BREAKDOWN OF PEACE
Assassination of Francis Ferdinand, 1914. Source: bpk, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
On June 28, 1914, Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip killed Austrian crown prince Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie von Hohenberg. Disregarding warnings, the royal couple was visiting the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on the Serbian national holiday, commemorating the battle of Kosovo Polje against the Ottomans. As their open roadsters drove slowly through the crowded city streets, a bomb suddenly exploded behind them, wounding some attendants and spectators. After an angry speech at city hall, the crown prince insisted on visiting the victims at the hospital, but the driver mistook his instructions and followed the original route. When he tried to reverse course, the nineteen-year-old Serbian high school student Princip drew his pistol and shot Sophie in the abdomen and Francis Ferdinand in the throat before enraged bystanders could overpower him. Though the car sped back, medical attention came too late, since both had already lost too much blood.1 The shock of this nationalist assassination of the Austrian crown prince triggered an international crisis that would escalate into World War I.
The terrorist attack by Serbian nationalists ruptured the ties of peace that had made modernity seem synonymous with international cooperation around the turn of the twentieth century. Believing in the dream of peaceful progress, optimists saw the world as developing steadily toward harmony and prosperity through mutual interchanges. Such a hopeful view pointed to the emergence of a network of connections between the major countries that would make war increasingly unthinkable and practically unsustainable. Many aspects of modernization such as scientific exchanges, mutual trade, individual migration, and international law were reinforcing bonds between nations. Not only pacifists like the British writer Norman Angell and the Austrian novelist Bertha von Suttner, both winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, believed that the frequent scholarly contacts, increasing volume of commerce, intensifying communication, and rising cross-border mobility were weaving a web of legal relations and reinforcing mutual understanding that would render military combat impossible.2
Skeptical observers, however, emphasized the negative forces of modernity that heightened conflict. Pessimists had been pointing out that some aspects of modernization such as strident nationalism, bureaucratic regimentation, rampant militarism, and great-power rivalry were increasing hostility and thereby making compromises more difficult. The yellow press was creating enemy stereotypes, political repression of independence movements was fueling resentment, and the many nations engaged in arms races on land and sea were raising international tensions by anticipating another war. As a result a darker, dystopian vision portrayed the international situation in terms of competition and struggle for survival in which only the fittest nation would prevail. Some theorists of international relations—Kurt Riezler, for instance, the adviser to the German chancellor—believed that the traditional pentarchy of nation-states was being reduced to only two or three “global powers” possessing enough resources, population, and land area to pursue world-political aims.3 The Sarajevo assassination tipped the already precarious balance between the many rival nations toward the direction of war, precipitating Europe and the world into the bloodiest conflict of their entire history.
The “war guilt controversy” among politicians and historians who have argued about the responsibility for the outbreak of the war misunderstands this underlying reversal, which involved all the competing nations. In Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, the victorious Allies held Berlin responsible “for causing all the loss and damage” to which their citizens had “been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.” This legal justification for Germany’s payment of reparations sparked a heated debate about culpability between revisionists and defenders of the treaty via the publication of diplomatic documents that sought either to exculpate or blame Germany. A generation later, Hitler’s undeniable responsibility for unleashing World War II reinforced the impression of German guilt for the First World War, while critical postwar historians also charged Wilhelmine expansionism with being chiefly at fault.4 Since such emotional involvement has prevented reaching a consensus about each country’s precise amount of responsibility, the sterile arguments of the blame game remain trapped in a legalistic moralism.
The “raw modernity” of the July crisis rather suggests reversing the question, that is, shifting the focus from reasons for the outbreak of war to causes of the breakdown of peace. When tested by a severe confrontation in the summer of 1914, the ties of peaceful cooperation proved too weak to keep Europe out of war. The bellicose tendencies ultimately prevailed because the growing hostility between nations overwhelmed the cooperative outlook by legitimizing combat for the sake of aims that could only be reached by military force. A series of ever deeper international crises had created such a sense of antagonism between the Triple Alliance and the Entente as to make compromise seem like weakness. As a result, the leaders of the great powers made a series of disastrous decisions that escalated a local Balkan quarrel from a Serb-inspired assassination, via an Austrian punitive action, into a continental war between Germany, Russia, and France that eventually drew Britain, Turkey, and Japan into the conflict.5 Instead of guaranteeing peaceful progress, the negative dynamics of modernity helped unleash a world war.
