The Rest Is History - 470. The Road to The Great War: The Kaiser’s Blank Cheque (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

In the wake of the cataclysmic assassination of Franz Ferdinand on the 28th of June 1914, in Austria, the long percolating question of what to do about Serbia, reached a climax. At last, they had been handed an opportunity to take decisive action. On Sunday 5th of July an emissary of the the old and embattled emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, arrived in a deserted Berlin with letters for Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Their contents would change the course of world history forever. Originally received with uncharacteristic sanguinity and caution, the Kaiser returned from a hearty lunch that afternoon with a response to the emperor’s call for war against Serbia: Germany would back Austria absolutely, on top of which Wilhelm urged his ally to act with haste. What, then, were his motives? Was the Kaiser driven by a hunger for world domination, was it his hostility towards the British or was he spurred on by his personal sense of loss over the brutal assassination of his friend, and his wife? Whatever the case, Germany then issued Austria with the notorious Blank Cheque that would definitively set Europe upon the road to war. Join Dominic and Tom as they plot out the events that followed from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the first momentous steps towards a world war that even after the Austrian Ultimatum was finally handed to Serbia; none of the major players in that ruinous game, had any sense would take place… _______ *The Rest Is History LIVE in the U.S.A.* If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and New York.  *The Rest Is History LIVE at the Royal Albert Hall* Tom and Dominic, accompanied by a live orchestra, take a deep dive into the lives and times of two of history’s greatest composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Tickets on sale now at TheRestIsHistory.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. I sincerely regret that you should have been obliged to give up your intention of going to Vienna for the funeral ceremonies. I should have liked personally to express to you my sincerest thanks for your sympathy in my keen sorrow, a sympathy which has greatly touched me. By your warm and sympathetic condolence, you have given me renewed proof that I have in you a true and reliable friend, and that even in the darkest hours of trial, I can always count on you. The attack directed

against my poor nephew is the direct consequence of the agitation carried on by the Russian and Serbian panslavists, whose only aim is the weakening of the Triple Alliance and the destruction of my empire. At the heart of the Sarajevo affair was not just the single bloody deed of an individual, but a well-organized conspiracy, the threads of which reached to Belgrade, which constitutes a constant danger to my family and to my realm. After the latest terrible events in Bosnia. You must surely agree that we cannot live any longer with this Serbian antagonism, and that as long as this furnace of criminal agitation at Belgrade goes unpunished, all European monarchies are in danger. So that, Dominic, was Emperor Franz Joseph, the 436-year-old Austro-Hungarian emperor, writing to the Kaiser Wilhelm II. And he wrote that letter on the 2nd of July 1914.

But it's delivered to the Kaiser three days later, is it not, by the special envoy of the Austro-Hungarian government, Herr Hoyos. Yes, Tom. Guten Tag, everybody, or should I say, grüß Gott, since we are in Österreich. That was very nice, Franz Josef. Thank you. Yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. Did you like the kind of modulated range of emotion? I did. He starts off calm, and then he gets more and more irate as he gets

furious with the thought of these Serbian conspirators. Yeah, the furnace of conspiracy, or whatever he. Yeah, the furnace of conspiracy or whatever he calls it, the furnace of criminal agitation, very stirring stuff. So last time we were really focused on Austria, how there were lots of people in Austria, especially the chief of their general staff, General Franz Konrad von Hützendorf and the foreign minister, Count Berchtold,

who have long been thinking about what to do about Serbia and been thinking about a preemptive strike. And now, of course, they have their chance. But I think, as we said last time, important to say that assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie is not just a pretext. It is something they take very seriously in and of itself. So Franz Josef, where he says there, you know, the threat to my realm and my family, I mean, he really believes that. Of course. Yeah. I mean, his wife has been murdered by an anarchist. His son took his own life in a weird suicide pact. His nephew has now been shot by a Bosnian terrorist. His brother was killed by Mexican revolutionaries. Yes. Danger everywhere. Yeah. That sense of being embattled and encircled. I mean, a lot of the participants

in this story feel this, but I think it's important to say the Austrians absolutely do feel it. And you get a sense of that, I think, in that wonderful reading that you did, Tom. So we also talked last time about the Kaiser, didn't we? About the person who's going to be reading this letter. But let's concentrate for a second on how the letter gets there. So we are now a week after the assassination. The 5th of July, which is a Sunday, Count Alex Hoyos, who is a sort of younger Austrian diplomat. Oh, I misranked him then. I apologise to you. What did you call him?

I called him Hare. Yeah, you did call him Hare. Yeah, sorry. Well, I mean, if the Hoyos family are listening, they can take it up with you. Well, I apologise unreservedly. Oh, that's kind of you, Tom. You don't want to know the Dr. Valverde imbroglio, do you, I suppose? No, I don't. So Count Hoyos arrives in, and it's absolutely deserted.

