The Sleepwalkers (81 page)

The occurrence seemed to me unreal and yet definite, imaginary but authentic. I seemed to be continuing my conversation of yesterday with the Tsar, putting my theories and conjectures. At the same time I had a sensation, a potent, positive and compelling sensation, that I was in the presence of a
fait accompli
.
¹

Paléologue cancelled his lunchtime date and agreed instead to a meeting at the French embassy with Foreign Minister Sazonov and the British ambassador Sir George Buchanan.
²
According to his own memoirs, Paléologue reminded his two guests of the toasts exchanged between the president and the Tsar on the previous night and repeated that the three Entente powers must adopt a policy of ‘firmness'. Sazonov was taken aback: ‘But suppose that policy is bound to lead to war?' Firmness would lead to war, Paléologue replied, only if the ‘Germanic powers' had
already
‘made up their minds to resort to force to secure their hegemony over the East' (here the French ambassador mirrored exactly the argument Bethmann had made to Riezler during the second week of July).

Whether Sazonov was really as passive as Paléologue's account suggests may be doubted: in the despatch George Buchanan filed on the same conversation, it was Sazonov who raised the stakes, declaring that ‘Russia would at any rate have to mobilise'.
³
Whoever said what, the three men clearly took a drastic view of the situation created by Austria's presentation of the note to Belgrade. Sazonov and Paléologue joined forces in urging Buchanan to dissuade his government from a policy of neutrality that would be ‘tantamount to suicide'. Buchanan agreed and undertook to make ‘strong representations' to Grey in favour of a policy of ‘resistance to German arrogance'.
⁴
Count de Robien, who spoke with the ambassador that afternoon, was aghast. ‘At this noxious lunch,' he recalled, ‘they all goaded each other on. Paléologue was apparently particularly vehement, boasting of his conversations with Poincaré . . .'
⁵

In fact, Sazonov needed no persuading from Paléologue or anyone else. Even before his lunch at the French embassy, he had dressed down the Austrian ambassador in terms that left no doubt about how he read the situation and how he intended to respond to it. After Fritz Szapáry, following the customary practice in such cases, had read aloud the text of the Austrian note, Sazonov barked several times over: ‘I know what it is. You want to make war on Serbia! The German newspapers have been egging you on. You are setting fire to Europe. It's a great responsibility you are taking on, you will see what effect this has in London and Paris and maybe elsewhere too.' Szapáry proposed to send him a dossier of evidence supporting Vienna's claims, but Sazonov waved the offer aside, saying he was not interested: ‘You want war and you've burned your bridges.' When Szapáry replied that Austria had a right to defend its vital interests and was ‘the most peace-loving power in the world', Sazonov responded with a sarcastic retort: ‘One can see how peaceful you are, now that you are setting fire to Europe.'
⁶
Szapáry left the meeting in an excited state and rushed straight to the Austrian embassy to encode and dispatch his report.

No sooner had the Austrian ambassador left than Sazonov summoned the chief of the Russian General Staff, General Yanushkevich, to the ministry of foreign affairs. The government, he declared, would soon be issuing an official press announcement to the effect that Russia did not intend to ‘remain inactive' if the ‘dignity and integrity of the Serb people, brothers in blood, were under threat' (a corresponding note was released to the press on the following day). Then he discussed with Yanushkevich plans for a ‘partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary alone'.
⁷
During the days that followed the presentation of the note, the Russian foreign minister stuck to his policy of firmness, striking postures and making decisions that escalated the crisis.

