Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, add free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory. Com and join the club. That is therestishistory. Com. Tom, we've got brilliant news for the listeners, haven't we? Because although we are going on tour to the United States in the autumn, we're a patriotic podcast, so we didn't want to leave people in our own beloved country. Feeling neglected. So we'll be going to two very different and diverse places in our United Kingdom, won't we? To meet the public. We will.

So we wanted to get a real spread. So Dominic, we fixed on Cambridge and Oxford, two very random places. So we'll be at Cambridge, the Corn Exchange on the 17th of September, and then we'll be at Oxford, and we'll be at the new theater, and that will be on the 19th of September.

We're massively looking forward to it, Tom. And what we'll be doing, we'll be talking about our new a book, which has got the exciting title of The Rest is History Returns. And if you want to get your tickets, go right now to therestishistory.

Com. Cuffee had just arrived when the French squadron signaled. The Tsar made me go up on the voyage with him. It was a magnificent spectacle. In a quivering silvery light, the France slowly surged forward over the turquoise and emerald waves, leaving a long white furrow behind her. Then she stopped majestically. The mighty warship which has brought the head of the French state is well worthy of her name. She was indeed France, coming to Russia. I felt my heart beating. For a few minutes, there was a prodigious din in the The guns of the ships and the shore batteries firing, the crews cheering, the Marseillais answering the Russian national anthem, the cheers of thousands of spectators who had come from St. Petersburg on pleasure boats. At length, the President of the Republic stepped on board the Alexandria. The Tsar received him at the Gangway. Those were the recollections of Maurice Palio, Paléologue, the improbably named French ambassador to Saint Petersburg, who was remembering the arrival of the President of the French Republic, President Poincaré, on the 20th of July, 1914. Dominic Up front, we'll be coming to Monsieur Paléologue a bit later. But just to say this is a golden age for comical French ambassadors, isn't it?

It is, absolutely.

There's the ambassador to Saint Petersburg. The one to London is even better, and we'll be coming to him in due course. Paul Cambon. Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant. But this is, aside from the color of the ambassador himself, this is a crucial moment in the story of the road to the outbreak of the First World War, isn't it? Because you have the Tsar and the President of the French Republic, two heads of state Allied, either side of Germany, the Western and the Eastern flank, respectively, meeting up in St. Petersburg.

Yes. Also, Tom, we ended last time with the Austrians preparing their ultimatum. The Austrians have been writing their ultimatum, but they have not yet delivered it. So they're waiting for the French to leave St. Petersburg before they will deliver it to Serbia. So they are meeting in ignorance of what they suspect something may be coming, but they don't really know what it is. And so that makes this meeting all the more pregnant with possibility. So last time, in the last couple of episodes, we talked about Austria and Germany. Let's turn our attention now to their great antagonists, and we'll start with Russia. So Russia, Tsarist Russia, is the world's largest country, 164 million people, huge multi-ethnic, multi-cultural empire.

People compare it to the United States, don't they? Yeah. That it's a continental empire. Just as America is rising, people talk of the rise of Russia.

That is exactly the right comparison. Those days, of course, Eastern Poland, Finland, Ukraine, they were all part of the Russian Empire. At the head, since 1894, the autocrat of all the Russians, Nicholas II. Of course, we all know what's going to to him in the Russian Revolution. He's a very conservative man, family man, nervous, stubborn, not terribly bright.

Looks like George IV.

Yeah, it looks just like George IV, but slightly more Charles I in personality, I would say.

Oh, yes, and indeed fate.

And in fate. Russia has had a very tough beginning to the 20th century. They fought the Ruso-Japanese War, in which they were utterly defeated. Then there was a little revolution. The Tsar had to call the Juma, a parliament, which he didn't like doing. And ever since then, Russia has turned away. So all through the 19th century, Russia expanding in Asia. And it's great rivalry with the British in Asia, the great game. But since the Ruso-Japanese War, they've slightly turned back westward. And their focus has been on their alliance with France, which they signed in 1894, and the Balkans, and their eyes have been fixed on Southeast Europe. And really, the question is, why? Because the Balkans are quite a long way from Russia. Now, some people say, and you'll see this repeated often, it's because of their mystical Pan-Slave solidarity.

And orthodoxy.

And orthodoxy, and all that stuff. And there's a bit of truth in that, but I think only a bit. So it's the thing that newspapers get very excited about. In the same way, I think, as British newspapers right now talk about our kith and kin beyond the seas. There's something slightly self-parodic, I think, about it.

Except that in Australia and Canada, they really are kith and kin, whereas the relationship between the Serbs and the Russians is much more loose.

Yeah, exactly. It is. You're absolutely right. Another thing that people often talk about is Russia is the third Rome. The second Rome is still standing, Constantinople. And it's part of a decaying Ottoman Empire. There are quite a lot of Russian nationalists who think, I'd love to have Constantinople. Imagine that commanding position, but at the city of the Caesars, that would be a brilliant thing.

But also it's the strategic position Constantinople, that it's the the chokehold of the Bospherus that links the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and therefore to the world. I mean, that's the crucial thing, isn't it?

I think that's the important thing, actually, Tom. It's not whether or not they actually control Constantinople itself. It's whether they control the straits that feed from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Because in a nice nod to events in the 2020s, Russia's economy depends upon Ukrainian grain exports, and the control of those straits is crucial to get those grain ships out of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. If the straits are closed off, then Russia's economy is in terrible trouble. The Balkans are the hinterland to the straits. It's very important, as the Russians see it, that no enemy power controls that hinterland, and therefore, by extension, the straits themselves, because they could hold the Russians to ransom over the grain exports. They could stop the Russian Black Sea fleet getting into the Mediterranean.

It's a problem for the Russians, isn't it? That the Balkans are in a mess. So Ottoman power has collapsed. We've been talking about this in our previous episodes about the assassination of the Archduke. And you have all these nationalists seething resentments bubbling away. And I suppose you could either say, Well, that's a real problem, or you could say it's a good place to fish. Yes, exactly.

I think it's both. So I think their fear for them is if the Austrians get hegemony in the Balkans or some other power. But the opportunity is, they had back Bulgaria, now they've switched horses and they're backing Serbia. Serbia, as we said, has doubled in size since the Balkan Wars. So the Russians, Serbia is their client. It hasn't all been plain sailing, though, because the Russians have twice, as they see it, had to give ground in the Balkans once when Austria annexed Bosnia and the Serbs are very cross about it. But the Serbs and the Russians back down. And again, during the Balkan Wars, there had been a great hullablue about whether or not Serbia was going to get Albania and access to the Adriatic. The Russians and Austrians had been slightly daggers drawn about it. And again, Serbia and Russia had backed down. So the two sides there had drawn different lessons. The Austrian said, Hey, listen, Serbs and the Russians were always backed down. And the Russians said, We've done it twice. Yeah, never again. And we can't afford to do it again. Yeah. So that is a big problem. And the other thing, of course, is that Russia is in a different place in 1914 than it was before then.

