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A world on the brink... and a British PM furioushis weekend with his young mistress was

ruined: The human stories behind the outbreak

of the First World War

By Max Hastings

PUBLISHED: 21:57 GMT, 8 September 2013 | UPDATED: 21:57 GMT, 8 September 2013

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In the first extract on Saturday from his masterly new book marking the centenary of World War I,

Max Hastings told how an unpopular Austrian aristocrat blundered into the path of an assassins

bullet in Serbia and how his death w as the trigger for the horrific conflagration that would follow.

Here, he tells how a largely doubting Britain was f inally persuaded to enter a war w hich w ould cost it

a million lives...

Newly-arrived in France to fight the Hun, the cocky soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were greetedlike heroes.

We were seized by the local inhabitants and dosed with cider, recalled Lt Guy Harcourt-Vernon.

That first night in August 1914, the cafs in the town square of Amiens rang with toasts and rousingchoruses of God Save The King.

Only the old women who supervised the local public baths shook their heads and mopped their eyes as theymuttered to themselves: Pauvres petits anglais, ils vont bientt tre tus poor English boys, soon theywill be dead.

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War opinions: Prime Minister Herbert Asquith told h is mistress Venetia Stanley that the

Aust rian people were' the stupidest' in Eur ope

It was a terrible and true prediction. Close to a million British fighting men would lose their lives in thefour years of World War I, the centenary of whose outbreak takes place next year.

The first deaths came soon enough though to begin with they were mainly German.

Deployed to positions just outside the Belgian town of Mons, the British soldiers peppered the Kaisers

oncoming army with state-of-the-art Lee-Enfield rif les and Vickers machine guns.

They came at us in solid, square blocks, a British NCO recalled, and you couldnt help hitting them. Westeadied our rifles and took aim, said another, and they were simply blasted away to Heaven by a volley at700 yards.

But the Germans took their casualties and kept coming in overwhelming numbers, supported by cannonsand howitzers.

God! How their artillery do fire! exclaimed a frightened British soldier at what was a new and unwelcomeexperience for almost every member of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

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Confidante: Prime Minister Asquith told the truth to Venetia Stanley

There were four of us in a rifle-pit, recalled a private, and our officer walked over to us and I rememberthinking: Get down, you silly bugger.

The poor man was killed. Then the man next to me was hit. He was firing away and suddenly he gave agrunt and lay still. Id never seen a dead man before.

Harcourt-Vernon wrote: Funny how everyone ducks at the sound of a bullet. It is past you by then, but downgoes your head every time.

Soon, too many bullets and shells were passing for any man to have time to duck as they rammed clip afterfive-round clip into their hot weapons.

The British fell back until, by nightfall, the Germans though they had taken colossal casualties hadcaptured Mons.

In that first encounter, the BEF lost an estimated 1,600 men, many of them taken prisoner, and was now onthe run.

The next day there were brave rallies. The 9th Lancers and Dragoon Guards charged German guns acrossa mile of open ground, an extraordinary piece of folly even by the standards of British cavalry.

They were led by a colonel who had once won a Grand National steeplechase.

But nothing could stop the rout as the BEF was systematically bested by the German forces.

As they retreated from an enemy they had been convinced they would trounce, a major in the Grenadiersdescribed a long and trying march in great heat and over very bad and dusty roads.

'The men very tired and rather puzzled as to what we are at.

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Many must have wondered what they were doing there in the first place. It was a good question.

How and why Britain had joined in what was essentially a solely European war was largely down to one man Sir Edward Grey, Britains Foreign Secretary.

In many ways he was a strange choice for that important position. He disliked Abroad and spoke noforeign languages indeed he was so taciturn generally that he rarely spoke at all.

An official who worked closely with him thought him a futile, useless fool. A leading general dismissed him

as ignorant, vain and weak.

Yet this was the man who found himself conducting Britains response to the outbreak of internationalposturing, sabre-rattling and mobilising of armies that in the summer of 1914 threatening to escalate intoworld war.

Outbreak: British troops marching through t he streets of London after war is declared in

1914

He is usually depicted as a gentle, civilised figure who lamented the coming of war as exemplified in hisfamously nostalgic line that the lamps are going out all over Europe [and] we shall not see them lit again inour life-time.

Yet he more than any other single person including the always belligerent Winston Churchill, First Lord ofthe Admiralty was the one who insisted that Britain fulfil its international obligations and stand up againstthe German bully.

As Austria launched its invasion of Serbia, the Russian Tsar ordered the mobilisation of his vast conscriptarmies and the German Kaiser cast covetous eyes on France, opinion in Britain to these continentalshenanigans was mixed.

There was little enthusiasm for the autocratic Tsar. Dont trust the Russians! whispered one ambassador.

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TIPPERARY: THE HIT THE MAIL MADE

As they first disembarked in France, the Irish soldiers of the Connaught Rangers burst into Its A Long WayTo Tipperary.

George Curnock, Daily Mail star reporter, heard the song and mentioned it in a dispatch.

The papers news editor wrote in his diary: The chief [Lord Northcliffe] has given us orders to boom it, toprint the music so that everybody shall know it.

