Jannen presents another what I would call "personality-focused" look at the immediate run-up to the start of the war. Unlike Massie, he focuses very closely on the period of late June through the first few days of August, 1914. Given the tight focus, he's able to examine events during this time in a very detailed manner.
Jannen examines the interplay of diplomacy during the crucial month of July, tracing the interactions of key diplomats (primarily ambassadors and foreign secretaries) as the crisis rapidly builds from an assassination in Sarajevo to world war. Though focused on the diplomats, he does not neglect the influences of political and military leaders, especially with regards to Germany, where both proved to have an inordinate influence on how the crisis spun out of control.
Jannen is pretty clear in his discussion that he felt that no one really wanted a general war. Austria wanted to pummel Serbia, which had been goading them (and supporting terrorists) for years. Russia felt themselves as the guarantors of the southern Slavs. Germany foolishly encouraged the Austrians before they realized what such recklessness would mean for them. The French were locked into their entente with Russia, and in any case never had a real choice once Germany opted for war. Britain found herself obligated to Belgium and, to a lesser extent, to France, and in any case had no great desire to see a continent dominated by the German Empire. Tragedy certainly; far too tragic to call it a farce.
The author does a good job at demonstrating just how cumbersome and slow the machinery was at the time for dealing with international crises. Although the telephone and telegraph were in use, they were hardly as efficient as might be thought. Radio, too, proved unreliable, as witnessed by the inability of the French Prime Minster and President to receive information while at sea for a crucial few days of the growing crisis. Add to all this that every country had an ambassador in every capital, thus creating multiple channels of communication and information, often out of synch, dated, and just plain wrong. Coupled with the personal agendas of all these men and you end up with one great, confusing mess.
But, Jannen settles on fear as the real underlying problem. In 1914, Europe was in the throes of change. The monarchies were slowly giving way to more democratic principles. Some states were growing in power (Germany, Serbia) while others were in decline (Austria-Hungary). Technology, economics, culture and many other aspects of European life were in flux, which fed a feeling of uncertainty and fear. With the underpinning of fear, a haze of confusion, and overlapping impacts of personality, what follows seems less incomprehensible. There was no rush to war – most every leader knew this was going to be an utter disaster, but no one knew how to stop it, though many tried desperately to do so.
Much of the current writing on the impending 100th anniversary as focused on blame. Jannen does not directly address this, though I would think his opinion on the matter is fairly clear – Germany and Austria-Hungary deserve the lion share of it, given Austria’s almost monomaniacal fixation on Serbia and Germany’s “blank cheque” policy of urging Austria on, plus it’s utter reliance on the Schlieffen Plan which guaranteed that any war involving Germany was going to involve France, Russia, Austria, Germany, and probably Britain and even Italy, among others. I think Serbia looks culpable to a degree, as well. By bearding the Austrians repeatedly, supporting terrorists and secessionists, and the like, they were certainly guilty of goading the Austrians. Last, I’d add Russia for being the first to go to general mobilization, which certainly weighted heavily on the Germans. But, at the end of the day, with such a complex confluence of events it is hard to point to a single cause or party to blame, and that is perhaps why Jannen avoids anything overly explicit along these lines.
Jannen provides good insight into the gory details of the last days of diplomacy before the war erupted. Thankfully, he also provides a list of all the players – it was quite confusing at times. Adding to the confusion, and probably a good indicator of what Europe was like in 1914, is that many of the players’ names did not match what might be expected of their nationality. So, the German ambassador to Russia had a French-sounding name, the British ambassador to Vienna had a French name, the French undersecretary for foreign affairs had an English name, several key Russians had Germanic names, some Austrians had Italian names, the Austrian ambassador to London had a compound French-German name, and so on. The author does not mention this, but it is indicative of a much more integrated, confused Europe, where borders certainly did not match the locations of national groups. I’m sure a lot more could be said of this, and what it meant for subsequent history.
So, book number three is down. Up next is Max Hastings (a favorite author of mine) and Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War.
Good discussion and summary. Jannen does what not many historians have done. He tries to take the "human factor" and overlay it on to what we (more or less) know happened based on the historical records/memoirs.
