I'd just like to say straight out that the topic of First World War war guilt is one that is singularly uninteresting to me as compared with, you know, actual facts pertaining to the entry into war, so I'm only going to attempt to correct what I perceive to be errors in the discussion.
First, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand is shot in Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist. Austria demands concessions from Serbia, including full investigation and some very humiliating Austrian oversight. Serbs are willing to accept the ultimatum, until Russia starts rattling sabers and threaten Austria-Hungary with war in defense of Serbia. Of course at the same time, Germany was encouraging the hawks in Vienna to push for military solution to the Serbian problem.
Sequence of events is kinda cocked up.
The Austrian government had been extremely worried about Serbian-driven terrorism and saber-rattling over the past years as Serbia's Balkan policy in opposing the Ottoman Empire reached its natural climax and the Serbian government began to concentrate more fully on seizing Bosnia. According to the meetings in the Austro-Hungarian government on July 7, 1914, the Habsburg officials elected to pursue a diplomatic campaign against Serbia in such a fashion that the Serbian government would be forced into war. Such a war would eliminate the mortal threat the Austrians saw in the existence of Serbia - a state that had a standing army as large as the Habsburgs' own - and was thus wholly commensurate with Habsburg national interests. It's difficult to say that they could have done anything less.
The Serbian government initially had no intention whatsoever of accepting these demands in their entirety. Insofar as Dragutin Dimitrijević had his own enemies in Serbia, it might even be politically expedient to agree to
some of the demands. Russian offers of support played a relatively small role in Serbia's calculations - to issue a note agreeing to
some of the demands that the Austrians demanded, but with conditions, or in some cases not at all - a note that, on the surface, appeared eminently reasonable to people who didn't read very carefully into it. Such a note, that of the evening of July 25, helped deflect a great deal of public opinion away from Serbia, public opinion that was already shifting away from Austria due to that government's dilatory manner in composing the ultimatum: Berchtold et al. were not at all sure that the Serbian war would be worth it, nor that it would not widen into a larger conflict, and were understandably uneasy about initiating war. Such conduct, to me at least, acts rather decisively against the notion that Austria and Germany had "imperial ambitions" that played the key role in starting the war...
Anyway, so no, Serbian response, given their near military parity with Austria-Hungary and the nature of the demands, had relatively little do with Russia, though the Serbian ministers were obviously buoyed by the fact that Russia
did in the event declare support for them.
Winner said:
Second, Russia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary. Germany warns Russia and wants them to reconsider. Russia is defiant, so Germany mobilizes in support of A-H.
While on the surface correct, this statement seems slightly biased in favor of the Central Powers - of course Russia was 'defiant', for they believed that losing their outpost in the Balkans, Serbia, would be a rather decisive prestige and geopolitical blow...especially to a government that had effectively closed itself off from all other avenues of geopolitical expansion, namely Manchuria and Turkestan, via the Russo-Japanese War and the 1907 convention over Persia respectively.
Winner said:
Now, I still fail to see how the war was German fault. Sure, the General Staff were a bunch of bloodthirsty trigger-happy idiots who wanted war.
If they wanted a war, why didn't they coordinate their actions with the Austrians, their partners in the supposed war, more effectively?...on
May 12, 1914, at a casual meeting, Conrad von Hötzendorf had met with von Moltke and the topic of war came up, in which Conrad was somewhat surprised to find out that the Germans would have barely any troops at all in the east...but that, according to von Moltke, "We are not superior to the French" either!
Winner said:
Sure, Germany was pretty militarized and clearly wanted to upset the balance of power in its favor (gain colonies, challenge the British naval dominance etc.).
Hmp.
