473. The Road to The Great War: The Tsar Chooses War (Part 5)

Will you kindly accept, as birthday present, a watercolour sketch made by a clever Corfu painter, representing the Achilleion, seen from the olive grove at the foot of the hill. We spent a lovely time there, under a blue sky, surrounded by sweet scents and flowers, sitting on the marble terraces in the shade of fine palm trees. Oh, I hope that once I may be able to show you this paradise when you chance to be yachting in the Mediterranean. The island is lovely and the people quiet, simple, and very polite. And no tourists!

Now, goodbye, dearest Nikki. Best love to Alex and the children, especially the boy. God bless and protect you. Au revoir, I hope. And believe me, ever, your most affectionate and devoted friend and cousin, Vili." So, Dominic, that is a most charming letter, isn't it?

Full of love, of flowers, of the landscape, of beautiful Corfu, generosity of spirit, watercolours. And people may be wondering, who is this charming man who has sent this delightful letter, this lover of watercolours, of the flowers of Greece? And it's our old friend, the Kaiser.

So this one is five years before the outbreak of war. These messages are kind of semi-public, semi-private. All the stuff about, give my love to Alex and the children, that's obviously a private and genuine message. But foreign office officials would help the various emperors draft these messages and put in them sentiments about avoiding war and about settling diplomatic disputes and so on. There's a couple of other interesting things in this one, which I found online.

So the Kaiser says in this letter, he says, when I went to Corfu, I was really looking forward to a proper holiday because I worked so hard. And then he says, but when we got there, we found out there's a revolution in Constantinople. So I had to do lots of paperwork. And he says to him, we poor rulers, it seems, are not entitled to holidays like on a simple morgue. The note of self-pity is so amusing.

And then the other thing that appealed to me, the Kaiser is furious. He says, the papers, I work for peace, as do you. But the newspapers are always stirring up antagonism between our two countries. And, he says, a lot of newspaper writers, a lot of commentators and columnists just are completely ignorant, but more dangerous. And at the same time, more loathsome is that part of the press, which writes what it is paid for.

They incite the hostility of one nation against another. And when it lasts through the hellish devices, they have brought about the much desired collision. They placidly sit down to watch the fight. So Dominic, as an erstwhile columnist in the.

And the Kaiser absolutely loves it. Have you been?

And you're upskirting. It's very difficult to avoid gazing up at the buttocks.

And he was there in 1914.

. Really? So, his happy place, I think. So, in the past, they have written to each other,

And the foreign minister, they say to General Conrad, who's been pressing for war all this time, right, are you ready? And I know we're going to have to wait till 1922.. He says, I'm kind of ready. I think we should probably start in mid-August would be ideal for me. That would suit me.

Would that work for you? And they're like, what? They thought he was going to start straight away. So actually, across Europe, there is a sense, even after the expiry of the ultimatum, we can work this out. We can get back from this.

So if you'd stop the clock at that point, Sunday, the 26th of July, and said to some of these policymakers, will there be a world war? I think a lot of them would have said, there might, but I'm hopeful, I have to be optimistic that we can somehow sort all this out. So, for example, we talked last time about Sir Edward Gray, the British foreign secretary, he has put on the table a scheme for mediation, which is basically, there'll be a sort of court, as it were, of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, and they will adjudicate the dispute between Austria and Serbia. Of course, what he doesn't know is that the window of opportunity for that, insofar it ever existed, is closing very fast, as the different nations are kind of hardening their position. And the next day, the Monday, the 27th, the Germans are pretty clear that they will never go along with this.

And they say, look, we cannot support this because we will be dragging our one ally and friend before a court. It needs to be arbitrated. And actually, the Austrians have been very hard done by it. The air has been shot. They are entitled to take defensive measures.

And I think you get the first sense that day, which is the Monday, that Gray himself is beginning to lose patience and to realize that actually this might not be a success. So he actually makes it public. for the first time. He goes into the commons and says, this is my plan. I want to have a conference in London.

