The Sleepwalkers (69 page)

For Tisza, the assassination of the heir apparent was a cause not of grief but of raw relief. The reforms envisaged by Franz Ferdinand would have placed at risk the entire power structure in which Tisza had made his career. The archduke's close links with parts of the Romanian intelligentsia were especially distasteful. His assassination therefore represented an unhoped-for deliverance, and the Hungarian prime minister shared neither the rage nor the sense of urgency that animated so many of his Austrian colleagues. At a meeting with Berchtold on the afternoon of 30 June and again in a letter to the Emperor on the following day, Tisza warned against allowing the assassination to become the ‘pretext' for a war with Serbia. The chief reason for restraint lay in the currently disadvantageous constellation among the Balkan states. The key problem was Romania, which was well on the way by the summer of 1914 to aligning itself with St Petersburg and the powers of the Entente. In view of the immense size of the Romanian minority in Transylvania and the indefensibility of the long Romanian frontier, Bucharest's realignment posed a serious security threat. It was folly, Tisza argued, to risk a war with Serbia while the question of Romania's allegiance and comportment in a possible conflict remained unresolved. Tisza envisaged two options: either the Romanians must be persuaded – with Berlin's help – to re-enter the orbit of the Triple Alliance; or they must be restrained through the establishment of closer Austro-Hungarian and German ties with Bulgaria, Romania's enemy in the Second Balkan War.

For all the grandiose delusions of the Romanians, the driving force in the psyche of this people is the fear of Bulgaria. Once they see that they cannot prevent us from contracting an alliance with Bulgaria, they will perhaps seek to be admitted to the [Triple] Alliance in order by this means to be protected from Bulgarian aggression.
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This was the familiar Balkan calculus, refracted through the prism of a specifically Hungarian view of the Empire's security predicament. Romania loomed large on the policy horizons of the Magyar elite, and this preoccupation was amplified in Tisza's case by the fact that he was the descendant of a Transylvanian gentry family. Tisza and his closest advisers regarded good relations with St Petersburg as the key to Hungarian security, and the idea of rebuilding the old entente with Russia was fashionable at this time within the Magyar leadership. The Hungarian prime minister's objection to war was not, it should be noted, absolute. Tisza had supported a military intervention against Serbia during the second Albanian crisis in October 1913 and he was happy to consider the possibility of a war with Serbia at some later date, should an appropriate provocation arise under more auspicious circumstances. But he was firmly opposed to the policy of direct action favoured by most of the Austrian decision-makers.
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However powerful the emotions circulating within the Austrian political elite during the days after the assassinations, it quickly became clear that an immediate military response was out of the question. First there was the problem of persuading Tisza to support the view emerging in Vienna; it was politically and constitutionally impossible simply to overrule this powerful player in the dualist system. Then there was the question of actually proving Serbia's involvement. In a meeting with Berchtold on the afternoon of 30 June, Tisza argued that the Serbian government should be given time to ‘demonstrate its good will'. Berchtold was sceptical on this point, but he did accept that any military action should be delayed until further confirmation of Serbian culpability.
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It would take some days before a fuller picture emerged of the links with Belgrade. A further sensitive issue was the lead-time required for a military action. Conrad repeatedly urged his civilian colleagues to ‘strike immediately' (i.e. without waiting for the outcome of the investigation), yet he informed Berchtold on the morning of 30 June that the General Staff would need sixteen days to mobilize the armed forces for a strike against Serbia – this subsequently proved to be a gross under-estimate.
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A substantial delay was thus inevitable, even if the leadership should agree on a precise plan of action.

