In his memoirs Sukhomlinov disingenuously claimed that his only concern had been to pacify his fellow countrymen.29 German reactions were less sanguine. Was there not an essential difference between an article written by a civilian journalist and one from the pen of a senior government official? Sazonov’s transparent effort to deny the essay’s authorship only encouraged a chain reaction. Newspaper after German newspaper picked up the subject, commenting as much on each other’s reports and interpretations as on the original piece. The foreign office, anything but pleased at the prospect of a continued newspaper war, did its best to encourage countervailing materials. Pourtalès denounced the original article as pessimistic and trivial. Projecting Russia’s behavior three or four years in the future was risky, he declared, if one did not have the gift of prophecy apparently possessed by the Kölnische Zeitung’s correspondent. As for Sukhomlinov’s effusions, the ambassador recommended letting Russia off the hook with a sharp warning of the risks of this kind of careless talk.30
Arguments that the anti-Russian campaign was accepted, or even orchestrated, by either the Imperial German government or a set of variously defined “strategic elites” as a means of creating a war spirit overlook the proven value of international crises in improving circulation figures. When Bethmann attempted to modify the rhetoric of Germany’s journalists, he encountered a press confident of its legal rights, and increasingly reluctant to submit to the manipulations of bureaucrats who made no secret of their intentions. These attempts to intervene arguably kept the issue alive longer than it might have survived on its own merits. No newspaper, Left or Right, was willing to look as though it was backing down in the face of government pressure.31
Anti-Russian agitation continued to grow, particularly among the nationalist, patriotic organizations. A new weekly, Das grössere Deutschland, began publication with the avowed purpose of preparing Germany for imminent war with a Russia it described as Europe’s greatest threat to peace. Pamphlets compared the military and economic strengths of Russia and Germany, arguing that the time to strike was immediately.32 The foreign office found itself involved in verifying the most ridiculous rumors. Bethmann, for example, was constrained to request the text of a Russian order allegedly giving a regiment red boot-tops in memory of wading in Prussian blood at the Battle of Kunersdorf. The reply was that the regiment in question had indeed waded knee-deep in blood at Kunersdorf—its own blood. The new ornaments were a modern version of the red stockings bestowed on the regiment by Tsarina Elizabeth in recognition of its heroism under Prussian fire.33
But journalists were not the only pessimists in Germany as spring gave way to summer. Apart from the domestic tensions endemic to German politics, the British connection on which Bethmann-Hollweg had placed such hopes increasingly seemed a vision, a manifestation of hope rather than calculation. French hostility had been a diplomatic constant for fifty years. Austria was a broken reed. In this context the French ambassador’s report to Pourtalès that Sazonov and Sukhomlinov assured him Russia’s increasingly-strong military establishment was no more than a necessary response to her long frontiers, and reflected no aggressive designs, bore the flavor of mockery. Even Pourtalès, generally a voice of phlegmatic common sense regarding Russian intentions, was increasingly concerned at the absence of coherent policies and firm guiding hands in the Russian ministries. If Russia had no leaders who could plan a war successfully, the ambasador declared, neither did she have any who inspired confidence that they could maintain the peace.34
In April a Berlin insurance company with an eye on the main chance issued a circular aimed at the officer corps. Since war with Russia was inevitable within a few years, officers should consider it a moral duty to prepare for a hero’s death by insuring their lives. The carrot was a guarantee of no increased premiums during a war. The stick was that the policy could not be purchased once mobilization was declared! In the same month the German embassy in Rome reported a conversation with the Bulgarian envoy, a man with extensive Russian contacts. He quoted the current director of the Oriental department of Russia’s foreign ministry to the effect that as soon as Russia’s military reforms were completed, its foreign policy would have a different emphasis than was now the case. The lead time mentioned was three years—bringing the date to 1917.35
From a military perspective nothing spoke against that deadline. In February, 1914, Moltke submitted a report on Russia’s readiness for war. The army’s cadres, its noncommissioned officer corps, and its reserve system were alike significantly improved. The mobilization plans were more efficient, the preparations for concentration on the frontiers more systematic. In Moltke’s eyes these were not marginal changes. The Russian military system was reaching unheard-of heights of effectiveness. The next month the general staff submitted its report on the training of Russian troops. Based primarily on an evaluation of the 1913 maneuvers, it emphasized the continued existence of traditional problems: overcontrolling, with corresponding lack of initiative at subordinate levels; slowness in issuing and executing orders; waiting for developments instead of forcing the issue. But the Russian army was correspondingly aware of its own weaknesses, working hard and systematically to develop flexibility and enhance aggressiveness. One military district had gone so far as to order all solutions to tactical problems to incorporate the offensive spirit. Not only was acceptance of defeat and retreat forbidden; umpires were no longer allowed to order withdrawals during exercises.36
Twentieth-century developments in firepower make these alleged improvements read like a recipe for disaster. To Moltke, to the general staff, and to the German army as a whole, however, they were indicators that Russia was adding state-of-the-art skills to the historic strengths of her military system. And given Russia’s distances, Russia’s resources, and Russia’s masses, even small improvements in efficiency could have exponential results.
On May 12 Moltke bluntly told Conrad that the central powers could not in future expect to compete with Russia’s masses. A few days later he informed Jagow that once Russia completed her military preparations, in two or three years, the superiority of Germany’s enemies would be such that Moltke did not know how the empire would cope. This meant there was no longer any alternative to a preventive war. Jagow energetically disagreed, stressing Germany’s continuing economic growth as a compensating factor and arguing that Germany had no war aims that would justify the sacrifice. Yet on July 18 he informed the German ambassador in London that “according to all expert opinion,” Russia would in a few years be in a position to crush Germany with her huge army, her modern Baltic fleet, and her new strategic railroads. On June 21 the kaiser had used almost the same phrasing in a conversation with banker Max Warburg, asking whether it might not be better to go to war than await the completion of Russia’s new railways in 1916.37
Russia’s sudden accretion of strength attracted attention everywhere. British General Sir Henry Wilson, no Teutonophile by any stretch of the imagination, nevertheless understood German anxieties for her future in the face of a Russian military build-up that was altering the entire balance of power in Europe. British diplomats thought Russia in a position to replace Germany as the continent’s leading military power. From St. Petersburg, Buchanan asserted that “the days of German hegemony in Europe will be numbered” unless she drastically increased military spending. Sir Edward Grey believed that however great Germany’s initial victories might be in a war with Russia, Russia’s immense resources would ultimately exhaust Germany even without British aid.38