Chapter 3

Crisis Mismanagement: Unpicking the Causes of the First World War

In This Chapter

arrow Watching Europeans go to war with each other – and quite enjoying it

arrow Arranging alliances and planning for war

arrow Arguing – fiercely – about just who started the war

The First World War was so destructive that after the war was over people began to ask exactly why it broke out in the first place. People have been asking that question ever since.

The outbreak of the First World War wasn’t inevitable: that the pre-1914 world had plenty of problems is certainly true, but it doesn’t follow that the only way to solve those problems was by a huge war. On the other hand, plenty of people, including some in the governments and military high commands of Europe’s Great Powers, thought that a short war might be just the thing to give their countries a bit of healthy exercise. That helps to explain why some statesmen were so ready to resort to warfare to solve problems that could easily have been resolved around a table.

This chapter explains why the Europeans ended up going to war with each other in 1914 – and why so many of them were so pleased about it.

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It’s Off to War We Go

The last time all of Europe had gone to war was during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), which had been fought to break Napoleon’s stranglehold on the continent and had lasted 12 years. Since then, wars had tended to be shorter and smaller, but the idea of fighting to stop one country dominating the continent persisted. In Napoleon’s day, France was the country to keep a nervous eye on. Next came Russia, which was spreading its influence across eastern and southern Europe and extending its frontiers south towards India. By 1900 if any country was likely to dominate and spread its influence across Europe, that country was Germany.

To understand why European countries went to war with each other again in 1914, but on a larger scale than ever before, it helps to know why nations in the 19th century had so often turned to war to solve their problems.

Real men make war

European states, especially new ones like Italy and Germany (which had only been united in 1860 and 1871), saw war as a test of their national manliness, a way of demonstrating that they were real nations, worthy of respect.

Statesmen and writers sometimes compared nations with individuals, with every citizen contributing to the health and fitness of the people as a whole. Just as individuals need to keep fit and healthy – and the late 19th century saw a veritable craze for sport and exercise – so nations needed to maintain their physical fitness. Many Europeans saw their overseas colonies as a testing ground for character and manliness. The best test of a nation’s manliness, however, was a war. Europeans still thought of war in terms of colourful uniforms and exciting cavalry charges. War was like a glorified sporting match: short, sharp and decisive. Or so they thought.

God is on our side! No, he’s on ours!

Most religions teach about spreading peace and harmony, but they also talk of a cosmic battle between Good and Evil. Religion wasn’t usually a direct cause of war in the 19th century, but combatants often genuinely believed that God was on their side. Likewise, both sides in the First World War claimed that God was supporting them against an evil enemy. The Germans went a step further and tried to stir up the Muslim world into a holy war to topple British rule in India.

Your problems solved – you need a war!

Normally, countries declare war on each other only in the last resort, if diplomacy has failed. However, in 1832, a German military analyst called Carl von Clausewitz argued that war could be the first resort, a normal part of policy. If you wanted something from your neighbour, just launch a quick war, take it and move on. Simple! Of course, Clausewitz’s ideas made sense only if you could be certain that you’d win quickly, and that meant careful planning for war, making use of the latest technology.

The Germans were good at planning, and liked von Clausewitz’s way of thinking. And, as it happened, they did want a few things from their neighbours:

  • The Schleswig-Holstein War (1864): The Germans and Austrians crushed Denmark in a short, sharp campaign to take control of two Danish duchies.
  • The Seven Weeks’ War (1866): The Prussians (North Germans) crushed Austria in a matter of weeks to establish just who should lead Germany.
  • The Franco–Prussian War (1870–1): The Germans crushed the French and took two valuable border provinces off them – Alsace and Lorraine.

remember.eps In the run-up to 1914 the Germans gave their planning skills a serious workout and came up with the Schlieffen Plan (see Chapter 4) – their scheme for successfully dealing with a war on two fronts, a situation which they feared more than anything. What the Germans forgot, though, was that by 1914 other countries had learnt from their successes and knew how to use railways, rifles, heavy artillery and machine guns too. When the enemy is just as well prepared as you are, Clausewitz’s idea of winning a short and decisive victory falls down.

