474. The Road to The Great War: The Lights Go Out (Part 6)
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Under pressure. I always love the story about Churchill when he became prime minister in 1914. It's all kicking off. The Germans are invading in the east. And he says that that night he went back home and he slept like a baby because the pressure that this was the culmination of everything he'd been planning for. And actually, he was at his best under enormous pressure. This is the moment that he lived for.

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For some time we did not speak. I left the window and stood behind his chair. "So is it all up?" I said. He answered without looking at me: "Yes, it's all up." I sat down beside him with a feeling of numbness in my limbs and absently watched through the half-open door the backs of moving men. A secretary came in with foreign office boxes. He put them down and went out of the room.

Henry sat at his writing table, leaning back with a pen in his hand. What was he thinking of? His sons? Would they all have to fight? I got up and leant my head against his. We could not speak for tears.

That was Margot Asquith, the wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, the Prime Minister of Britain, writing in her autobiography. She was remembering the evening of Tuesday, the 4th of August 1914, which was the night that Britain entered the Great War, the First World War, probably the greatest calamity in modern history.

from which so much else flowed, so many of the great horrors that scarred the history of the 20th century. For the Asquiths themselves, it was devastating. It destroyed the prime minister's premiership. But also, the premonitions were right. The Asquith sons did indeed

join up, fight. And their elder son, Raymond, was killed exactly two years and two weeks later at the Battle of the Somme. Yeah. The memory of which is still such a scar on the British historical memory. So Dominic, I mean, that's a brilliant and...

sobering reminder of everything that is at stake. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's not just the Asquiths, is it? I mean, it's millions of people in Britain. It's millions of people in all the various combatant powers across Europe and in due course, you know, in continents beyond Europe as well. Yeah, absolutely. So as much as there have been very blackly comic moments in this series, of course, it's a series that ultimately at the end of it is a horrendous tragedy.

And it's also a reminder, I think, that scene, the two of them crying, that these people, these decision makers, as we've said so many times, they do not go into this gladly and excitedly. They do not think it's a great adventure. They are literally crying as they make the crucial decisions. And so that's what makes me think we've referred a lot to Christopher Clarke's brilliant, groundbreaking book on this process, The Sleepwalkers.

I don't think they are sleepwalkers. No, I agree with you. I've always thought about that book, that it's an oddly chosen title. Yeah. Because many of them, their eyes are wide open and they are tormented by the decisions they're making. They think they're the right decisions. They think they have no alternative. But I don't think they are like sleepers. No. Stumbling down a hall not knowing what's going on. I think they know only too well.

What is coming? I mean, that moment, would his sons have to fight? As you said, the premonition. And we'll see later in this final episode that that was shared not just by the high and mighty, but by people all across society who knew that something terrible was coming at the end of all this. And yet it certainly in Britain, it dawns on them so late, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Yeah, that's another thing that we'll discover today.

So we ended last time, Tom, on the evening of Thursday, the 30th of July. The Austrians had begun firing on Belgrade. The stream of telegrams between Nicholas II and Wilhelm II has come to an end. They've basically fallen out with each other.

The Kaiser is ranting and raving about shopkeepers and... Edward VII. Edward VII. The ghost of Edward VII. And the Tsar, the final moment, we entered in the telegraph office in St. Petersburg, the Tsar having ordered general mobilization and the order going out across the Russian Empire. So the question now, I mean, we can take this day by day because we're into the last three or four days of this whole story. The first question is how will the Germans respond to the news of Russian mobilization?

the moment, by the way, that the Germans have been dreading and expecting and preparing for, not just for weeks, but for years. So overnight they had a massive row, the Kaiser's commanders and his ministers, because their whole plan was predicated on speed, but now they've realised they're in danger of falling behind the Russians. So midday they get a telegram from St Petersburg confirming the Russians have moved from partial mobilisation to general mobilisation. In other words, they're getting all of their men into

into line and moving to the borders preparing for war. And they decide that they will move to this thing that they talked about, we talked about last time, that the Kaisers will declare a state of imminent danger of war.

So that will mean martial law in Germany, the censorship of the press, the railways taken over by the military, the frontiers taken over by the military, and so on and so forth. I mean, Wilhelm is a man who loves ritual and ceremony, and he loves playing the part of a king and emperor. And so that afternoon, they meet in the royal palace in Berlin in their star chamber, and

And Wilhelm is, he's sort of ranting a bit as he often does under stress and saying, this is all, you know, the Russians, what absolute dogs they are, terrible people.

His staff give him the order to sign and he insists. He says, I must stand up to sign it. So he stands up and he signs this thing. And Erich von Falkenhayn, his Prussian war minister, says his bearing and language were worthy of a German emperor, worthy of a Prussian king. Finally, the Kaiser has risen to the moment and not disgraced himself by behaving like Mr. Toad. And the same day, they send two ultimatums, one to Russia and one

and one to France. To Russia, they say, you must halt your military preparations, which are clearly aimed at us. If you don't, we will make preparations ourselves. And to France, they say, you have basically until tomorrow afternoon to declare your neutrality. Otherwise, the gloves are off. And do they send a message to Britain? Well, of course, in Britain, people have been under a bit of a fog. So actually, this same day, Friday the 31st, is the day I would say that...

Most people in Britain finally realise this is something serious. You know how it is. We've talked about this so many times, especially when we're talking about modern history. At any given moment, most people have no idea what's going on because they're not following the news. They've got better things to think about. Well, this is the Baldrick joke in Blackadder Goes Forth, isn't it? That Baldrick, you know, he's the Batman. Yeah, the dim-witted. The dim-witted Batman. And says, I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.

Yeah, exactly. So this is the first time that you've got basically the newspapers saying, oh my God, there's going to be a war. And the popular press, as it were. And not only that, the city of London is in chaos. People are rushing to get money. The Bank of England suspended payments in gold. And they've actually, for the first time in history, had to close the stock exchange to try to prevent a massive crash as people panic.

So absolutely people in Britain now are realizing something is up and they get a message from the Germans. So sorry to answer your question, Tom, is there an ultimatum to Britain? Not an ultimatum. There is a message basically begging the British to stay out. So the German Chancellor, Theobald Bettmann-Holweg, sends a message to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and he says, please, if we promise that we won't annex any French territory, if there's a war, will you stay out?

And Gray says, no, I cannot give you that guarantee. Such a bargain would be a disgrace from which the good name of this country could never recover. Okay. Is that accurate? I mean, is his principle British honour requires, you know, it would be an affront to the dignity of the British empire.

Or are there more Machiavellian reasons? Are there reasons to do with British self-interest that is about more than just matters of principle? I mean, what is at stake there? So what's at stake? There are people in the Foreign Office who broadly I think Gray probably agrees with, who think that if Britain abandons France, that Britain has a moral obligation to France because

Because we had said for so long, of course, they have nothing in writing, that famous line that Cedric Gray used earlier in the series. But that if we walk away from France now, our word will mean nothing in international affairs. But not only that, that it would be a strategic defeat for Britain because France would fall.

that Germany will control the channel ports and so on. Because, I mean, just to... I can't remember if we've mentioned this, because we've done so many episodes on this, but the French fleet is not in the channel because the British have guaranteed that they will keep an enemy fleet out of the channel. Yes. So if Britain stays neutral, then there's nothing to stop the German fleet from descending on northern France. Correct. Exactly right. And Grey feels a huge sense of obligation. Now, when we first introduced Grey in this story, we said...

