The Causes of the First World War

Dachs

Hero of the Soviet Union
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I'd be careful with Clark. I don't think it squares well with the old Fischer stuff (let alone the more recent work of people like Annika Mombauer). "Sleepwalking" to war ignores the active steps Germany took to instigate it (but, then again I'm in the 'it was largely Germany's fault' camp).

Have you read Michael Neiberg's book on the start of the war?
It doesn't square well with the old Fischer stuff because Fischer legendarily oversold the meaning of his data and at the same time ignored the other Great Powers to focus on Germany to the exclusion of all else. This was not even a good approach to the outbreak of the Second World War, which every reputable academic agrees was Hitler's fault but which still cannot be viewed solely from the point of view of the primacy of internal politics in one country. It is certainly not a good approach to the outbreak of the First World War, which regardless of war guilt was never masterminded by one person or country.

It doesn't square well with Annika Mombauer's work on Moltke because Mombauer decided that addressing military subjects in a book ostensibly about the chief of staff of the Prussian-German military would be dealing with "minutiae", and her analysis strongly indicates that she does not understand them, which is not a good thing when one's argument rests on precisely the military minutiae that one does not understand. Terence Zuber can be a difficult man to have an argument with, to say the least (endless issues of War in History taken up by his arguments with Foley and Holmes are proof of that), but treating his points with the intellectual force that they deserve ought to be the absolute minimum standard of academic discussion. Clark - and McMeekin, who authored Russian Origins and July 1914 with a related viewpoint - at least acknowledged the problems Zuber raised with the concept of the Schlieffen Plan and therefore with the traditional war guilt narrative, even if I suspect they too tried to avoid getting bogged down in unfamiliar specialist topics.

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I liked Dance of the Furies, because the more ammunition one has against the war enthusiasm claims, the better.
 
Yeah, Dance of the Furies was great, wasn't it? I don't know if you saw but Mike just published an article with Robert Citino in "The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies" (BOSS). I haven't read it yet (I'm not really a Bruce Springsteen fan), but it made me chuckle anyway.

I think you're a bit too harsh on Annika. I don't think it is at all fair to say she 'doesn't understand' military minutiae (at least I don't recall ever feeling that way reading her Moltke book). On the other hand, I don't have any time for Zuber (that may be because I'm in the UK, and we've mostly had a negative reaction to his work).

For me it is simple: would France have ever invaded Germany? No. Nothing in French planning suggested a pre-emptive war under any circumstances. Far less so Britain or little Belgium. You know who was planning on a pre-emptive war? Germany. Without German aggression the First World War never happens. Absolute worst case is yet another (and possibly bigger) Balkan war. Obviously you have many complex phenomena taking place, both in Europe and around the world (the colonial context is absolutely key) but at the end of the day none of the other issues or flash-points amount to war without Germany taking the plunge. At least, that's my opinion.

For full disclosure I work on France, so that no doubt colours my view of all this.
 
Without German aggression the First World War never happens.

I thought Germany declared war due to Russia's failure to scale back its mobilisation after the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia? I mean sure it was Germany's ally who struck first and all, but I'm not sure that makes Germany the sole guilty party.
 
Not to mention that the outbreak of the Great War, like just about every other important event in history, had more than one cause for which you can say 'it wouldn't have happened (or wouldn't have happened like that) were it not for that'. If Serbia hadn't rejected the famous Austrian ultimatum (as they nearly didn't), the war would never have happened. Does that put all of the blame for the slaughter of 1914-1918 on Serbia for rejecting it, or on Austria for sending it? Of course it doesn't.
 
Well, the bottom line is that the First World War wouldn't have happened if the ruling class in a dozen countries hadn't all decided that millions of human lives was a reasonable price for their ambition. If we want to point fingers, that seems like a place to start.
 
Well, the bottom line is that the First World War wouldn't have happened if the ruling class in a dozen countries hadn't all decided that millions of human lives was a reasonable price for their ambition. If we want to point fingers, that seems like a place to start.

Well, to be fair they all thought the war'd be done by Christmas so they weren't making exactly making the calculation knowingly.
Of course, that's not much of a defense, really...
 
The First World War has to be explained as the war that actually took place, not just the fact that a war broke out in 1914. Otherwise, it'd be the Austrians' fault after all, because once they declared war on Serbia, bam, war started, and everyone else is just responding to it. The decision to make the First World War into what we know as the First World War was one that the political and military elites made on a daily basis, and every resulting drop of blood is on their hands.
 