This myth is a great deal more damaging than any murky question of war guilt. In the fall of 1913, the kronprinz, Wilhelm, buddied up with a bunch of jingoists and wrote a note to Bethmann-Hollweg criticizing the "flabby" German foreign policy to date. The response:
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg said:
Our foreign policy is accused of striving to preserve peace at any price, of compromising the honor and dignity of the German Reich...In no instance so far has the honor and dignity of the German nation been violated by another nation. Whoever wants war without such provocation must have vital national tasks in view which cannot be achieved without war. It was to accomplish such tasks and reach such goals that Bismarck desired and launched the wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870. After they were fought and won, he believed that "the most important political interest was the preservation of peace." This was stated by him so often and so clearly, this was so obviously the guiding principle of his entire policy after 180, that one can only accuse today's warmongers of a consummate lack of political judgment or bad faith when they constantly appeal to the example of Bismarck and actually gain credence for such falsification of history. Every policy for the sake of prestige was condemned by Bismarck as basically un-German. Whither such policy leads he could, and we can, see from the example of Napoleon III. In a future war undertaken without compelling reason, not only the Hohenzollern crown but the future of Germany will be at stake. Our policy must of course be conducted boldly. But to rattle our sabers in every diplomatic complication when the honor, security, and future of Germany are not threatened is not only foolhardy but criminal.
Winner said:
If Russia had stayed out of the mess, Serbia would have accepted the ultimatum (all of it) or A-H would have settled for the 8 out of 10 demands the Serbs were willing to accept. In worst case scenario, A-H would have declared war on Serbia, but the war would remain localized just as the previous Balkan wars.
You are right, sort of - if Russia had not intervened, a world war would not have occurred, yes. It would have been Austria-Hungary against Serbia, for certain, though.
Winner said:
What baffles me is the fact that France was willing to go to war for something in which it had absolutely no interest.
This has been addressed
ad nauseam already, but I'd like to lend my voice to the school that says that France kinda believed it needed Russian aid to win a war with Germany. Without it, the French had no chance in hell - so they thought - of recovering the Lost Provinces. In the summer of 1914, the stars aligned unusually well for France, too. Russia was for-certain going to war with Germany, when previously the Russian government had been a bit iffy on that sort of thing. The German war plan, to invade Belgium and Holland, was well known in French military and diplomatic circles and thus it was believed that Britain would be brought in as well. Italy and Romania had recently secretly agreed to ignore their alliances with the Habsburgs in the event of war as well - any war would involve the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns against the world, their worst situation of diplomatic isolation since the crisis of 1875. Poincaré and others were aware of Russo-British clashes of interest developing again in the Middle East, and the Balkan and Italian agreements would doubtless not hold - while Britain and Germany were showing signs of reconciliation over such issues as, for instance, the Berlin to Baghdad Railway. France had an unusually favorable constellation of diplomatic agreements at the time, and a national goal of recovering stuff from Germany. It would have been geopolitically nonsensical for them to have rejected this, in effect acknowledging that even when the possibilities were best to get Alsace-Lorraine back, they did not wish to do so...effectively renouncing their interests in them at all.
I admit I don't have any details about this alliance - was it purely a defensive one ("if you're attacked, we'll help you") or not ("we'll attack whoever you choose to attack")?
Originally it was a purely defensive alliance oriented solely towards Austria-Hungary and Germany but by the exchange of notes of August 9, 1899 both governments committed themselves to the interpretation that an Austrian impingement on Russian interests in the Balkans could be considered an "offensive action", an interpretation that was only strengthened after the total collapse of the Austro-Russian "freeze" on Balkan politics in the first decade of the 20th century.
The reason Germany "gets the blame" is that it seriously jumped the gun in several key areas; first, Wilhelm came out with complete support for Austria in an action against Serbia when it wasn't even that far along yet,
It's not really jumping the gun. As previously noted, Germany was in their worst situation of diplomatic isolation yet. They had few firm friends, and it was believed that they needed to do all within their power to hold onto those they still had. It was believed - and the Austrians themselves cheerfully supported this notion - that the Habsburgs might abandon their Dual Alliance if Germany were unwilling to support their interests in the Balkans.
Cheezy the Wiz said:
and 2. he mobilized for war with Russia when he had no clear need to. Russia was only going to defend Serbia against its invaders, not against its invaders' allies. But when the Russian army mobilized, only one plan for mobilization existed, and that called for putting huge numbers of troops close to the German border. So Russia forced Germany's hand in that respect. But they would have had little need to mobilize if Wilhelm wasn't so desirable for "adventure" as to cast his army's support will-nilly, and not only give the green light to, but actively encourage Austria to do something rash to Serbia.
