Hungarian prime minister, remained opposed to
war at their meeting on 7 July and the following
week gave way only on condition that the Dual
Monarchy first agreed not to annex any Serbian
territory after the expected victory. Tisza, a
Magyar, wanted to see no more Slavs added to the
population of the empire. Then there was further
delay as the army asked for more time. Berchtold
used it to compile a justificatory dossier of Serbia’s
recent wrongdoings for presentation to the chan-
celleries of Europe when the time for action even-
tually came. Then Berchtold decided to wait until
the French president, Poincaré, and the French
prime minister, René Viviani, had ended their visit
to St Petersburg. Thereby, he hoped that Austria
would act at the very moment when Russia would
find it more difficult to consult its French ally.
More than three weeks had now elapsed since
the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo.
The Austrians had worked in greatest secrecy, and
Europe had been lulled into a false sense of calm.
On 23 July the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was
presented in Belgrade and, in just six days,
Europe plunged headlong from peace to certain
war. On 25 July, Serbia mobilised its army and,
in a cleverly worded reply later that day, ap-
peared to accept many of the Austrian demands,
although not to the point of submitting Serbia
to Austrian supervision. The same evening, the
Austro-Hungarian ambassador left Belgrade
and Austria-Hungary mobilised against Serbia.
Even though the Austro-Hungarian army would
not be ready for another three weeks, Austria-
Hungary declared war on 28 July and, to make
war irrevocable, bombarded Belgrade on 29 July.
Between the break of diplomatic relations and
the actual declaration of war, Sir Edward Grey
attempted mediation and sent proposals to Berlin
in an attempt to preserve the peace of Europe.
Bethmann Hollweg wanted no such interference
and Grey’s efforts came to nothing. When the
kaiser learnt how the Serbians had replied to the
ultimatum, he was personally delighted. So much
for the myth that he was thirsting to go to war.
He immediately wrote a note on the morning of
28 July from his palace in Potsdam, expressing his
evident relief that now there was no longer any
need for war – ‘On the whole the wishes of the
Danube Monarchy have been acceded to, every
cause for war has vanished’ – and he added that
he was ready to mediate. But by then Bethmann
Hollweg and Berchtold had instigated the
Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia
which the kaiser heard about later that day.
Bethmann Hollweg now made every effort to
localise the war. On 30 July, he urged Vienna to
exchange views with St Petersburg. He resisted
calls for mobilisation in Berlin and he initiated the
kaiser’s personal telegrams appealing to the tsar
not to mobilise.
The weak tsar was under pressure from his own
military advisers to mobilise. The French military,
too, were urging mobilisation and the French
ambassador in St Petersburg, Maurice Paléologue,
pressed their views on the foreign minister,
Sazonov. The French general staff was terrified
that war would begin in the west and find the
Russians unprepared. Russia, if it went to war,
could count on French support; the tsar had
known this for certain ever since the visit of
President Poincaré and Prime Minister Viviani to
St Petersburg (20–3 July). But the Russians, in so
vital a question for the empire, would reach their
own decisions just as the Austrians had had to do.
The reaction of the tsar, Sazonov and his minis-
ters was to seek to ‘localise’ the crisis in a way nei-
ther Germany nor Austria-Hungary had in mind.
When Bethmann Hollweg spoke of ‘localisation’,
he meant that the Dual Monarchy should be
allowed to dictate terms to Serbia. The tsar and
Sazonov, on the other hand, hoped that Germany
and the other powers would stand aside while
Russia supported Serbia to prevent Austria-
Hungary from attacking Serbia. To the Russians,
the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was hurling
down the gauntlet. But could Russia risk war now?
There was much civil disturbance and there were
large-scale strikes; the army would be in a much
stronger position three years later. The news of the
ultimatum reached Sazonov on the morning of 24
July. His first reaction was to advise the Serbians to
surrender to Austrian demands and not to fight.
But later that afternoon, the Russian Council of
Ministers agreed to recommend to the tsar a ‘par-
tial’ mobilisation against Austria-Hungary only.
Russian involvement in the fate of Serbia was also
1
OVER THE BRINK 57