I think that is a pretty definitive statement on the matter.
 
I thought Germany declared war due to Russia's failure to scale back its mobilisation after the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia? I mean sure it was Germany's ally who struck first and all, but I'm not sure that makes Germany the sole guilty party.

Germany is not the 'sole' guilty party, obviously. To my mind they are merely the 'most' guilty party when it comes to propelling a regional war into a global one. Austria-Hungary and Russia obviously bear substantial culpability as well.

It is worth looking at 1912 and 1913. If I recall properly off the top of my head something like a million troops were mobilised by Austria and Russia in 1913 and both nations wavered on the brink of war (a similar mobilisation took place in 1912, albeit on a smaller scale). Austria asked Germany for the go-ahead and Germany said 'no'. Both sides demobilised, and the war did not occur. In 1914 Germany says 'yes' and, at least in the Eastern Front, now we're off and running. At that moment the Germans chose to start a conflict that did not need to happen. Without a blank cheque Austrian diplomacy all of a sudden looks very different in the summer of 1914.

As with anything there's no final consensus. 'Who is really responsible' is sort of just a fun debate at this point.

The decision to make the First World War into what we know as the First World War was one that the political and military elites made on a daily basis, and every resulting drop of blood is on their hands.

Well, this is true of most 'conventional' wars, is it not? Common people have spent much of history being simple objects in the grand games of the rich and powerful, and will undoubtedly continue to do so for the foreseeable (in most circumstances).

Not to mention that the outbreak of the Great War, like just about every other important event in history, had more than one cause for which you can say 'it wouldn't have happened (or wouldn't have happened like that) were it not for that'. If Serbia hadn't rejected the famous Austrian ultimatum (as they nearly didn't), the war would never have happened. Does that put all of the blame for the slaughter of 1914-1918 on Serbia for rejecting it, or on Austria for sending it? Of course it doesn't.

True, but Serbia is an unfair example. The ultimatum effectively demanded that they give up sovereignty for an act they had no part in, whilst also putting their people at grave risk of abuse (the Austrians had led anti-Serbian pogroms in Bosnia-Herzegovina after taking it over just a few years earlier). It was specifically designed to be impossible to accept. Heck, even if Serbia had accepted in full that is no guarantee that Austria-Hungary would not have invaded anyway.
 
They did say 'yes' to the Austrian invasion of Serbia, I somehow doubt they would have greenlighted war with Russia, especially when the Austrians were utterly unprepared to even deploy to the Russian border.

EDIT: All of this besides the point that the Serbian affair was ll just a blatant powergrab from Austria-Hungary.
 
True, but Serbia is an unfair example. The ultimatum effectively demanded that they give up sovereignty for an act they had no part in, whilst also putting their people at grave risk of abuse (the Austrians had led anti-Serbian pogroms in Bosnia-Herzegovina after taking it over just a few years earlier). It was specifically designed to be impossible to accept. Heck, even if Serbia had accepted in full that is no guarantee that Austria-Hungary would not have invaded anyway.

In fact, in anticipation of a Serbian rejection marching orders had already been given. And then, Serbia didn't exactly reject the demands: they agreed to all but one, theoretically leaving a diplomatic solution open. But the Austrian foreign minister had already taken his shortsighted decision and nobody called him back.
 
The mentioned books by Clark and McMeekin are very enlightened.
Niall Ferguson in his book "The pity of war" also challenges some historic dogmas about WW1.
As far as I know, today the Fischer Thesis is no longer regarded as valid in Germany since it concentrated solely on Germany and neglected the actions of other Great Powers. (see Fritz_Fischer)
Public Opinion on WW1 even today is largely influenced by dominance of allied/anglo-american newspapers/press in the world at that time (war propaganda).

Read Clark about Serbia in 1914.
Serbia in 1914 was something like a rogue state. I would compare it with todays Sunni Islamic State (IS). They doubled their territory in the balkan wars and now targeted Austria-Hungary. Serbia's success was mostly based on support by France and Russia which provided free modern weapons (rifles, artillery) and ammo. The practically non-existant serbian economy would not allow aggressive expansionistic wars on base of their own alone. Clark writes about anti-muslim progroms by Serbians killing many thousands of muslims in conquered territories (ethnic/religious cleansing). Serbian nationalists in 1914 had big plans for a Greater Serbia (later called Yugoslavia), a nation where de facto a serbian minority would dominate (rule and suppress) other even smaller slavic minorities (and by the time transform them to serbians). Yugoslavia was founded after WW1. The German occupation of Yugoslavia during WW2 unleashed a deadly civil war between serbs and croats, between religious groups like orthodox, protestants, catholic, muslim as well as left, right and pro-german, anti-german groups. The Yugoslav_Wars finally proved that a Greater Serbia never was a stable nation nor that serbian dominance was ever accepted by other peoples/nations like croats, slovenes, bosniaks, kosovars, ...

