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[train rattling on tracks]

[train horn]

[indistinct chatter]

[brakes squeal]

[shuffling footsteps]

[dramatic music]

[rattling and clanking]

[metallic squealing]

[indistinct chatter]

[rattling and clanking]

[repeated explosions]

[man yells]

[all yelling]

[signal whistle]

[narrator]The First World War was the largest armed conflict

that the world had ever seen…

the Great War.

Since the summer of 1914 and over the next four years,

more than 40 countries were fighting each other,

on land…

sea…

and in the air…

[machine gun fire]

[engine splutters]

…with no mercy…

and to the bitter end.

Crimes against the civilian populations of Serbia and Belgium.

[loud boom]

Gas among the trenches of the Western Front.

Unrestricted submarine warfare waged by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The Allied blockade of Germany,

Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman genocide of the Greeks,

the Assyrians and the Armenian people

were just some among many faces of this war.

By the time it ended in November of 1918,

the Great War left over 20 million people wounded

and more than 16 million dead.

The Bolshevik revolution in Russia,

the rise of the USA as the dominant world power,

Nazism and the coming of Adolf Hitler to power,

were all direct products of the First World War,

as was the Second World War.

And then the Cold War in its many forms and shapes.

The Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The everlasting Middle East crisis.

[soft music]

In the summer of 1914, Europe was at peace.

There hadn't been a major war for more than 50 years,

the era known as Belle Epoque.

On June the 28th on Franz Joseph Street in Sarajevo,

the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of Austria-Hungary,

the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated

by a young Bosnian student.

[military drumbeat]

For that reason, a month later

Austria-Hungary was to declare war on Serbia.

[repeated explosions]

And seven days after that,

all of the European Great Powers would march into war.

[fanfare]

But why is it that the nations of Europe and the world went to war so readily,

and how did the First World War ever came about?

-[birds chirping] -[ominous music]

In the 1870s, 40 years before the Sarajevo assassination,

Bosnia and Herzegovina were still a part of the Ottoman Empire.

And this was so ever since the 15th century

when the Ottoman Turks had broken into Europe

and conquered most of the Balkans.

But now, after four centuries of the cruel regime,

the empire's end was in sight.

Throughout the 19th century, the Balkan peoples

the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Romanians

had turned to arms to liberate their lands.

Now the time came for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[Bataković] The slogan which was very popular was

"Balkans to the Balkan people,"

meaning that Great Powers should not intervene

and let the Balkans people agree among themselves

about their own future.

[Höbelt] The plurality of the population of Bosnia actually is Serb,

so I think it's natural for Serbia wanting to reunite those Serbs

with the motherland,

just as it was natural in 19th century terms

that they would want the Serbs of southern Hungary and Slavonia

to be reunited with the rest of Serbia.

[narrator] But the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina

was also a matter of principal interest to a great power.

Since the mid-19th century, the foundations of the Austrian Empire

were shaken by the revolutions and the civil war with the Hungarians.

-[people yelling] -[fire crackling]

By 1860s, the Austrian Empire lost its Italian provinces

in wars with Piedmont.

And in war with Prussia, Austria lost its dominant position

in the German Confederation.

As both Italy and Germany were now unified at Austria's expense,

the Emperor Franz Joseph was determined to prevent

the further crumbling of the Empire

and reach the so-called Compromise with the Hungarians.

Although the name was now Austria-Hungary,

the largest ethnic group within the empire were actually Slavs,

who outnumbered both the Austrian Germans and the Hungarians together.

[Bled in French] Vienna's great fear is that Serbia might set her foreign policy

towards the South Slavs of the Monarchy,

and that Belgrade might become the Piedmont of the South Slavs.

[archive voiceover] Any extension of Serbia

which would embrace Bosnia Herzegovina

as well as some other districts

could not be reconciled with the standpoint of Austria-Hungary,

a portion of whose subjects belong to the same race

and might therefore become enthused with similar aspirations.

[Bled] Vienna could have accepted the nation-states,

but only those which remained of limited importance,

those over which it could exert control.

If Serbia were to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina,

she would thus obviously become a mid-rank state,

and that was not acceptable.

[narrator] In the summer of 1875,

gunfire was heard again in the mountains of Herzegovina.

[repeated shots]

[Bataković] It remained totally unknown that the Bosnian Serbs

during these insurrections

proclaimed, on several occasions, unification with Serbia.

Bosnia with Serbia, and Herzegovina with another Serbian state,

which was the principality of Montenegro.

[narrator]In July of 1876, both Serbia and Montenegro

declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

[clanking]

But the destiny of Bosnia and Herzegovina had already been made.

[archive voiceover] Austria-Hungary cannot permit that Serbia occupy and keep

the enclave between Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia,

as this would mean a danger to the provinces of the monarchy,

especially to its Dalmatian littoral

which, extending like a thin ribbon,

would evidently have to be annexed to the new Serbia.

It was agreed that Serbia should obtain an extension of territory

in the Drina region in Bosnia

at the same time as in that of Novi Pazar in old Serbia.

[narrator] The rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina

were to be annexed by Austria-Hungary.

In order to secure Russian support for this,

Austria was willing to do anything.

If Russia was to wage war on the Ottomans,

Austria-Hungary would observe an attitude of benevolent neutrality,

but would also provide military logistics, field ambulances,

the supply of armaments, as well as the diplomatic shield

against other powers,

so Russia could pursue her most important goal:

the Straits of the Black Sea.

-[men yelling] -[horses neighing]

In April 1877, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

But in the peace conference in Berlin in the summer of 1878,

the Great Powers decided that the straits of the Black Sea

would remain closed to the Russian war fleet.

At the same time, they allowed Austria-Hungary

to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina,

but also the Sandjak of Novi Pazar

so that Austria could keep Serbia and Montenegro apart.

While Bosnia and Herzegovina were to be occupied

and administered by Vienna,

formally they would still remain a part of the Ottoman Empire.

[distant artillery fire]

The Austro-Hungarian generals planned to complete the occupation

by August the 18th, Franz Joseph's birthday,

but they encountered fierce resistance,

first from the Bosnian Muslims, and then from the Orthodox Serbs.

It took Austria-Hungary more than 150,000 troops…

[men yelling]

…heavy artillery…

[repeated explosions]

…and more than three months of war and reprisals

against the local population to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[Sked] The real point is that it gives prestige to Franz Joseph,

who likes to annex a little bit of territory

because he's lost so much in the past.

But Bosnia and Herzegovina is obviously a Slav territory,

and there's no particular reason

why the local population would want to be occupied

by the Austrian army, and they don't.

And they resist until resistance is put down after two or three years.

[fanfare]

[narrator] Germany had been united under the leadership of Prussia

and her "iron chancellor" Otto von Bismarck

over the course of three wars.

In the war against Denmark in 1864,

after the victory over Austria in 1866,

and then over France in 1870 and 1871.

At the helm of the victorious armies were the Prussian king,

the future German Kaiser Wilhelm,

and the Chief of General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke.

[Röhl] What Bismarck did in unifying Germany

was to place Prussia at the heart of Germany.

And the heart of Prussia was the Prussian army,

and at the heart of the Prussian army was the Hohenzollern monarchy,

and that monarchy had a long tradition of fighting wars without giving notice.

[narrator] But the new German Reich was quickly turning

into the most progressive country in Europe.

By the late 19th century, Germany had overtaken

the United Kingdom, France and Russia in almost all spheres.

In overall industrial production,

in the achievements in humanities and natural sciences,

as well as in social care for the German workers.

The standard of living was rising,

and the population would grow from 41 million in 1871

to 68 million in 1913.

But Germany's further growth in the age of colonialism

was constrained by the other Great Powers.

In the "Scramble for Africa,"

Germany managed to acquire just three colonies,

while the old colonial masters kept most of the world for themselves.

[background chatter]

[Mombauer] Although Germany is now very strong,

she was a late comer on the international stage.

Certainly a late comer in terms of colonial possessions,

and one of the foreign policy aims

was to ensure that Germany has

her rightful "place in the sun" internationally

and her rightful state within the European Concert

or the balance of power.

