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were localised as the powers largely kept to the sidelines. But when in June 1914 a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne, during a visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, Vienna was provoked into drastic measures against Belgrade. Despite determined efforts over the next month among the continent’s chancelleries to head off a clash, in late July negotiations gave way to ultimata, mobilisations and finally the outbreak of the First World War.

With the possible exception of Austria-Hungary, which hoped for an isolated campaign to crush Serbia, none of the combatants sought a confrontation in July 1914. Nicholas was particularly reluctant to take up arms. Although his military had largely recovered from the recent defeat in East Asia, he knew that it was still no match for the Central Powers. Nevertheless, the tsar and many of his ministers were even more fearful of the penalty of not supporting Serbia, its partner, against an assault by the Dual Monarchy. Within the past forty years Russia had twice been forced to yield to Austria in the Balkans, at Berlin in 1878 and over the Bosnian question in 1908. A third capitulation might irreparably harm the empire’s prestige, with fatal consequences for the Romanovs’ standing as a great power.

The start of war did not end tsarist diplomacy. At first, much of Sazonov’s attention was directed to securing the agreement of his allies for acquiring German and Austrian territory in a peace settlement. When Turkey entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914, the minister quickly began to focus on the Straits. Already in early 1915 he gained the consent of Britain and France for Russian control of the passage. Of course, to realise its expansive ambitions in Central Europe and the Near East, Russia needed to defeat its enemies. After two Russian armies were routed in East Prussia in August 1914, the likelihood of victory became increasingly remote. And a year later Poland and part of the Baltic provinces were in enemy hands. Although by 1916 tsarist forces had managed to stabilise their positions, once again the home front ultimately decided the outcome of the Russian war effort. Severe economic dislocation in the cities and poor political leadership severely discredited the dynasty, ultimately resulting in Nicholas’s abdication in March 1917.

The character of tsarist diplomacy

More than in any other era, between 1815 and 1917 Russia was firmly anchored in the European state system. As one of the founders of the Concert of Europe, St Petersburg fully subscribed to the values that shaped thinking about international relations on the continent. If anything,

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nineteenth-century Russians were even more scrupulous in their observance of diplomatic protocol than some of the other powers. Fully equating civilisation with Europe, tsarist diplomats and their imperial masters understood that relations among the continent’s states were carried out according to a strict code of conduct, which respected honour and the sanctity of national sovereignty.17

Despite occasionally being branded as ‘Asiatic’ in the West, senior officials at the Choristers’ Bridge18 shared an outlook common throughout the European diplomatic corps. Often educated by foreign tutors, speaking French more easily than their native tongue, and sharing the same aristocratic tastes as their colleagues in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, the elite that shaped Russian diplomacy consciously identified with a cosmopolitan European upper strata that often still valued class over nation. Indeed, other Russians occasionally criticised the Foreign Ministry as an alien preserve, and not without reason. Because of the rarefied skills required of an ambassador, most important a familiarity with the social milieu of foreign courts, tsarist diplomats often bore distinctly nonSlavic surnames, such as Cassini, Stackelberg, Tuyll van Serooskerken, Pozzo di Borgo and Mohrenheim.

While Russia was an integral member of the continent’s exclusive club of great powers, its foreign policy did exhibit some distinctive features. Contemporary Western observers were often struck by the concentration of authority in the hands of the sovereign. It was not unusual even in parliamentary regimes for the monarch to be closely involved in diplomacy. Great Britain’s Queen Victoria was an active player in her kingdom’s foreign affairs, while Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs often took an even stronger part in such matters. But right up to the reign of Nicholas II, Russia’s tsars saw the relations of their empire with other nations as their exclusive preserve. Even the Fundamental Laws of 1906, which established the Duma, declared, ‘Our Sovereign the Emperor is the supreme leader of all external relations of the Russian state with foreign powers. He likewise sets the course of the international policy of the Russian state.’ The statute explicitly forbade legislators from debating

17 With respect to the European states, at any rate. Elsewhere, matters could be different. Referring to Central Asia, the Foreign Ministry’s legal expert, Fedor Martens, argued that international law did not apply to ‘uncivilised peoples’. F. F. Martens,

La Russie et l’Angleterre dans l’Asie Centrale (Ghent: I. S. van Dooselaere, 1879), pp. 8–19.

