Tsar Nicholas II and the Sebian "Blank Check"

Current prevailing wisdom is that Germany bears most of the responsibility for World War I due in no small part to the so-called “blank check” to Austria-Hungary, discussed in my prior post, as well as its expansionist designs. Perhaps this view is most cogently propagated by Max Hastings in a recent (outstanding) BBC documentary, A Necessary War.

More importantly, according to the Apis confession not only did he orchestrate the assassination but he did it with Russian complicity. (Taylor, 196-201). And, the Russian agent, Col. Artamonov the military attache in Belgrade, admitted in 1930 that Russia funded the Black Hand, even while denying foreknowledge of the Assassination. (Clark, 411-412).

So, fundamentally, Tsarist Russia backed a terrorist state–a far greater sin than Germany’s blank check to Austria-Hungary. And, consider the nature of support. On Feruary 2, 1914, the Tsar told Prime Minister Pasic: “For Serbia we shall do everything.” On July 27, 1914, the Tsar personally reaffirmed the blank check to Serbia stating: “but if, despite everything, there is war you can rest assured that Russia will never abandon Serbia to her fate.”

On July 27, the only demand of Austria on Serbia that Serbia could not accept was for a joint investigation of the Sarajevo Assassination. Russia rejected Austria-Hungary’s right to any such investigation and would not require Serbia to undertake such an investigation. Russia wanted war instead of an investigation.

More specifically, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov told Austrian diplomats on July 8, 1914, that any demand for Serbian government support for an investigation was unacceptable, and that “no proof” of Serbian complicity would ever emerge. (Clark, 408-409). Further, Sazonov urged Serbia to reject outright any joint inquiry with Austria into the Sarajevo Assassination. (Id. at 455 and 465).

The bottom line is either Tsarist Russia knew of Serbian (as well as its own) complicity and desperately wanted it covered-up, or it was willfully blind to the truth and would rather plunge the world into war than learn the truth.

The Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas was grossly negligent if not affirmatively lawless in its support of Serbia. The Russian disinclination to permit an investigation into the assassination is simply inexplicable.