[Förster in German] "A place in the sun" implied growth

of the colonial empire overseas,

but also strengthening the position within Europe,

based on economic superiority over the neighboring countries,

but also upon military superiority.

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] In 1888, Wilhelm's grandson, Wilhelm II, ascended the throne.

He was to rule the German Empire for the next 30 years

and be the last German Emperor.

[Röhl] Wilhelm II was a very damaged person.

The nerves were ripped out in his neck at birth, he was a breech baby.

So he was a military monarch with a crippled left arm.

It was very difficult, and he always was trying

to overcompensate for that disability

by showing how bellicose he was, what a militarist he really was.

Wilhelm II as Kaiser thought,

"Well, the army has been built up by my grandfather,"

whom he called Wilhelm the Great,

"and my duty will be to put this army to effect

so that I will make Germany into the hegemonial power in Europe."

That was his great dream.

The great model always was the quick victory,

especially against France in 1870-71.

[narrator] Now Germany was too small for the two leaders,

and as soon as Wilhelm II was settled as the new kaiser,

Bismarck was dismissed.

[Airapetov in Russian] Several days before his dismissal,

Bismarck promised the Russian ambassador Count Shuvalov

that the Reinsurance Treaty, which prevented

a possibility of a conflict between Germany and Russia,

was to be prolonged.

Caprivi stated that he was not a juggler,

that he can't handle three balls at a time.

So one ball had to be dropped, and that was Russia.

Russia found herself isolated.

And as a result,

Russia turned towards making an alliance with France.

[narrator] A war against France in the west

for Germany would now also mean a war against Russia in the east.

A two-front war nightmare for any military strategist.

[Förster] The consequence was that in case of a two-front war,

the German Empire would have found itself tied up from both sides

and finally wouldn't have any chance for a quick victory over either enemy.

It was for these reasons

that in 1875 and also in 1887

Moltke called for preventive war before the German government,

against either France or Russia

in order to resolve the two fronts problem

before a war against both sides would come.

[narrator] But Bismarck had been strongly against it.

And without the Chancellor's ascent,

not even the Kaiser could take Germany to war.

But in 1890, Bismarck was no more,

and Wilhelm II was to ensure that he becomes the sole ruler of Germany.

[Röhl] He, of course, over the years appointed all the ministers.

The chancellor, all the generals, they were his appointees,

and they behaved accordingly.

They did not behave like republican civilian statesmen.

They behaved like courtiers or like militarists.

The chancellor Bernhard von Bulow would write on his cuff

what the Kaiser had ordered, not because he thought he'd forget it,

but to demonstrate to the Kaiser

that he would always remember exactly what the Kaiser had said.

[Bülow voiceover] True to the tradition of German policy,

we will make every effort to protect our rights and interests

in East Asia and West India

without unnecessary harshness, but without weakness either.

We do not want to put anyone in our shadow,

but we also demand our place in the sun.

[applause]

-[steam hisses] -[train whistle]

[metallic squeal]

[train rattling over tracks]

[narrator]Setting on what they called the "civilizing mission"

in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

the Austrians pledged to introduce the agrarian reform and abolish serfdom,

to raise the standards of living,

to organize schools, to improve the taxation system,

to reform the administration of justice,

and to treat the three religious groups with equality.

The priority was to build modern roads and railways.

[Bataković] Most of the constructions undertaken

by the Austro-Hungarian administration

was to serve for exploiting

the mining wealth of Bosnia and Herzegovina

and much less to anything else.

There were five times more police stations in Bosnia built than schools.

Social progress was reserved for very thin layer of population.

[narrator]In 1882, the Austria-Hungary's new Finance Minister,

and thus the administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

became Benjamin von Kallay,

a historian and a former diplomat to Belgrade.

He was to leave his mark on an era

by remaining in his post for the next 21 years.

This man who had written the history of the Serbs

now had a task of keeping Bosnia and Serbia apart.

[Bataković] The Serbs had had hundreds of religious schools

which were keeping their Serbian and Christian Orthodox tradition.

Then Benny von Kallay came and told them,

"You are not Serbs anymore, you are now Bosnians. "

He imposed the Bosnian language,

and he even banished his book History of the Serbian People,

which was published previous to the occupation of Bosnia,

in which he claimed that all the population of Bosnia,

and Bosnian Muslims in particular, are of Serbian origin.

And the Bosnian Serbs wanted the same

what they wanted in 1878: human rights, civil rights,

and to be free owners of the land they tilled.

[narrator] But the occupational rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina

never addressed any of the problems of the largest ethnic group.

Kallay had even prevented the agrarian reform,

so at the beginning of the 20th century, just as in the Middle Ages,

the Christian peasants were still serfs,

paying a third of their harvest to the Ottoman beys

who still owned the land.

Meanwhile, the Austro-Hungarian administration

kept raising the state taxes even higher

than those imposed by the Ottomans.

By 1910, 32 years into the Austro-Hungarian occupation,

nearly 90% of the entire population of Bosnia and Herzegovina

was still illiterate.

This was unique in Europe.

[church bells ringing]

-[gunshots] -[people screaming]

THE ASSASSINATION OF THE SERBIAN ROYAL COUPLE

[ominous music]

COUP D'ÉTAT IN SERBIA

THE SERBIAN ROYAL COUPLE ASSASSINATED

After the assassination of the autocrat King Alexander Obrenović

and his consort in the spring of 1903,

a group of military insurgents brought

Peter Karadjordjević to the Serbian throne.

King Peter reintroduced democracy to Serbia,

and it was through the parliament that the national unification ideas

were to come to the forefront of the Serbian foreign policy again.

At the same time, in the Austro-Hungarian provinces

of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia, a new political force was emerging.

In 1905, the Croatian and Serbian parties

joined in The Croat-Serb Coalition.

Its main goal: unification of the South Slavs.

[Bled] To Vienna, it appears that a threat

is forming on its borders.

All the while Serbia was an ally

subordinate to Austria-Hungary,

there had been no such fear.

But now the entire situation seems to have changed.

And as a consequence, in Vienna,

in both political and military circles,

a particular view towards Serbia was formed.

A sort of obsession.

[ominous music]

[Höbelt] And it's not just Serbia.

Serbia is a headache for people in Vienna.

For people in Budapest, for the Hungarians,

they are facing an even bigger headache, to some extent,

with the Romanians.

And so you have two irredentist smaller states

that are getting stronger every day on your southern borders,

and this is what gives the Austrians this impression

that they are really beleaguered

and they are facing enemies all the way around.

And Conrad, who was a little bit paranoid about Italy,

he would say, "You know, this is another secret enemy.

Italy is only waiting for its chance to attack us.

So what we need to do is eliminate all these threats

before they strike first,"

which is why Conrad's always arguing for preventive wars.

[narrator]The Kaiser was also seeking ways

to get Germany out of encirclement.

In order to achieve this, it seemed only natural

to use his family ties,

first with his uncle, the British King Edward VII,

and then young Nikki,

the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, also a relative.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] The Russian regiments must march with us.

I believe that the prospect of raping and pillaging in beautiful France

will lure the Russians to join us.

[narrator] But Nicholas had other priorities.

-[canons booming] -In 1904, Japan attacked

Russia in Manchuria.

[boom]

And now, as the entire Russian army had been sent away to the far east,

in Saint Petersburg the revolution broke out.

[multiple shots fired]

[people yelling]

The revolution was to be extinguished in blood.

In 1905, the Russian army and the navy suffered a devastating defeat

in the war with Japan.

Russia's military might was all but destroyed,

and for Russia, it would take a long time to recover.

[Röhl] Russia was not able to fight in Europe.

In other words, France was now at Germany's mercy.

And it's in this situation

that the Chief of the German General Staff,

Count Schlieffen, devises his Angriffsplan gegen Frankreich,

a swift, lightning war against France.

[Förster] The problem was that the German-French border

on the French side was well fortified, all along the mountain chain of Vosges.

A quick breakthrough was not possible there.

