WWI: Plans for Hague Peace Conference

On Tuesday 14th July Dr. M. Yovanovitch, the Serbian Chargé d’Affaires at Berlin, telegraphed to Nikola Pašić, the Prime Minister of Serbia and Minister for Foreign Affairs:

The Secretary of State has told me that he could not understand the provocative attitude of the Serbian press and the attacks made by it against Austria-Hungary, who, as a Great Power, could not tolerate such proceedings.

WWI: May this warning not be in vain

On Monday 6th July 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II left Germany for his annual 20-day cruise of the North Sea.

In Russia, Sergei Dmitrievich Sazonov, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, had invited Count Otto von Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Chargé d’Affaires at St Petersburg to an interview. On 6th July Maurice Paléologue, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg, wrote a report of this interview to René Viviani, Prime Minister of France and Minister for Foreign Affairs.

In the course of an interview which he had asked for with the Austro-Hungarian Chargé d’Affaires, M. Sazonof pointed out in a friendly way the disquieting irritation which the attacks of the Austrian press against Servia are in danger of producing in his country.

WWI: Germany’s blank cheque

Count Alexander von Hoyos, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, visited Berlin as a special emissary on 5th July 2014. He brought with him a handwritten letter from Emperor Franz Joseph, dated 2nd July, which was delivered to Kaiser Wilhelm II by the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, Count de Szögyény-Marich. Also delivered was a memo from István Tisza, prime minister of Austria-Hungary, the only member of the Austro-Hungarian government to oppose the war with Serbia at that time.

The Emperor wrote:

I sincerely regret that You should have been obliged to give up Your intention of going to Vienna for the funeral ceremonies. I should have liked personally to express to You my sincerest thanks for Your sympathy in my keen sorrow — a sympathy which has greatly touched me.

By Your warm and sympathetic condolence You have given me renewed proof that I have in You a sincere friend worthy of confidence and that I may count upon You in every hour of grave trial.

WWI: Joseph Chamberlain dies

Joseph Chamberlain died on 2nd July 1914, aged 77.

Joseph Chamberlain was a founder MP of the Liberal Unionist party, and had been Secretary of State for the Colonies under Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, from 1895 to 1903, during the Second Boer War in South Africa. In 1903 he had founded the Tariff Reform League, which campaigned to turn the whole British Empire into a tariff-free union to promote trade between the nations of the Empire. The Tariff Reform League was disbanded on the outbreak of WWI. Joseph was married twice and had two sons, both of whom entered politics: his younger son Neville was Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940.