Britain and France declare war on Austria-Hungary

On 12 August 1914 Britain and France declared war on Austria-Hungary. Both declarations were handed over in London by one man, the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, and received by the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Count Albert Mensdorff. Sources differ on the date of the French declaration: some give 11 August, others 12 August, but it reached Vienna together with the British one, and the state of war between Britain and the Habsburg monarchy began at midnight on 12–13 August. With this the circle of declarations of war between the great powers of Europe was closed.

A strange delay

Although the whole crisis had begun with Austria-Hungary’s conflict with Serbia, for more than a week after the outbreak of war with Germany London and Paris maintained relations with Vienna. The Habsburg monarchy had not directly attacked either France or Britain, and its army was fighting in the Balkans and preparing for a clash with Russia. On 4 August, the day of the British ultimatum to Germany, Grey assured Mensdorff that he saw no reason for a conflict with Austria-Hungary as long as it was not at war with France, and that he would not recall the ambassador in Vienna, Sir Maurice de Bunsen. He pointed out, however, that if such a war came, Britain could not cooperate with France in the Atlantic and not in the Mediterranean. He also asked that Austria-Hungary should not open hostilities without a formal declaration of war. The monarchy’s Foreign Minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, replied on 6 August that Vienna would in no case attack the British without a declaration, and expected the same of London.

The situation changed when on 6 August Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, the ally of France and Britain. On 8 August the French Foreign Minister, Gaston Doumergue, told the Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Paris, Count Szécsen, that according to reliable information the army corps from Innsbruck had been brought to the French frontier. Berchtold, after consulting the General Staff, called this “a complete invention”. Doumergue then admitted that there were no Austro-Hungarian soldiers on the French frontier, but insisted that an army corps of the monarchy had been sent to Germany and had allowed it to move its own troops to the front, which he regarded as military assistance to Berlin. On 10 August Paris broke off diplomatic relations with Vienna.

A declaration through London

With the ambassadors gone, France could no longer communicate with Vienna directly. It therefore asked London to pass its declaration to Mensdorff. Grey did so on 12 August. The French government wrote that Austria-Hungary, by declaring war on Serbia, had “taken the first initiative in the hostilities in Europe”, and had then, without any provocation on its part, extended the war to France. It gave two reasons: the declaration of war on Russia, which was already fighting at the side of France, and the dispatch, according to information from “numerous trustworthy sources”, of Austro-Hungarian troops to the German frontier in circumstances that amounted to “a direct menace to France”. The French government announced that it would take all measures to answer these actions.

Grey added on his own behalf that, a breach with France having been brought about in this way, the British government felt obliged to announce a state of war between Britain and Austria-Hungary from midnight. Mensdorff, who had tried to save the peace to the last, telegraphed the text of both statements to Vienna immediately after the meeting. The next day the French chargé d’affaires in Washington assured the American government that these steps had been taken in “the most perfect accord” between France and England.

In Vienna de Bunsen received Grey’s telegram on the morning of 13 August. At midday he was received by Berchtold, who did not seem surprised. He deplored that such good friends as Austria and England were being drawn into war, and remarked that Austria-Hungary did not consider itself at war with France, although relations with it had been broken off. The two diplomats, as de Bunsen wrote, “avoided useless argument”. The British ambassador left Vienna by special train on the evening of 14 August, and British interests were taken over by the ambassador of the United States.

The French accusations had weak foundations. Austrian historians point out that the monarchy’s only support for the Germans in the west was two batteries of heavy 305 mm mortars, which reached Germany only on 12 and 13 August and so could not justify the decision of Paris. De Bunsen himself doubted the French version of the troop movements, but London cited both the monarchy’s war with Russia and its troops allegedly directed against France.

Significance

From 12 August all the Entente powers, France, Britain and Russia, were fighting both Germany and Austria-Hungary. The declaration of war mattered above all politically. It showed that the war was no longer a series of separate conflicts but a clash of two blocs: the Central Powers and the Entente.

For the Habsburg monarchy it meant above all a threat at sea. The French and British fleets in the Mediterranean could now shut the Austro-Hungarian fleet up in the Adriatic. As early as 16 August French warships sank the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Zenta off the coast of Montenegro. On land, French and Austro-Hungarian troops did not meet for a long time. Direct clashes came only later, among others on the Balkan front and from 1915 on the Italian front.