"Britain wanted to keep Germany from dominating the continent by either overpowering France and Russia or luring them into her camp. This was entirely legitimate and necessary, but it alone is not enough to make Britain’s a real balance of power policy. For…the important point is that the British neither recognized nor did anything about the most critical threat to the European balance after 1900, but helped make it much worse….The greatest danger stemmed not from German or Russian power but from Austrian weakness. One of the few incontestable points in balance-of-power theory is that preserving the system means preserving all the essential actors in it. Equally obvious, nothing is more likely to occasion a major war than a threat to the existence or great-power status of an essential actor….Long before 1914 it was obvious that Austria’s existence was threatened. Everyone saw her as the next sick man of Europe after Turkey….From 1908 on almost everyone anticipated the long-awaited general war would probably arise over a Russo-Austrian quarrel involving Serbia. From 1912 on the Russians and Serbs repeatedly told their western friends that Austria’s collapse was imminent, and that they intended to have the lion’s share of the remains.
Yet Britain’s “balance-of-power” policy entirely ignored this immediate danger, and served actually to increase the threat from Germany as well. Germany…was virtually bound to accept war, even provoke it, rather than let Austria go under and thus lose her last reliable ally….A real balance-of-power policy would have required from the Entente…a policy of restraint for themselves and controlled support for Austria….The threat to Austria…was a product in great part of Entente policy. As a result of the preoccupation of diplomatic historians with motives and aims instead of effects, both German and Entente policies have always been discussed almost exclusively in terms of the German problem, when in fact their effects were far greater on the Austrian problem. The best answer to the German encirclement myth is not that Entente policy was really moderate and unprovocative; there has been too much white-washing of British, French and especially Russian policy in this whole debate. The answer is rather that the Entente really encircled Austria rather than Germany….Austria…was hopelessly encircled by 1914 and knew it. Russia, supported by France, was forming a new Balkan League around Russia’s protégé and Austria’s worst enemy, Serbia. Rumania was defecting, Bulgaria was wavering and exhausted under strong Russo-French pressure. Turkey was leaning toward Russia, Italy was cooperating with Russia in the Balkans; even Germany was wholly unreliable support politically, and Austria’s chief competitor economically in the Balkans.
The isolation and encirclement resulted, moreover, principally from Entente moves and policies, always discussed as if they had nothing to do with Austria….Austria was…the actual target of Entente diplomacy….In fact one can argue that Britain’s policy (like Russia’s and even, in certain respects, France’s) was more anti-Austrian than anti-German….[The British] never took Austria seriously and were regularly ready to let her pay, or make her pay….[Britain] urged Russia to concentrate her power and attention on Europe---the worst possible threat to Austria. The British…worked to break up the long-standing Austro-Russian cooperation in Macedonia, valuable though they knew it to be for European peace….When Austria annexed Bosnia, legalizing a situation long existing de facto and giving up her hold on the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar in the process, Britain helped promote an international crisis over the violation of a treaty thirty years old, whose relevant provision had never been intended by Britain herself to remain long in force….
On the eve of war, the Foreign Office was aware of the fear prevalent in both Berlin and Vienna that Austria might collapse….[but] No thought of any action to help maintain Austria’s independence and integrity was entertained….Of course there was no great anti-Austrian plot. The British did not think of Austria as their enemy; they tried not to think of her at all. They did not plan to isolate and destroy her; they simply did not concern themselves…with the question of whether the concessions and defeats imposed upon Austria before the war, and the territorial sacrifices to be imposed on her during and after it, would leave her viable….What makes Britain’s responsibility for the plight of Austria a heavy one, although less direct than Russia’s or France’s, is that Britain alone was in a position to manage the European Concert so as to control the Balkan situation….Only the presence of the Habsburg monarchy holding down the Danube basin kept Germany or Russia from achieving mastery over Europe….Let Austria go under, and a great war for the mastery of Europe became almost mathematically predictable…."
Yet Britain’s “balance-of-power” policy entirely ignored this immediate danger, and served actually to increase the threat from Germany as well. Germany…was virtually bound to accept war, even provoke it, rather than let Austria go under and thus lose her last reliable ally….A real balance-of-power policy would have required from the Entente…a policy of restraint for themselves and controlled support for Austria….The threat to Austria…was a product in great part of Entente policy. As a result of the preoccupation of diplomatic historians with motives and aims instead of effects, both German and Entente policies have always been discussed almost exclusively in terms of the German problem, when in fact their effects were far greater on the Austrian problem. The best answer to the German encirclement myth is not that Entente policy was really moderate and unprovocative; there has been too much white-washing of British, French and especially Russian policy in this whole debate. The answer is rather that the Entente really encircled Austria rather than Germany….Austria…was hopelessly encircled by 1914 and knew it. Russia, supported by France, was forming a new Balkan League around Russia’s protégé and Austria’s worst enemy, Serbia. Rumania was defecting, Bulgaria was wavering and exhausted under strong Russo-French pressure. Turkey was leaning toward Russia, Italy was cooperating with Russia in the Balkans; even Germany was wholly unreliable support politically, and Austria’s chief competitor economically in the Balkans.
The isolation and encirclement resulted, moreover, principally from Entente moves and policies, always discussed as if they had nothing to do with Austria….Austria was…the actual target of Entente diplomacy….In fact one can argue that Britain’s policy (like Russia’s and even, in certain respects, France’s) was more anti-Austrian than anti-German….[The British] never took Austria seriously and were regularly ready to let her pay, or make her pay….[Britain] urged Russia to concentrate her power and attention on Europe---the worst possible threat to Austria. The British…worked to break up the long-standing Austro-Russian cooperation in Macedonia, valuable though they knew it to be for European peace….When Austria annexed Bosnia, legalizing a situation long existing de facto and giving up her hold on the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar in the process, Britain helped promote an international crisis over the violation of a treaty thirty years old, whose relevant provision had never been intended by Britain herself to remain long in force….
On the eve of war, the Foreign Office was aware of the fear prevalent in both Berlin and Vienna that Austria might collapse….[but] No thought of any action to help maintain Austria’s independence and integrity was entertained….Of course there was no great anti-Austrian plot. The British did not think of Austria as their enemy; they tried not to think of her at all. They did not plan to isolate and destroy her; they simply did not concern themselves…with the question of whether the concessions and defeats imposed upon Austria before the war, and the territorial sacrifices to be imposed on her during and after it, would leave her viable….What makes Britain’s responsibility for the plight of Austria a heavy one, although less direct than Russia’s or France’s, is that Britain alone was in a position to manage the European Concert so as to control the Balkan situation….Only the presence of the Habsburg monarchy holding down the Danube basin kept Germany or Russia from achieving mastery over Europe….Let Austria go under, and a great war for the mastery of Europe became almost mathematically predictable…."