And the reason is, it's the summer. Everybody's on holiday. So the Chancellor of Germany, Theobald Bettmann-Holweg, is away on his country estate. The head of the army, the chief of the general staff, Helmut von Moltke the Younger, he has a problem with his liver, and he is off taking the waters in Carlsbad, which is now in the Czech Republic. Of course he is. Because as we have already discovered,

key events in 20th century German history all involve spa towns. Yeah. And the Kaiser himself is actually getting ready for his holiday. He will be going probably tomorrow or the next day on his trip to the Norwegian fjords. So he always loves a Baltic cruise. The Kaiser, he loves yachting. Of course, Tom, as we have established. Yeah, a bit of a smorgasbord. Yeah, he loves all that. He likes the bracing Baltic waters.

I've been to that neck of the woods and was attacked by a jellyfish. So have I. We'll come to my interaction with the events of the Kaiser's yachting holiday in due course. So that's something for people to look forward to. That is exciting. So first of all, people to look forward to. That is exciting.

So first of all, Count Hoyos goes to see an old friend of his called Arthur Zimmerman. And if we have American listeners, that name may ring one or two bells, because Arthur Zimmerman later will write a very consequential telegram that brings the United States into the war. But at the time, he's the kind of coming man in the foreign office there. They're all China hands. So they had been in China during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900. So they have a little chat about China and all that kind of thing,

Hoyos and Zimmerman. And Hoyos is very frank to Zimmerman. And he says, look, I've got these letters. I'm looking forward to handing them over, getting the Kaiser to see them. Personally, he says, I would like to see us hit Serbia really hard and actually just wipe it out. Let's partition Serbia among ourselves, the Austrians, the Bulgarians, and the Albanians." He says, actually, Serbia must be destroyed. It's very kind of Carthago de Lenda-est. He just says, you know, we have to be really hardline about this. But actually, Hoyos is not going to get to see the Kaiser himself. The man who's going to see the Kaiser is the Austrian ambassador.

Now, Tom, I was very harsh on you last time by making you read the name. Okay. I was going to say, I won't make you do it this time. Do you want me to do it? Have a crack? You can have a crack. Hungarian is famously with Finnish. Yeah.

And Basque, the most difficult languages for Indo-European speakers to master. And this gives a demonstration why. So the Austrian ambassador is Count Laszlo Szugini Maric de Magyar Szugien et Solzsag. I mean, it's like a jumble of Scrabble pieces. I mean, I'm not much better, to be honest. I did try to look this up.

He's actually called Count Laszlo Szugini Maric de Magyar Szugien Solzsag. Apologies to Hungarian listeners. Yeah. Anyway, he's Count Szugini. I think Count Szugini how we'd call him. So Count Sir Jenny is the Austro-Hungarian ambassador. He's obviously, as you can tell from that, a Magyar. He is kind of the head boy of the Berlin diplomatic corps, because obviously the Austrians are

very close to the Germans. Everyone kind of slightly defers to him among the other ambassadors. He is very popular. The Kaiser loves him. The Kaiser's always playing jokes and japes on him. And the Kaiser calls him, you are my gypsy, my little gypsy, and all this kind of stuff because of his Hungarian-ness. So he's given these two documents and he goes to the Kaiser's palace in Potsdam to hand them over. Now, it is a sign, as Thomas Otte points out in his book, July Crisis, of just how unseriously the Germans have prepared for this, that nobody has briefed the Kaiser before the ambassador comes.

You know, if this was the United States right now, he would have a little piece of paper. He'd be Joe Biden and he'd have a piece of paper with bullet points telling him what they want, what we want, where we want to get to. The Kaiser has nothing like this. But also, just to ask you, if Germany was the Germany of, I guess, popular perception, that it's full of shaven-headed Prussians plotting the invasion of Belgium, and they're just looking for an opportunity, that's clearly not the case here. They haven't thought, oh, brilliant, this is a chance for us to invade France. Oh, no, I would say not at all. Now, maybe some people listening to this will say, oh, gosh, Sandbrook and Holland are going very easy on the Germans here. This is very poor form.

But no historian who's really studied this in detail would make that claim because Wilhelm has spent that morning in that Sarajevo series. We had those lovely scenes of him and Franz Ferdinand bonding over their rhododendrons. Remember that? Yeah. So the Kaiser has actually been doing that this morning. He's gone and he's been admiring the rose bushes in his Potsdam garden. And then he went to a little, they'd put on a special exhibition for him of works by a

kind of historical painter called Professor Scherbel. And the Kaiser has been looking at all these paintings of scenes from German history. Ah, lovely, lovely paintings, nice roses. And then he goes in for this meeting with the Austrian ambassador. And it's not like there's the whole apparatus of the German war machine behind him. There's nobody there. There's just the two of them. So Genie hands over these two documents. Now, one of them is basically just a sort of quite boring strategic overview of Austria's position in the Balkans. And the second one is the one you read out at the beginning. So that was the letter from Franz Josef. And that's the personal appeal.