Understanding How (and Why) the First World War Started

ononehand_fmt.eps How the First World War broke out is one of the biggest and most controversial historical questions around. After the war, many people blamed the Germans, but other explanations are on the table:

  • Was it inevitable? This idea is tempting, but it doesn’t stand up to investigation. Nothing in history is inevitable until it happens: events can always take an alternative path. People before 1914 did often talk of a big war coming, but that doesn’t mean that it was bound to happen.
  • Was it just one crisis too many? This idea is easy to understand, and the years before 1914 certainly saw a series of international crises. But you could say that of almost any period. Crises don’t have to lead to a huge war. Even these crises didn’t have to lead to a big European war.
  • Was it no one’s fault? This argument went down well in Germany after the war, when everyone was blaming the Germans, and it may be what you conclude. The trouble is, if you decide no one was to blame, you still have to explain how war broke out. Something must have caused it.

remember.eps One problem with searching for that something is talk of ‘the First World War’ breaking out. It makes more sense to say that a series of different wars broke out: Austria-Hungary went to war with Serbia; Russia went to war with Austria-Hungary and Germany; Germany went to war with France, Belgium and Britain – and all for different reasons. To understand the outbreak of the war, you need to look at these different conflicts and the different causes that lay behind them.

Get off our land! Nationalism

Nationalism was the big new idea of the 19th century. It defined the people who make up a nation in terms of their history, language and culture, and talked of a special bond between the people of a nation and its territory.

Nationalism was becoming an ever-bigger issue in the run-up to 1914; tensions between peoples were running high and certain areas were looking more and more like potential flashpoints. Different peoples across Europe were latching onto the idea of self-determination – that nations should have the right to throw off their foreign masters and determine their own destiny for themselves.

remember.eps The most dangerous problems of nationalism before 1914 were

  • Slavs: Among these people of southern and eastern Europe, the biggest Slav state was Russia. Other Slav populations lived in southern Europe. Slav nationalists dreamed of a big Slav state to which all southern Slavs then ruled by the Turks or the Austro-Hungarians could belong, to be led by the biggest southern Slav group, the Serbs.
  • The Austro-Hungarian Empire: As well as Austrians and Hungarians, this empire included Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Romanians, Slovenes, Serbs, Bosniac Muslims and Croats. Many of these groups dreamed of breaking free from the empire and having their own nation states. Running this empire was a complex game of divide and rule among the rival nationalities.
  • Alsace-Lorraine: The Germans took these two coal-rich border regions from France in 1871, and French nationalists had been itching to get them back ever since. By 1914 most French people accepted that they weren’t likely to get them back any time soon (rather as many Germans during the Cold War came to accept the existence of the Berlin Wall while hoping that one day it would come down), but they still dreamed of reclaiming them one day.

Love me, love my ally – the Great Power rivals

remember.eps The most powerful nations were known as Great Powers. The theory was that Great Powers were strong enough to stand up for themselves, but by 1914 the European Great Powers had linked up in a series of alliances for their own protection (see Figure 3-1).

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Figure 3-1: The European Great Powers and alliance networks in 1914.

technicalstuff.eps An alliance is like a lifeboat on a ship –reassuring, but you don’t expect to have to use it. The alliances in Europe before 1914 were meant to be deterrents, to scare the other side off from launching a war. Alliances didn’t just say, ‘Whatever you get into, we’ll support you’. Each alliance laid down specifically in what circumstances one ally would help another. For example, the Franco–Russian alliance said that Russia would help France if the French were attacked by Germany or by Italy supported by Germany, but it didn’t say anything about an attack by Austria-Hungary or by Italy on its own. France was to help Russia against Germany or Austria-Hungary supported by Germany, but not necessarily against Austria-Hungary on its own.

War didn’t have to break out for an alliance to gear into action. The Franco–Russian alliance said that both countries should mobilise their armies if any of the Triple Alliance partners mobilised theirs. Mobilising an army is a massive undertaking, but it doesn’t have to result in war. It’s just that in 1914 it did.

I’ll have a Dual Alliance, barman. No, make that a Triple

The Dual Alliance was an alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, signed in 1879, but it became the Triple Alliance when the Italians joined in 1882. These apparently testosterone-filled bullies were, in fact, very aware of their own weaknesses and nervous – afraid, even – of their neighbours:

