I'm reading stuff about Nicky II of Russia wanting to resolve the July crisis where he urged Serbia to agree to Austria's demands, where they did agree to most of the demands of Austria, but still went to war because its not all of it, lets assume Russia Austria and Serbia coming to an agreement meaning July Crisis defused. How would it affect history if ww1 delayed
Russia resolves the July Crisis
- Thread starter Slime_blob
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Slight problem: Austria wanted serbian blood for the death of their heir, and both germany and france wanted to redraw europe. The ultimatum was sent in bad faith
TheSwedishHistorian
Banned
I can see a couple possibilities. One is that the July demands were slightly less extreme and relations slightly better before the incident, and the other one is less russian backing. Russia could pretty easily force Serbias hand. Serbia has little economic, strategic or diplomatic importance to Russia and Russia backing them was foolish when Russia was in such dire straits.
TheSwedishHistorian
Banned
Yeah this is the main problem. Its very possible that demands will escalate even if accepted.
I think it's more of a miscalculation on how willing germany was to go to war for Vienna and Budapest. Russia wants Constantinople. Russia's black sea fleet is less than extant because of the Crimean war. If russia has any shot of getting the city, it will need, at minimum, Romania and Bulgaria inside- probably greece. Both of those two are torn between russia and ah. If russia is going to get to Constantinople, it likely needs to break up austria. Or at least cull their ability to mess around in the balkans
To do that, it wants to force AH into as many fronts as possible, and while italy would be preferred, Willy having a defensive pact with both Franz and Victor Emanuel makes that neigh impossible. Ergo, serbia is the best thing the Tsar can prop up in Austria's west.
Side note I don't know how much about Greece's role in the influence game between russia and austria, nor do I know Russo-Italian relations well at all.
Now, I don't know if Tsar Nicholas II was thinking that far ahead, and I'm not entirely sure the demilitarization of the black sea was supposed to last long enough to cause that, but that's probably how I would approach it if my chief goal of expansion was in very weak hands across a sea I'm not allowed to put a navy in
"By a stringent line-by-line analysis of the terms of Austria’s 48-hour ultimatum to Serbia and the Serbian reply, Clark demolishes the standard view that Austria was too harsh and that Serbia humbly complied. Austria demanded action against irredentist networks in Serbia. It would have been an infringement of sovereignty, yes, but Serbian tolerance of the terrorist networks, and its laid-back response to the Sarajevo murders, inhibit one’s sympathy with its position. Clark describes Austria’s ultimatum as “a great deal milder” than the ultimatum presented by NATO to Serbia-Yugoslavia in the March 1999 Rambouillet Agreement for unimpeded access to its land. As for Serbia’s reply, so long regarded as conciliatory, Clark shows that on most policy points it was a highly perfumed rejection offering Austria amazingly little — a “masterpiece of diplomatic equivocation.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/books/review/the-sleepwalkers-and-july-1914.html
The same review notes:
"Both authors put a stake through the heart of a common narrative that has Germany mobilizing first so as to spring the preventive war its generals had long advocated. It didn’t. Clark documents how Berlin’s political and military leaders stuck to their blithe belief that any conflict could be localized. Russia’s mobilization, he says, was “one of the most momentous decisions of the July crisis. This was the first of the general mobilizations.” McMeekin says that Russia’s crime was first in escalating a local quarrel by encouraging Serbia to stand up to Austria-Hungary and then accelerating the rush to war. He faults Barbara Tuchman in her classic “Guns of August” for misdating Russia’s mobilization two days later than it was ordered. He is no apologist for Germany. In “The Berlin-Baghdad Express” (2010), he nailed the Kaiser as a half-crazy jihadist inciting Muslims against Anglo-French interests in the faltering Ottoman Empire, but his 2011 book “The Russian Origins of the First World War” lived up to its title."
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The Kaiser catches a bad summer cold, and doesn't sail to Norway in July. He gets a briefing in bed, from the Imperial Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. He becomes nerves, and rescinds the Blank Check to Austria. He urges the Austrians to issue more moderate terms. Serbia cracks down on the Black Hand, and turns a number of their leaders over to AH. The crisis fades, and most people go on sweltering in one of the hottest Summer in many years, but there is no war.
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You can paint it over anyway you want, but Austria never intended, or wanted the ultimatum to be accepted. They were going to go to war whatever the answer was. Austria didn't want to punish Serbia, it wanted to destroy it as a State. It was not reasonable to expect Russia to take no preparatory military action, with such a crisis going on. The German General Staff was waiting for that to happen, as a pretext for war.
The generals accelerated the crisis, so as to leave no time for diplomacy. They told the Kaiser any time wasted in talks would result in Germany being put at a serious military disadvantage, that could threaten the survival of the Empire. They never told the Austrians their war plans, and that they would be left to face Russia, with almost no German support, until France was defeated. When there seemed to be a chance to keep Britain out of the war, if they didn't invade Belgium, Von Moltke lied to his sovereign, and told him the plans couldn't be changed, and the Right Wing recalled, and sent east. The duplicity of the Austrian & German Generals was shameless, they even deceived each other.
kham_coc
Banned
Except Serbia wouldn't do that.
It was de facto an arm of the state.
It's like expecting Germany to crack down on the SS - Ludicrous.
marathag
Banned
And the eradication of the previous ruling dynasty, besides the ethnic cleansing of those two wars.
Your overstating you case. Serbia agreed to just that, and agreed to submit the case to the arbitration of the International Court in the Hague, or an arrangement by the Great Powers. Nothing more could be reasonable be expected, and it wasn't. Austria was going to declare war no matter what the reply was.
https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib...omain/3696/D Austrias Ultimatum to Serbia.pdf
The current regime in Serbia may have been only 11 years old, but the Serbian Nation had existed since the Middle Ages. It was in no danger of breaking up on it's own. It was going though violent internal struggles over policy. The situation could be compared to Japan in the Interwar Period, where army officers used violence to achieve policy goals. After the 1936 Coup attempt there was a crackdown. Serbia needed time to get their domestic situation under control, but that isn't what Austria wanted. They wanted to end Serbian Independence, thinking that would solve their own internal problems.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
Is it possible there were two simultaneous warmongering bad guys on opposite sides in parallel? A perfect storm of stupidity?
marathag
Banned
Warmongering and Stupid to want revenge for the State sponsored Assassination of the Heir to the Realm? There was a Treaty of Berlin, signed by Russia, that gave A-H dejure control of B-H, that they annexed 30 years later, while Russia had Zero Treaties with Serbia beyond bog standard commercial trade and diplomatic relation Treaties?
As I see it Serbia had much bigger internal problems than Austria before WWI. The serbian state was heavily interwoven with the terrorist organization of the Black Hand, Gavrilo PRincip received the weapons he used to kill FF from a serbian army depot from officers of the serbian army. But thats completely fine, Austria is the problem, how dare it take an issue with serbia deciding to transfer its terrorcampaign from macedonia to bosnia.
TDM
Kicked
I like how you just put that they annexed 30 years later at the end of the sentence like it was a natural follow up of the treaty.
But when they did so it triggered the Bosnian crisis and brought condemnation from most of the signatories of the treaty of Berlin!
And yet every player at the time knew Russia was going to back Serbia and Russia leaves little room for doubt in every move it made communication it gave,