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Updated: May 20, 2025
There were during this visit in 1906 other conversations of which a record was preserved, but I have referred to the most important, and I will only mention, in concluding my account of these days in Berlin in September, 1906, the talk I had with the Foreign Minister, Herr von Tschirsky, afterward the German Ambassador at Vienna before the war, and reported as having been a fomenter of the Austrian outbreak against Serbia.
Undoubtedly Tschirsky transmitted his instructions correctly and loyally, nor did he keep back or secrete anything. An ambassador attains more or less according to the energy expended by him in carrying out the instructions of his Government; and the private opinion of the ambassador is, under certain circumstances, not easy to distinguish from his official one.
On my return to London I sent to Herr von Tschirsky some English newspapers containing articles with a friendly tone, so far as the preservation of good relations was concerned.
On July 30, at midday, Tschirsky spoke in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and communicated to Berchtold the contents of a telegram received from Lichnowsky. Sassonoff had intimated that after the declaration of war he was no longer in a position to negotiate direct with Austria-Hungary, and requested England to resume proceedings, the temporary cessation of hostilities to be taken for granted.
Even without a war Austria would receive a guarantee for the future. Such were the contents of the communication from London sent by Tschirsky, to which Bethmann added that he urgently requested the Vienna Cabinet to accept the negotiation. On receiving this information, Berchtold conveyed the news to the Emperor.
I purposely made a distinction between the German Government and the German diplomat, as I was under the impression that Herr von Tschirsky had taken various steps without being instructed so to do, and when I previously have alluded to the fact that not all the ambassadors made use of the language enjoined by their Governments, I had Herr von Tschirsky specially in my mind; his whole temperament and feelings led him to interfere in our affairs with a certain vehemence and not always in the most tactful way, thus rousing the Monarchy out of its lethargy.
I conclude this to be so, since Tschirsky, as intimated in a former dispatch, was never in a position to make an official declaration urging for war, but appears only to have spoken after the manner of diplomatic representatives when anxious to adapt the policy of their Government to their own point of view.
Certain extremely important details relating to the period immediately preceding the outbreak of war can only be attributed to the influence of the group represented by Tschirsky.
The German Ambassador in Vienna, Herr von Tschirsky, and the Austrian Ambassador in Berlin, Count Szogyeny, were in close consultation with the Governments to which they were accredited during the weeks that followed the crime of Serajevo, June 28-July 23.
At all events, the Tschirsky group dreaded such an insipid solution, and had insisted, therefore, on drastic action. In 1870 Bismarck was the attacking party, and he succeeded in interchanging the parts. We also succeeded, but in an opposite sense. Then came our greatest disaster: the German entry into Belgium. Had England remained neutral we should not have lost the war.
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