner Bedeutung für die Geschichte Österreichs und Europas (Vienna, 1993) pp. 366–7.

77. Biliński, Wspomnienia i dokumenty, vol. 1, p. 277.

78. N. Shebeko, Souvenirs. Essai historique sur les origins de la guerre de 1914 (Paris, 1936), p. 185.

79. Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Vienna, 30 June, in DD, vol. 1, doc. 7, pp. 10–11.

80. On Musulin’s motivations, see the memoir composed by Count Alexander Hoyos and transcribed in Fritz Fellner, ‘Die Mission “Hoyos”’, in id., Vom Dreibund zum Völkerbund. Studien zur Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen 1882–1919, ed. H. Maschl and B. Mazohl-Wallnig (Vienna, 1994), pp. 112–41, here p. 135.

81. Leslie, Antecedents, p. 378 (quotation: Szapáry to Berchtold, 19 November 1912).

82. Joseph Redlich, diary entry 24 July 1914, in Fritz Fellner (ed)., Schicksalsjahre Österreichs, 1908–1919: Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs, (2 vols., Graz, 1953–4), vol. 1, p. 239.

83. Berchtold, ‘Die ersten Tage nach dem Attentat vom 28. Juni’, cited in Hantsch, Berchtold, vol. 2, p. 552.

84. Ambassador Mérey (Rome) to his father, 5 May 1914, cited in Fellner, ‘Die Mission “Hoyos”’, p. 119.

85. See R. A. Kann, Kaiser Franz Joseph und der Ausbruch des Krieges (Vienna, 1971), p. 11, citing a newspaper interview with Biliński; William Jannen, ‘The Austro-Hungarian Decision for War in July 1914’, in Samuel R. Williamson and Peter Pastor (eds.), Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), pp. 55–81, esp. p. 72.

86. This comment was supposedly reported to Margutti by the Emperor’s aidede-camp, General Count Paar, see [Albert Alexander] Baron von Margutti, The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times (London, [1921]), pp. 138–9.

87. Berchtold’s memoirs, cited in Hantsch, Berchtold, vol. 2, pp. 559–60.

88. Tisza, memorandum to Emperor Franz Joseph, Budapest, 1 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9978, pp. 248–9.

89. Günther Kronenbitter, Krieg in Frieden’. Die Führung der k.u.k. Armee und die Grossmachtpolitik Österreich-Ungarns 1906–1914 (Munich, 2003), pp. 465–6; Segre, Vienna e Belgrado, p. 49; Sidney Bradshaw Fay, The Origins of the First World War (2 vols., New York), vol. 2, pp. 224–36.

90. Berchtold’s memoirs, cited in Hantsch, Berchtold, vol. 2, pp. 560, 561.

91. Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, vol. 4, p. 34; Samuel R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills, 1991), pp. 199–200.

92. Notes by Hoyos on conversation with Naumann, 1 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9966, pp. 235–6; also Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 129–30; Dieter Hoffmann, Der Sprung ins Dunkle: Oder wie der 1. Weltkrieg entfesselt wurde (Leipzig, 2010), pp. 181–2; Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions. German Policies from 1911 to 1914, trans. Marian Jackson (London, 1975), p. 473.

93. Cited Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 138.

94. Szögyényi to Berchtold, Berlin, 4 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10039, p. 295.

95. Ibid., p. 36; cf. Fischer, War of Illusions, p. 418.

96. Tisza, memorandum to Emperor Franz Joseph, Budapest, 1 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9978, pp. 248–9.

97. Ibid., appendix to doc. 9984, pp. 253–61.

98. Franz Joseph to Kaiser Wilhelm II, 2 July 1914, ibid., doc. 9984, pp. 250–52.

99. Report by Szögyényi on Hoyos (1908) cited in Verena Moritz, ‘“Wir sind also fähig, zu wollen!” Alexander Hoyos und die Entfesselung des Ersten Weltkrieges’, in Verena Moritz and Hannes Leidinger (eds.), Die Nacht des Kirpitschnikow. Eine andere Geschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges (Vienna, 2006), pp. 66–96, here pp. 82–3.

100. Fellner, ‘Die Mission “Hoyos”’, pp. 119, 125, 115–16.

101. For an astute discussion of Berchtold’s intentions, to which the preceding is indebted, see Williamson, Austria-Hungary, pp. 195–6; on the Hoyos mission, see also Manfred Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers. Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz, 1994), pp. 70–73; Hantsch, Berchtold, vol. 2, pp. 567–73.

102. Berchtold, report on a conversation with the German ambassador, Vienna, 3 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 1006, pp. 277–8.

103. Conversation with Bratianu reported in Czernin to MFA Vienna, Sinaia, 24 July 1914, HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg 812, fos. 699–708.

CHAPTER 8

10. Rodd to Grey, Rome, 7 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 36, p. 28; Mérey to Berchtold, Rome, 2 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9988, p. 263; Mikhailović to Pašić, Rome, 1 July 1914, AS, MID – PO, 411, fos. 762–5.

11. Sverbeyev to Sazonov, private letter, Rome, 30 June 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 29, p. 37; Mikhailović to Pašić, Rome, 1 July 1914, AS, MID – PO, 411, fols. 762–5.

12. John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), pp. 139, 145.

13. Szécsen to Berchtold, Paris, 1 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 9970, p. 237.

14. Bosković to Pašić, London, 18 July 1914, AS, MID – PO, 411, fo. 684.

15. Mensdorff to MFA Vienna, London, 16 July 1914, HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg, 812, fo. 478.

16. Czernin to MFA Vienna, Bucharest, 10 July 1914, ibid., 810, fo. 369.

17. Jovanović to Pašić, Berlin, 13 July 1914, AS, MID – PO, 412, fos. 63–4; Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 12 July 1914, ibid., fos. 105–6.

18. Shebeko to Sazonov, Vienna, 30 June 1914; Vienna, 1 July 1914, Vienna, 1 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 8, docs. 32, 46, 47, pp. 39, 53, 54.

19. Hartwig to Sazonov, Belgrade, 30 June 1914, ibid., vol. 4, doc. 35, p. 43; on the importance of Friedjung as a pretext for rejecting out of hand the Austrian case against Serbia, see also Manfred Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers. Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz, 1994), p. 77.

20. Bronewsky to Sazonov, Sofia, 8 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 136, p. 143.

21. Sverbeyev (ambassador to Berlin) to Sazonov, 2 July 1914, ibid., doc. 62, p. 68.

22. Benckendorff to Sazonov, London, 30 June 1914, ibid., doc. 26, p. 32.

23. Bunsen (British envoy in Vienna) to Grey, 5 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 40, pp. 31–2.

24. Carlotti to San Giuliano, St Petersburg, 8 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 128, p. 128; the Russian publication of this communication notes that there are no documents relating to this conversation in the Russian foreign ministry records, and the account of the same meeting by Czernin describes the conversation but does not mention this point. The reason may be that Czernin had acquired privileged information from a contact in Vienna, but wished to conceal the fact that he had divulged Austrian intentions to Sazonov. The close agreement between Czernin’s disclosure and official thinking in Vienna at the time suggests, however, that the comment was indeed made and that the exchange was authentic.

25. Szapáry to Berchtold, 18 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10365, p. 495.

26. Thus Shebeko verbally to Berchtold on 30 July in Vienna, see N. Shebeko, Souvenirs. Essai historique sur les origines de la guerre de 1914 (Paris, 1936), p. 258.

27. Szécsen to Berchtold, 4 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10047, p. 299.

28. Grey to Buchanan, London, 8 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 39, p. 31.

29. Bunsen to Grey, 5 July 1914, ibid., doc. 41, pp. 31–2.

30. Bernadotte Everly Schmitt, Interviewing the Authors of the War (Chicago, 1930), p. 10. Whereas Schmitt accepted Artamonov’s disclaimer, Albertini was more sceptical, see Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, pp. 81–6.

31. Wilhelm II, marginal comments on Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Vienna, 30 July 1914, in Imanuel Geiss (ed.), Julikrise und Kriegsausbruch 1914. Eine Dokumentensammlung (2 vols., Hanover, 1963/4), here vol. 1, doc. 2, p. 59.

