Seite - 126 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

126 Unleashing the War what further to the south.270 The German Empire immediately rejected an intervention in Vienna along the lines of British proposals for the reason that it could not prostitute itself ‘to put Austria before a European court for bargaining over Serbia’.271 In rejecting the British offer to mediate, it becomes clear that Berlin regarded the July Crisis just as much as a vehicle for its own policies as Vienna pursued its goals on the basis of German backing. On the same day, 26 July, the Chief of the German General Staff, Count Helmuth von Moltke, drafted the ‘warning’ to Belgium, in which he demanded that German troops be allowed to march through that country in order to engage with France. Ger- many definitely expected a major war. Even London abandoned all hope and merely stated that it was down to Germany and Germany alone to deter Austria-Hungary from pursuing its ‘great policies’, as London called them.272 London and Paris an- nounced that if Berlin had a pacifying effect on Vienna, then the French and British governments would in turn exert influence on St. Petersburg. Days earlier, however, Russia had already initiated the first steps towards a mobilisation of its armies, and not only in several western military districts but, as it claimed, for ‘unavoidable technical reasons’ across the entire Empire.273 This was hard to believe. However, there was an- other indication that made the Russian stance clear : on 24 July, still before the deadline set by the Austrian ultimatum, the Russian embassy in Berlin received the instruction to dissolve its assets in Germany and to transfer the 100 million roubles parked in Berlin.274 Thus, it was yet again the financiers who were the harbingers of the approach- ing war. Russia also implemented the first mobilisation measures for its fleet, however, and this indicated even more unmistakeably that Russia did not only anticipate facing Austria-Hungary. France also initiated mobilisation on 26 July and in Great Britain the concentration of the First and Second Fleets was ordered. To negotiate now was almost impossible ; developments were too far advanced. Neither Vienna nor Berlin, St. Petersburg or Paris wanted to take a step back. Instead, Count Berchtold submitted on 26 July the declaration of war against Serbia for the signature of Emperor Franz Joseph. He justified this by claiming that as a result of the Serbian response an attempt at me- diation might still be made.275 This should be avoided by creating a fait accompli. The ground should be cut out from underneath any attempt to intervene. In any case, the first shots had already been fired. Franz Joseph was satisfied with this explanation. He signed the draft submitted to him and ordered the mobilisation of the corps designated for ‘war scenario Serbia’. It was only the fact that this happened on a Sunday and it was believed that it would not be possible to get the message through to everywhere due to the partially unstaffed regional post offices that prevented the alert from already being issued on this day. This was to be done on 27 July, a Monday.276