I want to mediate. And he says, again, giving the lie to those critics who say old men took the world into war and they thought it'd be over by Christmas and it would be a great laugh and a jamboree. Gray says explicitly, if we don't get this right, if we don't sort it out, it will end in the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen the continent of Europe. And the cabinet, when they talk about it that evening in Britain, the mood is very gloomy. And actually, a lot of the liberals say, a guy called John Burns, who was the president of the World Trade, why four great powers should fight over Serbia, no fellow can understand.

But four, not five, right? Four, not five. Exactly.

She's not even really his girlfriend. I mean, she's his daughter's friend. And he says, Grey wants to have this conference. The Germans don't want to do it. The only real hope is that Austria and Russia may come to a deal.

But then he ends the letter. That's a pretty quiet evening at the house. I'm actually going to get Violet, that's his daughter, to beat up one or two people to dine at home and play bridge. So, you know, I'm not going to let this bother me. I'm not going to let this distract me from my important card games routine.

I mean, to be fair, you might.

I like it. Okay. All right. But maybe we should bring the Kaiser back onto stage.

This is personal for you.

It's all been smiles and sort of handshakes and stuff. And then he's gone off to Norway. Now, all this time, he has been interested in the case because he's been telegraphing, as is always his way. He's been sending unwanted advice to other European royals.

There is no doubt about that. When they present him, so when he's in that chair, and they present him with the text of the ultimatum, he says to the sort of head of his naval staff, Admiral Muller, he says, well, what do you know? It's a firm note after all. In other words, he's surprised that the Austrians have not just wimped out a bit, which deep down he seems to have expected them to do. Admiral Muller says, I actually think this could mean war.

I don't see how we back down from this. And Wilhelm says, oh, no, no, no. The Serbs would never risk a war against Austria and the Russians would never pile in. And Admiral Muller thinks at the time he is deluding himself because he just cannot bring himself to contemplate the reality.

So on Monday, the 27th, so it's now a day and a half after the expiry of the ultimatum, he arrives back in Germany. His chancellor, Theobald Bethmann-Holweg, has said to him, please don't come to Berlin. Don't come into the center of the city. There will be demonstrations of support for you. There will be very excited crowds who think that you're coming back to declare war or something.

We can't afford anything like that. You go to your palace in Potsdam. And the Kaiser is very displeased about this. He says, this is getting madder. Now that man instructs me, I may not show myself to my people.

But he does as he's told. He goes to his palace and everybody there, the general sense is, this is going to be a bit tricky, but there will not be a world war. His aide to camp, his adjutant, Hans von Plessen, writes in his diary, the Austrians aren't even ready to get going. We hope to localize the war. England declares that she wishes to remain neutral.

This is the belief in Berlin. at this point. They have listened to Prince Lichnowsky telling them, oh, Edward Grey feels a bit of sympathy for Austria. He doesn't want a war. And so they tell themselves, the British are definitely going to stay out.

And Hans von Plessen writes, I have the impression that nothing much will come of this matter. Which almost exactly echoes Asquith. Yeah, exactly. So this is what they are all telling themselves. Now they have, of course, bargained without the Kaiser wading in.

He can't stop himself. Like you, Tom, he gets up very early. So on Tuesday, the 28th of July, he's also a sportsman like you. Yeah. He goes riding every day at 7.30 in the morning.

Commendable behavior. But before then, he always does his paperwork. Again, commendable behavior. He's dutiful. And he goes through all the paperwork from three weeks while he's been on holiday.

And towards the bottom is the Serbian reply to the ultimatum. Chris Clarke, I think, calls it a perfumed rejection of the Austrian. The Kaiser, because he's a bit of a fool, opens it and says, oh, my God, this is unbelievable. I can't believe this. The Serbians have accepted everything.

And he actually says, and I quote, a brilliant achievement for a deadline of a mere 48 hours. This is more than one could expect. A great moral victory for Vienna. It removes every reason for war. And he says that the Austrian ambassador, Gisle, could have stayed in Belgrade.