32. Berchtold report of a conversation with Tschirschky, 3 July 1913, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10006, p. 277; Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (2 vols., Graz, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 566–8.

33. Szögyényi to Berchtold, Berlin, 5 July 1914, in ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10058, pp. 306–7.

34. Hoyos memoir in Fritz Fellner, ‘Die Mission “Hoyos”’, in id., Vom Dreibund zum Völkerbund. Studien zur Geschichte der Internationalen Beziehungen 1882–1919, ed. H. Mashl and B. Mazohl-Wallnig (Vienna, 1994), p. 137.

35. Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich, 1994), p. 151; Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 142; Annika Mombauer, Helmut von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001), p. 190; Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 1, p. 79.

36. Szögyényi to Berchtold, Berlin, 6 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10076, p. 320.

37. Imanuel Geiss, July 1914. The Outbreak of the First World War. Selected Documents (New York, 1974), p. 72; Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 137–40.

38. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 147; Hantsch, Berchtold, vol. 2, pp. 571–2.

39. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 159, 137–8; Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 151; Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 372, 375.

40. Geiss, July 1914, p. 72; David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War. Europe 1904–1915 (Oxford, 1996), p. 372; Szögyényi to Berchtold, Berlin, 28 October 1913, ÖUAP, vol. 7, doc. 8934, pp. 513–15.

41. On British concerns in the spring and summer of 1914 about the reliability of the Russians, see Thomas Otte, The Foreign Office Mind. The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 (Cambridge, 2001) pp. 376–8; on French concern about Sergei Witte: Stefan Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich, 2009), pp. 266–8.

42. Konrad H. Jarausch, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, 2/1 (1969), pp. 48–76; Gian Enrico Rusconi, Rischio 1914. Come si decide una guerra (Bologna, 1987), pp. 95–115.

43. Jarausch, ‘Bethmann Hollweg’s Calculated Risk’, p. 48.

44. Dieter Hoffmann, Der Sprung ins Dunkle: Oder wie der 1.Weltkrieg entfesselt wurde (Leipzig, 2010), pp. 159–62; Le Matin, 4 January 1914; see also Ignatiev to Danilov (Russian Quartermaster-General), Paris, 22 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, 77, pp. 65–8, here p. 66. Izvolsky suspected that the article was inspired by a middle-ranking functionary of the Quai d’Orsay, see ibid., p. 66, n. 1.

45. Cited in Hermann von Kuhl, Der deutsche Generalstab in Vorbereitung und Durchführung des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1920), p. 72.

46. Pourtalès to Bethmann, 13 June 1914, DD, vol.1, doc. 1, p. 1.

47. Wilhelm II, marginal notes to the translation of the same article, ibid., doc. 2, p. 3.

48. Bethmann to Lichnowsky, Berlin, 16 June 1914, GP, vol. 39, doc. 15883, pp. 628–30, esp. p. 628.

49. I. V. Bestuzhev, ‘Russian Foreign Policy, February–June 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1/3 (1966), p. 96.

50. General Staff memorandum, Berlin, 27 November 1913 and 7 July 1914, PA-AA, R 11011.

51. Zara S. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1977), pp. 120–24; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, ‘Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy before 1914’, Central European History, 6 (1973), pp. 3–43, here pp. 36–9.

52. Karl Dietrich Erdmann (ed.), Kurt Riezler. Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente (Göttingen, 1972), diary entry 7 July 1914, pp. 182–3. The publication of the diaries triggered a long and often acrimonious debate, both over the extent of German responsibility for the outbreak of war (the ‘Fischer Controversy’ was still smouldering) and over the authenticity of the diaries (especially the pre-war sections). Bernd Sösemann in particular accused Erdmann of misdescribing the manuscript, which consisted of heavily edited, partly truncated loose leaves with a combination of what appear to be original diary entries and later interpolations, as a ‘diary’ granting the reader a contemporary window on events. See Bernd Sösemann, ‘Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmöglichen. Kritische Bemerkungen zu der Edition: Kurt Riezler, Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte, 110 (1974); id., ‘Die Tagebücher Kurt Riezlers. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Echtheit und Edition’, Historische Zeitschrift, 236 (1983), pp. 327–69, and Erdmann’s detailed reply: Karl Dietrich Erdmann, ‘Zur Echtheit der Tagebücher Kurt Riezlers. Eine Antikritik’, Historische Zeitschrift, 236 (1983), pp. 371–402. On the abiding value of the edition and of Riezler’s notes despite the complex character of the source, see Holger Afflerbach’s introduction to the reprint edition of Erdmann’s edition (Göttingen, 2008).

53. Erdmann, Riezler, diary entry 7 July 1914, p. 182.

54. Ibid., diary entry 8 July 1914, p. 184; on the importance of this argument to German policy, see also Jürgen Angelow, Der Weg in die Urkatastrophe. Der Zerfall des alten Europa 1900–1914 (Berlin, 2010), pp. 25–6.

55. A. Hoyos, ‘Meine Mission nach Berlin’, in Fellner, ‘Die Mission “Hoyos”’, p. 137.

56. ‘Protocol of the Ministerial Council for Joint Affairs convened on 7 July 1914’, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10118, pp. 343–51, here pp. 343–5.

57. Ibid., p. 349.

58. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (Lafayette, 1976), pp. 177–9; Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 74–5; Roberto Segre, Vienna e Belgrado 1876–1914 (Milan, [1935]), p. 61.

59. Samuel R.Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills, 1991), p. 199.

60. Conrad von Hötzendorf, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 1906–1918 (5 vols., Vienna, 1921–5), vol. 4, p. 33.

61. Berchtold, Report to the Emperor, 14 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10272, pp. 447–8.

62. Conrad to Berchtold, Vienna, 10 July 1914, ibid., doc. 10226, pp. 414–15.

63. Shebeko, Souvenirs, p. 214; Sidney Bradshaw Fay, The Origins of the First World War (2 vols., New York), vol. 2, pp. 243–8.

64. The Austrian ambassador Count Mérey informed Vienna of German indiscretions in an exasperated telegram of 18 July; in his reply, Berchtold indicated that he had learned through ‘secret secure sources’ – a coded reference to information from intercepts – of Rome’s instructions to the envoys in Bucharest and St Petersburg, see Mérey to Berchtold, Rome, 18 July 1914 and Berchtold to Mérey, Vienna, 20 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, docs. 10364, 10418, pp. 494, 538. On the implications of the breach of secrecy, see Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins, p. 201; id., ‘Confrontation with Serbia: The Consequences of Vienna’s Failure to Achieve Surprise in July 1914’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, 43 (1993), pp. 168– 77; id., ‘The Origins of the First World War’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18 (1988), pp. 795–818, here pp. 811–12. On all this see also: San Giuliano to Berlin, St Petersburg, Vienna and Belgrade, 16 July 1914, in Italian Foreign Ministry (ed.), I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, 4th series, 1908–1914 (12 vols., Rome, 1964), vol. 12 doc. 272; R. J. B. Bosworth, Italy, the Least of the Great Powers: Italian Foreign Policy before the First World War (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 380–86.

65. See Shebeko, Souvenirs, p. 213.

66. Crackanthorpe to Grey, Belgrade, 17 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 53, p. 41.

67. Pašić to Serbian legations, Belgrade, 19 July, AS, MID – PO 412, fo. 138.

68. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 254–7, with further details.

69. Robin Okey, The Habsburg Monarch, c. 1765–1918. From Enlightenment to Eclipse (London, 2001), p. 377.

70. William Jannen, ‘The Austro-Hungarian Decision for War in July 1914’, in Samuel R. Williamson and Peter Pastor (eds.), Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), esp. pp. 58–60.

71. On Vienna’s confidence in deterrence, see Segre, Vienna e Belgrado, p. 69.

72. Memorandum composed between 28 June and 7 July 1914 by Berthold Molden, journalist and freelancer for the press department of the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, cited in Solomon Wank, ‘Desperate Counsel in Vienna in July 1914: Berthold Molden’s Unpublished Memorandum’, Central European History, 26/3 (1993), pp. 281–310, here p. 292.