'He says, thanks to Curnocks genius, we shall soon have everybody singing it.

And so they did.

Prime Minister Herbert Asquith confided to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Serbs deserved athrough thrashing, but to his 26-year-old girlfriend he was less diplomatic.

Although married to his second wife, a baronets daughter, after his first died of typhoid, he told youngVenetia Stanley: The Austrians are quite the stupidest people in Europe.

But the idea of backing the French against the Germans had many hands wringing in horror.

With history on her side, one ancient lady, the great-niece of the Duke of Wellington, declared: Its not theGermans but the French Im frightened of.

Many of the population endorsed the idea of neutrality, feeling that what was happening in Europe was asideshow best not to be drawn into.

The Cabinet was split. Asquith, Grey and the war-painted Churchill (as the prime minister called him)wanted to stand foursquare with the French, but David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer,stubbornly dug his heels in for staying out of a continental conflict.

The prime minister, meanwhile, was furious that the crisis meant the bitter disappointment of cancelling acountry weekend flirting with the alluring Miss Stanley.

But he was sufficiently on the ball that Sunday August 2 to warn the German ambassador overbreakfast that there would be dire consequences if German carried out its threat to march on France vianeutral Belgium.

Britain, he pointed out in no uncertain terms, was a guarantor of Belgian neutrality under a 75-year-oldinternational treaty and would not f linch from its obligations.

By now the countdown to war was accelerating fast.

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Prepare for battle: 'The Daily Mail War Map - 1914', which showed the war strength of the

Great Powers, was sold via the newspaper for 2 shillings

In Germany, trains crammed with troops were leaving Cologne every three or four minutes heading for theBelgian border, while a message received by the Belgian king demanded passage for the German army

through his country.

He refused point blank, and the people of Brussels erupted with pride, filling the streets with flags.

Oh, the poor fools, a German envoy declared as he watched this patriotic display. Why dont they get outof the way of the steamroller? We dont want to hurt them, but if they stand in our way they will be groundinto the dirt.

That evening, the Germans notif ied the British government of their intention to march through King Albertscountry, with or without his consent.

It has sometimes been suggested that the Belgians would have been better off bowing to the inevitable,and granting the German troops free passage. But why should any sovereign nation have done so?

Germanys invasion of Belgium constituted an affront to morality as well as to the European order theview now adopted by most of the British people, as well as by their government.

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Early days of power: Winston Churchill, then First Lord of t he Admiralty, was urging the

Cabinet to take action on Europe

This was the tipping point.

The moment the Kaisers armies crossed into Belgium, any pretence of German innocence ended. Theperceived martyrdom of King Albert and his people rallied to the cause of war millions of British people whohad hitherto opposed it.

Some maintain this was a mere pretext a fig leaf since Foreign Secretary Grey and his colleagueswere bent upon belligerence even before the issue of Belgium emerged.

But I doubt they could have carried their point but for Germanys violation of Belgian neutrality. Whereasthey recoiled from going to war to support Serbia, the British people seized upon this as a just casus belli.

At last they identified moral certainty amid a sea of Balkan and European confusions the doubter-in-chief, Lloyd George, among them.

He eventually fell into line as Asquith gave the order to mobilise the Army.

Captain Maurice Festing, of the Royal Marines, got the call while playing in a cricket match.

He was 66 not out and had just smashed a ball through the window of the sergeants mess.

On the afternoon of August 3, Grey rose in the Commons to invite the House to back Britain going to war.

British interests, British honour and British obligation were at stake, he told them with a passion thismild-mannered politician had never displayed before in his 29 years as an MP.

Could this country stand by and watch the direst crime that ever stained the face of history, and thusbecome participators in the sin? he demanded.

We would sacrif ice our respect and good name and reputation if we did not take a stand against theunmeasured aggrandisement of the Kaisers Germany.

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The stunned Commons received his eloquence with overwhelming acclaim. Opposition to war melted away.

Just after 8 oclock the next morning, August 4, German troops duly crossed the Belgian border, andLondon sent an ultimatum to Berlin demanding they withdraw by midnight 11pm in London.

War support er: Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon and Secretary of State

for Foreign Affairs, was the person most keen to take up arms against Germany

As darkness fell in Downing Street that night, the Cabinet sat together until Big Ben struck the first note ofeleven. Twenty minutes later, a War Telegram was dispatched in plain language to the British Army.

In the Royal Marines mess at Chatham, a waiter handed a telegram to the corps commandant, who read italoud: Commence hostilities against Germany at once. This was received with applause by the assembledofficers, many of whom would be dead within a year.

The civilian population rallied to the cause, too.

Diarist and civil servant Norman Macleod was astonished by the extraordinary change in public feeling.Twenty-four hours previously there had been a strong anti-war sentiment, he wrote, but German refusal torespect neutrality of Belgium absolutely destroyed it.

There was now a feeling of complete confidence in the government.

WITHIN HOURS, MI5 SMASHES A SPY RING

As the last hours of peace ticked away, Walter Rimann, a German spy who had been masquerading as alanguage teacher in Hull, hurriedly caught the Zeebrugge ferry. He fled just in time to avoid arrest.

