France orders general mobilisation

On the afternoon of 1 August 1914 the government of France ordered the general mobilisation of the army and navy. The War Minister, Adolphe Messimy, told the British military attaché that the orders had been given at 3.40 p.m. According to French records, the telegram with the order left Paris at 3.55 p.m. Telegrams went to the commanders of corps and regiments and to the prefects, who in turn informed the mayors. Posters printed in advance, which needed only the date filled in, were pasted on the walls. The first day of mobilisation was 2 August.

The decision

France waited until the last moment. On the evening of 31 July the German Ambassador, Wilhelm von Schoen, asked the Prime Minister, René Viviani, what position France would take in a war between Germany and Russia. Viviani decided to make no declaration and to answer only that France would have regard to her interests. The government of the Republic, as he wrote, need give an account of its intentions to no one but its ally. When Schoen came again at 11 a.m. on 1 August, he did not repeat the question and said of his own accord that France’s attitude was not in doubt. According to the German White Book, Viviani gave him the answer he had planned at 1 p.m.

The news from across the Rhine settled the matter. Berlin had proclaimed a state of imminent danger of war, and Viviani wrote to the ambassador in London that under its cover Germany had immediately begun mobilisation in the proper sense of the word. Messimy explained to the British that the Germans had already called up six classes and that eight German army corps on a war footing faced the French troops. An attack was expected at any moment, so further delay would be too dangerous.

Yet France still wanted to show that it was not the aggressor. Its troops remained 10 kilometres from the frontier, and Messimy asked that it be explained in London that the mobilisation was purely defensive. Viviani assured London that throughout the crisis the government had been governed by the determination not to commit any act of provocation.

“Mobilisation is not war”

Next to the mobilisation order, a proclamation signed by President Raymond Poincaré, the Prime Minister and all the ministers went up on the walls. In it the government wrote that states whose constitutions did not resemble France’s had already begun preparations amounting to mobilisation, without proclaiming it by decree. French law did not allow the preparations to be completed without such a decree. “Mobilisation is not war,” the proclamation assured. “In the present circumstances it appears, on the contrary, to be the best means of securing peace with honour.” The government promised to continue its diplomatic efforts, appealed for calm and ended with the words: “At this hour there are no more parties, there is eternal France, peaceful and resolute France.”

The Interior Minister, Louis Malvy, read the proclamation to journalists waiting at the place Beauvau. According to “Le Figaro”, when he had finished the representatives of the press cried with one voice: “Vive la France!” The afternoon meeting of the council of ministers ended at 7 p.m.

A country under arms

The news quickly reached the smallest villages. Posters were pasted up, church bells rang, and mayors sent messengers to remote hamlets. The previous evening the socialist leader Jean Jaurès, the best-known opponent of war, had been shot dead in Paris. Yet the socialists and trade unionists did not call for resistance.

The mobilisation lasted from 2 to 18 August. Millions of men had to be called up, clothed, armed and carried by rail, most of them to the German frontier. According to French post-war statistics, nearly 2.9 million men were enlisted between 1 and 15 August. At the head of the French army stood the Chief of the General Staff, Joseph Joffre, who had been demanding immediate mobilisation since 31 July. On 1 August Germany ordered mobilisation and declared war on Russia, and two days later it declared war on France.