aggressiveness lying relatively low and the Crown Prince riding high as chief of the appeasers. Now, in October, it was the other way around. Now was the time to take by the horns that bull of bulls-Wilhelm II of Germany.
***
On October 18, 1913, the German monarch celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, where Prussian, Austrian, and Swedish troops had vanquished Napoleon. Wilhelm, who loved to wallow in borrowed glory, wallowed away. He decreed a great tattoo in Leipzig; ordered the boom of guns saluting, the blare of trumpet, fife, and drum; convened a titled assembly of gold braids, of fringed epaulettes, of tunics sashed, starred, and bemedalled.
Dignitaries of the three victor countries laid wreaths at the foot of the gigantic monument built for the occasion. As leaders of the Austrian delegation, Franz Ferdinand and General Conrad then sat down at a table (set at the Gewandhaus for four hundred and fifty) to rise again and again to heel-clicking toasts proposed by the German Emperor.
After the banquet Wilhelm held a cercle, that is, an informal reception. And Conrad made his move. By way of paying his respects, he expressed his humble gratitude to His Majesty for underlining with this festivity the importance and the might of the alliance between German and Austrian arms in the past and thereby emphasizing its continued importance in present or future circumstances.
This was not idle courtesy. It was an overture to draw Wilhelm into any potential fracas not only with Serbia but its big brother in St. Petersburg. Revved up by the martial trappings of the fete, the Kaiser answered that, indeed, the German-Austrian alliance remained unshakable, unbreakable, undeterrable. And-undeterred himself by the presence of a Russian general to his left or by the frown of the Austrian Crown Prince to his right-Wilhelm added that this moment made him feel so close to his Austrian comrades-in-arms that he wished to be introduced to all of the officers in the Austrian delegation.
Conrad answered that he would be most honored to do just that-and thereby pushed Franz Ferdinand beyond his boiling point.
'General!' the Crown Princely voice echoed across the hall. 'Are you the Austrian of highest rank here? Isn't it the privilege of the Austrian of highest rank to introduce otherAustrians to His Majesty? And if that is so, why have you affronted me?'
It was, of course, the Chief of Staff who had been affronted before an international audience that would regale chancelleries and palaces throughout Europe with this scene. Nonetheless the General must apologize to the Crown Prince. He must bow, no doubt deep enough to hide his tic. And he must pack all his bitterness into yet another letter to Frau von Reininghaus.
But he could not, as he had done four weeks earlier after the maneuver contretemps, propose again to quit as Chief of Staff. Tendering his resignation must not become a monthly tragicomedy. On his return to Vienna, Conrad resolved to do the opposite. He would gather all the powers of his office into a demand for a final reckoning with Belgrade. Just now Serb violation of Albanian sovereignty had been compounded by border crossings and pillage of troops from Montenegro, Belgrade's ally. Conrad sent a summary of 'these provocations' to Franz Joseph together with a briefing on the support expressed by Kaiser Wilhelm in Leipzig: on the basis of such developments, the Chief of Staff requested the instant punitive invasion of Serbia.
To no avail. Conrad's was not the only account of the events at Leipzig. Franz Ferdinand reported to Franz Joseph that the General had interfered once more in vital diplomatic matters that went far beyond his military jurisdiction. His meddling, long irksome, had now become altogether insupportable at Leipzig. By broaching the question of international alignments, he had usurped the authority of Franz Joseph's Foreign Minister, of the Crown Prince, indeed of Franz Joseph himself. Instead of Conrad's heedless firebreathing, the Archduke again urged prudence, enclosing a copy of his recent letter to the Foreign Minister: 'Our country doesn't want war, as our countless difficulties with conscripts show… We can rid Albania of those Serbs by diplomatic means.'
The Crown Prince won the day. Franz Joseph refrained from an invasion. He did activate some reserves. And he had his Foreign Ministry send Belgrade a note firmer than the Archduke wished but not immoderate in tone: Austria would have to 'take proper measures' if foreign troops did not withdraw from Albania within eight days. A carefully coordinated demarche of similar nature was delivered by the Italian envoy in Belgrade on the same day, October 19. Italy's interest lay in foiling Serbian hegemony on the other side of the Adriatic; that interest was enlisted in the 'diplomatic means' advocated by Franz Ferdinand.