73. Molden memorandum, cited in ibid., p. 293.

74. Edna Ullmann-Margalit, ‘Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting’, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Centre for the Study of Rationality, Discussion Paper # 409, accessed online at http://www.ratio.huji.ac.il/. See also: Edna Ullmann-Margalit and Sidney Morgenbesser, ‘Picking and Choosing’, Social Research, 44/4 (1977), pp. 758–85. I am grateful to Ira Katznelson for drawing my attention to these articles.

75. Ullmann-Margalit, ‘Big Decisions’, p. 11.

76. Storck to MFA Vienna, Belgrade, telegram, 6 July 1914, HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg 810, fo. 223; according to this report, the British envoy Crackanthorpe had confided to Storck that he found the behaviour of his ‘colleagues of the Triple Entente more than strange’.

77. Thus the suspicion of the Italian minister Cora, who had been present at various occasions (including the famous bridge party) on which Hartwig had ridiculed the dead archduke; see Storck to Berchtold, Belgrade, 13 July 1914, ibid., fo. 422.

78. Giesl to Berchtold, Belgrade, 11 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10193, pp. 396–8; there is a further full report of the envoy’s death in Strandmann to Sazonov, Belgrade, 11 July 1914, IBZI, series 1, vol. 4, doc. 164, p. 163.

79. Cited in Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 277.

80. Sazonov to Strandmann, St Petersburg, 13 July 1914, IBZI, series 1, vol. 4, doc. 192, p. 179.

81. Descos to Viviani, Belgrade, 11 July 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 10, doc. 499, pp. 719–21, here p. 721.

CHAPTER 9

10. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 15 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 13, pp. 14–16; Bertie to Grey, Paris, 26 January and 15 June 1912; see Bertie to Nicolson, 26 January 1912, TNA FO 800/165, fos. 133–4.

11. De Robien, ‘Arrivée’, fo. 10.

12. Bertie to Nicolson, 26 January 1912, TNA FO 800/165, fos. 133–4; ‘lamentable choix’: Gérard, ambassador to Japan, comments of 18 June 1914, reported in Georges Louis, Les Carnets de Georges Louis (2 vols., Paris, 1926), vol. 2, p. 125.

13. Crowe, marginal comment on Bertie to Grey, Paris, 26 January 1912, cited in John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), p. 5.

14. Ibid., p. 51.

15. Hayne, French Foreign Office, pp. 253–4, 133.

16. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 15 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 13, pp. 14–16.

17. Report on a conversation with Paléologue, early January 1914, in V. N. Strandmann, Balkanske Uspomene, trans. from the Russian into Serbian by Jovan Kachaki (Belgrade, 2009), p. 240.

18. On Margerie’s reputation for loyalty to Poincaré, see Sevastopulo (Russian chargé d’affaires, Paris) to Sazonov, Paris, 15 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 16, p. 19; on Margerie’s affection and loyalty to Poincaré, see Bernard Auffray, Pierre de Margerie, 1861–1942 et la vie diplomatique de son temps (Paris, 1976), pp. 243–4; Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 51.

19. ‘The French Army’, The Times, 14 July 1914, p. 8, col. D; ‘French Military Deficiencies’, ‘No Cause for Alarm’, The Times, 15 July 1914, p. 7, col. A.; Gerd Krumeich, Armaments and Politics in France on the Eve of the First World War. The Introduction of the Three-Year Conscription 1913–1914, trans. Stephen Conn (Leamington Spa, 1984), p. 214; Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 149.

20. Poincaré, diary entry 15 July 1914, Notes journaliéres, BNF 16027.

21. Poincaré, diary entry 11 July 1914, ibid.

22. Poincaré, diary entry 18 July 1914, ibid.

23. Poincaré, diary entry 16 July 1914, ibid.

24. Poincaré, diary entry 20 July 1914, ibid.

25. Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs 1914–1917, trans. Frederick A. Holt (London, 1973), p. 5.

26. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans, Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, p. 189.

27. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 4.

28. Ibid., p. 5.

29. Poincaré, diary entry 20 June 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

30. Poincaré, diary entry 21 June 1914, ibid.

31. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 10; Szapáry also reported an ‘indirect reference to the “Prochaska Affair”’, see Szapáry to Berchtold, St Petersburg, 21 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10461, pp. 567–8; Friedrich Würthle, Die Spur führt nach Belgrad (Vienna, 1975), pp. 207, 330–31.

32. Poincaré, diary entry 21 June 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

33. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 10.

34. Louis de Robien, ‘Voyage de Poincaré’, AN 427 AP 1, vol. 2, fo. 54. Robien was not present when the words were said, but learned of their effect from Russian witnesses.

35. Szapáry to Berchtold, St Petersburg, 21 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10461, p. 568; cf. for a different view of this exchange, Keiger, France and the Origins, p. 151, who argues that Szapáry was wrong to see a threat in the president’s words.

36. Poincaré, diary entry 21 June 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

37. De Robien, ‘Voyage de Poincaré’, fo. 55.

38. Ibid., fo. 57.

39. Poincaré, diary entry 21 June 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

40. Poincaré, diary entry 22 June 1914, ibid.

41. Christopher Andrew, ‘Governments and Secret Services: A Historical Perspective’, International Journal, 34/2 (1979), pp. 167–86, here p. 174.

42. De Robien, ‘Voyage de Poincaré’, fos. 56–8.

43. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 15.

44. This anecdote is reported in a letter from Laguiche to the French ambassador in St Petersburg (then Georges Louis) and the French ministry of war dated 25 November 1912; which can be consulted in Service Historique de la Défence, Château de Vincennes, Carton 7 N 1478. I am grateful to Professor Paul Robinson of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa for drawing my attention to this document and providing me with the reference.

45. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 15.

46. Poincaré, diary entry 22 June 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

47. Poincaré, diary entry 23 June 1914, ibid.

48. Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, pp. 16–17.

49. De Robien, ‘Voyage de Poincaré’, fo. 62.

50. Ibid., fols. 62–3.

51. Paléologue, Cavour, p. 70.

CHAPTER 10

10. Bernadotte Everly Schmitt, Interviewing the Authors of the War (Chicago, 1930), p. 22.

11. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, pp. 90–97.

12. Musulin had drafted point 6; it was revised by Berchtold, re-revised by Musulin and then reformulated by Forgách, ibid., vol. 2, pp. 255–6.

13. Grey to Bunsen (ambassador in Vienna), reporting his conversation with Lichnowsky, BD, vol. 11, doc. 91, pp. 73–4; Churchill cited in David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer. Who Started the Great War in 1914? (New York, 2004), p. 184.

14. Rambouillet Agreement, Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, US State Department website at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html.

15. Ian Bancroft, ‘Serbia’s Anniversary is a Timely Reminder’, Guardian Unlimited, 24 March 2009, accessed at http://global.factiva.com/ha/default.aspx.

16. Crackanthorpe to Grey, Belgrade, 18 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 80, pp. 64–5.

17. Royal Legation of Serbia, London, to Netherlands MFA, 18 October 1912, NA 2.05.3, Ministerie van Buitenlandsa Zaken, doc. 648, Correspondentie over de Balkan-oorlog.

18. Giesl to Berchtold, Belgrade, 23 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10526, p. 596.

19. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 285.

20. Recollection of Ljuba Jovanović, cited in ibid., vol. 2, p. 347.

21. These details were recalled by Gruić, cited in ibid., p. 347.

22. Berchtold to Giesl, Vienna, 23 July 1014, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10519, p. 594.

23. Strandmann to Sazonov, 24 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 35, p. 38.

24. Thus the recollection of Colonel Pavlović divulged in conversations with Luciano Magrini in October 1915, during the Serbian retreat, see Magrini, Il dramma di Seraievo. Origini i responsabilità della guerra europea (Milan, 1929), pp. 203–5.

25. Pašić to Spalajković, Belgrade, 24 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 501; Regent Alexander to Tsar Nicholas II, transcript in Strandmann to Sazonov, 24 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 37, p. 39.

26. Magrini, Il dramma di Seraievo, pp. 205–6.

27. N. Pašić to Serbian legations abroad, Belgrade, 25 July 1914, British Foreign Office (ed.), Collected Diplomatic Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the European War (London, 1915), pp. 389–90.

28. Crackanthorpe to Grey, Belgrade, 12.30 p.m., 25 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 114, pp. 87–8.

29. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, sent 6.15 p.m. 22 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 484.

30. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 354.

31. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, sent midnight 24 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 527.

32. Gale Stokes, ‘The Serbian Documents from 1914: A Preview’, Journal of Modern History, 48 (1976), pp. 69–84, here p. 72. Spalojković to Pašić, St Petersburg, sent 1.40 a.m. 25 July (wrongly given as 24 July by the editors), DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 503.

33. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 8 p.m. 25 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 556.

34. Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, 3.22 p.m. 25 July 1914, same to same, 2.55 p.m. 26 July 1914, ibid., docs. 559, 556.

35. On the impact of the telegrams from Russia, see Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 354–6; and specifically on Sazonov’s rejection of points 5 and 6 of the ultimatum, see Magrini, Il dramma di Seraievo, p. 206; Stokes, ‘Serbian Documents’; cf. Mark Cornwall, ‘Serbia’, in Keith M. Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London, 1995), pp. 79–80. Cornwall, whose analysis of developments in Belgrade is unsurpassed, argues that the wording of the telegrams from St Petersburg was too vague to satisfy Pašić beyond any doubt that the Russians intended to come to Serbia’s aid. It is true that Sazonov was vague – as indeed he was bound to be – on the details of what Russia would do and when, but my own view is that the steady crescendo of indications in Spalajković’s cables must have sufficed to reassure the Serbian leadership that the Russians were on track to intervene. But it must be conceded that Serbian determination to resist was strong from the start, as is implied by Belgrade’s handling of the crisis from the outset.

36. On telegram transit and arrival times, see the editors’ note on Spalajković to Pašić, St Petersburg, sent midnight 24 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 527, and Stokes, ‘Serbian Documents’.

37. Gruić’s recollection cited in Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 363–4.

38. Alexander Musulin von Gomirje, Das Haus am Ballhausplatz. Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich, 1924), p. 241.

39. Text of the reply (in French) in ‘Note der serbischen Regierung und die Belgrader Gesandtschaft’, Belgrade, no date [25 July 1914], ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10648, pp. 660–63.

40. Miloš Bogičević, Le Procès de Salonique, Juin 1917 (Paris, 1927), p. 132; Joachim Remak, Sarajevo. The Story of a Political Murder (London, 1959), p. 207.

41. Text of the reply (in French) in ‘Note der serbischen Regierung an die Belgrader Gesandschaft’, Belgrade, no date [25 July 1947], ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10648, pp. 660–63.

42. Roberto Segre, Vienna e Belgrado 1876–1914 (Milan, [1935]), p. 78; see also James Joll, The Origins of the First World War (London, 1984), p. 13; Joachim Remak, ‘1914 – The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered’, Journal of Modern History, 43 (1971), pp. 353–66.

43. See ‘Monarchiefeindliche Bilder im Belgrader Kriegsministerium’, a note included in the dossier circulated to Austro-Hungarian legations after the receipt of the Serbian reply, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10654, pp. 665–704, here p. 704.

44. Military attaché Belgrade to chief of General Staff, Belgrade, 25 July 1914, Kriegsarchiv Wien, AOL Evidenzbureau, 3506, 1914, Resumés d. vertraulichen Nachrichten – Italian, Russland, Balkan, ‘B’ [Balkan]; N. Shebeko, Souvenirs. Essai historique sur les origines de la guerre de 1914 (Paris, 1936), p. 231.

45. My account of Giesl’s departure is heavily indebted to Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 373.

46. Berchtold to Mensdorff, Vienna, 24 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10599, p. 636.

47. Macchio to Berchtold, Vienna, 25 July 1914; Berchtold to Macchio, Lambach, 25 July 1914, ibid., vol. 8, docs. 10703, 10704, pp. 731–2.

48. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 376–80.

49. Spalajković to Serbian MFA in Niš, St Petersburg, 4.10 a.m. 26 July 1914, DSP, vol. 7/2, doc. 584.

50. Franz Joseph, ‘The Imperial Rescript and Manifesto’, 28 July 1914, trans. and repr. in ‘Austria-Hungary’s Version of the War’, New York Times Current History of the European War, 1/2 (1914: December 26), pp. 223–6, here p. 223, consulted online through Periodical Archives Online.

51. Rapaport to Vredenburch, Belgrade, 28 July 1914, NA, 2.05.36, 9, Consulaat-Generaal Belgrado en Gezandschap Zuid-Slavië.

52. Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (3 vols., London, 1953–7), vol. 2, p. 192.

CHAPTER 11

10. H. H. Fisher (ed.), Out of My Past. The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, Russian Minister of Finance, 1904–1914, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 1911–1914, trans. Laura Matveev (Stanford, 1935), p. 349.

11. See her letter to Krivoshein in RGIA, F. 1571, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 3, 7.

12. From Bark’s account of the meeting cited in Lieven, Russia and the Origins, pp. 142–3.

13. Ibid., pp. 143–4.

14. Sonderjournal des russischen Ministerrats, 24 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 19, pp. 25–6.

15. Leonard Turner, ‘Russian Mobilisation in 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, 3/1 (1968), pp. 75–6.

16. Lieven, Russia and the Origins, pp. 59–61; on the importance of the Russian decisions of 24 and 25 July, see also Jürgen Angelow, Der Weg in die Urkatastrophe. Der Zerfall des alten Europa 1900–1914 (Berlin, 2010), p. 145.

17. Bruce W. Menning, ‘Russian Military Intelligence, July 1914. What St Petersburg Perceived and Why It Mattered’, unpublished typescript, p. 20: Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilisation de l’armée russe’, pp. 64–7.

18. Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilisation de l’armée russe’, passim; Sidney Bradshaw Fay, The Origins of the First World War (2 vols., New York), vol. 2, pp. 286–300.

19. Turner, ‘Russian Mobilisation’, pp. 65–88, here p. 75; A. Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914–1917 (2 vols., New York, 1921), vol. 1, p. 42.

20. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, p. 558; Turner, ‘Russian Mobilisation’.

21. Lieven, Russia and the Origins, pp. 144–5; Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilisation de l’armée russe’, p. 68; Turner, ‘Russian Mobilisation’, p. 76.

22. Regulation Concerning the Period Preparatory to War of 2 March 1913, paraphrased in Fay, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 316–18.

23. De l’Escaille to Davignon, St Petersburg, 26 and 27 July 1914, see also Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 26 July 1914, MAEB AD, Empire Russe, 34.

24. Széchényi to MFA Vienna, Copenhagen, 26 July 1914, HHStA, PA, I. Liasse Krieg, 812, fo. 63.

25. Hein to MFA Vienna, Kiev, 27 July 1914, ibid., fo. 226.

26. Andrian to MFA Vienna, 27 July 1914, Szczakowa, 27 July 1914, ibid., fo. 237.

27. Von Haydin to MFA Vienna, Moscow, 28 July 1914, ibid., fo. 3.

28. Stürghk (excerpting report from Statthalter Galicia) to MFA Vienna, Vienna, 28 July 1914, ibid., fo. 26.

29. Corossacz to MFA Vienna, Tiflis, 28 July 1914, ibid., fo. 69.

30. On these reports, see Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, MA, 2011), p. 62; on alarming concentrations of horses, Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilisation de l’armée russe’, pp. 68–9.

31. Paléologue, diary entry 25 July 1914, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, p. 25.

32. Buchanan to Grey, St Petersburg, 18 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 60, p. 47.

33. Fisher (ed.), Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, pp. 346–7.

34. Ibid., p. 347.

35. Ignatiev to General Staff, Paris, 30 July 1914, RGVIA, Fond 15304 – Upravlenie Voennogo Agenta vo Frantsii, op. 2, d. 16, Reports and communications made with special notebooks, l. 38.

36. Guillaume to Davignon, Paris, 30 July 1914, MAEB AD, France 12, Correspondance politique – légations.

37. Paléologue to Quai d’Orsay, 6.30 p.m., 24 July 1914; 11 p.m., 24 July 1914; 4.45 p.m., 25 July 1914, all in rough copy, AMAE, PA-AP, Maurice Paléologue, Correspondance politique 1, fos. 30–32; this document is discussed in M. B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 1898–1914 (Oxford, 1993), p. 298.

