Desperate Counsel in Vienna in July 1914: Berthold Molden's Unpublished Memorandum

Webegan the war, not the Germans and even less the Entente— that I know.” So begins a recently discovered and published account of the events of July 1914,Der Kriegsbeginn, written in December 1918 by Baron Leopold von Andrian–Werburg, the respected and influential Austro-Hungarian Consul-General in Warsaw (1911–1914). He was in Vienna after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, and belonged to that small circle of diplomats privy to the discussions in the Ballhausplatz that followed that event. Andrian-Werburg's ringing confession of Austro-Hungarian responsibility for the outbreak of World War I is much more direct than one that first came to light more than a decade ago: that of Count Alexander Hoyos, Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold's chef-de-cabinet. Andrian-Werburg's avowal of Austro-Hungarian responsibility is paradoxical in the context of the controversy over German policy in July 1914 sparked by the publication of Fritz Fischer's 1964 book on Germany's war aims. As Fritz Fellner pointed out in an essay on Hoyos's mission to Berlin to garner benützt werden, urn die Rechnung zu prasentieren. Entgegenkornmen so lange wie möglich, aber zurückschlagen beirn nächsten Schlag. Dieser nächste Schiag ist jetzt da—alle Welt sieht, weiche Gesinnungen in Serbien die Führung an sich gerissen haben. Nicht urn Rache handelt es sich, sondern urn Sicherung für die Zukunft. Rache mag das, für das Gefühl der einfachsten Menschen in unserern Volke verständlichste Motiv sein, für viele andere wird es heissen, dass Serbien uns sein böses Trachten jetzt enthüllt hat—die Politik aber hat Bürgschaft oder Unterwerfung zu fordern.