18 Because of its location near a bridge that was traditionally used by members of the Imperial Court Choir on their way to sing at the Winter Palace’s chapel, the Russian Foreign Ministry was given this nickname.

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foreign policy, a provision unknown in any other European constitution at the time.19

This did not mean that Romanovs were reluctant to delegate authority to their foreign ministers. When the Choristers’ Bridge was headed by a trusted and competent individual, as it was during much of the nineteenth century, that official naturally came to exercise a great deal of influence on tsarist diplomacy. One indication of the minister’s prestige was the fact that Russia’s highest civil service chin (level on the Table of Ranks), chancellor, was typically bestowed on only distinguished holders of that post. Prince Gorchakov once explained, ‘in Russia there are only two people who know the politics of the Russian cabinet: The emperor, who sets its course, and I, who prepare and execute it’.20 Nevertheless, as in many governments, the foreign minister’s authority could be eclipsed by others. This was particularly true during Nicholas II’s reign, when at various times Finance Minister Sergei Witte or a shadowy group of imperial intimates had a much stronger say in Russian diplomacy.

Even when the Foreign Ministry was firmly in charge of the empire’s relations with other states, it did not always speak with one voice. Officials at the Asian Department, which had officially been established in 1819 to deal with Eastern states (including former Ottoman possessions in south-eastern Europe), had a very different outlook on the world than their colleagues who dealt with Western and Central Europe. Unlike the latter, who tended to be well-born, cosmopolitan dilettantes, the Asian Department was largely staffed by ethnic Russians, often with special training in Oriental languages. Caution and aristocratic etiquette were alien to its modus operandi. Acting as a semiautonomous institution, the Asian Department at times conducted a policy at odds with the broader lines of tsarist diplomacy. This had particularly unfortunate consequences in the Balkans, where more enthusiastic patriots like Count Ignat’ev could frustrate his minister’s efforts to defuse tensions.

Despite the autocratic nature of the tsarist regime, by the second half of the nineteenth century public opinion increasingly began to play a role in Russian diplomacy. As throughout Europe, the development of an assertive press and the rise of nationalism began to involve educated Russians in what had hitherto been regarded as the sovereign’s exclusive preserve. During Nicholas II’s reign, the St Petersburg daily Novoe vremia (the New Times) had an authority

19M. Szeftel, The Russian Constitution of April 23 , 1 906 (Brussels: Les editions´ de la librairie encyclopedique,´ 1976), pp. 86, 127.

20 In Baron B. E. Nol’de, Peterburskaia missiia Bismarka 1 85 9–1 862 (Prague: Plamia, 1925), p. 39.

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roughly analogous to The Times. Read at the Winter Palace and at the Chorister’s Bridge, Novoe Vremia advocated a pro-entente line, largely reflecting the sentiments of most literate Russians. The creation of the Duma, an elected legislature, in 1907 further involved civil society in foreign policy. Although according to the Fundamental Laws, deputies could not discuss such matters, they nevertheless used their right to approve the Foreign Ministry’s annual budget to impose their views on its policies. The relatively liberal Izvol’skii understood the importance of a favourable public and was careful to court the Duma’s more moderate members.

But the most dramatic feature of nineteenth-century tsarist diplomacy was its relative success, at least until 1894. During the eight decades that followed the Congress of Vienna, Russian foreign policy displayed a remarkable degree of consistency and, with two major exceptions in the Near East, it achieved the empire’s principal geopolitical objectives. It was only under Nicholas II, when impatience and excessive ambition replaced realism, that the achievements of earlier Romanovs came undone.

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