He has not made that public.

So that is news to a lot of his liberal colleagues and, of course, to a lot of the general public. They say, what obligation do we have to France? And the fact that Gray has in private assured the French ambassador, oh, we'll always stand by you. But I mean, how tense for the French ambassador. Right. Because the French ambassador, as we will see, is extremely worried that actually Gray isn't going to deliver on this promise. Profidious Albion. So Profidious Albion. Right. That image of Profidious Albion, by the way, you see, here's the interesting thing.

Everybody in Britain thinks our word is our bond, an Englishman, a cricketer and a gentleman. Everybody abroad thinks you can never count on the British. They will always desert you and stab you in the back. Now, of course, there are some people associated with this podcast, Tom, who would suggest that this is precisely what Britain should have done.

However, we will discuss that in due course. Now, the cabinet meets later that day. By and large, Gray is obviously moving much more towards intervention now, but most of his colleagues are still, no, no, it would be much better to stay out. Churchill, the young Churchill, is very aggressive.

But as Asquith writes to his would-be girlfriend, the girlfriend of his dreams anyway, Venetia Stanley. His daughter's friend. Yeah. 84 years his junior or whatever it is. And he says to her, everybody longs to stand aside.

So the cabinet meeting breaks up and they have not decided to join the war in support of France. They all agree at an extraordinary concession from them in the circumstances of Edwardian England, that they won't go to the country, to their country estates. So Edward can't go fishing. He cannot go fishing. A bad blow for us all. But actually, Tom, an even bigger blow for Asquith. Asquith has been planning that he will go to a country house for a country house house party.

Margot will come too, of course, but Venetia will be there. And he's very excited about it. And now he can't. He's taking a bullet for the team there then. He writes to Venetia and he says, I'm going to have to miss this party because of this bloody awful business in the Balkans. I can honestly say I've never had a more bitter disappointment.

He is so disappointed. He says he cannot sleep. Not because he's worried about the war. He's the real victim in all this, Tom. Yeah, he is. So, however, the great thing about liberal politicians of the 1910s was they had tremendous composure and poise. So he's able to put that disappointment behind him.

because Sir Edward Grey has gone to his club to have dinner and to play billiards. I so admire that. And then... I genuinely admire that. He goes to Number 10 to play bridge with the Asquiths. Yeah. Margot said in her journal or whatever it was, Sir Edward came in and played bridge. He was very grave and silent, but he was in quite good form. Grey has in some ways an undeveloped schoolboy side to him, but he's quite as un-upsetable as Henry is.

So that's fine. They're playing their cards and stuff. And after this, Grey says, well, maybe we should make one last diplomatic effort. So he and Asquith, I'm sure port has been taken or whatever. They say, let's write a telegram. Let's get George V in on the telegram action.

So a telegram to send to the Tsar to say, would you consider halting your mobilisation and giving us, the British, more time to try and mediate? So it's half past one now. Drink has definitely been taken at this point. But the King would definitely by this point have gone to bed, wouldn't he? He has gone to bed. He'd have had an evening studying stamps, stamp collecting magazines, and then telegrams.

tucked up with his cocoa. Exactly. Asquith and Grey's private secretary, they have to go out and flag down a taxi. It's quite difficult to do. There aren't many. It takes them ages to even find a taxi. They get into the taxi. Off they go to Buckingham Palace. They basically have to get the king out of bed.

Asquith says himself he was wearing a brown dressing gown over his nightshirt and had showed copious signs of having been wakened from his beauty sleep. So the king is standing there like bleary eyed in his dressing gown. Asquith reads him the message. The king says fine, but he insists on one change. He wants to actually make it more personal. So he puts in the words, my dear Nikki, at the beginning, and then he insists on signing it Georgie.

which is very sweet but actually does no good at all it's a total not a waste of time this telegram so finally the king is allowed to go back to bed they'll go to bed

Saturday, the 1st of August. Really, I think now this is just an exercise in kind of blaming each other while the clock ticks down. And this involves the German ambassador, doesn't it, in St. Petersburg? Yes. Delivering an ultimatum. Yes. And you've talked regularly about how ambassadors in this period all have the wrong name. Yeah. So the German ambassador has a French name. Yeah. Count Portales. Portales. Yeah. Portales, I think it is. He's of Swiss background, I believe, Tom. Very confusing. Yeah. Everybody...

Benckendorf, Lichnowsky, they're all the ambassador from the wrong country to the wrong place. I think that's fair to say. And the Austrians are the worst for this. Anyway, so the French cabinet is meeting that morning and deciding on mobilization. Still in Britain, the sense is we will stay out. There's only really one newspaper that has been really keen on getting involved, and that's always been The Times. Your paper. Always a very anti-German paper.

Most of the papers are still at this point. Don't forget, Britain is only three days away from joining the war. But still, the Daily Chronicle, we must not fight the Germans. It says, the great people whose civilization is in many ways the most akin in Europe to our own

The idea of a ruinous conflict between us seems more unqualifiedly distasteful now than it has perhaps for a generation. So that's again picking up on the idea that actually Anglo-German relations have been improving. Exactly. It's so interesting and so counterintuitive given everything that we believe about the road to the First World War. The cabinet meets again. Still they can't decide. And now they're very conscious that if the cabinet splits, actually what happens to Britain?

What happens is the government falls, and after this long period of intense partisanship about Ireland, about the House of Lords, about taxes, all of these things, the Liberals are booted out, and the Tories come in, or the Unionists as they were called then, and say, what is the Tory position on this? Let's get stuck in. We love a war. That's their position. They have met privately the Tory leaders, Bonalor, Balfour, F.E. Smith,

And they have decided that they are all for the war. They want to stand by France and they want to get stuck in. I mean, it's an interesting question about why the Tories. I have to confess, I'm not sufficiently well read on Tory politics in the early 1910s to know the answer about why they're so keen. I think they regard it as the patriotic thing to do and they like the idea of flexing Britain's muscles and not staying out. And maybe also it's just a way of getting the liberals out.

Of course, it's a way of getting the Liberals out, exactly. So the cabinet meeting this time again breaks up, no decision. Now, interestingly, Churchill wanted to mobilise the fleet.

Everybody said, "No, terrible idea. Very provocative." And at the end, they all go out. And on this way out, Churchill says to Asquith, "How about it? Let me mobilize the fleet." And Churchill said, "He looked at me with a hard stare and gave a sort of grunt. I did not require anything else." So Churchill actually is getting the fleet to its war stations in readiness. The French, however, are horrified that the British have still not come to a decision.