On October 21, Serbia gave in. Its troops began to leave Albania. The Crown Prince could end his peace watch in Vienna. 'My dear Berchtold,' he wrote to the Foreign Minister on October 21, on his way to his country seat at Konopiste, glowing with relief, 'I am so happy that war has been avoided… I've told you that if one approaches Kaiser Wilhelm with some deftness, avoiding Great Power Talk and other chicaneries… then he'll stand fully by us… and we won't need to resort to a single weapon or any Conradian Big Stick to make those [Serb] pigs hoof it back to their own borders. '
Indeed Kaiser Wilhelm stood so fully by Franz Ferdinand that he left Berlin two days later to visit the Archduke. Like all blusterers, Wilhelm was impressed by genuine intensity such as Franz Ferdinand's. The Archduke's ferocious peacemongering had ended, at least for a while, the Serbian crisis. Europe relaxed, and so did the two lords at Konopiste. The Archduke steered his guest's penchant for the grandiose into nonmilitary matters. His beaters saw to it that Kaiser Wilhelm shot eleven hundred pheasants during a two-day hunt. Then the Archduke led his companion through St. George's Hall in his castle, where he had collected no less than 3,750 representations of St. George slaying the dragon, from silk pennants to bronze statues to gothic carvings to jade cameos. During the tour the Austrian joked that Kaiser Wilhelm's navalarmaments race with Britain might not be necessary after all. Albion had already been bested right here: In St. George's Hall, this Austrian castle held more images of the patron saint of England than did Windsor.
The Kaiser laughed and went on to sniff specially bred late-blooming roses in the Archduke's park. For a while war would not yet be the principal sport of kings.
10
'ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1913,' READS THE DIARY OF KING George V of England, 'we got over a thousand pheasants and four hundred and fifty ducks.'
It was a Tuesday at Windsor, marred by ugly winds and uncouth rain. Wednesday, much better behaved, brought a tally of 'over seventeen hundred pheasants.' Thursday, the King's party dispatched 'about a thousand.' Friday, 'an awful day, blowing and pouring with rain, a regular deluge in the afternoon,' nonetheless yielded a bag of 'over eight hundred pheasants and nearly four hundred ducks.'
Five very high-born huntsmen produced such mountains of cadavers: the King, three English dukes, and the guest of honor, Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Each day the Archduke landed a disproportionately high number of birds. It was a feat much remarked on since the Austrian brought it off in the face of a difficulty. He was not used to English hunting habits. At the Windsor battue, beaters drove the birds into a much higher and faster flush than in Austria. As the Duke of Portland noted in his memoirs: 'The Archduke proved himself first class and certainly the equal of most of my friends… Given enough practice in this country, he would have been the equal to any of our best shots.'
Rough weather and fast pheasants weren't the only handicaps Franz Ferdinand overcame that week. One problem greeted him at the start, on Monday, November 17, when he and his Sophie arrived at the Windsor train station. There, ready to welcome them, they found King George in top hat and morning coat-alone. This fact, duly recorded in the Vienna Court Gazette, set off smiles of schadenfreude among the Archduke's foes, such as Prince Montenuovo, at the Habsburg court. To them the Queen's absence conveyed the absence of importance in Franz Ferdinand's morganatic wife.
If the asymmetrical reception reflected his Sophie's lessthan-royal birth, the Archduke did not show the slightest annoyance. Usually, as we have seen, he disdained playing the Viennese Prince Charming. He was not in the habit of hiding his temper and took offense energetically. But when necessary, he could turn snarl into purr. Then his jagged mustache and the bright hard blue of his huge eyes conjured a most beguiling Austrian cavalier. Then he modulated bows, handkisses, gallantries, enthusiasms, compliments, to a nuance just right for the occasion.
Queen Mary-whose nonattendance at the station had been a protocol cause celebre-was smitten. 'The Archduke is most amiable,' she wrote to her aunt. 'He is delighted with everything and very appreciative of the beauties of this place, which of course appeals to me. He is making an excellent impression and is enjoying the informality of the visit. His wife, the Duchess, is very nice, agreeable, and quite easy to get on with, very tactful,