That is why Schlieffen developed a plan to march through the neutral Belgium

but also through neutral Holland

in order to attack France from the northeast.

And expecting that the French army would be set to fight,

they could now surround it

with a huge outflanking move and destroy it.

[repeated explosions]

That was the idea which Schlieffen formulated

in 1905 in his memorandum,

which we now know as The Schlieffen Plan.

[narrator] Still, a war could not begin without a major international crisis.

[stringed Arab music]

[narrator] Since 1830, France had put most of North Africa, Algiers and Tunisia

under her colonial rule.

Now she reached for the last remaining territory,

but so did Germany.

[Soutou] Morocco was a European problem.

There had been a conference at the end of 19th century

which decided that not a single European country

should acquire a unilateral position in Morocco.

And France, transforming Morocco in a protectorate,

broke that agreement, actually.

The Germans were not happy.

They tried to force the French to stop that.

[narrator]In March 1905,

the Kaiser landed in the Moroccan port of Tangiers,

offering the Sultan his support against France.

Paris saw this as a direct threat,

and soon Europe was on the brink of war.

[drumming]

[Röhl] What finally persuades the Kaiser not to attack

is his realization that Britain would not allow France to be defeated.

Both with her navy, which was totally superior,

but also with a landing of 100,000 men somewhere on the Continent.

So for the first time, you had Britain clearly stating,

"We cannot tolerate the crushing of France,

because we British will just be left facing a continent

that's united under your leadership, and that's something we cannot tolerate."

[ominous music]

[narrator] The United Kingdom, the world's largest colonial power,

had the largest naval force the world had ever seen.

[ship horn]

In 1897, under the Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz,

Germany had started building her own fleet

with the aim of matching that of the British.

This then prompted the British admirals to insist on a preventive attack

on the German navy before it became too strong an opponent.

But instead of a preventive attack,

Great Britain took another giant step in securing its naval supremacy.

[Strachan] In 1905, Britain launches

the first all big gun battleship the Dreadnought,

with 12-inch guns.

Eventually it'll aspire to have 15-inch guns,

and ultimately, they're thinking about 18-inch guns.

And that outclasses every existing battleship in the world,

but then, of course, creates pressure on other navies to conform,

and particularly, of course, Germany.

[Röhl] This presented the Germans with a huge dilemma,

because the battleships that they'd been building so far

were still small enough to go through the Kiel Canal,

from the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic or North Sea, and back again.

The new dreadnoughts were too large to go through that canal,

which means that they had to go all the way around the top of Denmark.

And so they had to decide not only

whether we Germans will also now build dreadnoughts to match the British,

and if we do, secondly, we will have to widen the Kiel Canal.

[multiple explosions]

[narrator] The Germans accepted the challenge.

The undertaking to widen and deepen

the 98 kilometer Kiel Canal began in 1907,

as Germany started building her own dreadnought-class fleet.

[dramatic music]

[clanking]

The naval arms race in Europe began.

[ship creaking]

[roaring splash of water]

[crowd cheering]

There are really two arms races going on within Europe

before the First World War.

SKETCH OF THE 75 MILLIMETER FIELD GUN

In 1897, the French develop a 75 millimeter field gun

which can fire about 20 rounds a minute.

[gun booming]

That is a serious increase in the rate of fire of guns,

and what that then does is create pressure

for every other European army to acquire quick-firing artillery.

[narrator] One of the first armies to introduce the cannon

was the Serbian army in 1905.

Drawn by a superior quality over the cannons made

by Austrian Skoda and the German Krupp,

but also by the offerings of a substantial French loan,

the Serbian government, for the first time,

decided not to buy weapons from Austria or Germany.

In Vienna, they were shocked when Serbia decided

to sign treaties with other states without consulting Viennese diplomacy.

They thought, "If Serbia wants to be independent,"

and 97% of Serbian export was dependent on Austria-Hungary,

"we will impose sanctions

and Serbia will have to come back under our wing."

[narrator] In January of 1906,

Austria-Hungary enforced the trade embargo

on the Serbian livestock exports,

an economic clash known as The Pig War.

[cows lowing]

But by 1911, Serbia would emerge from this war as a winner,

eventually profiting more by finding new markets

in France, Russia, Switzerland and Germany.

[pigs squealing]

[Bataković] It was political emancipation,

economic emancipation, military emancipation.

This is how Serbia became an attractive…

a kind of Balkan Piedmont,

especially for the Serbs, but also for other South Slavs.

[archive voiceover] The Serbs of the Orthodox and the Muslim faith

hereby pledge to work and incite people

towards getting the self-government for Bosnia and Herzegovina,

under the supreme rule of the Sultan.

In accordance with its free will,

the people shall decide on the country's social system

and elect governors, alternately a Muslim and an Orthodox Serb.

In the elections of 1908 in the provinces

of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia,

the Croat-Serb Coalition took a huge victory

by winning 56 out of 81 seats in the parliament.

[Bataković] When the Croat-Serbian coalition

took power in Croatia,

in Vienna they were very, very concerned.

They were banning Serbian newspapers

to be imported into Bosnia.

They were putting people in prison.

They were arresting Serbian leaders and accused them for high treason.

And this is why Austria decided to make another blow

to proclaim annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary.

-[fanfare] -[repeated canon fire]

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] On the last day of 1905,

Kaiser Wilhelm II relieved Alfred von Schlieffen of his duty,

and to the post of the Chief of German General Staff

he brought his personal adjutant.

Kaiser called him Julius,

but his real name was Helmut von Moltke, the younger.

[Mombauer] It was the Kaiser's choice,

based more on a personal liking,

and importantly, on the name,

because Helmut von Moltke had his more famous uncle.

Wilhelm II thought that somehow some of this would perhaps rub off,

and in fact, the younger Moltke asked the Kaiser,

"Are you thinking that you might win in the same lottery twice?"

[Wilhelm II voiceover] You can do that little bit of peace work,

but in times of war,

I will be my own Chief of the General Staff.

[narrator] As soon as Moltke was appointed,

the state of affairs in Europe began to change.

Russia slowly but steadily started recovering from the revolution

and the war with Japan,

and it seemed that her army would fully recover

within five to six years.

War on two fronts was again becoming a possibility,

and like his uncle before him,

Moltke the younger would get determined to prevent that from happening.

[Mombauer] Now or never.

Jetzt oder nie, the sooner the better.

At every opportunity he advocates war.

At no point does he say,

"Actually, let's just maybe hold back a bit.

Perhaps we're not strong enough."

But at the same time, he is surrounded by people who say very similar things.

[narrator] With Russia now back in the picture,

the German deployment plan,

the so-called Schlieffen Plan, needed an update.

[Lieven] The basic German strategic dilemma is a simple one.

They're in the middle.

If you're going to win quickly, you have to attack France first.

You can't defeat Russia quickly.

So the basic idea is you destroy the French army

before Russia has time to mobilize and deploy its troops.

[narrator] While Germany and Austria were covered

by the dense railway network, Russia was not.

Therefore the deployment of the Central Powers’ armies

was supposed to be much faster than that of the Russians.

So while Germans would go and attack France,

their rear, the Russian front

would have to be secured by the Austro-Hungarian army.

Then, after a lightning victory over France in six to eight weeks,

most of the German troops would be transferred to the east

and face the Russians.

Given the size of Russia,

given the weakness of the railway network,

given the ineffectiveness of Russian administration,

the Germans think that they can do this.

[military drumbeat]

[Franz Joseph voiceover] We, France Joseph, Emperor of Austria

and Apostolic King of Hungary

to the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When a generation ago our troops crossed the borders of your lands,

you were assured that they came not as foes, but as friends,

to remedy the evils from which your fatherland had suffered so grievously

for many years, and guide the country to a happier future.

Order and security have replaced violence and oppression.

Trade and traffic are constantly extending.

The elevating influence of education

has been brought to bear in your country,

and under the shield of an orderly administration,

every man may enjoy the fruits of his labors.

In order to raise Bosnia and Herzegovina…

[narrator]With these words, the Emperor Franz Joseph,

after 30 years of occupation,

proclaimed the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[ominous music]

[Bataković] Of course, it was a violation of international law,

the Berlin Treaty,

and naturally Serbia was fiercely against it.

