July 1914: Countdown to War (23 page)

Following the review, everyone retired to the tsar’s tent for a grand luncheon of Russian
zakuski
and caviar. Russia’s sovereign insisted that Grand Duke Nicholas introduce the president to “several of the more important generals” in Russia’s army, which he did, before the party returned to the Peterhof for a brief rest. At six
PM
, Nicholas II took the French delegation aboard his yacht, the
Alexandria
, which would escort them out to the
France
, harbored at Kronstadt for the return voyage. This
time it was Poincaré who hosted the tsar for a farewell dinner banquet, aboard the
France.

President Poincaré and Tsar Nicholas II, inspecting a Russian Naval Guard of Honor at the Franco-Russian summit in July 1914.
Source: Getty Images.

The setting was spectacular. Although a “momentary squall” had damaged the floral arrangements, the tables were still laid out with all the elegance the French crew could muster. The deck, Paléologue observed, “had a kind of terrifying grandeur with the four gigantic 304 mm guns raising their huge muzzles above the heads of the guests.” As if to remind the ambassador of their conversation of the previous night, “the Grand Duchess Anastasia raised her champagne glass towards me more than once,” Paléologue noticed, “indicating with a sweep of her arm the warlike tackle raised all about us.” As usual, the tsar and the president were engrossed in conversation all night, both at dinner and afterwards on the bridge, where they remained alone for “what seemed like an eternity.” No one could be sure of what they were talking about, but it was clearly something important.

In between the first and second courses, Viviani had a message delivered to Paléologue. Having evidently recovered his morale—or remembered his brief as foreign minister—Viviani ordered his ambassador to draw up a communiqué for the press, summarizing the conclusions of the summit. Paléologue did what he was told, scribbling a short draft on his dinner menu, to the effect that “the two governments have discovered that their views and intentions for the maintenance of the European balance of power, especially in the Balkan peninsula, are absolutely identical.” Viewing this as the kind of “neutral and empty phraseology suitable for documents of this kind,” the ambassador was taken aback when Viviani objected to the last phrase, stipulating that French and Russian interests in the Balkans were not “absolutely identical.” Paléologue wrote up another draft, which asserted that the two allies were in “entire agreement in their views on the various problems which concern peace and the balance of power in Europe . . . particularly in the East” (few could have doubted that this meant Serbia). This bland, yet suggestive, communiqué was heartily approved by the president, the tsar, Viviani, Sazonov, and Izvolsky. Poincaré’s own farewell toast, which declared that France and Russia “have the same ideal of peace in strength, honour, and self-respect,” was equally bland but, delivered with his customary forcefulness, was received by the Russians with “thunderous applause.”
⁸

As the Imperial Guard shouldered arms for the tsar’s exit onto the waiting
Alexandria
, prior to the departure of the
France
at eleven
PM
, all seemed well in the Franco-Russian alliance. While Poincaré still harbored doubts about Sazonov, he was now confident that the tsar would remain firm in the face of whatever the Austrians threw at him. The Russians, meanwhile, were assured of France’s full support for any strong stand they might take against Vienna. The next move was up to Berchtold.

THURSDAY, 23 JULY

A
T THE TIME
P
OINCARÉ
and the tsar were saying their goodbyes aboard the
France
Thursday evening, Berchtold’s “radio silence” appeared to be working. Sazonov’s cagey act in his weekend audience with Szapáry suggested that Lützow’s leak to the British ambassador had not reached Russian ears, at least not by Saturday, 18 July. Berchtold had learned of the dramatic confrontation between Szapáry and Poincaré at the Winter Palace on Tuesday, 21 July, which suggested that the French, at least, had a rough idea of what was coming—but then Szapáry had pointedly contrasted the French president’s belligerent posture with the “reserved and cautious attitude” taken by Sazonov on Saturday. True, Szapáry had warned Berchtold that the French president’s presence in Petersburg would “have anything but a calming effect,” but Poincaré had a reputation as a hothead. His warning to Vienna that Russia had a “friend” in France may not have reflected more than Poincaré’s own wish for the Russians to stand firm; whether they would do so was another question. Meanwhile, Sazonov’s own threat that “there
must be no talk of an ultimatum,” issued later Tuesday evening to Pourtalès, remained unknown to the Austrians: Pourtalès’s report, sent by post, was not received in Berlin until the morning of Thursday, 23 July, and forwarded on to Tschirschky, in Vienna, only a week after that. So far as Berchtold knew, then, the Russians were still in the dark.

He was wrong. Even while the Montenegrin princesses had been questioning Sazonov’s manhood at Krasnoe Selo on Wednesday evening, the Russian foreign minister had rushed back to town to send off a strong message to Ambassador Shebeko in Vienna, wired off at four
AM
on Thursday, 23 July. Earlier on Wednesday, Sazonov had received a disturbing report from Rome, passing on the belief of Italy’s foreign minister “that Austria was preparing a great blow and aims to annihilate Serbia.”
¹
Informing Shebeko that he had credible information that “Austria was planning to undertake measures against Serbia,” Sazonov instructed his ambassador to warn Vienna “cordially but firmly” of the “dangerous consequences which must follow any such measures incompatible with the dignity of Serbia.” Giving this warning stronger diplomatic point, Sazonov informed his ambassador that “from my discussions with [Poincaré] it clearly emerges that also France . . . will not tolerate a humiliation of Serbia.” Russia’s foreign minister may not yet have convinced Poincaré—or Berchtold—of his own firmness, but France’s president had left Sazonov in no doubt about his own. The French ambassador to Austria, Sazonov told Shebeko, would shortly make an identical warning to the Ballplatz. He said he also hoped that Britain’s ambassador to Vienna, de Bunsen, would “speak in the same sense,” although he did not yet have confirmation of this.
²