  • Germany: Germany was strong. It had a military power that was second to none and had beaten both the Austrians and the French. However, Germany’s Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, knew that France would recover and want revenge for its defeat in 1871. His solution was an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia known as the Dreikaiserbund or ‘Three Emperors’ League’ to warn the French off. Unfortunately for Bismarck, the Austrians and Russians distrusted each other so deeply that he couldn’t keep the league together. Bismarck reckoned, reluctantly, that Germany had to stick with its fellow Germans, the Austrians, and say goodbye to the Russians.
  • Austria-Hungary: The Austrians’ two main worries were that their multi-ethnic empire would fall apart and that they’d have to fight a war on their own against Russia. The Austrians and Russians didn’t get on. Some of the reasons went back a long way, but the final breach happened in 1908 with a quarrel over what was to happen to the Balkan provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (see the later section ‘Crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina’). The Austrians knew that they couldn’t defeat Russia on their own, so they signed the Dual Alliance with Germany. Bismarck was sacked in 1890 and Germany’s new leaders were much more anti-Russian, so the Austrians assumed they’d welcome a war with Russia.
  • Italy: Italy joined the Dual Alliance, turning it into the Triple Alliance, in 1882. The Italians didn’t particularly like either the Germans or the Austrians, but they wanted an empire in north Africa and they were angry because the French had beaten them to it. So, on the basis of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’, it made sense to the Italians to team up with France’s greatest rival, Germany. Confused? It gets better. When the war came, Italy declared war on its own allies and joined its enemies!

European Great Power seeks ally with GSOH for long-term relationship. Must be anti-German

The other alliance network was designed to counter the Triple Alliance. However, it consisted of two countries that had little in common and could hardly have been farther apart if they’d tried: Russia in the east and France in the west:

  • Russia: The Russians had got on well with Bismarck, but since he’d left the scene the Germans had broken off their alliance with Russia and, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, had been sounding ever more hostile to Russia. The Russians worried that the Germans and Austro-Hungarians might have plans to take some of Russia’s lands in Poland and they worried about Austria-Hungary’s intentions in the Balkans. The Russians knew that Germany was strong, so they were on the lookout for an ally in case things came to war. It took time, because the other Great Powers were more worried about the Russians than they were about the Germans at first, but soon the rest of Europe grew increasingly worried about Germany’s ambitions and the Russians found they did have a friend after all – France.
  • France: The French had been dreaming of revenge after the Germans humiliated them in the Franco–Prussian War of 1870–1, but as long as Germany had both Austria-Hungary and Russia on its side, the French couldn’t do anything. When the Russians split from the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in 1887, though, the French saw their chance, and in 1894 the two countries signed an anti-German alliance. This alliance meant that if it came to war, the Germans would now have a fight on their hands on two fronts – in both the east and the west.

Splendidly isolated: Britain

Britain didn’t join either of the two alliance networks. That might come as a surprise, because Britain did fight in the war when it came, but Britain wasn’t allied to any of the European Great Powers and it was very important to the British that they shouldn’t be. The British were ambivalent about being part of Europe (they still are) and they didn’t like the idea of being tied into an alliance that could force them to fight someone else’s war for them. They had considered an alliance with Germany, but the idea fell through, and an alliance with Russia or France was impossible because both countries threatened Britain’s overseas colonies. So the British played a sort of fox-and-the-grapes game, saying they didn’t want one of those smelly old alliances anyway, so there: they would live in what they called splendid isolation, feeling very smug and superior but with no friends.

The British changed their mind after the Fashoda crisis in 1898 and when they found themselves without any European friends during the Boer War of 1899–1902 (you can read about both in Chapter 2). They still didn’t want a European alliance, though: instead they signed three separate agreements:

  • Anglo–French Entente (1904): Entente is a French word for an understanding – not an alliance. This particular understanding sorted out the two countries’ differences in Africa. But was this understanding also an alliance? No one was quite sure. The Anglo–French Entente had secret clauses that said the British and French military high commands should start working together, jointly planning for war and generally operating just like – well, just like allies.
  • Anglo–Japanese Alliance (1902): The Japanese would keep an eye on Britain’s Asian possessions so the Royal Navy could concentrate on keeping an eye on the Germans closer to home.
  • Anglo–Russian Entente (1907): This entente wasn’t an alliance: it was an agreement about colonial territory, this time in Central Asia. Signing it didn’t in any way commit Britain to support Russia in war.

One international crisis after another

remember.eps The years before 1914 saw a number of major international crises. These crises increased the tension between the Great Powers, though this doesn’t mean they had to lead to a full European war.