Because as we said in the last episode, Russia has been modernizing very fast. It has been spending huge amounts of money training its men on armaments and above all, on its railways. So their army is now the biggest in the world. It's going to be 2 million people by the end of the 1910s, bigger than Germany and Austria put together. They are feeling much more self-confident than they were even 10 years earlier. But there is another thing, actually. The guy called Dominic Leven has politics. He almost thinks that basically The laws of history have doomed Austria-Hungari and indeed the Ottoman Empire, and it's illegitimate for them to resist that. They should just step aside and let history take its course.It's like a bison on the Great Plains in the 1870s. Exactly. It's doomed.It's like one of our old friends, General Sherman or Sheridan, talking about the bison. The comparison, again, between the Russians and the Americans, has often been made about late 19th century, these great expansionist empires. When the Archduke is assassinated, Sassanoff, Christopher Clarke in his book, The Sleep Book, because there's a brilliant section on this, Sazanow and his documents to all his ambassadors. He, within days, constructs, and I don't think it's entirely contrived, I think he believes it, an alternative narrative about what happened that day. He says, Listen, everybody hated Franz Ferdinand. So when the Austrians say they're really upset about it, that's nonsense. They didn't give a damn about Franz Ferdinand. If there was a plot against Franz Ferdinand, it's only because everybody in Bosnia hates the Austrians, and that just shows what terrible people they are. The killers were Bosnian, I mean, to say it's because of Serbia is absurd and just a contrivance. It's just a pretext because the Austrians already wanted to strike Serbia. Austria has actually no right to just accuse Serbia willy-nilly and to take action against her. And ultimately, if the Austrians are making a great fuss about this.We all know why it is. They're just the Mozart-loving poppets of the strutting generals in Berlin who are the people who are really pulling the strings.And so he sees Germany as the real enemy, doesn't he?He does. And as Chris Clark says, that interpretation of the events of the summer of 1914, it's not just very enduring, it's the interpretation that large numbers of people have right now, that there are People listening to this podcast who say, yes, Sazanaf was right. That is what people think. Who cares about the Archduke? The Austrians, they didn't have any right to attack Serbia, and the Germans were pulling in the strings anyway. So that's a narrative that you get right then not enough for you? He wrote back to Brussels and said, I'm really worried about the new mood in French politics. Nationalist, jingoistic, and chauvinist, the greatest peril for peace in today's Europe. That's a Belgian. I always listen to the Belgians. For Poincaré, that alliance with Russia is incredibly important. In his book, The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clarke describes at some length how the French are very worried that the Russians, as they're becoming more and more powerful and more and more industrialized, might one day decide that they don't need the French. I mean, that would be terrible for France. Rather like the Germans and the Austrians who are always They're so anxious about their ally that they're doing more and more to appease them. The guiding principle of French policy is we bind ourselves to Russia, we lend them money for their railways, we do all this thing. We never want to let them out of our sight, as it were. The French are very aware that if there is ever to be a war, they really need the Russians in on it. The best place for that war to start is the Balkans.Even before 1914, the French and the Russians have explicitly discussed what would happen if there was a flashpoint in the Balkans. And they've said, We will get stuck in. We will not let you down. We will stand by you.That is the best place. So do the French actively want a war? I know the French covers a broad remit. Does Poincaré, do the people around him, do they actively want a war? Are they looking for a Casa's belly?No, I don't think they are. But I think it's maybe not massively dissimilar from the German perspective, that they think, they know that there will one day be an another war, and they want it to be on their terms and to win and to get back Alsace and Lorraine.So again, it's aggression as a form of defense? I think so, yes. Although with the specific aim of getting back their territorial losses.They are revanchists in a way that maybe some of these other empires aren't, because they feel that a part of France has been taken from them, and they're determined. Someone like Prankari is determined to get it back.So do the French high command look at what's happening in the Balkans and think, Brilliant, this is our chance to get back Alsace Lorraine, or is it more happenstance than that?I think, no, to some degree, they do. Christopher Clarke talks of a Balkan trigger. I think it's almost more of a Balkan tripwire, constructed a tripwire across the Danube. They talk about this explicitly. And in the Balkan Wars of 1912, the French had said to the Russians, If you really want to get stuck in, you know where we are.The thing I love about, you said how everyone behaves according to their national stereotype, is that when the Archduke is assassinated in Sarajevo, actually, French public opinion barely pays any attention to it because they're all obsessed by the most incredible sex scandal, aren't they? They are.A former Prime Minister called Joseph Caillou, his wife, Henriette, had burst into the offices of Le Figaro and shot the editor, shot him dead, because he had published letters from her husband's mistress.So the trial is going on in the aftermath of it. And she gets acquitted on the grounds away. You have to go back and deal with it. So he goes back, and at dawn the next day, Friday the 24th. Remember, 48 hour timeline. Yeah. So the clock really is ticking. Genuine, the clock is ticking. He meets his cabinet at dawn on the Friday, so it's going to expire Saturday evening. Friday morning, they meet and they are all very, very anxious and dejected is the eyewitness account. The plan is, well, we'll ask for more time because that will give other people a chance to get stuck in and we'll play for time. But they know that the Austrians really won't give them more time. So what are they going to do? There are two schools of thought on this among historians. Thomas Otty, for example, says, The Serbians could never have accepted this note. The intrusion on their sovereignty was too great, and it would be disastrous for them given they've got all the stuff hanging around in the basements or whatever.Chris Clarke says, There's some evidence, actually, the Serbs, some of them were tempted to accept. A historian called Luigi Albertini interviewed a lot of the Serbian ministers and Serbian officials, and some of them said, At first, our instinct was to just say, Fine.Surely, I mean, ultimately, it depends on whether whether Serbia can get support for its position against Austria, which basically means Russia. Yes, it does. Because if Russia comes in behind them, then obviously that completely changes the terms of their calculations.It does indeed. This is why I think any account of the origins of the First World War that doesn't give Russia a huge, huge part in this is missing something because everything depends now upon how Russia reacts. Now, just after the France has left St. Petersburg, they get the news in Russia of the ultimatum. They have known that something is coming. I don't think they are totally surprised because of their intelligence has warned them there is something on the way. But Sazanow, this foreign minister, looks like a bank manager, a nice beard, very kind man by all accounts. He opens this and he says, C'est la guerre européenne. It's a European war. He rings the Tsar. It's, I believe, one of the first times the Tsar had ever used a telephone.Really? So Sitting Bull was more familiar with the telephone than the Tsar.The telephone than the Tsar is. The Tsar would look down on the telephone as a democratic intrusion on Russia's traditions. Saznov says to the Tsar, Oh, this is terrible. The Austrians are clearly itching for war. He blames the Germans, of course. They always see the Austrias, mainly a a puppet of Germany, which is not quite right. The Tsar says, I'm not sure about this because Willy, my cousin, is a lovely man.Well, they just had a summit, hadn't they? Yeah. Just a few months before and got on tremendously well.Yeah. I think the Tsar makes a good point, which is, he says, Willie leads a country that no one likes the Germans, but they're very rich, they're very successful. Everything's going well for them. Why would they risk everything with the world war? Mad. Yeah, good point. They don't want a world war. But Sazanow says, is adamant. He believes his own propaganda because he meets the Austrian ambassador and he says to him that day, what are you doing? You're setting fire to Europe. This is all because the German papers have egged you on. That's not really true. They've not been egged on the Germans. They've wanted to do it themselves. Then now we can bring on Tom, the great person in this story that we've been looking forward to.Yes.You began with him.The second best French ambassador in this story, Maurice Palier-Logues, and alert listeners with an interest in the byzantine history may remember that the final ruling dynasty in Constantinople are the Palier-Logs. Maurice Palier-Log claims to be descendant from them, doesn't he? He does.I don't want to give the game away right away. But maybe I'll just go for it. I think Maurice Paléologue is a terrible person, Tom. He's like a man from a casting agency who supplied a ridiculous Frenchman.Well, although he's the son of Greek and what is it? Romanian? Belgian? I can't remember. Belgian. Yeah.That Grieco-Belgian combination was so dangerous in history.In a way, he's plus français que le français. He is.He's exactly that.He's maybe acting the Frenchman to a hilarious pitch.He is. That's exactly what he's doing. He's a dandy He's a womanizer. He's brought his own chefs from Paris.He's also a novelist, isn't he? He is. Sir George Buchanan, who's his British colleague in Russia, said of him, His vivid imagination is apt to run away with him and disposes him to take a fanciful and exaggerated view of political questions. I would posit that in a highly combustible situation that might result in a European war, that's exactly the man you want to be running the policy of a key participant.Well, the thing is, you see, Prankara and Viviani are at sea. So it's down to Paléologue to deal with the Russians. And Paléologue, as you said, he's a novelist, not just in the realm of traditional fiction, but also in the realm of diplomacy. Because when he goes to meetings with the Tsar, He will often write the report on the meeting before he's gone to the meeting to send it home.It saves time, doesn't it? Yeah, it saves time.It tells Paris what they want to hear.It's like people who write up the football match before the final whistle. Exactly.And the thing is, everybody has said in the French Foreign Ministry, Paléologue is a terrible man. Why would you give Paléologue this job? He's a complete loose cannon. And of course, the answer is, it's not just in Britain that this happens, Tom. I'm pleased to say he had been to school with Poincaré. So President Poincaré said, My old schoolmate, Maurice Poincaré, quite a character. Eye for the ladies and loves a chef. So at this meeting, Sazanoff and Paléologue. Sazanoff says, What are we going to do? Paléologue just eggs him on. He never ever, ever says to Sazanow, Let's slow down a minute. We don't want a world war. He says, No, no, no. We must be hard on the Germans. The Germans and the Austrians are terrible people. We should take a hard line because the only line they understand, you stand up to a bully and all this stuff. So Saznov has confirmed he's been encouraged in his existing assumption, which is a hard line is the only possible line to take. And so that afternoon, he goes to an absolutely vital, crucial meeting of the Council of ministers in Russia. And he says, Listen, guys, we have appeased the Austrians and the Germans for too long.We have a historic mission in the Balkans. And if we back down now, we will lose all our prestige, all our authority forever. We will no longer be a great power.Which is exactly what the Austrians are saying.Of course.Both of them are saying exactly the same.Yes, exactly.This defensive aggression.The question for me, actually, that has often puzzled me about this story is I always understood why the Austrians cared. I mean, it's their air that's being murdered, and they think it's their integrity of their empire that's at stake. What had always puzzled me was why the Russians cared. I mean, Serbia is a long way from Russia. Actually, it was only in the last few weeks while reading about this that I finally understood. The Russians care a lot about the Straits and access to the Straits because it's really, really important for them diplomatically and economically. They care a bit, I suppose, about Slav brotherhood and that thing.Yeah, orthodoxy and all that.But the key thing is, from their perspective, they have backed down twice already in the last five or six years in the Balkans over Bosnia, the annexation of Bosnia, and then in the Balkan Wars, about whether or not Serbia would be allowed to occupy Albania. And as they see it, the Austrians are just asking too much to ask them to back down three times in five years. So although I personally can completely understand why the Austrians acted as they did, it has to be said they are making a hell of an ask, as it were. A big ask. A big ask. It's a very big ask. It's basically saying to the Russians, Yet again, you must concede to us on this.And at a time when the Russians are worried about the Ottomans getting all their dreadnaughts. Exactly. And will they be able to keep the straits open and all that thing.Now, you might think, Come on, can the two of them get together and sort this out? But you made this point, I I think, Tom, in the last episode.Yeah, they don't have email.They can't talk on the phone. Everything has to be done through intermediaries like Maurice Paliog.And he's just making stuff up.Ambassadors who will put their own spin on things. And there are allies. It's a real Chinese whispers. It's hard for them actually to get together and talk about it, even if they wanted to. And both sides think, time is running out. We are embattled. The others are malevolent and plotting against us.Because the Russians Russians actually overestimate Austrian military power, don't they?Well, I think the Austrians overrate Austrian military power.Right. But the Russians, even though they have these massive forces and are relatively confident, they're still... They don't want to be caught out. They don't want to have a mobilizing empire on their doorstep.Do you know, Tom, I was thinking about this in the break between recording these two episodes that we've recorded this morning. I was thinking about what made this different from Napoleonic Wars or something. I guess part of it is that you can make a mistake and embark on the nine years war or the seven years war or something. And what's going to happen? You'll lose Minorca. The results will not necessarily be apocalyptic for you if it goes against you. But one reason that they are all so frightened, I think, is because they know with industrialized total warfare, the stakes are so high. And if you get this wrong, it's not you'll lose a couple of provinces. If you get this wrong, you could lose everything. Your society could cease to exist. And I think that heightens the sense of urgency for them. You cannot allow your opponents to get a Head Start.It's obvious that Austria is going to have to mobilize if it's going to have a crack at Serbia. Austria is a hostile power on your doorstep if you're Russian. That then implies, well, we'd better start thinking about mobilization.Especially because you are slow. If you're Russian, you are slow. You have the vast army, you have vast territory. You have to bring in people from a long distance. So that night, the 24th, 25th, they've sent a message to Serbia via the Serbian ambassador. They've said, You can't accept this ultimatum. That would be to commit suicide. We will stand by you. They've almost effectively given the Serbians a blank check of their own. You stand firm and we'll sort this out for you. So the Serbians have their decision to make. The French are off at sea. But as you say, Tom, the big thing for the Russians is, do we get moving? Because we have to get cracking. If this is going to go horribly wrong, we can't mess around. So dawn breaks on the 25th of July. And of course, it's not a minor point. The Russians are deciding before everybody. I mean, they're literally up before everybody else because of the time difference. So on Saturday, 25th of July, they know that that evening, the decision will have been made because the Serbians will have probably rejected the ultimatum. And so they meet in a place called Krasnoi Ocello, which is outside the capital.It's like one of the Tsar's summer palaces. He is there, Nicolas II. He's in a very fancy white uniform of the Guard, Sir Saa. It's a beautiful day. It is that classic a Viennese waltz.Piano in the back.The French windows are open to the garden, and they're a very incongerous scene. And he's sitting around with his ministers, and Sassanoff says, Guys, we need to start mobilizing our troops now. That will make an impression on Austria-Hungari. And what we'll do is we will mobilize just a bit of them. So the four Western military districts, that is Moscow, Kyiv, Kazan, Odessa. So we will mobilize those. We'll cancel leave, reserve us back to the training camps, put the railways on alert, all of this stuff. It's not full general mobilization, and it's not a declaration of war or anything like it, but it's just getting stuff going.Just a defensive measure.It's a defensive measure, but also that will show the Austrians that we are serious, and that will mean that the Austrians say, Okay, enough. We've gone too far. We will back down. Of course, this is an absolutely crucial point in the story, because at this moment, somebody is going to have to back down a long way. Either the Russians will have to call off their mobilization and send everybody back home again, or the Austrians will have to not go through with the ultimatum that they have long prepared. So the stakes are suddenly very, very high now.And a Russian mobilization also has knock-on effects for Germany.It does indeed. Because what the Germans are going to do, and all the time, the clock is ticking because at 6:00 this afternoon, Saturday, the 25th of July, the Serbs will have to give their answer to the Austrian ultimatum. And as it happens, they There are now just seven days left before the world war begins. Goodness.Storm clouds, all of that. So in our next episode, we will follow the course course of those seven days that leads to Apocalypse. And patriotic listeners will be delighted to know that in our next episode, Britain will enter the story. If you're not a member of the Rest is History Club, you'll be getting that in due course. If you are, you can get that straight away. If you would like to join the club and get immediate access, you can go to therestishistory. Com. But until then, à bientôt. Bye-bye.

