Germany’s perception of the Russian threat was a major motivator of the Army Bill of 1913, the largest in the history of the Second Reich. Like most German military legislation it was a compromise. The general staff had urged the creation of three new army corps—and not entirely for operational reasons. The army’s strength had not been increased significantly since 1893. Rapid population growth in the intervening decades meant that military service was increasingly becoming a lottery, with as many as half the eligible men in a given year performing no active service at all.
To the war ministry the probable negative social results of continuing this process were balanced by other professional and political considerations. Creating new formations would further dilute officer and NCO corps already straining to fill their ranks with suitable men. More than simple social prejudice was involved in the objection. Much of Germany’s militarism was skin deep and no more. A regular officer’s career was by far less attractive to men with the necessary education than a reserve officer’s commission, which provided social cachet at limited cost. The Russian army’s recent expansion had required commissioning large numbers of marginally qualified candidates, with observed negative effects on efficiency. War Minister Josias von Heeringen and his subordinates argued the wisdom of concentrating instead on improving the quality of the existing system: increasing peacetime establishments, purchasing more machine guns and heavy artillery, recognizing the changes wrought by the internal-combustion engine by adding trucks and aircraft to the army’s inventory.
The debate was part of the beginning of that tension between numbers and technology, mass and quality, characteristic of twentieth-century military establishments throughout the world. But the bill ultimately presented to the Reichstag owed much to practical political considerations as well. From the beginning Bethmann feared the financial consequences of the general staff’s demands. Nationalist public opinion overwhelmingly favored the increases—in principle. But Germany’s conservatives were openly hostile to a military budget whose funding would significantly change the nature and increase the amount of taxes they paid. On the other hand the Social Democrats, or at least some of their key leaders, seemed willing to modify their historic position of “not a man and not a penny for this system” if given reasonable justification.
In part this involved moving away from an increasingly sterile oppositionism. But it also reflected a growing concern among personalities as different as Edouard Bernstein and Kurt Eisner that Russia was in fact planning an attack on Germany. Germany’s governments took the opportunity to begin replacing walls with bridges. Bavarian authorities went so far as to share with SPD leaders intelligence information suggesting an imminent outbreak of hostilities. By March, 1913, Bernstein was writing to the editor of The Nation, Britain’s leading radical weekly, that the new arms bill was completely justified in the context of Russian intentions. The legislation that ultimately passed the Reichstag left the army at its current size of twenty-five corps. But it provided for an increase of 120,000 men in the peacetime establishment, giving Germany an active army of 800,000. It also funded significant improvements in administration and armament, notably the addition of a machine-gun company to every infantry regiment.3
The Russian build-up that contributed so much to German defense politics reflected the tensions created by an assertive Balkan policy not underwritten by the force necessary to implement it. It reflected the alteration in election requirements for the Duma, which produced in the 1912 version of that body a nationalist, patriotic majority, frequently willing to make concessions on questions involving foreign and defense policy in order to improve leverage for domestically oriented programs.4 It also reflected an increased level of French support, combined with lingering uncertainty about France’s ultimate intentions. In August, 1913, it was Joffre’s turn to be a guest at the Russian maneuvers. He pressed vigorously for immediate Russian participation in a combined offensive against Germany, promising that a million and a half Frenchmen would smite the Teuton foe no later than the eleventh day of mobilization. Nevertheless, as professionals the Russians were well aware that only in storybooks is the enemy always defeated. As soldiers they were uneasy about the probable behavior of civilian politicians, particularly French republicans.
Their anxiety seemed justified by the final version of the Franco-Russian military alliance, introduced in September, 1913. It prescribed that in case of “any act of war by the German army,” both contracting parties were “free” to mobilize without consultation. Austrian or Italian mobilization, partial or general, made “concert… indispensable.” In short, neither government was willing to give its generals anything like a free hand. This in turn indicated to Russian planners that they must prepare for a worst-case contingency, and field an army strong enough at least to check, if not to defeat, Germany and Austria combined.5
Enhanced military strength also seemed a necessary prop for a suddenly unravelling Balkan policy. States scrambling for territorial spoils in the aftermath of Turkey’s collapse appealed to St. Petersburg for redress. Sazonov consistently promised to support everyone’s claims—an approach made easier by the numerous marital connections between Russian and Balkan royalty. At no time did the foreign ministry try to assert systematically either Russia’s interests or Russia’s position. By the summer of 1913 Russia’s credibility in the Balkan capitals was at an all-time low.6 She was unable to prevent the League’s collapse into the Second Balkan War. Six months later the German ambassador to Bulgaria informed Bethmann that Russia’s attempts to establish a new Balkan League and to restore her influence in Bulgaria were still being frustrated by regional rivalries.7
Serbia emerged from the second conflict with her territory almost doubled and her population increased by half. Her prestige among the Dual Monarchy’s Slavs was at a new height. And her propagandists continued to insist that the Bosnian annexation was anything but a settled issue.8 Client-state management, even when that client is surrounded by rivals and enemies, is an exacting craft at best, one at which Imperial Russia had never manifested significant skill. Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria—all had turned more or less against St. Petersburg, largely as a consequence of Sazonov’s failed balancing acts. From Russia’s perspective in the last months of 1913, the question was whether she could afford to risk alienating Serbia as well by attempting to restrain Serbia’s behavior towards Austria. Then Sazonov received another jolt from an unexpected direction. In November, 1913, Liman von Sanders, head of Germany’s military mission in Turkey, was designated commander of the army corps stationed in Constantinople.
Russia’s interests in that city and the straits it stood on were an explosive mixture of history and sentiment, strategy and economics. Her self-proclaimed status as the Third Rome, legitimate heir of Byzantium, combined with her image as protector of Slavic interests to render ideologically difficult accepting the legitimacy of a Constantinople either in Islamic hands or dominated by a non-Orthodox Christian power. From an economic perspective, between 1909 and 1913 Russian grain exports averaged eleven million metric tons annually—30 percent of the world’s grain trade. By 1913 over a third of Russia’s total exports, including three-fourths of these grain shipments, were going through the straits. And it was grain on which Russia’s international credit largely depended. In direct contrast to the beliefs of optimistic economic determinists like Norman Angell, Russia’s involvement in international economics only enhanced her desire to secure her trade routes.