So remember Paul Cambon, who refuses to speak any English. Well, can't speak English, apparently. And doesn't agree with the idea of people and French people going to English schools. So bad news for our producer, Theo. Cambon meets Gray and he is virtually in tears. He's white. And he says to him, this point that you made, Tom, you promised us we sent away our fleet because we thought your fleet would protect us.

Will you not help us? Yeah. And doesn't he famously say, I'm waiting to see if the word honneur must be struck out of the English dictionary. That's right. And Gray basically says, we still haven't made up our minds, sorry. Cambon says to his aides, ils vont nous lâcher. They're going to let us down. Those buggers, they are going to ditch us. You know, he really believes it.

And in the Foreign Office, there are some people who are actually threatening to resign. Air Crow. And this is over a point of principle. Yeah, because we promised the French. That's their claim. We promised the French, even though we had nothing in writing. This is, I suppose you would say, you gave the example in a previous episode of the historian Neil Ferguson, who thinks Gray was negligent here. And you could say, this is the problem when you run informal secret foreign policy, that actually you've made promises that

And maybe you don't have the capacity to keep them. You have issued checks. You've issued checks. Without requisite capital behind them. Exactly that. Now, if that is an emotional scene, there are two more absolutely extraordinary emotional scenes to come today on this Saturday, the 1st of August. The first is in St. Petersburg. At 7pm exactly, the ambassador that you mentioned, Tom, Count Portales, is admitted to the Russian foreign ministry and Sergei Sazanov...

the foreign minister is waiting to receive him. Portales says to him three times, will you stop your military measures? And Sassanoff says, no, no, probably non, they're probably speaking French actually. He says, non, non, non. And Portales is very moved. He's kind of shaking. He's breathing heavily. And he says, in that case, Monsieur le Ministre, I am commanded to give you this note. And the note is the declaration of war. And at that point,

Portales totally loses it, breaks down in tears, puts his hand to his head and says, I never would have believed that I would leave St. Petersburg under circumstances like this. I can't believe it. And he's crying. And incredibly, Sazanov starts crying as well and says to him in French, believe me, monsieur, one day we will meet again.

And they embraced each other before Portales went out of the room. Quite a contrast to how Germany will declare war on Russia later in the century. Right. But again, a reminder that these people often had quite strong personal relationships. They belong to a kind of international caste, I suppose, don't they? Of aristocratic diplomats. And they've often rattled their sabres.

but they had never really imagined that they would ever get to this point. Now, even if that's emotional, even more emotional and frankly bizarre is the scene in Berlin. Wilhelm, who's obviously been kept out of the capital as much as possible to avoid creating a scene, is driven in from Potsdam

He goes down the main, the Great Avenue, Unter den Linden in Berlin, and he's dressed up. He loves, we know the Kaiser loves to dress up. It's pretty clear from all the sources you've been citing that he didn't actually want to go to war. No. He shrunk from it. But now the bullet has been bitten. I mean, this is kind of what he's made for, isn't it? Yeah. A grand histrionic scene that involves dressing up and posing and strutting. Exactly. He's made for it. I mean, he's frightened of it, I think, but at the same time, there's part of him that

secretly probably quite enjoys it. He's got his uniform on the cavalryman of guard, massive crowds, of course, waving flags and cheering him, which is what he wants. He goes to his palace at five o'clock. The war minister, Falkenhayn, the chancellor, Bethman Holveg, come in with the mobilization order and he signs it, Tom, at a table hewn from the wood of HMS Victory,

of Nelson's flagship. And how has that come to pass? So this is a gift. It's a gift from his kith and kin in Britain. The irony. That was given as a gift to the Kaiser. Yeah, because HMS Victor, although it stands to this day and is a brilliant place to go and visit, it's constantly being renovated and repaired. So in the course of that, they've taken some of the timber and used it to help make a table. So is there a kind of resonant symbolism in that? Well, if you're going to smite the French...

What better table to use, right? Yeah. But is he also identifying himself with the Anglo-Saxons? No, I don't think so. We might like to think that, Tom, because we're a patriotic podcast. Well, I'm just wondering. I mean, is he thinking, well, the British are not going to join with the French? Ah, well, we will come to this. Blucher and Wellington, the old alliance. Right. I don't know. I mean, or whether it's just it's a convenient table that happens to be at hand. Could there be a better table than a table made from the timbers of Hitchman's Victory? Well, obviously, I don't think so, but I don't know.

I think it's probably a convenient table. I don't think, to be honest, I think they've got other things on their mind than the provenance of tables. Anyway, he signs this thing. Falkenhayn says, may God bless your majesty in your arms. May God protect our beloved fatherland. And they've all got tears in their eyes. They're all shaking hands. The Kaiser goes onto the balcony of their palace and...

And there's a huge crowd outside and they sing the Lutheran hymn, Now thank we all our God. And that had been a huge patriotic anthem in Prussia because Frederick the Great's soldiers had sung it on the battlefield. So it's a very sort of stirring scene if you're German.

And the Kaiser then gives this very famous speech where he says, "Ich kenne keine Parteien mehr. Ich kenne nur Deutsche. I no longer see political parties. I see only Germans."

All that matters now is that we stand together like brothers and God will help the German sword to victory. This is the part for which he's been rehearsing all his life. It is. And actually, do you know who he reminds me of at this point? Somebody else who rehearsed for this role all his life. Churchill. Churchill. Because Churchill gave a version of that speech in 1940 when he said, we may have differed and quarreled in the past, but now one bond unites us all to wage war until victory is won. And that idea...

All those petty divisions are gone. We are Germans stroke Britons. And I suppose that to the degree that there is feeling of excitement and happiness, that's part of what underlies it, isn't it? I mean, that passage with which we began that series in Vienna, that everybody is joined together in a common sense of purpose. Yes. And I think, Tom, it's actually, you know, all those crowds, when people talk about the outbreak of the First World War, people were delighted. They thought they'd be home by Christmas. It would be a great adventure. I

I think what is animating those crowds, the Edwardian era has been one of very, very partisan, conflicted politics. And I think those people, Sigmund Freud, we quoted him a couple of episodes ago. People feel, you know, rather like, the only comparison I can think of in Britain in recent years, perhaps when COVID struck, perhaps when the Queen died.

A genuine sense, for once, we're all together. All the silly divisions and squabbles are forgotten. And this is that, but magnified to an extraordinary degree. Now, the Kaiser comes in from the balcony, and they're all sort of standing around discussing logistics. And suddenly, Bethman Holbeck, the Chancellor, bursts into the room, and he says...

I have a telegram from London. And do you know what he calls it, Tom? It's a bombshell. A bombshell. It's an absolute bombshell. It changes everything. This is the greatest twist in world history, this bombshell, because they've had news from Prince Lichnowsky, the ambassador in London. Edward Grey has made up his mind. The British have decided and they will remain neutral. And not only that...

Absolutely. Beyond the Kaiser's wildest dreams, the British will not only stay out themselves, they will guarantee that France will stay out. And when the Germans hear this... Because that then means it's Russia against Germany. Russia against Germany and Austria. And indeed, Austria-Hungary. Yeah. It's all their dreams come true. The British are staying out. The French are staying out. The British will force the French to stay out and they can deal with the Russians once and for all.