Well, I would never have ordered mobilization in response. The Austrians haven't actually ordered mobilization at this point. But this is somebody, it seems to me, the very hostile view of the Kaiser that you get from, say, his biographer, John C. Ruhl, who says, oh, the Kaiser is a monster and he's itching for war. These aren't the words, to me, of a man itching for war.

These are actually the words of a man who can't wait to grab the chance of peace.

Okay, fine. Yeah. And we'll take you where you were. And actually we.

And the Kaiser says, well, I have a brilliant idea. I mean, he's a great ideas, man, as we know. He says, given that Belgrade, as you have reminded us, Tom, channeling the Kaiser is so close to the Austrian frontier. And Belgrade, by the way, is now partially deserted because people have fled Belgrade and the Serbians are preparing to move the government south. So the Kaiser says, well, why don't the Austrians just cross the river, go into Belgrade, occupy it peacefully?

I think it's a brilliant idea. He says the Serbs are orientals and therefore deceitful and false. That's a quote. It's not me saying it. He says that you need a deposit, as it were.

And what better than Belgrade? Yeah. I came up with this idea, didn't I?

This is what they should do. Just occupy Belgrade. Well, I mean,

Anyway, the trouble is, of course, the Kaiser has come up with mad ideas in the past, a podcast on Chatham high street, invading Puerto Rico. Yeah. All of these. But what if they're not mad? I mean,

So Eric von Falkenhayn, the Prussian war minister, says yet again, he is making senseless utterances. Yeah. Well, this sounds very familiar. That show clearly he does not want war any longer. He's quite happy to leave Austria in the lurch.

You see, this is the issue. They've defined it as we have to be supportive, loyal friend, our honor and prestige are bound up with this. And now for the Kaiser to say, actually, I've kind of changed my mind. Why don't the Austrians just have a little dig at Serbia and then stop? A lot of his own men say, I'm not going to sell this to the Austrians.

Yeah. This will annoy our only ally. So actually they do transmit the idea, but in an incredibly vague and half-hearted way. And the Austrians just say, well, we have no interest in this. And the reason they have no interest in it is twofold.

Number one, they say this actually won't fix the problem. We'll take the city, but the Serbs will all have got away. And all of those bad guys, Apis and the Black Hand and all of those people. But they don't know about them, do they? They don't know about them, but they know there's somebody like them.

They'll all be swanning around a niche in the South of Serbia and we won't have got our hands on them. Kind of.

Why not? They want to bypass the capital and they want to wipe out the Serbian army. That's what General Conrad wants to do. He wants to invade from the West. So actually, they say, let's just ignore the Kaiser.

Tom, is this at all familiar? It is. Let's just pretend, this never happened and he'll forget about it and move on to something else. Yeah. All these WhatsApp messages I never see.

Yeah. Now, meanwhile, some of the Kaiser's generals are now actively preparing for war. And this is a chance to bring on stage another slightly bizarre character, who is the German chief of staff, the man in charge of the war plans, who, at this very moment, while the Kaiser is going around telling everybody about his brilliant scheme, this guy, Helmut Moltke, the Younger, is writing his big report on the military situation, how they're going to deal with it. And everybody in this story has kind of demons, skeletons, in their closet, shadows. Melancholia.

Yeah, melancholia. So Helmut Moltke, the Younger, his uncle, was the guy who'd won the Franco-Prussian war. And he lives in the shadow of his uncle and everybody, basically all his life, has said, he's all right, but he's not as good as his uncle. And he's had to live with that. He's also, he's a cellist.

Well, he's German, so he's bound to play a musical instrument. He's very melancholy. He's a Christian scientist. I don't actually really know what a Christian scientist is, but he also very keen on the occult and spiritualism. So he's a admirer of someone called Madame Blavatsky.

Are you familiar with her work? Yeah, I am. Theosophy. Yeah. Theosophy.

So he believes in reincarnation, but all of this means that Moltke is incredibly pessimistic and fatalistic. He sort of thinks whatever will happen will happen. It'll all end.

Yeah. And I guess he's, he's the kind of embodiment of it, isn't he?

And just eating like pieces of celery. So that hasn't added to his general jollity one jot. And all that sulfur in the water. Yeah. Not good for the bowels.

