world of yesterday: an autobiography, by stefan zweig

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THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY by Stefan Zweig

Chapter IX The First Hours of the War of

1914

original German title Die Welt von Gestern

1943 : posthumous first edition in English

1946 : posthumous first edition in German

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The First Hours of the War of 1914[p.214]

The summer of 1914 would have been memorable for useven without the doom which it spread over the Europeanearth. I had rarely experienced one more luxuriant, more beautiful and, I am tempted to say, more summery.Throughout the days and nights the heavens were a silky blue, the air soft yet not sultry, the meadows fragrant andwarm, the forests dark and profuse in their tender green: even today, when I use the word summer, I think involun-

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tarily of those radiant July days which I spent in Baden near Vienna. In order that I might concentrate on my work I had retired for the month of July to this small romantic town where Beethoven loved to spend his summer holidays, planning to pass the remainder of the season with my honored friend Verhaeren in his little country house in Belgium. In Baden one does not have to leave the city to enjoy the country. The lovely, hilly forest insinuates itself between the low Biedermeier houses which have retained the simplicity and the charm of the Beethoven period. At all the cafés and restaurants one sat in the open and could mingle at pleasure with the light-hearted visitors who strolled about the Kurpark, or slip into a solitary path.

Already on the eve of that twenty-ninth of June, which Catholic Austria celebrates as the feastday of Saints Peter and Paul, many guests had arrived from Vienna. In light summer dress, gay and carefree, the crowds moved about to the music in the park. The day was mild; a cloudless sky lay over the broad chestnut trees; it was a day made to

portrait of the author

comprehensive website on Stefan Zweig's life and works http://www.stefanzweig.de/

The world of yesterday by Stefan Zweig The First Hours of the War of 1914


http://www.stefanzweig.de/


[p.215]be happy. The vacation days would soon set in for the people and children, and on this holiday they anticipated the entire summer, with its fresh air, its lush green, and the forgetting of all daily cares. I was sitting at some dis-tance from the crowd in the park, reading a book-I still remember that it was Merejkovsky's Tolstoy and Dostoi-evsky -and I read with interest and attention. Neverthe-less, I was simultaneously aware of the wind in the trees, the chirping of the birds, and the music which was wafted toward me from the park. I heard the melodies distinctly without being disturbed by them, for our ear is so capable of adapting itself that a continuous din, or the noise of a meet, or the rippling of a brook adjusts itself completely to our consciousness, and it is only an unexpected halt in the rhythm that startles us into listening.

And so it was that I suddenly stopped reading when the music broke off abruptly. I did not know what piece the band was playing. I noticed only that the music had broken off. Instinctively I looked up from my book. The crowd which strolled through the trees as a single, light, moving mass, also seemed to have undergone a change; it, too, had suddenly come to a halt. Something must have happened.I got up and saw that the musicians had left their pavilion. This too was strange, for the park concert usually lasted For an hour or more. What could have caused this brusque conclusion? Coming closer I noticed that the people had crowded excitedly around the bandstand because of an

Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and

Sophia, his wife, in Sarajevo

Arrest of Gavrilo Princip after the murder of

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife



announcement which had evidently just been put up. It was, as I soon learned, the text of a telegram announcing that His Imperial Majesty, the successor to the crown, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, who had gone to the maneuvers in Bosnia, had fallen victims of apolitical assassination there.

More and more people pressed toward the placard; the


[p.216]unexpected news was passed on from one to the other. Butto be honest, there was no particular shock or dismay to beseen on their faces, for the heir-apparent was not at allwell-liked. From the very earliest days of my youth I canrecall another day when Crown Prince Rudolf, theEmperor's only son, had been found shot dead in Mayer-ling. Then the whole city was in a tumult of despair andexcitement, tremendous crowds thronged to witness hislying-in-state, the expression of shock and sympathy forthe Emperor was overwhelming, that his only son and heir,who had been looked upon as an unusually progressive andhumane Habsburg of whom much was expected, hadpassed on in the prime of life. But Franz Ferdinand lackedeverything that counts for real popularity in Austria;