His desire for "adventure" fluctuated a great deal, and that of the German diplomatic corps was virtually nonexistent.
During the crisis, he frequently bemoaned his fate, that "England, Russia, and France have
agreed amongst themselves - after laying the foundation of the
casus foederis for us through Austria - to use the Austro-Serbian conflict as an excuse for waging a
war of extermination against us." In the heat of the moment, after the assassination, he was all for killing off Serbia, dealing with the problem "now or never"...but a few weeks later he said of the war's commencement "...and thereby the stupidity and ineptitude of our ally is turned into a snare for us." Gottlieb von Jagow, another German diplomat, claimed the situation was such that he thought that Edward Grey, who so ardently claimed to desire a proper balance of power, ought to recognize that if Germany abandoned Austria-Hungary and the Habsburgs were annihilated by Russia, that the balance of power would be destroyed - "therefore, if he is honest and logical, he must stand by us in attempting to localize the conflict."
EDIT: Germany's worst mistake was, IMO, giving the Austrians full support without actually knowing what they were planning. They also tended to believe that the Russians would stay out of the mess.
The Germans had a pretty good idea about what the Austrians might do if they were given their blank check, up to and including war with Russia.
Anyway, you didn't understand what I said - Serbia would probably not have been taked by A-H. Austria historically had a great difficulty subjugating them and it succeeded only after the Germans and Bulgarians helped them.
Benefit of hindsight. The myth of "little Serbia standing no chance against the horrendous Teutonic hordes" is very easy to believe when you look at big ol' Habsburg empire compared to tiny little Serbian state. Even if the Serbians won the first few rounds though, if the Austrians
only had to deal with them instead of, as in OTL, fighting against the Russians as well, by 1915 the Serbs would have lost the war.
Mobilisation =/= war. The Russians began mobilising because it took them many times the amount of time necessary to do so compared to the Germans. Once war began to look very likely, which nation that knows it needs weeks to prepare would not begin making preparations? And by your logic, a DEFCON escalation during the Cold War would have been a casus belli.
But this was a Russian mobilization that was conducted in order to facilitate an attack on Germany's main ally. Austria was committed to war against Serbia. Russian mobilization would automatically turn into a war against Austria as soon as Austria issued a declaration of war against Serbia. To all intents and purposes it
did mean war.
aelf said:
Germany, on the other hand, could do so in a fraction of the time, so there certainly was time to explore diplomatic options. But the General Staff was angling for war, and they got it. The excuse was, of course, to defend against Russian 'aggression'. And to do so they attacked France
It's very easy to ridicule essentially anything if you ignore the rather important reasons that lay behind it.
aelf said:
Austria-Hungary wasn't in hopeless decline?
indeed.
No, it wasn't.
aelf said:
What was Russia's "next great leap"? Everyone knew that Russia would support Serbia against an Austrian attack. The Germans knew it too, and they went ahead and gave Austria the Blank Cheque.
Two sides to the coin, homes. Everyone knew that Germany would support Austria against
everything. The Russians knew it too, and they went ahead and declared war on Austria-Hungary...
aelf said:
They were gambling on Russia being too scared to act against them. When that didn't work they gambled on attacking before Russia could fully mobilise to gain as much advantage as possible.
On the contrary, they believed that war with Russia was fairly certain. They gambled on being able to persuade France and Britain to keep the war localized in the East.
aelf said:
Face it, German imperial and military ambitions played a key role in starting the War.
Reread what you've typed there.
German imperial and military ambitions...what ambitions? The war was over
Serbia. I'm reasonably certain that Berlin wasn't about to annex Serbia upon the successful commencement of a Habsburg war there.
If German military and imperial ambitions were the primary driving force to war, there would have been a World War in 1905 over the First Moroccan Crisis, because that's when the situation was most favorable. Instead, the Germans went to war at the time
least favorable for an offensive imperialistic war. Does it not strain credibility to paint the Germans as calculating imperialist warmongers on the one hand, and bumbling fools who did precisely the wrong thing at every step - going to war when the chances were worst, for instance? I've already quoted from the Kaiser, Bethmann, and Jagow to the effect that they believed they were pushed into war, and that they were
defending vital German national interests.
