While the European chancelleries were trying to find some means to heal the breach, Austria-Hungary formally declared war on Servia on the morning of July 28th. The same evening, the bombardment of Belgrade from Semlin and from the Danube was begun. The Servian Government retired to Nish.
Only the intervention of Germany could now prevent the European cataclysm.
CHAPTER XX
GERMANY FORCES WAR UPON RUSSIA AND FRANCE
The title of this chapter seems to indicate that I have the intention of taking sides in what many people believe to be an open question. But this is not the case. The German contention, that Russia caused the war, must be clearly distinguished from the contention, that Russia forced the war. There is a great deal of reason in the first contention. No impartial student, who has written with sympathy concerning Great Britain's attitude in the Crimean War, can fail to give Germany just as strong justification for declaring war on Russia in 1914 as Great Britain had in 1854. But, when we come down to the narrower question of responsibility for launching the war in which almost all of Europe is now engaged, there can be no doubt that it was deliberately willed by the German Government, and that the chain of circumstances which brought it about was carefully woven by the officials of Wilhelmstrasse and Ballplatz. There may be honest difference of opinion as to whether Germany was justified in forcing the war. But the facts allow no difference of opinion as to whether Germany did force the war.
A war to crush France and Russia has for many years been accepted as a necessary eventuality in the evolution of Germany's foreign policy. That when this war came, Great Britain would take the opportunity of joining in order to strike at German commerce, which had begun to be looked upon by British merchants as a formidable rival in the markets of the world, was thought probable. The leading men of Germany, especially since the passing of Morocco and Persia, have felt that this war was vital to the existence of the German Empire. During recent years the questions, "Ought there to be a war?" and "Will there be a war?" ceased to be debated in Germany. One heard only, "Under what circumstances could the war be most favourably declared?" and "How soon will the war come?"
Germany has believed that the events of the past decade have shown the unalterable determination of Great Britain and France to make impossible the political development of the Weltpolitik, without which her commercial development would always be insecure. This determination has been consistently revealed in the hostility of her western rivals to her colonial expansion in Africa and Asia. The world equilibrium, already decidedly disadvantageous to the overseas future of Germans at the time they began their career as a united people, has been disturbed more and more during the past forty years.
The Balkan wars, resulting as they did in the aggrandizement of Servia, threatened the equilibrium of the Near East, where lay Germany's most vital and most promising external activities. We must remember, when we are considering the reasons for the consistent backing given to Austria-Hungary by Germany in her treatment of Servian aspirations, the words of Wirth: "To render powerful the Servian people would be the suicide of Germany."