amiability, personal charm and easygoingness. I had oftenseen him in the theater. There he sat in his box, broad andmighty, with cold, fixed gaze, never casting a single friendlyglance towards the audience or encouraging the actors withhearty applause. He was never seen to smile, and no photo-graphs showed him relaxed. He had no sense for music,and no sense of humor, and his wife was equally unfriendly. They both were surrounded by an icy air; one knew that they had no friends, and also that the old Emperor hated him with all his heart because he did not have sufficient tact to hide his impatience to succeed to the throne. My almost mystic premonition that some misfortune would come from this man with his bulldog neck and his cold, staring eyes, was by no means a personal one but was shared by the entire nation; and so the news of his murder aroused no profound sympathy. Two hours later signs of genuine mourning were no longer to be seen. The throngs laughedand chattered and as the evening advanced music was resumed at public resorts. There were many on that day in Austria who secretly sighed with relief that this heir of the

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his family




[p.217]Of course the newspapers printed lengthy eulogies on the following day, giving fitting expression to their indigo-nation over the assassination. But there was no indication that the event was to be used politically against Serbia. The immediate concern of the Imperial house was quite another one, namely the solemn obsequies. According to his rank as heir-apparent, and especially since he had died in the service of the monarchy, his burial place would obviously have been the Capuchin vault, the historic place of inter-ment of the Habsburgs. But Franz Ferdinand had married a Countess Chotek in the face of a long and bitter struggle on the part of the Imperial family. She was a high aristocrat, but according to the secret, ancient family laws of the Habs-burgs, she was not considered of equal birth with her husband, and at all the great official functions the arch-duchesses stubbornly clung to their precedence over the wife of the heir-apparent, whose children were not entitled to the succession. The court pride even followed them in death. What?-a Countess Chotek to be buried in the Imperial vault of the Habsburgs? Perish the thought! A mighty intrigue set in; the archduchesses stormed the old Emperor. Whereas official mourning was expected from the populace, within the palace there was a wild cross-play of bitterness and rancor and, as usual, the dead were in the wrong. The masters of ceremony invented the assertion that it had been the express desire of the deceased to be buried in Artstetten, a provincial hole; and with this pseudo-pious excuse, they were able cautiously to evade the

Schloss Artstetten


http://www.schloss-artstetten.at/englisch/schloss.htm


public lying-in-state, the funeral cortege and all the dis-puted questions of precedence that went with it. The coffinsof the murdered royalty were quietly taken to Artstetten and interred there. Vienna, whose perpetual fondness for a


[p.218]show was thus deprived of a great opportunity, had alreadybegun to forget the tragic occurrence. After all, the violentdeath of Queen Elizabeth and of the Crown Prince, andthe scandalous flight of all sorts of members of the Imperialhouse, had long since accustomed Vienna to the thoughtthat the old Emperor would outlive his Tantalidean housein imperturbable solitude. Only a few weeks more and thename and the figure of Franz Ferdinand would have dis-appeared for all time out of history.

In less than a week, however, attacks suddenly began toappear in the newspapers, and their constantly mountingcrescendo was regulated too consistently for them to havebeen entirely accidental. The Serbian government wasaccused of collusion in the assassination, and there wereveiled hints that Austria would not permit the murder ofits supposedly beloved heir-apparent to go unavenged. Onecould not escape the impression that some sort of action

Émile Verhaeren (1855-1916)

from: http://student.britannica.com/

after a drawing in the Musées Royaux des


http://www.anthologie.free.fr/anthologie/verhaeren/verhaeren.htm


was being prepared in the newspapers, but no one thoughtof war. Neither banks nor business houses nor private per-sons changed their plans. Why should we be concerned with these constant skirmishes with Serbia which, as all knew,arose out of some commercial treaties concerned with theexport of Hungarian pigs? My bags were packed so that I could go to Verhaeren in Belgium, my work was in full swing, what did the dead Archduke in his catafalque have to do with my life? The summer was beautiful as never before and promised to become even more beautiful-and we all looked out upon the world without a care. I can recall that on my last day in Baden I was walking through the vineyards with a friend, when an old wine-grower said to us: "We haven't had such a summer for a long time. If it stays this way, we'll get better grapes than ever. Folks willremember this summer!"