38. Laguiche to French General Staff, excerpted in Paléologue to MFA Paris, St Petersburg, 26 July 1914, cited in McMeekin, Russian Origins, p. 69.

39. Thus Sazonov reported the conversation to Paléologue, see Paléologue to Quai d’Orsay, 7.30 p.m., 26 July 1914, AMAE, PA-AP, Maurice Paléologue, Correspondance politique 1, fo. 35; Szapáry’s report on this encounter emphasized the minister’s warm and friendly tone, but closed with the suggestion that as Russian military preparations were already under way, this overture was merely an attempt to play for time, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10835, pp. 804–6.

40. On 8 November 1912, a secret Russian Military Commission adopted new guidelines on the measures preceding full mobilization, see Fay, Origins, vol. 2, p. 308.

41. Paléologue to Quai d’Orsay, 4.45 p.m. 25 July 1914, in rough copy, AMAE, PA-AP, Maurice Paléologue, Correspondance politique 1, fol. 32 verso.

42. Paléologue to Quai d’Orsay, 11.00 p.m. 24 July 1914, in rough copy, ibid., fol. 31 verso.

43. McMeekin, Russian Origins, p. 34.

44. Ronald Bobroff, Roads to Glory. Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits (London, 2006), pp. 52–3.

45. Mustafa Aksakal, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914. The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008), p. 43; on the Graeco-Turkish naval race, see Paul G. Halpern, The Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1971), pp. 314–54.

46. Grigorovich to Sazonov, 19 January 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 1, doc. 50, pp. 45–7.

47. Sazonov to Benckendorff, St Petersburg, 8 May 1914, ibid., vol. 2, doc. 384, pp. 381–2, here p. 382; Aksakal, Ottoman Road to War, p. 46.

48. Sazonov to Benckendorff, St Petersburg, 30 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 281, p. 195.

49. On the Straits as a theme in Russian foreign policy, see Bobroff, Roads to Glory, passim; for an exposition of the view that control of the Bosphorus was the crucial motivating factor in Russian policy during the July Crisis, see McMeekin, Russian Origins, pp. 6–40, and pp. 98–114, where McMeekin highlights the growing importance of the Straits after the outbreak of war.

50. Lieven, Russia and the Origins, pp. 45–7, 99–101.

51. Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilisation de l’armée russe’, p. 68.

CHAPTER 12

10. Mensdorff to MFA Vienna, London, 24 July 1914, ibid., vol. 8, doc. 10660, p. 636.

11. Steiner, Britain and the Origins, p. 222.

12. Cited in H. D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (New York, 1927), p. 49.

13. Adrian Gregory, ‘A Clash of Cultures. The British Press and the Opening of the Great War’, in Troy E. Paddock (ed.), A Call to Arms. Propaganda, Public Opinion and Newspapers in the Great War (Westport, 2004), pp. 15–50, here p. 20.

14. John Bull, 11 July 1914, p. 6; Niall Ferguson, Pity of War (London, 1998), p. 219; Gregory, ‘A Clash of Cultures’, pp. 20–21.

15. Bosković to Pašić, London, 12 July 1914, AS, MID – PO 412, fo. 36: the offending article is in John Bull, 11 July 1914, p. 6.

16. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis (2 vols., London, repr. 1968), vol. 1, p. 114.

17. Steiner, Britain and the Origins, pp. 224–5.

18. Wilson’s presentation to the Committee of Imperial Defence on 23 August 1911 is excerpted in BD, vol. 8, doc. 314, pp. 381–2.

19. Cited in Michael Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, in R. J. W. Evans and H. Pogge von Strandmann (eds.), The Coming of the First World War (Oxford, 1988), pp. 145–78, here pp. 150–51.

20. See Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott 1911–1928 (London, 1970), pp. 96–7, 104.

21. Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, pp. 153–4.

22. Grey to Rumbold, London, 20 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 68, p. 54.

23. On the incoherence and impracticability of Grey’s ‘concert’ proposal, see Sidney Bradshaw Fay, The Origins of the First World War (2 vols., New York), vol. 2, pp. 360–62.

24. Buchanan to Grey, St Petersburg, 26 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 155, p. 107.

25. Nicolson to Grey, reporting ‘Communication by German Ambassador’, 26 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 146, p. 155.

26. Benckendorff’s long account of the conversation with Grey on 8 July confirms that the British foreign secretary did not contest Russia’s view of the Serbian situation, but viewed the crisis exclusively in terms of the relationship between the two alliance groups, Benckendorff to Sazonov, London, 9 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 4, doc. 146, pp. 141–4.

27. Buchanan to Grey, St Petersburg, 24 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 101, pp. 80–82 (including minutes).

28. Crowe, minute dated 25 July on Buchanan to Grey, St Petersburg, 24 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 101, p. 81.

29. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 29 July 1914, in Max Montgelas and Karl Schücking (eds.), Deutsche Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, vol. 1, doc. 368, pp. 86–9, here p. 87.

30. Grey to Goschen, London, 30 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 303, pp. 193–4.

31. On Grey’s acceptance of the Austrian case against Serbia, see Steiner, Britain and the Origins, pp. 220–23.

32. Poincaré, diary entry 25 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

33. Ibid.,

34. Ibid., emphasis added.

35. Jean-Jacques Becker, 1914. Comment les français sont entrés dans la guerre. Contribution à l’étude de l’opinion publique printemps-été 1914 (Paris, 1977), p. 140; on French passivity, see John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), pp. 166, 167; also id., ‘France’, in Keith M. Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London, 1995), pp. 121–49, esp. pp. 122–3.

36. On Swedish public opinion, which was said to ‘live in fear of Russia’, see Buisseret to Davignon, St Petersburg, 28 November 1913, MAEB AD, Russie 3, 1906–1914.

37. The conversation is reported in Poincaré, diary entry 23 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

38. Poincaré, diary entry 25 July 1914, ibid.

39. Poincaré, diary entry 25 July 1914, ibid.

40. Poincaré, diary entry 27 July 1914, ibid. The France was already sailing towards Copenhagen when the decision was made to return to Paris.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Poincaré, diary entry 28 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

46. Keiger, ‘France’, in Wilson (ed.), Decisions, p. 123; Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, p. 313.

47. Poincaré, diary entry 29 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

48. Joseph Caillaux, Mes Mémoires (3 vols., Paris, 1942–7), vol. 3, Clairvoyance et force d’âme dans mes épreuves, 1912–1930, pp. 169–70.

49. Poincaré, diary entry 29 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

50. Laguiche to Messimy, St Petersburg, 26 July 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 11, doc. 89, pp. 77–8.

51. The page is missing from the manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale, see Poincaré, diary entry 29 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027, fo. 124. The last paragraph records that the British have asked Sazonov to express a view on the idea of convening a four-power ambassadors’ conference in London to resolve the Austro-Serbian issue and closes tantalizingly with the fragment: ‘Sazonoff a malheureusement’ –.

52. Caillaux, Mes Mémoires, vol. 3, pp. 170–71.

53. Sazonov to Izvolsky, St Petersburg, 29 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 221, pp. 159–60; also Note de l’Ambassade de Russie. Communication d’un télégramme de M. Sazonoff, 30 July 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 11, doc. 301, pp. 257–8.

54. Stefan Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkriegs (Munich, 2009), p. 321.

55. Excerpted in Viviani to Paléologue and Paul Cambon, Paris, 30 July 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 11, doc. 305, pp. 261–3; my interpretation of this document follows Schmidt’s in Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, pp. 317–20.

56. See Keiger, ‘France’, in Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War, pp. 121–49, here p. 147.

57. Gabriel Hanotaux, Carnets (1907–1925), ed. Georges Dethan, Georges-Henri Soutou and Marie-Renée Mouton (Paris, 1982), pp. 103–4.

58. Poincaré, diary entry 30 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027; on this linkage see Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, p. 322.

59. Izvolsky to Sazonov, Paris, 30 July 1914, IBZI, series 3, vol. 5, doc. 291, pp. 201–2, emphasis added; see also the discussions in Keiger, ‘France’, p. 127; Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, pp. 323–4.

60. Cited in Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, p. 326. Schmidt argues that mobilization without concentration was probably what Messimy meant when he referred to an acceleration without ‘mass transports of troops’.

