My name is Indy Neidell and this channel – The Great War – is going to cover the first world war,

week
by week, as it unfolded 100 years later.

From today until November 2018, so you can really get a sense of just what happened as it happened.

The active weeks, the passive weeks, the weeks of carnage and the weeks of hope – we'll follow them
all one by one.

And we've made a couple of special episodes about the prelude to war so you can get some idea of all
of the forces in motion.

We've also made an episode about the assassination of the archduke and his wife as it was one of the
pivotal moments in our history.

All three of these episodes will come out in the next few days.

100 years ago today, on July 28th, 1914, the empire of Austria-Hungary declared war on the Kingdom
of Serbia.

Now, as you are probably aware, this snowballed within days into the First World War.

Now people often talk of the “blank check” – when Kaiser Wilhelm said on July 5th, 1914 that he
would unconditionally support Austria in whatever actions she took against Serbia, and this is seen as
the main argument for Germany’s responsibility for the war, but this is a little too simple.

In the days following the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by the
Serb Gavrilo Princip, there were anti-Serbian riots and demonstrations in much of Bosnia and official
dispatches to Vienna that there was Serbian complicity in the plot, but general European reactions to
the killings were quite mild.

Austria, however, had big ideas, many of them coming from Army Chief of Staff Conrad von
Hötzendorf.

And I love that name.

Conrad was a vehement imperialist for Austria and Austrian greatness.

He’s also been described as being “the most dangerous kind of officer.

both stupid and intensely energetic.

" There you have it.

In fact, in the year and a half before today, 1914, he asked his government to go to war no less than 26
times.

And it’s very important to note here that his main counterweight, the man who repeatedly urged
emperor Franz Josef against war with Russia or war with Serbia, not to listen to Conrad, was Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, now deceased.

The assassination was, to Conrad, a heaven sent means to curb Serbian power and ambition.
 Now to understand the next few weeks we really need to look a bit at both Germany and Russia In
1912, the Kaiser had told army chief of staff von Moltke and Grand Admiral von Tirpitz that “Austria had
to act vigorously against the foreign Slavs.

If Russia were to support the Serbs war would be inevitable for us.

” Although we think of pre-war Russia today as a backwater, this was not really the case.

Russia had become the world’s fourth largest economy by 1914.

Okay! Shortage of money had always meant before that she had never been able to build and equip
her army like the Germans could, but more importantly, her railways.

By 1914, though, Russian currency was on the gold standard and the railroads were booming and
Russia would be able to easily and quickly defend her borders in only a few years.

Now this was a big fear in the German high command – since Russia obviously had the manpower
advantage, once her railways were a match for Germany, well.

German Chancellor von Bethman Hollweg’s diary from July 7th tells us these thoughts: that Russia had
become a nightmare, and that the German generals say there must be a war before it was too late.

By 1917, Germany has no hope, so better 1914.

As an aside here – this was the opinion of the generals and some government leaders but it was not
the opinion of the German people at large.

You see Germany had the largest population of socialists in Europe and they and others comprised a
big anti-war segment of society.

So the Kaiser wrote on June 30, “the Serbs must be disposed of, and right soon!” and he did pledge
German support for Austria, and he did tell the Austrian ambassador on July 5th that should war
between Austria-Hungary and Russia prove unavoidable, Germany would be at Austria’s side.

HOWEVER, and this is really important, he also told his chancellor that he did not think there was a real
prospect of war – that Russia was not close to being ready.

The next day, he went on his annual three-week vacation cruise to Norway, which is kind of not what
you’d do if you were basically the most powerful man in the world and you were about to go to a major
war, so in spite of it all, a world war was not on the Kaiser's mind.

So on July 7th, the Austro-Hungarian cabinet met to discuss Serbia, and they were for a war to reduce
Serbia’s size and make her dependent on Austria.
 On July 13th, a secret report reached Vienna from Sarajevo that there was zero evidence the Serbian
government had anything to do with the assassination.

Now, this didn’t really change anything, but THIS did: Franz Josef finally became convinced that Austria
could take action against Serbia without other powers interfering, so he agreed to issue an ultimatum.

The terms of the ultimatum were finalized on July 19th.

It had a total of 15 demands and it linked the Belgrade government with the assassination, even
without evidence.

Now, you can look up the demands yourself, but here are a couple that really stick out: the Serbian
government must condemn anti-Austrian propaganda and punish anyone who made or distributed it,
and the big one – Austrian officials would participate in the judicial process.

In Serbia.

Yep, they would be in charge of justice in another country.

Now, as you may guess, this ultimatum was designed to be rejected.

It was sent on July 23rd, with 48 hours for Serbia to agree to it.

6 PM on July 25th, Serbia answered the ultimatum.

She agreed that anti-Austrian propagandists would be punished and subversive movement suppressed,
and actually agreed to almost everything else, but as to Austria participating in the judicial process
within Serbia, Serbia simply asked that this demand be submitted to the tribunal in The Hague.

Now, everybody except Austria thought this response was just fine, but Austria was determined to go
to war.

Actually, Russia suggested two days later that negotiations between her and Vienna should be opened
to try and sort things out.

This was refused.

A British attempt that same day to talk Germany into having a four-power conference to also try to sort
things out was rejected as well.

And you know what? Here’s something that happened then that remained secret until after the war:
on July 28th, 100 years ago today, Kaiser Wilhelm finally read the full text of the Austrian ultimatum and
Serbia’s response.

And he could see no reason at all for Austria to declare war.

Yep.

After all this that had happened, The Kaiser wrote: “a great moral victory for Vienna, but with it every
reason for war is removed.

.
.

” And just about an hour after the Kaiser scribbled that in the margins, Emperor Franz Josef signed a
declaration of war on Serbia, confident of German support.

And that declaration would turn out to be the death warrant of his own empire.

We’ll see you next week.

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your best language, once again, this show is also available in German and Polish – you can find links to
those channels below.

Now I’m sure many of you have comments, ideas, and suggestions; we’re happy to hear them.

See you next week!