TIES OF PEACE
Inspired by Immanuel Kant, optimists who believed in the progress of civilization could point to an increase of internationalism that linked European countries ever more tightly around 1900. For instance, the building of railroad lines and the stringing of telegraph cables eased transnational travel and facilitated communication, binding major continental cities together to an unprecedented degree. At the same time the standardization of measurements through the adoption of the meter, kilogram, and the Celsius scale, as well as the reorganization of timekeeping through the introduction of Greenwich mean time, created a common denominator of civilization. Moreover, the creation of international organizations with local branches, such as the Red Cross, provided instruments for addressing specific problems across frontiers. Although encompassing the entire civilized world, these efforts were generally based in Europe, including the United States but excluding the colonies.6 To hopeful observers it therefore seemed that modernization was making the continent grow together at a rapid pace.
One traditional link was the close relationship between European monarchs in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The continental aristocracy was used to serving different sovereigns, while the crowned heads tended to intermarry, thereby creating multiple cross-frontier ties. As the grandson of Queen Victoria, German emperor William II craved social recognition from his British relatives. When a new monarchy was to be established as in Greece, there was always a minor German prince ready to take up the crown. But the rise of nationalist politics articulated in a mass-circulation press increasingly forced the royal families to nationalize themselves by learning the local language and changing their original name, for example Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. Family reunions and state visits provided ample opportunity not only for exchanging courtesies but also for discussing substantive political concerns, much to the chagrin of advisers. While the eastern courts were linked through a common interest in defending autocratic rule, clashing geopolitical interests began to strain their practical cooperation.7
The explosive growth of international commerce was another positive linkage between European countries. Over the whole nineteenth century the volume of world trade rose forty-three-fold, doubling in the last two prewar decades alone! This breathtaking expansion was the result of the spread of industrialization from the United Kingdom to the continent, which increased the production of goods thirty-three-fold between 1800 and 1900. In contrast to imperialist claims, well over three-quarters of this trade in mass products took place between the advanced countries rather than between the metropolitan areas and their colonies.8 To facilitate transactions merchants created connections across frontiers, sending their sons abroad to acquire new skills and founding branches in other countries. One highly successful example of such linkages was the development of the Rothschilds from a Jewish banking family in Frankfurt to a network of leading international financiers with branches in Paris and London.9 Such contacts created a transnational business community that thought in European or even global terms.
The advancement of trade also necessitated international cooperation in establishing a legal and organizational framework for cross-border exchanges. For instance, Europeans were instrumental in founding a Universal Postal Union as well as a Telegraph Union so that letters and telegrams could move across frontiers. Through complicated negotiations, continental governments also agreed to respect the sanctity of commercial contracts, since these were essential for trade. Similarly, they sought to establish conventions for the respect of intellectual property through copyright agreements so that books could be exchanged. In order to regulate the flow of migration by admitting people with means while screening out the undesirable poor, governments pressed for an international system of passports and the formulation of residence rights and duties for foreigners. Finally, they pushed for the creation of commissions regulating the uses of seas, rivers, and canals.10 Out of these practical concerns European states developed a body of international law that facilitated peaceful exchange.
The emergence of a fraternité des arts of painters and musicians who formed a cultural avant-garde in Europe was more spontaneous. Since the language of art or music was universally accessible, the freedom and stimulation of metropolitan centers attracted artists from all over the continent, such as the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso to Paris and the Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler to Vienna. Believing that “art knows no fatherland,” creative innovators could spread new styles like abstract painting or twelve-tone music from one capital to another, creating a community of experimentation across frontiers. Official exhibitions as well as independent shows, established concert halls as well as unauthorized performances, would inform both practitioners and the public. Moreover, critical reviews in the press also created an international debate, irrespective of the origin of particular works. While an international art market and concert-booking system organized such exchanges, many of the struggling artists and musicians lived a bohemian existence, irrespective of nationality.11
Another area of increasing transnational cooperation among European countries was scientific research. Though institutions like the Deutsche Museum in Munich intended to showcase national accomplishments, the validation of scientific discoveries and technological advances required international judgment. The processes of disciplinary specialization and academic professionalization in the second half of the nineteenth century produced a community of scholars eager for international exchange of information. The formation of national scientific associations with their journals and meetings implied as a next step the creation of international bodies, organizations, and congresses in which researchers could meet and present their results to a wider public. While much of the state or philanthropic funding remained national, the most advanced facilities attracted scholars from the entire continent, moving Albert Einstein, for example, from a Swiss patent office to the University of Berlin.12 The establishment of international prizes through Albert Nobel from Sweden in 1900 furthered such internationalization.
