A scrap of paper

by Emile Joseph Dillon

The very next day Count Berchtold, in answer to a request from the Russian Ambassador in Vienna that the conversations in St. Petersburg should be continued and that the Austrian Ambassador there should be invested with full powers for the purpose, stated that he was unable to comply with the request.[25] On this same day Russia ordered a partial mobilization, and declared that it connoted no aggressive intention against Germany.

It was meant only as an admonition to Austria that, while anxious to settle all differences in a friendly way, Russia was not quite so incapacitated for military action as her neighbour imagined. It was a perfectly legitimate reply to Austria’s partial mobilization and declaration of war against Servia. Nobody was taken by surprise by it except the two States which had set Russia down as militarily powerless. And of these Austria was the more painfully impressed, and showed this by a sudden infusion of the spirit of compromise into her diplomatic methods. Two days later she reconsidered her refusal to allow the conversations in St. Petersburg to be continued. Count Berchtold received the Russian Ambassador in a friendly manner, and apprized him that his request would be complied with, and the negociations with M. Sazonoff would be resumed. And they were resumed and worked out to what was rightly considered success.

But Germany again stepped in—not, however, as mediator, but as a marplot.

CHAPTER VIII
THE EARTHQUAKE

Austria-Hungary, sobered down by the tremendous consequences of her obstinacy, which now loomed large, displayed a conciliatory frame of mind. Her Ambassador in the Russian capital, implicitly confessing that the ultimatum to Servia was an act of provocation, wisely yielded on the crucial difference between the two Governments, and assured M. Sazonoff that Austria would submit to mediation the demands in the ultimatum which appeared destructive of Servia’s independence. In other words, she gave way, and the long-sought issue out of the deadlock was found, and found without Germany’s assistance. What was wanted now was no longer Germany’s active co-operation, but only her abstention from mischief-making.

But the moment Austria became conciliatory Germany assumed an attitude of sheer aggression which at once took the matter out the diplomatic sphere and left no room for compromise.

On July 31st the earthquake came. Germany presented her ultimatum to Russia, allowing her only twelve hours to issue the order for demobilization. Twelve hours! It is impossible not to recognize the same Hohenzollern touch in this document and that other one which had been presented shortly before to Servia. They both bear the impress of the monarch who once publicly said: “There is but one will, and that is mine.”[26] Contemptuous silence was the only answer vouchsafed to this arrogant demand, which was intended to cow the Tsar and his Ministers before they could consult with their foreign friends. On August 1st the sheepish-looking diplomatist who represented the mighty Kaiser in St. Petersburg proceeded to the Foreign Office to deliver his last and fatal message there, and, according to the papers, he transformed the awful tragism of the moment into an incident worthy of an opéra bouffe by handing to the Foreign Minister a paper one side of which contained a declaration of war, while the other was a statement prepared for the eventuality of Russia’s acquiescence. And with this claim to be remembered in the history of involuntary humour Count Pourtalès made his exit from public life.

In this odd way new actors were introduced into a drama which had been originally composed only for three. The result was exceedingly distasteful to the statesmen of Vienna, and Budapest. It was recognized as a source of complications and difficulties which had indeed been provided for, but which it would have been more advantageous to separate and cope with in detail. All that now remained for German diplomacy was to make absolutely sure of the neutrality of Great Britain.

It may not be amiss, however, to lay before the reader the instructive account of the final stages of diplomatic effort as sketched by the British ex-Ambassador to the Court of Vienna in his supplementary dispatch, dated London, September 1st:—

The delivery at Belgrade on July 23rd of the Austrian note to Servia was preceded by a period of absolute silence at the Ballplatz. Except Herr von Tschirschky, who must have been aware of the tenour if not of the actual words of the note, none of my colleagues was allowed to see through the veil. On July 22nd and 23rd M. Dumaine, French Ambassador, had long interviews with Baron Macchio, one of the Under Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, by whom he was left under the impression that the words of warning he had been instructed to speak to the Austro-Hungarian Government had not been unavailing, and that the note which was being drawn up would be found to contain nothing with which a self-respecting State need hesitate to comply. At the second of these interviews he was not even informed that the note was at that very moment being presented at Belgrade, or that it would be published in Vienna on the following morning. Count Forgach, the other Under Secretary of State, had indeed been good enough to confide to me on the same day the true character of the note, and the fact of its presentation about the time we were speaking.