The Causes of the First World War

jjkrause84 said:

Hew's To Arms is good for all kinds of reasons, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see volumes 2 and 3. He's left Oxford last year (in effect) and gone back up to St Andrews (we have weird age-related rules, especially at All Souls, where he was based).

As for the beginning of the war I would recommend Clark, even though I don't really agree with him, and also Annika Mombauer's "The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus". Margaret MacMillan's recent-ish book on the subject is also worth a shot "The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War". Even though it isn't 100% on topic I also really liked Mike Neiberg's Dance of the Furies on the political mood and culture surrounding the outbreak of war. Great book, and really nice guy (if perhaps a bit too much into his Springsteen....).

You could also read David Stevenson's book 'Armaments and the Coming of War', which is well-researched. That should be enough to get one started at least.

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jjkrause84 said:

On a side note, I haven't McMeekin's book on Russia, but found Richard Evans' review of his book interesting:

https://newrepublic.com/article/98085/the-road-slaughter

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Thanks for your constructive response.

I read the review by Richard J. Evans about McMeekin "The Russian Origins of the First World War". I partly agree with him, e.g.
- McMeekin is the first author I have read to emphasize the turkish dreadnought deal as a cause for Russia to propel war, so obviously at the moment there is no consensus on this and he stands alone with his view, and
- his description on the turkish genocide on the armenians is differing from the "official" european version (which is enforced by law in some european countries by now, I think.)
Richard J. Evans is described as an expert on German History, so I cannot judge how solid his comparison between Fischer and McMeekin about pre-war plans is. (Would be different if he would be described as an expert for Russian and Turkish history as well.)

I think that McMeekin's book is still quite useful since it allows to see WW1 from a Russian and Turkish view. If he is right or exaggerates one has to find out by oneself using logic and comparing with other books on the theme.

I have read Clark's book about the Sleepwalkers and I also own his books about Prussia and Wilhelm II. but still have to read them. I like the Sleepwalkers since he provides a very good and very wide introduction into the theme which most other books do not.

If you compare number of reviews on amazon.co.uk for Clark (266), MacMillan (123) and Mombauer (9), you see differences in popularity. German reviews for Mombauer's german books are split into rather positive and rather negative reviews since she is mostly compared with Clark since Sleepwalker was such a success in Germany.

Most of Annika Mombauer's books seem quite expensive on amazon, so they are probably more intended for academic use and to read in a library.
Annika Mombauer's "The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus" from 2002 looks like a book for academic historians, describing the history of history of WW1. I used the preview from amazon to read a couple of pages, including most of the introduction, summarizing the causes of WW1. Compared with Clark, she tells a slightly different story, e.g. regarding the "unacceptable" ultimatum, Mombauer writes of secret plotting in Berlin and Vienna, mostly unaware to the other Great Powers, and an astonishing Serbian response to the ultimatum. Clark (and others) emphasize, that the fact, that an A-H ultimatum to Serbia will follow, was leaked, so that France and Russia could agree in St. Petersburg on a common reaction beforehand. When Serbia received the "unacceptable" ultimatum, it was ready to accept until informed by Russia that it should not accept in all terms. Russia would mobilize and fight together with Serbia against A-H. If I remember correctly, Clark also mentions that the Serbian answer to the ultimatum only on the first view accepted all but one points, but in fact refused most of them with political phrases. So in this case Clark tells his story including Russia, while Mombauer tells her story without Russia. Later she writes that "German and A-H decisions were based on the explicit desire to provoke a conflict." (A conflict with whom : Serbia, Russia? I thought that a full acception of the ultimatum would be sufficient for A-H satisfaction in regard of the murder and would avoid war. Germany's blank check was based on the assumption that Russia would not intervene, since Germany lacked a warplan for Russia alone. So Germany had no interest to escalate the conflict but always wanted to localize it as A-H-Serbian only.)

For those interested I found an interview on youtube with Annika Mombauer :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSiy0_4Tl_Q

Margaret MacMillan's book looks interesting. I found this 54 min tv interview with her where she talks about her book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUmByAgc4YA
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/24/war-ended-peace-margaret-macmillan-review

Neiberg and Stevenson I have to check ... but I suppose that Neiberg is missing my interest and Stevenson's book is rather expensive, so I might have a look at his 1914-1918 book first.

Annika's work is academic, yes. Still, worth reading if you're interested.

historix69 said:

Neiberg and Stevenson I have to check ... but I suppose that Neiberg is missing my interest and Stevenson's book is rather expensive, so I might have a look at his 1914-1918 book first.