Holding twenty-one international congresses before World War I, the pacifists were even more explicitly dedicated to preserving peace. Toward the end of the nineteenth century the religious impulse of the Quakers gave way to a secular conviction that “war among civilized people is a crime.” In France some radical republicans sought to preserve the legacy of the Revolution by advocating international arbitration while others even championed European integration. In German-speaking areas the courageous baroness Bertha von Suttner in her best-seller Die Waffen nieder! tried to stem the militarization of society by portraying the dreadful consequences of war from a female perspective. In England the publicist Norman Angell similarly argued in his treatise The Great Illusion that war was destructive even for potential winners and therefore ought to be considered irrational. Drawing much attention, such pleas attracted only the support of a dedicated minority, although they contributed to the conclusion of international conventions to regulate warfare in The Hague.13
The Second International of the labor movement also opposed war on the basis of Karl Marx’s dictum that “working men have no country.” Initially much of its energy was dedicated to overcoming the hostility between France and Germany, since union organization and party development had made the most progress there. In a series of international congresses, the theoretical minds and political leaders of the movement, including Karl Kautsky, Jean Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg, and Vladimir I. Ulianov, called Lenin, discussed strategy, disagreeing on revolution versus evolution according to the degree of their respective repression. Through intense correspondence, articles in journals like Die Neue Zeit, and conversations at personal meetings they attempted to create a Marxist analysis of the development of capitalism in order to chart a united course. However, the millions of adherents in trade unions and labor parties remained more rooted in their national contexts.14 A similar international voice for peaceful change was the international women’s movement, which grew rapidly in the last decades before the Great War.
The preservation of peace in Europe was therefore not a diplomatic accident but a result of the internationalizing impetus of modernization. Through all levels of society, from the aristocracy via the middle class to the proletariat, there were influential groups that either cooperated transnationally or worked against war explicitly. Their interests were in part material, such as the advancement of trade, but in part also moral, such as the prevention of bloodshed between nations. This cooperation rested on increasing personal contacts in international meetings or at fashionable cosmopolitan spas such as Baden-Baden, Bath, Karlsbad, and Plombières. Some of the cooperation also had a competitive edge as in British-inspired sporting events like soccer or in the French-created Olympic Games, which intended to showcase individual athletes but ultimately turned into a contest between nations. By around 1900 this web of multiple ties, called by some historians the first globalization, seemed strong enough to guarantee the further peaceful progress of Europe and the civilized world.15
SOURCES OF HOSTILITY
In the first decade of the twentieth century critical commentators like Heinrich Mann and Romain Rolland nonetheless noted a distinctive deterioration of the international climate that raised the specter of a return of war. In part, the increase of hostility between the major powers stemmed from actual conflicts of interest be they strategic or colonial. In part, the growing tensions also resulted from misperceptions of motives and national stereotypes that made it ever more difficult for the customary mechanism of diplomacy to work out acceptable compromises.16 Some cultural critics at the same time pointed to the deleterious effect of the hate mongering by an irresponsible mass-circulation “yellow press.” Such propaganda proved particularly effective when it appealed to a changed outlook that saw international politics as a struggle for survival among nations. Propelled by the negative dynamics of modernization, the creation of national enmities and a sense of existential threat were therefore an essential cultural precondition for the resumption of warfare on the European continent.
An initial source of growing hostility was the proliferation of an unbridled nationalism among the policy elites as well as the popular masses. The eighteenth-century idea of basing a state on people speaking the same language, having a shared history, and adopting a common constitution was originally a progressive notion that sought to overcome territorial fragmentation and dynastic irresponsibility. The promise of trade without tariffs and communication without barriers appealed especially to businessmen and intellectuals, while political leaders could hope for greater military strength and international influence. However, when citizens considered their own country superior to all others, this attitude became rather illiberal, “chauvinist” in the French term or “jingoist” in the British designation. The addition of a biopolitical racism turned such pride into prejudice, justifying domestic discrimination and foreign aggression.17 Due to the spread of mass politics, a strident nationalism became an easy tool for popular mobilization against imagined enemies at home or abroad.
Another hidden assumption that increasingly influenced European elites in their prewar decision making was social Darwinism. In essence, this popular outlook transposed Charles Darwin’s biological theory of evolution onto society and international affairs. Propagated by intellectuals like Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel, this view emphasized that struggle between individuals would lead to a “natural selection,” which would allow only the fittest to procreate and thereby help the species to survive. If applied beyond domestic eugenics to international affairs, it constructed the world as a sharply competitive place in which only the strongest nations would be able to flourish while weaker countries would inevitably decline. As a logical test of strength between countries, such a philosophy endorsed war.18 Unfortunately the spread of this outlook coincided with the transition from a limited continental Realpolitik to a broader Weltpolitik encompassing the entire globe. This ill-fated combination gave international competition an ever more ruthless edge.
