How to create a HDF5 group with only attributes

Writing an attribute to a group that already has a dataset works fine:

h5create("sample.hdf5", "/group/dataset", 1:3)
h5writeatt("sample.hdf5", "/group/", "attribute", 3.14)

But I cannot create attributes in files that do not alredy exist:

h5create("sample2.hdf5", "/group1/dataset", 1:3)
h5writeatt("sample2.hdf5", "/group2/", "attribute", 3.14)

Error using hdf5lib2

The HDF5 library encountered an error and produced the following stack trace information:

H5G_loc_find_cb object 'group2' doesn't exist

(...)

There is no "create attribute" function as there is for datasets. I understand this constraint may be there for a purpose, but is there a workaround?