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Stevenson's 1914-1918 book is pretty lame, actually. Very boring, and not in any way new (that I could pick out).

Are you only interested in the start of the war?

I have a general interest in economic and military history, including the political causes of WW1 and WW2. Most people in Europe do not have a detailed knowledge and tv documentaries are often repeating stereotypes again and again, usually omitting the infos which might let you understand historic decisions.

So for WW1 I have 2 interests ...

One is to understand why the war started politically and who is to blame, e.g. Serbia, A-H, Germany, Russia, France, England, ... (Clarks book is here very helpful.)

The other is to understand the logic and the mechanics of WW1 (and other historic wars) ... troops, organization, mobilization, reserves, weapons, equipment, logistics, strategy, tactics, battles, casualties, war economy, population, resources, numbers... all the things which often are simplified, distorted or omitted in strategy games like Civ and others. (As books I have here Keegan, Strachan, Kennedy and some others ... wikipedia usually is helpfull, too.)

For those interested :
12 years ago there was a threat on the same topic in this forum, starting with a long narrative ...

90 Years of Contemplation: The Origins of World War I

hey , it must be years that ı wrote a post for World History , apart that thing that remains on the first page , and ı do wellcome it . Well , obviously the Great War was our fault . Much discussion about Russian guilt , if you will , in these pages and it turns out ı have trolled Meekin's book off the web . The first thing then to say is that back in the old days expansion was the sign of an healthy organism ... This historical "fact" has given me years of increased blood pressure as Ankara -in the ruthless grip of Victorian morals- has been uttering utter nonsense about imperialistic aims and merely propping up more and more blood enemies of the Turks . But then let's get back to Russians and somehow accept that they were most healthy when they were expanding against "us" . This post assumes Sibirs to be distant relatives and the Russian advance into Siberia made them rich beyond belief , primarily by selling their loot to "us" , this time in the form of fur lovin' Ottomans . Advance against "us" was a guaranteed affair , a matter of merely arranging proper logistics as the "latest" models of firearms made short work of pointless bravery in archery and swordplay on horseback . Again and again . When Russians collided with Europeans , they tended to fail in arranging logistics of bringing their masses to the battle . When wars were short . When they were long , the casualties were still horrible enough to slow them down in the aftermath . Luckily for them there were always "us" , weaklings trapped in the 16th Century in societal structures , with no industry or organic wealth , the has-beens , the once-greats . Inevitably they expanded and expanded and gobbled all they could .

it was now 1877 , with "us" down to the Ottomans . Custer and 7th Cavalry was just an hiccup , the US would "soon" finish taking over the "West" and would join the Darwinian world order . It's not a particularly proud moment of Turkish history to realise that Sublime Porte survived the disasters of 1830s only because British Mercantilism or whatever denied high quality Indian produce to "Yanks" so that they had to buy 2nd grade opium from the Ottomans for still an acceptably large hoard of profits from the China trade . With American influence perceptibly small at the time ... It has been suggested the much cherished and much abused balance-of-power demanded the existance of the Ottomans as a major player in Europe , but the defeat at the horrible "93 Harbi" convinced the Great Powers , foremost Britain , that our end was in sight . And it was better if they all ganged up on us , stealing the best parts before the Russian Colossus managed to wake up and march South to grab it all . This is wrong , the affairs up to 1878 was a concert of the Great Powers , a blank check to the Russians so that the rest of the Empire would be immediately turned over to European protection out of fear .

well , you can always trust Albion Perfide to throw a spanner of discord into good Christian work and changing mind in a 90 degree turn and a fleet to invade that particular city becoming a protective force indeed . Possibly because the fiascos of Plevne where it turns out that selling "us" modern weapons , even at a dear price , was not a wise move . See , it's our fault , our existance , that there's a disarmament movement in the world . With the Czar pushing hard by 1897 or so for a ban on new development and a curtailment of industries . So that hard pressed or merely hungry capitalists will not be selling us repeater rifles , shovels and sand bags . Remember , Russians fight best against "us" and as 1877 proves they are the only ones "brave" and "Christian" enough . And yes , the foresight by this guy named Bloch who had an amazing masterpiece of 6 volumes on how Defensive firepower would utterly swamp the Attack . Have been promised them in print as soon as ı level the US . Everybody knows the impossibility of war in the era of the Machine Gun , Russians most , but they will be conducting their offensives against losers , you know , "us" . This makes them leave an alliance with German speakers , because there's no way that their aims in the Balkans can be accepted by Austria-Hungary . They will see cheap expansion in China for a while , disgraced by the easy defeat of Boxers and all the realities that created the Boxers in the first place . But the Brits will manage to scare them enough to wobble even more than their standarts and the Japanese will come to believe that they alone can dominate the Yellow Race . So back to Europe , again .

