#60: 3 August 1914 IV - Who Turned Out The Lights?

When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Zack Twamley

19th Century, 20th Century, International Relations, Politics, Thirty Years' War, Korean War, 18th Century, First World War, Phd, 17th Century, European History, History, War

4.8 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the evening of 3 August, Germany finally declared war on France. The war, Berlin insisted, was caused by hostile French acts, but most knew better. The Italians certainly did. In a series of painful communications between Berlin, Vienna, and Rome, Italian neutrality was crystallised. Austria could not give her the concessions she required, and the Italian people would fly to revolt rather than fight for the hated Habsburgs. But the Austrians had at least begun to reckon with the consequences of their actions - they accepted the German argument, that the war with Serbia would have to take a back seat to the showdown with Russia.

But the news was not all bad. The Ottoman Empire was moments away from finalising its commitment to the Central Powers, and Bulgaria was also amenable to the idea. Through this unlikely coalition, Germany prepared to take on the rest of the world. In London the signs were clear - Germany was planning something at Constantinople, and there was no time to lose. And yet, everyone had already lost. The failure of diplomacy is surely etched into our minds by now, but it does no harm to stress that what happened in the July Crisis was something much more, and much worse, than this.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, history, friend. Thank you so much for listening to when diplomacy fails.
0:05.1	I just wanted to take a quick moment to say this podcast, when this episode comes out, this podcast will be 13 years old.
0:13.1	I started this in May 2012, and since then it's kind of, well, you could say it's gotten a little bit out of hand.
0:19.4	But we've been talking about history, diplomacy, war, all these kinds of things for over a decade now. This podcast has
0:26.8	become a big, big part of my life. And believe me when I say, this show would not be the
0:33.0	same. It wouldn't be what it is today without your interest. And yes, we are about to look at the 60th episode of the July Crisis, very nerdy, very niche, very detailed.
0:43.1	But clearly, there's an appetite for these things.
0:45.6	Otherwise, we wouldn't have gotten to the point where we are now.
0:49.0	I've really enjoyed, actually, doing this July Crisis series in the way that I wanted to do it. And I think
0:56.7	Zach from 10 years ago would be amazed we managed to squeeze so much content out of such
1:03.2	a moment in history. There is a cheap plug. If there's room for a cheap plug, do support this
1:09.9	podcast on Patreon. You can listen to all
1:12.9	sorts of extra content. We're currently about to start covering the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
1:18.0	war, so do check out the age of Bismarck. If that's your thing, for just a five or a month,
1:23.3	you can listen to that show. You'll also get a huge extra back catalogue, such as Poland has not yet lost, which covers
1:31.5	the Polish to the Wainian Commonwealth up to 1750.
1:34.9	My PhD thesis is also there.
1:37.5	There's many, many episodes within that series.
1:40.4	I haven't talked about Patreon on this show for a really long time.
1:44.8	I wanted to just circle back to that fact because really Patreon has brought this podcast to New Heights.
1:51.0	I'm really grateful to those that support the show monetarily,
1:54.4	but even to just spend your time with me is a real privilege.
	...

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