And they will win. Thank God for that. Peace in the West.

The Kaiser is like a man possessed. He's so happy. He says to General von Moltke, stop the mobilization. Stop going westwards. Now, he says, we will march the entire army to the east. And everybody's like hurrah. And they're kind of, you know, clenching their fists and slap each other in the back. And presumably for Moltke, this is a kind of nightmare because he's got all his trains sorted out. Moltke, the description of him is that he was trembling. And he says in this sort of quiet voice,

I can't. We can't. And of course you can't. As you said, Tom, their entire plan is based on going westwards. All their war games, all their preparation is they will go west. Right now, seven out of every eight soldiers in the German army is moving westwards. Their advanced troops have already crossed the border into Luxembourg. And as Molka says, if we stop now, first of all, the whole apparatus will fall apart and

Do we have loads of trains going in the wrong direction? So like in Austria? Yes. Yeah, right. We'll look like the Austrians. We'll have men standing around at stations with no food. It will be a complete shambles. It'll be like a British bank holiday. Exactly. But worse, it will leave our entire Western border with France totally undefended. The French will just walk in. And the Kaiser can't believe his ears that Molker is saying this. And he says to him, your illustrious uncle would have given me a different answer.

Now, this is von Moltke, the elder, the man in whose shadow Moltke, the younger, has lived for so long. And Moltke at that, I mean, it sounds bizarre. He basically breaks down and starts crying. As he says later, I thought my heart would break. I was broken and shed tears of despair. And the war minister, Erich von Falkenhayn, has to take him aside.

to console him because he is crying and to be humiliated like this in front of everybody else. And his whole plan is falling apart. He sees the French walking in. He's in floods of tears. He actually has to leave the palace and he's basically sent home. The man who commands the German war machine, as he's taken out, he's saying to people, I was happy to fight the French and the Russians. I can't fight the Kaiser as well. This is mad.

He goes home still crying. And when he gets home, he seems to have had either a breakdown or his wife later believed he had a stroke. He had a minor stroke. It's very like Viviani, the French prime minister, having a breakdown. Yeah, cracking. People sobbing, having breakdowns, left, right and centre. Exactly that. Now, meanwhile, Malka's gone.

In the palace, Falkenhayn, the war minister, says, look, we'll say to the British, we have to keep moving the troops westward for the reasons that von Moltke has explained, but they won't fire a shot. For a few days, they will stay immobile while we sort out the details of this formal deal with Britain, and Britain will keep the French out of the war. And the Kaiser is already getting to work on his telegram to George V, monarch to monarch, cousin to cousin. I am absolutely thrilled with this deal. You know, I'm delighted. Thank you so much. Now,

Now, we have to keep moving the men west. But he says, and I quote, the troops on my frontier are in the act right now. We are stopping them by telegraph and telephone from crossing into France. Let's sort this out. Brilliant. This is what we've always wanted. So, Dominic, this seems to be very, very substantive evidence that the German high command and the Kaiser has not been planning and wanting this.

a war of aggression, isn't it? I mean, if he's this happy, he's been given his war. Yeah. And now he's celebrating the fact that it seems to have been cancelled at the last minute. If you were critical of the Kaiser, I suppose you would say he's just panicked at the last minute and blinked. I think if you were being more sympathetic, you would say, yes, he never really wanted a war with Britain.

He wants to be taken seriously by the British. But with France as well. Yeah, I think they don't mind fighting France. I think they'd be quite happy to fight the French. But the thought of fighting the Russians on their own. Brilliant.

And a great relief, right? You're about to fight a world war and you're told half of your opponents are no longer in the ring. What a tremendous relief that is. If you really want to fight the French, deal with them afterwards. But you can deal with the Russians right now. I personally think for all that the Kaiser ranted and raved about the British, he never really wanted to fight them. I think this is the perfect example of this. And actually, what really bears your point out is what he does now. He calls for champagne.

And he says, I want my family around me. We're having champagne. Let's go to the garden. Oh, his garden again. I love the fact he loves his gardens. He's doing that, I think, out of a sense of relief. Just enormous burden has been lifted that he will no longer have to fight the British. Now, a lot of popular histories say...

When war was declared with Russia, the Kaiser called for champagne to celebrate it. In other words, they condense the story and they miss the fact that actually the champagne is being served really to celebrate the neutrality of the British. So the Kaiser, I mean, he's had his ups and downs in this story. Yeah. But this is the up of ups. It is a transcendently joyful moment that the British have blinked. They're going to compel the French to blink as well. But what?

But even as he's drinking his champagne, Tom, another twist is in store. Well, should we have a break at this point? And people listening, when we come back, you will find out whether Britain does keep out of the First World War or not. So amazing revelations to come. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Some of the best decisions we make in our lives happen unnoticed.

under pressure. I always love the story about Churchill when he became prime minister in 1914. It's all kicking off. The Germans are invading in the east and he says that that night he went back home and he slept like a baby because the pressure that this was the culmination of everything he'd been planning for and actually he was at his best under enormous pressure. This is the moment that he lived for.

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Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History, the final part of our epic series on how Europe went to war. We left you on a cliffhanger. The Kaiser seems to have received a telegram from George V basically saying that Britain is going to keep out of the war and that the British will

pressurize the French to stay neutral as well. And so the Kaiser has cracked open the champagne to toast this and to toast the fact that he won't be fighting a war on two fronts. He's only got to fight the Russians. So he's sipping his champagne and then Dominic, another telegram arrives. And this is also from George V. And George V has wired a

I think there must be some misunderstanding as to a suggestion that passed in friendly conversation between Prince Lichnowsky and Sir Edward Grey this afternoon when they were discussing how actual fighting between German and French armies might be avoided. And basically...

The Kaiser's got the wrong end of the stick. There is no such British offer. It's not really the Kaiser's fault though, Tom. He's been misinformed. That's the truth of it. So what exactly has happened? What seems to have happened, it's still a bit of a mystery actually. And there are whole sort of academic journal articles about exactly what happened.

I think what happened was that the German ambassador to Britain, you described him earlier and you said what a brilliant fellow you thought he was because he was so anglophile. Very anglophile. Prince Lichnowsky. Yeah. He's too anglophile. He's too anglophile. And he's basically cooked up a deal himself with Grey's secretary, probably Sir William Tyrrell. And they said, well, wouldn't it be great if the Germans didn't attack France and then we could be neutral? We could maybe persuade the French to hold back France.

And they've somehow convinced themselves that this is a tangible thing and they've sent the proposal to Berlin. It's worth pointing out, isn't it, that Lichnowsky, when he goes back to Berlin, will actually write reports on his time in London and the build-up to the war and Germany's plans after war has been declared that will form the basis of the entire case that Germany was kind of willfully warmongering. Yes, he will indeed. Lichnowsky feels betrayed by the Germans.

