Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 43. (1993) - Festschrift für Rudolf Neck zum 65. Geburtstag

WILLIAMSON, Samuel R. Jr.: Confrontation with Serbia: The Consequences of Vienna's Failure to Achieve Surprise in July 1914

Vienna’s efforts at deception included some coercion of the press to tone down the anti-Serbian attacks. General Alexander Krobatin, the war minister, and Conrad were sent away on leaves, the latter to hike in his beloved Tirol mountains - a move that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany later characterized as childish. There were also diplomatic efforts to assure the other governments that Vienna planned no showdown with Belgrade. These assurances were received with some skepticism, though it can be said that they effectively confused the other diplomats about Habsburg intentions, indeed even Vienna’s German ally.9)

There was, however, one place where deception did not work: the Vienna stock market. Despite assurances and pleas for calmness, the market fell sharply, especially after 18 July, accurately gauging the true Habsburg intentions. A few examples will suffice. The Danube Shipping Company fell 8% or 81 points, the Galician Petroleum Company 7% or 52 points, and the Oriental Railway Company 7% or 56 points. Stocks of Skoda and the Alpine Mining Company fell as well. No observer could fail to note that the Habsburg insiders feared a further European crisis.10)

While efforts to mislead the public were underway, Berchtold contributed indirectly to a significant indiscretion. On 13 July he met with Heinrich von Liitzow, a retired senior diplomat and former ambassador to Italy. In the course of their discussion the foreign minister revealed that the monarchy planned decisive action against Belgrade. Liitzow, ever the busy body (but with no apparent effort to sway the poficy itself) later saw Maurice de Bunsen, the British ambassador and conveyed the gist of the indiscretion. This information reached London (and also the British minister in Belgrade) on 16 July. The Anglo-French entente had thus been alerted by Berchtold’s own loose conversation. But the full impact of this information was not immediately appreciated in London, where the pressures of the Irish crisis made it difficult for Sir Edward Grey and Sir Arthur Nicolson to focus on the possible consequences of this information. The French leaders, already on their way to Russia, were still less affected.11)

The Consequences of Vienna’s Failure to Achieve Surprise in July 1914

9) Wilhelm IPs annotation on Tschirschky to Foreign Office, 10 July (tel.) 1914, in K.D., no. 29; on the press concealment, see same to same, 13 July 1914, ibid., no. 41a.

10) Austria, Volkswirtschaftliche Chronik, 1914 (Vienna, 1914), pp. 412-15. The French ambassador to Vienna, Alfred Dumaine, reported on the stock activity on 15 July 1914; France, Documents diplomatiques frangais, 3rd ser., X (Paris, 1936), no. 514.

11) Heinrich von Liitzow, Im diplomatischen Dienst der k.u.k. Monarchie, ed. Peter Hohenbalken (Vienna, 1971), pp. 218-222; de Bunsen to Grey, 16 July (tel.) 1914, Great Britain, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, eds. G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, XI (London, 1926), no. 50.

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