Germany
Gottlieb von Jagow
1863–1935 State Secretary of the German Foreign Office, 1913–1916
Born in Berlin, Jagow studied law, entered diplomacy in 1895 and became ambassador in Rome in 1909. In January 1913 he became State Secretary of the Foreign Office, a like-minded adviser of Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. News of Sarajevo reached him on his honeymoon; when he returned to Berlin on 6 July 1914, the decision to give Vienna a free hand against Serbia had already been taken. He kept to that course, hoping Russia would back down and the conflict stay local. Accounts differ on why he left office in November 1916: a German biography cites his opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare, the US ambassador his weakness in the Reichstag. In 1919 he published a defense of German policy. He died on 11 January 1935.