It's the personal appeal. It's been very carefully drafted by the Austrian foreign ministry. And it's an appeal to the Kaiser on the principle of our great friendship, your friendship with Franz Ferdinand, and the principle of monarchical solidarity. No European monarchy is safe with these crazy terrorists running around. And Wilhelm looks at all this, and actually at first, he's pretty calm. You know, he doesn't start shouting, let's invade Argentina or something. running around and wilhelm looks at all this and actually at first he's pretty calm you know he doesn't start shouting let's invade argentina or something in his traditional way i shall get out

the crown of burgundy and give it to the belgians none of this nonsense he actually says listen i completely understand where you're coming from you know you've suffered a terrible provocation and he says that said you know i understand why you want a serious action against Serbia, but there is a risk of a serious European complication to this. Because Serbia is aligned with Russia. With Russia. So we'll kind of have a think about it. I need to talk to my chancellor, Bethman Holweg. So again, the idea that the Kaiser is an absolute monarch, or he's a bully and everybody lives in his shadow, it's not quite right. The Kaiser knows he has to talk to the civilian leaders. But they then go and have lunch, don't they? And then after lunch, he starts to kind of Kaiser a bit. Yeah, he does exactly.

So they have this lunch. God knows what they have at the lunch that gets him into this. Something very hot. I think he's just been thinking about it. His friend has been killed, all of this stuff. And he's sort of worked himself up. So when they reconvene after lunch, he says to the ambassador, Sir Ginny, he says, actually, do you know what? I completely understand why you want to have a crack at the Serbs. And I've been thinking about it and you have my absolute full support. I will talk to the Chancellor, Bethman Holbeck, but he's bound to agree with me. And you know what as well? You shouldn't hang about. You know, you should strike quickly. Well, that's an important point, isn't it?

He's not wrong with that. It's a really important point. He's not wrong at all. He says, listen, the Russians will make a huge hullabaloo about this. There's no question about that. However, I'm pretty confident the Russians won't do anything stupid. We will stand by you, so that will deter them. The Russians don't want war.

They're not prepared for war. It'll probably be fine. And again again he repeats at the end the current moment is the most advantageous one it would be a massive mistake not to exploit it this is the best chance you'll ever have so never let a crisis go to waste never let a crisis go to waste you know you don't want this shock of the crisis to completely dissipate and I think every historian would say the Kaiser's not wrong there. No. This is the obvious moment. We talked about that in the previous episode.

Yeah, exactly. The longer you leave it, the less the sense of international outrage fades. Right, exactly. So the question, therefore, is what is the Kaiser thinking? What's going on in the Kaiser's head? Is this because he dreams of world conquest and fighting all his enemies and a world war in which Germany will be victorious? I think there is no evidence of that. I mean, he is specifically saying to the Austrian guy, there won't be a world war. So this is your chance to kind of crack on and do it.

But also he has flagged up the fact that the risk is of provoking Russia. And this is a bad thing. Yeah, exactly. That it's a bad thing and preferably a thing you'd want to avoid by deterrence. Yeah. Is he being motivated here by his famous hostility and loathing of the british absolutely not the british never mentioned at all really i think what this is his textbook kaiser you know he's had his lunch whenever he has lunch with visiting dignitaries he loses it and just starts ranting this is what he has done and as thomas otte says there is a personal dimension. I mean, it's so easily overlooked. This is his friend who was killed.

And he takes it very seriously. And he thinks they should be punished. Why would you not punish them? So the meeting breaks up. And then the Kaiser goes to the garden. And there, some of his sort of bigwigs are waiting, including the Prussian war minister, who is called Erich von Falkenhayn. And he says to them, guys, the Austrians

look like they're going to gear up for a war against Serbia. And they all say, yeah, I can understand that. That's fair enough. And actually, the Kaiser's adjutant, who's a guy called Hans von Plessen, he writes a diary, which is a brilliant source for us, gives us a real sense of what they're thinking. Here, the view prevails that

the sooner the Austrians strike against Serbia, the better. And the Russians,rians strike against Serbia, the better, and the Russians, although friends of Serbia, would not join in after all. So again, the emphasis on speed. Speed, exactly. Now, the key person, really, the Kaiser needs to persuade, if he's keen on this, is the Chancellor. The Chancellor has just got back from his country estate. He is Theobald Bettmann-Holweg.

Now, because he's the leader of Germany and because he's got a beard, he's very easy to caricature as this sort of Mephistopheles figure. Yeah. And he's absolutely not that at all. I mean, he's like all those British ministers whose idea of fun is to go off and read Plato in Greek. That's genuinely what he's been doing. I mean, he genuinely has been reading Plato in Greek. Yeah.