He has gone so native in London that he can't believe that they're backing Austria so keenly. He can't believe they weren't prepared to accept Gray's mediation plan. And he can't believe that now they are mobilizing, they are preparing and all of this kind of thing. And he blames, he says there was a war party in Berlin, which I don't think is quite right. There was a party that was definitely happy to accept the challenge if they felt it was offered. But whether they wanted to start a world war in the summer of 1914, I think most historians would say no.

They didn't want to. Now, maybe you can blame them and say that their recklessness or their insouciance, their irresponsibility was a large part of what went wrong. But I don't think Likunovsky is right that they engineered it, as it were. But it's undoubtedly true. This deal that the Kaiser thinks he's about to sign with his cousin.

It just doesn't exist. And when he gets that telegram from George V, he's been drinking champagne, emotions have been so high, and he's such a voluble, volatile man. His disappointment is total. He is ranting and raving. He says, Grey must be mad or an idiot, a false dog who is afraid of his own baseness. So this is potentially very bad news for the squirrels of Northumberland. Yes, I suppose so, because they're what the Germans will shoot. Is it to... Yes, to...

bring grey to heel. So the Kaiser is devastated and it's like the air has gone out of his party and von Moltke who's back at home having either a stroke or a breakdown is brought back to the palace at midnight and he's shown into the imperial bedchamber

And there is the Kaiser, presumably not in a dressing gown like his cousin, but in full uniform. I imagine he goes to bed in a breastplate. Yeah, definitely. And he waves the telegram of George V at him, points and says to von Moltke, look at this, now you can do what you want. As in, sod the British. So the Kaiser finally goes to bed. They all go to bed.

Earlier the next morning, let's start the next morning in London, Sunday, the 2nd of August. Lichnowsky, whose scheme seems to have failed, goes to 10 Downing Street.

And he is a broken man. He is crying, all of this stuff. So yet more tears, ambassadorial tears. He goes to see Asquith and he says, please, please don't side with France. Germany will be crushed, will be overwhelmed. He was very agitated, poor man, and wept, wrote Asquith afterwards. But Asquith then says, I told him we had no desire to intervene and it's up to the Germans. If they don't invade Belgium, if they don't send their fleet into the Channel to attack the unprotected north coast of France...

then we will stand aside. Now, of course, he's basically asking the Germans not to fight in the West, and it's hard to see that they're not going to do that. But we'll come to that in due course. And later on that Sunday, Margot Asquith goes to see the Lichnowskis. The princess was in tears on the sofa, and he was walking up and down in silence. He called me by the hand and said, Oh, say there is not going to be war. Dear, dear, Mrs. Asquith, can we not stop it? I put my arms around Mechtild on the sofa, and we both cried.

Actually, I've been a bit harsh there by doing that voice. I think you have, because that's a very, very affecting moment. Yeah, it is a sad scene, but that's the cynicism of the man, Tom. That's the Captain Benteen cynicism that people associate. Breaking through. Yeah, can't help myself. Yeah, the show of compassion beneath it. A harsh, cool, calculating heart. Yes, a cruel and cynical intelligence, I believe. That's right, yeah. That's the phrase. So across Europe generally now, the mood is awful. Actually, it's not all celebrations.

So the news has spread that the great powers, not yet Britain of course, but the great powers are at war, going to war. And actually three examples that give the lie to the idea of the great celebrations. The preeminent German kind of bourgeois middle class newspaper of the day was the Frankfurter Zeitung. Over everything hangs a great gravity. In their quiet rooms, wives and young women sit, nursing their somber thoughts about the immediate future, great fear of terrible things, of what may be to come. That's the mood in Germany.

In Austria, in Alexander Watson's brilliant book Ring of Steel, which is all about Germany and Austria in the First World War, he quotes a priest from the town of Jablunkow, which was in Austrian Silesia. And the priest wrote in his diary that when the mobilization orders were put up... So Austria has now mobilized. Austria, exactly. Austria is now joining the campaign. The people poured into the marketplace. Everyone realized that the situation was dangerous or was seized by a strange fear of the unknown, great and threatening.

And there's a story that people will remember who've read Chris Clark's great bestseller, The Sleepwalkers. At the end of that book, at the very end, he describes a town in the French Alps called Vatilia. And it's an account from a schoolmaster, the town schoolmaster. And he said, basically, they're ringing a bell, a tocsin, to bring people in from the fields. Because, of course, most people in France, as in Germany, as in Russia, were peasants at this point. They worked in their land. And they come in and they're all still carrying their pitchforks.

And the schoolmaster wrote, what can it mean? What was going to happen to us? Asked the women. Wives, children, husbands, all were overcome by emotion. The wives clung to the arms of their husbands. The children, seeing their mothers weeping, started to cry too. All around us was alarm and consternation.

So this idea that people didn't know is not right. They knew. No, I mean, I think that that's something that we've traced throughout the course of this series. You know, and why they're not sleepwalkers. I mean, even in Britain, Tom, which has not yet joined the war, there's a wonderful book about 1914 called The Fateful Year by Mark Bostridge. Oh, yeah. The biographer of Florence Nightingale. And he describes in that the Sunday sermons given by vicars. Some of them are...

I mean, there's one bloke. If you've gone to St Mary's New Market that Sunday, the rector said, no town in England is safe. At night, it may be turned into a smouldering ruin and its inhabitants into blackened corpses.

I think that is a man who has been reading HG Wells. It is. And that's the sort of thing I look for actually in the Church of England. And you don't get any more, do you? No. It's all very much about inclusivity and not enough about smouldering towns. Not enough apocalyptic foreboding. Right, exactly.

So, unusually, extraordinarily, the cabinet is meeting on a Sunday, yet again. Outside in Trafalgar Square, there's a huge anti-war demonstration addressed by the great sort of founding figure, the Leonine figure of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, who is against the war. After whom Keir Starmer is named. After whom Keir Starmer is named, exactly.

And they all gather. They know that the Tories support the war. So if they split and the result is a Tory government,

then Britain will go to war anyway. And is anxiety about the Tories coming to power also anxiety about what the impact of that might be on Ireland? Is that any kind of influence on British thinking? That is a really good question and I think it disappears. I think they've only got room in their heads for one thing. Right. So we quoted Churchill earlier, didn't we, saying that the spires of Tyrone and Fermanagh faded into

the drizzle of the Irish mist or something. The murk of Ireland. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's exactly right, that they've been obsessed with Ireland for the last, what, three, four years? Yeah.

And now their minds have turned to Belgium and they've only got room in their heads for one thing. So they happen to meet, 11 o'clock. And Grey says, look, we've had a load of meetings. And as the time has come, he says for plain speaking, war is coming. And I don't believe we can afford to see France crushed. We have led France to rely upon us unless we support her. In her agony, I cannot continue at the foreign office. I mean, finally, finally, his cards are on the table. And the amazing thing is that even at this point,

Don't forget, no German has yet entered Belgium. Even at this point, most of the Liberal cabinet do not agree. So on the point of Britain's honour, they could have said, well, this is grey. He's been underhand. He's been a loose cannon. As a man of principle, he will now have to resign. Fine. Yeah, they could have done that. Cabinet collective responsibility does not hold. We don't have to do this. They absolutely could have done that. And some people deep down probably would quite like to have done, I think.