Sazonov was not speaking alone when he issued this warning. Sometime during the summit—neither he nor Poincaré ever revealed when—Russia’s foreign minister had agreed with
France’s president on the terms of an “anti-ultimatum ultimatum” to Vienna. Poincaré’s version was almost identical to Sazonov’s—only, true to the Frenchman’s reputation, his language was still stronger. Alfred Dumaine, France’s ambassador to Vienna, was instructed that “no avenue must be neglected to prevent an [Austrian] demand for retribution or any set of conditions foisted [on Serbia] which might . . . be considered a violation of her sovereignty or her independence.” As we might expect, the unequivocal language of this veiled threat was not to the liking of Viviani, who, as foreign minister, agreed to send it to Dumaine “only with reluctance” (
avec peu d’empressement
). Send it off Viviani did, however, from the switchboard of the
France
, shortly after its departure from Kronstadt, in the wee hours of Friday morning.
³
(Sazonov and Poincaré apparently had decided to stagger the delivery of their joint anti-ultimatum ultimatum, so as to avoid the impression that they were “ganging up” on Berchtold.)
⁴

In their dithering over the Serbian ultimatum, the Austrians had outsmarted themselves, allowing France and Russia to coordinate a joint response to it during a highest-level government summit. Owing to Berchtold’s trick of waiting until the French delegation departed, the timing of the dispatch of France’s warning—sent off before France’s government had been formally notified of the ultimatum—proves that Poincaré and Viviani had prior knowledge of Austrian plans, contrary to their later protestations. It also meant, however, that the French warning would not arrive in Vienna until Friday, 24 July, the day after the actual ultimatum was given to Serbia. It could thus have had no deterrent effect on Berchtold.

Sazonov’s own warning arrived sooner than this—it was deciphered by the Russian embassy in Vienna at three
PM
on Thursday, 23 July—but not soon enough. With Shebeko out of town, the Russian chargé d’affaires rushed over to the Ballplatz
in his stead to present Sazonov’s “anti-ultimatum ultimatum” to the Austrian foreign minister. Berchtold’s secretary, alas, brushed off the Russian, telling him the foreign minister was busy and could not see him that afternoon. Might the Russian come back at eleven the next morning?
⁵

The timing is suggestive. By eleven Friday morning, the ultimatum would have been delivered to Belgrade on schedule Thursday evening, and Europe’s governments would have been formally notified of it (the plan was to tell them at ten
AM
Friday). Berchtold may have told his staff not to allow any representatives from “hostile” powers to see him before Friday morning. Whether or not he knew how much the Russians knew, the excuse his secretary gave Shebeko’s chargé d’affaires was not entirely disingenuous: Berchtold
was
busy that fateful afternoon. The ultimatum time bomb was furiously ticking away, scheduled to detonate in Belgrade scarcely an hour after the Russian envoy arrived at the Ballplatz. The plan was for Minister Giesl to present it to the Serbian government between four and five
PM
, so as to ensure the deadline would expire by five
PM
on Saturday, 25 July, in time to allow Austria to begin mobilization by midnight. Giesl had therefore demanded an audience with Serbia’s prime minister at four thirty
PM
. Thursday morning, however, Berchtold had learned that the
France
would not lift anchor until eleven
PM
, nearly five hours later than expected.
⁶
Even given the hour and a half time difference between Petersburg and Central Europe, this meant that, if Giesl turned over the note at four thirty, it was almost certain that news of the démarche in Belgrade would reach Petersburg before Poincaré left Kronstadt at eleven, which might allow him to coordinate a response with Sazonov and the tsar. Learning this, Berchtold altered the schedule at the last minute, sending Giesl an urgent telegram to postpone delivery until six
PM
.
⁷
Any later than this, and Conrad would be furious that the forty-eight-hour deadline
would expire too late on Saturday evening for mobilization orders to go out overnight. It would be a close-run thing: even six might be too early to prevent news of the ultimatum from reaching Petersburg Thursday evening. Still, given the hour-and-a-half time difference (and the time needed for telegrams to be composed, encrypted, sent, and deciphered), the news would, Berchtold hoped, not reach the Russian capital until the farewell banquet had already begun on board the
France.

Adding to Berchtold’s headaches was a disquieting conversation he had with the chief of staff early Thursday afternoon. With the prospect of an actual war now staring him in the face within two days, the foreign minister was finally mulling over the worst-case scenarios he should have been thinking about before putting the ultimatum plan into action. What if, he asked Conrad, Serbia complied after the forty-eight-hour deadline had passed—that is, after Austrian mobilization had begun—but before hostilities had commenced? The chief of staff, unlike the foreign minister, had already considered this possibility, although he did not think it likely. If this transpired, a solution was simple: “Serbia will [be required to] pay the costs of [our] mobilization.” Conrad was taken aback, however, by Berchtold’s second question. For days the Ballplatz had been receiving disquieting reports from Rome suggesting that the Italians knew what Berchtold was up to. On 10 July, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio di San Giuliano, had even named a quid pro quo for Austrian gains in a Balkan war: Vienna must surrender the entire Italian-speaking South Tyrol (including, not incidentally, Innichen, where Conrad had his country estate). The Germans had been warning Berchtold for weeks that he needed to nail down Italian support, or at least neutrality, but so far nothing had been done. Now, out of the blue, he asked Conrad: What if Italy intervenes against us? In that case, Conrad answered, Austria-Hungary, facing a two-front and possibly
three-front war, “should not mobilize at all.”
⁸
It was Berchtold’s job to ensure Italian neutrality. If he had not succeeded, it was rather late to be telling the army chief of staff.