They considered Bosnia to be kind of Alsace-Lorraine of Serbia,

key provinces for future of the Serbian and Yugoslavian unification.

[narrator]In Belgrade, the news of the annexation

of Bosnia and Herzegovina was met with outrage.

The largest demonstrations the city had ever seen were organized.

To try to defuse the tension, Serbian Foreign Minister

appealed to Vienna and eventually Berlin

for compensations in territory,

namely the Sanjak of Novi Pazar

from where the Austro-Hungarian army now withdrew.

Serbia hoped to expand there

and finally get a shared border with Montenegro.

But this was not what Austria had in mind for Serbia at the time.

A month before the annexation on September the 5th, 1908,

the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Aehrenthal

met with his German counterpart Minister Schoen in Berchtesgaden

and told him in confidence that his plan beyond the annexation was

"the complete destruction of the Serbian revolutionary nest"

and "partition of Serbia between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria."

A MESSAGE TO AUSTRIA SERBIA IS TAKING UP ARMS

Now it was also the Serbian press that called for war.

As the army itself was unfit to fight,

people close to the government and army circles

began organizing thousands of volunteers

in what was known as the National Defense,

armed Chetnik squads willing to go to Bosnia and fight Austria-Hungary.

[Hötzendorf voiceover]We must deliver a crushing blow to Serbia,

regardless of the position of other powers.

[Moltke voiceover] An Austrian invasion of Serbia

might lead Russia to intervene actively.

With this, thecasus foederis would arise for Germany.

[narrator] But the Russians were secretly supportive

of the Austro-Hungarian annexation plan.

In September of 1908 in Buchlovice,

Russian Foreign Minister Iswolsky gave Aehrenthal

Russia's consent to the planned annexation.

[bells ringing]

[Airapetov] Iswolsky's policy was based on the following.

"There are antagonisms with Japan, say, in Manchuria, Korea…

but we'll resolve that, we'll make concessions.

There are antagonisms with England, in Afghanistan, Persia,

but we'll come to an understanding, we'll make concessions.

There are antagonisms with Austria-Hungary.

We'll come to an understanding with Austria-Hungary.

For what reason? For the result that with all of the concessions made

there should be a conference

at which the issue of the Straits is to be reviewed.

[narrator] And while Austria-Hungary got the annexation,

it failed to provide support for Russia one more time again.

And the straits of the Black Sea

were to remain closed for the Russian Navy.

Now the Russian press called for war.

[ominous music]

And while Serbia was facing the Austrian ultimatum,

the German one was delivered to Saint Petersburg.

[Airapetov] As Count Montecuccoli,

the famous Austrian general, used to say,

"There are only three necessary prerequisites for war,

and that's money, money, and once again, money."

And that was something that during 1908 and 1909

the Russian budget was lacking entirely.

So, the Bosnian crisis caught the Russian army

in the position from which not only it could not have effectively attacked,

but from which it was unable to effectively defend itself.

Decision to collapse under Austrian threat and German ultimatum

totally humiliates the Russian elite

and makes everybody, from Nicholas II down,

absolutely determined that Russia will not be humiliated again in that way.

[Goltz voiceover] What a good opportunity we missed

of bringing the great European question to a decision.

[Moltke]…and will probably not come back so soon

and under such favorable circumstances.

[dramatic music]

[narrator] In 1911, Moroccan tribes revolted against the sultan.

This now served as a strong pretext for France to send

her 20,000 troops and take full control of Morocco.

In return, the Germans sent

a small gunboat, the SMSPanther,

to the Moroccan port of Agadir.

But yet again, it was the British naval threat

that deterred the Germans from taking any action.

The German navy was still far from ready to fight the British.

The works on the Kiel Canal and the major U-boat base

in the North Sea were well underway,

but still several years away from their completion.

The new naval law brought in the same year, 1911,

now allowed Germany to speed up her battleship production by 50%.

Instead of building two major ships a year,

she was to build three, starting in 1917.

With a Dreier tempo, Germany planned to reach

the British naval supremacy in a matter of years.

[tense music]

[guns clanking]

[Röhl] But the other purpose of the navy was to force Britain to her knees,

simply because Britain, with her larger commitments

all over the globe and her smaller manpower,

would have to build three ships for every two of the Germans built.

So if the Tirpitz navy was 60 ships strong,

the British would have to build 90 ships,

and economically they just could not do that.

And so Tirpitz says, "There will come a point

when the British will break,

where they will come to us and say, 'We can't go on.

Our hospitals are suffering, our schools are suffering,

our whole economy is breaking.

What can we do? What can we give you

in return for your slowing down the naval arms race?'"

And Tirpitz knew exactly what he wanted.

He wanted Britain to sign a treaty with Germany

promising to stay neutral in the event of a war on the Continent,

regardless of how that war started.

In other words, to give Germany carte blanche

to attack France or Russia at any time they chose.

[man shouts orders]

[Fisher voiceover] The decisive contest will start in September 1914.

That date suits the Germans if ever they are going to fight.

Both their army and fleet then mobilized,

the Kiel Canal finished,

and their new naval buildings complete.

[narrator] In the spring of 1912,

Britain and France made an agreement

to bring all of their warships back to Europe

and share defense responsibilities.

The French fleet was to patrol the Mediterranean,

and the British Royal Navy was to increase its presence

in the North Sea.

In July of 1912 in Paris,

Generals Joffre and Zhilinsky signed a military convention.

In the event of a German attack on France,

Russia was to attack Germany within fifteen days

and push through Prussia towards Berlin.

And inside Germany, politics were getting more and more complicated.

In 1912 elections, the Social Democratic Party won

35% of the seats in the Reichstag,

thus becoming the strongest political party in Germany.

[Röhl] Germany is becoming more and more democratic, internally,

and has a larger socialist movement

which is republican, Marxist and pacifistic.

There is a real danger that the Social Democratic Party,

the Catholic Center Party, the Liberal Party will simply say,

"This form of government that we have is not adequate for a modern society."

And the more power those parties acquire,

the less the militarist tradition will be able to be put into effect.

So there's a time factor involved here,

they see that very clearly, the German General Staff.

[machines clanking]

[Lieven] Russia has huge resources,

both in terms of raw materials and in terms of population.

So if the economy goes on growing at this rate,

Russia is going to be a superpower

in a way that really in the world of that time,

only the United States could match.

Possibly the British Empire, if the British Empire holds together,

but certainly not a purely continental European country.

And the fact that the future seems to belong to Russia

deeply scares both German policymakers

and broader sections of German society,

so from the German perspective,

you have this combination of fear and temptation.

The sense that if you fight now you'll probably win,

whereas if you leave it for ten years, you'll almost certainly lose.

[band playing]

[narrator] There was also growing concern that by 1917,

Russia would have fully recovered from the Japanese defeat

and the 1905 revolution.

The Russians were expected to complete their Great Military Program

and be firmly on their feet again,

this time with two million soldiers.

[Höbelt] Germany and Austria, they say,

"We're losing ground in Europe.

The others are getting more and more powerful

and we can't catch up."

And it's not so much armaments

but railway building by the French in Russia.

That is the big threat.

[narrator]In 1912 and 1913, Russia received a major French loan.

The condition was that they build strategic railways in western Russia.

Railways leading to the German border.

[train whistle]

[Höbelt] And within three or four years,

Russian mobilization would be just as quick as the Austrians,

maybe even not quite as the Germans.

So you can no longer have the Schlieffen Plan after 1917.

You can still fight the war on two fronts now.

In a few years' time you'll no longer be able to do that,

and that is really the basic argument for a preventive war.

So, in global terms,

World War I is a sort of preventive war

against the Russian railway building program.

[Röhl] It's obvious that if you are the Chief of the German General Staff

you're not going to wait until your enemies are ready.

It's quite natural that you plan to do the attacking yourself

to surprise the others.

The trouble with that is that it looks like a war of aggression,

which indeed it would have been,

which your own people would not support.

