Germany started the Great War, but the Left can’t bear to say so

UK Daily Telegraph ^ | January 6, 2014 | Boris Johnson

[stremba]

What is the evidence of Russia’s involvment in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand? I haven’t heard that one before. I know there’s evidence of Serbian involvment in the assassination, but I’ve never heard that Russia was invovled.

In any case, Germany’s actions are what turned a diplomatic crisis into a widespread war. Austria-Hungary was too militarily weak to take on another great power in 1914, and they knew it. They would not have taken a hard line on the Serbian ultimatum without the assurances from Germany that they would declare war on Russia in the event of Russian mobilization to oppose an Austrian invasion of Serbia. The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy was a defensive one; each promised to aid the other in the event of an outside attack. This is evidenced by Italy’s refusal to enter the war based on the fact that Austria was the aggressor. Germany, by the terms of its alliance with A-H, need not have offered this assurance to the Austrians, but did so because Germany wanted a war. Germany sought to remove its encirclement by hostile great powers, establish a larger colonial empire, and increase domestic stability by going to war. Once committed to the war, Germany had to extend the war to France based on its plan to avoid a two-front war.

While it may be technically true that the assassination was the event that triggered the war, it’s obvious that it was German actions that transformed this conflict into a widespread, disastrous war rather than a limited conflict, or even just a diplomatic one.

[SomeCallMeTim]

You’re saying that the current view of slavery as evil evolved independent of the civil war. That the view of slavery as evil would have grown even without the civil war. That does not logically follow. For all we know, half the country would have still kept slaves forever

No, I'm NOT saying the current view of slavery evolved independent of the Civil War, I'm saying... It MIGHT have. England had already moved to ban the practice, as had much of Europe. Are they really all that much more civilized than Southern Americans?

Clearly... it would have taken longer. Maybe, much longer. But, I believe public pressure from religious people IN THE SOUTH, along with commercial pressure from the South's customers, in Europe, would have convinced Southern plantation owners to free their slaves, and instead... pay them a pittance in wages.

It's more or less the same thing OUR country has done in places like China and Indonesia.

[SomeCallMeTim]

I don’t know and neither do you.

No... we don't. But, we DO know slavery was ALREADY abolished in much of Europe. It was an issue being championed by the Church, everywhere. I think it's almost unfathomable to think it would NEVER have been abolished in the Southern United States. Not because of pressure from the North. It would be because of pressure from religious institutions IN THE SOUTH, and commercial pressure from their customers in Europe.

Would southern plantation owners really have voluntarily turned themselves into paupers by freeing their slaves?

They would have hardly become paupers if they freed their slave and started paying them a pittance wage to harvest crops. They would eventually have been FORCED to do this, in order to sell their product. They would have fared much better this way than by having Sherman burn all their houses.

The South was, culturally and economically, very much a separate nation from the North during the antebellum years.

The South is STILL, culturally and economically, very much a separate nation from the North. I would actually prefer that we WERE a separate nation.... and, we may be yet before all is said and done.

I was responding to a poster who questioned whether any of the series of wars we’ve fought has accomplished anything.

I 100% agree with your point. Sadly, wars are often necessary to achieve desirable outcomes. Defeating evil is a cause worth fighting for. I guess, I just don't agree that the Civil War is a great example of a war that was WORTH the cost. Benefits were gained, for the black slaves in the South. But, the cost were VERY high.. and, I think... still on-going.

[Fiji Hill]

They blamed the Allies for their evil expansionist Empires - even while they - the Germans - were committing horrible barbarities and expanding their Empire.

No, the Allies weren't at all expansionist--perish the thought. As a result of the war, they didn't help themselves to one square inch of the Central Powers' territory--or did they?

[Fiji Hill]

Germany agreed to the Armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points. And then, after Germany army had disintegrated and its navy was interned in Scotland, the Allies welched on the deal.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Germany agreed to the Armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points. And then, after Germany army had disintegrated and its navy was interned in Scotland, the Allies welched on the deal.”

That is what I was posting. And France and England took their winners revenge, while the US bailed.

This was a major part of why Hitler was able to rise to power; and so the US made sure it didn't happen again after WWII.

In fact the US helping Germany and Japan after WW2 was an very effective strategy relative to USSR.

[Fiji Hill]

The Germans used exactly your rhetoric as their lancers were criss-crossing Belgium, committing rape, murder and arson.

Much of the "rape, murder and arson" committed by the Germans turned out to be fiction generated by Allied propagandists.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Cultures and economies do change, so it may be true that slavery could have been ended without warfare.

You do know, I assume... that even Brazil had banned slavery by 1884. Twenty years AFTER the Civil War... and, yes, I'm sure the US Civil War had SOME affect on them. But, I can't believe it was THAT much.

To give credit where it is due, it was Ron Paul who first got me to start "re-thinking" what I'd been taught about the Civil War. It took me awhile, but... I've come to agree with him. It was tragedy that should NOT have happened. We all would have survived, even thrived... without it.