The Russo–Japanese War

Japan was the Asian country that had been steadily turning itself into a modern western-style state (see Chapter 2 to find out why). In 1904 Japan and Russia went to war over control of Korea (which borders Russia and points towards Japan). To everyone’s surprise, the Japanese inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Russians. The Russians had even sent their Baltic Sea fleet all the way to the China Sea, where it was sunk by the Japanese at the Battle of Tsushima. The general consensus after the war was that although Russia was big, it wasn’t quite as powerful as it looked. (See also the earlier sidebar, ‘Worrying wars from the recent past’.) On the other hand, the Russians would also be keen to restore their international prestige – if the right war came along.

Britain v. Germany: The great naval race

In the years between 1905 and 1914 the British and Germans tried desperately to outbuild each other in dreadnoughts (see Chapter 8). Their building programmes were horribly expensive, and the Germans had to give up and let the British win, because the army was demanding its fair share of Germany’s military budget and the naval spending had to stop. But by the time war broke out, each fleet was just itching to meet the other in battle.

He said WHAT? The Kaiser in The Daily Telegraph

It seemed such a good idea at the time. In 1908 the Kaiser gave an interview to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. He hadn’t cleared it with the German government beforehand, and when German ministers read it, their hair must have stood on end. The Kaiser told the English they were ‘mad, mad, mad as March hares’ to believe Germany was hostile to them. Then he said he had saved the British from disaster by refusing a Russian and French request for Germany to intervene in the Boer War (which caused spluttering over breakfast in St Petersburg and Paris when the Russian and French governments read it!). For good measure, he said the German navy was aimed against Japan, not Britain. The Kaiser’s interview caused outrage in Britain, Japan and around the world. German ministers tried (not entirely successfully) to keep the Kaiser out of foreign policy after that.

Into Africa

One of the centres of serious trouble before 1914 was north Africa. Most of north Africa belonged nominally to the Turkish Ottoman Empire, but the Turks had largely lost control of it by 1900 and the European Great Powers all had their eyes on the prize.

Morocco 1905: Not-So-Cunning Plan No. 1

The real trouble in north Africa was in Morocco. And the people who caused it weren’t the French or the Italians (and certainly not the Moroccans) – they were the Germans.

No one quite knew whether the 1904 entente between Britain and France (see the earlier section ‘Love me, love my ally – the Great Power rivals’) was an alliance or just an agreement about land in Africa. So the Kaiser decided to find out. The terms of the entente suggested that if the French wanted to take Morocco (they already had Algeria and Tunisia), that was all right by London. So in 1905 the Kaiser went to Morocco – in person – rode through the streets, and declared that if the Sultan of Morocco needed a friend to warn off the French, well, here was the Kaiser’s card and contact details: just get in touch. The French were hopping mad about it, but Wilhelm was more interested in the reaction in London. It wasn’t long in coming.

The British strongly denounced this German interference in north Africa and demanded an international conference to sort the issue once and for all. It met in 1906 at the very pleasant Spanish resort of Algeciras, where the delegates spent a lot of time debating details like whether French or Spanish policemen should operate in this or that Moroccan town. The real issue at Algeciras, though, was the Kaiser’s cunning plan to isolate Britain. The Kaiser tried (without telling his own government, by the way) to tempt the French and the Turks into a huge anti-British alliance. Sneaky, eh? But the plan didn’t work. The French didn’t trust him, and neither did anyone else. France and Britain were now closer than ever. So much for that plan.

Morocco 1911: Not-So-Cunning Plan No. 2

In 1911 a rebellion broke out in Morocco against the French, and Paris sent in reinforcements. Some hawkish members of the German government decided that this action was an intolerable threat to Germany’s (not-very-extensive) economic interests in Morocco, and they sent a German gunboat, the Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir. The French weren’t too worried by the Panther’s arrival, and they struck a deal with the Germans: the French would take over Morocco completely and in return the French would give the Germans some land in the Cameroons and Congo. But the British went ballistic. David Lloyd George, normally a pro-German voice in the British Cabinet, made a speech warning that Britain wouldn’t tolerate German expansion in Africa and the British fleet was put on standby for war.

remember.eps War breaking out between Britain and Germany over the fate of Morocco wasn’t very likely, but it did show how strongly the British were standing by their French ‘not allies just very good friends’ and how deeply suspicious they were of German intentions.