At 3 p.m. that afternoon, there was a two-hour meeting of the Council of Ministers. Sazonov, fresh from his lunch with Paléologue and Buchanan, was the first to speak. He began by sketching out what he saw as the broader background to the current crisis. Germany, he declared had long been engaged in ‘systematic preparations' aimed not just at increasing its power in Central Europe but at securing its objectives ‘in all international questions, without taking into consideration the opinion and influence of the powers not included in the Triple Alliance'. Over the last decade, Russia had met these challenges with unfailing moderation and forbearance, but these concessions had merely ‘encouraged' the Germans to use ‘aggressive methods'. The time had come to take a stand. The Austrian ultimatum had been drawn up ‘with German connivance'; its acceptance by Belgrade would transform Serbia into a de facto protectorate of the central powers. Were Russia to abandon its ‘historic mission' to secure the independence of the Slav peoples, she would be ‘considered a decadent state', would forfeit ‘all her authority' and her ‘prestige in the Balkans' and ‘would henceforth have to take second place among the powers'. A firm stand, he warned, would bring the risk of war with Austria and Germany, a prospect all the more dangerous for the fact that it was as yet still uncertain what position Great Britain would take.
⁸

The next to speak was the minister of agriculture, A. V. Krivoshein, one of the ministers who had opposed and intrigued against Vladimir Kokovtsov. He enjoyed the special favour of the Tsar and was closely associated with the nationalist lobby in the Duma. As minister of agriculture, he was also closely affiliated with the
zemstvos
, noble-dominated elected organs of local government that spanned most of the Russian Empire. He had been linked for years to the
Novoye Vremya
, known for its nationalist campaigns on Balkan questions and the Turkish Straits.
⁹
He had supported Sukhomlinov's policy of partial mobilization against Austria in November 1912 on the grounds that it was ‘high time Russia stopped cringeing before the Germans'.
¹⁰
He also appears to have been on quite close terms with the garrulous Militza of Montenegro, who viewed him as an ally in Montenegro's struggle to redeem South Slavdom.
¹¹
After Kokovtsov's departure, Krivoshein was the most powerful man on the Council of Ministers. His views on foreign policy were hawkish and increasingly Germanophobic.

In his words to the Council of Ministers on 24 July, Krivoshein invoked a complex array of arguments for and against a military response, but ultimately opted for a firm reaction to the Austrian démarche. Russia, he noted, was without question in an incomparably better political, financial and military position than after the catastrophe of 1904–1905. But the rearmament programme was not yet complete and it was doubtful whether Russia's armed forces would ever be able to compete with those of Germany and Austria-Hungary in terms of ‘modern technical efficiency'. On the other hand, ‘general conditions' had improved in recent years (perhaps he was referring to the strengthening of the Franco-Russian Alliance), and it would be difficult for the imperial government to explain to the public and the Duma why it was ‘reluctant to act boldly'. Then came the nub of the argument. In the past, Russia's ‘exaggeratedly prudent attitudes' had failed to ‘placate' the Central European powers. To be sure, the risks to Russia in the event of hostilities were great, the Russo-Japanese War had made that clear. But while Russia desired peace, further ‘conciliation' was not the way to achieve it. ‘War could break out in spite of our efforts at conciliation.' The best policy under the present circumstances was therefore ‘a firmer and more energetic attitude towards the unreasonable claims of the Central Powers'.
¹²

Krivoshein's statement made a profound impression on the meeting and none of the speakers who followed said anything to modify his conclusions. War Minister Sukhomlinov and Naval Minister Grigorovich admitted that the rearmament programme was still unfinished, but both ‘stated nevertheless that hesitation was no longer appropriate' and saw ‘no objection to a display of greater firmness'. Peter Bark, speaking for the finance ministry, expressed some concerns about the capacity of Russia to sustain the financial and economic strains of a continental war, but even he acknowledged that further concessions were in themselves no guarantee of peace, and ‘since the honour, dignity and authority of Russia were at stake', he saw no reason to dissent from the opinion of the majority. Summing up that opinion, premier Goremykin concluded that ‘it was the Imperial Government's duty to decide immediately in favour of Serbia'. Firmness was more likely to secure peace than conciliation and, failing that, ‘Russia should be ready to make the sacrifices required of her'.
¹³
Finally, the meeting agreed the following five resolutions: (i) Austria would be requested to extend the time-limit of the ultimatum; (ii) Serbia would be advised not to offer battle on the frontier, but to withdraw its armed forces to the centre of the country; (iii) the Tsar would be requested to approve ‘in principle' the mobilization of the military districts of Kiev, Odessa, Kazan and Moscow; (iv) the minister of war would be instructed to accelerate the stockpiling of military equipment and (v) Russian funds currently invested in Germany and Austria were to be withdrawn.
¹⁴