politics. He almost thinks that basically The laws of history have doomed Austria-Hungari and indeed the Ottoman Empire, and it's illegitimate for them to resist that. They should just step aside and let history take its course.

It's like a bison on the Great Plains in the 1870s. Exactly. It's doomed.

It's like one of our old friends, General Sherman or Sheridan, talking about the bison. The comparison, again, between the Russians and the Americans, has often been made about late 19th century, these great expansionist empires. When the Archduke is assassinated, Sassanoff, Christopher Clarke in his book, The Sleep Book, because there's a brilliant section on this, Sazanow and his documents to all his ambassadors. He, within days, constructs, and I don't think it's entirely contrived, I think he believes it, an alternative narrative about what happened that day. He says, Listen, everybody hated Franz Ferdinand. So when the Austrians say they're really upset about it, that's nonsense. They didn't give a damn about Franz Ferdinand. If there was a plot against Franz Ferdinand, it's only because everybody in Bosnia hates the Austrians, and that just shows what terrible people they are. The killers were Bosnian, I mean, to say it's because of Serbia is absurd and just a contrivance. It's just a pretext because the Austrians already wanted to strike Serbia. Austria has actually no right to just accuse Serbia willy-nilly and to take action against her. And ultimately, if the Austrians are making a great fuss about this.