Beaux-Arts, Brussels




[p.219]In Le Coq, the small seaside resort near Ostend where Ihad planned to stay for two weeks before paying my annual visit to Verhaeren's country home, the same unconstraint reigned as elsewhere. The happy vacationists lay under their colored tents on the beach or went in bathing, children were flying kites, and the young people were dancing in front of the cafés on the digue. All nationalities were peace-ably assembled together, and one heard a good deal of German in particular, for vacationists from the near-by Rhineland had long shown a preference for the Belgian seacoast. The only disturbance came from the newsboy who, to stimulate business, shouted the threatening captions in the Parisian papers: L'Autriche provoque la Russie, L'Allemagne prépare la mobilisation. We could see the faces of those who bought copies grow gloomy, but only for a few minutes. After all, we had been familiar with these diplo-tic conflicts for years; they were always happily settled at the last minute, before things grew too serious. Why not this time as well? A half-hour later, one saw the same people splashing about in the water, the kites soared aloft, the gulls fluttered about and the sun laughed warm and clear over the peaceful land.

But the bad news piled up and constantly became more threatening. First it was Austria's ultimatum to Serbia, and the evasive reply to it, then an exchange of telegrams be-tween the monarchs, and finally the barely hidden mobiliza-tion. The village became irksome to me; every day I would

Le Coq is called in Flemish "De Haan"; this borough lies about 6 miles NE of Oostende, near the Belgian coast



take the little electric train for Ostend to be closer to the news, and it grew increasingly worse. People were still


[p.220]bathing, the hotels still full, the digue still crowded withstrolling, laughing, chatting summer visitors. But for the first time now, however, a new element appeared; one sawBelgian soldiers who had never before been seen on the beach, and machine guns in small carts drawn by dogs, thisbeing a peculiarity of the Belgian army.

At that time I was sitting in a café with some Belgian friends, a young painter and the poet Crommelynck. Wehad spent the afternoon at the house of James Ensor, Bel-gium's greatest painter, a very reticent and retiring sort ofman, who was much prouder of the poor and petty waltzesand polkas that he composed for the military band thanhe was of his fantastic paintings in glowing colors. He hadshown us his work, indeed rather unwillingly, for thethought that somebody might possibly purchase one ofthem dejected him in a buffoonist sort of way. His ideal, sohis friends laughingly told me, was to sell them at a highprice and then be permitted to keep them, for he was asavaricious about money as he was about his work. Whenever

space for additions to page 220



he was forced to part with a painting, he was plunged intodespair for several days. With all his curious crotchets thisgenial Harpagon had made us quite jolly; and when a troopof soldiers happened to pass by with its machine gunharnessed to a dog, one of us got up to stroke the dog. Thisdisgusted the officer in charge who feared that this pettingof an adjunct of war might possibly damage the dignityof a military institution. "Why all this stupid marchingabout?" one of our group muttered. But another immedi-ately replied with excitement: "One has to be prepared.They say that in case of war the Germans intend to invadeus." "Out of the question! " I said with ho nest conviction, forin that old world one still believed in the sanctity oftreaties. "If something were to happen and France and Germany were to destroy each other to the last man, you


[p.221]Belgians would still keep your feet dry!" But our pessimist did not give in. There must be sufficient reason, he con-tinued, if such measures had been ordered in Belgium. Years ago they had already got wind of a secret plan of the German General Staff, whereby, in case of an attack on France, Belgium was to be invaded despite all ratified treaties. But neither would I give in. It appeared com-




pletely ridiculous to me that while thousands and tens of thousands of Germans were enjoying at their leisure the hospitality of this small, impartial country, an army should stand in readiness at the frontier prepared to march in. "Nonsense!" I said. "You can hang me to this lamp post If the Germans march into Belgium!" Today I am still grateful to my friends that they did not take me at my word when the time came.