But probably a slight majority of the cabinet, even at this point, are thinking to let France down, to see the Germans on the channel again.

It's a risk. I mean, quite apart from the question of honour. But in what way is it different to the Franco-Prussian War? It's a very good question. We will be doing a special bonus episode, won't we, where we'll be looking at some of these deeper questions. It is a very good question. In what way is it different? I think the difference to them is that the reality of Germany to them now in 1914 is immeasurably greater than

than the threat or reality of Prussia in 1870. Is it also the Belgian question? That if they're going into Belgium, they're going into the Low Countries. The Low Countries has always been felt by the British as their... Yeah. You can't have an alien power and hostile power in the Low Countries. People always go on about the mouth of the river Scheldt. A key thing for British strategy, and they say we've never allowed a hostile power...

to control the shelter, at least not since Great Britain existed in 1707. That's actually not really true. So Napoleon obviously controlled it. Yeah, sure. But they have convinced themselves, a lot of them, that strategically it's impossible. It will mean death to the British Empire if somebody controls this. And of course...

Germany in 1914 is a different prospect than Germany in 1870, precisely because it is such a huge industrial and economic powerhouse in a way that it wasn't even in 1870. So the stakes seem very high to them, I think. And don't forget, I think that mood that we've talked about so much in this story of fatalism, of a dread of disintegration and decline, that seems so overwrought in many ways.

The British have been reading all the same books that the Germans and the Austrians have. Sure. And they have this same, you know, it's now or never, the clock is ticking, the hour is dark, all that kind of stuff. And the British, likewise, have been very divided among themselves. And so maybe a war will help everyone to get back together again. Right, exactly. So that first meeting breaks up and now Edward Grey does what I still can't quite get my head around. It does seem like the most Edwardian thing that's ever happened. And

And ever would happen. I admire this so much. Yeah. Because he goes to the zoo, doesn't he? To look at the birds. He does. He goes out on a walk. He walks around the demonstration and he bumps into a friend and he says, yeah, I've got a spare arm. I'm going out of the zoo. Yeah. But you make it sound like this is a mad thing to do. Yeah. But I think that walking. Clearing your head. Not staying in a stuffy office where everyone is panicking. Walking, but also kind of surrounding yourself with...

the beauties of the natural world, the wonders of the natural world, maybe provides a sense of perspective. I don't know. I think you're being very generous. No, I disagree because I think that listening to birdsong, for instance, I think it does have a calming effect. Yeah, fine. I think it can kind of ease...

anxieties, nightmares, it can bring clarity. Okay. Well, Edward Gray joining us there on the podcast. So I'm completely with Sir Edward on that. Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, we all know where you stand on Sir Edward Gray, Tom. So off he goes to the zoo. He communes with his birds. And then at 6.30 that afternoon, they meet again. Now they actually are reaching an agreement. The longer it goes on, actually, the more they meet, the more they move towards Gray's position because he is so stubborn and they are more pliable. And actually,

By now, it's obvious that Belgium is going to be a massive issue. And I think it's Thomas Otte in his book, July Crisis, says, what a perfect issue for the Liberals.

Because the liberals are, of course, the do-gooding party in British politics. They are the party of an ethical foreign policy, international law. Produce. Vegetarianism, whatever. If you said to them, let's go to war because it's in Britain's interests to defend our ally, to preserve our empire.

They'd be a little bit jittery about it. If you said, let's go to war, even if it's against our interests, but to uphold international law, they'd be like, oh, brilliant. Can't wait. Pile in. Sort of feed it into my veins or whatever. Yeah. So on this, the Belgium issue...

is really, really crucial. And now the Germans make probably, I would say, the single most ludicrous error, the worst error that anybody made in this entire crisis. Don't forget, the British had discussed the Germans going into Belgium and they'd said, if they just go through the bottom, there's not much we're really going to do about it realistically. What they do is that evening, their ambassador in Brussels gives the Belgians an ultimatum. Now they could have gone through

But the reason they didn't was because the German Foreign Office said, "We can't take the risk of the British getting involved. We have to try to forestall it."

Basically, we have to persuade the Belgians to give us a deal and to let us through. So it's a completely counterproductive move. Totally. They say it's the only way to stop the British getting involved. And of course, it's the one way that guarantees they will. And the ultimatum says, Sir Belgium says, the French are planning to attack us. I'm dreadfully sorry. We will be as quick as we can. We'll reimburse you for anything we eat as we come through. And we'll recompense you for the damage. But on the other hand, if you say no, we will crush you.

And King Albert, straight away, he says, well, there's no way I'm going to accept this. We can't allow ourselves to just be a puppet of Germany. And he's made up his mind even as night falls on that Sunday. So now we come to Monday, the 3rd of August, which is a very famous day in British history because as luck would have it, it's a bank holiday. It is the bank holiday. So Dominic, we began...

I mean, not just this series, but the series before the episodes we did on the assassination in Sarajevo with Philip Larkin's famous poem, which name checks people queuing up to get into the oval. Yeah. Your favourite sports ground. Which is my favourite cricket ground, my favourite sports ground. So the cricket ground that is home to Surrey County Cricket Club, who at this point are leading the county championship, the championship between the various cricketing counties.

doing tremendously well and they are playing that day at the Oval against Nottinghamshire 15,000 people queue up to watch the match Jack Hobbs the greatest batsman in England playing for Surrey he scores a century Surrey rack up an enormous total it's golden age stuff great sportsman the Corinthian spirit the green turf all that kind of thing yeah

What the Surrey authorities do not know and what the crowds watching that cricket match do not know is that the War Office has already made plans to requisition the Oval for the war effort. For what? It's designed to be a place where they will practice bear netting. Oh, God!

Right. So in the event, it's only requisitioned for two weeks, but that is enough to finish off the cricket season at the Oval. Well, that's sad. Cricket was the loser, Tom. But not Surrey, because although the championship gets cancelled, they are awarded it. Oh, that's nice. They win the championship for the first time in the 20th century. Right. So summer of 1914, not all bad.

so the Larkin poem gives the impression as all recollections of the summer of 1914 do that it's a lovely sunny day great summer's weather all that kind of thing and that's true but only in the south of England the rest of the country was actually typical August bank holiday in other words it rained and actually on the 5th of August the match against Nottinghamshire gets rained off oh wow there you go so the rain sweeps in yes so bank holiday lots of people go to the resorts they're all excited it's their big day out if you went

into London, there were crowds. Madame Tussauds, the famous waxworks, had a special exhibition, The Crisis of Europe.

with a wax model of Franz Joseph, of King George, of the King of Serbia, and other sovereigns of Europe. Do they have the Kaiser? I don't think they do, actually. I suppose you can understand why they wouldn't. He'd be a brilliant waxwork. Massive moustache. Well, I mean, he looks a bit like a waxwork as it is. Yeah. But I suppose they're worried of vandalism, maybe? When we went to Sarajevo, we saw a waxwork of... Franz Ferdinand. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. They were terrible waxworks. They were. I don't mean to be rude to that very small...

