♪ ♪ [male narrator]
The 5th of July, 1914. The Archduke and
Duchess are dead. Gavrilo Princip is in jail but catastrophe is not yet certain. Act Two begins. We open on an Austrian
delegation arriving in Potsdam. It is now a week after the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The Austrians
want to take action. They want war with the Serbs, who they think are behind the
group of ragged young men that actually pulled
the trigger. But before they can
have their war, they decide they must consult
with their much stronger ally: The German Empire. So they send a
delegation to Potsdam to meet with the Kaiser,
Wilhelm II. They've been restrained
before by Germany, held back from acting
in the Balkans, so they need to know
what Germany plans to do. They go to the Kaiser and
tell him that this is intolerable, that they cannot abide
such a humiliation, that they cannot let this act of
terrorism go unpunished. And the Kaiser says to them,
“We’ll back you, whatever you do. "Just act and act quickly. Germany is behind you,
without reservation.” The Kaiser thinks that
general war can be avoided, that if the Austrians strike while all of Europe
is enraged over this assassination, if they act while the brutal slaughter
of the Archduke and Duchess is still fresh in
people's minds, no one will raise a
finger to defend Serbia. And even if-- even if the Russian Empire decided that
they wanted to protect their Serbian allies, if the Austrians can strike quickly
it'll be a fait accompli The war will be over before the
Russians can mobilize their forces. This is what he thinks as
he tells the Austrian delegation that they have a blank check, that Germany will back
them whatever they do. And then he goes
on vacation-- on a boat for three weeks,
where he can't be reached. So the Austrians come home,
German assurances in hand, but in Austria there's
disagreement. The Hungarian part of their
empire initially objects to war. They hoped that a peaceful
solution might be found. But their voice is alone. Where were the other voices of reason
or the other arguments for peace? Dead on the streets
of Sarajevo. The Archduke was perhaps the greatest
defender of the Serbs in the Empire, and so when moderation
was called for, the parties for war simply
had to point to his death and say, “He was their greatest friend
and look what they did to him! What do you think
they're gonna do to us?” And all arguments
were quelled. So, at last, the Hungarians
relented on one condition, a condition that will be
important later-- that the Austro-Hungarian Empire
would not annex a foot of Serbian land. And with that, the Austrians began
drafting an ultimatum to Serbia. But this ultimatum is delayed
by a chance for peace. Two men, rivals
in the heart of Serbia, in Belgrade, the very capital
in the center of this crisis, are two of the only men
farsighted enough to see the clouds gathering
on the edge of Europe. They are the ambassador from Austria
and the ambassador from Russia to Serbia. They both have come to the same
conclusion about where this storm will end, so they plan to put aside
their differences and meet to perhaps
work out a plan for peace. On the 10th of July, the Russian
ambassador arrives at the house of the ambassador
from Austria-Hungary. The details are agreed to. The plan is set. All that's left is one final meeting
to perhaps smooth out tensions, to avert world war. They talk,
they take cigarettes. Both sides are open,
things are going well, and then WHAM-- The Russian ambassador
falls dead of a heart attack. Nothing signed. No war stopped. The Serbians blame the Austrians. Rumors circulate that they had the
Russian ambassador assassinated, that the Austrian ambassador
killed him in his own house. Worse still, this leaves the Russians
without an ambassador in Serbia. As events begin
to accelerate toward war, they have no diplomatic channel
at the center of everything. No lines of communication. No eyes or ears on the ground. They have nobody with the experience,
connections, or familiarity with Serbia that the former ambassador
had to send out. And even if they did, it'd take
weeks to get them appointed and shipped from
Moscow to Sarajevo. Weeks they don't have. But with this last overture
turning to catastrophe, the Austrians decide it's finally
time to send their ultimatum. But they can't. Again, they delay. You see, President Poincaré
the leader of France, is going to Russia
to meet with the czar. And the Austrians, ever nervous,
decide that they can't send the ultimatum while their two greatest adversaries
are meeting together in the same place. It would never do. They could make
decisions too quickly. They could coordinate in ways they normally
couldn't when they're a thousand miles apart. So the Austrians delay. They wait until Poincaré is
a hundred miles out to sea before sending their
ultimatum. But at last,
on the 23rd of July, an ultimatum is sent from
the Austrians to the Serbs. The Serbs have 48 hours
to agree to all points, or face war. The ultimatum asks
many things, but most of all it asks that
