It is a paradox that many of the same scholars who evaluate the pre-1914 alliance systems in general as poisonous medicine express what amounts to moral outrage at Germany’s alleged efforts to “break” the Triple Entente after 1909. Great-power relations are seldom set in concrete, and in November, 1910, Bethmann and Sazonov successfully bear-led their respective and reluctant emperors through two days of conferences in Potsdam and Berlin. Russia withdrew opposition to Germany’s long-cherished Berlin-to-Bagdad railway project in return for acceptance of a Russian sphere of influence in northern Persia. Closer to home, the two states agreed to pursue a policy of status quo and peaceful development in the Balkans, with Germany acting as mediator of any conflicts that Russia and Austria could not solve by direct negotiations. Bethmann assured Sazonov that Austria had no expansionist designs in that region, and had never asked Germany to support such designs. Sazonov for his part responded that no matter how he might strive for improved relations with Britain, Russia would never become part of a hostile combination directed against Germany.
Initial hopes were high. Aehrenthal said that as long as Russia remained “correct,” the new orientation of her policies could only be greeted with joy. The Russian ambassador in Vienna spoke of new persons and new combinations on the horizon. Yet dreams faded quickly. Germany’s investors were increasingly timid, her bureaucratized bankers unwilling to take risks without gilt-edged government guarantees. Her financial market could not match France in generating the capital still so important for Russia’s economy. Russia’s generals were reluctant to break a generation’s habits in strategic planning. Russia’s foreign office was correspondingly reluctant to commit itself to anything beyond comfortable generalizations. Bethmann offered drafts of the agreements and declarations, only to be met by the statement that verbal assurances made written ones unnecessary. Did not William trust the word of his imperial cousin?26
Not until August, 1911, was the document signed, and by then it had lost much of its value for a German government increasingly despairing of balancing Russia’s words and Russia’s policies. A paradigm of the confusion was the general staff report of February 21, 1911, on major changes in the Russian army during 1910. The army’s peace strength was ostensibly unchanged, yet its order of battle had been increased by six corps headquarters and seven new divisions, most of them formed by converting reserve cadres and fortress garrisons to field troops. This enhanced immediate readiness for war at some expense to staying power. Several divisions had been also transferred from Russia’s western frontier to the Volga region. This lessened the strain on the mobilization and replacement systems. It also gave Russia a strategic reserve, invulnerable to any threat and able to be deployed quickly against either Germany or Austria along the railway network the empire was steadily in the process of improving. And, a possible straw in the wind, Russian maneuvers were becoming virtually impossible to observe as traditional professional courtesies gave way to systematic suspicion.27
Russia’s capabilities to wage war seemed to be exponentially improving. What of her intentions? Malice or disorganization, a desire to lead Germany by the nose, an inability to coordinate decision making—the motives behind St. Petersburg’s mixed signals seemed less and less important. Alfred von Kiderlin-Wächter was only the most coherent voice in the foreign office arguing for the particular necessity of speaking plainly and bluntly to Russia in times of crisis. Euphemisms and circumlocutions, not to say normal diplomatic good manners, lent themselves too readily to misinterpretation in the hothouse atmosphere of St. Petersburg. The question for Kiderlin, as for an increasing number of German diplomats and soldiers, was how far Russia’s entente partners would be willing to underwrite Russia’s behavior.28
German anxieties were further enhanced by Stolypin’s assassination in September, 1911. Stolypin, Russia’s premier since 1906, was no particular admirer of Germany. He had, however, accepted policies of peace and rapprochement as preconditions for the domestic reforms he considered necessary for the empire’s survival. As much to the point, Stolypin tended to equate nationalist enthusiasms anywhere in Europe with revolutionary idealism, regarding them as dangerous, disruptive factors. His successor, V. N. Kokovtzov, was also convinced that Russia’s vital interests demanded peace. He did not, however, have anything like Stolypin’s influence over the tsar, the war ministry, or the foreign office—and least of all over a Duma and a journalistic community that had responded to the Potsdam negotiations with unconcealed and massive hostility.29
It was in these dubious international and domestic contexts that Russia took a step decisive in further estranging her from Germany. Since 1908, direct involvement in the Balkans had seemed less desirable to St. Petersburg than developing a network of proxy relationships. Influence exercised through Sofia or Belgrade offered a plausible excuse for France, and even more for Great Britain, to deny to their domestic critics that they were underwriting Russia’s imperial ambitions. In the short run Russia was concerned less with fostering regional nationalism and nurturing Slavic unity than with establishing a diplomatic counterweight to what seemed heightened German and Austrian influence in the Near East.30 Far from intending to encircle the central powers, fulfill historic missions of liberating the Slavs, or open the way to Constantinople, the Russian foreign office hoped for a league of states strong enough to provide a regional check on any expansionist aspirations entertained by Austria-Hungary. Some proposals even included Turkey as part of the league.
Hindsight indicates that had this initiative succeeded, it would have been a seismic shock to Europe’s increasingly fragile power balance. Such a league could only function under Russian patronage, and would have represented a unilateral strengthening of Russia’s position that Paris and London could hardly have swallowed whole, to say nothing of reactions in Berlin or Vienna. More pragmatically, policy in the Balkan kingdoms was increasingly being made by men with no commitment to Russia’s visions. They dreamed instead of a regional offensive alliance strong enough to expel the Ottoman Empire from Europe and to secure its territory for themselves. Russia was viewed instrumentally: as an insurance policy against the consequences of defeat, and as a mediator with the great powers in case of victory.
Such aspirations were not likely to be modified by even subtle and forceful Russian diplomacy. Holstein had been uncomfortably accurate when he argued that a convoluted foreign policy in the style of Bismarck could only be administered by a Bismarck. Lesser talents must content themselves with simpler patterns. Sazonov was at best a mediocrity who hoped to thrust a hand into the Balkan wasps’ nest and emerge with a fistful of honey. Instead, he proved once again that industry and dullness are a dangerous combination.31
Russia’s approach to the Balkan question was also influenced by the pessimism of her generals. A constant in European diplomacy since the mid-nineteenth century had been the confidence of its soldiers that they could win, or at least draw, any war the statesmen initiated. Such warnings as they uttered were essentially self-serving admonitions that the situation would be even better were the military budgets increased as requested or current alliance relationships suitably adjusted. The Russo-Japanese War, however, had forced the Russian defense establishment into an agonizing reappraisal. As late as 1911, the Russian general staff bluntly informed the French that it would be two years at least before Russia would have any chance at all in a war with Germany.32