past six he boarded a train that crossed the Austrian frontier ten minutes later.
33
THAT SAME EVENING OF JULY 25, THE AUSTRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER Count von Berchtold sat in the Ischl office of Emperor Franz Joseph's military aide-de-camp. They were waiting for a call from the War Ministry in Vienna, which in turn waited for a telephone call from the Embassy in Belgrade. When the clock struck 6:30 P.M., the Foreign Minister, white-faced, said he had to leave, he must get some fresh air. Two minutes after he had gone, the telephone rang with the staccato news. Serbia rejects essential demand. The aide ran to have himself announced at the Emperor's villa.
Franz Joseph received his message (as the aide would remember) 'hollow-eyed' and 'hoarse of voice.' 'Also dock…' he said. ('So, after all…'). Then, after a long silence, he added, 'But the rupture of relations needn't necessarily mean war!.
What sudden change. Barely two days earlier, in the same idyllic Alpine setting, with the same beneficent weather, the same Emperor and the same Foreign Minister had looked forward to just this news: Serbia's rejection of the demarche, which now justified its military punishment. Why, then, was the Emperor shaken? Why the Foreign Minister's ashen cheeks?
Because the play had begun to fail.
In Belgrade Berchtold's libretto had proceeded on cue, but elsewhere the second act was suddenly unravelling. The trouble began with Austria's chief supporting actor, namely Germany.
On the surface nothing seemed wrong. Vienna had sent the text of the 'jewel' demarche to Berlin on July 22. Within a day the Austrian ambassador cabled from the German capital that the Kaiser's Foreign Minister 'thanks for the communication and assures me that the government here is entirely in agreement with the contents of the demarche.'
Actually the Wilhelmstrasse was only imitating the attitude struck by its overlord, the absentee Kaiser (still away on his cruise) before he had boarded his yacht. Aping their master, German ministers stepped before the footlights to stiffen their upper lips at Europe: On July 27, Berlin officially and publicly advised its ally not to accept an offer of mediation from Britain.
But Berlin performed only the external mechanics of the Austrian script, as Vienna was soon to know. Internally things were rather different. A cable sent by the German Foreign Ministry to its principal diplomats abroad said'. we have had no influence of any kind on the wording of Austria's note to Serbia, and no more opportunity than other powers to take sides in any way before its publication…' The tart implication here was made plain to the Austrian ambassador by the German Foreign Minister von Jagow shortly after he had read Vienna's demarche. 'I at once gave my opinion to His Excellency [Jagow's memoirs would state] that the contents of the Austrian note to Serbia seemed pretty stiff and going beyond its purpose… I expressed my pained surprise… that the decisions of the Austrian government had been communicated to us so tardily that we were deprived of the possibility of giving our views on it. The Chancellor, too, to whom I at once submitted the text of the ultimatum, thought it was too harsh.'
If Berlin thought so, in its heart of hearts, what about capitals less friendly?
On July 24, the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey returned to London from trout fishing on the river Itchen, and the First Lord of the Admiralty Mr. Winston Churchill from his beach idyll near Norfolk. They met in Parliament, which was still in something of a dither over the Irish Home Rule Bill. But the debate suddenly gave way to Sir Edward's voice. He was reading from a paper just handed to him-the Austrian note to Serbia, '. an ultimatum [this is Churchill describing the scene] such as had never been penned in modern times before. The parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone [i.e., the Irish issue] faded back into the mists… and a strange new light fell on the map of Europe.'
Little more than forty-eight hours later the Admiralty announced that new orders had been issued to the First and Second Fleets of the British Navy. They were the most powerful units of the world's most powerful marine force, and they happened to be concentrated in the English Channel for maneuvers just finished. Now, contrary to previous plans, they were not to disperse. All shore leaves were cancelled.
In Paris, a hastily called Ministerial Council cabled the text of the Austrian 'jewel' to President Poincare on the battle cruiser France. Poincare was about to visit some Scandinavian ports. He cancelled all further travels. The France headed straight for Dunkirk.