Because his wife has just died after a long illness, Bethmann-Holweg's wife. He's very melancholy, and he's been reading Plato. In Britain, people regarded him as quite an admirable person. He's a moderate conservative. He's not a super reactionary. He's from a Frankfurt kind of law and banking family. Richard Haldane, who'd been Britain's Secretary of State for War in the Edwardian period, said he was the Abraham Lincoln of Germany. You know, an admirable man, measured, sensible, cultured, all of this kind of thing. And Bethlehem Holbeck, said he was the Abraham Lincoln of Germany. An admirable man, measured, sensible, cultured, all of this kind of thing. And Bethlenholweg, when he listens to Kaiser explains what's going on, he says, yeah, I mean, fair enough. We'll stand by the Austrians. That'll

work to deter the Russians. Let them have their crack at Serbia. So they're all agreed. The next morning, Monday the 6th, the Kaiser goes off on holiday. And there are some historians who say this is a sign of just how sinister and Machiavellian the Germans are, that they all go on holiday to fool everybody into thinking there's not going to be a world war. I think the Germans don't think there's going to be a world war, and so they go on holiday. And doesn't the Kaiser say, as a reason for thinking this, that the Tsar won't side with the regicides. Yeah, he does.

So ultimately, the Russians will kick up a fuss. But because of that detail, because he can't imagine Nikki backing regicides, it will be all right. Absolutely, he thinks that, Tom. I don't think you can make sense of what happens in all this without thinking that the Germans and the Austrians, like the Russians later on, genuinely think they're in the right. They think that virtue and decency and reason are on their side and that the reasonable person will look at their case and say, fair enough. Regicides have

to be punished. Terrorism cannot be allowed to flourish unchecked, all of this kind of thing. Well, we're familiar with that kind of argument, aren't we? Of course we are. Of course we are. So this is effectively the blank check. Right. So this is the famous blank check. Yeah. Because the Chancellor, Bethman, goes to see the ambassador, or they have a meeting, and he says, just to confirm everything the Kaiser has said to you, we will stand behind you, go for it, whatever happens. And it's your call. It's not our call because it's not our business. It is your call. And whatever you decide, we are your friend and we are with you. But Dominic, just to be clear, the Germans

basically don't think that they are giving a blank check because they think that this will be a local war. They don't think that they're saying, yeah, we're with you and let's have a world war and brilliant. No, we'll come to this because this is a slightly more complicated issue. Right. And I ask that because probably people listening to this will be aware of something called the Schlieffen Plan. They'll be aware of kind of talk that Germany has been preparing for a war of conquest against France and against Russia and has been embroiled in a naval race against Britain. So should we take a break at this point? And when we come back, let's look at each of those scenarios

and find how accurate they are. Tom, I would love nothing more than to take a break now. And we can talk about this when we come back. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host

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Germany has just issued Austria the notorious blank check. And Dominic, often, and I have to say that this is how I've always understood it, that this is essentially the expression of a German establishment that is keen for war. But having reread Christopher Clarke's great book, The Sleepwalkers, in preparation for this, and having read all your notes, I'm now doubtful. Oh, Tom, I hate to be the person who sows doubt in your mind. So can we tease this myth? First of all, Britain.

Yeah. Because certainly here, the idea that the Kaiser is gagging for war because of various insults that he's received and so on. How accurate is that? There has been Anglo-German antagonism. And when we get onto Britain in this story in a couple of episodes time, we will talk about this in greater detail. But by and large, the general sense in 1914 is that relations haven't been brilliant, but they are now definitely on an upwards curve. We're getting along much better.

You mentioned Haldane, this guy Haldane, the war minister who had a mission in 1912, hadn't he? Yes. That had been aborted. Yes. There had been efforts going back to the days of Joseph Chamberlain in British politics by people who said, we have a lot in common with the Germans. And actually, they would be a really good natural ally for us. And it just hasn't worked out for various reasons, small things, but also actually, the British don't ultimately think they've got that much to gain from an alliance with Germany compared with an alliance with France and Russia, which

will solve a lot of problems for them. For reasons that we will see when we get to Britain. Yes. But by and large, most Germans are now working for good relations with Britain. They want good relations. And the Kaiser, I mean, he's going off on his holiday on his yacht. Yeah. And he's going to be hanging out with British officers at regattas, isn't he?

He is. So this is the curious thing with the Kaiser. Nobody in history has ever spoken more of their contempt for Britain than the Kaiser. But at the same time, he desperately wants Britain's admiration, affection, respect, and all those kinds of things. He wants the British to be his friend and to take him seriously. When they don't, he's full of bitterness and anger. But I don't think there was any sense whatsoever. I mean, we will see throughout this story, actually, let's be honest. The last thing that most German policymakers, including people in the military, want is war with Britain because they don't want to have to face the British Navy and the British economy and British industry and

the empire and all of that kind of stuff. What is a different story is Russia. Lots of Germans think that war with Russia in the long run is inevitable. So they've grown up in that world of the late 19th century where people talk in terms of races and inevitable racial struggles. So Teutons against Slavs. Teutons against Slavs. And they think, well, this is inevitable. It will come one day. And they think that every day that passes the odds turn more and more against them because russia is this enormous country with a massive army double the size of the german army it's getting bigger all the time but also russia hitherto very backward is modernizing