In 1914 serbian government knew about the preparations for the assassination of the arch-duke (organized by members of serbian secret service) but did not try to stop it, since a likely resulting Great War would destroy Austria-Hungary and add new territory to Serbia. Russia knew about this and they agreed to supply another 100.000 rifles with ammo to the serbians.


About the German situation in 1914, read Clark and especially McMeekin.

In August 1914 Germany had no territorial claims against France or Russia. Austria had declared war against Serbia but was slow on mobilization since soldiers were on vacation (harvest-season). Austria did not mobilize against Russia.

Germany solely reacted on the secret mobilization of Russia and France against Germany. Germany was the last to mobilize. When completely mobilized Russia and France would have a 3:1 superiority against Germany which was regarded as a sure victory at that time. (With the almost sure secret english support for France and Russia the chance of success was seen as above 100%.) Germany's only chance of defence was to prevent mobilization of France and Russia by diplomacy or to mobilize faster than them and strike first against France, before Russia was fully mobilized. Waiting for both to be mobilized was regarded as a sure defeat (national suicide). Diplomacy failed in August 1914 ... I'm sure that many politicans even today would decide the same way in a comparable situation. Mobilization meant War at that time. Defence was underrated. Waiting for your neighbours to mobilize against you without reaction would be a crime against your own nation ... (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War for a modern example.)

You can compare the situation of Great Powers with a group of outlaw gunslingers. There is no law or Sheriff above the Great Powers, but they can make their own laws based on group interests, e.g. England, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Serbia, USA, ... against Germany, Austria, Turkey ... if you are attacked and loose, you have to bear the consequences ... Outlaw gunslingers are at peace while all weapons are holstered. Mobilization is drawing weapons, shooting is war ... however if you already have drawn your weapon, you don't wait for the other side to draw, you shoot ...
So the pictures has three gunslingers : the german in the middle, the french and the russian to his left and right ... If the french and russian gunslingers manage to draw their guns before the german can do, one of them can shoot him from behind (2-Front-War) or force him to surrender and plunder and maybe kill him and nobody would care (no law) ... the german gunslinger knows this and in the moment when the french and russian gunslingers start to draw their guns and do not intend to stop the action, he has no alternative than to draw and open the shooting ... it is a psychologically terrific situation ... (read McMeekin!)

(Today with all the knowledge about WW1, you might design a defensive plan with trenches and machine guns for Germany, but in 1914 the decisions were based on 19th century war experience, where the offensive was regarded as superior.)
 
Read Clark about Serbia in 1914.
Serbia in 1914 was something like a rogue state. I would compare it with todays Sunni Islamic State (IS). They doubled their territory in the balkan wars and now targeted Austria-Hungary. Serbia's success was mostly based on support by France and Russia which provided free modern weapons (rifles, artillery) and ammo. The practically non-existant serbian economy would not allow aggressive expansionistic wars on base of their own alone. Clark writes about anti-muslim progroms by Serbians killing many thousands of muslims in conquered territories (ethnic/religious cleansing). Serbian nationalists in 1914 had big plans for a Greater Serbia (later called Yugoslavia), a nation where de facto a serbian minority would dominate (rule and suppress) other even smaller slavic minorities (and by the time transform them to serbians). Yugoslavia was founded after WW1. The German occupation of Yugoslavia during WW2 unleashed a deadly civil war between serbs and croats, between religious groups like orthodox, protestants, catholic, muslim as well as left, right and pro-german, anti-german groups. The Yugoslav_Wars finally proved that a Greater Serbia never was a stable nation nor that serbian dominance was ever accepted by other peoples/nations like croats, slovenes, bosniaks, kosovars, ...

In 1914 serbian government knew about the preparations for the assassination of the arch-duke (organized by members of serbian secret service) but did not try to stop it, since a likely resulting Great War would destroy Austria-Hungary and add new territory to Serbia. Russia knew about this and they agreed to supply another 100.000 rifles with ammo to the serbians.


About the German situation in 1914, read Clark and especially McMeekin.