At his summer residence on the Gulf of Finland, the Tsar stopped playing tennis. The Russian General Staff Gazette proclaimed a 'State of Pre-Mobilization.' It involved, among other measures, preparations to deploy troops quickly at 'any threatened frontier' (in this case the Austrian) and the recall of reservists to bring border divisions to full strength.
Overnight Berchtold's libretto had gone to pieces. He had miscalculated entirely its effects on its intended audience.
The pause he had spun out so cunningly after Sarajevo; the lethargy so studiously orchestrated through four weeks; the dolce far niente put on by the Ballhausplatz that was to have gentled Europe into a summer sleep so sweet that, by the time it woke and rubbed its eyes, it would see Serbia crushed-all that artfulness had produced a very different outcome and an altogether unwanted mood.
During the long month, Sarajevo had dimmed into a trivializing distance. By the end of July, Vienna's abrupt growl at Serbia sounded-even in diplomatic French-like a savage vendetta over a remote cause. Huge Habsburg looked like a brute seizing a stale pretext to exterminate little Serbia. Now it was the ultimatum that looked like an outrage, not the Archduke's assassination.
And that wasn't all. Vienna's month-long 'peace' act produced yet another unpleasant result. During the many days the Ballhausplatz had spent styling the nonultimatum super-ultimatum, General Conrad on his nonholiday holiday had seethed and scribbled and cabled in his Dolomite village, perfecting the mobilization schedules of his army. Of course he had put none of them in effect as yet-that would have rattled the fair-weather scenery. But with the demarche delivered, this backstage phase of his effort was over. On July 26, the General charged into Berchtold's office saying that the martial moves made by Serbia's friends in the last twenty-four hours had revised his plans. To prepare for all contingencies, Austria's forces must now be at absolutely maximum strength and in optimum condition before striking Belgrade-a goal he, Conrad, would need at least three weeks to reach; the army could not start its offensive until then.
Count von Berchtold took all this like a true Viennese. Yes, he had lost his poise temporarily in Ischl. But he recovered it fast, together with his instinct for make-believe. So the fiction that was to beguile Europe had misfired. Very well, he would produce another fiction.
This one he believed in himself. Cleverly it turned Conrad's bleak news of the Army's unreadiness into the semblance of an advantage. Now (as one of the Foreign Minister's lieutenants would later recall)
Berchtold regarded even the declaration of war as not more than an extreme form of pressure to obtain a diplomatic surrender from Serbia which still had almost twenty days for reflection, seeing that military operations would not commence before August 15th…
How induce the proper 'reflection' in Serbia and her allies? Again by theatrical means, naturally. The Foreign Minister decided that Habsburg would put on a face that was absolutely resolute and charmingly patient at the same time.
To show absolute resolve, Austria declared war on Serbia at 1 P.M. of July 28, by cable. For the first time in history a telegram opened hostilities between two countries (a first time balancing the last time of Austria's ultimatum in diplomatic French). Austria also trumpeted its determination with thousands of mobilization posters materializing overnight, black print on gold background, from one end of the Empire to the other; by patriotic fireworks in newspapers amenable to government influence; by the announcement that His Majesty was about to issue a ringing manifesto calling his subjects to arms.
At the same time the mask of charming patience spoke. Austrian ambassadors-especially those accredited with Serbia's friends-pointed to Habsburg restraint. Here was a great power at war. Yet so far Austria had not taken advantage of its enemy's smallness but only of the fact that the Serb capital lay just across from the Austrian border. Austria had done no more than shell that capital from its own territory. There was still no invasion of Serbia. Furthermore, despite the enormity of Sarajevo, the Austrian government asked only justice from Belgrade and not one square inch of Serbian land.
Surely this demonstrated Vienna's patience? As for Vienna's charm, consider her treatment of General Radomir Put- nik, Chief of Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces. When Vienna had surprised Belgrade with the