industrializing building railways rearming all of this stuff to give you a small example in the summer of 1914 the kaiser read an article in a Russian newspaper that had been planted by the Russian war ministry. And it was a boastful article about how they were rearming and how they had all this modern equipment and they were going to have a massive army in a few years' time that would be three times bigger than Germany's army. And he writes in the margin and he says, oh, the Russians have put their cars on the table. He says anybody who thinks that the Russians and their French friends are not planning a war against us should be in a lunatic asylum. Right. So Russia is in alliance with France. Yes. We should just remind people of that as well. Which is why, of course, Tom, the Germans feel encircled because they look West and there's the French, they look East and there's the Russians. So really their only allies, great power allies, is Austria-Hungary. Yeah.

And even with the Austria-Hungarian army, they're still outnumbered by the Russians on their own and excluding France, let alone Britain. I'm glad you raised that point because, of course, what that tells you is that's one reason why they issued that blank check. Because they have only one real reliable friend. If you have only one friend and you don't stand by that one friend, then you have no friends. Right. And this, of course, will be a consideration for Britain in relation to France. Of course. So these are also for Britain in relation to France. Of course. So these are also important factors in explaining what happens.

Yes, absolutely. To me, the really striking thing about the Germans before 1914, there is a lot of strutting and a lot of spikes on helmets and all that sort of stuff. But actually, the really striking thing is the general mood is one of pessimism and melancholy and a kind of fatalism. So Bethman Holbeck, the chancellor, one of his aides, there's an incredible diary entry just a few days later, 7th of July. And he says, yesterday I was with the Reich chancellor.

We were in his old chateau, the great trees. There's a massive sense he hasn't got over his wife's death and melancholy and a restraint in landscape and people. And he says they talked about the world situation. Russia's military power growing rapidly. Austria continually weakening and more immobile. Austria, our last decent ally. In general, blindness all around, a thick fog over the people. The future belongs to Russia, which grows and grows and becomes for us an ever more oppressive nightmare. And so I know that this is very complicated and that

lots of historians now say that there was no such thing, but the Schlieffen plan, this idea that there should be a rapid war against France to knock France out, and then you turn your forces and go to Russia. And that this kind of rapid war, because you have to bring France to defeat very early, would necessitate the German army moving through Belgium. Is this a thing? Are they talking about it? Are they preparing for it? Because that's very much, I think, the vague sense that people might have in their heads. It's a complicated question. But the first thing to say is everybody has plans. So the French have plans. You have bureaucratized militaries in a way that you maybe didn't have

a hundred years earlier, where they have exercises, they have maneuvers, they have very complicated strategies and tactics that they have worked out. Warfare has become intellectualized, I guess. And as a result of that, they do have war scenarios and plans drawn up. And obviously, if you are the Germans, you have to fight one of those two people first, either France or Russia. And their sense is France is the more dangerous adversary because it's much more industrialized and much more modern.

Deal with them first. And then we turn back to this great lumbering leviathan. Behemoth in the east. Yeah, of Russia in the east. But basically, if we've already knocked out France, we just do what we can then on the eastern front, and eventually we'll beat the Russians. And that's the way of doing it. Are they planning to launch this plan?

Are they itching to get started? I think that is the wrong way of looking at it, because they are so gloomy. And a lot of them, when they talk about a future war, which they do all the time, the German generals, they think a war is coming. But when they talk about it, they're not, what are you going to wear at the victory parade for it? No, there's this incredible vein of fatalism. I mean, it amazed me reading all these German generals when they talk about the prospect of war. And they do kind of say, yeah, it's inevitable, we're going to have to have it. But they're not doing it really in any tone of triumphalism. It's kind of, we're probably going to be defeated and annihilated, but it's better to go down fighting

kind of tone. Yeah, I think so. Because they're looking all the time at Russia and they're thinking, you know, the time to fight the Russians was 1890 or something. In 1920, the Russians will be so much more industrialized and they'll have fantastic railways and the French will lend them all this money to buy new guns and stuff. And if there is, as they think, an inevitable racial conflict coming between Teuton and Slav, they think there's a lot more Slavs than there are us. And the law of nature is struggle and we're for the chop. So at this point, are there members of the German staff who think this is a chance to beat Russia while we have the opportunity?