Austrian police be granted free reign to investigate the assassination
on Serbian soil. This is impossible. To agree to such a thing is
tantamount to giving up sovereignty. No nation would accept this. But that's all right because the
ultimatum is only a ruse anyway, a cover for with the
Austrians really want. The Austrians want war. They want the ultimatum
to be rejected because they want
to appear to the world as though they gave the Serbs
a chance to avoid a conflict. They want to appear blame-free
for the invasion they're planning. And here's where things
begin to speed up. Europe begins to boil. Up until this point, the crisis in the Balkans
is just another event on the world stage, but all of a sudden, with the
release of this ultimatum, people start to clue into
what's happening. Powers outside of Austria, Germany,
and Serbia begin to pay attention. But for us, we're gonna turn
our attention to one man: Sergei Sazonov. Sergei Sazonov was the
foreign minister of Russia, and for him the 24th of July is
about to be a very, very busy day. In the morning, he wakes to receive the terms of
the ultimatum that Austria sent to Serbia. He reads quietly to himself, then turns to an aide
and fatefully utters, “It's a European war.” A cabinet meeting
is hastily assembled. The highest levels of the
Russian government are all there. They resolve to ask the Austrians
to give the Serbs more time, while at the same time pushing
the Serbs not to resist the Austrians. They also make the fateful decision
to begin a partial mobilization of their forces along
the Austrian border, trying to play all the angles
at once in the schizophrenic chaos that seemed all too common
in the days just before the war. Now it's noon. Sazonov takes lunch with the
French and British ambassador. The French ambassador reiterates
France's complete support. The British ambassador says
that Britain sympathizes, but that he can't
make any commitments. Now it's afternoon. The Russian ministers reconvene. With Sazonov confirming the
unwavering support of the French, they decide to fully back Serbia,
even to the point of war. And now it’s evening. Sazonov meets with Pourtàles,
the ambassador from Germany. Pourtàles begs Sazonov
to call off Russian mobilization. He tells him that there must be
solidarity between the monarchies, that they must work together
or all fall alone. The argument gets heated. Pourtàles tell Sazonov
there will be revolution-- revolution in Europe if the
monarchies did not work together. If they don't work together,
all of the crowns will fall. And he's right. Within five years, all the
great monarchies of Europe, true monarchies, monarchies where the
monarch was the head of state, would collapse. Within five years, the Ottoman Empire,
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the
German Empire would be no more, their kings dispossessed, thousands of years of monarchical
tradition burned away in the fires of
cataclysmic war. Then something tragic happens. It's one of those small tragedies that lines
the path to the First World War, those things
that tear you up as you read about these
events with perfect hindsight. It’s one of those moments that almost
makes this seem like a script, like a high drama
constructed for the stage, until you realize
how real it is. Real enough to wipe
out a generation. For you see,
Sazonov utters the words “If Austria-Hungary swallows
Serbia, we will go to war.” Did you catch it? If not, that's all right. Neither did Pourtàles. Poor Pourtàles, who so
desperately wants to avoid war. You see, Russia's main concern
was that Austria would annex Serbia. If the Austrians planned to conquer
Serbia, then it had to be war. But remember earlier when the Austro-Hungarians were arguing
among themselves about the ultimatum, that Hungarian element
wouldn't lend its voice to war unless the other members
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire agreed that they would not
annex a foot of Serbian soil. Well, nobody told Pourtàles. He was the German ambassador,
not the Austrian ambassador, and somehow the
memo never got to him that the Austrians had no plans
to actually take over Serbia. So in their whole discussion, he never gets to communicate
this to Sazonov. This may be one of the last moments
where the world could have avoided this war. Pourtàles’ impassioned
begging for peace. Sazonov firmly stating
the Russian case. The two diplomats meeting in
the quiet St. Petersburg night. But the world hinges
on small things, and in that gentle night, one of the last the world
would know for years, the opportunity
is missed. The hands of fate tighten
around the neck of Europe. The next day, the Austrians reject
demands that they extend the deadline; the Kaiser at last decides
to return to Germany; and two minutes before
the ultimatum expires, the Serbians send
Austria their reply. But that's a story
for next time. We'll see you then. ♪ ♪ Captions Provided by: The University of Georgia
Disability Resource Center 114 Clark Howell Hall
Athens, Georgia 30602 706-542-8719 Voice
706-542-8778 TTY