Let’s take a trip to Tripoli

In 1911 the Italians launched an invasion of Tripoli – modern-day Libya – essentially, to make up for failing to conquer Ethiopia (see Chapter 2). The Italians took Tripoli without much trouble, partly thanks to their use of aeroplanes, and the war seemed to confirm that the Turkish army wasn’t up to much – a point that Turkey’s enemies in the Balkans took note of. This might be their chance to get rid of Turkish rule once and for all. (This Italian attack on Tripoli did have consequences for British rule in India, though; see Chapter 9.) The Balkan states’ bid to push the Turks out of Europe started the train of events that led to the outbreak of war in 1914.

The deadly battle for the Balkans

The war that broke out in 1914 started in the Balkans. This area comprises the countries of south-eastern Europe, including Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. The different nationalist groups of the region, when they could take a break from fighting each other, had two main enemies in their sights: the Turks and the Austro-Hungarians. The Turks still ruled a large part of the Balkans, and in 1908 the Austro-Hungarians took over an important part of the Balkans: Bosnia-Herzegovina.

War in the Balkans

In 1900 Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Romania were just waiting for the chance to drive the Turks out of the Balkans. When the Italians defeated the Turks so easily in Tripoli in 1911–2 (see ‘Let’s take a trip to Tripoli’, earlier in the chapter), it seemed to these Balkan states that the time had come. So in 1912 all of them, except Romania (which had its own plan for expanding its frontiers), formed a ‘Balkan League’ and launched a devastating attack on the Turks.

This First Balkan War went very well for the Balkan League: they took all of Turkey’s lands in Europe, except for a small parcel of land around the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Even so, some states were left unsatisfied:

  • Serbia gained territory but didn’t get what Serb nationalists really wanted: a port on the Adriatic coast. Austria-Hungary didn’t want them to have one so the Great Powers insisted on creating the coastal state of Albania specifically to keep Serbia back from the coast.
  • Bulgaria wanted Salonika but couldn’t have it because the Greeks had got it. Bulgaria also wanted to keep the city of Adrianople that it had taken from the Turks; however, the peace treaty said Bulgaria had to give it back. The Bulgarians said they wouldn’t, so in 1913 the Balkan states plunged into a Second Balkan War.
  • Turkey felt humiliated: it had been defeated first by the Italians in Tripoli and now by the Balkan states. The Turks were keen for a re-match, and the Second Balkan War gave them just what they wanted.

remember.eps This time everyone attacked Bulgaria. The Turks retook Adrianople and the Greeks held Salonika and took southern Macedonia, all of which the Bulgarians wanted. All in all, a bad year for Bulgaria.

As a result of all this, Bulgaria and Turkey both felt hard done by (each state thought the others had ganged up on them and, of course, they were right!), while the Greeks, Macedonians and Serbs felt rather pleased with themselves. The Serbs still wanted that port, though, and they blamed Austria-Hungary for stopping them from getting it. This matters because the really dangerous rivalry that in the end provoked war was between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.

Crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to the Ottoman Empire but were run by Austria-Hungary (it’s a long story; you can find it in Chapter 2). That suited the Austrians and Hungarians but not the Serb nationalists, who wanted the whole region for themselves (see Chapter 2). The Austro-Hungarians reckoned they could ignore the Serbs, but they couldn’t ignore the Turks. In 1908 the nationalist Young Turks staged a palace revolution and seized power in Constantinople. Austria-Hungary worried that the Turks might take back the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and began to consider annexing the provinces outright. They knew that the Serbs wouldn’t like it and that they’d go to the Russians for help. So if Austria-Hungary wanted to avoid a war – and it did – it was going to have to sweeten the Russians.

Count Aerenthal, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, knew just how to do it. He met his Russian opposite number, Alexander Izvolsky, and the two men did a deal: the Russians would let Austria-Hungary take the provinces over, and in return Austria-Hungary would help the Russians send their warships through the Dardanelles and out into the Mediterranean. This was very much a secret, never-to-be-written-down deal, and here’s why:

  • The Russians were supposed to be on the Serbs’ side, and that did not involve allowing the Austro-Hungarians to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  • Sending Russian ships through the Dardanelles was strictly forbidden by international agreement.
  • Izvolsky hadn’t cleared this agreement with the Russian Prime Minister – in fact, he hadn’t even told him, for the simple reason that the Prime Minister was bound to disown what Izvolsky had done.