Precisely. So. he's been going around for years saying, you know, we'll have to fight the Russians one day, the sooner, the better. If we wait any longer, we'll be absolutely crushed. And right now, he says, this whole crisis has been engineered by the French and the Russians.

Clearly, they encircle us. They're about to attack us. We should make preparations right away. You know, dig out our plan to strike West, all of this stuff. And yet the extraordinary thing is, even in this memo, he says at the end, you know, we should prepare for the conflict.

It's inevitable and it will annihilate the civilization of all Europe, but you know, why not? Whatever. Let's go for it. Yeah. Well, we have to go for it, because if we don't, we will be wiped from the map.

It's a strange, fatalistic bellicosity, isn't it? Yeah. I think they see themselves as almost like Wagnerian heroes, you know, good to Dammerung or something. They will be consumed by fire, but at least they can die sword in hand. Songs will be sung of them in ages to come.

Exactly. Exactly. So. this is what's going on in Berlin. But actually, interestingly, Moltke and the war minister, Falkenhayn want to have military preparations right now, but the chancellor says no.

The civilians are still in charge. So it's not quite true, as some people think that, you know, Germany is effectively a military dictatorship in all but name. That's not right. The civilians are still in charge and they say, we do not want to alarm Russia. So we won't mobilize.

We won't do any of that just yet. Meanwhile, the Austrians have finally, unbelievably got their act together. So it's now Tuesday, the 28th of July, exactly a month since the murder of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. Franz Joseph signs the declaration of war on Serbia with a quill pen and ostrich feather quill in his study at Bad Ischl. Like everybody, this sets the tone.

His proclamation, which is in 10 different languages, of course, a multilingual, multi-ethnic empire. And he says, we have been forced to draw the sword. We didn't want to, but we're surrounded by an enemy, filled with hatred. And, you know, we're doing this with great reluctance, but it's our only course. Defensive aggression.

Defensive aggression, exactly. Now, unbelievably, it's only at this point, after they've done it, after they've declared war, that Count Berkatov, the foreign minister, says to General Conrad, just to check, if the Russians do intervene, it's only just occurred to me, actually, that that's a plausible.

So I'm sure it'll be OK. So if we just stop the story at this point, 28th of July, what are the plausible outcomes? So one possibility, of course, is having declared war. The Austrians then don't do anything. This is a kind of slightly Kaiser scenario.

Or maybe they just go into Belgrade across the bridge or bridges and then stop. That's my plan. That's what I would have done. That's your plan. Of course, they don't want to do that.

They think that would be humiliating and weird when they've been gearing up, as it were, literally to root out the terrorists. That's what they're doing. It's like America in Afghanistan after 9-11.. If you don't get the terrorists, what was the point in doing it in the first place? So that's option number one.

Option number two is the Austrians do attack and miraculously, the Russians don't intervene. So the Russians do back down. And we have already described how unlikely that is. And we will see how the Russians do respond. And, of course, option number three is a world war.

And even at this point, I think a world war option is by far the most likely of the possible options. Because that, very afternoon after the Austrian declaration of war in St. Petersburg, a couple of people who we talked about two episodes ago, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov, and the ludicrous French ambassador, Maurice Palliologue, the guy who writes fake reports.

And he says, you've already signed an order to mobilize the four Western military districts, Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, and Kazan. Now, I would like you to agree to sign an order in principle for general mobilization of our armies. In other words, get them onto the railways, start moving them towards the frontier, all military preparations. Because if we don't, and the central powers, Germany and Austria strike first, it will be too late. So in other words, we have to steal a march and then we have to get going now.

And Nicholas, as he goes to bed that night, he has that choice hanging over him. We can just do a partial mobilization, which will just be sending a signal to the Austrians and the Germans or general, which is kind of, I mean, it's more than a signal. That is basically taking a very big step towards war. So he goes to bed that night, Tuesday the 28th. Then in the early hours, Wednesday, the 29th, just after midnight, suddenly there was this massive explosion outside Belgrade.