And we should ignore all other books on this topic? As there are quite a few. Some problems with your personal narrative (besides selective reading, that is):

- 'Serbia in 1914 was something like a rogue state. I would compare it with todays Sunni Islamic State (IS).'

Seriously? Do you have that from Clark or is it just your personal interpretation?

- 'In 1914 serbian government knew about the preparations for the assassination of the arch-duke (organized by members of serbian secret service) but did not try to stop it'

No, because certain members in the Serbian administration were aware of the plot. Which makes this a factually incorrect statement. Which is clearly supported by the subsequent reaction of the Serbian government to what amounted to an Austrian ultimatum.
 
And we should ignore all other books on this topic? As there are quite a few.

You are free to contribute your list of books on WW1 ...

Some problems with your personal narrative (besides selective reading, that is):

- 'Serbia in 1914 was something like a rogue state. I would compare it with todays Sunni Islamic State (IS).'

Seriously? Do you have that from Clark or is it just your personal interpretation?

This is interpretation of the infos on Serbian history given by Clark and others. In newer books Serbia and Russia are much more critized than in earlier books which mostly neglected (omitted) serbian history and russian/serbian war goals and reduced outbreak of WW1 to alliance-automatism. Serbia with its muderous history probably was not really accepted by the more civilized european Great Powers in 1914, but it was a usefull tool for Russia (and its ally France) against Austria and Turkey (similar to today's IS being a useful tool against Syrian Regime and non-sunni-population (like shiits) for some "civilized" nations). Most European Powers would not have cared about a small war between Austria and Serbia in 1914. It was the russian decision to mobilize for a Great War against Germany and Austria, in secrecy backed by France which was backed by England, which finally led to the war. McMeekin's book about Russian Origin of WW1 is adding a lot of useful info to the picture which is usually omitted in other books.

One of the main problems with WW1 history is the fact that it happened about 100 years ago and there are no more living witnesses. Most people know the events only from history books or school teaching and do not question the official version of WW1 narrative (which is still influenced by allied propaganda) since the same infos are repeated again and again.
Are the official decisions of leaders at that time in official narration of WW1 really reasonable?
Would Russia go to war against Austria and Germany just to aid Serbia, a minor state with only a few million people, unless they intended to wage war anyway (backed by secret agreements with France and England, in anticipation of a sure victory)?
Would England/the British Empire declare war on Germany just because of violated Belgium neutrality unless they intended to go to war anyway to ensure that Germany does not win the war and become the dominant land power in europe?
Russian military losses (killed, wounded) are probably about the same size as total serbian population and if you include the losses from russian revolution and civil war, it exceeds it, British losses are probably in same size as belgian population.
 
Would Russia go to war against Austria and Germany just to aid Serbia, a minor state with only a few million people, unless they intended to wage war anyway (backed by secret agreements with France and England, in anticipation of a sure victory)?

So, the war was really masterminded by Entente secret diplomacy!? What!? Of course Russia would be wiling to risk a Balkan war given the circumstances, because failure to do so would compromise Russia's sphere of influence in the entire region. You have to put Russia's actions into the context of the period after the Russo-Turkish War.

Would England/the British Empire declare war on Germany just because of violated Belgium neutrality unless they intended to go to war anyway to ensure that Germany does not win the war and become the dominant land power in europe?

This shows a critical misunderstanding of British policy-making and the balance of power. "Going to war anyway" suggest that Britain was planning on taking part in some sort of conflict, which it simply wasn't. The primary driver in British politics was to keep Continental commitments vague and at arms length in the years between 1904 and 1914 (i.e. since the Entente with France was agreed upon). British interests were served, as they had been for a couple centuries, by maintaining the balance of power in Europe, yes. However, war was an absolute last resort for Britain...it was not sought or encouraged in any way.
 
One thing which emerges from Clark quite clearly is the extent to which the Black Hand (properly known as 'Unification or Death!', which is quite revealing) had infiltrated the highest levels of the Serbian government and military. In 1903, their future leader had masterminded a plot which assassinated the royal family, and in the process became, along with his allies, quite an important person for everyone in Serbian politics to keep on side. He then became the main driver behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
 
Germany solely reacted on the secret mobilization of Russia and France against Germany. Germany was the last to mobilize.

Germany purposefully held out on mobilisation to appear like the victim. It was a politically calculated move. Nothing more.
 
That's absurd. Can you cite some sources?
 
I just have difficulty believing that a nation whose plan for a possible war on two fronts relied on the speed of its mobilisation would purposefully delay it.
 
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