On the afternoon of July 27, he hastened down the gangplank at Swinnemunde to be greeted by his pale, hand-kissing ministers as well as by the news that stock markets were quaking all over Europe. En route to Berlin he realized that a major crisis had matured rapidly in his absence. He faced it in character, by blurting out epithets. At this point he still blurted grandiosely, hand on sword hilt, repeating some exclamations he had made on board. He called Berchtold "a donkey" for pledging to let Serbia keep all its territory. He accused his naval chief of "incredible presumption" for advising against drastic fleet movements at this precarious juncture. He said that the Balkan countries were mostly contemptible scum.
Still exclamatory, he entered Potsdam Palace on the evening of July 27. The text of Serbia's response to the ultimatum had reached Berlin rather tardily only that afternoon. But the German Foreign Minister delayed its transmission to Potsdam yet further. He waited until late at night after the Kaiser had retired: better to let His Majesty calm down first with a good rest.
Next morning Wilhelm was shown the Serbian note. Again he began to exclaim-but in the opposite direction. "A brilliant achievement in a time limit of only twenty-four hours!" he annotated Belgrade's reply. "More than one could have expected! A great moral success for Vienna! All reason for war is gone! After that I should never have ordered mobilization!"
As he scribbled this, he had no idea that Vienna had done much more than mobilize. A few minutes later, an aide handed him a bulletin: Austria had declared war. It staggered the Kaiser. Within an hour the German Chancellor von BethmannHollweg stood before him, peremptorily summoned, "very humble, with a pale and wretched face."
"How did all this happen?" the Kaiser demanded.
Bethmann tried to explain the purpose and hope of Libretto A, as devised by Vienna: true, the nonultimatum that was an ultimatum had not worked out right, but perhaps this war just declared would yet turn into a nonwar, maybe the Serbs would give in after all, maybe-
Wilhelm, blurting epithets, cut him off. The Chancellor, "utterly cowed, admitted that he had been deceived all along by Vienna and submitted his resignation." Wilhelm refused him.
"You have cooked this broth," said His Majesty. "Now you are going to eat it."
The Kaiser knew that it was beyond his ability to eat it himself. According to Prince Bernard von Bulow-eye-witness of the scene above-Wilhelm was "well aware that he was a neurasthenic. His exaggerations were mainly meant to ring in the ears of the Foreign Office… His jingo speeches intended to give the impression that here was another Frederick the Great. But he did not trust his nerves under the strain of any really critical situation. The moment there was danger His Majesty became uncomfortably conscious that he would never lead an army in the field. Wilhelm did not want war."
Quite simply the Kaiser did not feel up to the nervy part demanded of him by Vienna's script. Therefore the Chancellor must renounce all participation in Libretto B, claiming that Germany had been lured into it by Vienna's seductive bad faith. Almost immediately after the Kaiser had dressed him down, the German Chancellor wired his ambassador at the Habsburg Court:
I regard the attitude of Austria with increasing astonishment… Austria is entertaining plans which it finds advisable to keep secret from us in order to ensure herself of our support in any event… Pray speak to Count von Berchtold with great emphasis…
With great emphasis the Ambassador spoke to Count von Berchtold about Berlin's new position. In effect this position constituted Libretto C, authored posthaste by the Kaiser himself: Vienna should forgo the total knuckling-under of Serbia; instead it should proceed with a temporary and token occupation of Belgrade, just across the frontier, avoiding any further substantial penetration of territory. After this punishment Austria should declare its honor satisfied and withdraw.
***
But Libretto C failed much faster than Librettos A or B. It could not go far without Franz Joseph's approval. However, by the time Wilhelm proposed it to him on July 28, the old Emperor had passed the point of authorizing alternatives to the inevitable. He was now the prisoner of quite another, invincible dramaturgy.
On July 25, his Minister of War had appeared in audience at Ischl to receive permission to mobilize. Franz Joseph gave it, not like a monarch commanding a general but like a puppet controlled by a ghost. "Go…" he had whispered to the Minister. "Go…. I can do no other." A few hours later he walked on foot, as usual, to the villa of Frau Schratt. From the way he stooped his way across the little bridge before her gate, she knew what turn history had taken. "I have done my best," he said to her. "But now it is the end."
"Very quickly," the Tsar of Russia cabled a few days later to his cousin and soon foe, the Kaiser, "I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure brought on me." Not only had Franz Joseph I and Nicholas II been disenfranchised but so had all their august peers.
Their ministers thrashed about impotently. They had been yanked from their vacations, out of their hunting boots, their fishing waders, their beach wear. The crisis had slammed them back into their striped trousers. Now they were pacing around telegraph keys that kept clattering adjurations and avowals from chancellery to chancellery. Vienna cabled St. Petersburg that the Austrian Army had mobilized solely against Serbia. St. Petersburg cabled Vienna that the Russian mobilization was only partial and wholly defensive. Berlin cabled Paris about the dangerous consequences of French mobilization. Paris cabled that it mobilized only to protect French security. Berlin cabled London, urging Britain to stop the mobilization of its allies. London cabled Berlin, asking Germany to ask Austria to use mediation, not mobilization, in the Serbian matter. Austria cabled London its willingness to negotiate but without delaying its "operations against Serbia." London cabled Vienna that it could not remain neutral in a European war. All cables invoked the sacredness of peace. All countries involved kept thrusting bayonets into the hands of their young men.
Power had drained from thrones and chancelleries into the offices of Chiefs of Staff. Clumsily, diplomats tried to bluff their counterparts into peace. Efficiently, each Chief of Staff activated his mobilizing apparatus. Inevitably, the mobilizations accelerated each other.
Now the subordination of Chiefs of Staff to heads of state was only nominal. Now the Chiefs drew their true prerogative from an unofficial but tremendous power. Overnight this power had become visible. It was surging through the streets all over the continent.
The new power did not wait for proclamations from governments. It needed no galvanizing by propaganda, no goading from the press (which was by no means uniformly militant in the principal countries). The new power had already divided the world into Allies-until-Victory and Enemies-unto-Death. This new power had gathered thousands along the shores of the Danube where they sang, fervently, "The Watch on the Rhine" against France. The new power burned German flags in Paris while cafe orchestras along the Champs Elysees played "God Save the King." The new power raised a sea of fists against the Russian Embassy in Vienna, against the German Embassy in Paris, and its stones shattered eleven windows of the British Embassy in Berlin. Even restaurants felt the fingers of the new power. "Menu cards here in Vienna," Karl Kraus wrote to his beloved Sidonie, "now have their English and French translations crossed out. Things are getting more and more idiotic.. "
But Kraus himself knew better. It wasn't mere idiocy that was governing things now. It was something far more formidable. Sarajevo had only been a flash point of its strength.