To established nations like Britain the rapidly developing Germany also appeared as a pushy competitor, threatening their comfortable economic advantage. Though the mother country of industrialization had long held a lead in production and trade, Imperial Germany was quickly catching up in volume of imports (659 vs. 525 million pounds) and exports (525 vs. 505 million pounds) by 1913. The Germans were already producing more industrial goods, and their balance of trade with the United Kingdom was turning ever more favorable. The fear of losing the economic competition because of Berlin’s support of technology and protection of domestic markets created a sense of trade rivalry in London. But stratagems to conserve the lead by enforcing a stamp “made in Germany” to identify the competitor’s products as inferior backfired, and British discrimination against continental exports like beet sugar raised German resentment against Britain’s Handelsneid (trade envy).19 While trade between both countries continued to grow, such differences, exploited by the popular press, contributed to their political alienation.
Imperial Germany’s belated colonial bid was another source of friction, since it upset the established division of the world. As long as political fragmentation kept the Germans from imperial aspirations, the British, French, and Russians could concentrate on their rivalry with each other. But after its Prussian-led unification in 1871, the newly created German Reich also began to develop imperial aspirations. During the 1880s, domestic pressure for colonies grew in Berlin because, unlike the U.S. “open door” rhetoric, leading Germans thought they needed to protect their commercial interests through outright possession. Reluctantly, Otto von Bismarck did not just broker the division of Africa at the 1884–85 Berlin Congress but also acquired German colonies in East and West Africa, Togo, and the Cameroons. Not that these possessions were particularly profitable (only Togo yielded positive returns), but their very existence complicated Anglo-French designs to control the entire continent. As latecomers, the Germans appeared in the most unlikely places, such as Samoa, and rudely insisted on a piece of the action although the others were already there. It was this combination of dynamism and pushiness that created anger abroad.20
As a result of growing tensions, writers and journalists busied themselves with turning former foes into friends and former friends into new enemies. For instance, British publicists suddenly painted France, which had been London’s chief naval, colonial, and continental rival, in a more favorable light, transforming Paris into a center of fashion and art. Instead of reviling Napoleon’s hegemonic designs, travel writers started to extol the attractions of Provence and the Riviera. In contrast, the Germans, who had been considered first cousins of the Anglo-Saxons as members of the white Protestant race, now suddenly seemed more sinister. Indeed, in his highly popular 1903 novel The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers wrote about a couple of young men who stumbled upon a German armada and foiled its plot to invade Great Britain. This riveting adventure tale magnified British fears to such a degree that the Admiralty was forced to construct several defensive naval bases in the North Sea.21 Such spy fiction was therefore not harmless entertainment but psychological preparation for a return of war.
The concrete background to the cultural warmongering was a fierce naval race between Great Britain and Imperial Germany. Though the Royal Navy had ruled the seas for the entire nineteenth century, Emperor William II decided in 1898 that Germany also ought to have a powerful naval force to defend its colonies and bring Britain to the bargaining table. To retain their superiority, the British countered with a technological quantum leap in 1906, called the Dreadnought, whose stronger guns, better armor, and greater speed rendered prior battleships obsolete. Though caught somewhat by surprise, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz clung to his goal of reaching two-thirds of British strength, thereby making it too risky for London to attack the German fleet. However, Admiral John Fisher insisted on keeping the Royal Navy stronger than the next two navies combined, redoubling British building efforts.22 This race tested not only both countries’ technical inventiveness and industrial capacity but also their ability to pay and their political resolve, requiring a huge propaganda effort to sustain its pace.
At the same time another dangerous competition for the biggest army developed between the Franco-Russian Alliance and the Austro-German Dual Alliance. Because of their declining population, the French for example insisted on universal military service, drafting 83 percent of an age cohort. In contrast, the Germans conscripted only 53 percent because the Prussian Junkers did not want to dilute the officer corps with middle-class members. With their large population, the Russians called up only 20 percent but modernized their technical capacity and enlarged the number of recruits. In 1912 General Erich Ludendorff insisted on drastically enlarging the size of the German army, but the big naval expenditures only permitted an increase to roughly three-quarters of a million soldiers. Since the expansion of the armed forces was quite expensive, the public had to be convinced by being scared with tales of imminent attack. The arms race on land followed the same pattern as on the sea—when one side raised its fighting force, the other scrambled to catch up.23 As a result of such agitation, both parties became less and less secure.