Your allies would not even support it

if it looks like you are taking an initiative in starting this war.

So the whole war had to be disguised.

[bells ringing]

[Mombauer] It was crucial for Berlin to appear to be attacked.

There was a lot of talk about how we need to appear to be attacked

so that all the population will be behind us

and that perhaps Britain will stay out of the war.

[Röhl] I prepare the German mind for this by newspaper articles

written by the General Staff to represent Russia

as barbaric, killing its own people,

shooting its own people in Petrograd and so on.

But secondly, the best way is to push Austria in the Balkans

into a war against Serbia.

Perhaps I don't have to push because they want to do it anyway,

but we will be very supportive.

[Mombauer] The experience of the Moroccan crisis had shown

that they couldn't really rely on the Austrian ally in a crisis

that didn't directly affect their own interests,

so a Balkan crisis was considered in Berlin

to be really pretty crucial and important

if you wanted, perhaps, to provoke a war.

[Röhl] If then, which they thought was very likely, 90% likely,

Russia supports Serbia and declares war on Austria,

then we will look as if we're only coming to the aid of our ally.

We will not seem like the aggressors,

even though our attack is actually against France,

before we can sweep our army against Russia.

And the greatest prize of all in this plan of Bethmann Hollweg's

was to keep Britain neutral

in what would look like a war in the Balkans long way away.

[ominous music]

[narrator] The Austro-Hungarian annexation of 1908

incited the creation of many groups and secret societies of young Bosnians.

One was the progressive Serbo-Croat youth of Sarajevo,

and one of its members Gavrilo Princip.

And in Serbia there was a secret society of Serbian army officers

called Unification or Death, better known as The Black Hand.

One of its leaders was Lieutenant Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, "Apis,"

the man who organized the 1903 coup d'état.

Now he also aimed to bring down

the Prime Minister Nikola Pašić and his government.

The Black Hand and the revolutionary and nationalist groups in Bosnia

shared a common goal

to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austro-Hungarian rule.

[Bataković] The main target of Serbian policy

was to finish with the Ottoman rule in Old Serbia,

which is Vilayet of Kosovo and Vilayet of Manastir,

which is Slavic Macedonia.

So Bosnia was apart from any plans of Serbia

to foment revolt or any kind of internal turmoil.

The main focus was the south.

[fanfare]

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] In order to fully liberate their lands

from centuries of Ottoman rule,

Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro

commenced military operations against the Ottoman Empire

on October the 8th, 1912.

[canons booming]

[men yelling]

[Bataković] One of the most important elements

in Serbian strategy during the First Balkan War

was to obtain an access to the Adriatic Sea

and to have a direct territorial link for its exports into the third countries,

because the tariff war by Austria-Hungary has shown

that Austria is doing everything to block Serbia's export

and to bring her back into their political influence.

[Bled] For Vienna, it was essential

to restrict the expansion of Serbia.

It is not acceptable to allow Serbia to reach the Adriatic.

The means to prevent that was to form the Albanian state.

SERBIAN ADVANCE TOWARDS THE ADRIATIC

[narrator]The tension between Vienna and Belgrade

was becoming critical.

THE BALKAN WAR AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CONFLICT WITH SERBIA

In Berlin, all saw this as a welcome opportunity.

All but one.

[Röhl] In November 1912, even the Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg

and Kiderlen-Waechter, the Foreign Secretary,

as well as the generals, are urging Wilhelm II

that the thing to do is to encourage Austria to attack Serbia

before Serbia can reach the Adriatic.

And Wilhelm is reluctant. He has a plan B in mind.

Plan B is that instead of Austria attacking Serbia,

it should bribe Serbia.

Give them lots of money, he says,

and then when the war against Russia comes,

the Serb army will be integrated with the Austro-Hungarian army,

and we can defeat Russia all the better.

[Bethmann Hollweg voiceover] It is often said that Germany

has no need to fight for Austria's Albanian or Adriatic interests,

or even for the harbor at Durazzo,

but that is not what is at stake.

If Austria has to fight for her position as a great power,

regardless of the cause,

then we must stand at her side

so as not to have to fight alone at a later stage

with a weakened Austria beside us.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] Austria-Hungary could count unconditionally

on the support of the German Reich.

Germany's sword is already loose in its scabbard.

[narrator] On November the 21st, 1912, the Kaiser ordered

his new ambassador to London, Prince Lichnowsky,

to ascertain what the British position would be

in the event of a Continental war.

The very next day, November the 22nd,

Conrad's replacement, General Blasius Schemua,

and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand came in secret to Berlin

to meet the Kaiser and Moltke.

[Schemua voiceover] Moltke entirely understood our situation

vis-à-vis Russia and Serbia.

He promised not merely to stand guard

but to launch a forceful offensive action in parallel with ours.

[Franz Ferdinand voiceover] Kaiser Wilhelm, especially gracious,

willing to support us in everything.

Full security in this respect, absolutely against the conference of the Powers.

[narrator] In his speech on December the 2nd, 1912,

the Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg pledged full German support for Austria-Hungary

in front of the Reichstag and the whole world.

So that is if you like, a blank check, given both secretly and in public

by the Kaiser, but also Moltke and Bethmann Hollweg.

All make it clear to the Austrian leadership

that Germany would be in support if they attack Serbia.

-[officer giving orders] -[drumming]

[Bataković] They brought such an enormous army

that in Belgrade they thought that the war is imminent,

that the war will erupt within weeks,

at the moment when the most of the Serbian troops were in the south

guarding the new territories.

[narrator] On December the 8th,

the Kaiser read Lichnowsky's telegram from London.

[Lichnowsky voiceover] In a general European conflict that might arise

from an Austrian invasion of Serbia, it is hardly likely

that Great Britain would be able to remain a passive observer.

England could, therefore, under no circumstances

tolerate the crushing of France.

England cannot be and is not willing to be confronted afterwards

by a united continent under the leadership of one single power.

[narrator] The Kaiser was furious.

He called up a meeting.

It would become known as the War Council.

It took place on a Sunday morning,

December the 8th, 1912, in the Berlin Palace.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] Austria must deal energetically with the Serbs,

otherwise she will lose control of the Slavs

in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

If Russia supports the Serbs, which she evidently does,

then war would be unavoidable for us too.

[Moltke voiceover] I believe a war is unavoidable,

and the sooner the better.

Moltke says the sooner the better.

We are ready, any delay is going to put us at a disadvantage.

But it's Tirpitz who swings the meeting

by saying the Navy would prefer to see the great fight,

he says "the great fight," to be postponed for a year and a half

until the Kiel Canal is ready

in the summer of 1914.

[ship horn]

[narrator]The very next day, December the 9th,

work began on the new Army Bill.

The army budget was to increase by a staggering 35%

and reach 2.4 billion Deutschemarks in 1913.

The army's troop strength would be increased by 140,000 men

by 1914.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] The creation of a strong Serbian Empire

must be prevented.

It is vital not to get encircled by the ring of Slavs.

The solution can be deferred,

but the question will come up again in one or two years.

It will be necessary to create a Balkan state

which does not look towards Petersburg, but Vienna,

and Turkey will have to be strengthened again.

[narrator]But back in December of 1912,

Austria-Hungary was still gathering

a massive military force just outside Belgrade.

[Röhl] They now had to be pulled back again, had to be told,

no, well, actually, we've changed our minds because of this.

So the Kaiser writes to Franz Ferdinand,

Moltke writes to Conrad von Hötzendorf,

Bethmann Hollweg writes to Berchtold, and says,

"No, actually not yet. Wait!"

[Höbelt] And then the Austrians say, "All right.

Let's say the Balkan for the Balkan peoples."

Because if you follow ethnic lines of conduct,

then Serbia is going to win fairly little.

Because Macedonians are regarded as Bulgarians,

the Kosovo has an Albanian majority, they believed,

so Serbia will gain almost nothing.

So they are waiting for the second round of arguing.

They are waiting for the Balkan entente to fall apart

and for the victors in the first Balkan War

to start fighting each other.