And what has happened is a group of Serbians under a character from our Sarajevo series, Major Vojislav Tankovic. So one of these key figures in grooming and arming the killers, Princip and his gang, they blow up the railway bridge, which is the crucial link between Belgrade and Austria-Hungary. So there's this huge explosion that is kind of reverberating around Belgrade. And then, shortly afterwards, three Austro-Hungarian river warships come into view through the darkness. And they are at the point where the Sarva meets the Danube, right opposite this great stronghold, the Kalemegdan citadel that overshadows Belgrade.

And it's at two o'clock that morning that a warship with the splendid name of the Bodrog, very, very Tolkien, the Bodrog opens fire on the citadel and on the Serbian positions on the South Bank. So these are the shots that are designed as revenge for Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. But these are also, of course, the shots that effectively open the First World War.

Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History and welcome to what I think is the most dramatic day of the building crisis so far, isn't it? Shots have been fired. I guess the First World War has begun, but as yet it's Austria on Serbia. None of the other great powers have yet been drawn.

Most of them young men, it has to be said, although we get a brilliant insight into how ordinary Viennese, you know, not necessarily very bellicose people thought about this from, of all people, Sigmund Freud. So Freud wrote that day, for the first time in 30 years, I feel myself to be an Austrian. And I feel like giving this not very hopeful empire another chance. And then the very peculiar line, all my libido is dedicated to Austria-Hungary. I mean, I can only say lucky Austria-Hungary.

So they may have a slightly disorganized army and a dithering high command, but they've got Freud's libido on their side. So it's all looking good. That same morning, Wednesday, the 29th, where Freud is thinking about his libido, the British cabinet is meeting again to discuss this. And Sir Edward Grey, your man, Tom, takes the lead. He is working for peace, Dominic.

Well, he has been working for peace. Yes. Yeah. He's very quiet and he's very serious. And he says, listen, with that news from Belgrade, stakes are really high now.

There is a massive chance now that all Europe will be at war. And then, frankly, we will have a decision to make. And this is the first time that they discuss a country that we have not really mentioned at all in this series, perhaps just in passing, once or twice. And that is, of course, Belgium. Or, as we should properly say, plucky little Belgium.

Plucky little Belgium with this empire, and they can't go. That little bit at.

If there's a war, they will strike at France because the French are their most dangerous enemies. And then they will turn back to deal with Russia. This is the so-called Schlieffen plan, which historians now argue about, whether it existed or not. Yeah. The sleeve of the German brushing the channel.

Exactly. Exactly. Now they could go slightly further South, in the sort of what were once Alsace and Lorraine that had been taken from France. However, the French have got massive forts there. It's fortified citadels of Verdun at Nancier, Belfort and all these places.

You'd be mad to attack that. You just can't attack that. So that leaves the Germans with only one option, which is to attack further North through Luxembourg and Belgium. So Belgium, Belgium has only existed as a country since 1830 and it was sponsored by Britain. basically.

It broke away from the Netherlands because it was Catholic and the Netherlands was Protestant. Britain was its big patron and sponsor because it wanted to buff a state against France in those days. And so it's a kind of guarantor. Yeah. Britain is a guarantor.

So in 1839, all the great powers had signed a treaty. They'd all signed, not just Britain, the Prussians, for example, a commitment that was inherited by Germany. And then, in 1870, in the Franco-Prussian war, France and Prussia had agreed that they would both respect Belgian neutrality, as long as the other one did as well. And they'd sign those treaties with Britain. So Gray says, listen, under these treaties, if the Germans do go through Belgium and if the Belgians appeal for help, we will be legally bound, legally obliged.

Yeah. We're not legally obliged to fight. So here's the thing. It's very clear, says Gray, from our lawyers, that that help could just be diplomatic, especially if the Belgians don't fight themselves. So if the Belgians just want us to kind of go to, I don't know, arbitration, sanctions.

Yeah. Send a sternly phrased telegram. Yeah. To voice our enduring love of Belgium, Frete, whatever it might be. We could just do that.

