The Sleepwalkers (34 page)

It was against this background that Izvolsky launched in 1908 his ill-fated negotiations with Aehrenthal, in which he promised Russian approval for the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in return for Austrian support for a revision of the Straits settlement. The agreement with Aehrenthal was supposed to be the first step towards a comprehensive revision. This démarche was undertaken with the support of the Tsar; indeed it may have been Nicholas II who pushed Izvolsky into offering the Austrians a deal. Having been an ardent exponent of Far Eastern expansion before 1904, the Tsar was now focusing his attention on the Straits: ‘the thought of taking the Dardanelles and Constantinople', one Russian politician recalled, ‘was constantly on his mind'.
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Rather than risking rejection from Stolypin, Kokovtsov and the other ministers, Izvolsky exploited the right of individual report. It was the highpoint of the foreign minister's political independence – an independence acquired by playing the margins between the different power centres in the system. But the triumph was shortlived. Since there was no deal to be had in London, the Straits policy failed. Izvolsky was disgraced in the eyes of Russian public opinion and returned to face the ire of Stolypin and Kokovtsov.

In the short term, then, the débâcle of the Bosnian annexation crisis (like the débâcle of the Japanese war) led to a reassertion of the collective authority of the Council of Ministers. The Tsar lost the initiative, at least for the moment. Izvolsky was forced to back down and to submit to the discipline of ‘united government'. Stolypin, on the other hand, now reached the peak of his power. Conservative supporters of the autocracy began to view him with alarm as an over-mighty ‘lord' or ‘Grand Vizier' who had usurped the powers of his imperial master. The choice of Sergei Sazonov to replace Izvolsky in September 1910 appeared to reinforce Stolypin's dominance. Sazonov was a relatively junior diplomat, had little experience in senior chancellery posts within the ministry of foreign affairs and lacked aristocratic and imperial connections. He had little knowledge of St Petersburg politics and scarcely any influence in government circles. His chief qualifications for office, critical outsiders noted, were a reputation for ‘mediocrity and obedience' and the fact that he was Stolypin's brother-in law.
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After the débâcle of Izvolsky's policy and his departure from office, Russian foreign policy thus bore the imprint not of the foreign minister, but of the prime minister, Chairman Pyotr Stolypin, whose view was that Russia needed peace at all costs and should pursue a policy of conciliation on every front. The consequence was a period of pronounced rapprochement with Berlin, despite the recent tensions over Bosnia. In November 1910, a visit by Nicholas II and Sazonov to Potsdam set in train discussions culminating in an agreement marking a highpoint in Russo-German détente.
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Stolypin's assassination at first did little to change the orientation of policy. In the immediate aftermath of his patron's death, Sazonov struggled to find his own voice. But Sazonov's weakness, in combination with Stolypin's death, in turn amplified a further potential instability within the system; the most experienced and confident Russian agents abroad were free to play a more independent role. Two ministers in particular, N. V. Charykov in Constantinople and Nikolai Hartwig in Belgrade, sensing a loosening of control from St Petersburg, embarked on potentially hazardous independent initiatives in order to capitalize on the worsening political situation in the Balkans.
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In the meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to France was none other than the former foreign minister, Alexander Izvolsky, whose determination to shape policy – on the Balkans especially – remained undiminished after his transfer back into the diplomatic service. Izvolsky hatched his own intrigues in Paris, all the while ‘hectoring Sazonov through the diplomatic pouch'.
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Sazonov's eclipse was not permanent. With time, he began to make his own way in Balkan policy, exploiting the political weakness of Kokovtsov, Stolypin's successor as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The key point is that the influences shaping policy in Russia were constantly changing. Power flowed through the system, concentrating at different points: the monarch, the foreign minister, the prime minister, the ambassadors. Indeed we can speak of a kind of ‘hydraulics of power', in which the waxing of one node in the system produced the waning of others. And the adversarial dynamic within the system was further energized by the tension between opposed policy options. Russian liberal nationalists and pan-Slavs were likely to favour a forward policy on the Turkish Straits and a posture of solidarity with the Slavic ‘little brothers' on the Balkan peninsula. Conservatives, by contrast, tended to be acutely aware of Russia's inner political and financial weakness and the dangers – as Kokovtsov put it – of pursuing ‘an active foreign policy at the expense of the peasant's stomach'; they therefore favoured a policy of peace at all costs.
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When the significance of the Bosnian annexation crisis was debated in the Duma in the spring of 1909, for example, the conservative interests represented in the Council of the United Nobility argued that the annexation had in no way damaged Russian interests or security and that Russia should adopt a policy of complete non-interference in Balkan affairs, while seeking reconciliation with Berlin. The real enemy, they argued, was Britain, which was trying to push Russia into a war with Germany in order to consolidate British control of world markets. Against this position, the pro-French and pro-British liberals of the Constitutional Democrat (Cadet) Party called for the transformation of the Triple Entente into a Triple Alliance that would enable Russia to project power in the Balkan region and arrest the decline of its great power status.
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This was one of the central problems confronting all the foreign policy executives (and those who try to understand them today): the ‘national interest' was not an objective imperative pressing in upon government from the world outside, but the projection of particular interests within the political elite itself.
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In France, there was a different but broadly analogous dynamic. To a much greater extent than in Russia, the foreign ministry, or the Quai d'Orsay as it was known on account of its location, enjoyed formidable power and autonomy. It was a socially cohesive and relatively stable organization with a high sense of its own calling. A dense network of family connections reinforced the ministry's
esprit de corps
: the brothers Jules and Paul Cambon were the ambassadors to Berlin and London respectively, the ambassador to St Petersburg in 1914, Maurice Paléologue, was Jules and Paul's brother-in-law, and there were other dynasties – the Herbettes, the de Margeries, and the de Courcels, to name just a few. The ministry of foreign affairs protected its independence through habits of secrecy. Sensitive information was only rarely released to cabinet ministers. It was not unusual for senior functionaries to withhold information from the most senior politicians, even from the president of the Republic himself. In January 1895, for example, during the tenure of Foreign Minister Gabriel Hanotaux, President Casimir Périer resigned after only six months in office, protesting that the ministry of foreign affairs had failed to keep him informed even of the most important developments. Policy documents were treated as arcana. Raymond Poincaré was informed of the details of the Franco-Russian Alliance only when he became premier and foreign minister in 1912.
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But the relative independence of the ministry did not necessarily confer power and autonomy upon the minister. French foreign ministers tended to be weak, weaker indeed than their own ministerial staff. One reason for this was the relatively rapid turnover of ministers, a consequence of the perennially high levels of political turbulence in pre-war France. Between 1 January 1913 and the outbreak of war, for example, there were no fewer than six different foreign ministers. Ministerial office was a more transitory and less important stage in the life cycle of French politicians than in Britain, Germany or Austria-Hungary. And in the absence of any code of cabinet solidarity, the energies and ambition of ministers tended to be consumed in the bitter factional strife that was part of the everyday life of government in the Third Republic.