[Billthedrill]

Oh dear, this again. There are essentially two general schools of thought about the inception of WWI, neither of which blames either the Germans or the Serbs entirely. Certainly the Serbian Black Hand was attempting to destabilize the situation by assassinating Ferdinand, who was actually more pro-Serb than anyone else in the Austrian government. The Black Hand was afraid that his proposed accommodations would interfere with their program of radicalization. They wanted war, yes, but not that kind of war.

The Germans had done extensive war planning for decades, but within the young Kaiser's government there was a very aggressive faction that actually favored employing them. These were waiting for an excuse, and they found one, although even they didn't anticipate the magnitude of what resulted.

Tuchman's Guns of August case has, over the years, been side-tracked because of the revelations concerning both of the above, but it is a rather sound case for why the thing couldn't be stopped. It centered around tight mobilization schedules that HAD to be completed once started or the entire railway systems of Germany and Russia, especially, would collapse. That placed the armies in position for war, at a time when any rockfall could set off an avalanche.

Less obvious is what the assassination meant to the government of Austria-Hungary, a country that only existed as an attempt by the Habsburgs to rescue their failing empire by incorporating fresh Hungarian resources (1867). It wasn't simply the death of one of many claimants to supremacy, it was a tidal change in the empire. The mess was that there were factions within the Serbian, Austrian, German, and even the British governments who were jockeying for power. That didn't start the war, but it was why it wasn't aborted.

In my purely personal opinion the bulk of the blame does go to the German government. It did the majority of the planning and had the most opportunities to turn the sequence of events off. But certain blame must also fall the Russian and the Austrian directions for their persistent rivalry in meddling in Serbian affairs, and to the Austrians for refusing to hold up after the sitting Serbian government called for arbitration on the last of the conditions demanded. Had that hot spot been cooled the Germans might still have attempted the Schlieffen Plan but the war would have taken a very different and more limited form.

All only my $0.02 and subject to vigorous debate, as it has been for just shy of a century now.

[Fiji Hill]

You don’t see slaves picking cotton on plantations in Mississippi and Alabama anymore, do you? That wasn’t going to happen without war.

Do you SERIOUSLY think we'd still see slaves on plantations today if the Civil War had not been fought? I don't.

Had the Civil War been avoided and slavery survived, it probably wouldn't have lasted long, because economic realities would have killed it.

In the case of cotton harvesting, the slavery model worked seemingly well as long as the cotton was picked by gangs of slaves--a simple, low-skill and low-information task. But the mechanical cotton pickers in use today require much higher levels of intelligence and skill.

[nathanbedford]

I agree with most of the facts which you outline in your summary, with some particular objections. It is on the conclusions that we part company.

First, with respect to exceptions to the facts: I disagree that Italy withdrew from its treaty with the central powers because they were the aggressors, I think they withdrew because of Italy's secret treaty with France. Germany did not just invade France according to the von Schlieffen Plan, Germany reacted to France mobilizing on behalf of of Russia. I would disagree that Germany sought war, they were after all decades long paranoid about fighting a two front war, although I will agree that they, of all the belligerents, were the least indisposed to it. That is not a nicety of language but a distinction with a difference.

Indeed you seem to move toward that distinction when you write in your concluding paragraph, "I’m sure that had the Germans known what they were about to unleash, they would have backed off. " And so we come to our differences in conclusion. The headline of the piece is:

Germany Started the Great War

Which is a conclusion that makes Germany the sole efficient producing cause of the war, which is absurd. There were many efficient producing causes of that war among them were the accident of geography which placed Germany in a position to defend on two fronts, a system of interlocking alliances which caused countries to fall like dominoes, a naval arms race borne out of a desire for colonies by Germany with was late emerging as a nationstate and late into the 19th century game of accumulating colonies, the determination of the British to win that arms race at sea, the psychological weakness of the Kaiser, whose withered arm seems to have created a sense of inferiority compensated for by belligerence. We might add the burning ambition of France to recover Alsace Lorraine and to avenge itself of the humiliation of 1870. The ambitions of Russia in the Balkans which it paraded as Slav brotherhood. The list is long and might include the Serbs waging war by other means including by assassination and anarchy.

To pick on only one or even some of these which relate only to Germany and assign war guilt to Germany alone is bad history. When you ask rhetorically,

How does Germany not receive the bulk of the war guilt given all this?

You frame a rhetorical question to which the answer is one we can agree on, yes, Germany should receive the bulk (whatever quantity of the whole that implies) of the war guilt but that is a far different historical conclusion and one which is more in agreement with the bulk of historical opinion. It is actually a conclusion we can agree on.

[Personal Responsibility]

Without the Civil War Slavery may may have gone away anyway, it may not have. The point is its not possible to say one way or another for sure and assuming it would have is not logical.

[SomeCallMeTim]

assuming it would have is not logical.

