My name is Indy Neidell. Welcome to the Great War.
We left off last time with the Austro-Hungarian Empire declaring war on the kingdom of Serbia,
and you can find links to that episode below and to our special Prelude to War episodes.
I’m going to begin today with a couple of telegrams.
Now, in Russia there were real fears that Austria’s plans might extend to more than
just Serbian occupation or punishment- Russia thought Serbia might actually lose her independence.
See, Austria had mobilized three quarters of her army, way more than enough to deal
with Serbia, so on July 29th, as Austria began bombarding Belgrade, Russia partially mobilized
her army just in case.
The Tsar, though, did not a war with Germany, who had pledged to support Austria, and he
telegraphed his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm, in English, “To try to avoid such a calamity
as a European war, I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop
your allies from going too far.” He signed it “Nicky”. At the same time, the Kaiser
was telegraphing back “I am exerting the utmost influence to induce the Austrians
to deal straightly to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with you.” This was signed
“Willy”.
However, that same day the German fleet began to mobilize and in response the British
fleet was sent to its war stations in the North Sea in case of a possible attack. At
that point, the allied pair France and Russia were putting pressure on Britain to declare
that in case of a German attack on Russia’s ally France, Britain would join the war, but
Britain, especially the foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey, wouldn’t commit.
Important stuff now.
Germany told Britain in a secret message that if Britain remained neutral, Germany would
take no territory from France except her colonies. This provoked the opposite effect though,
showing Grey once and for all that Germany was committed to going to war, no matter what.
Against Russia.
In Russia on the 29th there was no declaration of war, but a draft of nearly six million
men began and the army was already moving toward the Austrian border, and it was at
5 PM on July 30th that the Russian general mobilization began. The Tsar finally signed
this order because of partial German mobilization and his worries about being unready on the
Polish front.
It all actually got a little confusing here; German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg telegraphed
Vienna NOT to mobilize against Russia, but the same day, German chief of staff Moltke
telegraphed his opposite Austrian number Conrad to mobilize at once, so who was really in
charge? And then, Germany sent Russia an ultimatum to stop all war measures of any kind against
Austria and Germany within 24 hours. This was rejected.
You could see that this was becoming a real mess. But at the end of July all of the various
armies were pressuring their political leaders. Many of the leaders were against the war,
but the armies were afraid of being unready and wanted to move as quickly as possible.
On July 29th, a German ultimatum to Belgium was prepared.
What? Belgium? Why little neutral Belgium? you ask. Here’s why:
If Germany was going to war with Russia she could not help but be worried about France
invading her from behind, because again- France and Russia were committed allies. So here
was the idea- the moment you’ve all been waiting for... the Schlieffen Plan!
Alfred von Schlieffen had been the Germany army Chief of Staff from 1891 to 1905 and
here was his big idea in case of war with both Russia and France: France would have
to be knocked out immediately so all troops could focus on the more daunting task of attacking
Russia, so Germany would make a swift attack through Belgium and Holland into Northern
France, completely bypassing the heavily defended Franco-German border and sweeping down into
Paris from the north. Moltke streamlined the plan a bit by skipping Holland, but the idea
was to take Paris within six weeks and thus avoid a two front war. We’ll go into this
in more depth later.
But Belgium was neutral and Britain had a treaty with her, and on July 31st, Britain
asked France and Germany if they would respect Belgian neutrality. France said yes, but Germany
did not respond, so Britain eventually sent an ultimatum of her own; if Belgium were attacked,
Britain would go to war.
In all of these countries people were enlisting like crazy.
and nationalistic fever was going off the rails. In France, for example, Jean Jaurés,
leader of the socialist party who was appealing to all the European working classes to stop
the war, was assassinated on the 31st. Ironically, this actually caused more shock around Europe
than Franz Ferdinand’s assassination did, but it showed that in France there was a great
deal of enthusiasm for the war. Many people wanted revenge for the loss against Prussia
over 40 years earlier.
Back to Russia and Germany!
The day after Russia mobilized, Germany also did. This was presented in the Reichstag as
purely defensive. We have to mobilize just in case, because they did first. This was
pretty much the only way that the Germany military high command could get the social
democrats to agree with mobilization.
And on the evening of August 1st, the German ambassador gave Russia the German
declaration of war, which resulted from Russia rejecting the German ultimatum to stand down.
Actually, as it turned out, the German ambassador actually gave the Russians two versions
of the declaration of war, one that claimed Russia refused to respond to Germany and one
that said the Russian response was unacceptable.
Yep. That’s the kind of thing you want to avoid in the diplomatic service.
The Kaiser at first ordered an attack on only Russia, but Moltke convinced him that this
wasn’t really possible since most of the army was already committed in the west, and
that evening, German troops entered Luxembourg to secure the telegraph and the railways
Here we go: on August 2nd, German troops crossed into France for the first time in over 40
years, and there were several small border skirmishes. At seven that evening, Germany
gave Belgium an ultimatum- give German troops free passage through Belgium. Belgium refused.
On August 3rd, Germany declared was on France, and that same day occupied three towns in
Russian Poland. On August 4th, German troops entered Belgium and Britain declared war on
Germany. Many of those in England who had been anti-war, were suddenly very much for
the war. Grey, for example, now believed that if Germany wasn’t stopped then all European
national independence was just a fiction.
In the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire began mining the Dardanelles on the 3rd, although
the Turks were not yet going to war. We’ll see more of them in a few weeks, but what
of Serbia? I mean, this whole thing snowballed because of issues between Serbia and Austria-Hungary,
right? Well, we’re going to get to that in more depth next week, I promise.
In much of Europe, there was huge optimism about the war. Everyone really thought that
they were going to win. Even though by this time there were several million soldiers marching
around Europe this was still the war that would be over by Christmas. The Russian high
command, for example, asked for new typewriters, but were told that the war would not be long
enough to justify the expense. And because of all of this, everyone’s military
plans called for huge immediate attacks, since there seemed no point saving resources for
later when you could just win right now.
But here’s the thing, the wars people looked back on were short wars like the Franco-Prussian
war, but they really should have looked at the American Civil War to get an idea of how
long and bloody modern warfare was going to be.
Alright, on August 5th, the German Empire reached her first serious military obstacle-
Liege. That day the Germans failed to take any of the 12 forts of the city. Ludendorf
managed to enter Liege on the 7th, but taking the forts was necessary for the German advance.
Germany brought in her big guns and this was accomplished in only a few days, and THIS
is really important.
See, France and Belgium had strategically placed fortresses all over them. They were
very expensive and heavily defended. But one of the first things the war showed was the
technological advance in artillery. Heavy howitzers could bombard fortresses from ten
miles away without real fear of retaliation, and the fortresses were just sitting ducks,
so all of the fortresses attacked in 1914 fell very quickly, and all the money and effort
to build them up was for nothing.
So, to bring us up to date: on August 6th, Austria-Hungary officially declared war on
Russia and Serbia declared war on Germany.
If you want to know what happened in the last episode click right here.
Let me know how you liked it and if you have any questions, comments or thoughts put them in the comments below.
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