Causes of WW I Poll

[Lord_Vetinari]

Probably stronger than Austria-Hungary? If it weren't for Germany, the Russians could have gone all the way toe Vienna easily. At the beginning of the war the Austrians were getting the butt-rush from Russia. It isn't a probably, but rather a "most spectacularly greater."

Ok, a lot stronger that Austria-Hungary then. Which only makes it all the more obvious that Austrian leader must have been aware of the very real threat of a great european war, and yet they still acted the way they did. I still think that altough the burden of guilt should be divided between the great powers, Austria is the most guilty.

 

[Sobieski]

Originally posted by Lord_Vetinari


Ok, a lot stronger that Austria-Hungary then. Which only makes it all the more obvious that Austrian leader must have been aware of the very real threat of a great european war, and yet they still acted the way they did. I still think that altough the burden of guilt should be divided between the great powers, Austria is the most guilty.

Hahah, there ya go. I just wanted to help reinforce your point.

 

[Vrylakas]

Lord_Vetinari wrote:

This is interesting. I've taken a short laid-back summer course in political history this summer at the University. The course ended today, and guess what one of our exam questions was? Yes, you guessed it, the who's-to-blame for WW1. This is the first time in over a month I've been to civfanatics, and what is the first topic (well almost anyway) that I see?

D'oh! My wife says I have an amazing uncanny ability to be off with my time...

I wish I had read this before today, since I blamed the Austrians for the war. Well not really, I said that lot's of factors played a part (you all know them by now, the alliance system, the lack of big wars in the past, etc.) and that none of the great powers was completely innocent. But that if you were to grate the "guiltiness" of the great powers, Austria-Hungary would top my list.

You have raised some doubts about this with your thread, which is good. One thing I think should be mentioned when discussing Austria-Hungary's guilt is that the situation was not all that similar to US - Afghanistan in one aspect. Serbia had a very powerful ally in Russia, in fact it was probably more powerful than Austria-Hungary, and that Russia had a quite powerful ally in France. Faced with this, Austria knew they had to get Germany on their side, meaning that if war did break out over the Serbian question, it would be a very major war indeed. Now, the US probably would have thought twice before attacking Afghanistan if they (Afghanistan) had been allied with, say, China. Don't you think? That's my main problem with you comparing the 1914 question of Serbia with the 2002 question of Afghanistan. Austria-Hungary played with very high stakes, willingly risking a war as great (or greater as it turned out) as the Napoleonic wars 100 years ago. All this just because they wanted to punish the ones guilty of assasinating the heir to their throne.

Lord V, you've found a hole in my approach. Vienna was indeed aware of the risks of going to war with Serbia by late July, and yet it did so anyway. Conrad wanted war, and Berchtold seemingly just assumed (hoped?) Germany would take care of the Russian problem. This is quite reckless because the Germans were very aware - to their alarm - that they were on their own in the east against the Russians until Austria defeated Serbia. The Habsburgs simply couldn't field enough of a force against two fronts, so its force in Galicia (Austrian Poland) was merely symbolic. The Germans also hoped to wrap up France first and then turn to Russia, and were initially hoping the Austrians would protect their butts hanging out in the east until they could shift forces there after the victory parade in Paris.

Of course it didn't happen that way. The Germans got bogged down in the West, they failed to take Paris, and the Russians decided for reasons of vanity to attack the Germans in Prussia first instead of hitting the extremely weak Austrian front. In any event the Serbians, to everyone's surprise, repelled the Austrian invasion. For as grim as the war looked for the Western Allies in 1914, it was not-stop disaster for the Central Powers - even including the Tannenberg victory against the Russians in which two Tsarist armies were destroyed but more sprung up behind them.

Anyway, great thread Vrylakas, only wish I'd seen it earlier so I'd written a much more interesting exam.

I think it's still a valid historical topic that is pertinent today in many ways. I was both surprised and gratified to read when the 1962 FRUS finally came out last year that the Kennedy brothers during the Cuban Missile Crisis both consulted Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August about how Europe fumbled into World War I. In the midst of an extremely intense diplomatic and potentially military standoff the President was reading a history of an inadvertant war to try to avoid one himself!

And I try hard not to think about the current President in Washington who wouldbe challenged reading a Harry Potter book...

Thanks for the input Lord V!

 

[ashley26ph2003]

Serbia is pro Russia if they did not ask Russia for help WW1 will not occur

 

[barron of ideas]

Incompetent diplomacy helped grease the wheels of war. Ultimatims were sent, and then the sender went off on holiday! The Kaiser tried to promote peace, and then went yachting. All the monarchs were related. Queen Victoria was everybody's grandma. Thanks for the hemophilia, by the way. If the Russian crown prince hadn't had it history might be different (at least no rasputin).

They didn't have to have a war, at least not then. Eariler thay had had just a bad a causus belli, something about Morroco, I think, about 1908? If they know in 1914, or had thought about it, what they knew in 1918, they wouldn't have done it. But everyone who counted was sure they and their allies could handle the other side.

Think of the US Civil war, both sides thought it would be over in 90 days and they would win. That kind of thinking is hard to overcome.

 

[Toasty]

I'll try to put in my scattered, underinformed ideas marauding as some sort of unified opinion based in fact .

It's been a while since I brushed up on the great war, so forgive me if I botch a few facts.

To say that Austria was fully informed on the risks of the war is a bit of a folly; keep in mind that Conrad did not have the kind of details on the Schleiffen plan and had been ensured that the Germans would be there to crush the Russians in Galicia, Silesia, and Prussia. The two main conspirators of the war which I view are Berchtold and Conrad individually, for what one did not know fully about the issue the other had twisted and delivered to the emperor to add for causus belli.

The Austrian military plan (again, forgive me if this is too sketchy) was a fairly simple design, and was relatively intelligent at that, but poorly implemented. Conrad had set up the A Staffel, B ('swing') Staffel, and C staffel. The A Staffel located in Galicia and the C Staffel located just North of Belgrade. The A and B Staffel were approximately the same size, while the C Staffel was somewhat larger. All documents say officially that the German general staff had intentionally kept the Austrians in the dark, knowing that the Habsburgs, as it has been stated, were more interested in self-preservation than anything else.

When it finally came down to war, Conrad had recieved more assurance from the Germans (through Berchtold) that they would be there, and appropriately assigned the B Staffel to move with the C Staffel into Serbia, as opposed to North where they really should have been. As has been evidenced in this war, timetables would doom many careless generals--by the time word came in that the Germans were pouring into France, the B Staffel was already heading South, and new railroad timetables could not be drawn up in the given time to go North with the A Staffel. Instead, about three-fifths of the Austrian army was poised against Bulgaria, while a comparatively feeble number of soldiers stood to defend Galicia.

By the time the Russians came crashing down, an all too inadequate piece of the Austrian army's fate was sealed, and by the time the trains could be turned around to Galicia everything was snowballing so quickly that the casualties would become enormous.

Because Berchtold had pushed for war by misinforming both the Emperor (as when he said shells had been fired from Belgrade), and the main General, Austria miscalculated entirely in the risks involved in the undertaking and, not only that, but had completely blown off where to place their forces.

Austria marched blindly, albeit with purpose, towards war.