[dramatic music]

[canons booming]

[narrator]On June the 29th, 1913,

with the Bulgarian attack on the Serbian and Greek troops,

the Second Balkan War began.

[soldiers yelling]

[Höbelt] The Austrians tell the Bulgarians,

"We'll support you, but only if you buy off the Romanians.

If you bribe the Romanians with territory,

then we'll actually join you in jointly defeating Serbia."

The Bulgarians refuse to hand over territory to the Romanians.

And so the Austrians say, "All right. If that is so, then our offer lapses."

And the Bulgarian tsar is furious.

He says, "Who could have thought that you would miss

this perfect opportunity for wiping Serbia from the map!"

And as it happens, of course,

the Bulgarians on their own, they're being defeated.

And in itself that's a big defeat for foreign policy.

[joyful singing]

[narrator] Now Bulgaria and Austria's interests were united in defeat,

and Bulgaria was to become an important ally for the Central Powers,

as was the Ottoman Empire.

Germany was building the Berlin-Baghdad railroad,

while the German General Otto Liman von Sanders

was in charge of rebuilding the Turkish Army on the German model.

Now Russia was getting encircled.

[Lieven] The basic point from the Russian perspective

is that Serbia is their most reliable ally in the Balkans.

It's the only country on which they can depend,

because unlike everybody else, Serbia has no one else to look to.

The Bulgarians can play the Russians and Austrians off against each other.

So can the Romanians.

The Greeks can look to Germany, they can look to Britain.

So can the Turks, even.

But Serbia, because of its commitment to a basically anti-Austrian line,

has no one to look to but Russia.

It's therefore a secure ally, in a way,

and it's an ally which looks even more valuable

after the two Balkan wars.

[narrator]The weapon that stood out in the Balkan wars

was the French Schneider-Creusot 75 millimeter cannon.

[Soutou] That brought confidence to the French General Staff.

They were also convinced

that the Serbian army had become quite a good army.

They had a great respect

from what was called at the time "military virtues of the Serbian people,"

reliable, tough, willing to sacrifice themselves.

The Serbian generals are saying, "Look, we're very vulnerable

at the moment, because Serbia is attempting to absorb

these newly conquered areas.

The army has to reorganize itself.

We need a new system of mobilization.

We need all sorts of things.

Give it three years.

We and the Montenegrins will be able to put half a million men

in the field against Austria."

That is a huge potential advantage to Russia.

That means three, four Austrian army corps less

on the eastern front.

So at that level this is straight realpolitik.

At another level it isn't.

It's to do with appeals to Slav solidarity.

[priest chanting prayers]

[indistinct dialogue]

[tense music]

[narrator] In the autumn of 1913,

tensions were again on the rise.

In putting down the Albanian insurgents,

the Serbian army had penetrated deeply into Albania

and pushed for the Adriatic coast again.

Austria-Hungary now demanded full Serbian withdrawal

from the newly formed country.

And in the Alsace-Lorraine town of Severn,

a racial incident between a German officer and the local French population

threatened to escalate into an open conflict.

At exactly that same time, October-November 1913,

the king of the Belgians, Albert, comes to Berlin

and is told both by the Kaiser and Moltke,

"We are about to go to war with France.

The German people will be so up for it

that nothing will stop the furor teutonicus,

and you had better be on our side.

Because the penalty of being against us will be terrible for you."

[narrator]Within days, Albert reported Wilhelm's threat

to the French government.

But for Paris, this was hardly news.

In 1905 and 1911, war with Germany over Morocco was narrowly avoided,

so in 1913, Poincaré's administration

extended the military service from two to three years,

increasing the number of active troops from 480,000 to 750,000.

[Soutou] Poincaré was convinced that there was a danger for France

to be drawn into a very difficult war against Germany,

and he did not want to do anything

which might endanger Russian help in that case, in case of war.

As soon as Poincaré became President of the Council,

Prime Minister, if you prefer, in 1912,

he sent to Saint Petersburg

as his ambassador, Delcassé,

who was a former Foreign Minister,

who was the architect of the Franco-British Entente,

and who had already started, in 1898,

to reinforce the Franco-Russian Alliance.

That was a sign, an indication to the Russians.

"We mean it seriously."

[narrator] During his post as ambassador in St. Petersburg,

Théophile Delcassé conducted comprehensive talks

with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov.

The possibility of war was an unavoidable subject.

If it comes to a war, then we must try to win it.

They were pretty sure they could win it.

And in that case, we're going to solve a whole series of problems.

We're going to solve the problem of German hegemony in Europe.

We're going, of course, to take back Alsace-Lorraine,

which had been lost to the Germans in 1871.

The Russians will take the Prussian part of Poland.

The Austro-Hungarian problem will be solved

with annexation of Galicia by the Russians,

and probably with the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[dramatic music]

[narrator] On October the 18th, 1913,

Belgrade received yet another ultimatum.

For the third time in a year,

Austria-Hungary threatened war on Serbia,

now giving her eight days to completely withdraw from Albania.

[clanking]

[Bataković] After the two exhausting Balkan wars,

which costed Serbia almost a billion Francs,

the whole state was on the edge of exhaustion.

Serbia was lacking 120,000 rifles only.

Cannons and ammunition was needed.

Half of the army was in the hospitals.

And Serbia needed at least 20 years of peace

in order to absorb these new territories.

Therefore, her main interest was to remain

in friendly relations with Austria-Hungary.

[narrator] So once again, Serbia gave in

under the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum.

[Höbelt] The Austrians face the frustrations of success.

Because outwardly, the Austrians get what they want.

They want annexation of Bosnia in 1909, they get it.

They want Serbia not to have a port

on the Adriatic coastline in 1912, and they get that.

They want Serbia to withdraw from Albania in 1913,

and they get what they want.

On the other hand, they realize it's all Pyrrhic victories.

It doesn't really benefit Austria.

Serbia gets stronger and stronger.

And each of these crises cost the Austrians an enormous sum of money,

because they always issue an ultimatum.

They almost mobilize half their troops,

they send all their troops to Bosnia and to the border,

and it costs them hundreds of millions of crowns.

So that after the last mobilization at the end of 1913,

Francis Joseph, who basically favored a peaceful policy until then,

he said, "This is the end of it.

We can no longer have another mobilization short of war.

Next time it has to be all or nothing."

Today we use the phrase "we live in a globalized world."

In 1914, people thought they lived in a globalized world, too.

[soft music]

[cars honking]

This is a very sophisticated society and civilization.

This is the world of Stravinsky and Chagall.

This is the world of, you know, insurance companies

which already have hundreds of thousands of insurance policies,

newspapers which have hundreds of thousands of readers.

In a way, it's almost postmodern.

[music continues]

[horses neighing]

[narrator] But the time around the turn of the 20th century

was also the time of political assassinations.

Presidents and prime ministers of Bulgaria, Spain, USA, Russia and France

were killed during this period,

as were members of the royal families

of Japan, Portugal, Russia, Italy and Greece.

Among others, King Alexander and Queen Draga Obrenović of Serbia

and the Austrian Empress Elizabeth, the wife of Franz Joseph.

[Bataković] In early June, there was a government session in Belgrade.

Pašić was presiding,

and there was a report from the civilian authorities

on the border with Austria-Hungary

that the military officers were organizing illegal transfer

of certain persons and weapons into Bosnia.

When they saw that the military officer

who transferred the three young Bosnians is Major Vulović,

who was one of the closest friends of Apis,

they knew that Apis is probably behind this venture.

[Apis voiceover]I was convinced that the maneuvers in Bosnia

were just a pretext for the Austrian invasion of Serbia

with Franz Ferdinand leading the way.

Before our troops could return from the south,

Serbia would have been overrun,

and the world would face a fait accompli.

So when Tankosić came to me and said,

"Some Bosnian youth, they keep pestering me

to let them go to Bosnia and try something against Ferdinand,"

I said, "Well, let them go."

[ominous music]

Pašić immediately demanded investigation.