Finally, and most importantly, there was the question of Germany. Would Berlin support a policy of confrontation with Belgrade? German backing for Austro-Hungarian Balkan policy had been patchy of late. It was only eight weeks since Ambassador Fritz Szapáry, writing from St Petersburg, had complained of Germany's systematic ‘sacrifice' of Austria-Hungary's Balkan interests. During the first days of the crisis, mixed messages emanated from Berlin. On 1 July, the well-known German journalist Viktor Naumann called on Berchtold's
chef de cabinet
, Count Alek Hoyos, to say that he believed the German leadership would look kindly on an Austro-Hungarian strike against Serbia and were ready to accept the risk of a war with Russia, should St Petersburg decide to force the issue. Naumann had no official standing, but since he was known to be in close touch with Wilhelm von Stumm, head of the political department at the Berlin Foreign Office, his words carried a certain weight.
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At the same time, however, the German ambassador, Baron Tschirschky, was urging the Austrians to observe caution. Whenever the Austrians spoke to him of the need for harsh measures, Tschirschky wrote on 30 June, ‘I availed myself of such openings to issue a warning, calmly but very emphatically and seriously, against hasty measures.'
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And in a conversation with the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, the under-secretary of state of the Berlin Foreign Office, Arthur Zimmermann, expressed his sympathy for Vienna's plight, but warned against confronting Belgrade with ‘humiliating demands'.
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The views of the German Emperor were further reason for concern. In the autumn and winter of 1913 Wilhelm II had repeatedly advised the Austrians to win over Belgrade with cash gifts and exchange programmes. As recently as June 1914, during his last meeting with Franz Ferdinand, the Kaiser had refused to commit himself. Asked whether Austria-Hungary ‘could continue to count unconditionally on Germany in the future', Wilhelm had ‘dodged the question and failed to provide us with an answer'.
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In a report submitted to Emperor Franz Joseph on 1 July, Tisza warned that the German Emperor harboured a ‘pro-Serbian bias' and would need some persuading before he would be willing to support Vienna's Balkan policy.
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The Austro-Hungarian leaders at first hoped that the two emperors might be able to exchange views face-to-face when Wilhelm II came to Vienna to attend the archduke's funeral, but that visit was cancelled following rumours of a further Serbian assassination plot against the German Kaiser. Some other means would have to be found of synchronizing policy with Berlin.

Here, at least, was a step on which Berchtold, Tisza and the other Austrian decision-makers could agree: Germany must be properly consulted before any further action was taken. Berchtold oversaw the preparation of a diplomatic mission to Berlin. Two documents were to be forwarded to the German ally. The first was a personal letter from Franz Joseph to Kaiser Wilhelm II, signed in the Emperor's own hand but in fact drafted by Berchtold's staff chief Alek Hoyos; the second was a hastily revised version of the pre-Sarajevo Matscheko memorandum, to which was appended a brief post-assassination postscript.

These two documents make extremely strange reading today. The revised Matscheko memorandum offered the same sprawling overview of the deteriorating Balkan alignment as the original, but with a stronger emphasis on the ruinous consequences of Romanian infidelity – a point directed both at Berlin's friendly relations with Bucharest and at Tisza's preoccupation with Transylvania. The aggressiveness of the Franco-Russian alliance was brought more clearly to the fore, and this was framed as a threat not only to Austria-Hungary, but also to Germany. At the end of the document was a postscript introduced by the words: ‘the aforegoing Memorandum had just been completed when the terrible events of Sarajevo took place'. It spoke of the ‘danger and intensity' of a ‘greater-Serbian agitation that will stop short of nothing' and noted that the efforts of the monarchy to secure good relations with Serbia through a policy of goodwill and compromise now appeared completely pointless. No direct reference was made to war, but the postscript referred to the ‘irreconcilability' of the Austro-Serbian antagonism in the light of recent events. The document closed with an ungainly metaphor: the Austro-Hungarian eagle ‘must now tear with resolute hand the threads that its enemies are weaving into a net over its head'.
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The personal note from Franz Joseph to Kaiser Wilhelm II was more straightforward. It, too, dwelt at some length on Romania and the machinations of the Russians, but it closed with a clear intimation of impending action against Serbia. The assassination, it pointed out, was not the act of an individual but a ‘well-organised conspiracy [. . .] whose threads extend to Belgrade'. Only when Serbia was ‘neutralised as a power factor in the Balkans' would Austria-Hungary be safe.

