I don’t think I’ve ever commented at FreeRepublic before but this topic is of special interest to me. Please forgive the long post in advance.
Germany/Soviet Union. Yes, the German High Command dispatched Lenin, Radek and other revolutionaries to Russia once it was clear that the genuinely popular February 1917 revolution would lead to the creation of a real parliament, the allowance of political parties, and that the czar could thereby be, in the words of Lenin, “isolated,” weakened, and destroyed. The Bolsheviks, like their German hard-left counterparts, had been one of the only parties to adopt pacifist views at the beginning of World War I. They kept to that line throughout - in fact, Lenin invented the phrase “turn the class war” or “imperialist war” “into a civil war” - thereby beginning the tradition of “bring the war home” revived during Vietnam by the Weather Underground and others. Once in power, with massive German support, Lenin’s first act was to begin negotiations to end the war as promised. BUT he also provided strategic raw materials to Germany so that it could continue the war against the West (Germany’s industry was exhausted and plagued by mass strikes from 1917 onward). Why would Lenin do this? Because “the worse, the better” for Communist world revolution: the more war weakened the Western powers’ establishments, the greater chance that both internal leftist parties and external invasion would succesfully destroy the native government, and then Russian resources and even the Red Army could be used to prop those governments up “in defense of the revolution.” Remember that “land, peace, and bread” would have resonated not just with Russian infantry, but also with French infantry.
The Politburo didn’t actually sign Brest-Litovsk until the German Army advanced to within dozens of kilometers from St. Petersburg because they were sick of negotiating with these idiot Communists. This is actually when Lenin changed the capital to Moscow, by the way. But then what happened? The war ended on November 11, 1917 - and Germany was almost conquered by internal Communist revolution that began on NOVEMBER 13, 1917. Hungary actually fell in Communism under Bela Khun until March 1918. The Soviets tried again in 1920 and 1923. Interesting fact: Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch calling for a Revolution in Germany in 1923 (which had the public support of Ludendorf) occurred on November 9, 1923. The Communist 1923 revolution was supposed to begin on the same day.
Anyway, Germany was eventually foiled by (1) the entry of the USA into the war - an economy completely untouched by war, (2) the exhaustion of the German economy under “war socialism” inaugurated by Ludendorf and Hindenburg, and (4) the failure of the 1918 Summer Offensive, which led even Ludendorf to conclude that Germany had to sue for peace in order to avoid a horribly punitive peace - along the same lines as the one they’d offered to the West in 1916 and 1917.
The war was caused, above all, by the aggression of the German Crown and its High Command, who established the “encirclement” propaganda used to rationalize its war policies and then went on to launch the von Schlieffen Plan, which had first been formulated in 1896, and revised several times until its finalization in 1912. I think the question should be looked at seriously as to whether the Black Hand in Serbia was in connivance with German Intelligence - it was Germany that invented this now-well-known tactic, put to such use by the Soviets for the next 70 years. By March 1914 Germany had a standing army of 5 million men, by Far the largest land army in Europe. What do you think Germany, which was suddenly the most productive economy on Earth, intended to do with that army and the plan they’d been nursing for about a decade?
America entered the war because it agreed with Britain’s ancient policy of maintaining the European status quo (cf. Napoleonic Wars; guarantee of Belgian neutrality), and it agreed that, contrary to nonsense about “inevitable mobilization,” Germany had intended to conquer the same country, France, which it had so easily defeated 40 years before, and which it had overmatched ever since. Few remember how precarious France’s colonial possessions were, and how inadquate they were to compete with the English. Nor do they remember the real dissaray of French politics during that period. And by the way America has, to my knowledge, never been repaid for “loans” lent to Britain and Frnace during WWI.
Few also remember how brutal was the German occupation of the Low Countries and Poland.
America had every reason to believe that a victorious Germany would impose a truly Prussian “peace” over Europe, particularly since France and England were near exhaustion. Wilson simply employed characteristically idealistic but incomplete American rhetoric. For example: of course we’re going to establish democracy in Iraq, but really what we’re doing is destroying an outpost of Soviet terror infrastructure within the Middle East. In Afghanistan, we are opposing Pakistan and the ISI but really what we’re doing is opposing China.
Sorry this is already too long. The best book on Germany’s purpose in World War 1 is “Germany’s Aims During the First World War” by Fritz Fischer. Awesome book.
Germany knew the French would do anything to avenge their defeat in 1871 (and they were right); both they & the French knew France couldn’t do it alone, and France drew England into an alliance that also served England’s end of pressuring Germany’s colonial gains (and the navy it was building to protect it). Germany had the least cause to fight in, and the most to lose from, fighting in WWI - both England & France had larger empires than them, and Britain had a navy that dominated the world. The German High Command was simply reacting to the reality of that.
Holland was neutral (and not invaded), and I’d never heard of anything “brutal” in the occupation of Belgium. Poland didn’t exist at the start of the war; it’s territory was divided between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. This part sounds like the second war.
The Central Powers were foiled only be the American entry into the war; Russia had surrendered, and France & Italy were on the brink. The U-boat campaign was effective enough to win, and Wilson knew it.
Thank you for posting, kulthur. I hope you’ll post more often! I will check out the Fischer book.
Thanks also to everyone for a fascinating discussion.
Good post.
I think the preponderance of evidence (at least that I’ve seen) links the Black Hand to the Russian secret police. Both were fanatically Pan Slav and the Okhruna was notorious for using agents all around the world. And the Black Hand’s explicit and admitted motive in killing the Archduke was to start a European-wide war.
It isn’t that I would put it past the Kaiser to have him shot but it doesn’t quite seem convincing.
Your analysis ignores Slav nationalism. And the Black Hand was ntoa German invention. It was a group of Serb radical, which had killed the previous Serb King, who was deemed too pro-German. The Czar and Russian nobles used Slavophilia as a dominant ideology to justify their regime. This lead them inexorably to push for the destruction of Austria-Hungary. It was Russia, which wanted war.