Joseph Caillaux

Of course, there were exceptions to this rule. If a minister stayed in power for long enough and possessed sufficient determination and industry, he could certainly imprint his personality upon the workings of the ministry. Théophile Delcassé is a good example. He remained in office for a staggering seven years (from June 1898 until June 1905) and established his mastery over the ministry not only through tireless work, but also by ignoring his permanent officials in Paris and cultivating a network of like-minded ambassadors and functionaries from across the organization. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, the waxing and waning of specific offices within the system produced adjustments in the distribution of power. Under a forceful minister like Delcassé, the power-share of the senior civil service functionaries known collectively as the Centrale tended to shrink, while the ambassadors, freed from the constraints imposed by the centre, flourished, just as Izvolsky and Hartwig did during the early years of Sazonov. Delcassé's long spell in office saw the emergence of an inner cabinet of senior ambassadors around the Cambon brothers (London and Berlin) and Camille Barrère (Rome). The ambassadors met regularly in Paris to discuss policy and lobby key officials. They communicated with the minister through private letters, bypassing the functionaries of the Centrale.

The senior ambassadors developed an extraordinarily elevated sense of their own importance, especially if we measure it against the professional ethos of today's ambassadors. Paul Cambon is a characteristic example: he remarked in a letter of 1901 that the whole of French diplomatic history amounted to little more than a long list of attempts by agents abroad to achieve something in the face of resistance from Paris. When he disagreed with his official instructions from the capital, he not infrequently burned them. During a tense conversation with Justin de Selves, minister of foreign affairs from June 1911 until January 1912, Cambon somewhat tactlessly informed de Selves that he considered himself the minister's equal.
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This claim looks less bizarre if we bear in mind that between 1898, when he became ambassador to London, and the summer of 1914, Cambon saw nine ministers enter and leave office – two of them did so twice. Cambon did not regard himself as a subordinate employee of the government, but as a servant of France whose expertise entitled him to a major role in the policy-making process.

Paul Cambon

Underpinning Cambon's exalted sense of self was the belief – shared by many of the senior ambassadors – that one did not merely represent France, one
personified
it. Though he was ambassador in London from 1898 until 1920, Cambon spoke not a word of English. During his meetings with Edward Grey (who spoke no French), he insisted that every utterance be translated into French, including easily recognized words such as ‘yes'.
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He firmly believed – like many members of the French elite – that French was the only language capable of articulating rational thought and he objected to the foundation of French schools in Britain on the eccentric grounds that French people raised in Britain tended to end up mentally retarded.
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Cambon and Delcassé established a close working relationship whose fruit was the Entente Cordiale of 1904. It was Cambon, more than anyone else, who laid the groundwork for the Entente, working hard from 1901 to persuade his British interlocutors to settle over Morocco, while at the same time urging Delcassé to relinquish France's putative claims on Egypt.
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