Well, I suppose we will disagree about this. I think, it is very logical given the fact that slavery WAS abolished in the rest of the civilized world without most of them having to go through a civil war. Many countries had already abolished it BEFORE our Civil War. Many more did so afterward. It was change in culture sweeping the world... long before, and long after the US Civil War.

[stremba]

Obviously, Germany was not SOLELY to blame for the war. We certainly can agree on that. The actions of all the other powers contributed. Saying “Germany started the Great War” is obviously an oversimplification. German actions, however, did lead to an escalation of yet another Balkan crisis into a general European war.

We can also agree on Italy. Their real reason for withdrawing from the alliance likely was the same as the real reason they eventually entered the war; they wanted to recover Austrian territory populated by ethnic Italians. Their stated reason, though, was that A-H was the aggressor, so they were not obligated to support them in their war with Serbia. I use this as support for the notion that German alliance with A-H did not require Germany to pledge support for A-H during the initial buildup.

The fact that they did support A-H leads to my conclusion that Germany did seek war. They were well aware that Russia was likely to intervene on behalf of Serbia. They were also well aware that Russia and France were solidly allied, so that war with Russia likely meant war with France as well. Obviously, they though Britain would not go to war over Belgian neutrality, so that was a miscalculation. War with Russia and France, however, cannot be said to be an unforeseen consequence of German actions. Maybe you’re right, and Germany was not actively seeking war. However, they were pursuing actions that were likely to provoke war with at least Russia and France.

Certainly, however, none of the powers envisioned the actual war that they were getting into. Experience with wars such as the 1870 Franco-Prussian and 1905 Russo-Japanese wars seemed to indicate that wars between industrialized powers would end quickly and with relatively little damage to the belligerents involved. This theory obviously was blown out of the water by the actual war that was fought. With the hindsight of history, we find it hard to believe that ANY of the great powers actually wanted to fight WWI or actively sought to do so. After all, there were no Hitlers around at the time; the leaders of the powers were all rational men. However, that’s the benefit of hindsight. In actuality, most of the leaders of the powers thought that the war would be more like the Franco-Prussian war, and would end quickly and decisively. That’s why I still maintain Germany sought war. They just did not seek the war they actually got.

[nathanbedford]

The fixing of war "guilt" can be a more elusive matter the more one explores the historical context. I'm not talking about Germany in 1939 whose aggressive guilt was clear beyond dispute, I am talking about the Germany of 1914.

In virtually every tiny village which surrounds us where we live here in Upper Bavaria there is a "Denkmal" or monument to the fallen of both world wars. If one sits at a "Stammtisch" or the table frequented by locals in the village watering hole one will invariably see a fading frame photograph or series of photographs in sepia depicting the boys and young men who were killed in the First and Second World Wars. Relative to the diminutive size of the village, the list is shockingly long. This is more true of World War II that of World War I but the sacrifices of World War I were certainly appalling by any standard.

We can see grainy old newsreels of throngs cheering their boys off to war at train stations in virtually every country in Europe. No one can say that the enthusiasm for war in one country was greater than the impulse in the next. You are quite correct, everyone thought it would be a short quick and victorious war and they all had it wrong.

The modern revisionists seek to lay guilt on the United States for using atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Others seek to do the same against the British and the Americans for the fire raids on Dresden and Hamburg. I do not justify those raids by saying that the individual Japanese or German civilians who were incinerated in those raids were deserving of their fate because they were guilty of war crime. I say that as an extension of the Maxim, we get the government we deserve, we get what we deserve when our government goes to war. That maxim applies to some degree even if the country that goes to war is not democratic and that is because, ultimately, the people are responsible for the government they tolerate.

Are the Germans more or less guilty because they shared French, British, and even American enthusiasm for entering the war? Are they guilty because they tolerated a political system which vested too much power, especially the power to make war, in the Kaiser? Were the British guilty of extending a continental war into a world war because of their obsession over their Navy and their obsession to maintain naval supremacy?

When we say that Germany bears the bulk of war guilt, whom do we mean? The peasant farmers, the generals, the political elites including the diplomats, the Krups, the Kaiser? These questions may be applied to every country. The answer, whether rightly or wrongly, is to be seen in those sepia photographs.

[Reeses]

I expect two more battles for the Jews, one soon then the big one to end all war.

Tribal warfare is the primary driver of human evolution. It is the IQ test that decides which descendants live on. The reason Jews alive today seem smarter than average is because Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years. When war breaks out the smarter ones have better odds of getting away. The mental sequence of vanity > envy > hate > murder > war is so deeply woven into everything human that it cannot be removed, only suppressed for short periods of time.

[Fiji Hill]

That Crazy War--Lulu Belle & Scotty

[x]

1) It's complicated.

2) I don't see Boris ever becoming PM -- not until he breaks down and buys a comb, anyway.

[Fiji Hill]

Oh, It's a Lovely War--Courtland & Jeffries (1917)

[GeronL]

Because that's a clever little way of saying "no debate will be permitted."

Which he is accusing the other side of.