61. Poincaré, diary entry 30 July 1914, Notes journalières, BNF 16027.

62. Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilization de l’armée russe’, p. 147; the article ‘Rossiya khochet mira, no gotova voine’ appeared in the Birzheviia Vedomosti and was republished in the nationalist organ Rech on 13 March 1914.

63. Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilization de l’armée russe’, p. 147.

64. Ibid., pp. 148–9.

65. Baron M. F. Schilling (ed.), How the War Began in 1914. Being the Diary of the Russian Foreign Office from the 3rd to the 20th (Old Style) of July, 1914, trans. W. Cyprian Bridge (London, 1925), p. 62.

66. Sazonov, Les Années fatales, p. 216.

67. Ibid., pp. 217–20; there is an excellent account of these events in Fay, Origins, vol.2, pp. 450–81.

68. Dobrorolsky, ‘La Mobilization de l’armée russe’, p. 151.

69. These discrepancies are discussed in Bruce W. Menning, ‘Russian Military Intelligence, July 1914. What St Petersburg Perceived and Why It Mattered’, unpublished typescript, p. 23; see also Ministère des affaires étrangères (ed.), Documents diplomatiques, 1914. La guerre européenne. Pièces relatives aux négotiations qui ont précédé la déclaration de guerre de l’Allemagne à la Russie at à la France (Paris, 1914), doc. 118, p. 116; on other omissions and suppressions, see also Konrad G. W. Romberg, The Falsifications of the Russian Orange Book, trans. W. Cyprian Bridge (London, [1923]).

70. Telegram no. 1538 to London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Rome, 28 July 1914, cited in Schilling, How the War Began, p. 44.

71. Telegram no. 1539 to Berlin, Paris, London, Vienna and Rome, 28 July 1914, cited in ibid.

72. Telegram from Benckendorff to Sazonov, cited in Sazonov, Les Années fatales, pp. 200–201.

73. Cited in Schilling (ed.), How the War Began, p. 43.

74. On Sazonov’s view of Bethmann’s warning, see Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella M. Massey (3 vols., Oxford, 1953), vol. 2, p. 491; Horst Linke, Das Zarische Russland und der Erste Weltkrieg. Diplomatie und Kriegsziele, 1914–1917 (Munich, 1982), p. 33; on the exchange with Pourtalès, see ‘16/29 July’, Schilling (ed.), How the War Began, pp. 48–9.

75. ‘15/28 July’, ibid, p. 43.

76. De l’Escaille to Davignon, St Petersburg, 30 July 1914, MAEB AD, Empire Russe 34, 1914; this telegram, which was intercepted by the Germans and published during the war, became a well known fixture in the post-war war-guilt debate, see e.g. German Foreign Office (ed.), Belgische Aktenstücke, 1905–1914 (Berlin, [1917]); see also Bethmann Hollweg, Betrachtungen zum Weltkrieg (2 vols., Berlin, 1919), vol. 1, p. 124.

77. Telegram of Kaiser Wilhelm to the Tsar, Berlin, 29 July 1914, cited in Schilling (ed.), How the War Began, p. 55.

78. See, for example, Herman Bernstein, ‘Kaiser Unmasked as Cunning Trickster Who Plotted for War While He Prated of Peace. “Nicky” Telegrams Reveal Czar as No Better, Falling Readily into Snares that “Willy” Set’, Washington Post, 18 September 1917, cutting in AMAE NS, Russie 45 Allemagne-Russie; Herman Bernstein, The Willy-Nicky Correspondence. Being the Secret and Intimate Telegrams Exchanged Between the Kaiser and the Tsar (New York, 1918); Sidney B. Fay, ‘The Kaiser’s Secret Negotiations with the Tsar, 1904–5’, American Historical Review, 24 (1918), pp. 48–72; Isaac Don Levine (ed.), The Kaiser’s Letters to the Tsar. Copied from Government Archives in Petrograd and Brought from Russia by Isaac Don Levine (London, 1920). These early editions do not include the sequence of cables exchanged by the two sovereigns in 1914, probably because the latter were not in fact personal telegrams, but diplomatic cables and thus archived separately from the personal correspondence of the monarch – I owe this insight to John Röhl, to whom warm thanks.

79. Michael S. Neiberg, Dance of the Furies, Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2011), p. 116.

80. Sergei Dmitrievich Sazonov, Les Années fatales (Paris, 1927), p. 218.

81. Ibid., pp. 218–19.

82. Menning, ‘Russian Military Intelligence’, pp. 13–18; D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), pp. 148–9.

83. Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Vienna, 2 July 1910, reporting a conversation between Kulakovsky and Sukhomlinov, PA-AA, R 10894.

84. Menning, ‘Russian Military Intelligence’, pp. 30–31.

85. Cited in V. R. Berghahn and W. Deist, ‘Kaiserliche Marine und Kriegsausbruch 1914’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 1 (1970), pp. 37–58; Albert Hopman (senior official in the Imperial Naval Office), diary entries 6 and 7 July 1914, in Michael Epkenhans (ed.), Albert Hopman. Das ereignisreiche Leben eines ‘Wilhelminers’. Tagebücher, Briefe, Aufzeichnungen, 1901 bis 1920 (Oldenbourg, 2004), pp. 383, 385.

86. Biedermann (Saxon plenipotentiary in Berlin) to Vitzthum (Saxon foreign minister), Berlin, 17 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 1, doc. 125, pp. 199–200.

87. Bethmann Hollweg to ambassadors in St Petersburg, Paris and London, Berlin, 21 July 1914, in ibid., doc. 188, pp. 264–6, here p. 265.

88. Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 190–93, 196; on German confidence in German military preparedness, see Mark Hewitson, Germany and the Causes of the First World War (Oxford, 2006), passim.

89. Cited in L. C. F. Turner, Origins of the First World War (London, 1973), p. 86.

90. Cited in Ulrich Trumpener, ‘War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914’, Central European History, 9 (1976), pp. 58–85, here p. 64.

91. Ibid.

92. Riezler, diary entry 11 July 1914, in Karl Dietrich Erdmann (ed.), Kurt Riezler. Tagebücher Aufsätze Dokumente (Göttingen, 1972), p. 185.

93. Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 1, doc. 123, p. 198.

94. ‘German View of French Disclosures’, The Times, 17 July 1914, p. 7, col. C; ‘Attitude of Germany’, ibid., 25 July 1914, p. 10, col. C.

95. Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke, pp. 194–5, n 44.

96. Thus the inference of Count Kageneck, German military attaché in Vienna, see ibid., p. 194. On the impact of the Humbert revelations on German thinking during the crisis, see also Theodor Wolff (editor-in-chief of the Berliner Tageblatt), diary entry 24 July 1914, reporting official scepticism about French readiness, in Bernd Sösemann (ed.), Tagebücher 1914–1919: der Erste Weltkrieg und die Entstehung der Weimarer Republik in Tagebüchern, Leitartikeln und Briefen des Chefredakteurs am ‘Berliner Tageblatt’ und Mitbegründers der ‘Deutschen Demokratischen Partei’ Theodor Wolff (Boppard, 1984), pp. 64–5; Hopman, diary entry 14 July 1914, in Epkenhans (ed.), Tagebücher, p. 389.

97. Risto Ropponen, Italien als Verbündeter. Die Einstellung der politischen und militärischen Führung Deutschlands und Österreich-Ungarns zu Italien von der Niederlage von Adua 1896 bis zum Ausbruch des Weltkrieges 1914 (Helsinki, 1986), pp. 139, 141–2, 209–10.

98. Bethmann to Schoen and Bethmann to Lichnowsky, both Berlin, 27 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 2, docs. 491, 492, p. 103.

99. Jagow to Lichnowsky (private letter), Berlin, 18 July 1914, in Karl Kautsky (ed.), Die deutschen Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch (4 vols., Berlin, 1927), vol. 1, doc. 72, pp. 99–101, here p. 100.

100. On the German confidence in ‘localization’, see Hopman, diary entries 8, 13, 24, 26 July 1914, pp. 386, 388, 394–5, 397–8; on Jagow’s anxiety, see same 21 July, pp. 391–2; on Bethmann as ‘drowning man’, see Alfred von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1920), p. 242; on these features of the crisis, see also Williamson and May, ‘An Identity of Opinion’, esp. n 107, p. 353.