We have the option. He says it's a matter of policy rather than of legal obligation. And even Churchill accepts that. Everybody accepts that. They literally get out the map, and they get out the map on the table.

David Lloyd George, the chancellor, says, look here, probably the Germans are only going to go through the southern bit of Belgium. And in that case, everybody says, man, that case is a bit much to go to war about, that, isn't it? And actually even Churchill. So Churchill has been going around like a firework about to go off, isn't he, this week. He keeps going around saying, I've never been happier.

Grey goes off and he meets a group of liberal backbenchers and they say, could you go public? Could you say Britain will stay out? Because that might discourage the French and the Russians. And he says, no, I can't do that. I must be ambiguous.

I need a free hand. I don't want to be tied down because that might encourage the Germans. But I think you could say as a criticism of Grey that by this point, he's running out of time with his ambiguity. And actually, of course, all the time he has promised the French, he has subcontracted his decision making to the French because he has promised them. when it does come to the crunch, we will be there.

And I think as much as you admire Grey, Tom, I think he is being a little bit disingenuous with his own colleagues.

But sometimes it's just not the big powers. It's not in their power. Grey did all that he could.

So it makes a huge difference whether Britain's in the war or not. But the people who are driving it are Vienna, Belgrade, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. Yeah. But also we're looking at Britain because.

And the Tsar says, you know, this is a very serious moment. I need your help. None of us want a war. I beg you, in the name of our old friendship, to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far. By which he means Austria-Hungary.

Now, this telegram was Nicholas's own personal idea. Nicholas is, in some ways, a very irritating man. He's very autocratic. He's very stubborn. He's too reactionary, all of that stuff.

But he hates the thought of war. He abhors it. And he is desperate to stop it. And he's surrounded by ministers who are egging him on to sign mobilization orders. And he says, I want to send my cousin a telegram that will sort this out.

Now, as it happens, it overlaps with one that Vili has sent him. And Vili has sent him a telegram that says, I'm trying to restrain the Austrians, which I have to say he sort of is, but the other people in Berlin are not. And he says, come on, Nicky, you and I hate terrorists and regicides. These people should get their deserved punishment. Wilhelm says in this telegram, I understand how difficult it is for you and your government to face the drift of your public opinion, but please help me to resolve this.

So they've both got these telegrams. And then Vili writes another one. And he says, listen, I think the Austrians are behaving in self-defense. I promise you they won't seize any Serbian territory. They won't annex it after the war is over.

Please don't mobilize your armies, because I'm hoping to mediate between you and the Austrians. And that would make it impossible for me to do so. So Wilhelm sends this. Now, Nicholas, he's not the sharpest tool in the cutlery drawer at the Tsar. He gets this telegram that evening and he says, oh my God, this is brilliant.

Cousin. Vili has come through after all. And he rings, he know how much he hates using the phone. He rings the foreign minister and he says, great news. The Kaiser hates the thought of war.

So do I. I've actually been thinking and I have changed my mind. I don't like the thought of going to war at all. When Sazonov, the foreign minister, hears this, he is gutted because actually, all day he and the other ministers have been deciding what to do. And they have decided they will go for a general mobilization.

Now, I think this is sometimes underrated, especially in popular histories that take a very kind of anti-German line, because this is a massive step in the escalation of the crisis. Because nobody yet has had a general.

They didn't need to force the pace of events in this way. And that once the Russians had gone down that road, it's really hard to see how you get out.

Imagine a similar situation now. Imagine.

That's what the Germans think. Now, the thing is, the Tsar knows this, Nicholas. And when he hears this, he says, no. These are his words. I will not be responsible for a monstrous slaughter.

And quite rightly, he says to his ministers, war would be disastrous for the world. Once it had broken out, it would be difficult to stop. The German emperor had frequently assured him of his sincere desire to safeguard the peace of Europe. And it had always been possible to come to an agreement with the Kaiser, even in serious cases. And you know what?

If those monarchs had had as much power as people often think they did, then there would have been no world war. There's no doubt in my.

He put his foot down and said, no, Nicholas. They didn't send the order to the telegraph office, but in secret, his general staff carried on making preparations all that night. And they just think we'll twist his arm later on and persuade him. So that's what's been happening in St. Petersburg.