What happened next would’ve been predicable to anyone brighter than Izvolsky. First, Aerenthal announced that Austria-Hungary was annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs protested and called on the Russians to back them up. But the Russians didn’t, because of Izvolsky’s deal (though he was now trying to wriggle out of trouble, claiming that no deal existed). Moreover, Aerenthal said nothing about the Russians sending their ships through the Dardanelles – after all, how could he when it was forbidden? Slowly, the penny dropped and Izvolsky realised he’d been tricked: Austria-Hungary had got the provinces and Russia had got nothing. And Izvolsky couldn’t say anything because it had all been done with his agreement.

remember.eps Count Aerenthal could feel very pleased with himself. His photo was no doubt decorating dartboards in St Petersburg and Belgrade, but he’d run rings around the Russians and denied the Serbs the one thing they really, really wanted. He’d even pre-empted the Turks. But there were good reasons that Aerenthal shouldn’t have been quite so smug:

  • The Russians had been humiliated. They wouldn’t let Austria-Hungary get away with anything a second time – especially if it involved Bosnia or Serbia.
  • Humiliating the Serbs undermined those in the Serbian government – including the Prime Minister, Nikola Pasič – who in fact hoped for good relations with Vienna. By the same token, it massively strengthened those Serb nationalists who wanted nothing better than a showdown with Austria-Hungary.

ononehand_fmt.eps Aerenthal had certainly been very clever, but he’d also given Austria-Hungary a lot of very bitter enemies.

Warring neighbours – Austria-Hungary and Serbia

Serbia was a small country with big ideas. Since winning their independence from the Turks back in 1835, Serb nationalists had dreamed of setting up a large Slav state under Serbian leadership – a sort of Greater Serbia. Doing that would mean taking over its neighbour, Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had the largest Serb population in Europe outside Serbia itself. But in 1908 Austria-Hungary took over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Austro-Hungarian government thought there was nothing the Serbs could do about the annexation. Boy, were they wrong.

Bleeding Serbia

Until 1903 the King of Serbia was Alexander I. Alexander wanted good relations with Austria-Hungary, but that didn’t suit the Serb nationalists and it didn’t suit the Russians either, who had their own quarrels with the Austro-Hungarians (check out the earlier sections ‘Love me, love my ally’ and ‘Crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina’). So in May 1903 a group of Serb nationalist army officers, led by one Colonel Dimitrijevic (codename: ‘Apis’) and with secret Russian backing, staged a violent coup d’état in the Serb capital, Belgrade. They seized the King and Queen, shot them and hacked their bodies to pieces. Then they put in place a new, aggressively nationalist and anti-Austro-Hungarian regime under King Peter I. But make no mistake (the Austro-Hungarians certainly didn’t): the real power in this new Serbia was Colonel Apis and his pals.

Killing Franz Ferdinand – the shot heard around the world

Colonel Apis’s aim was simple: take Bosnia-Herzegovina from Austria-Hungary. His problem was that the Bosnians, even the Bosnian Serbs, might not want to go. The Austro-Hungarians weren’t oppressing the Bosnians; they were giving them control over their own affairs and generally making them feel welcome. (The Austro-Hungarians weren’t just being nice. They wanted a strong ally who’d support them against the Hungarians, and they thought the Bosnians fitted the bill.) Leading this school of ‘be nice to Bosnians’ thinking was none other than the heir to the Habsburg throne, his Imperial and Royal Highness the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (see Figure 3-2). Which, from the point of view of Colonel Apis in Serbia, made Franz Ferdinand a serious nuisance. And Apis knew how to deal with serious nuisances: he killed them.

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© Imperial War Museums (Q 81810)

Figure 3-2: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sophie and their three children.

Colonel Apis was head of Serbian Military Intelligence, but he also ran an assassination and terrorist group called the Black Hand. In 1914 he recruited a group of assassins and supplied them with weapons from Serbian government stores. On 28 June Franz Ferdinand would be inspecting troops in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, with his wife, Sophie. That day was also the anniversary of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo – the Serbs’ national day. Apis’s men would mark the day by blowing the Archduke to smithereens.

The plan nearly failed. The bomb bounced off the car and exploded behind, wounding some of the escort. The bomber leapt into the river, found it came only up to his knees and was dragged out by the police. Fiasco! The Archduke was furious and insisted on visiting the wounded men in hospital. Unfortunately, no one remembered to tell the driver of the change of plan, so he turned a corner according to the original route. When he stopped to reverse, the car stalled outside a cafe where one of the plotters, Gavrilo Princip, was sitting wondering what to do next. With the Archduke and his wife sitting in a stationary open-top car just in front of him, Princip walked up to the car and fired at point-blank range. He claimed later he was trying to kill the Archduke and the governor of Bosnia, who was also in the car. If so, he was a poor shot: he killed the Archduke and his wife. Princip was immediately arrested. And no, war didn’t immediately break out.