Increasing fears and enemy stereotypes combined in literary fantasies of a coming war. General Friedrich von Bernhardi’s forecast was the most notorious, since he had been a German military attaché and a general-staff historian. In 1911 he aroused a storm of controversy with the book Germany and the Next War, which argued in a social Darwinist fashion that “war is a biological necessity” in order to test the mettle of the nation. Not only did he proclaim a duty to wage war; he also insisted on a “right of conquest,” especially by a country like Germany, which had been shortchanged in the division of the world since it had entered the arena when most areas were already claimed. Ominously anticipating later racist dreams, he saw expansion possibilities primarily in Eastern Europe. Supported by the Pan-German League, this book was quickly translated into English and French, serving as proof of German belligerence, even though it did not reflect official policy.24 This scenario and similar tracts by authors from other nations made the outbreak of war more likely by prefiguring it.
Real and imagined dangers from rival countries were amplified by a “yellow press” of cheap dailies that relied on scandals and rumors to promote sales. The prewar years were the golden age of the newspaper, since dozens of morning and evening sheets clamored for public attention in the capitals. To be sure, each major country had a serious paper like the London Times, Le Monde, or the Berliner Tageblatt, which strove for accurate reporting, but even these were not above defending what they saw as the national interest. More dangerous were the mass-circulation sheets like the Daily Mail or the Berliner Zeitung, which appealed to a semiliterate public with sensationalist stories without always bothering to check their veracity.25 In each country, the yellow press inflamed popular passions by using national stereotypes and exaggerating dangers threatening from abroad. Even children were conditioned to militarism when playing with war toys. Heightening international conflicts and creating enemy stereotypes, these negative dimensions of modernization undermined peace and helped prepare the public for war.
POLARIZING CRISES
Because there was no institutionalized form of cooperation, a series of diplomatic crises in the early twentieth century reinforced the sources of hostility. In a balance-of-power system such confrontations were considered a normal part of international affairs, since states pursued conflicting interests by negotiation or force until they met sufficient resistance. But advancing one’s aims through risking conflict had serious drawbacks that became increasingly evident. Blustering during a crisis as well as disappointment in its outcome left a residue of hostility even after a solution had been found, impairing the antagonists’ willingness to compromise the next time. Moreover, reaching an agreement required a mechanism such as an international conference or the mediation of some disinterested powers, which would break down if either party refused to join the talks or the potential go-betweens were themselves drawn into the conflict. The pattern of crises that developed during the last prewar years contributed materially to creating two opposing international alliances and hardening the fronts between them.26
By turning away from Bismarck’s complicated diplomatic system, Imperial Germany itself precipitated a diplomatic revolution that would ultimately isolate it. Intent on being always à trois in a system of five great powers, the Iron Chancellor had complemented the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary by a secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in order to contain a revanchist France, while Britain enjoyed its “splendid isolation.” The young emperor William II wanted to emancipate himself from the tutelage of this careful, if not always honest, statesman so as to pursue a navalist Weltpolitik, while the new chancellor Georg Leo Count von Caprivi intended to create a continental trading bloc, excluding Russia. Hoping to regain the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, the French cabinet seized upon the opportunity to offer an alliance to the tsarist government stung by the nonrenewal of its pact with Germany and angry over being blocked in the Balkans by Austria. In 1892 this unlikely marriage of convenience blossomed into the Franco-Russian alliance and divided the continent into hostile camps.27
Resolving the dramatic Fashoda crisis, the conclusion of the entente cordiale between England and France in 1904 was another step toward polarization. In September 1898 French major Jean-Baptiste Marchand and his small detachment ran into a powerful flotilla of British gunboats, commanded by Sir Herbert Kitchener, at the town of Fashoda in the upper reaches of the Nile River in Sudan. In this encounter French designs of contiguous west-to-east expansion from Senegal to Somalia clashed with British aspirations of south-to-north control from the Cape to Cairo, propagated by Cecil Rhodes of South Africa. On learning of the confrontation, the press in both countries howled and politicians flung insults at each other, drawing London and Paris to the brink of war. But in order to gain British support against Germany, Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé abandoned French claims and started negotiations to settle colonial disputes instead. The resulting agreement gave Britain a free hand in Egypt and turned Morocco over to France, fundamentally changing the “frame of mind” of both countries toward each other.28
The first Moroccan crisis of 1905–6 cemented the two hostile camps of Entente and Dual Alliance in Europe. Irritated by France’s silent annexation of this North African country, Germany protested, demanding an open door for its commercial interests. In order to test the strength of Anglo-French cooperation, Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow sent Emperor William II to Tangiers, where he gave a speech in support of Moroccan independence. This demonstrative challenge angered public opinion in Paris as well as in Berlin so much that both antagonists mobilized for war. Ultimately, the defiant Delcassé was forced out as foreign minister, and France agreed to an international conference at Algeciras. But owing to effective French diplomacy, Germany found itself isolated among the participants, supported only by Austria-Hungary. Berlin therefore had to accept a face-saving compromise that merely kept the Moroccan police independent.29 This show of German strength ultimately backfired, since it reinforced Anglo-French cooperation and even prodded Russia to settle its colonial differences and join the Entente in 1907.
The Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 6, 1908, further strained the international situation. The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 had allowed Vienna to occupy this Ottoman province as compensation for staying neutral in the Russo-Turkish War. But a coup in 1903 brought a nationalist dynasty to power in Belgrade that agitated for a Greater Serbia with Russian support. To resolve the tensions, Russian foreign minister Alexander Izvolsky worked out a tentative deal with Austrian foreign minister Count Alois von Aerenthal allowing Vienna to annex the territory, Bulgaria to declare its independence, and Russia to receive support in its quest to open the Straits of Constantinople as exit from the Black Sea. Since the matter had not yet been settled, the Austrian annexation created massive public resentment, especially in Russia and Serbia. Seeking to end the crisis, in March 1909 Imperial Germany warned that “things would take their course” unless Russia accepted the fait accompli.30 By forcing St. Petersburg to back down, this blunt threat permanently damaged relations with Berlin and Vienna.
Ironically even the kaiser’s effort to improve Anglo-German relations through an interview with the Daily Telegraph in October 1908 added to their deterioration. The British journalist Stuart Wortley put several private conversations with William II together in the form of an interview, which the emperor forwarded to Chancellor Bülow for checking. It is still not clear whether the latter, who was vacationing at the North Sea, actually read the text before its release. However, the British public was outraged by the kaiser’s protestation of friendship, his boast of mediation during the Boer War, and his claim that German naval armaments were not directed against the Royal Navy. All the accumulated frictions between the two countries vented themselves in a storm of English criticism. In turn, the German public was irate about the tactlessness of its monarch, and his chancellor threatened to resign from office. While a chastened kaiser thereafter meddled less in foreign affairs, the damage to the Anglo-German relationship had been done.31
The second Moroccan crisis of 1911 isolated Germany further, since Berlin’s blustering pushed London into even closer cooperation with Paris while disappointing a belligerent public. The pretext was the French occupation of Fez and Rabat, ostensibly to help the sultan against local rebels. So as to extort compensation elsewhere, the German government sent the gunboat Panther to Agadir, thereby triggering British fears that it wanted to establish a naval base in the Atlantic. Though London was uneasy about the French invasion, David Lloyd George warned Berlin bluntly that peace at the price of damage to national interest and honor “would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.” In the ensuing negotiations between Alfred von Kiderlen Waechter and Jules Cambon, Germany conceded the establishment of a French protectorate over Morocco in exchange for a slice of Equatorial Africa to be added to its Cameroon colony.32 While the German public construed the settlement as a diplomatic defeat, the British navy extended its protection to the French side of the Channel coast.
The Balkan Wars of 1912–13 severely tested the international fabric but remained limited to the region, because the great powers chose not to intervene directly. In the first conflict, the Balkan League of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro defeated the Ottoman Empire, and the ensuing Treaty of London ended centuries of Turkish control over the Balkan Peninsula. In the second struggle, Bulgaria attacked its former allies but was defeated with the help of the Romanians and Ottomans, losing almost all of its previous gains in the Treaty of Bucharest. The conflagration did not spread to the major European countries, since they were not ready to fight, and the Ambassadors Conferences brokered compromises.33 The Russians found their designs to open the Straits of Constantinople frustrated and were left only with the alliance of an expansionist Serbia. The Austrians blocked Serbian access to the Adriatic coast through Albanian independence, while the Bulgarians and Ottomans now turned toward Germany. Though a major war was averted, the growing enmities structured future alignments.
While hostilities heightened, the general staffs of all major powers designed offensive war plans against their presumed enemies that dictated their actions in July 1914. Expecting a Serbian provocation, the Austrians for example prepared for war with its Russian protectors. In order to win a two-front war, Count Alfred von Schlieffen planned first to defeat France with an enveloping campaign through neutral Belgium and then to turn the German forces against the slower Russian advance. So as to recapture their lost provinces, the French designed their Plan XVII for an all-out offensive into southern Germany, hoping to win with superior élan. In order to help their allies more quickly, the Russians sped up their mobilization schedule for a campaign not just against Vienna but also against Berlin by plotting to march into East Prussia and Galicia. Finally, the British entangled themselves through staff conversations ever more deeply with defending France, though they claimed to remain neutral.34 Though each crisis was ultimately resolved, in the summer of 1914 Europe was therefore divided into two alliances, ready to wage war against each other.