If we leave it a few more years, then, you know, we'll be doomed. We might as well crack on. Again, a complicated question, Tom. Sorry to give you a very nuanced answer because I know we hate nuanced answers on The Rest Is History. No, I love that answer. Well, here's the thing. What do they think will happen? Some of them think the Austrians won't actually follow through with this. So I mentioned Erich von Falkenhayn, who later becomes the German

kind of supreme commander for a brief time in the First World War. Falkenhayn says, you know, the Austrians are all talk, but ultimately, you know, it's all just cakes and Mozart with them. They're not going to follow through with this. Then most of the people think the Austrians will actually follow through this time, but the Russians won't join in. Now, there are some people who say, I mean, they're not idiots, right? They think there's always a chance the Russians might join in. But they say, well, listen, if that happens, there is no better time than now. So you can understand the logic of that. In our own lives, we will have had situations where we say, I don't really want this to

happen, but if it is going to happen, well, better to do it now than to do it later. It's a little bit like that stupid thing that people say when you're in a football tournament and you say, well, we don't want to draw Brazil in the second round. And then somebody says, yeah, but you've got to play them at some point, haven't you? Better to play them early on. That's the way they think about the Russians. We don't really want to be drawn against them, but we've got to play them at some point. So why not now?

Let's just do it. And I think they think if the Russians do get stuck in now, that will prove that they hate us and they were always going to do that. So it's better to do it now, actually. But it's a defensive mentality, even though they're planning a war of aggression. And this is a paradox that runs throughout the build-up to the outbreak of the war. Yeah, it's such a good point. And actually, we've done obviously series about the rise of the Nazis.

And I don't think you understand the mentality in Germany after the war unless you realise that the Germans genuinely thought they were fighting a defensive war. I mean, all their rhetoric when the war starts is, we have been forced to draw the sword. We didn't want to. We are surrounded. That sense that you mentioned of being encircled and the Schlieffen plan is their way out, that's massively, massively important to them and their sense of right being on their side. Nobody whatsoever, really, in Germany in the Great War thinks we are the bad guys in this war. They think it's been forced upon them by a malevolent Russia. Anyway, at this point, they don't think there is going to be a

world war, of course. Falkenhayn says to Wilhelm, Wilhelm's bags are packed and he's about to go off. He's got his yachting shoes and he's got all his stuff. And he says, shall I make some preparations just in case? And Wilhelm explicitly says, no, preparations for what? There isn't going to be a war. So off he goes on his Baltic cruise. Bethlehem, the Chancellor, he goes back to his country estate to kind of stroll and think about Plato. General von Moltke has spent the whole time surrounded by hideous sulfuric waters.

Large men slapping his shoulders. Exactly. Terrible scenes. Probably the worst scenes in this whole series of a German spa. So now some people would say, all very cunning from the Germans, of course. They're lulling everybody into it. But I don't think that's right at all. I think they genuinely don't think this is going to lead to a conflagration.

Hoyos returns and the ambassador telegraphs back to Vienna. And the people in Vienna, they think this is absolutely brilliant, of course, because they've got the blank check. Do what you like. You know, we're not even going to try and influence you. A lot of historians would say, very irresponsible of the Germans to give the Austrians this blank check. But for Berchtold and General Conrad, they say, tremendous. Shall we crack on and do it? But they can't, can they? Because it's Austro-Hungary and everything takes eight months to do anything. Exactly. I mean, this is the weird thing, right? So Thomas Otte in his book, July Crisis,

he is quite old school and he blames the Austrians and the Germans for the First World War. But even in this book, he says, listen, if they had attacked Serbia, you know, the next day, there would have been no world war. Would they have been in a position to do that though? No, they're disorganized. So it's an irrelevant argument, isn't it? I suppose it is. But it makes the point that a shock has happened. And for the Austrians, the shock doesn't really fade. They are still nursing their sense of hurt.

But for everybody else, it has faded. Now, their whole system, as you said, it's not just that it's slow by accident. It is built by design to be slow because the whole basis of Austria-Hungary is a massive compromise. It's a compromise largely between Austria and Hungary, but also they have to take into account the Croats and the Slovenes and the Ukrainians and the Poles and all these other people in their empire. So everything proceeds in a very, very nuanced, negotiated, kind of conflict-avoiding, bureaucratic way. That's the

way it works. It's a bit like the EU or something. And as a result of that, they meet on the 7th of July, and they still don't make a decision because the Hungarian prime minister, who we talked about last time, Istvan Tisza, he is still very reluctant. And he says, actually, do you know what? I know the Germans are kind of up for this, but I still think it would be better to humiliate Serbia diplomatically. And the Kaiser's option of just occupying Belgrade, everyone's forgotten about that by this point. No, this hasn't been raised at this point. So the Kaiser will bring that up later on. He'll say, why do you have to have a huge war? Why don't you just make a punitive expedition? And do you know what? The Kaiser gets, he doesn't always get a lot of respect

in this podcast, but this is probably the best idea the Kaiser ever had. But people ignore it. People think he's just being mad again. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. Well, I have some sympathy with that. Those Hohenzollern parallels again. Just an endless stream of brilliant ideas that have dogged you ever since you started this podcast.