We all know why it is. They're just the Mozart-loving poppets of the strutting generals in Berlin who are the people who are really pulling the strings.

And so he sees Germany as the real enemy, doesn't he?

He does. And as Chris Clark says, that interpretation of the events of the summer of 1914, it's not just very enduring, it's the interpretation that large numbers of people have right now, that there are People listening to this podcast who say, yes, Sazanaf was right. That is what people think. Who cares about the Archduke? The Austrians, they didn't have any right to attack Serbia, and the Germans were pulling in the strings anyway. So that's a narrative that you get right then not enough for you? He wrote back to Brussels and said, I'm really worried about the new mood in French politics. Nationalist, jingoistic, and chauvinist, the greatest peril for peace in today's Europe. That's a Belgian. I always listen to the Belgians. For Poincaré, that alliance with Russia is incredibly important. In his book, The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clarke describes at some length how the French are very worried that the Russians, as they're becoming more and more powerful and more and more industrialized, might one day decide that they don't need the French. I mean, that would be terrible for France. Rather like the Germans and the Austrians who are always They're so anxious about their ally that they're doing more and more to appease them. The guiding principle of French policy is we bind ourselves to Russia, we lend them money for their railways, we do all this thing. We never want to let them out of our sight, as it were. The French are very aware that if there is ever to be a war, they really need the Russians in on it. The best place for that war to start is the Balkans.Even before 1914, the French and the Russians have explicitly discussed what would happen if there was a flashpoint in the Balkans. And they've said, We will get stuck in. We will not let you down. We will stand by you.That is the best place. So do the French actively want a war? I know the French covers a broad remit. Does Poincaré, do the people around him, do they actively want a war? Are they looking for a Casa's belly?No, I don't think they are. But I think it's maybe not massively dissimilar from the German perspective, that they think, they know that there will one day be an another war, and they want it to be on their terms and to win and to get back Alsace and Lorraine.So again, it's aggression as a form of defense? I think so, yes. Although with the specific aim of getting back their territorial losses.They are revanchists in a way that maybe some of these other empires aren't, because they feel that a part of France has been taken from them, and they're determined. Someone like Prankari is determined to get it back.So do the French high command look at what's happening in the Balkans and think, Brilliant, this is our chance to get back Alsace Lorraine, or is it more happenstance than that?I think, no, to some degree, they do. Christopher Clarke talks of a Balkan trigger. I think it's almost more of a Balkan tripwire, constructed a tripwire across the Danube. They talk about this explicitly. And in the Balkan Wars of 1912, the French had said to the Russians, If you really want to get stuck in, you know where we are.The thing I love about, you said how everyone behaves according to their national stereotype, is that when the Archduke is assassinated in Sarajevo, actually, French public opinion barely pays any attention to it because they're all obsessed by the most incredible sex scandal, aren't they? They are.A former Prime Minister called Joseph Caillou, his wife, Henriette, had burst into the offices of Le Figaro and shot the editor, shot him dead, because he had published letters from her husband's mistress.So the trial is going on in the aftermath of it. And she gets acquitted on the grounds away. You have to go back and deal with it. So he goes back, and at dawn the next day, Friday the 24th. Remember, 48 hour timeline. Yeah. So the clock really is ticking. Genuine, the clock is ticking. He meets his cabinet at dawn on the Friday, so it's going to expire Saturday evening. Friday morning, they meet and they are all very, very anxious and dejected is the eyewitness account. The plan is, well, we'll ask for more time because that will give other people a chance to get stuck in and we'll play for time. But they know that the Austrians really won't give them more time. So what are they going to do? There are two schools of thought on this among historians. Thomas Otty, for example, says, The Serbians could never have accepted this note. The intrusion on their sovereignty was too great, and it would be disastrous for them given they've got all the stuff hanging around in the basements or whatever.Chris Clarke says, There's some evidence, actually, the Serbs, some of them were tempted to accept. A historian called Luigi Albertini interviewed a lot of the Serbian ministers and Serbian officials, and some of them said, At first, our instinct was to just say, Fine.Surely, I mean, ultimately, it depends on whether whether Serbia can get support for its position against Austria, which basically means Russia. Yes, it does. Because if Russia comes in behind them, then obviously that completely changes the terms of their calculations.It does indeed. This is why I think any account of the origins of the First World War that doesn't give Russia a huge, huge part in this is missing something because everything depends now upon how Russia reacts. Now, just after the France has left St. Petersburg, they get the news in Russia of the ultimatum. They have known that something is coming. I don't think they are totally surprised because of their intelligence has warned them there is something on the way. But Sazanow, this foreign minister, looks like a bank manager, a nice beard, very kind man by all accounts. He opens this and he says, C'est la guerre européenne. It's a European war. He rings the Tsar. It's, I believe, one of the first times the Tsar had ever used a telephone.Really? So Sitting Bull was more familiar with the telephone than the Tsar.The telephone than the Tsar is. The Tsar would look down on the telephone as a democratic intrusion on Russia's traditions. Saznov says to the Tsar, Oh, this is terrible. The Austrians are clearly itching for war. He blames the Germans, of course. They always see the Austrias, mainly a a puppet of Germany, which is not quite right. The Tsar says, I'm not sure about this because Willy, my cousin, is a lovely man.Well, they just had a summit, hadn't they? Yeah. Just a few months before and got on tremendously well.Yeah. I think the Tsar makes a good point, which is, he says, Willie leads a country that no one likes the Germans, but they're very rich, they're very successful. Everything's going well for them. Why would they risk everything with the world war? Mad. Yeah, good point. They don't want a world war. But Sazanow says, is adamant. He believes his own propaganda because he meets the Austrian ambassador and he says to him that day, what are you doing? You're setting fire to Europe. This is all because the German papers have egged you on. That's not really true. They've not been egged on the Germans. They've wanted to do it themselves. Then now we can bring on Tom, the great person in this story that we've been looking forward to.Yes.You began with him.The second best French ambassador in this story, Maurice Palier-Logues, and alert listeners with an interest in the byzantine history may remember that the final ruling dynasty in Constantinople are the Palier-Logs. Maurice Palier-Log claims to be descendant from them, doesn't he? He does.I don't want to give the game away right away. But maybe I'll just go for it. I think Maurice Paléologue is a terrible person, Tom. He's like a man from a casting agency who supplied a ridiculous Frenchman.Well, although he's the son of Greek and what is it? Romanian? Belgian? I can't remember. Belgian. Yeah.That Grieco-Belgian combination was so dangerous in history.In a way, he's plus français que le français. He is.He's exactly that.He's maybe acting the Frenchman to a hilarious pitch.He is. That's exactly what he's doing. He's a dandy He's a womanizer. He's brought his own chefs from Paris.He's also a novelist, isn't he? He is. Sir George Buchanan, who's his British colleague in Russia, said of him, His vivid imagination is apt to run away with him and disposes him to take a fanciful and exaggerated view of political questions. I would posit that in a highly combustible situation that might result in a European war, that's exactly the man you want to be running the policy of a key participant.Well, the thing is, you see, Prankara and Viviani are at sea. So it's down to Paléologue to deal with the Russians. And Paléologue, as you said, he's a novelist, not just in the realm of traditional fiction, but also in the realm of diplomacy. Because when he goes to meetings with the Tsar, He will often write the report on the meeting before he's gone to the meeting to send it home.It saves time, doesn't it? Yeah, it saves time.It tells Paris what they want to hear.It's like people who write up the football match before the final whistle. Exactly.And the thing is, everybody has said in the French Foreign Ministry, Paléologue is a terrible man. Why would you give Paléologue this job? He's a complete loose cannon. And of course, the answer is, it's not just in Britain that this happens, Tom. I'm pleased to say he had been to school with Poincaré. So President Poincaré said, My old schoolmate, Maurice Poincaré, quite a character. Eye for the ladies and loves a chef. So at this meeting, Sazanoff and Paléologue. Sazanoff says, What are we going to do? Paléologue just eggs him on. He never ever, ever says to Sazanow, Let's slow down a minute. We don't want a world war. He says, No, no, no. We must be hard on the Germans. The Germans and the Austrians are terrible people. We should take a hard line because the only line they understand, you stand up to a bully and all this stuff. So Saznov has confirmed he's been encouraged in his existing assumption, which is a hard line is the only possible line to take. And so that afternoon, he goes to an absolutely vital, crucial meeting of the Council of ministers in Russia. And he says, Listen, guys, we have appeased the Austrians and the Germans for too long.We have a historic mission in the Balkans. And if we back down now, we will lose all our prestige, all our authority forever. We will no longer be a great power.Which is exactly what the Austrians are saying.Of course.Both of them are saying exactly the same.Yes, exactly.This defensive aggression.The question for me, actually, that has often puzzled me about this story is I always understood why the Austrians cared. I mean, it's their air that's being murdered, and they think it's their integrity of their empire that's at stake. What had always puzzled me was why the Russians cared. I mean, Serbia is a long way from Russia. Actually, it was only in the last few weeks while reading about this that I finally understood. The Russians care a lot about the Straits and access to the Straits because it's really, really important for them diplomatically and economically. They care a bit, I suppose, about Slav brotherhood and that thing.Yeah, orthodoxy and all that.But the key thing is, from their perspective, they have backed down twice already in the last five or six years in the Balkans over Bosnia, the annexation of Bosnia, and then in the Balkan Wars, about whether or not Serbia would be allowed to occupy Albania. And as they see it, the Austrians are just asking too much to ask them to back down three times in five years. So although I personally can completely understand why the Austrians acted as they did, it has to be said they are making a hell of an ask, as it were. A big ask. A big ask. It's a very big ask. It's basically saying to the Russians, Yet again, you must concede to us on this.And at a time when the Russians are worried about the Ottomans getting all their dreadnaughts. Exactly. And will they be able to keep the straits open and all that thing.Now, you might think, Come on, can the two of them get together and sort this out? But you made this point, I I think, Tom, in the last episode.Yeah, they don't have email.They can't talk on the phone. Everything has to be done through intermediaries like Maurice Paliog.And he's just making stuff up.Ambassadors who will put their own spin on things. And there are allies. It's a real Chinese whispers. It's hard for them actually to get together and talk about it, even if they wanted to. And both sides think, time is running out. We are embattled. The others are malevolent and plotting against us.Because the Russians Russians actually overestimate Austrian military power, don't they?Well, I think the Austrians overrate Austrian military power.Right. But the Russians, even though they have these massive forces and are relatively confident, they're still... They don't want to be caught out. They don't want to have a mobilizing empire on their doorstep.Do you know, Tom, I was thinking about this in the break between recording these two episodes that we've recorded this morning. I was thinking about what made this different from Napoleonic Wars or something. I guess part of it is that you can make a mistake and embark on the nine years war or the seven years war or something. And what's going to happen? You'll lose Minorca. The results will not necessarily be apocalyptic for you if it goes against you. But one reason that they are all so frightened, I think, is because they know with industrialized total warfare, the stakes are so high. And if you get this wrong, it's not you'll lose a couple of provinces. If you get this wrong, you could lose everything. Your society could cease to exist. And I think that heightens the sense of urgency for them. You cannot allow your opponents to get a Head Start.It's obvious that Austria is going to have to mobilize if it's going to have a crack at Serbia. Austria is a hostile power on your doorstep if you're Russian. That then implies, well, we'd better start thinking about mobilization.Especially because you are slow. If you're Russian, you are slow. You have the vast army, you have vast territory. You have to bring in people from a long distance. So that night, the 24th, 25th, they've sent a message to Serbia via the Serbian ambassador. They've said, You can't accept this ultimatum. That would be to commit suicide. We will stand by you. They've almost effectively given the Serbians a blank check of their own. You stand firm and we'll sort this out for you. So the Serbians have their decision to make. The French are off at sea. But as you say, Tom, the big thing for the Russians is, do we get moving? Because we have to get cracking. If this is going to go horribly wrong, we can't mess around. So dawn breaks on the 25th of July. And of course, it's not a minor point. The Russians are deciding before everybody. I mean, they're literally up before everybody else because of the time difference. So on Saturday, 25th of July, they know that that evening, the decision will have been made because the Serbians will have probably rejected the ultimatum. And so they meet in a place called Krasnoi Ocello, which is outside the capital.It's like one of the Tsar's summer palaces. He is there, Nicolas II. He's in a very fancy white uniform of the Guard, Sir Saa. It's a beautiful day. It is that classic a Viennese waltz.Piano in the back.The French windows are open to the garden, and they're a very incongerous scene. And he's sitting around with his ministers, and Sassanoff says, Guys, we need to start mobilizing our troops now. That will make an impression on Austria-Hungari. And what we'll do is we will mobilize just a bit of them. So the four Western military districts, that is Moscow, Kyiv, Kazan, Odessa. So we will mobilize those. We'll cancel leave, reserve us back to the training camps, put the railways on alert, all of this stuff. It's not full general mobilization, and it's not a declaration of war or anything like it, but it's just getting stuff going.Just a defensive measure.It's a defensive measure, but also that will show the Austrians that we are serious, and that will mean that the Austrians say, Okay, enough. We've gone too far. We will back down. Of course, this is an absolutely crucial point in the story, because at this moment, somebody is going to have to back down a long way. Either the Russians will have to call off their mobilization and send everybody back home again, or the Austrians will have to not go through with the ultimatum that they have long prepared. So the stakes are suddenly very, very high now.And a Russian mobilization also has knock-on effects for Germany.It does indeed. Because what the Germans are going to do, and all the time, the clock is ticking because at 6:00 this afternoon, Saturday, the 25th of July, the Serbs will have to give their answer to the Austrian ultimatum. And as it happens, they There are now just seven days left before the world war begins. Goodness.Storm clouds, all of that. So in our next episode, we will follow the course course of those seven days that leads to Apocalypse. And patriotic listeners will be delighted to know that in our next episode, Britain will enter the story. If you're not a member of the Rest is History Club, you'll be getting that in due course. If you are, you can get that straight away. If you would like to join the club and get immediate access, you can go to therestishistory. Com. But until then, à bientôt. Bye-bye.

