Page - 107 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The July Crisis 107 old considerations regarding the relation between an eastern and a western front were again brought to bear. According to the operational plans of the German general staff, France should first be attacked with force, while the fighting against Russia would only be aimed at stalling the enemy’s advance. In order to ensure rapid victory over France, a strong right wing that would spread out over Belgium towards northern France would be used. By marching its troops on to neutral Belgian territory, Germany naturally risked bringing Great Britain into play. While German policy aimed at keeping the British Empire out of the war, the Schlieffen and Moltke Plan made no allowance for this. The dilemma could hardly have been more complete. The military leadership of the German Empire calculated that the chances were good that it would be possible to fight a war on two fronts  – and to do so successfully  – on condition that Great Britain declined to attack. Although the political leadership was also keen to do anything that would keep England at bay, it became so dependent on the military plans that this goal became no more than an illusion. Since the German operational plans left no room for manoeuvre in terms of policy, but rather dictated it to a certain degree with all the consequences that this entailed, developments took on a dynamic of their own and ultimately spun completely out of control. This is the true tragic role played by the German Empire during the July Crisis : not that it agreed to support Austria-Hungary and indicated its unconditional assistance, but that in a parallel reaction to the impending war, it had equipped itself from the start for a war of global dimensions. What was planned and prepared for in Berlin was therefore entirely different from the limited  – and probably also somewhat parochial  – view taken in Vienna. After all, the notion that it would be feasible to ‘wage a bit of war’ demonstrated only too clearly the Danube Monarchy’s narrow, continental perspective that moreover was still focussed on just a few areas of Europe and was in no way attuned to the reality of alliance politics. Elsewhere, too, there was a tendency to indulge in illusions. In Bucharest, for ex- ample, where there was already clear agreement that Romania would not side with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were war to break out, a diplomatic effort was even initiated to persuade Serbia to back down. King Carol and the Romanian gov- ernment appeared to favour this approach as the best way out of a dilemma that had arisen when Germany had made it clear that it would increase its support for Bulgaria, and would expose Romania by publicising its secret alliance agreement were it to be hostile.235 The Romanian government sent Nicolae Cantacuzino, the Romanian chargé d’affaires in Switzerland, as an envoy to Belgrade with the remit of convincing the Serbian government ‘in extremis’ to accept the threatening note from Vienna in order to avoid war.236 From St. Petersburg, the Austrian ambassador reported that it was evident that Rus- sia was not yet entirely sure whether or not a certain degree of pressure should be