The July crisis

Q: Did the assassination have to provoke a war? A: Probably, yes.

Q: Did the assassination have to provoke a world war? A: Probably not.

History has known plenty of assassinations of famous people, but they don’t usually spark off major wars. The Sarajevo assassination in 1914, however, was the spark that finally set off the First World War. Part of the reason was that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was far from the first prominent figure to be assassinated. Recent victims included three American Presidents, a Tsar of Russia, a President of France, a Viceroy of India, the King of Portugal (and the Prince), a Japanese Prime Minister, a Russian Prime Minister, and from Greece, the Minister of the Interior, and the King as well as the Empress Elizabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Josef. Not surprisingly, any country that took a tough line with assassins, as Austria-Hungary did in 1914, was likely to gain a lot of international support. And yet, the Austrians quickly lost that support and ended up with a war that no one expected.

Viennese in a whirl

The Austro-Hungarian government was outraged by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, especially because it reckoned it had been the work of the Serbian government. (The Serbian government did know what Apis was up to and even sent a guarded warning note to Vienna, but they didn’t try to stop the assassination.) General Conrad, in charge of the Austro-Hungarian army, wanted an immediate military strike against Serbia: he reckoned – and he may have been right – that no one, not even the Russians, would’ve stopped them. But the Austrians couldn’t act that quickly even if they wanted to; they had to persuade the Emperor and the Hungarians to agree. Franz Josef was weary of war, and the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Tisza, thought this quarrel with Serbia was a cunning Austrian plan to bring more Serbs into the empire and weaken Hungary’s position. And, as he pointed out, they still had to face the nagging question: what would the Russians do?

Germany promises to pay the bearer … anything he wants

remember.eps The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, sent an envoy to Berlin to get a guarantee that the Germans would support it in a war with Serbia. The envoy saw the Kaiser personally – the Foreign Minister was on honeymoon and others were mostly off on holiday – and the Kaiser gave his personal guarantee that Germany would support Austria-Hungary in whatever the Austro-Hungarian government decided to do. This went far beyond the terms of the Triple Alliance; in fact, historians have called it the blank cheque. The Kaiser hoped this would warn off the Russians and leave Vienna free to deal with Serbia as it liked. In effect, the Kaiser was handing control of events over to the Austro-Hungarians.

The Germans were growing increasingly scared of Russia. Russia was modernising its railways and communications and getting its armed forces into shape; soon Germany would be caught between a strong Russia in the east and a vengeful France in the west. The Germans believed the Russians would be ready by about 1917 or so. If they had to fight the Russians, they reckoned that it would be better to do it now, in 1914, before the Russians had finished getting their military act together, rather than waiting until it was too late.

Keep calm and carry on talking

What’s striking about the outbreak of the war is how long the countries spent trying to avoid war. A month elapsed between the assassination and the outbreak of war.

remember.eps Three weeks after the assassination the Austro-Hungarian government sent a harsh ultimatum to the Serbs demanding the right to send Austro-Hungarian police into Serbia to hunt down the assassins and giving the Serbs only 48 hours to reply. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, proposed an international conference to stop the problem getting out of hand, but the Germans rejected the proposal. The Serbs accepted nearly all the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum and suggested the rest could be discussed at Sir Edward’s conference. Even at this point, at the end of July, a war could’ve been avoided. But the Austro-Hungarians said the Serbs hadn’t met their demands, and on 28 July, exactly a month after the assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

And even then it didn’t have to be a European war.

As far as historians can tell, the Austro-Hungarian government genuinely believed it could have its war just against Serbia (which it reckoned – probably rightly – was about as big a war as it could take on with any reasonable hope of winning). The Russians would no doubt protest loudly, but they’d be too scared of the Germans to do anything. And by the time someone proposed the inevitable international conference to settle the dispute, the Austro-Hungarian army would be in the Serb capital, Belgrade, and the war would be over. That, at any rate, was the theory.