And just in case,

he sent the cable to his most loyal diplomat to Vienna,

Jovan Jovanović, asking him to warn about possible turmoil in Bosnia

during the visit of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

[Höbelt] The Serbian ambassador to Vienna,

he actually approaches Biliński,

who's formally in charge of administering Bosnia,

and tells him there are rumors about an assassination attempt

and they should be careful.

[fanfare]

[narrator] On June the 24th, 1914, the Kiel Canal was finished.

The passage from Baltic to the North Sea

was now open for the German dreadnoughts.

The same day, June the 24th,

the Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry

finished a diplomatic document known as the Matscheko Memorandum,

addressing the leaders of both Austria-Hungary and Germany.

[archive voiceover] The idea to free the Christian Balkan peoples

from the Turkish rule in order to use them

as a weapon against Central Europe

has always been Russia's interest in these peoples.

To put up quietly with this unilaterally shifted situation

is not possible for the monarchy for military-political reasons.

For these reasons,

it is in the joint interest of the monarchy,

as much as Germany's,

to oppose promptly and energetically a development

aspired to by Russia and supported by her,

which it will later no longer be possible to revert.

[Röhl] The Kaiser issues the order to the ambassador in London

on the 16th of June, 1914,

to discover how Britain will position herself

if a continental war breaks out.

16th of June!

A few days before that,

Moltke and the Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow

are traveling back by car from Potsdam to Berlin.

And Moltke issues virtually a command

to the foreign secretary to direct his policy in such a way

as to begin a preventive war soon.

[Paléologue voiceover]I have the feeling that we are going into the storm.

At what point on the horizon and just when it will break out

I couldn't say exactly,

but from now, on the war is both predetermined and not far off.

[bells ringing]

[Strachan] It was recognized that if Franz Ferdinand went

to the maneuvers in Bosnia-Herzegovina

that he was taking a risk.

And he himself does not seem to have been

particularly enthusiastic about undertaking this mission.

[narrator]Since 1910, there had been five attempts

on the lives of Austro-Hungarian governors

of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.

In 1910, during the Emperor Franz Joseph's visit,

several thousand soldiers had secured the streets of Sarajevo.

But the visit of Franz Ferdinand on Vidovdan,

the Serbian national holiday,

was supervised by no more than 36 of local policemen,

although more than 20,000 troops were stationed just outside the city,

at the moment when their Commander-in-Chief

was entering in an open-topped car.

[car honking]

[tires squeal]

-[multiple gunshots] -[people screaming]

In the second attempt of the day, Franz Ferdinand was killed.

[Hötzendorf voiceover] If we disregard this opportunity,

the monarchy shall be left at the mercy

of a renewed onset of Yugoslav, Czech, Romanian and Italian aspirations.

The assassination in Sarajevo is Serbia's declaration of war against us.

It's not that the Serbian government wanted

the assassination at Sarajevo. Certainly not!

It's perfectly clear that it's in Serbia's interest

to postpone the conflict.

This is in the midst of a tremendous struggle within Serbia

between the army leadership and the government.

I think Apis Dimitrijević was actually, as much as anything,

acting in order to undermine Pašić.

The assassination was the genuine endeavor

of Gavrilo Princip and his friends,

and I have discussed this

with professor Vaso Čubrilović on many occasions.

They did not think that they were obliged something to the Black Hand.

They just came to obtain weapons,

to pursue their goal in Bosnia.

[Princip voiceover] The people suffer because they're impoverished completely

and are being treated like cattle.

I wanted to avenge that, and I'm not sorry.

[Wiesner voiceover]There is nothing to prove or even to suppose

that the Serbian government is accessory to the inducement

for the crime or the furnishing of weapons.

On the contrary, there are reasons to believe

that this altogether is out of the question.

There was certainly a war party in Austria-Hungary

before the assassination,

centered around two people in particular, Conrad von Hötzendorf

as the Austro-Hungarian Chief of the General Staff,

who repeatedly pressed for a preventive war against Serbia,

some say about 20 times,

and latterly Berchtold, the Foreign Minister.

And so for them, of course,

if there is a warning coming from Serbia about the possibility of assassination,

that isn't necessarily something they want to pay attention to.

[Hötzendorf voiceover] I expressed to His Majesty my belief

in the unavoidability of war with Serbia.

His Majesty said…

[Franz Joseph voiceover] "Yes, that is entirely correct.

But do we want a war if everyone is against us, especially Russia?"

[Hötzendorf voiceover] "Don't we have our flank covered by Germany?"

[Franz Joseph voiceover] "Last night a note was sent to Germany

in order to get an answer."

[Hötzendorf voiceover] "If the answer says that Germany stands on our side,

could we then go to war against Serbia?"

[Franz Joseph voiceover] "Then, yes."

[dramatic music]

[Sked] And Franz Joseph knew that the war would turn into world war.

When Biliński, the Finance Minister, put it to Franz Joseph,

"You know this will mean a European war?"

Franz Joseph just muttered, "Yes."

[Mombauer] The reply that comes back via the Austrian ambassador in Berlin,

Count Szőgyény, is a resounding yes.

"We will support you, regardless of if what you do

results in Russia becoming involved, results in a European war."

[Röhl] The Kaiser writes the famous and fatal jetzt oder nie, now or never.

We must clear up with the Serbs,

mit den Serben muß aufgeräumt werden,

which acted as a signal to start the war, in effect.

This is the famous "blank check" that Berlin issues to Vienna.

It's not just an encouragement, they're also putting pressure on Vienna.

[Tschirschky voiceover] Berlin expects the dual monarchy

to take action against Serbia,

and would not understand if we let this opportunity pass

without striking a blow.

[narrator]On July the 7th, the Austro-Hungarian government

reached the following conclusion.

[archive voiceover]All present, except the royal Hungarian Premier,

hold the belief that a purely diplomatic success

would be worthless,

and therefore such far-reaching demands

must be addressed to Serbia,

which will make a refusal almost certain,

so that the road to a radical solution,

by means of military action, should be open.

[Strachan] Berchtold's wife actually wrote a letter to her cousin saying,

"Poor Leopold, he couldn't sleep last night.

He kept getting up and changing the terms of the ultimatum.

He was so worried that the Serbs might accept it."

[keys clicking]

The ultimatum against Serbia was really written to be rejected.

And everybody said who read it,

"This is really a strongly-worded document, isn't it?"

That's what the Emperor himself said.

But he knew what he was doing.

He said, "We don't want another compromise solution.

We don't want another conference that will lead to nothing."

What the Austrians really wanted was Serbia to vanish into thin air.

[narrator]The summer of 1914

was to be called "Europe's last summer."

[people laughing]

Perhaps that was why, as Stefan Zweig wrote

in his World of Yesterday,

it was "more luxuriant, more beautiful and more summery."

On the surface, nothing indicated the catastrophe soon to come.

[background chatter]

[Mombauer] All the important decision makers

are sent away on holiday, as had previously been planned,

so as not to alert anyone to the fact

that behind the scenes, trouble was brewing.

So Moltke goes on his second cure that year to Carlsbad,

Jagow is on his honeymoon in Switzerland,

and in Vienna, similarly, Conrad von Hötzendorf is away,

and it's the deputies who liaise with each other

while the leading figures are away.

[narrator] The Kaiser also took his annual cruise.

[Röhl] They sent him off to Norway,

telling him, "Your Majesty, it's got to look as if we know nothing."

Because that's the German case.

We're innocent, it's the Austrians

who are pulling us into this at a later stage.

So, "Please go on your annual cruise, otherwise we'd look fishy.

But please don't go further than just north of Bergen,

because then it will take too long for you to get back."

[Förster] Only Bethmann remained in the vicinity of Berlin.

He found himself to be in a completely unusual situation,

namely he was in position to make decisions all by himself.

He could now decide alone because the Kaiser, before his departure,

in a militant tone spoke how they must finally deal with Serbia.

He demonstrated that he was in the mood for war.

So Bethmann Hollweg was now able to continue with the policy

which would fit in with the Kaiser’s opinion about the war,

namely to unleash a general war.

[narrator] The Austro-Hungarian government

had completed its ultimatum to Serbia by July the 12th,

but it would be another 11 days

before it was delivered to the Serbian government.