russians know it well they might have to fight Germans , especially after Bismarck arranged an "understanding" the Ottomans were still a better bet . Russians do not doubt German prowess in making war . Or indeed in anything ; Russian nobility is itself German , right ? They might not do that good on the battlefield , if faced with the punctuality and immense industries of Berlin ... Even if Civ III depicts the 3 moving Panzer with the Blitz capability as the T-34 . Was such a shock to notice what it was as ı was playing the Vanilla for the first time . So , in the standart r16 drill , straight from the weird Turkish language from where yours idiotly is totally banned from saving pages . It must be 1892 or so when it was decided as a massive Cossack raid into Prussia to burn down train stations and wreck the rails . Not mattering for a Russian advance now that they have their own gauge to stop Western invaders from advancing deep into Russia . And must be 1896 or so as a full-blown army invasion , to Berlin if possible . And that with the initial cadre of troops , just like Warsaw Pact was all about those Grade A Soviet Divisions that might strike without warning and end up on the Rhein with no waiting for the conscripts to catch up , because anything except extreme speed spelled defeat . And yeah , it seems Berlin heard about such plans in 1896 as well .

it was all about a show of force , the apes thumping their chests to prove themselves to be the Alpha . Seriously nobody intends to throw their millions of young fit men into the withering machine gun fire , all expecting the enemy to see the light and crack . Perhaps with the exception of the French , badly defeated in 1870 , hence keeping the Napoleonic red pants . The war , real one ı mean , is to take place in the lands of the Ottomans , now without any protection and as such a walk , a stroll in the park . Why didn't Russians wait until 1917 , with their new railroads and stuff to advance onto Vienna , with them apparently building up a line to Warsaw in the standart gauge ? Why on earth they would want to fight the Germans ? The German excuse for avoiding 1917 is at least understandable , with gloomy projections of the soon-coming Russian juggernaught . France wants the war as badly as any one with their massive investments in the Ottoman Empire to go up in flames with the clear end of the State in sight ; you won't believe how funny it is to hear how all those new countries that spawned overnight from the carcass of the Ottoman Empire agreed to pay their share of the Ottoman debt , you know only because the new Turkish Republic refused to be saddled with the whole amount , by the strength of bayonet power . And the dear British , doing their utmost to avoid the Boshe with their expeditionary force , you know practically cheating the Kaiser into the war with a possibility of giving away Belgium and all . And a complete mirror and smoke affair to get the French into full scale war , without much in the way of return guarantees of joining it . Oh yes , the TV knows it best ! With the guy playing Sir Edward Grey in some miniseries on the centennary of the Great War , when ı see Palpatine ,ı know who is to blame ... Or something .

historix69 said:

I have a general interest in economic and military history, including the political causes of WW1 and WW2. Most people in Europe do not have a detailed knowledge and tv documentaries are often repeating stereotypes again and again, usually omitting the infos which might let you understand historic decisions.

So for WW1 I have 2 interests ...

One is to understand why the war started politically and who is to blame, e.g. Serbia, A-H, Germany, Russia, France, England, ... (Clarks book is here very helpful.)

The other is to understand the logic and the mechanics of WW1 (and other historic wars) ... troops, organization, mobilization, reserves, weapons, equipment, logistics, strategy, tactics, battles, casualties, war economy, population, resources, numbers... all the things which often are simplified, distorted or omitted in strategy games like Civ and others. (As books I have here Keegan, Strachan, Kennedy and some others ... wikipedia usually is helpfull, too.)

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OK, well then you have to read Gary Sheffield's Forgotten Victory about the British army in the war and William (Bill) Philpott's Bloody Victory (about the Somme...the book is called 'Three Armies on the Somme' in the US).

My books/articles also touch on the more military stuff:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Early-Trench-Tactics-French-Army/dp/1409455009
(This one's available for free on my academia.edu page)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greater-Wa...036045&sr=1-1&keywords=the+greater+war+krause

I can really recommend the Greater War book, which is an edited volume, for the sections on Italy and morale (Vanda Wilcox), naval strategy in the South Pacific (Andrew Lambert), and the effects colonial warfare had on the British army in the war (Spencer Jones). We also do a good job of covering the French army from 1914-1918, in various parts.


(Yes, yes I know...shameless self-promotion, but there we are)

@jjkrause84
Thanks for sharing your academic work ... I bookmarked your academia.edu page, downloaded the pdfs, and will have a look.

There is also a great book by Herfried Münkler, "Der Große Krieg: Die Welt 1914 bis 1918", not sure if it has been translated into English yet.