Now, meanwhile, in Berlin, again, some of the Kaiser's ministers, like Erich von Falkenhayn, are saying, we must move now to a thing called a state of imminent war. They proclaim that war is very likely and we have to take measures. And the chancellor, Bethmann-Holweg, no, it's much, too much of an escalation. We need to gain time for further talks. And of course, the Kaiser is still going on about his schemes.

So he still says, you know, I don't know why you rejected my plan for a podcast on Chatham high street. Stop in Belgrade. You know, it's a great idea. I've had a lot of grief from people who frankly don't know what they're talking about. And actually I've got very good news because at this point, the Kaiser has been visited by his younger brother, Prince Heinrich of Russia.

Oh,

I saw cousin George. This is George V at Buckingham palace. And cousin George said to me, I don't know what we shall do. We have no quarrel with anyone. I hope we shall remain neutral.

I and my government will do all that we can to stop this war. Is that what he sounded like? He sort of turned into the queen mother there. That was just a poor choice of voice from me. Yeah.

All right. But I think we should leave it in Tom, because I want people to see. we don't always hit the bullseye every time. But maybe he did sound like that. Maybe he did.

Yeah. Let's say that he did. He was a bluff naval type, wasn't he? Yes. I don't know what we should do.

We've had Churchill already. We don't want too much crossover. That's true. Anyway, the Kaiser hears this and the Kaiser, he's very impulsive and he says, Oh, absolutely brilliant. The British definitely won't enter the war.

then if cousin George doesn't like the thought of it. And actually he meets his admirals that evening and they're talking about, you know, what we do about Britain, blah, blah, blah. He says, well, Britain, Britain's not going to be part of the war. They will stay out. And then he says, I mean, it's almost touching.

He says, I have the word of a.

And actually, still, the chancellor, Bethmann-Holweg says, no, we must wait to the last possible minute. If there is going to be war, it's actually much better for the Russians to start it. That will show the world that we are the injured party. And Falkenhayn gives in. He says, I don't want to, but it's not my job to tell you, the politicians, what to do.

We think of the German system as so militaristic, but still the civilians are in control, which is not what all historians, I think, say, but I think it is the case. So overnight, actually, so we're now moving towards Thursday, the 30th of July. Overnight, the Germans slightly are changing their tune. And they're actually sending a lot of very panicked telegrams to the Austrians saying, actually that idea of the Kaiser's about stopping in Belgrade. Yeah, it's quite a good one.

For more than a month, you've told us, do what you like, we'll stand by you. We've made all our plans. We've gone public. We've got our army vaguely ready. I mean, it's the Austrian army, so they're not quite ready.

They say, why should we back down now? Franz Josef says, what? Because the Russians are bullying you, we should give in. He says, if I stop now and agree to mediation, it will mean another rescue of Serbia by Russian intervention. And basically, the Austrians make a fair point.

This would send a signal that we can never act again. If we stop now, having sent our ultimatum, having prepared all the ground, all this, this will basically say to our neighbours, the world will never let us react. Never let us defend ourselves. Never let us respond. Absolutely not.

are we going to stop in Belgrade or abandon our military action. We've committed to this. We're going on with it. Now. that said, the Austrians know at this point, they're facing a terrible mess, because they're actually behind the scenes in a massive panic about Russian intervention.

The politicians have said to Conrad, actually, should we maybe turn the troops around and send them east, to the frontier with Russia? And that means getting them on trains and things. Yeah. And he says, that's mad. You can't have trains going west, going east.

They'll kind of cancel each other out. They'll meet in the middle and there'll be gridlock on the railways. Unbelievably, he says, what we'll do is we'll send the entire army south. They'll get off the trains. Then we'll physically turn the trains around and they'll get back on the train and go all the way back the other way.

So that gives you a sense of the seriousness, Tom, and the efficiency of the Austrian war efforts. So that's what's going on in Austria. In Berlin, a terrible thing has happened. Very sad given the reading that we began with. The Kaiser has got another telegram from the Tsar and he's not pleased by what he.

