The Guns of August

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Except for Kitchener who, from his first day in office, insisted on preparing an army of millions for a war lasting years, no one else made plans reaching ahead for more than three or six months. In the case of the Germans, the fixed idea of a short war embraced the corollary that in a short war English belligerency would not matter.

“If only someone had told me beforehand that England would take up arms against us!” wailed the Kaiser during lunch at Headquarters one day later in the war. Someone in a small voice ventured, “Metternich,” referring to the German ambassador in London who had been dismissed in 1912 because of his tiresome habit of predicting that naval increases would bring war with England no later than 1915.

In 1912 Prince Henry of Prussia had asked his cousin King George point-blank “whether in the event of Germany and Austria going to war with Russia and France, England would come to the assistance of the two latter powers?” King George had replied, “Undoubtedly yes, under certain circumstances.”

In spite of these warnings the Kaiser refused to believe what he knew to be true.

Wilhelm in a nutshell

His two Corpsbrüder from student days at Bonn, Bethmann and Jagow, whose qualification for office consisted chiefly in the Kaiser’s sentimental weakness for brothers who wore the black and white ribbon of the fraternity and called each other du, comforted themselves at intervals, like devout Catholics fingering their beads, with mutual assurances of British neutrality.

Moltke’s natural pessimism spared him the illusions of wishful thinking. In a memorandum he drew up in 1913 he stated the case more accurately than many Englishmen could have done. If Germany marched through Belgium without Belgian consent, he wrote, “then England will and must join our enemies,” the more so as she had declared that intention in 1870.

The Staff calculated that the BEF would be mobilized by the tenth day, gather at embarkation ports on the eleventh, begin embarkation on the twelfth, and complete the transfer to France on the fourteenth day. This proved to be almost dead reckoning.

Nor was Germany’s naval staff under any illusions. “England probably hostile in case it comes to war,” the Admiralty telegraphed as early as July 11 to Admiral von Spee on board the Scharnhorst in the Pacific.

Two hours after Grey finished speaking in the House of Commons, that event took place which had been in the back of every mind on both sides of the Rhine since 1870 and in the front o...

“It is a joy to be alive,” rejoiced a German paper on that day in a special edition headlined “The Blessing of Arms.”

Woof

Deputies of the left, summoned to the Reichstag, found each other “depressed” and “nervous.” One, confessing readiness to vote all war credits, muttered, “We can’t let them destroy the Reich.” Another kept grumbling, “This incompetent diplomacy, this incompetent diplomacy.”

For France the signal came at 6:15 when Premier Viviani’s telephone rang and he heard the American ambassador, Myron Herrick, tell him in a voice choked with tears that he had just received a request to take over the German Embassy and hoist the American flag on its flagpole.

Von Schoen, who had a Belgian wife, entered in visible distress. He began by complaining that on the way over a lady had thrust her head through the window of his carriage and insulted “me and my Emperor.”

Schoen admitted he had a further duty to perform and, unfolding the document he carried, read its contents, which, as he was the “soul of honor” according to Poincaré, were the cause of his embarrassment. In consequence, it read, of French acts of “organized hostility” and of air attacks on Nuremberg and Karlsruhe and of violation of Belgian neutrality by French aviators flying over Belgian territory, “the German Empire considers itself in a state of war with France.”

He escorted von Schoen to the door and then, almost reluctant to come to the final parting, walked with him out of the building, down the steps, as far as the door of his waiting carriage. The two representatives of the “hereditary enemies” stood for a moment in mutual unhappiness, bowed wordlessly to each other, and von Schoen drove away into the dusk.

That afternoon the American Minister, Brand Whitlock, who had been called to take over the German Legation, found von Below and his First Secretary, von Stumm, slumped in two chairs, making no effort to pack up and seeming “nearly unstrung.”