101. Wilhelm II to Franz Joseph, Balholm, 14 July 1914, ÖUAP, vol. 8, doc. 10262, pp. 422–3.

102. See esp. Wilhelm’s notes on Tschirschky to Jagow, Vienna, 10 July 1914, in Imanuel Geiss, July 1914. The Outbreak of the First World War. Selected Documents (New York, 1974), doc. 16, pp. 106–7.

103. Wilhelm II, comments on Tschirschky to Bethmann, Vienna, 14 July 1914, in ibid., doc. 21, pp. 114–15.

104. Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II (2 vols., Chapel Hill, 1989 and 1996), vol. 2, Emperor and Exile, 1900–1941, p. 202; Jagow to Wedel (imperial entourage), Berlin, 18 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, doc. 29, p. 121.

105. David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, Europe 1904–1914 (Oxford, 1996), p. 376.

106. See G. A. von Müller, Regierte der Kaiser? Aus den Kriegstagebüchern des Chefs des Marinekabinettes im Ersten Weltkrieg Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller (Göttingen, 1959); Holger Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg. Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers (Munich, 2005), p. 11.

107. Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich, 1994), p. 153.

108. Wilhelm to Jagow, Neues Palais, 28 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, doc. 112, p. 256; Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 153.

109. Cited Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 154.

110. Cited in Volker Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (Basingstoke, 1993), pp. 202–3.

111. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 467; Geiss, July 1914, p. 222.

112. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 27 July 1914, Geiss, July 1914, doc. 97, pp. 238–9.

113. Bethmann to Tschirschky, Berlin 10.15 a.m., 28 July 1914, Geiss, July 1914, doc. 115, p. 259; Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 401–2; on the divergence between Bethmann’s and Wilhelm’s views on that day, see Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 2, pp. 164–5 (commentary by Geiss).

114. Bethmann to Wilhelm II, Berlin 10.15 p.m., 28 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, docs. 114, 117, pp. 258, 261.

115. Trumpener, ‘War Premeditated?’, pp. 66–7.

116. Chelius to Wilhelm II, St Petersburg, 26 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 2, doc. 441, pp. 47–9, here p. 48.

117. Cited in Trumpener, ‘War Premeditated?’, p. 66.

118. Ibid.

119. General Staff, report by the Intelligence Assessment Board, 28 July 1914, cited in ibid., p. 72.

120. See, for example, Bethmann to Tschirschky, Berlin, 29 July 1914 and same to same twice on 30 July 1914, in Geiss (ed.), Julikrise, vol. 2, docs. 690, 695, 696, pp. 287–8, 289–90, 290.

121. Falkenhayn diary, 29 July 1914, cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 155.

122. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War, p. 215.

123. Falkenhayn diary, 31 July 1914, cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 160.

124. George V, reported by Prince Henry of Prussia, Henry to Wilhelm II, 28 July 1914, in DD, vol. 1, pp. 32–89.

125. Harold Nicolson, King George the Fifth (London, 1952), p. 245; Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War, p. 219.

126. Nicolson, King George the Fifth, p. 246.

127. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 29 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, doc. 130, pp. 288–90.

128. Wilhelm II, notes on Pourtalès to Jagow, St Petersburg, 30 July 1914, Geiss, July 1914, doc. 135, pp. 293–5.

129. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 1 August 1914, DD, vol. 3, doc. 562, p. 66.

130. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 1 August 1914, ibid., doc. 570, p. 70.

131. Cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 164.

132. Falkenhayn diary, 1 August 1914, cited in ibid., pp. 165–6. Falkenhayn’s version of this exchange was broadly supported by Moltke, but may not be entirely trustworthy. According to the memoirs of the aide-de-camp and eyewitness Max von Mutius, the Kaiser asked Moltke for advice on whether a breach of the borders in the west – specifically the entry of the 16th Division into Luxembourg – could still be stopped. Moltke replied that he did not know, and it was a subordinate from the Operations Department of the General Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Tappen, who affirmed that this was still possible. By this account, the Kaiser did not directly overrule Moltke, but remained within the conventional boundaries of his position. In any case, the extant accounts agree on the traumatic effect of this episode on the chief of the General Staff, who returned obsessively to it thereafter; see Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg. Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers, 1914–1918 (Munich, 2005), p.13.

133. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 107.

134. Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke, p. 222.

135. Wilhelm II to George V, Berlin 1 August 1914, DD, vol. 3 doc. 575, p. 74.

136. Bethmann to Lichnowsky, Berlin, 1 August 1914, ibid., vol. 3, doc. 578, p. 76; Wilhelm II to George V, Berlin, 1 August 1914, ibid., vol. 3, doc. 575, p. 74.

137. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 1 August 1914, ibid., vol. 3, doc. 596, pp. 89–91.

138. George V to Wilhelm II, London, 1 August 1914, ibid., vol. 3, doc. 612, pp. 103–4.

139. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 1 August 1914, ibid., vol. 3, doc. 603, p. 95.

140. Cited Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 167.

141. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 29 July 1914, DD, vol. 1, doc. 368, pp. 86–9.

142. Grey to Bertie, London, 31 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 352, p. 220.

143. Harry F. Young, ‘The Misunderstanding of August 1, 1914’, Journal of Modern History, 48/4 (1976), pp. 644–65.

144. Stephen J. Valone, ‘“There Must Be Some Misunderstanding”: Sir Edward Grey’s Diplomacy of August 1, 1914’, Journal of British Studies, 27/4 (1988), pp. 405–24.

145. Keith M. Wilson, ‘Understanding the “Misunderstanding” of 1 August 1914’, Historical Journal, 37/4 (1994), pp. 885–9; on the impact of international financial instability on British thinking, see Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon. British Economic Warfare and the First World War (Cambridge, MA, 2012), pp. 185–231; for a discussion of Lambert’s views, see Williamson, ‘July 1914: Revisited and Revised’, pp. 17–18; I am grateful to Sam Williamson for drawing my attention to this strand in Lambert’s argument.

146. Grey to Bertie, London, 1 August 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 419, p. 250.

147. Bertie to Grey, Paris, 2 August 1914, ibid., doc. 453, p. 263; on the ‘impertinence’ of this reply, see Wilson, ‘Understanding the “Misunderstanding”, p. 888.

148. Communication by the German embassy, London, 31 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 344, p. 217; the warning was repeated on the following day, see communication by the German embassy, London, 1 August 1914, ibid., doc. 397, p. 241.

149. Asquith to Venetia Stanley, London, 1 August 1913, in Brock and Brock (eds.), Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 140.

150. Grey to Bertie, London, 29 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 283, p. 180.

151. Grey to Bertie, London, 31 July 1914, ibid., doc. 352, p. 220.

152. Grey to Bertie, London, 31 July 1914, ibid., doc. 367, pp. 226–7.

153. Grey to Bertie, London, 8.20 p.m., 1 August 1914, ibid., doc. 426, p. 426; note the time of dispatch: this was a later telegram than the one earlier cited for that day, providing the ambassador with further detail on the conversation with Cambon.

154. Keith Eubank, Paul Cambon: Master Diplomatist (Norman, 1960), pp. 170–71.

155. Conversation with Cambon on 24 July recalled in André Géraud, ‘The Old Diplomacy and the New’, Foreign Affairs, 23/2 (1945), pp. 256–70, here p. 260.

156. Grey to Bertie, London, 28 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 238, p. 156.

157. Keiger, ‘France’, p. 133.

158. Cambon to Viviani, London, 29 July 1914, DDF, 3rd series, vol. 11, doc. 281, pp. 228–9.

159. Steiner, Britain and the Origins, pp. 181–6.

160. On this aspect of the Entente, see John Keiger, ‘Why Allies? Necessity or Folly’, unpublished MS of paper given at the conference ‘Forgetful Allies: Truth, Myth and Memory in the Two World Wars and After’, Cambridge, 26–27 September 2011. I am grateful to John Keiger for letting me see a copy of this paper before its publication.

161. Géneviève Tabouis, Perfidious Albion – Entente Cordiale (London, 1938), p. 109.

162. Cited in Steiner, Britain and the Origins, p. 225.

163. Asquith to Stanley, London, 29 July 1914, in Brock and Brock (eds.), Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 132.

