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By Root 1156 0

Europe's emperors, kings, and prime ministers began their summer vacations, so the steps toward the cataclysm were taken in slow motion. In Berlin and Vienna, although messengers and telegraph wires were kept busy, no break in the normal routine that might hint at an impending attack on Serbia was allowed. Even General von Moltke, more impatient for war than ever ("We are ready," he had said some weeks earlier, "and the sooner the better for us"), conspicuously went to take the waters at the famous spa in Carlsbad. The Kaiser departed for a cruise off Norway. Germany's chancellor headed for his country estate. Austro-Hungarian officials, from the Emperor on down, similarly took their holidays. The Kaiser sent birthday greetings to the King of Serbia because, the German Foreign Office advised, "the omission of the customary telegram would be too noticeable." All over Europe those of a class who could afford to take July off were doing so: young George Cecil, home on leave from the army at his mother's country house, Great Wigsell, whiled away his time playing cricket with the Kiplings.

The Kaiser had convinced himself that if Austria-Hungary promptly attacked Serbia, there would be no risk of Russian intervention: Tsar Nicholas II's own grandfather had been murdered by terrorists, so how could he come to the aid of a nation possibly implicated in the assassination of two members of another Emperor's family? Furthermore, if the attack were immediate, as the Kaiser urged, Russia would not even be able to intervene. Unlike industrialized countries with dense rail networks, Russia, with its more primitive infrastructure and vast distances, would need some six weeks to fully mobilize. By then, Austria should long have Serbia fully occupied.

Even though the Austro-Hungarian general staff had already been planning moves against Serbia several weeks before the assassinations, it was unable to follow the Kaiser's urging to strike quickly and without warning. To their dismay, Austrian officials discovered that large numbers of army troops had been granted leave to go home and help their families with the summer harvest. Recalling them would tip the government's hand. As a result, only on July 23, 1914, almost four weeks after the killings, did the Austro-Hungarian envoy present an ultimatum to the Serbian finance minister—the prime minister was out of town—who refused to accept it. The diplomat finally left the document on a table and departed. By design, the ultimatum was composed of demands that Serbia could never accept, such as the removal of government officials to be specified and a carte blanche for Austro-Hungarian police to operate on Serbian territory. It was this warlike document, not the assassinations, that rang out like a warning bell across the continent, signaling that, for the first time since the Battle of Waterloo nearly a century earlier, Europe was facing an all-engulfing war.

Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, was in a cabinet meeting about the Irish crisis when a messenger arrived with news that the foreign secretary shared with his colleagues: "The quiet grave tones of Sir Edward Grey's voice were heard," he later wrote, "reading a document which had just been brought to him from the Foreign Office. It was the Austrian note to Serbia.... The parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone faded back into the mists and squalls of Ireland, and a strange light began ... to fall and grow upon the map of Europe."

Prime Minister Asquith was optimistic his own country could avoid the dangers of the strange light. He sometimes penned letters during meetings, and from that same cabinet session he wrote to his confidante, Venetia Stanley, "We are in measurable ... distance of a real Armageddon." But about Britain he added reassuringly, "Happily, there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators." Famous for enjoying his leisure, the following weekend he went to play golf.

Desperately mobilizing its small army, Serbia sent an urgent appeal asking the Russian Tsar, "in your generous Slav