Only later did anyone on the German side ask himself who had been the fools on that day. It had been the day, Count Czernin, the Austrian Foreign Minister, discovered afterward, of “our greatest disaster”; the day, even the Crown Prince mournfully acknowledged long after the fact, “when we Germans lost the first great battle in the eyes of the world.”

The force detached from the main German armies for the assault upon Liège under the command of General von Emmich consisted of six infantry brigades, each with artillery and other arms, and three cavalry divisions. By nightfall they had reached the Meuse at Visé, a name that was to become the first in a series of ruins.

Up to the moment of invasion many still believed that self-interest would divert the German armies around Belgium’s borders. Why should they deliberately bring two more enemies into the field against them?

As no one supposed the Germans to be stupid, the answer that suggested itself to the French mind was that the German ultimatum to Belgium was a trick. It was not intended to be followed by actual invasion but designed to “lead us into being the first to enter Belgium,” as Messimy said in an order forbidding F...

King Albert had not yet appealed to the guarantor powers for military aid. He, too, feared that the ultimatum might be a “colossal feint.” If he called in the French and British too soon, their presence would drag Belgium into the war in spite of herself, and at the back of his mind was a worry that once established on Belgian soil his neighbors might be in no hurry to leave.

In Berlin, Moltke was still hoping that after the first shots fired for honor’s sake the Belgians might be persuaded “to come to an understanding.” For that reason Germany’s final note had simply said “by force of arms” and for once refrained from declaring war.

He reiterated Germany’s offer to respect Belgian independence and pay for all damages if Belgium would refrain from destroying railroads, bridges, and tunnels and let German troops pass through freely without defending Liège. When Beyens turned to go, Jagow followed him hopefully, saying, “Perhaps there will still be something for us to talk over.”

Even the Austrian Minister, who had somehow forgotten to absent himself and with other diplomats was watching the procession from the Parliament windows, was wiping tears from his eyes.

Almost as if he had been granted a glimpse into the future, Mr. Whitlock asked himself, “Will this scene ever come back to him in after years? And how? When? Under what circumstances?” The boy in the sailor suit, as Leopold III, was to surrender in 1940 to another German invasion.

After the King had gone, the crowds shouted for the War Minister, ordinarily, regardless of his identity, the most unpopular man in the government by virtue of his office. When M. de Broqueville appeared on the balcony, even that suave man of the world wept, overcome by the fervent emotion shared by everyone who was in Brussels on that day.

Cavalry regiments of cuirassiers with glistening metal breastplates and long black horsehair tails hanging down from their helmets were conscious of no anachronism. Following them came huge crates housing airplanes and wheeled platforms bearing the long narrow gray-painted field guns, the soixante-quinzes that were France’s pride.

Roars and cheers greeted the banner that proclaimed “Alsatians going home.”

At a joint session of the Senate and Chamber, Viviani, pale as death and looking as if he were suffering physically and mentally, surpassed his own capacity for fire and eloquence in a speech that was acclaimed like everybody’s on that day as the greatest of his career.

As expected, the third member of the Triple Alliance, when the test came, had sidestepped on the ground that Austria’s attack on Serbia was an act of aggression which released her from her treaty obligations.

Rain was pouring on Berlin as the Reichstag deputies assembled to hear the Kaiser’s speech from the throne. Beneath the windows of the Reichstag, where they came for a preliminary meeting with the Chancellor, they could hear the ceaseless clippety-clop of horseshoes on pavement as squadron after squadron of cavalry trotted through the glistening streets.

Party leaders met Bethmann in a room adorned by a huge picture which exhibited the gratifying spectacle of Kaiser Wilhelm I trampling gloriously on the French flag.

Without mentioning Belgium he declared, “We draw the sword with a clear conscience and with clean hands.” The war had been provoked by Serbia with the support of Russia. Hoots and cries of “Shame!” were evoked by a discourse on Russian iniquities. After the prepared speech, the Kaiser raised his voice and proclaimed, “From this day on I recognize no parties but only Germans!”

