Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [218]
Wilhelm II, however, felt a sudden qualm. He belatedly read the text of Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum of four days before, and thought it satisfactory. “It contains the announcement orbi et urbi* of a capitulation of the most humiliating kind, and with it every reason for war is removed.” Surely, he suggested to Jagow, Vienna’s few remaining grievances could be settled by negotiation. But Franz Joseph had already signed an instrument of war, and Germany had promised to support it “through thick and thin.” The Kaiser’s inner circle of Prussian ministers were willing to temporize only so long as it took Russia to mobilize fully, so that St. Petersburg, not Berlin, would be seen as responsible for the spread of hostilities.
France was already in a state of high alarm. Everything that Clemenceau and other Germanophobes had warned about the threat of another Franco-Prussian war seemed to be coming true. To Edith Wharton in Paris, “everything seemed strange, ominous and unreal, like the yellow glare which precedes a storm.” She felt as if she had died, and woken up in a world she no longer knew.
The European republic had more than three million men under arms or on reserve, and had recently extended its period of national service from two years to three. French military commanders were confident of the impregnability of its defenses along the Rhine, but less so of Belgium’s ability to withstand a German sweep westward across Flanders. That might come quickly, as a rearguard reinforcement by General Falkenhayn, before the slow Russian juggernaut began to crowd the eastern fringe of Prussia.
On 29 July the general’s soul mate in Vienna, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, ordered Austrian cannons to start bombarding Belgrade. The first shell across the Danube landed before dawn, and the ones that followed soon became too numerous to count. Nobody knew how many million more would be fired before the last fell, and in what soil of what nation. The idea of a world war, hitherto untenable by military theorists, no longer seemed like fantasy. Conrad exulted, having called for the destruction of Serbia dozens of times in his career. At the same time, he was fatalistic about the long-term consequences. “It will be a hopeless war.… Nevertheless, it must be waged, since an old monarchy and a glorious army must not perish without glory.”
Next morning, The Washington Post encapsulated the situation for Americans:
RUSSIA READY TO TAKE UP ARMS FOR SERBIA;
TSAR SENDS 1,280,000 MEN TO AUSTRIAN LINE;
FATE OF EUROPE HANGS ON COUNCIL IN BERLIN
“It’s the Slav and the German,” Walter Hines Page wrote President Wilson. “Each wants his day, and neither has got beyond the stage of tooth and claw.”
Both the emperors involved—they communicated in English, calling each other “Nicky” and “Willy”—were now aghast at the drift of events. “An ignoble war has been declared to [sic] a weak country,” the Tsar wired his cousin. “I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far.”
Allies, in this case, meant only Austria-Hungary. Willy was fearfully aware that Nicky had more than one ally, and formidable ones too: both Britain and France would be obliged to come to Russia’s aid, should Germany enter the war. “I cannot consider Austria’s action against Serbia an ‘ignoble’ war,” he protested, pointing out that the government in Vienna had declared that its interests were honorable, not territorial. “I therefore suggest that it would be quite possible for Russia to remain a spectator of the Austro-Serbian conflict without involving Europe in the most horrible war she has ever witnessed.”
Nicky could only counter-propose that the Austro-Serbian problem be referred to the Hague International Court for arbitration. In the meantime