We are doing a bit of a partial mobilization, but I promise you it has nothing to do with the telegrams, because actually we've been planning it for days. And of course, when the Kaiser hears that we've been planning it for days, he says, what? They've been planning behind my back all this time. And who does he blame for this? Well, who do you think he blames?

A country of mean shopkeepers who sneer at him for his choice of footwear at yachting regattas. Yeah. So that afternoon, that evening, Thursday, the 30th of July, it's just going around ranting. He's very upset. He feels so betrayed.

Our enemies have planned a terrible war to destroy Germany. And he says, I'm going to read the whole quote. So the famous encirclement has become an accomplished fact. The net has suddenly been pulled over our head and sneeringly, England reaps the most brilliant success of our stubbornly pursued, purely anti-German world policy, against which we are powerless, while she twists the noose of our political and economic destruction as we squirm isolated in the net. And then he just has this mad kind of shriek of rage.

And he says, Edward VII is stronger after death than I am, who was still alive. So actually uncle Eddie, who he's always hated because uncle Edward despised Phil Helm and treated him like an absolute buffoon aberration and sneered at him and put him down. Sent him terrible Christmas presents. Yeah. And he says, I knew it.

Fine. He's been dead for however many years, but he plotted this. Uncle Edward, I knew it. And all of this stuff. I mean, it's actually tragic.

I think some ways that the Kaiser, who's such a ridiculous and indeed very objectionable man in some ways, but ultimately he's just this little boy, you know, who craved approval and acceptance. It's a bit like Nixon's post-resignation speech, where he started crying. This is the Kaiser. now. It's like, it's all about him and his family and how he's been betrayed.

So now we're at a very serious point. We haven't mentioned the French at all recently, because actually the French have been keeping their.

Yes, they are in communication.

We stick by the Russians, stand up. The Germans clearly want a war. Fine. Let them put themselves in the wrong. We'll start to make preparations, but very quietly and subtly, no full mobilization.

Keep our troops back from the frontier. They play it very canonly, the French. Crucially, they say the key thing is, and I quote, this has been the undersecretary for foreign affairs, Abel Ferry. He says, we must show to the English public and the English government that France, like Russia, will not be the first to fire. Make the Germans the bad guys, because that will bring in Britain on our side.

So that's the atmosphere in France. And then the key moment. So Thursday, the 30th of July, all that morning, the politicians in St. Petersburg have been pestering the Tsar. Change your mind.

Change your mind. Go for the full mobilization. And actually, the war minister telephoned Nicholas at his palace and Nicholas lost his temper on the phone and said, I will cut you off. I'm so determined not to do this. So they send Sergei Sazonov, the foreign minister, 3pm that afternoon.

He goes to the Peterhof Palace and he says, look, your majesty, there is no chance of avoiding war. This is where we are now. The Germans clearly are gagging for a fight. They can't wait to get started with us, which of course, I mean, he genuinely believes, I think, we cannot delay any longer, please. And at first, I mean, it's so tragic when you think what's going to happen to almost all of these people.

At first, Nicholas says, no, I quote, he hates the idea of sending thousands and thousands of men to their deaths. I don't want to do this. And Sazonov says, please, your majesty, we have to do it or we will be smashed. And so he wears him down. And at four o'clock, Sazonov telephones the army chief of staff, who's a guy called General Yanushkevich.

And he says, it's done. We've got the order. Transmit the order. And, by the way, when this call is over, smash the telephone. So the tsar can't change his mind.

And there's an amazing description, central telegraph office in St. Petersburg. There are rows and rows of telegraph operators sitting there quietly waiting. And then, at just after four o'clock that afternoon, the general Yanushkevich walks in with the order. And he hands it to the chief operator.

And nobody says anything. There's an atmosphere of deathly calm. And then, a few seconds later, you hear the sound of clicking and tapping as the machines start to send out the order.

But either way, the abyss is yawning wide open now. And in the final episode, everyone will tumble into it. So on that cheery note, goodbye. Goodbye.