For days, Vernon Kell, director of MI5, had been at his desk around the clock, organising the round-up of

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known German intelligence agents.

Although his infant organisation had a staff of only 17, he had forged effective links with county chiefconstables. Now they pounced and 22 arrests were swiftly made.

Among them was Karl Ernst, a barber in Pentonville, North London, whose spy-craft consisted ofapproaching customers who were seamen for information.

He also acted as the spy rings postman, receiving letters with instructions from Germany and passing

them (and payment) to other agents in Britain.

Like most of those caught, he had been identif ied through the interception of his correspondence, underHome Office warrant.

A few, like Rimann, got away and others may have remained undetected, but German wartime intelligencein Britain never recovered from the initial round-up.

Its performance was so poor that Berlin was unaware that the British Expeditionary Force had beendispatched to France until it actually got there.

At an English country tennis party, the writer Jerome K. Jerome expressed relief and thankfulness.

'I was so afraid Grey would climb down at the last moment. It was Asquith I was doubtful of. I didnt think theold man had the grit.

'Thank God, we shant read Made in Germany for some little time to come.

Some opposition remained. The writer Bernard Shaw wired his German translator: You and I are at war.Absurdity can go no further.

'My friendliest wishes go with you under all circumstances.

Even after war was declared, impassioned dissenters remained.

On August 5, C.P. Scott argued in the Manchester Guardian he both owned and edited: By some hiddencontract England has been technically committed behind her back to the ruinous madness of a share in theviolent gamble of a war between two militarist leagues.

It will be a war in which we risk everything of which we are proud, and in which we stand to gain nothing.Some day we will regret it.

Many British people in the 21st century believe that Scott was right, chiefly in the light of the horrors thatfollowed.

They are un-persuaded that it was necessary to resist the Kaisers Germany at such cost. Many haveargued in the century since 1914 that the price of participation in the war was so appalling that no purposecould conceivably justify it. More than a few blame Grey for willing Britains involvement.

But, granted Germanys determination to dominate Europe and what that would have meant for Britain,would any foreign secretary have acted responsibly if he had taken no steps designed to avert such anoutcome?

Dominance was the purpose of the Kaisers Germany, achieved by peaceful means if possible, but by warif necessary.

And though its policies cannot be equated with that of the Nazis a generation later, they could scarcely bedescribed as enlightened. German behaviour during the invasion of Belgium and France includedmassacres of civilians endorsed at the highest level.

Though these pale against what took place in World War II, they nonetheless convey a profoundlydisturbing image of the regime that aspired to rule Europe in 1914.

A few modern sensationalists suggest that a German victory would merely have created an entityresembling the European Union half a century before it was created, but this seems to me frivolous

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nonsense.

Nor would there have been a happy outcome for Britain if we had stayed out of the war. It is implausiblethat a victorious Germany would have been content to make a generous accommodation with a neutralBritain.

The resulting war: Brit ish infantr ymen occupying a rudimentary shallow t rench in a

devastated landscape in France before an advance in 1916

I think it unlikely that any course of action adopted by Asquiths government could have averted war in1914. I cannot conceive of any alternative British diplomatic path which would have persuaded Germanythat the risk of war was unacceptable.

The Germans contemptuous of Britains military prowess had already discounted British intervention.They were also undeterred by the economic perils posed by the Royal Navys ability to impose a blockade,because they intended to win the war in six weeks, before economic sanctions mattered.

Only by allowing the Germans to have their way at gunpoint in Belgium and indeed across Europe could ageneral conflict have been avoided and Britain, rightly, was not prepared to do that.

There was, however, one grievous British error at this time one which those poor British soldiers fleeing

for their lives from Mons were now suffering from.The governments mistake in the summer of 1914 was to suppose the nation could maintain its cherishedbalance of power on the continent without a credible mass of soldiers to support its diplomacy. Whathappens now? Churchill had demanded as he and Grey left the House of Commons after winning the vote

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for war.

It was a good question. The decision had been taken to fight, but what sort of war we were going into andhow precisely we would engage the enemy was left up in the air.

The initial moves were tentative. There was no full-scale mobilisation and no enlistment of volunteers, as inother countries. Instead, the small BEF consisting of just six divisions of regular soldiers was assembled our funny little army in the words of General Sir Henry Wilson, director of military operations.

The BEF trundled around France in the weeks ahead, uncertain of its role, before meeting its match atMons.

Here was a manifestation of a huge, historic British folly, repeated over many centuries including today the adoption of gesture strategy, committing small forces as an earnest of good intentions, heedless oftheir gross inadequacy for the military purpose at hand.

The size and nature of Britains military commitment would have to change drastically, and it did as moretroops poured across the Channel in the years ahead.

But almost a century on, it seems there are still lessons to be learned from 1914.

EXTRACTED from Catastrophe: Europe Goes To War 1914 by Max Hastings, to be published by William

Collins on Thursday at 30. 2013 Max Hastings. To order a copy for 23 (including P&P), call 0844 472

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