On the next day (25 July), there was a further, more solemn meeting of the Council of Ministers, presided over by the Tsar and attended both by Chief of Staff Yanushkevich and by Grand Duke Nikolai, commander of the St Petersburg District and the husband of Anastasia of Montenegro, who had spoken so forthrightly with President Poincaré during the state visit. This meeting confirmed the Council's decisions of the previous day and agreed on further, more elaborate military measures. Most importantly of all, the Council decided to authorize a complex batch of regulations known as the ‘Period Preparatory to War'. These measures, which involved numerous dispositions intended to prepare for mobilization, were not to be confined to the districts bordering on Austria, but would apply right across European Russia.
¹⁵

It would be difficult to overstate the historical importance of the meetings of 24 and 25 July. In one sense, they represented a kind of last-minute renaissance of the Council of Ministers, whose influence over foreign policy had been in decline since the death of Stolypin. It was rather unusual for foreign policy to be debated in this way by the Council.
¹⁶
In focusing the minds of his colleagues on Germany as the alleged instigator of the current crisis, Sazonov revealed the extent to which he had internalized the logic of the Franco-Russian Alliance, according to which Germany, not Austria, was the ‘principal adversary'. That this was an Austrian rather than a German crisis made no difference, since Austria was deemed to be the stalking horse for a malevolent German policy whose ultimate objectives – beyond the acquisition of ‘hegemony in the Near East' remained unclear. As for the problem of Russia's relative unreadiness for war (by comparison with its prospective condition in three years), the ministers addressed this issue by referring in vague terms to a war which would come ‘anyway', even if Russia chose to ‘conciliate' the Germans by not attacking their Austrian allies. This line of argument superficially resembled the train of thought that preoccupied Bethmann during the first weeks of July: that one could view the Sarajevo crisis as a means of testing Russia's intentions – if the Russians opted, despite everything, for a European war, that would mean they had wanted war anyway. But there was a crucial difference: in Bethmann's case, this argument was deployed to justify
accepting
a war, should Russia choose to start one; at no point (until after Russian general mobilization) was this argument used to justify
pre-emptive
military measures by Germany. In St Petersburg, by contrast, the measures being considered were proactive in nature, did not arise from a direct theat to Russia, and were highly likely (if not certain) to further escalate the crisis.

The practical military measures adopted at the two meetings are especially baffling. First, there was the fact that the partial mobilization agreed by Sazonov and Yanushkevich and subsequently adopted in principle at the meeting of 24 July, was a grossly impractical and potentially dangerous procedure. Even a partial mobilization, if it posed a direct threat to Austria-Hungary, would inevitably, by the logic of the Austro-German alliance, call forth counter-measures by Berlin, just as a German partial mobilization against Russia would inevitably have triggered counter-measures by France, whether or not Germany chose to mobilize on its western front. And should these counter-measures occur, the frontier areas in which mobilization had
not
occurred would be doubly exposed, as would be the right flank of the southern army group that had mobilized against Austria. The room for manoeuvre created by the partial nature of the mobilization was thus largely illusory. Even more worrying was the fact that Russian plans simply did not provide for a partial mobilization. There existed no separate schedule for a mobilization against Austria alone. The current planning regime, known as Mobilization Schedule no. 19, was a ‘seamless whole, an all-or-nothing proposition' that made no distinction between the two adversaries.
¹⁷
Variations in population density across the different districts meant that most of the army corps drew on reservists from other mobilization zones. Moreover, some army corps in the areas adjoining Austria were earmarked, in the event of full mobilization, for deployment into parts of the Polish salient adjoining Germany. As if all this were not bad enough, a mobilization restricted to some sectors would wreak havoc on the immensely complex arrangements for rail transit into and across the concentration zones. Improvising an Austria-only mobilization would therefore not only be risky in its own right, it would jeopardize Russia's ability to make the transition to a full mobilization, should this subsequently become necessary.
¹⁸