Russia orders partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary

On 29 July 1914, the day after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia ordered a partial mobilisation. It covered four military districts – Odessa, Kiev, Moscow and Kazan – the ones intended to act against the Habsburg monarchy, above all on the border with Galicia. It was the first mobilisation by one of the great powers directed against another great power.

A signal to Vienna, not Berlin

The decision had in principle been taken as early as 25 July. The Foreign Minister, Sergey Sazonov, saw partial mobilisation as a means of putting pressure on Vienna that would not at the same time threaten Germany. Leaving out the districts bordering the German Empire was meant to show Berlin that Russia had no intention of attacking it.

Russian generals warned, however, that this approach was risky. The Russian army had no ready plan for a partial mobilisation, and an improvised mobilisation of several districts could seriously disrupt any later general mobilisation. The Chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Yanushkevich, and the War Minister, Vladimir Sukhomlinov, therefore pressed for the mobilisation of the entire army.

The evening of 29 July

On the morning of 29 July Yanushkevich already held an order for general mobilisation signed by Tsar Nicholas II. In the evening, at around 9 p.m., the telegrams setting in motion the mobilisation of the whole empire were ready to be sent. A few minutes before they went out, however, a messenger from the Tsar arrived with instructions to halt the general mobilisation and confine it to a partial one.

Nicholas II had changed his mind under the influence of a telegram from Kaiser Wilhelm II, who assured him that he was trying to bring about an understanding between Russia and Austria-Hungary and asked that Russian military preparations should not wreck these efforts. The Tsar is said to have remarked that he would not take responsibility for a monstrous slaughter.

British chronicles of the period recorded that on the evening of 29 July the Russian War Minister ordered general mobilisation without the Tsar’s knowledge. This claim derives from testimony given in 1917 at Sukhomlinov’s trial, where it was suggested that the generals had not carried out the Tsar’s order. Participants’ accounts show, however, that on 29 July the general mobilisation telegrams were in the end held back. The Tsar agreed to the mobilisation of the whole army only the following day, 30 July, after a conversation with Sazonov.

Significance

Partial mobilisation did not reassure Berlin. German military leaders regarded any Russian mobilisation as a direct threat, because their war plan relied on a swift blow against France before Russia could assemble its enormous forces. The events of 29 July showed how thin the line between diplomatic pressure and war had become: a single telegram was enough to halt or set in motion the mobilisation of millions of men.