Yeah. Right. So on the 8th of July, we're now well over a week since the assassination, the Austrians draw up a new plan that they think will basically persuade Count Tisza, the Hungarian prime minister. And they say, look, here's what we'll do. We won't just attack Serbia. We will give them an ultimatum listing all our

grievances and we will make an ultimatum, and I quote, with demands that Serbia can scarcely be willing to fulfill. Then either war or such a humiliation for Serbia that she is eliminated as a factor for some time. In other words, we'll give them this ultimatum and they won't accept it. If they do accept it, they'll be completely humiliated. And if they don't accept it, we can strike them then. And do you know what? Still, they don't do anything. Still, the days go by because Tisa is now making up his mind. And he's like, oh, I'll think about it. And he thinks about it for almost another week until finally on the 14th of July. So we are now more than two weeks after the assassination, he goes to see the German ambassador and he says, well, I've made up my mind.

Let's do this. So you think, finally. Do they go for it? No, of course not. They're actually hungry. Oh. Of course they don't do it. So now they have two other issues.

One is their railway network is not built for swift mobilization. So at some point, I think they said to Conrad, well, great, you've been asking for this war for so long. When would you like to start it? He's like, 1916? Does it have to be this decade? So Dominic, just on the issue of mobilization, important to talk about this because obviously this affects all the various competence in the war. There are two issues really, aren't there? So there's the railways and A.J.P. Taylor said it happens because the railway timetables can't be changed. And the other thing is it's July, it's coming up to August and this is harvest time. And so that is a real problem if you're doing a mass mobilisation that you may risk the harvest. Absolutely a massive issue, Tom. And both those things are really important. In an age of partially mechanized, industrialized warfare, you need to get your men to the front.

And you cannot afford to do that after somebody else. If they're at the front and you aren't, and you're trudging along the lanes, curtains, you're beaten. So mobilizing your men, which means basically getting them moving, getting them to the front lines, is massively, massively important. If you are Germany, let's say, and you're looking at that massive Russian army much bigger than yours, speed is the essence for you. You can't hang around, as we'll see later on. The issue of the timetables and people going the wrong way on the network and all that stuff, that's actually really important. If you've set your army in train to basically commandeer the whole network and sending them off to the west, you can't then suddenly say,

oh, actually, I've changed my mind. Oh, let's send them east. I mean, that's not how trains work. But also you can see why a mobilization that precedes the mobilization of a potential adversary might be seen as a defensive measure by the person who's doing it. Of course. And we're mobilizing just in case. But of course, if your opponent mobilises just in case, you can't not mobilise yourself, because what if they then attack you? So it's kind of a doomsday machine. It is. Exactly that. Now, as you said, the other thing about the harvest, Austria-Hungary is a farming country, vast tracts of farms dominated by these big landowners and magnates who are often involved in politics. And they have basically persuaded the army to give their men farming leave so that in the summer,

they'll all go back to their hometowns and they're helped with the harvest. And right now, Conrad says, everyone's like, great, finally we can do it. And he says, yeah, there is just one thing actually. So a lot of big places in the empire, Zagreb, Br budapest krakow the soldiers have all gone home and they won't be back until the end of july now he could recall them now but if he did that everybody in europe would know that there's going to be a war so he doesn't want to do that because that kind of gives the game away and what is worse they work out that the end of the harvest leave kind of overlaps with a visit, a state visit, by the leaders of France to St. Petersburg between the 20th and the 23rd of July. And if they attack

Serbia then, then Serbia's best pals will be together in St. Petersburg and will be able to coordinate their response perfectly. So from the Austrian point of view, that's obviously bonkers. You don't want to cause a great hullabaloo when they are actually having a summit, as it were, the French and the Russians, because they will be offended by it, but also they'll react to it straight away then and there. So they say, okay, well, fine, we'll have to get everybody back from the harvest. Then we'll have to wait for the French to leave St. Petersburg. So actually, now that we look at it, the Thursday, the 23rd of July,

which is the day the French leave St. Petersburg and the troops will be back from the harvest, that's when we'll deliver the ultimatum. So basically, by this point, everyone else has forgotten about assassination. Of course. We know how the news cycle works. It's no different in 1914. A month afterwards, it will almost be exactly a month that they'll give them the ultimatum. A month afterwards, that's yesterday's news. So there's the issue that it's delayed and they've lost all the shock and the speed. The other thing that is absolutely astounding, even though I'm a bit of an Austrophile and

a Habsburgophile. Are you, Dominic? Yeah. I hadn't noticed. Love a Sasha Torta, Tom. I love the music of Marla. Can I just say how thrilled I am to learn from your notes that Berktold's private Viennese mansion was called the Strudelhof?

I know. I mean, that seems so improbable. What I love about this whole story is that everybody behaves. According to every stereotype going. The Kaiser is sort of blustering, crying and shouting at various points. When we introduced the British. They're all fishing. Or playing bridge or something.

Yeah. The French are just behaving in a Machiavellian way, but there's also enormous amounts of stress with the French about their cuisine. Yes, yes. And about the details of banquets. The soup. The soup is the wrong soup. Yeah.