Mobilising men

To understand how a full-scale European war arose out of this crisis (especially when no one wanted one) you need to get to grips with mobilisation. Mobilisation means calling up your army and navy, getting men back from leave, sobering them up, equipping them with uniforms, food and everything else they’ll need, and getting them into position for war – not just in barracks or port, but in position to attack a specific enemy. In other words, you mobilise against someone. Some countries, such as Austria-Hungary, could order a partial mobilisation, which meant mobilising against one country (in this case Serbia) but not against another (Russia). But most countries could only order a general mobilisation, which meant mobilising against all the countries they were expecting to fight.

remember.eps On 29 July the nagging question over what Russia would do was answered when it mobilised its army in solidarity with the Serbs. It only needed to mobilise against Austria-Hungary, and the Tsar did try to change the mobilisation plan accordingly, but it couldn’t be done: the mobilisation plan was aimed at Austria-Hungary and Germany, so Russian troops started to mass along the German border too. On 31 July the Germans sent an ultimatum to the Russians: stand your troops down or we fight you. Without really waiting for an answer, on 1 August the Germans mobilised their own forces and declared war on Russia (which might suggest that the Germans were just waiting for a chance to fight Russia and that the Russians’ mobilisation was just an excuse).

Now it was the Germans’ turn to find they couldn’t change their mobilisation plans even if they wanted to (and, briefly, the Kaiser did). Implementing the Schlieffen Plan (see Chapter 4) meant amassing troops along the border with Belgium and France too, even though neither country had mobilised yet, and demanding the Belgians allow their friendly German neighbours to send a huge army through their country to attack Paris. The Belgians refused. On 2 August the Germans invaded Luxemburg and France, and the following day they got round to declaring war on France. Two days later, following Count von Schlieffen’s famous plan, German troops swept into Belgium. All eyes were now on London: what would Britain do?

Britain decides

remember.eps The British had made clear that they had no alliance in Europe and weren’t committed to going to war, but they had signed a treaty guaranteeing the independence of Belgium (and so had the Germans). The Germans couldn’t quite believe the British threat was serious: they called the treaty a mere ‘scrap of paper’ and the Kaiser convinced himself that he had the word of his cousin, King George V, that Britain would stay neutral (he hadn’t: George had said Britain would try to stay out of it, which is a very different thing). But on 3 August Sir Edward Grey spoke in the House of Commons and made an important commitment: Britain would protect the French coast from attack, according to the spirit of the Entente Cordiale. This meant that the entente was now an alliance.

The next day, the Germans moved into Belgium. The British sent an ultimatum to the Germans telling them to get out, and when they didn’t, Britain declared war. A week later, Britain and France declared war on Austria-Hungary (with whom they had absolutely no quarrel) almost as a way of tidying things up. And, because Britain, France and Germany all had overseas colonies in Africa and Asia, as soon as their ‘mother’ countries had declared war in Europe, these overseas colonies were at war too.

Within three weeks most of the world had gone to war, without anyone having ever intended it.

So What Did Cause the War?

ononehand_fmt.eps You can blame many factors for causing the war. The intense national rivalries all played their part. The suspicion between Serbia and Austria-Hungary was crucial in producing war between those two countries, but it doesn’t explain how it then spread to the rest of Europe. The alliances help to explain it – they certainly helped to create the two ‘armed camps’ in Europe – and the idea that the Europeans were so closely tied that as soon as one country went to war the others all got dragged in is tempting to believe, but it doesn’t fit the facts of what happened, and it doesn’t quite explain why countries mobilised their troops so readily. The rigid mobilisation plans, with their strict timings, explain why it was difficult to stop the process of mobilising after it had begun, but they don’t explain why countries gave the order to mobilise in the first place.

Some historians have blamed individuals. Was it the Kaiser’s fault? Or Sir Edward Grey’s for not being tough enough with the Germans? Or Tsar Nicholas’s for allowing the Russians to mobilise? Was it Colonel Apis’s or Gavrilo Princip’s? (Princip said that if he hadn’t shot the Archduke, the Germans would’ve found some other excuse for the war. Historians have tended to agree with him.) You can say that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused a crisis; it didn’t on its own cause the war.

ononehand_fmt.eps One German historian, Fritz Fischer, said that Germany had indeed been planning for a war so it could dominate Europe. German historians found that idea pretty hard to swallow, but most historians now accept that Fischer was broadly right. Certainly, that blank cheque suggests that the Germans weren’t too worried if things did come to a war – though that doesn’t mean they were planning to have the war they actually got.

We’ll probably never know exactly who wanted what in 1914, or what they all thought they were doing – they probably didn’t fully know themselves. But whether the Great Powers wanted a general European war in August 1914 or whether they just welcomed it when it arrived, that was what they had got. Now they’d have to win it.