It's not nearly as in-depth as other works about the path towards the war, but it does grant an excellent view on why certain German figures acted the way they did (which does dip a bit into the nonsense about the Septemberprogramme). It also tells you a lot about why expansionists were given any room at all, and how Bethmann-Hollweg couldn't really afford to actively work against them.

I never understood how anyone could take Fischer's ideas seriously. He took the definitive proof that Germany had no plans for a war (zero goals at the outbreak of the war and a completely open discussion about what could possibly be taken) and spinned it into the opposite. To suggest that Germany had any unusual expansionists ambitions is ludicruous at best. It wasn't Germany that was hell-bend on revenge and driven by wanting to gain back Alsace-Lorraine, it wasn't Germany that wanted to gain control over the Balkans, control Konstantinople or dreamt of Pan-slavism. Nor was Germany in any way more imperialistic than the other existing empires. It certainly wasn't Germany that antagonised other countries prior to the war either.

It's truly amazing how Germany gets portrayed as the evil imperialist, while France - which took over Morocco against international agreements (imperialism!), pushed Russia to build up its army and create a better rail-network so it could better attack Germany, and had been waiting to get revenge since 1871 - gets off scot-free and gets hailed as fighting for freedom and democracy.

Germany backs its only remaining ally - something that it simply has to do, or it gets left without any support, which puts Germany into a horrendous position, see what happened to Poland when it ended up between bigger powers - and that's somehow a huge mistake. It may not have been the perfect way to handle the situation, and Bethmann-Hollweg doing his best to misrepresent Wilhelm's reaction to Austria after Serbia had answered the ultimatum didn't help either, but that was hardly the only side that made these mistakes. Poincare travels to Russia to make sure that Russia doesn't even think of backing down, a move that is certainly not more peaceful than Germany's promise to Austria, and no one cares.

Plenty of Germans made wrong decisions, but that is true for basically all the other powers as well. It simply doesn't make any kind of sense to blame this war on Germany, it was a combined effort by all the big powers, who all did just enough to screw things up and just too little to prevent the war even though it was within their power.

You got to acknowledge that Germany had its fair share of stirring up the other great powers in Morocco, too.

Wasn't Morocco a Foul Play by France against Germany?

As far as I remember there was an international agreement of major powers for Open Door Policy in Morocco and France violated it by finally annexing Morocco thereby closing all other powers' doors. While they secretly compensated other powers, they did not negotiate nor compensate Germany which caused German protest. Germany's Diplomacy to exploit the "Foul" failed causing further isolation for Germany and strengthened the new Entente.

The interesting point in interpreted history is that the Foul (France annexing Morocco) is treated like a natural law for France while the German protest against France violating the Open Door Treaty is treated like a German crime ... suggesting that historians are applying doubled standards, a superior one for the Old Empires (Britain, France, Russia) ruling most parts of the world around 1900 and an inferior one for the new German Empire.

If I remember correctly, there were two Moroccan crises, but I really don't remember much about either. Let me get back to you on those.

Painting Imperial Germany as an opponent of imperialism and defender of Morocco during the (second) crisis is laughable. Germany demanded and got a slice of Cameron from France as "compensation" for allowing the french to proceed with annexation.
What a great opponent of imperialism was Imperial Germany, that created and exploited crisis to enlarge its own empire!

historix does have a point, though. France got Italy, Britain, and Spain's acquiescence to their control over Morocco (which did indeed violate the 1880 Conference of Madrid) and Germany was concerned that it would lose any influence it might have. The first crisis seems reasonably France's fault.

I don't see anyone portraying Germany as a defender of Morocco, I see historix arguing that the Morocco incident showed that Germany was held to a different standard than the established imperial powers, which I think is basically correct.

Yes she was. You wanted to muscle in on the imperial game for overseas territory, you haggled with the other imperial powers: that was the outcome from both crisis, and Germany did made some gains. Hell, Germany []oIfficially[/I] kick started the grab for Africa with the Berlin Conference. So Otto gave away the Congo to a shady belgian dude and Willie later thought that Germany should have gotten more? The only way he was going to "fix" that was war because the others wouldn't just give away any sizable portion of the territory they'd already grabbed, for appeasement. The english toyed with the idea of giving way other country's little empires, but even then they saw correctly that it wouldn't satiate the germans: they were looking for territory in Europe, not just overseas.