As the last in a series of increasingly hostile confrontations, the July crisis resembled previous confrontations but differed in its most important aspect—the outcome. Because of the assassination of Francis Ferdinand, it began with a local Balkan quarrel between the Habsburg monarchy and the Serbian nationalist movement. Predictably, the alliance system quickly drew in Russia as Belgrade’s patron, which in turn involved Germany as Austria’s ally and France as Russia’s friend. But in contrast to the previous Balkan Wars, this crisis pitted one of the major powers against a secondary client state of another great power. Overheated public opinion, fueled by an irresponsible press, made it more difficult to achieve compromises, while diplomatic decisions became constrained by the technical needs of war plans and mobilization timetables. When Britain abandoned its isolation and came to the aid of France, no major European power was left to mediate. Since Germany refused to participate in another conference so as not to be humiliated again, the modern state system had no mechanism left to stop the disaster.35
PROCESS OF ESCALATION
Though the previous clashes made a resort to arms more likely, it took a series of actual decisions by individual governments to start the First World War. For all the gathering storm clouds of hostility, many Europeans considered the collapse of cooperation unlikely. The progress of civilization appeared to have overcome the atavistic habit of warfare between countries, because the unprecedented level of destruction, made possible by advances in weapons technology, would discourage warfare. But the July crisis showed that the negative aspects of modernization such as nationalism, social Darwinism, and militarism had created a “shared political culture” in the European capitals that considered war a legitimate means for advancing national interest. Though pursuing conciliatory options could have stopped the outbreak, the confrontational decisions actually made left no alternative but military conflict.36 By consistently choosing risk over compromise, the various leaders initiated a process of escalation that spread a local Balkan quarrel into a continental conflict, and led from a European conflagration to a World War.
The spark that started the conflagration was provided by Serbia, bent on creating a greater national state for the South Slavs. Surprisingly, the central role of Belgrade is often ignored, though the atrocities of the recent wars of Yugoslav succession suggest the need to reconsider this neglect. There is little doubt that the Serbian military intelligence service and Colonel “Apis” Dimitrijevic were behind the training of the youthful Bosnian terrorists, providing them with weapons and offering them logistical support. While the young men could be considered misguided idealists of South Slav nationalism, the adult backers going all the way up to Serbian prime minister Nikola Pasic knew that their order to assassinate the provincial governor Oskar Potiorek, later shifted to the Austrian heir apparent, might start a war. Though the sources are spotty, it is unlikely that Serb leaders could have done so without the assurance of Russian support. Even if some civilians developed last-minute qualms, it was ultimately their state-sponsored terrorism that made the gun, which they had helped to load, go off by itself.37
The tough Austrian response to the assassination created a local Balkan war, conceived as a punitive action to chasten Serbia that would also weaken Russian influence. Vienna was not merely a puppet of Berlin, since the Habsburg leadership was an independent actor who made decisions in its own interest. However, Austria’s ruling councils were divided between the war party around Chief of Staff Conrad von Hötzendorff, the peace group around Hungarian premier Count Istvan Tisza, and the vacillating foreign minister Leopold Count Berchtold, who advocated a “militant diplomacy.” To shore up the emerging consensus on punitive action, Austria sent cabinet chief Alexander Count Hoyos to Berlin, where he received the infamous “blank check,” since Germany feared losing its last major ally. In the decisive Crown Council of July 14, Berchtold persuaded Tisza to endorse a humiliating ultimatum to Serbia, intended to provide a pretext for attack.38 In trying to meet the South Slav irredentism by force, Vienna triggered a war to save the monarchy that instead would eventually destroy it.
The Russians’ resolve to support their Serbian client in order to retain their influence in the Balkans helped escalate the conflict to the level of a continental war. Blaming the assassination on its victim, the leaders in St. Petersburg sought a counterstrategy to the Austro-German attempt to “localize” the conflict in the Balkans, because in a limited war Vienna was bound to defeat Belgrade. On the one hand Russia rallied its allies with false allegations and reassured Serbia of its assistance in case of Austrian attack. On the other, it prepared to mobilize its own forces on the Austrian frontier so as to pressure the Habsburgs to abstain from war. Although Tsar Nicholas II was willing to limit mobilization to the Austrian part of the front after an appeal from William II, Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and Minister of War Vladimir Sukhomlinov insisted on comprehensive premobilization, since they wanted to ready the army for a conflict with Germany.39 It was this broader deployment of troops that meant war and prevented a limitation of the crisis, because it confronted Berlin with the need to mobilize against Russia and France as well.