not enough for you? He wrote back to Brussels and said, I'm really worried about the new mood in French politics. Nationalist, jingoistic, and chauvinist, the greatest peril for peace in today's Europe. That's a Belgian. I always listen to the Belgians. For Poincaré, that alliance with Russia is incredibly important. In his book, The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clarke describes at some length how the French are very worried that the Russians, as they're becoming more and more powerful and more and more industrialized, might one day decide that they don't need the French. I mean, that would be terrible for France. Rather like the Germans and the Austrians who are always They're so anxious about their ally that they're doing more and more to appease them. The guiding principle of French policy is we bind ourselves to Russia, we lend them money for their railways, we do all this thing. We never want to let them out of our sight, as it were. The French are very aware that if there is ever to be a war, they really need the Russians in on it. The best place for that war to start is the Balkans.

Even before 1914, the French and the Russians have explicitly discussed what would happen if there was a flashpoint in the Balkans. And they've said, We will get stuck in. We will not let you down. We will stand by you.

That is the best place. So do the French actively want a war? I know the French covers a broad remit. Does Poincaré, do the people around him, do they actively want a war? Are they looking for a Casa's belly?

No, I don't think they are. But I think it's maybe not massively dissimilar from the German perspective, that they think, they know that there will one day be an another war, and they want it to be on their terms and to win and to get back Alsace and Lorraine.