Amid “wild excitement” all did, while the rest of the assembly erupted in cheers and shouts of fervent rejoicing.

Dolts

On August 4 deputies did not know that their armies had invaded Belgium that morning. They knew of the ultimatum but nothing of the Belgian reply because the German government, wishing to give the impression that Belgium had acquiesced and that her armed resistance was therefore illegal, never published it.

So far he had his hearers, both the right which despised him and the left which mistrusted him, in thrall. His next sentence created a sensation. “Our invasion of Belgium is contrary to international law but the wrong—I speak openly—that we are committing we will make good as soon as our military goal has been reached.”

Admiral Tirpitz considered this the greatest blunder ever spoken by a German statesman; Conrad Haussmann, a leader of the Liberal party, considered it the finest part of the speech.

In a final striking phrase—and before his day of memorable maxims was over he was to add one more that would make him immortal—Bethmann said that whoever was as badly threatened as were the Germans could think only of how to “hack his way through.”

“Whatever our lot may be, August 4, 1914, will remain for all eternity one of Germany’s greatest days!”

Hoo boy

That morning the British government had finally screwed its determination to the sticking point sufficiently to deliver an ultimatum. It arrived, however, in two parts. First, Grey asked for an assurance that German demands upon Belgium would not be “proceeded with” and for an “immediate reply,” but as he attached no time limit and mentioned no sanctions in case of non-reply, the message was not technically an ultimatum. He waited until after he knew the German Army had invaded Belgium before sending the second notice stating that Britain felt bound “to uphold the neutrality of Belgium and the observance of the treaty to which Germany is as much a party as ourselves.”

What sort of “satisfactory reply” it expected, short of the Germans meekly retreating across the frontier they had deliberately and irrevocably crossed that morning, and why England agreed to wait for so fanciful a phenomenon until midnight, can hardly be explained at all.

According to Bethmann himself, “my blood boiled at this hypocritical harping on Belgium which was not the thing that had driven England into war.” Indignation launched Bethmann into a harangue. He said that England was doing an “unthinkable” thing in making war on a “kindred nation,” that “it was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting for his life against two assailants,” that as a result of “this last terrible step” England would be responsible for all the dreadful events that might follow, and “all for just a word—‘neutrality’—just for a scrap of paper.

Hardly noticing the phrase that was to resound round the world, Goschen included it in his report of the interview. He had replied that, if for strategical reasons it was a matter of life or death for Germany to advance through Belgium, it was, so to speak, a matter of life or death for Britain to keep her solemn compact.

As he was leaving, two men in a press car of the Berliner Tageblatt drove through the streets throwing out flyers which announced—somewhat prematurely, as the ultimatum did not expire until midnight—Britain’s declaration of war.

England became overnight the most hated enemy; “Rassen-verrat!” (race treason) the favorite hate slogan.

Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight. England, though wide-flung and still powerful, was getting old, and they felt for her, like the Visigoths for the later Romans, a contempt combined with the newcomer’s sense of inferiority.

How was it that Nice, annexed by France in 1860, could settle down comfortably and within a few years forget it had ever been Italian, whereas half a million Alsatians preferred to leave their homeland rather than live under German rule?

While the crowds shrieked for vengeance in the Wilhelmstrasse, depressed deputies of the left gathered in cafés and groaned together. “The whole world is rising against us,” said one. “Germanism has three enemies in the world—Latins, Slavs and Anglo-Saxons—and now they are all united against us.”

‘Long live Japan! Long live Japan!’ people shouted impetuously until the Japanese Ambassador finally appeared and, perplexed, stammered his thanks for this unexpected and, it would seem, undeserved homage.” Although by next day it was known the rumor was false, just how undeserved was the homage would not be known for another two weeks.

No sooner had England delivered herself of the ultimatum than fresh disputes broke out in the Cabinet over the question whether to send an Expeditionary Force to France. Having declared themselves in, they began to dispute how far in they should go.