164. Eyre Crowe, memorandum of 31 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, enclosure in doc. 369, pp. 228–9.

165. On the growing importance of cabinet: Steiner, Britain and the Origins, p. 228. Cambon is cited in John Keiger, ‘How the Entente Cordiale Began’, in Richard Mayne, Douglas Johnson and Robert Tombs (eds.), Cross Channel Currents. 100 Years of the Entente Cordiale (London, 2004), pp. 3–10, here p. 10.

166. Austen Chamberlain, Down the Years (London, [1935]), p. 94.

167. Colin Forbes Adams, Life of Lord Lloyd (London, 1948), pp. 59–60; Chamberlain, Down the Years, pp. 94–101; Ian Colvin, The Life of Lord Carson (3 vols., London, 1932–6), vol. 3, pp. 14–20; on Cambon’s conversation with Lloyd, esp. pp. 14–15; Leopold S. Amery, My Political Life (3 vols., London, [1953–5]), vol. 2, pp. 17–19.

168. Keith M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente. Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, 1985), p. 135.

169. Asquith to Stanley, London, 31 July 1914, in Brock and Brock (eds.), Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 138.

170. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis (London, 1931), p. 114.

171. Asquith to Stanley, London, 1 August 1914, in Brock and Brock (eds.), Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 140.

172. John Morley, Memorandum on Resignation, August 1914 (London, 1928), p. 5.

173. Cited in Wilson, Policy of the Entente, p. 137.

174. Lord Crewe to George V reporting on cabinet meeting of 2 August 1914, 6.30 p.m., in J. A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, Life of Herbert Henry Asquith (2 vols., London, 1932), vol. 2, p. 82; Morley, Memorandum, p. 21.

175. On Samuel’s responsibility for these formulae and his success in drumming up support for them among his colleagues, see Wilson, Policy of the Entente, p. 142; also Herbert Samuel to his wife, Beatrice, 2 August 1914, in C.J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power (3 vols., London, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 150–51; Cameron Hazlehurst, Politicians at War, July 1914 to May 1915: A Prologue to the Triumph of Lloyd George (London, 1971), pp. 93–8.

176. On Grey’s words and his ‘emotion’, see George Allardice Riddell (owner of News of the World), Lord Riddell’s War Diary, 1914–1918 (London, 1933), p. 6.

177. On the place of Belgium in British pro-war opinion, see John Keiger, ‘Britain’s “Union Sacrée” in 1914’, in Jean-Jacques Becker and Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau (eds.), Les Sociétés européennes et la guerre de 1914–1918 (Paris, 1990), pp. 39–52, esp. pp. 48–9.

178. Cited in Hermann Lutz, Lord Grey and the World War, trans. E. W. Dickes (London, 1928), p. 101.

179. C. Addison, Four and a Half Years (2 vols., London, 1934), vol. 1, p. 32, cited in Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, p. 161.

180. Keiger, ‘Britain’s “Union Sacrée”’, in Becker and Audoin-Rouzeau (eds.), Les Sociétés européennes, pp. 39–52; Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy. Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1969), pp. 357–60.

181. This is the argument advanced in Keith M. Wilson, ‘The British Cabinet’s Decision for War, 2 August 1914’, British Journal of International Studies (1975), pp. 148–159; reprinted as chap. 8 of id., The Policy of the Entente.

182. Buchanan to Nicolson, St Petersburg, 16 April 1914, BD, vol. 10/2, doc. 538, pp. 784–5.

183. Nicolson to Goschen, 15 April 1912, ibid., vol. 6, doc. 575, p. 747; Steiner, Foreign Office, p. 131; see also Wilson, The Policy of the Entente, p. 78; Zara S. Steiner, ‘The Foreign Office under Sir Edward Grey’, in Francis Harry Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 22–69, here p. 45.

184. Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, pp. 108–14, 167–204.

185. Eyre Crowe minute to Buchanan to Grey, St Petersburg, 24 July 1914, BD, vol. 11, doc. 101, pp. 80–82, here p. 82.

186. Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction. Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, 2005), pp. 160–81; Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke, pp. 102, 105, 164–7, 225.

187. Alfred von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1920), pp. 241–2.

188. Note presented on 2 August at 7 p.m. by M. Below Saleske to M. Davignon, [Belgian] Minister of Foreign Affairs, cutting from the Belgian ‘Grey Book’ in TNA, FO 371/1910 (2 August 1914) viewed online at http:// www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/first_world_war/p_ ultimatum.htm.

189. Jean Stengers, ‘Belgium’, in Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War, pp. 151–74.

190. Ibid.; reply of the Belgian government to the German ultimatum, 3 August 1914 at 7 a.m., in Hugh Gibson, A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium (New York, 1917), p. 19.

191. Stengers, ‘Belgium’, pp. 161, 162.

192. Gibson, A Journal, p. 15.

193. Stengers, ‘Belgium’, p. 163.

194. Gibson, A Journal, p. 22.

195. Cited in Stengers, ‘Belgium’, p. 164.

196. Maurice Paléologue, diary entry 1 August 1914, An Ambassador’s Memoirs 1914–1917, trans. Frederick A. Holt (London, 1973), pp. 38–9.

197. Prince Max von Lichnowsky, My Mission to London, 1912–1914 (London, 1918), p. 28.

198. Gibson, A Journal, p. 21.

199. Bernd F. Schulte, ‘Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch und Kriegsverlauf 1914’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 25 (1979), pp. 123–85, here p. 140.

200. Report from Colonel Ignatiev, 30 July 1914, RGVIA, Fond 15304 – Upravlenie Voennogo Agenta vo Frantsii, op. 2, d. 16 – Reports and communications made with special notebooks, l. 38.

201. Cited in Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford, 2001), p. 103.

202. V. I. Gurko, Cherty i Siluety Proshlogo, Pravitel’stvo i Obschchestvennost’ v Tsarstvovanie Nikolaya II Izobrazhenii Sovremennika (Moscow, 2000), p. 651.

203. W. Mansell Merry, Two Months in Russia: July–September 1914 (Oxford, 1916), pp. 76–7.

204. Thus Richard Cobb’s summary of the impressions recorded in Roger Martin du Gard, L’Été 1914 (4 vols., Paris, 1936–1940), in Cobb, ‘France and the Coming of War’, in Evans and Pogge von Strandmann (eds.), The Coming of the First World War, pp. 125–44, here p. 137.

205. Strachan, The First World War, pp. 103–62, esp. p. 153; on draft riots in Russia, see Joshua Sanborn, ‘The Mobilization of 1914 and the Question of the Russian Nation’, Slavic Review, 59/2 (2000), pp. 267–89.

206. Neiberg, Dance of the Furies, p. 128.

207. Gibson, diary entry 2 August in id., A Journal, p. 8.

208. See Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War. British Society and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008), esp. pp. 9–39; id., ‘British War Enthusiasm: A Reassessment’, in Gail Braybon (ed.), Evidence, History and the Great War. Historians and the Impact of 1914–18 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 67–85; for an extraordinarily textured account of reactions to the news of war in provincial France, see Becker, 1914: Comment les français, pp. 277–309; id., L’Année 14 (Paris, 2004), pp. 149–153; Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 1914–1918: Understanding the Great War, trans. Catherine Temerson (London, 2002), p. 95; on the ‘shock, sadness and consternation’ with which most people greeted the news of war, see Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, France and the Great War (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 27–9; P. J. Flood, France 1914–1918: Public Opinion and the War Effort (Basingstoke, 1990), pp. 5–33; Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914. Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 231–6.

209. Sanborn, ‘Mobilization of 1914’, p. 272.

210. Thus the account provided by the ‘instituteur’ of the village, cited in Flood, France 1914–1918, p. 7.

211. Stephen Graham, Russia and the World (New York, 1915), pp. 2–3, cited in Leonid Heretz, Russia on the Eve of Modernity. Popular Religion and Traditional Culture under the Last Tsars (Cambridge, 2008), p. 195. Many Russian memoirs record confusion about the identity of the enemy, see Bertram Wolfe, ‘War Comes to Russia’, Russian Review, 22/2 (1963), esp. pp. 126–9.

CHAPTER 5