Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War Read Online Free

their hosts again.
    The Archduke’s political and social views were conservative and vigorously expressed. After attending Edward VII’s 1910 funeral in London, he wrote home deploring the boorishness of most of his fellow sovereigns, and the alleged impertinence of some politicians present, notable among them ex-US president Theodore Roosevelt. It is sometimes suggested that Franz Ferdinand was an intelligent man. Even if this was so, like so many royal personages into modern times, he was corrupted by position, which empowered him to express opinions unenlightened even by contemporary standards.
    He loathed Hungarians, telling the Kaiser: ‘the so-called noble, gentlemanly Magyar is a most infamous, anti-dynastic, lying, unreliable fellow’. He regarded southern Slavs as sub-humans, referring to the Serbians as ‘those pigs’. He hankered after recovering Lombardy and Venetia, lost to Italy in his lifetime, for the Hapsburg Empire. Visiting Russia in 1891, Franz Ferdinand declared that its autocracy offered ‘an admirable model’.Tsar Nicholas II recoiled from Franz Ferdinand’s intemperance, especially on racial matters. Both the Archduke and his wife were strongly Catholic, favouring Jesuits and professing hostility towards Freemasons, Jews and liberals. Such was Sophie’s religious fervour that in 1901 she led two hundred fashionable women on a Catholic march through Vienna.
    The Archduke nonetheless cherished one prudent conviction: while many Austrians, notably including army chief of staff Gen. Conrad von Hötzendorf, detested Russia and welcomed the prospect of a battlefield showdown with the Tsar, Franz Ferdinand dissented. He was determined, he said repeatedly, to avoid a clash of arms. Desiring a ‘concord of emperors’, he wrote: ‘I shall never lead a war against Russia. I shall make sacrifices to avoid it. A war between Austria and Russia would end either with the overthrow of the Romanovs or with the overthrow of the Habsburgs – or perhaps the overthrow of both.’ He once wrote to Berchtold: ‘Excellency! Don’t let yourself be influenced by Conrad – ever! Not an iota of support for any of his yappings at the Emperor! Naturally he wants every possible war, every kind of hooray! rashness that will conquer Serbia and God knows what else … Through war he wants to make up for the mess that’s his responsibility at least in part. Therefore: let’s not play Balkan warriors ourselves. Let’s not stoop to this hooliganism. Let’s stay aloof and watch the scum bash in each other’s skulls. It’d be unforgivable, insane, to start something that would pit us against Russia.’
    Franz Ferdinand, although as prone as Kaiser Wilhelm to outbursts of violent rhetoric, was a less reckless actor. Had the Archduke been alive when the decisive confrontation with Russia came, it is likely that his influence would have been wielded to avert war. As it was he was dead, because he insisted upon making an official visit to one of the most turbulent and perilous regions his uncle ruled. Every European monarchy shared a belief that ownership of large territories – empire – was a critical measure of virility and grandeur. While the colonies of Britain and France lay far away across oceans, those of the Hapsburgs and Romanovs were next door. Hungarian coins bore an abbreviation of the inscription ‘Francis Joseph by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria and Hungary, Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Apostolic King’. In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, rousing Russian fury. The twin provinces, former Ottoman possessions with mingled Serb and Muslim populations, had been Austrian-occupied since 1878, under a mandate conceded by the Congress of Berlin, but most Bosnians bitterly resented their subjection.
    In 1913, a foreign diplomat exclaimed despairingly of the Austro-Hungarians: ‘Never have I seen people so determined to work against their own interests!’ It was an extraordinary folly,