And well-maintained museum in Sarajevo, which I recommend to all the listeners, but the waxworks could be improved upon. So while everybody's celebrating going to the beach and watching crickets, the news begins to arrive in London that Belgium has rejected the German ultimatum, that there are huge crowds assembling in Belgian cities with Belgian flags.

There's a story that the councillor at the German legation in Brussels looked out of his window at these crowds with Belgian flags and he said, the poor fools, why don't they get out of the way of the steamroller? We don't want to hurt them, but if they stand in our way, we will grind them into the dirt. Oh, the poor fools. But there's an irony there, isn't there? Because you could say the poor fools. I mean, who are the fools? Not the Belgians, but the Germans. Yeah, you could. Absolutely, you could.

The cabinet in Britain met at 11.15 that day, and four of them, not particularly big hitters, four of them resign, but they resign on very good terms. So they basically say, listen, you guys want to have the war. That's fine. We can't be party to it because we're more of a more pacifist kind of inclination, but we're not going to make a great fuss about it. We will support you from the back benches, but we just don't want to be parties to the decision.

Gray tells his colleagues that Belgium has rejected the ultimatum. There's a lot of emotion in the room. There's probably a lot that seems to have been quite a lot of tears, but they are calm. They all accept that this is what's coming. And then Gray goes to the Commons and he gives what some people I think could reasonably say one of the two or three greatest speeches in the Commons' history. A brilliant lawyer's brief, very powerful, perfectly calculated mixture of national interest and kind of moral authority.

And he says to the MPs, you know, we don't have a recording of it because Parliament wasn't recorded, of course, in those days. He says, this is about British interests, British honour and British obligations. He says, no one can deny we have this friendship with France. So every member to look into his own heart and his own feelings and to construe the extent of that obligation for himself, as I had. I mean, true for members of Parliament then and true for podcasters today, Dominic. Podcasters today, yes.

Yeah, I think everyone knows where I stand. He says the French coast is undefended and that's our fault. We told them to send their fleet away. He's not wrong about that. He's not wrong. He says we guarantee the independence of Belgium. We promised them that we would stand by them if they were ever attacked. Again, he's telling the truth. And he says, I want you to think what happens if France is beaten and we've stayed out?

What happens if Belgium is defeated? What happens if- It's brilliant rhetoric, isn't it? Beaten to her knees, loses her position as great power, becomes subordinate to the will and power of one greater than herself. Yeah. Kind of biblical quality to that. Absolutely.

But there's also, again, he doesn't say this is going to be a great laugh. He says, we are going to suffer, I'm afraid, terribly in this war, whether we're in it or whether we stand aside. But if we stand aside, we would sacrifice our respect and good name and reputation before the world, and we would not escape the most serious and grave economic consequences.

Now, I think in that speech, I've just said what a brilliant speech it is, but I think what Gray does there is he invents the propagandistic British story of the First World War. So the longstanding friendship with France, for generations we've stood with the French. I mean, that's obviously rubbish. We've only had the Entente Cordiale for what, 10 years? I mean, France is our ancestral enemy, not our ancestral partner in arms. He doesn't talk about Austria and Serbia.

He talks about Belgium. I mean, it's a brilliant piece of rhetoric. No one at this point is... I mean, everybody has forgotten Franz Ferdinand. It's all about Belgium. He's condensed the issue to Belgium. And of course, when you do that, then it seems much more clear cut. I always remember reading Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, an incredibly popular book that JFK loved and everything. But I think in that, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand gets about two sentences. Yeah. It's all about Belgium. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I was reading...

some thread on Twitter a couple of days ago. There was actually an argument about the First World War, whether Britain should have stayed neutral. Nothing to do with this podcast or us. And I was reading all the replies. What? And the number of people who said, does Belgium independence mean nothing to you? You know, all of this kind of thing. Now, of course, there were people in the foreign office, many of them, the most...

vociferous advocates and most influential voices who were arguing for Britain to join the war long before the Belgian issue ever materialized. The Belgian issue was the most, I mean, I'm not saying it's nothing, of course not, but for somebody like Gray, the Belgian issue is not just important in and of itself, but it's the most wonderful vehicle to get people on board.

And also the other idea that he sells quite brilliantly is the idea that Germany has a long cherished plan to take over the continent and effectively the world. And that that is a deadly threat to Britain's empire. And that goes with the grain of British anxiety about the naval race. Exactly. The naval race and the economic competition. So there are lots of people who are absolutely...

you know, who already believe that actually, Tom. However, all that said, what he says about the French fleet and the risk to the... I mean, that does seem to me... I mean, you can't argue that.

Well, we'll wait for the bonus episode to see whether I can argue it, Tom. So that afternoon, Germany formally declares war on France. Yet again, more tears. The German ambassador, Wilhelm von Schoen, goes to the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. There's a big crowd. He's actually jostled and he has to be escorted by police to get in. He goes in to see poor old Rene Viviani, who's already a broken man himself. Schoen gives him a call.

gives Viviani his card on the way out and on the back he's written C'est le suicide de l'Europe It's the suicide of Europe So he's devastated as well Viviani is sort of trembling and stuff The only person who's really delighted is President Poincaré the man of Lorraine Yeah He's got the war he deep down probably always wanted Britain still hasn't entered It's that night actually it's before Britain has entered the war

Grey is standing at his window looking out over Birdcage Walk. Is dusk falling, Dominic? Dusk is falling. Dusk is falling and are the lamplighters going?

Going up and down the streets. Yeah, the lamplighters are out. And is he about to make one of the most famous lines in the whole of 20th century history? Tom, you're so dismissive. I can't believe you're... This is usually my job on the podcast. It's such a famous line because it's so haunting. Yeah. I mean, it kind of sums up the entire mood of this podcast. And I haven't even revealed what it is. So, Dominic, give us Sir Edward Grey's clowning.

Classic line. The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

I mean, that is very powerful. That's brilliant, isn't it? So here's the question. Did he really say that? I think he did. He said it to a guy called J.A. Spender. Who recorded it. Who was the editor of the Westminster Gazette, who was with him at the time. Spender wrote about it in his memoir, and then it became enshrined in historiography. I mean, it's such a perfect line, and it's so resonant and famous that I'm a slight element of suspicion about it. But Gray is a melancholy man and a very clever man, and he's looking out of the window.

And there's no reason to believe they're not lighting their lamps. All right. Well, I'm glad to know that he really said it. The next day, Tuesday, everyone, of course, has gone back to work because the bank holiday is over. The German army crossed the Belgian border just after eight o'clock. There is now an amazingly, if anybody thinks I've been too Teutonophile in this series, one of the most stirring scenes of the whole saga is King Albert of Belgium. At noon, he sends a formal appeal to Britain for help.

as the guarantor of Belgium's independence. Then he's in his uniform, he gets on a charger, a horse, he rides through the streets of Brussels at the head of a procession of carriages, one of which holds his wife and children, and he rides all the way to the Belgian parliament. And he goes into the chamber in his uniform and he says in French to the assembled deputies or whatever they are, gentlemen, are you determined at any cost to preserve the sacred heritage of our forefathers forever?

