Germany in Two-Front War and the Schlieffen-Plan I THE GREAT WAR - Week 2

My name is Indy Neidell. Welcome to the Great War.

We left off last time with the Austro-Hungarian Empire declaring war on the kingdom of Serbia,

and you can find links to that episode below and to our special Prelude to War episodes.

I’m going to begin today with a couple of telegrams.

Now, in Russia there were real fears that Austria’s plans might extend to more than

just Serbian occupation or punishment- Russia thought Serbia might actually lose her independence.

See, Austria had mobilized three quarters of her army, way more than enough to deal

with Serbia, so on July 29th, as Austria began bombarding Belgrade, Russia partially mobilized

her army just in case.

The Tsar, though, did not a war with Germany, who had pledged to support Austria, and he

telegraphed his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm, in English, “To try to avoid such a calamity

as a European war, I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop

your allies from going too far.” He signed it “Nicky”. At the same time, the Kaiser

was telegraphing back “I am exerting the utmost influence to induce the Austrians

to deal straightly to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with you.” This was signed

“Willy”.

However, that same day the German fleet began to mobilize and in response the British

fleet was sent to its war stations in the North Sea in case of a possible attack. At

that point, the allied pair France and Russia were putting pressure on Britain to declare

that in case of a German attack on Russia’s ally France, Britain would join the war, but

Britain, especially the foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey, wouldn’t commit.

Important stuff now.

Germany told Britain in a secret message that if Britain remained neutral, Germany would

take no territory from France except her colonies. This provoked the opposite effect though,

showing Grey once and for all that Germany was committed to going to war, no matter what.

Against Russia.

In Russia on the 29th there was no declaration of war, but a draft of nearly six million

men began and the army was already moving toward the Austrian border, and it was at

5 PM on July 30th that the Russian general mobilization began. The Tsar finally signed

this order because of partial German mobilization and his worries about being unready on the

Polish front.

It all actually got a little confusing here; German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg telegraphed

Vienna NOT to mobilize against Russia, but the same day, German chief of staff Moltke

telegraphed his opposite Austrian number Conrad to mobilize at once, so who was really in

charge? And then, Germany sent Russia an ultimatum to stop all war measures of any kind against

Austria and Germany within 24 hours. This was rejected.

You could see that this was becoming a real mess. But at the end of July all of the various

armies were pressuring their political leaders. Many of the leaders were against the war,

but the armies were afraid of being unready and wanted to move as quickly as possible.