The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

The gravity of the German Chancellor’s maneuver in sabotaging the British mediation proposal was underscored the next day when the Kaiser received simultaneously the report on his Ambassador’s conversation with the British Foreign Secretary and the text of Serbia’s reply to the Austrian ultimatum. Wilhelm often behaved irresponsibly, but he was neither a fool nor a lunatic. Far better than Bethmann-Hollweg or the Wilhelmstrasse, he grasped immediately the threat to the Austro-German daydream of a localized Balkan war implied by the awakening British concern over the situation. Unaware that for the past three days his Chancellor and Foreign Office had been doing their best to prod their Austrian ally into declaring war on Serbia without delay, Wilhelm set a new course for German policy in his comments on the Serbian note: “A brilliant achievement for a time-limit of only 48 hours! It is more than one could have expected!” A moral coup for Vienna, he thought, but now “all reason for war is gone and Giesl ought to have quietly stayed on in Belgrade! After that I should never have ordered mobilization.” This was a complete change from the swashbuckling marginal notes, calling for the wiping out of the Serb bandits, with which Wilhelm had decorated the dispatches received on board the Hohenzollern. Bulow, who knew him well, writes of him: “Wilhelm II did not want war. He feared it. His bellicose marginal notes prove nothing