And as a man, they get to their feet and they're shouting, oui, oui, oui. You know, it's proper stirring stuff. And brilliant for Paul Campbell, who doesn't need to have it translated. Yes. He would approve of that. He would. Being a Frenchman, he would probably say something disobliging about the Belgian accent. He'd sneer at the accent. Yes, he would. He would.

So that morning, the cabinet met again in London to sign off an ultimatum to Germany, telling them to withdraw from Belgium. Gray met the American ambassadors, the first mention of the Americans in this whole story, that afternoon. And Gray said to him, thus the efforts of a lifetime go for nothing. I feel like a man who has wasted his life.

And Margot Asquith, she went to see the German ambassador again, Lichnowsky. And Lichnowsky said to her, you knew we must go through Belgium. There is no other way. We never counted on that old, old treaty. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Don't go to war.

I felt too sad to speak, wrote Margot. We sat and cried on the green sofa. I mean, you know, it is quite, it is moving stuff. And they then, after Britain's declaration of war, the Livnovskys go to Harwich. And at Harwich, they find that a guard of honour has been drawn up for them. Really? So they walk through this, yeah, through this guard of honour. Livnovsky writes about it in his memoirs. I was treated like a departing sovereign. Such was the end of my London mission. Oh, it's kind of sad, all this, isn't it, Tom? It's very sad.

In Berlin, the Kaiser has now got used to his new part and he's loving it, actually. He receives every deputy at the Reichstag at his palace. He's in his helmet. He's in his uniform. He has his new title. He is now the Supreme Warlord, which I assume he loves. Yeah, of course he loves that. The little boy in him absolutely loves being the Supreme Warlord.

And he says to them, we draw the sword with a clear conscience and with clean hands. And every great power is saying that. Isn't that amazing? And believing it. Yeah. They're all saying this. Of course, everybody at the beginning of any war thinks that they are in the right. But that sense of

Being embattled, encircled. Well, the contrast is surely with the Second World War. Yeah. I mean, in the Second World War, the Germans launch invasions that are absolutely acts of aggression and they're proud about it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But in this, that's not happening. Well, first of all, in the Second World War, you don't have people bursting into tears all the time. No. And guards of honour for them or people lending them money to...

get home and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, get their wife back from holiday. Exactly. You know, we did a series, I think we mentioned this earlier, it's worth reiterating, we did a series about the rise of the Nazis and you don't understand where the Nazis come from if you don't understand that basically everybody in Germany with the exception of Prince Lefkoski thinks that

They are blameless. They did the right thing and they've been betrayed and stabbed in the back and that they're fighting a defensive war. Bethman-Holweg addresses the Reichstag deputies, the chancellor, and he says, we are fighting for our lives. Yes, we are breaking the law by going through Belgium and Luxembourg.

And we know it is wrong, but we will make it good as soon as we are safe. When you are as imperiled as we are, fighting for everything we hold dear, you can only think of how you will cut your way out. I mean, that's how they justify it to themselves. Because some of this is maybe thinking, how do the Germans justify it? And they effectively...

say we have been forced. We have no option because the other option is death. And this is the tone that he adopts when he meets with the British ambassador after this. Yes. And of course, the British ambassador is bringing the declaration of war. Yeah. We're fighting for our life against two assailants. You joining the war. Britain is like striking a man from behind. It's very much. It's so interesting how they all use the

analogies and sort of idioms drawn from sport or school stories. Yeah. You never hit a man when he's down. That's what they're saying. But also that, I mean, it's kind of only a piece of paper. So the British ambassador says, we're on a bound to defend Belgium. And Bethlehem says, but what at what price? You were fighting just for a word, neutrality, just for a scrap of paper. Great Britain is going to make war on a kindred nation who want nothing better than to be friends with her. Yeah. And that phrase, the scrap of paper, if you go to the Imperial War Museum in London, it's

They have loads of propaganda posters. That phrase, the scrap of paper, was a gift to Britain because our propagandists used it understandably. They would do a poster of the treaty and they would say, the Germans think this is just a scrap of paper, but this is the guarantee of Belgium's freedom. This is what we're fighting for. This is what it's all about. This is what it's all about. Exactly.

And at the end of that interview, so it's Bethman Holveg and the British ambassador who's called Sir Edward Goshen. Do they cry? They're both in tears. Goshen actually says to Bethman Holveg, please, can I go into your antechamber? I need to compose myself before I walk out. I don't want all your staff to see me crying. I mean...

And Bethman-Holvig says, of course you can as a gentleman and all that kind of stuff. And that's what happens. Quite disappointed the British ambassador burst into tears. No, I think it reflects. That's poor form. I think it reflects well on him, Tom. No, excitable continentals bursting into tears is one thing, but a British ambassador bursting into tears, very poor. Well, you'll approve of what happens next then, because that night, it's actually, the funny thing about the story is it was very unclear. The British worded their ultimatum poorly.

So it wasn't clear whether it would expire at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock British time because of the time difference. So anyway, that evening as darkness draws in, Sir Edward Grey goes to Downing Street and he sits in the cabinet room with Asquith, with Winston Churchill, with their friend Richard Haldane, with David Lloyd George. And they're just waiting for news from Berlin to see if a reply comes to the ultimatum, whether they're going to get out of Belgium. And no news comes. And the reason is the telegraph lines have already been cut.

because, of course, there's no way the Germans are going to change their mind now. And at 11 o'clock, Big Ben strikes, and they hear through the windows the sound of a great crowd that's assembled outside the Palace of Westminster, singing God Save the King, you know, greeting the arrival of the declaration of war. And it's just a few minutes after that that a signal flashes from the Admiralty to Britain's fleet across the world, and the signal reads simply,

commence hostilities at once against Germany. So there we are, the world is at war and we will continue the story, won't we, in due course, probably next year when we're

when we look at the guns of August and maybe right the way up to the Battle of the Marne and maybe even the Christmas truce. But for now, we're not going to completely finish discussing this because next week's bonus episode for subscribers to the Restless History Club, we'll be looking at some of the broader issues that surround this. Some of the various perspectives that different historians have taken, some of the big talking points, the big debates, and we will be responding to

to comments, criticisms, points of view that perhaps you might want to put to us either on the Discord if you're a club member or on Twitter or X or whatever it is. Or you can email us at the Rest Is History website. So that will be for subscribers and if you're not a subscriber already you just need to go to therestishistory.com to sign up. You know the form, you've heard this a multitude of times and

That is the end of one of the great titanic episodes of European history. And on Monday, we will be starting a new series on another of the great titanic episodes, perhaps one of the most titanic episode of all, and that's the French Revolution. And we will be beginning that by looking at yet more Habsburg shenanigans, because we will be looking at

Marie Antoinette. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Dominic, for absolutely brilliant narrative tour de force. And thank you, everyone who has listened to it. Bye bye. Bye bye. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girl, four for a boy.

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