Great! I have my copy right here. Can you let me know what page I should be looking on for where Clark provides evidence that "the French deceived [Barbara Tuchman, et al.]? Don’t worry if you have an e-book, by the way; the index still gives physical page numbers. I assume it’s probably somewhere in Ch. 12, “Last Days,” either in the section “‘There must be some misunderstanding’” or “The Tribulations of Paul Cambon”?
Direct evidence is, of course, complicated by Germany’s destruction of their diplomatic cables. This is probably why the German “white book,” their collection of documents around the outbreak of war, is all of 32 pages long, and curiously ends on August 1st, with one final telegram on August 2nd. The section “How the Franco-German conflict might have been avoided” is only three pages and entirely concerns the hypothetical that Great Britain might have used the Royal Navy to compel French neutrality, thus sparing Germany the need to invade.
The French, in actuality, were
scrupulously avoiding any aggressive measures against Germany: on the morning of 30 July, the Council of Ministers agreed that French covering troops would take positions along a line from the Vosges mountains to Luxembourg, but without getting closer than ten kilometers from the frontier. The idea was to avoid any possibility of border skirmishes with German patrols and to persuade London of the pacific nature of French policy. It was felt that the moral effect and propaganda value of the exclusion zone outweighed the military risks.
(Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914)
Had the Kaiser believed himself under threat from the French, and certainly had the French initiated hostilities, this would’ve been a great place to say that. Had any Germans at all believed this, this would’ve been a great place to say it. I will repeat in this (evidently more appropriate) forum Chief of the German General Staff Helmuth von Moltke’s lamentation on being sidelined in 1915:
It is dreadful to be condemned to inactivity in this war which I prepared and initiated.
(emphasis mine)
By ending on August 2nd, the White Book is not obliged to document the German occupation of Luxembourg on that day, which was obviously quite alarming to the Belgians. August 2nd was also when Britain became aware that Germany was impounding British ships in Hamburg and expropriating their cargo (this is the subject of documents 149, 150, and 156 in the British Blue Book).
And if, as Clark says, the French wanted to “avoid any possibility of border skirmishes with German patrols,” their counterparts were not so interested—August 2nd is also the date that the first German soldier of the Great War was killed. In France. Because he was patrolling over the French border. Because Germany was interested in an offensive war with France.
Germany justified its occupation of Luxembourg to the Belgians—as they would justify the invasion of Belgium itself—as one of exigent circumstances. Belgian diplomat Eugène Beyens cabled the Belgian foreign office on August 4th, with “a translation of part of the speech made to-day in the Reichstag by the Imperial Chancellor” illustrating this mindset on the part of the Germans, as they themselves articulated it:
Our troops have occupied Luxemburg and have perhaps already entered Belgium. This is contrary to the dictates of international law. France has, it is true, declared at Brussels that she was prepared to respect the neutrality of Belgium so long as it was respected by her adversary. But we knew that France was ready to invade Belgium. France could wait; we could not. A French attack upon our flank in the region of the Lower Rhine might have been fatal. We were, therefore, compelled to ride roughshod over the legitimate protests of the Governments of Luxemburg and Belgium. For the wrong which we are thus doing, we will make reparation as soon as our military object is attained.
Germany had previously tried to convince Belgium that France had initiated hostilities, and used this in their declaration of war with France on August 3rd, accusing French aviators of “having flown over the territory of the Empire and of having thrown bombs” (document number 148 in the French Yellow Book, concerning Germany’s declaration of war).
The Belgians seem to have been perplexed by this, judging by this summary from an early morning meeting on the 3rd of August (document number 21 in the first Belgian Grey Book):
At 1.30 A.M. the German Minister asked to see Baron van der Elst. He told him that he had been instructed by his Government to inform the Belgian Government that French dirigibles had thrown bombs, and that a French cavalry patrol had crossed the frontier in violation of international law, seeing that war had not been declared.
The Secretary-General asked Herr von Below where these incidents had happened, and was told that it was in Germany. Baron van der Elst then observed that in that case he could not understand the object of this communication. Herr von Below stated that these acts, which were contrary to international law, were calculated to lead to the supposition that other acts, contrary to international law, would be committed by France.
But what the Germans alleged, specifically, was that the French had bombed Nuremberg, all the way in Bavaria, which was so ridiculous an assertion that nobody seems to have taken it seriously. And really, conceivably the German White Book is so scanty because they already knew their cover was blown. Recall that, having given Russia their final ultimatum, the Germans prepared two justifications for war, one saying that Russia had not replied to the ultimatum and one saying that the response was unsatisfactory, and then accidentally delivered both messages.