So again, it's aggression as a form of defense? I think so, yes. Although with the specific aim of getting back their territorial losses.

They are revanchists in a way that maybe some of these other empires aren't, because they feel that a part of France has been taken from them, and they're determined. Someone like Prankari is determined to get it back.

So do the French high command look at what's happening in the Balkans and think, Brilliant, this is our chance to get back Alsace Lorraine, or is it more happenstance than that?

I think, no, to some degree, they do. Christopher Clarke talks of a Balkan trigger. I think it's almost more of a Balkan tripwire, constructed a tripwire across the Danube. They talk about this explicitly. And in the Balkan Wars of 1912, the French had said to the Russians, If you really want to get stuck in, you know where we are.

The thing I love about, you said how everyone behaves according to their national stereotype, is that when the Archduke is assassinated in Sarajevo, actually, French public opinion barely pays any attention to it because they're all obsessed by the most incredible sex scandal, aren't they? They are.

A former Prime Minister called Joseph Caillou, his wife, Henriette, had burst into the offices of Le Figaro and shot the editor, shot him dead, because he had published letters from her husband's mistress.

So the trial is going on in the aftermath of it. And she gets acquitted on the grounds away. You have to go back and deal with it. So he goes back, and at dawn the next day, Friday the 24th. Remember, 48 hour timeline. Yeah. So the clock really is ticking. Genuine, the clock is ticking. He meets his cabinet at dawn on the Friday, so it's going to expire Saturday evening. Friday morning, they meet and they are all very, very anxious and dejected is the eyewitness account. The plan is, well, we'll ask for more time because that will give other people a chance to get stuck in and we'll play for time. But they know that the Austrians really won't give them more time. So what are they going to do? There are two schools of thought on this among historians. Thomas Otty, for example, says, The Serbians could never have accepted this note. The intrusion on their sovereignty was too great, and it would be disastrous for them given they've got all the stuff hanging around in the basements or whatever.Chris Clarke says, There's some evidence, actually, the Serbs, some of them were tempted to accept. A historian called Luigi Albertini interviewed a lot of the Serbian ministers and Serbian officials, and some of them said, At first, our instinct was to just say, Fine.Surely, I mean, ultimately, it depends on whether whether Serbia can get support for its position against Austria, which basically means Russia. Yes, it does. Because if Russia comes in behind them, then obviously that completely changes the terms of their calculations.It does indeed. This is why I think any account of the origins of the First World War that doesn't give Russia a huge, huge part in this is missing something because everything depends now upon how Russia reacts. Now, just after the France has left St. Petersburg, they get the news in Russia of the ultimatum. They have known that something is coming. I don't think they are totally surprised because of their intelligence has warned them there is something on the way. But Sazanow, this foreign minister, looks like a bank manager, a nice beard, very kind man by all accounts. He opens this and he says, C'est la guerre européenne. It's a European war. He rings the Tsar. It's, I believe, one of the first times the Tsar had ever used a telephone.Really? So Sitting Bull was more familiar with the telephone than the Tsar.The telephone than the Tsar is. The Tsar would look down on the telephone as a democratic intrusion on Russia's traditions. Saznov says to the Tsar, Oh, this is terrible. The Austrians are clearly itching for war. He blames the Germans, of course. They always see the Austrias, mainly a a puppet of Germany, which is not quite right. The Tsar says, I'm not sure about this because Willy, my cousin, is a lovely man.Well, they just had a summit, hadn't they? Yeah. Just a few months before and got on tremendously well.Yeah. I think the Tsar makes a good point, which is, he says, Willie leads a country that no one likes the Germans, but they're very rich, they're very successful. Everything's going well for them. Why would they risk everything with the world war? Mad. Yeah, good point. They don't want a world war. But Sazanow says, is adamant. He believes his own propaganda because he meets the Austrian ambassador and he says to him that day, what are you doing? You're setting fire to Europe. This is all because the German papers have egged you on. That's not really true. They've not been egged on the Germans. They've wanted to do it themselves. Then now we can bring on Tom, the great person in this story that we've been looking forward to.Yes.You began with him.The second best French ambassador in this story, Maurice Palier-Logues, and alert listeners with an interest in the byzantine history may remember that the final ruling dynasty in Constantinople are the Palier-Logs. Maurice Palier-Log claims to be descendant from them, doesn't he? He does.I don't want to give the game away right away. But maybe I'll just go for it. I think Maurice Paléologue is a terrible person, Tom. He's like a man from a casting agency who supplied a ridiculous Frenchman.Well, although he's the son of Greek and what is it? Romanian? Belgian? I can't remember. Belgian. Yeah.That Grieco-Belgian combination was so dangerous in history.In a way, he's plus français que le français. He is.He's exactly that.He's maybe acting the Frenchman to a hilarious pitch.He is. That's exactly what he's doing. He's a dandy He's a womanizer. He's brought his own chefs from Paris.He's also a novelist, isn't he? He is. Sir George Buchanan, who's his British colleague in Russia, said of him, His vivid imagination is apt to run away with him and disposes him to take a fanciful and exaggerated view of political questions. I would posit that in a highly combustible situation that might result in a European war, that's exactly the man you want to be running the policy of a key participant.Well, the thing is, you see, Prankara and Viviani are at sea. So it's down to Paléologue to deal with the Russians. And Paléologue, as you said, he's a novelist, not just in the realm of traditional fiction, but also in the realm of diplomacy. Because when he goes to meetings with the Tsar, He will often write the report on the meeting before he's gone to the meeting to send it home.It saves time, doesn't it? Yeah, it saves time.It tells Paris what they want to hear.It's like people who write up the football match before the final whistle. Exactly.And the thing is, everybody has said in the French Foreign Ministry, Paléologue is a terrible man. Why would you give Paléologue this job? He's a complete loose cannon. And of course, the answer is, it's not just in Britain that this happens, Tom. I'm pleased to say he had been to school with Poincaré. So President Poincaré said, My old schoolmate, Maurice Poincaré, quite a character. Eye for the ladies and loves a chef. So at this meeting, Sazanoff and Paléologue. Sazanoff says, What are we going to do? Paléologue just eggs him on. He never ever, ever says to Sazanow, Let's slow down a minute. We don't want a world war. He says, No, no, no. We must be hard on the Germans. The Germans and the Austrians are terrible people. We should take a hard line because the only line they understand, you stand up to a bully and all this stuff. So Saznov has confirmed he's been encouraged in his existing assumption, which is a hard line is the only possible line to take. And so that afternoon, he goes to an absolutely vital, crucial meeting of the Council of ministers in Russia. And he says, Listen, guys, we have appeased the Austrians and the Germans for too long.We have a historic mission in the Balkans. And if we back down now, we will lose all our prestige, all our authority forever. We will no longer be a great power.Which is exactly what the Austrians are saying.Of course.Both of them are saying exactly the same.Yes, exactly.This defensive aggression.The question for me, actually, that has often puzzled me about this story is I always understood why the Austrians cared. I mean, it's their air that's being murdered, and they think it's their integrity of their empire that's at stake. What had always puzzled me was why the Russians cared. I mean, Serbia is a long way from Russia. Actually, it was only in the last few weeks while reading about this that I finally understood. The Russians care a lot about the Straits and access to the Straits because it's really, really important for them diplomatically and economically. They care a bit, I suppose, about Slav brotherhood and that thing.Yeah, orthodoxy and all that.But the key thing is, from their perspective, they have backed down twice already in the last five or six years in the Balkans over Bosnia, the annexation of Bosnia, and then in the Balkan Wars, about whether or not Serbia would be allowed to occupy Albania. And as they see it, the Austrians are just asking too much to ask them to back down three times in five years. So although I personally can completely understand why the Austrians acted as they did, it has to be said they are making a hell of an ask, as it were. A big ask. A big ask. It's a very big ask. It's basically saying to the Russians, Yet again, you must concede to us on this.And at a time when the Russians are worried about the Ottomans getting all their dreadnaughts. Exactly. And will they be able to keep the straits open and all that thing.Now, you might think, Come on, can the two of them get together and sort this out? But you made this point, I I think, Tom, in the last episode.Yeah, they don't have email.They can't talk on the phone. Everything has to be done through intermediaries like Maurice Paliog.And he's just making stuff up.Ambassadors who will put their own spin on things. And there are allies. It's a real Chinese whispers. It's hard for them actually to get together and talk about it, even if they wanted to. And both sides think, time is running out. We are embattled. The others are malevolent and plotting against us.Because the Russians Russians actually overestimate Austrian military power, don't they?Well, I think the Austrians overrate Austrian military power.Right. But the Russians, even though they have these massive forces and are relatively confident, they're still... They don't want to be caught out. They don't want to have a mobilizing empire on their doorstep.Do you know, Tom, I was thinking about this in the break between recording these two episodes that we've recorded this morning. I was thinking about what made this different from Napoleonic Wars or something. I guess part of it is that you can make a mistake and embark on the nine years war or the seven years war or something. And what's going to happen? You'll lose Minorca. The results will not necessarily be apocalyptic for you if it goes against you. But one reason that they are all so frightened, I think, is because they know with industrialized total warfare, the stakes are so high. And if you get this wrong, it's not you'll lose a couple of provinces. If you get this wrong, you could lose everything. Your society could cease to exist. And I think that heightens the sense of urgency for them. You cannot allow your opponents to get a Head Start.It's obvious that Austria is going to have to mobilize if it's going to have a crack at Serbia. Austria is a hostile power on your doorstep if you're Russian. That then implies, well, we'd better start thinking about mobilization.Especially because you are slow. If you're Russian, you are slow. You have the vast army, you have vast territory. You have to bring in people from a long distance. So that night, the 24th, 25th, they've sent a message to Serbia via the Serbian ambassador. They've said, You can't accept this ultimatum. That would be to commit suicide. We will stand by you. They've almost effectively given the Serbians a blank check of their own. You stand firm and we'll sort this out for you. So the Serbians have their decision to make. The French are off at sea. But as you say, Tom, the big thing for the Russians is, do we get moving? Because we have to get cracking. If this is going to go horribly wrong, we can't mess around. So dawn breaks on the 25th of July. And of course, it's not a minor point. The Russians are deciding before everybody. I mean, they're literally up before everybody else because of the time difference. So on Saturday, 25th of July, they know that that evening, the decision will have been made because the Serbians will have probably rejected the ultimatum. And so they meet in a place called Krasnoi Ocello, which is outside the capital.It's like one of the Tsar's summer palaces. He is there, Nicolas II. He's in a very fancy white uniform of the Guard, Sir Saa. It's a beautiful day. It is that classic a Viennese waltz.Piano in the back.The French windows are open to the garden, and they're a very incongerous scene. And he's sitting around with his ministers, and Sassanoff says, Guys, we need to start mobilizing our troops now. That will make an impression on Austria-Hungari. And what we'll do is we will mobilize just a bit of them. So the four Western military districts, that is Moscow, Kyiv, Kazan, Odessa. So we will mobilize those. We'll cancel leave, reserve us back to the training camps, put the railways on alert, all of this stuff. It's not full general mobilization, and it's not a declaration of war or anything like it, but it's just getting stuff going.Just a defensive measure.It's a defensive measure, but also that will show the Austrians that we are serious, and that will mean that the Austrians say, Okay, enough. We've gone too far. We will back down. Of course, this is an absolutely crucial point in the story, because at this moment, somebody is going to have to back down a long way. Either the Russians will have to call off their mobilization and send everybody back home again, or the Austrians will have to not go through with the ultimatum that they have long prepared. So the stakes are suddenly very, very high now.And a Russian mobilization also has knock-on effects for Germany.It does indeed. Because what the Germans are going to do, and all the time, the clock is ticking because at 6:00 this afternoon, Saturday, the 25th of July, the Serbs will have to give their answer to the Austrian ultimatum. And as it happens, they There are now just seven days left before the world war begins. Goodness.Storm clouds, all of that. So in our next episode, we will follow the course course of those seven days that leads to Apocalypse. And patriotic listeners will be delighted to know that in our next episode, Britain will enter the story. If you're not a member of the Rest is History Club, you'll be getting that in due course. If you are, you can get that straight away. If you would like to join the club and get immediate access, you can go to therestishistory. Com. But until then, à bientôt. Bye-bye.