You too will be convinced after the recent terrible events in Bosnia that there can be no further question of bridging by conciliation the difference that separates Serbia from us, and that the policy pursued by all European monarchs of preserving the peace will be at risk for as long as this hotbed of criminal agitation in Belgrade remains unpunished.
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What strikes the present-day reader about these communications is their panicky lack of focus, the preference for swollen metaphors over clear formulations, the employment of histrionic devices to achieve an emotional effect, the juxtaposition of different perspectives in the absence of a unifying meta-narrative. There is no explicit request for German assistance; there are no policy proposals, no lists of options, just a grim, unfocused panorama of threat and foreboding. Nor was it clear how the passages diagnosing the Balkan situation in general terms – which hint at the need for a diplomatic solution – related to the passages on Serbia, which leave the reader in no doubt that the authors have war in mind.

Berchtold had initially intended to send the imperial letter and the revised Matscheko memorandum to Berlin by regular government courier. Late on Saturday 4 July, however, he telegraphed Ambassador Szögyéni in Berlin to inform him that his
chef de cabinet
, Count Hoyos, would be bringing the documents to Berlin by hand. Szögyéni was to arrange interviews with the Kaiser and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. Though young – he was only thirty-six – Hoyos was one of the most energetic and ambitious of the hawkish younger cohort of foreign ministry officials. He was also well connected in Berlin. In 1908, on his recall from a posting in the German capital, Ambassador Szögyényi had commented approvingly on the relations of unusual ‘intimacy and trust' Hoyos had built with the leading German political circles.
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During a posting in China, Hoyos had also met and got to know Arthur Zimmermann, currently standing in for his boss, Secretary of State Gottlieb von Jagow, who was on his honeymoon when the crisis broke. Hoyos regarded the relationship with Germany as the cornerstone of Austro-Hungarian security and the prerequisite for an active policy in the Balkans – this, in his view, was the lesson of the 1908–09 annexation crisis, in which he had himself played a peripheral role. Most importantly, Hoyos was a hardliner who favoured a military solution from the outset; during the struggle to secure Tisza's agreement, the young staff chief provided his beleaguered boss with much-needed moral support.
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By selecting Hoyos for the mission to Berlin, Berchtold ensured that an unequivocally bellicose construction would be placed upon the two policy documents from Vienna. There would be no doubt in the minds of the Germans that the Austrians meant business. While ostensibly complying with the advice of Tisza, who had refused to agree any further steps until the Germans were consulted, Berchtold used the mission in effect to shut the Hungarian leader out of the decision-making process and to ensure that Habsburg policy evolved in conformity with his own preference for a swift and decisive response to the outrage at Sarajevo.
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This was a matter of some importance because, as the German ambassador pointedly reminded Berchtold on 3 July, grandiose talk, for which the Austrians had an undeniable talent, did not in itself constitute a plan of action.
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Mobilization schedules, political dissension, the progress of the Sarajevo police enquiry, the need to secure German support – these were excellent reasons for delaying a military action against Serbia. Not even Conrad was able to offer a credible alternative to his civilian colleagues. And yet, throughout the July Crisis the Austrians would be haunted by the suspicion that it might actually have been better simply to strike at Belgrade without full mobilization and without a declaration of war, in what would universally have been seen as a reflex response to a grave provocation. Why didn't Austria-Hungary simply attack Serbia straight away and be done with it, asked Prime Minister Ion Brătianu of Romania on 24 July, as the crisis entered its critical phase. ‘Then [you] would have had the sympathies of Europe on your side.'
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How differently the crisis might then have evolved is a matter on which we can only speculate, but one thing is clear: by the time Alek Hoyos boarded the night train for Berlin, the window of opportunity for that virtual scenario had already closed.

On the afternoon of Sunday 28 June, the Kaiser was off the north-sea coast of Germany, preparing to race his yacht
Meteor
in the Kiel regatta. The motor launch
Hulda
came alongside blowing its horn, and Admiral Müller, chief of the Emperor's naval cabinet, shouted the news of the assassinations across the water. After a brief meeting on board the yacht, it was decided that Wilhelm must return to Berlin immediately ‘to take things in hand and preserve the peace of Europe'.
¹
At around the same time, a telegram was passed to President Raymond Poincaré at the Longchamp racecourse in Paris, where he was attending the Grand Prix together with other members of the diplomatic corps. Count Szécsen, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, withdrew immediately. The president and most of the other foreign representatives remained to enjoy the afternoon's racing.