So to war Germany went, and with a sense of inevitability.

innonimatu said:

Yes she was. You wanted to muscle in on the imperial game for overseas territory, you haggled with the other imperial powers: that was the outcome from both crisis, and Germany did made some gains. Hell, Germany []oIfficially[/I] kick started the grab for Africa with the Berlin Conference. So Otto gave away the Congo to a shady belgian dude and Willie later thought that Germany should have gotten more? The only way he was going to "fix" that was war because the others wouldn't just give away any sizable portion of the territory they'd already grabbed, for appeasement. The english toyed with the idea of giving way other country's little empires, but even then they saw correctly that it wouldn't satiate the germans: they were looking for territory in Europe, not just overseas.

So to war Germany went, and with a sense of inevitability.

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I think we are back at the beginning of this thread.

Why would Germany intentionally provoke and start a war against Serbia, Russia, France, Belgium and the British Empire at the same time when they knew they cannot win the war? If you are short-handed, you start small wars against isolated countries to grab land, not a world war.

Russia on the contrary knew that they had support from the French and probably also the British, so it was an easy decision to mobilize against A-H and Germany. Don't forget that Russian mobilization was meant to protect Serbian Terrorists ...

historix69 said:

I think it is debatable if England, France and Russia had "big, healthy empires". Germany in 1913 was about to excel England in industry production and also excelled the combined France and Russia. "big, healthy empires" do not have to fear a newcomer. It's the declining empires who are scared of loosing ground to a newcomer ...

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Yes, that's the point. Germany was becoming the most powerful country, but the three established superpowers were allying with each other to maintain the old equilibrium.

Flying Pig said:

I'm not totally convinced that it's best to understand the as Great War between 'tier 1' powers with an interest in preserving the world order and 'tier 2' powers interested in disrupting it.

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Not tier 1 v. tier 2, but established versus insurgent.

The British culpability in the Great War can probably be pegged down to a combination of gross diplomatic negligence and political disconnection.

Reading the dispatches from British diplomats in St. Petersburg, Berlin, & Vienna are almost hilarious, as they show what can be best described as intentional aloofness. Even when the Austrian ambassador is telling his British counterpart that crap is getting real.

Politically, the British a) let themselves get duped by the French about the seriousness of the situation and b) the government/press was still insanely caught up in the “rivalry” with the German fleet despite the fact that the British had clearly won the naval arms race and had no real reason to threaten the British Empire overseas.

Threatening the French Empire on the other hand…

historix69 said:

Why would Germany intentionally provoke and start a war against Serbia, Russia, France, Belgium and the British Empire at the same time when they knew they cannot win the war?

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This is completely backwards logic. You are looking at the outcome
and seeking to back calculate from that the intentions of Germany.

That line up was certainly not what the Germans thought they would be fighting.

The Prussians had grabbed land from Austria-Hungary and France in previous wars.
The Germans wanted land from Russia and to rebut French dreams re Alsace-Lorraine.

The problem was for Germany to fight France and Russia at the same time was risky.

The great thing for German hawks about the assassination was that if they could
encourage Austria-Hungary to go to war with Serbia and Russia supported Serbia,
they would have, in the Austo-Hungarian empire, an active at war ally from day one.

The Germans thought that the initial line up would be Germany and Austria-Hungary
versus Russia (and little Serbia) and France (and little Belgium),
but they would be later supported by Italy, Turkey and Japan.

Stage 1: Austria Hungary rollover Serbia, and Germany roll over Belgium.

Stage 2: Germany defeat France via the Schieffen plan.

Stage 3: Italy join in war against France

Stage 4: France sign armistice and agree to pay Germany annual indennity.

Stage 5: Turkey (and perhaps Japan) attack Russia.

Stage 6: German, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Japan all dogpile Russia.

Stage 7: A defeated Russia concedes peripheral territory and negotiates peace.

This would have provided Germany with the following benefits:

(a) Belgium as a protectorate

(b) French final reconciliation to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine.

(c) Nice big indemnity from France to replace that paid off earlier.

(d) Territory from Russia

(e) Happy smiling allies:

(i) Austria Hungary content with Serbia and land from Russia

(ii) Italy content with land (Corsica?) or colonies or cash from France.

(iii) Turkey happy with land in Caucasus around Black Sea

(iv) Japan getting something in far east.

(f) Russia would only lose land not containing native Russian speakers;
and would therefore be ultimately reconcilable with the outcome.

Thereby establishing German dominance of the Euro-Asian continent.

The Kaiser was concerned that Great Britain would support the French, but the British
army was small, and the Germans calculated that Britain could not ship in enough troops
from India and conscript enough troops in time before the French were defeated.

The fact that it did not work out that way is quite another story.

That is quite the pipedream. Can you provide sources? Not cited, just the book or books you took that from.