away. You have to go back and deal with it. So he goes back, and at dawn the next day, Friday the 24th. Remember, 48 hour timeline. Yeah. So the clock really is ticking. Genuine, the clock is ticking. He meets his cabinet at dawn on the Friday, so it's going to expire Saturday evening. Friday morning, they meet and they are all very, very anxious and dejected is the eyewitness account. The plan is, well, we'll ask for more time because that will give other people a chance to get stuck in and we'll play for time. But they know that the Austrians really won't give them more time. So what are they going to do? There are two schools of thought on this among historians. Thomas Otty, for example, says, The Serbians could never have accepted this note. The intrusion on their sovereignty was too great, and it would be disastrous for them given they've got all the stuff hanging around in the basements or whatever.

Chris Clarke says, There's some evidence, actually, the Serbs, some of them were tempted to accept. A historian called Luigi Albertini interviewed a lot of the Serbian ministers and Serbian officials, and some of them said, At first, our instinct was to just say, Fine.

Surely, I mean, ultimately, it depends on whether whether Serbia can get support for its position against Austria, which basically means Russia. Yes, it does. Because if Russia comes in behind them, then obviously that completely changes the terms of their calculations.

It does indeed. This is why I think any account of the origins of the First World War that doesn't give Russia a huge, huge part in this is missing something because everything depends now upon how Russia reacts. Now, just after the France has left St. Petersburg, they get the news in Russia of the ultimatum. They have known that something is coming. I don't think they are totally surprised because of their intelligence has warned them there is something on the way. But Sazanow, this foreign minister, looks like a bank manager, a nice beard, very kind man by all accounts. He opens this and he says, C'est la guerre européenne. It's a European war. He rings the Tsar. It's, I believe, one of the first times the Tsar had ever used a telephone.

Really? So Sitting Bull was more familiar with the telephone than the Tsar.

The telephone than the Tsar is. The Tsar would look down on the telephone as a democratic intrusion on Russia's traditions. Saznov says to the Tsar, Oh, this is terrible. The Austrians are clearly itching for war. He blames the Germans, of course. They always see the Austrias, mainly a a puppet of Germany, which is not quite right. The Tsar says, I'm not sure about this because Willy, my cousin, is a lovely man.

Well, they just had a summit, hadn't they? Yeah. Just a few months before and got on tremendously well.

Yeah. I think the Tsar makes a good point, which is, he says, Willie leads a country that no one likes the Germans, but they're very rich, they're very successful. Everything's going well for them. Why would they risk everything with the world war? Mad. Yeah, good point. They don't want a world war. But Sazanow says, is adamant. He believes his own propaganda because he meets the Austrian ambassador and he says to him that day, what are you doing? You're setting fire to Europe. This is all because the German papers have egged you on. That's not really true. They've not been egged on the Germans. They've wanted to do it themselves. Then now we can bring on Tom, the great person in this story that we've been looking forward to.

Yes.

You began with him.

The second best French ambassador in this story, Maurice Palier-Logues, and alert listeners with an interest in the byzantine history may remember that the final ruling dynasty in Constantinople are the Palier-Logs. Maurice Palier-Log claims to be descendant from them, doesn't he? He does.

I don't want to give the game away right away. But maybe I'll just go for it. I think Maurice Paléologue is a terrible person, Tom. He's like a man from a casting agency who supplied a ridiculous Frenchman.

Well, although he's the son of Greek and what is it? Romanian? Belgian? I can't remember. Belgian. Yeah.