Then came the critical last days of July and each hour brought conflicting news-the telegrams of Emperor Wil-helm to the Tsar, the telegrams of the Tsar to Emperor Wilhelm, Austria's declaration of war on Serbia, the murder of Jaurès. One sensed the serious situation. At once an icy wind of fear blew over the beach and swept it bare. People

by the thousands left the hotels and stormed the trains, and even the most optimistic began to pack their bags with speed. I too booked a ticket the moment that I learned of Austria's declaration of war on Serbia, and it was high time for this. The Orient Express was the last train from Belgium to Germany. We stood in the corridors, excited And impatient, everybody talking to everybody else. No one could remain quiet or read, and at each station we would rush out of the train to get the latest news, filled with the secret hope that some determined hand would restrain the Fates that had been unleashed. We still did not believe there would be war and even less in the possibility of an invasion of Belgium. We could not believe it because we did not




[p.222]wish to believe in such madness. We had passed throughVerviers, the Belgium border station, and gradually thetrain approached the frontier. A German crew got on, andin ten minutes we would be on German soil.

Half~way to Herbesthal, the first German station, thetrain suddenly stood still in the middle of an open field.We hurried into the corridor to the windows. What hadhappened? In the darkness I saw one freight train afteranother coming towards us, open cars covered with tar-paulins, under which I thought I could indistinctly see thethreatening outlines of cannon. My heart missed a beat. Itcould be nothing but the advance of the German army. Bitperhaps, I comforted myself, it was only a precautionarymeasure, merely a threat of mobilization, and not mobiliza-tion itself. Always in time of danger, the renewed will tohope becomes enormous. Finally we heard the signal "All clear!" and the train rolled on into the station at Herbesthal. I leapt down the steps with one jump to get a newspaper and to learn what was going on. But the military hadoccupied the station. When I wished to enter the waiting-room, an official, white-bearded and grave, stood in front of the locked door: no one was permitted to enter the station buildings. But I had al ready heard the rattling and clanking




of swords behind the carefully covered glass panes and the hard thud of grounded rifles. No longer any doubt, the monstrous thing, the German invasion of Belgium contrary to every provision of international law, was in progress. Shuddering, I went back to the train and rode on, back to Austria. Now there was no more doubt: I was riding into the war.

The next morning I was in Austria. In every station placards had been put up announcing general mobilization.


[p.223]The trains were filled with fresh recruits, banners wereflying, music sounded, and in Vienna I found the entire city in a tumult. The first shock at the news of war-the warthat no one, people or government, had wanted-the war which had slipped, much against their will, out of the clumsy hands of the diplomats who had been bluffing and toying with it, had suddenly been transformed into enthu-siasm. There were parades in the street, flags, ribbons, and music burst forth everywhere, young recruits were march-ing triumphantly, their faces lighting up at the cheering -they, the John Does and Richard Roes who usually go unnoticed and uncelebrated.




And to be truthful, I must acknowledge that there was A majestic, rapturous, and even seductive something in this first outbreak of the people from which one could escape only with difficulty. And in spite of all my hatred and aversion for war, I should not like to have missed the memory of those first days. As never before, thousands and hundreds of thousands felt what they should have felt in peace time, that they belonged together. A city of two million, a country of nearly fifty million, in that hour felt that they were participating in world history, in a moment which would never recur, and that each one was called upon to cast his infinitesimal self into the glowing mass, there to be purified of all selfishness. All differences of class, rank, and language were flooded over at that moment by the rushing feeling of fraternity. Strangers spoke to one another in the streets, people who had avoided each other for years shook hands, everywhere one saw excited faces.Each individual experienced an exaltation of his ego, he was no longer the isolated person of former times, he had been incorporated into the mass, he was part of the people, and his person, his hitherto unnoticed person, had been given meaning. The petty mail clerk, who ordinarily sorted




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