The Lethality of Unspoken Warnings

“As the reader no doubt recalls, after the assassination, Austria presented Serbia with an ultimatum. Serbia appeared to accept most of it, though really did not, and proceeded to mobilize. Russia then mobilized in sympathy with Serbia. Austria declared war on Serbia. France mobilized in support of Russia. Germany mobilized in fear of Russia and then implemented a battle plan whereby it hoped to polish off France first by invading through Belgium before turning its attention to Russia.” Sanford Rose

Dolors & Sense

By Sanford Rose

KISSIMMEE Florida—(Weekly Hubris)—5/20/2013—The front page of The New York Times Book Review on May 12 featured reviews of two excellent books included in my recent marathon run through the literature of the origins of World War I. (I just can’t get enough of it.)

They are titled “The Sleepwalkers,” by Christopher Clark, and “July 1914,” by Sean McMeekin.

The former emphasizes that the principal protagonists in the post-Sarajevo run-up to war felt that they were being caught up in events driving them toward an outcome that none desired but all were powerless to prevent.

Let’s consider the alleged dilemma of two of these actors: Nikola Pasic, the Serbian prime minister, and, of course, my own bête noire, Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary.

Pasic knew that a group of Bosnian Serbs, directed by officers in Serbian military intelligence belonging to the extremist Black Hand movement, were going to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne. His spy within the Black Hand told him as much.

(Parenthetic, if redundant, note to reader: in 1914, Serbia was an independent country just south of Austria Hungary. Bosnia, about 40 percent of whose inhabitants were then Serbs, was not independent. It had been annexed by Austria Hungary in 1908.)

Pasic had every reason to disapprove of this course of action. Franz Ferdinand, hardly a warm friend of Serbs, was nevertheless by no means an enemy. The irascible Archduke was known to favor a “trialism” of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—creating a self-governing Slav dominion within the existing “dual” monarchy of Germans and Magyars.

(Indeed, Franz Ferdinand was so much of a reformer that he was hated by many traditionalists in the monarchy—a circumstance that led to wild rumors that it was the Austrians themselves, rather than the Serbs, who planned his murder.)

Pasic knew, moreover, that if the assassination took place, the Austrians would have the excuse they needed to pounce on Serbia.

Yet Pasic did not issue the Austrian government an unequivocal warning.

He was afraid that a clear warning would be tantamount to an admission of guilt that, as Austria had often alleged, significant segments of the official Serbian hierarchy were indeed plotting violence.

He was also afraid of being himself assassinated by the Black Hand for revealing its plot.

Perhaps, too, Pasic was secretly proud of these bold Serbs, his people engaged in a misguided, but idealistic, struggle for freedom from Austrian rule.

Pasic found himself in a difficult position, but hardly one from which, with courage, he could not have successfully extricated himself. A wily man, he could have found a way to send a credible, yet secret, warning to those who had the capacity to arrange adequate protection for the Archduke during his Sarajevo visit.

Pasic’s lack of courage was unbelievably costly. As the reader no doubt recalls, after the assassination, Austria presented Serbia with an ultimatum. Serbia appeared to accept most of it, though really did not, and proceeded to mobilize. Russia then mobilized in sympathy with Serbia. Austria declared war on Serbia. France mobilized in support of Russia. Germany mobilized in fear of Russia and then implemented a battle plan whereby it hoped to polish off France first by invading through Belgium before turning its attention to Russia. Britain declared war on Germany in support of Belgium and France. In the ensuing four years of war, Serbia lost close to 20 percent of her population.

Edward Grey’s problem, like that of Pasic, was one of omission rather than commission. Just as Pasic failed in the single act of not warning the Austrians, Grey failed in the single, though far more serious, act of not making Britain’s position abundantly clear to  Germany. Had he said, in early July, that Britain intended going to war in support of its allies, France and Russia, there would have been no war. The Kaiser was just that afraid of Britain’s naval and commercial power.

But Grey could not issue that warning. His Cabinet and parliament, which supported him after the violation of Belgian neutrality, would not have supported him a month before. Grey had spent the previous eight years virtually guaranteeing British military support of France without his country’s knowledge or acquiescence.

In a sense, though both Pasic and Grey erred by omission, Pasic’s omission smacked of cowardice, while, by contrast, that of Grey betokened unbelievable and unconscionable audacity.

Millions died because of these character flaws.