July 1914: Countdown to War Read Online Free Page B

Schilling’s running diary at the Russian Foreign Ministry, we know that Sazonov decided on a military response before Serbia had replied to the ultimatum on Saturday, 25 July—before, indeed, he had actually read the ultimatum itself on Friday. True, his decision still had to be ratified in the Council of Ministers Friday afternoon and by Tsar Nicholas II the next day. In a sense, it had to be ratified by France, too. But even before running his decision by anyone else, by eleven AM on Thursday, 24 July, Sazonov had already instructed Russia’s finance minister to repatriate funds from Germany and her army chief of staff to prepare for mobilization. Sazonov had known about the impending Austrian ultimatum (if not its exact form) since the preceding Saturday. After he, the tsar, and France’s president, and premier/foreign minister held four days of meetings from Sunday to Wednesday, Sazonov had good reason to believe he had their support for his course of action. The most recent research strongly suggests (although it does not prove) that Poincaré and Paléologue gave Sazonov verbal support for a strong line against Vienna during the summit in Petersburg. The written evidence proves that Paléologue gave this support afterwards, with or without explicit authorization from Poincaré. So, too, did General Laguiche (France’s liaison officer at Russian command) and Joffre and Messimy in Paris.
    Tsar Nicholas II signed into law the Period Preparatory to War at midday on Saturday, 25 July—before learning of Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum and before either Serbia or Austria had mobilized. The Period Preparatory to War began at midnight, 25–26 July. Because it, unlike Germany’s version (the Kriegsgefahrzustand ), was enacted and carried out in secret, historians have been able to deny warlike intent on Russia’s part, the ideabeing that, as Sazonov himself told Ambassador Pourtalès, preliminary mobilization measures “did not mean war.” Some have gone even further, saying that even Russia’s general mobilization, ordered at four PM on 30 July, did not “mean war.” 5 In both cases, the claim is dubious, although it has slightly more surface plausibility with the Period Preparatory to War.
    The measures inaugurated on Sunday, 26 July, viewed on their own terms, clearly fell well short of war. Just as clearly, they constituted preparations for war. This was, indeed, the entire reason why the secret Period Preparatory to War had been developed in 1912–1913: to allow Russia a head start in mobilizing against the Austro-Germans. The statute of 2 March 1913 clearly states that the Period Preparatory to War “means the period of diplomatic complications preceding the opening of hostilities.” Or, as laid down in the tsar’s November 1912 directive, “it will be advantageous to complete concentration without beginning hostilities, in order not to deprive the enemy irrevocably of the hope that war can still be avoided. Our measures for this must be masked by clever diplomatic negotiations , in order to lull to sleep as much as possible the enemy’s fears .” Dobrorolskii, chief of the Russian army’s Mobilization Section, understood this to mean war. So did War Minister Sukhomlinov and Chief of Army Staff Yanushkevitch. Sazonov made a great show of believing otherwise, but then, that was his job: to handle the “diplomatic complications.” In this sense, and this sense alone, was the Period Preparatory to War not war. However insincere, diplomacy could continue.
    In a curious mirror imaging of Sazonov’s approach, Austria’s foreign minister, tiring of insincere “diplomatic complications,” declared war on Serbia—by telegram—on Tuesday, 28 July. Considering that Conrad did not believe the army would be ready to fight until 12 August, Berchtold’s maneuver was counterproductive, as it gave diplomatic ammunition to Russiaand France in their goal of winning over Britain and other neutrals.