[Mombauer] There is a long delay

before that ultimatum can be delivered,

and there are a number of reasons for that.

One is that the Austrian soldiers are on harvest leave,

and you can't simply recall them.

This would cause suspicion, of course, elsewhere,

and also you do need to have the harvest in

if you want to go to war.

And the other reason is that there is

an official visit by the French president to Russia,

and you don't want to deliver your ultimatum

at a point in time when the French president

and the Russian foreign minister

can sit down together and discuss their response.

[ominous music]

[narrator] Still, the Russians and the French

had good anticipation of things to come.

On July the 21st, 1914, President Poincaré met

the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Russia, Count Szapáry,

and warned him openly that the war against Serbia

could draw Russia and consequently France in.

Szapáry left without a word.

[Soutou] Poincaré told Nicholas, the Russian tsar,

"You must be firm and you must stand by the Serbs.

You must not let Austria bullying the Serbs as they want to do.

Because then Austria will have sort of huge victory,

and then Austrian and German problem

would become even worse for Paris and St. Petersburg."

[narrator]On July the 23rd,

just as Poincaré left St. Petersburg by ship,

the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered

to the Serbian royal government in Belgrade.

[Bataković] They called Pašić to come back from the electoral campaign.

He was deep in the south of Serbia.

When they read the ultimatum,

one of the ministers said,

"Oh my God, there is nothing left but to die again."

When Sazonov first sees the Austrian ultimatum, he says,

"This is the European war.

There is no way the Austrians could have written something like this

unless they had a firm German guarantee."

And also says, "48 hours?"

You know, you don't give someone an ultimatum like this in 48 hours

unless you're pretty convinced there's going to be war.

[narrator] Serbian reply was delivered to Baron Giesel,

the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Belgrade,

by the Prime Minister Nikola Pašić himself.

[Bataković] When he entered the Austrian legation,

Baron Giesel was already packed.

He was ready to leave.

He had an instruction to leave Belgrade whatever the answer of Serbia will be.

[clock chimes]

[Strachan] Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary,

tries at that stage to reinvoke the spirit of the Concert of Europe,

the idea of the congress system.

Let's get the great powers together to talk about this

rather than going to war.

If it had been agreed to, two things would have followed.

First of all, Austria-Hungary wouldn't have had its war against Serbia.

They would be back to square one.

The Serb problem would just resurrect itself in a matter of years,

and they would have to do it all over again,

probably in less favorable circumstances.

And secondly, from Germany's point of view,

the opportunity to split the alliance facing them, the Entente,

would have gone as well.

At that point, Bethmann Hollweg as the German Chancellor says no.

[narrator]On July the 28th,

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in a telegraphic note.

The same evening, the shelling of Belgrade began

from Zemun and the Danube.

[multiple explosions]

[Nicholas II voiceover] I appeal to you to help me.

An ignoble war has been declared to a weak country.

The indignation in Russia shared fully by me is enormous.

I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed

and be forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war.

To try and avoid such a calamity as a European war,

I beg you, in the name of our old friendship,

to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far. Nikki.

[Airapetov] Russia is unable not to stand up for Serbia

in such a situation.

And such a support, if not accompanied by display of force,

was not to be taken by Vienna or Berlin seriously.

On the other hand, such a display of military power,

from the viewpoint of Nicholas II,

need not have necessarily resulted in war.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] If Russia mobilizes against Austria,

my role as mediator will be endangered, if not ruined. Willy.

There is a sense in which Russia will be declaring mobilization.

We don't quite know when it will happen,

but Germany needs to declare her own mobilization,

and more importantly, needs to send troops

into Luxembourg and Belgium before war has been declared.

Does that not happen and is Liège not taken within the first 11 days,

the whole plan has failed and Germany will lose the war.

This puts an enormous time pressure on the decision makers in Berlin,

and they decide in a meeting that regardless of what Russia will do,

on the 31st of July, we will have to issue the order

to march into Belgium.

They will then later on say that this was done

in response to Russia's mobilization, but actually the decision,

as we know from secret documents,

was taken regardless of Russia's decisions.

[narrator]On July the 30th, Tsar Nicholas II ordered

the mobilization of the Russian military districts

on the Austro-Hungarian border.

[Wilhelm II voiceover] Your troops were mobilized

against Austria-Hungary, my ally.

The responsibility for the disaster which is now threatening

the whole civilized world will not be laid at my door. Willy.

[Lieven] The Russians partially mobilize.

In other words, they mobilize that bit of their army

which is on the Austrian border

in order to warn the Austrians

that they will not allow Serbia to be destroyed,

without antagonizing Germany.

The Russian military leadership revolts at the idea of partial mobilization,

because they say it is just going to wreck general mobilization when that is needed,

and as a result of that, Nicholas II in the end caves in

and goes for general mobilization.

This is then used by the Germans, always subsequently,

to say that it's the Russians who started the war, not them.

[fanfare]

[Müller voiceover] The mood is brilliant!

The government has succeeded very well in making us appear like the attacked.

[Röhl] The Kaiser signed mobilization order on a desk

that was cut from the British shipVictory,

which was lord Nelson's ship at the Battle of Trafalgar.

There is exaltation in Berlin.

One general reports, "Beaming faces everywhere!

Yeah, we're over the hump. We've done it."

[Mombauer] Erich von Falkenhayn, the Prussian Minister of War, says,

"Even if we perish over this,

at least it was fun, at least it was beautiful!"

[Freud voiceover] For the first time in 30 years,

I feel myself to be an Austrian, and feel like giving

this not very hopeful empire another chance.

-[crowd cheering] -[fanfare]

[Strachan] The declaration of war was received well in Vienna.

There were jubilant crowds.

The idea was that it'd be a quick little war

and that Austria was obviously going to win it.

They think the main role of Germany

is to support the Austrian plan to defeat Serbia.

But the Germans, who've got their own priority,

and their priority is the Schlieffen Plan,

they now want the Austrians to cover them on the Russian front,

and forget about Serbia.

And they say, "Well, look, Serbia is not all that important."

They also say to the Austrians, in order to keep the Italians out,

"Why don't you give up part of your Italian territories?"

And the Austrians were flabbergasted.

[Förster] In the night between July 30 and 31,

an eerie scene took place at the General Staff.

Moltke received his adjutant, Major von Haeften,

and then Moltke told him about the kind of war it would be.

[explosion]

Namely a war which will set

the European civilization back for decades.

A war which will last for years once England becomes involved.

He spoke about the general catastrophe,

and according to Haeften's record, Moltke, with tears in his eyes,

turned to the portrait of his uncle, Moltke the Elder.

Moltke the Elder previously feared

precisely such a development,

even though he had always demanded a preventive war himself.

[melancholic music]

[narrator] But on the morning of August 1st, 1914,

this was still not a European war.

The same day, the German leaders received important news

from Ambassador Lichnowsky in London.

[Mombauer] Lichnowsky suggests that Sir Edward Grey has offered

the possibility of neutrality.

This is taken as a great victory for Germany.

A second telegram even promises

that this neutrality might be accompanied by French neutrality.

[Röhl] The Kaiser calls for champagne, everybody thinks this is wonderful.

At one point, the Kaiser actually orders Moltke

to change all his plans and attack not France but only Russia.

And Moltke has a nervous breakdown.

He says, "Your Majesty, you can't do this.

This is an army of several million people.

We cannot just take them from where they're supposed to go

with all these plans and send them the other way."

"If we change the plan, you will not have an army.

You will have a heap of disorganized men."

To which the Kaiser replies, tragically, I think,

"Your uncle would have given me a different answer."

[narrator] Later the same night,

another telegram arrived from Prince Lichnowsky.

And then, of course, the clarification comes from London to say,

"No, no, I got it wrong.

The British will not allow France to be crushed.

They will enter the war."

And then the Kaiser, who's by this time in his pajamas,

says to Moltke, "Okay, now do what you want."

And goes back to sleep and then has a nervous breakdown himself.

[crowd cheering]

[horses neighing]

[somber orchestral music]

[military band plays]