That Grieco-Belgian combination was so dangerous in history.

In a way, he's plus français que le français. He is.

He's exactly that.

He's maybe acting the Frenchman to a hilarious pitch.

He is. That's exactly what he's doing. He's a dandy He's a womanizer. He's brought his own chefs from Paris.

He's also a novelist, isn't he? He is. Sir George Buchanan, who's his British colleague in Russia, said of him, His vivid imagination is apt to run away with him and disposes him to take a fanciful and exaggerated view of political questions. I would posit that in a highly combustible situation that might result in a European war, that's exactly the man you want to be running the policy of a key participant.

Well, the thing is, you see, Prankara and Viviani are at sea. So it's down to Paléologue to deal with the Russians. And Paléologue, as you said, he's a novelist, not just in the realm of traditional fiction, but also in the realm of diplomacy. Because when he goes to meetings with the Tsar, He will often write the report on the meeting before he's gone to the meeting to send it home.

It saves time, doesn't it? Yeah, it saves time.

It tells Paris what they want to hear.

It's like people who write up the football match before the final whistle. Exactly.

And the thing is, everybody has said in the French Foreign Ministry, Paléologue is a terrible man. Why would you give Paléologue this job? He's a complete loose cannon. And of course, the answer is, it's not just in Britain that this happens, Tom. I'm pleased to say he had been to school with Poincaré. So President Poincaré said, My old schoolmate, Maurice Poincaré, quite a character. Eye for the ladies and loves a chef. So at this meeting, Sazanoff and Paléologue. Sazanoff says, What are we going to do? Paléologue just eggs him on. He never ever, ever says to Sazanow, Let's slow down a minute. We don't want a world war. He says, No, no, no. We must be hard on the Germans. The Germans and the Austrians are terrible people. We should take a hard line because the only line they understand, you stand up to a bully and all this stuff. So Saznov has confirmed he's been encouraged in his existing assumption, which is a hard line is the only possible line to take. And so that afternoon, he goes to an absolutely vital, crucial meeting of the Council of ministers in Russia. And he says, Listen, guys, we have appeased the Austrians and the Germans for too long.

We have a historic mission in the Balkans. And if we back down now, we will lose all our prestige, all our authority forever. We will no longer be a great power.

Which is exactly what the Austrians are saying.

Of course.

Both of them are saying exactly the same.

Yes, exactly.

This defensive aggression.

The question for me, actually, that has often puzzled me about this story is I always understood why the Austrians cared. I mean, it's their air that's being murdered, and they think it's their integrity of their empire that's at stake. What had always puzzled me was why the Russians cared. I mean, Serbia is a long way from Russia. Actually, it was only in the last few weeks while reading about this that I finally understood. The Russians care a lot about the Straits and access to the Straits because it's really, really important for them diplomatically and economically. They care a bit, I suppose, about Slav brotherhood and that thing.

Yeah, orthodoxy and all that.

But the key thing is, from their perspective, they have backed down twice already in the last five or six years in the Balkans over Bosnia, the annexation of Bosnia, and then in the Balkan Wars, about whether or not Serbia would be allowed to occupy Albania. And as they see it, the Austrians are just asking too much to ask them to back down three times in five years. So although I personally can completely understand why the Austrians acted as they did, it has to be said they are making a hell of an ask, as it were. A big ask. A big ask. It's a very big ask. It's basically saying to the Russians, Yet again, you must concede to us on this.

And at a time when the Russians are worried about the Ottomans getting all their dreadnaughts. Exactly. And will they be able to keep the straits open and all that thing.

Now, you might think, Come on, can the two of them get together and sort this out? But you made this point, I I think, Tom, in the last episode.

Yeah, they don't have email.

They can't talk on the phone. Everything has to be done through intermediaries like Maurice Paliog.

And he's just making stuff up.

Ambassadors who will put their own spin on things. And there are allies. It's a real Chinese whispers. It's hard for them actually to get together and talk about it, even if they wanted to. And both sides think, time is running out. We are embattled. The others are malevolent and plotting against us.

Because the Russians Russians actually overestimate Austrian military power, don't they?

Well, I think the Austrians overrate Austrian military power.

Right. But the Russians, even though they have these massive forces and are relatively confident, they're still... They don't want to be caught out. They don't want to have a mobilizing empire on their doorstep.

Do you know, Tom, I was thinking about this in the break between recording these two episodes that we've recorded this morning. I was thinking about what made this different from Napoleonic Wars or something. I guess part of it is that you can make a mistake and embark on the nine years war or the seven years war or something. And what's going to happen? You'll lose Minorca. The results will not necessarily be apocalyptic for you if it goes against you. But one reason that they are all so frightened, I think, is because they know with industrialized total warfare, the stakes are so high. And if you get this wrong, it's not you'll lose a couple of provinces. If you get this wrong, you could lose everything. Your society could cease to exist. And I think that heightens the sense of urgency for them. You cannot allow your opponents to get a Head Start.

It's obvious that Austria is going to have to mobilize if it's going to have a crack at Serbia. Austria is a hostile power on your doorstep if you're Russian. That then implies, well, we'd better start thinking about mobilization.

Especially because you are slow. If you're Russian, you are slow. You have the vast army, you have vast territory. You have to bring in people from a long distance. So that night, the 24th, 25th, they've sent a message to Serbia via the Serbian ambassador. They've said, You can't accept this ultimatum. That would be to commit suicide. We will stand by you. They've almost effectively given the Serbians a blank check of their own. You stand firm and we'll sort this out for you. So the Serbians have their decision to make. The French are off at sea. But as you say, Tom, the big thing for the Russians is, do we get moving? Because we have to get cracking. If this is going to go horribly wrong, we can't mess around. So dawn breaks on the 25th of July. And of course, it's not a minor point. The Russians are deciding before everybody. I mean, they're literally up before everybody else because of the time difference. So on Saturday, 25th of July, they know that that evening, the decision will have been made because the Serbians will have probably rejected the ultimatum. And so they meet in a place called Krasnoi Ocello, which is outside the capital.

It's like one of the Tsar's summer palaces. He is there, Nicolas II. He's in a very fancy white uniform of the Guard, Sir Saa. It's a beautiful day. It is that classic a Viennese waltz.

Piano in the back.

The French windows are open to the garden, and they're a very incongerous scene. And he's sitting around with his ministers, and Sassanoff says, Guys, we need to start mobilizing our troops now. That will make an impression on Austria-Hungari. And what we'll do is we will mobilize just a bit of them. So the four Western military districts, that is Moscow, Kyiv, Kazan, Odessa. So we will mobilize those. We'll cancel leave, reserve us back to the training camps, put the railways on alert, all of this stuff. It's not full general mobilization, and it's not a declaration of war or anything like it, but it's just getting stuff going.

Just a defensive measure.

It's a defensive measure, but also that will show the Austrians that we are serious, and that will mean that the Austrians say, Okay, enough. We've gone too far. We will back down. Of course, this is an absolutely crucial point in the story, because at this moment, somebody is going to have to back down a long way. Either the Russians will have to call off their mobilization and send everybody back home again, or the Austrians will have to not go through with the ultimatum that they have long prepared. So the stakes are suddenly very, very high now.

And a Russian mobilization also has knock-on effects for Germany.

It does indeed. Because what the Germans are going to do, and all the time, the clock is ticking because at 6:00 this afternoon, Saturday, the 25th of July, the Serbs will have to give their answer to the Austrian ultimatum. And as it happens, they There are now just seven days left before the world war begins. Goodness.

Storm clouds, all of that. So in our next episode, we will follow the course course of those seven days that leads to Apocalypse. And patriotic listeners will be delighted to know that in our next episode, Britain will enter the story. If you're not a member of the Rest is History Club, you'll be getting that in due course. If you are, you can get that straight away. If you would like to join the club and get immediate access, you can go to therestishistory. Com. But until then, à bientôt. Bye-bye.