ReplyDeleteOne key point is that the professional diplomats played a critical, almost independent role in making decisions that had profound consequences. In today's era of instant communication and the micromanagement that often (if not usually) goes with it, one almost reads in awe of what ambassadors did and said. The French ambassador to St. Petersburg, for example is reported to have exceeded his instructions in giving the Russians assurances of French support. The Germans certainly were off the deep end, telling the Austrians everything they wanted to hear and then some.
Yet the Austrians must not get off the hook. Despite Serbian provocations (which were numerous), Alexander Count Hoyos, the Chef de Cabinet of the Austrian Foreign Minister, worked tirelessly to ensure that the July Crisis ended with military action. Austria simply was not interested in any peaceful solution--they would have war with Serbia regardless and if that meant Russian involvement, they were willing to risk it. Lord knows the Germans certainly were! Hoyos bypassed his own ambassador in Berlin and communicated directly with the German Foreign office (the Ambassador was talking to the Kaiser) in order to ensure Germany's infamous Blank Cheque would be given to Austria.
The confused nature of diplomatic exchanges between the Entente powers were even more complex. The Russian ambassador in Belgrade (Hartwig) had died of an heart attack July 10, 1914, so a key player disappeared at a critical moment--one who had been encouraging the Serbs to stay resolute.
And then the impact of military planning. Russia's reaction to the Austrian attack on Belgrade was to go through a confused series of actions beginning with partial mobilization and ending with full mobilization--an act that, while provocative, did not mean an outbreak of armed conflict. Indeed, Russian mobilization areas tended to be further from their frontiers than other nations--and the Germans and Austrians knew this. Worse yet, if Russia initiated partial mobilization they could not then "add" full mobilization given the complex nature of the process and the limited infrastructure available. Thus, the tsar opted for full mobilization at the urging of STAVKA.
Germany used Russian mobilization as the pretext to widen the war--with tragic consequences, as we will no doubt see in the next tome.
Perhaps the biggest miscalculation on the part of Austria and Germany was their failure to understand that, after Russia's humiliation during the Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1909, there was no way Russia would back down from any confrontation in the Balkans, particularly given Austria's by then established modus operandi of duplicity and aggressiveness.
I was going to talk about Paleologue, the French ambassador in Saint Petersburg. He really proved to be a perfect example of your point -- he failed to keep the French government informed about Russian moves. Jannen implies this was from a desire to actually start a war, though some supplemental reading I've done on him is less clear as to his motives. Certainly a cracked French diplomatic code was part of the problem. Still, here is an example of an individual who may have, intentionally or inadvertently, contributed to war breaking out.
ReplyDeleteJannen's primary opprobrium for Austria is against their Chief of the General Staff, Franz Conrad, who remained utterly fixated on a war with Serbia, so much so that he ignored even the danger from Russia. No doubt many in Austria agreed with him.
It is certainly a tangled web!
Paleologue (what a name) remains an enigmatic and unpredictable character. We can't know for certain what he did, but France had a vested interest in ensuring the Russians were at the forefront of any crisis--after all, Germany foreign policy had been so ham-fisted that by 1894 there was a Franco-Russian alliance in place; truly strange bedfellows even by the standards of the era.
ReplyDeleteConrad was also part of the Austrian cabal to start a war. Up until fairly recently he had agitated much the same way to go to war with Italy. He did it so often, he was demoted at one point and had only fairly recently been reinstated as Chief of Staff. He then continued his old ways, only this time with Serbia.
Ironically, one of the most influential voices of restraint was Franz Ferdinand, dead of an assassin's bullet and the proximate cause of the crisis. It is very clear the Austrian general staff did not have a clear idea of what could happen if Russia joined the war (even though they had lots of contingency plans for just such an occurrence).
Their amazingly bungled mobilization and shuttling of forces from the Balkans to Galicia and back again set the tone for how they would fight the war and indeed left the Germans feeling they were "shackled to a corpse."
It was truly ironic that Franz Ferdinand was a voice of reason (or at least restraint), but his assassination was the catalyst for war. In some ways the whole situation reads like a bad novel, but I suppose that is the way things often work out.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to Hastings' examination of the "less examined theater" such as Galicia. It'll be nice to paint the larger picture and see how these places affected the more well-known battlefields.
Hasting's does a pretty good job of covering Galicia (my MA Thesis). His discussion on the outbreak of the war was similarly refreshing: Austria and Germany started it and the war was necessary.
ReplyDeleteOoops! Forbidden conclusions!