All this stuff. And of course, the Austrians all live in the strudelhoff and have ridiculous names so so the question with the austrians right is do they not think that this could go horribly wrong and the weird thing is in all these meetings we don't forget they've had like a billion meetings about this where they decided nothing but as chris clark says in the sleepwalkers they never ever really talk about what will happen if the russians attack them even if the russians don't attack do they have a kind of an end game? No, they have no exit strategy. I mean, you know, George W. Bush, take note.

They have no plan for what will happen when it's over. So they still haven't really agreed what they will do with Serbia. Tisza, the Hungarian guy, is still very much against annexing it. But as we've seen, there are other people like Count Hoyos who are like, let's actually partition Serbia and take bits of it for ourselves. By the way, this is all predicated

on the idea that the Austrians will smash Serbia. And actually, we won't really get into this in this series. But actually, when the Austrians

do attack Serbia, they are utterly humiliated and forced back into Austria. Although in the long run, Serbia loses more than anybody. Yeah. But I mean, that's down to the fact that the Germans have to bail out the Austrians as

much as anything. Anyway, Chris Clark has this wonderful line. It says, the Austrians resembled hedgehogs scurrying across a highway with their eyes averted from the onrushing traffic. Because often when they're having these discussions, it's like, have they forgotten that Russia exists? Because they're not even mentioning it at all. And how do you explain that? One possibility

is that they're so dazzled by Germany's military prowess that they think the Russians would never dare. And you can sort of see in the Cold War, client states of the United States or the Soviet Union might think that about their own patron. Cuba might think that about the USSR in the 1960s. No one will dare mess with us. Not incorrectly. Yeah, because we've got a very powerful friend. And I think an important thing with the Austrians, I think a lot of them genuinely think they have nothing to lose. That fatalism that we talked about the Germans is in their soul as well.

They think their empire is in danger of breaking up. They just think if we don't do this now, what's the point? We might as well just leave the game. But also Chris Clark makes this point. And I think it's, again, as I've said before, I don't think it's one that a lot of historians appreciate enough. The Austrians are so convinced that they are right, they just think, this point that you made, the Tsar, why would he support regicide terrorists? Sure, the Russians have different interests from us, but they will surely recognize the

heir to our throne and his wife have been shot in cold blood. Of course, the Russians will eventually say, yeah, fair enough. And if they do turn out to be terrorist-loving monsters, then the Germans will just deal with them. So actually, we don't need to give them any thoughts at all. And in fact, I mean, unbelievably, they basically leave their eastern border undefended against the Russians because they're just like, well, yeah, let's not even think about that. Let's just concentrate on Serbia. What's the worst that could go wrong? We could lose our entire empire. The dynasty breaks up and it's all been for nothing.

Yeah. But they don't really envisage that. So on the 21st of July, Berchtold and Count Hoyos, they go to Bad Ischl, which is the sort of nice lakeside resort. Is there a spa? Almost certainly there'll be a spa, Tom. Yeah. It's probably one of those places where there's a big casino and a promenade. You know, people are strolling with parasols.

Concert halls. Yeah, absolutely. The faint strains of violins drifting across the lake. A Johann Strauss waltz. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. You told me when we first were going to do this series, Tom, I don't want to give the game away on the inside,

machinations of the rest is history, but you wanted to make it 28 episodes, was it? I did. Yes, I did. So this is my Kaiser-esque plan. We'd focus on the politics, but we didn't leave it with episodes called A Riding School in Vienna or A Cricket Match at Hove.

Yeah. Little vignettes of the life that is about to be lost. I still think that would have been fun. Well, I mean, you've got it now, right? No. People are waltzing on the shores of Bad Ischow. Could have had a whole episode on this. But Dominic, like the German military staff that he is, overruled me, the headstrong Kaiser.

There was no blank check there, Tom. It's fair to say so anyway as the last strains of anton brookner are dying away in the distance they hand over the ultimatum to the emperor and we will describe the ultimatum in a subsequent episode and franz joseph says when he sees it he says it's actually quite harsh like it's really harsh and he says to them right then and there there's no way the Russians will tolerate this. You know, this is very, very harsh. But then in that Austrian way, he says, yeah, but let's forget about the Russians.

Ah, it's crack on. Whatever. Let's do it anyway. Berchtold said in his diary, the emperor was fully alive to the profound seriousness, even the tragedy of the current historical moment. But what an ironic line that is, because of course they have no idea, Tom, of just how serious and just how tragic that moment would turn out to be. Right. Well, another brilliant episode, Dominic. Thank you. And we will find out what happens next on the road to war in our third episode when we'll be looking at views from russia and from france so not as planned a boating party in berlin which was your original plan for episode no we

could have been having that we could have been having maybe a governess in monmart strong words in the nursery but instead we're going to have french diplomats and we will be introducing some excellent french ambassadors if you like comic French ambassadors, this series is definitely the one for you. So they will be featuring on our next episode. And if you're a member of the Restless History Club, you can of course get that and everything else that follows the whole series right now. And if you're not, you can sign up and get it at therestlesshistory.com. So till next time, goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen. I'm Marina Hyde.

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