German decisions remain particularly controversial since they showed a curious defensive aggressiveness that sought to secure and extend Berlin’s position at the same time. Moreover, it was not clear whether the mercurial kaiser, the nervous chief of staff Helmut von Moltke, or the pessimistic chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was really in charge. But Germany was united in supporting Austria come what may. The civilian leaders pursued a “risk policy” to test Russian intentions, which endorsed a local Balkan war and risked a wider continental war since that still seemed winnable; but they did not want a war with Britain, because that would exceed their strength. Fearing Russia’s quickly growing military might and French efforts to modernize their forces, Germany saw the assassination of the archduke as a last chance to break its diplomatic “encirclement.” The Schlieffen Plan’s priority of an initial attack in the West forced the government to issue an ultimatum not just to Russia but also to its ally France.40 The Germans were ready to back down only when it became clear, too late, that England would enter the fray.
Surprisingly, French actions during the July crisis tend to be overlooked although they, too, played a considerable part in the breakdown of peace. After its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, one of the few constants of European diplomacy was that Paris would be revanchist, seeking to reconquer the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Because of its heritage of grandeur from Louis XIV to Napoleon, France also wanted to counteract the growing dominance of a more populous and industrially dynamic Germany on the continent. When labor leader Jean Jaurès was assassinated on July 31 by a French nationalist, a leading voice for peace and reconciliation was silenced. During his talks in St. Petersburg at the height of the crisis, President Raymond Poincaré did not counsel moderation but rather assured Russian leaders that France would stand by them, since he did not want to miss the opportunity to fight.41 Disregarding the responsibility of Serbian irredentism, this desire for revenge therefore drew Paris into the conflict, completing the lineup of what thereby became a continental war.
The role of Britain has also been fiercely debated since its decision for war marked the transition to a general European conflict with worldwide implications. The majority of the Liberal cabinet under Herbert Asquith was inclined to follow the traditional detachment from continental affairs and to remain on the sidelines. But the Foreign Office under Sir Edward Grey was Francophile and therefore focused on the danger that a strengthening Germany might pose to British hegemony. Moreover, military authorities were deep into unofficial staff conversations with the French about cooperating in defense of the Channel coast. Finally, the yellow press enjoyed ridiculing William II, whose penchant for gaffes provided it with ample opportunities. Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality, required by the Schlieffen Plan, ultimately tipped the balance of opinion in the divided government and provided a convenient justification for mobilizing the public. Instead of defense of international law, it was solidarity with the Entente as well as self-interested fear of a rising naval and colonial rival that prompted London to intervene.42
The initial momentum of escalation brought two more countries into the war, spreading the fighting beyond the European continent. Japan had been strenuously modernizing since the Meiji Restoration following the best practices of various countries in Europe. Having already defeated Russia, Tokyo saw the European conflict in late August as chance to seize German possessions in Tsingtao as well as the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall islands in the Pacific in order to become the strongest power in Asia.43 Led by Enver Pascha, the Ottoman Empire had similarly been transforming itself into a modern nation according to European models of secularism, education, and economic growth. When the two German cruisers Goeben and Breslau under Admiral Wilhelm Souchon attacked the Russian Black Sea fleet as a result of a secret alliance, Istanbul joined the Central Powers in October.44 The Turkish entry was of greater strategic significance, since blocking the Dardanelles denied Russia a warm-water shipping route to its western allies and tied down considerable Russian forces in the Caucasus Mountains.
Contrary to popular opinion, it was a collective failure of leadership rather than the actions of a single statesman like the kaiser that was responsible for the outbreak of World War I. By 1914 monarchs such as Francis-Joseph, George V, Nicholas II, and William II were too mediocre and controlled by advisers to dictate events. While military leaders such as Austrian chief of staff Conrad von Hötzendorff were more bellicose, even some generals such as his German counterpart Helmut von Moltke had second thoughts. It was rather the civilian leadership of Nikola Pasic in Serbia, Count Leopold von Berchtold in Austria, Sergei Sazonov in Russia, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in Germany, Raymond Poincaré in France, and Sir Edward Grey in Britain that played a crucial role. They were neither “sleepwalkers” nor “fatalists” but seasoned politicians and diplomats who pursued their own national interests to the detriment of the entire continent.45 Not really understanding the bloody consequences of the decisions they were about to make, each lacked a sufficient sense of responsibility for the whole to be inclined to compromise.
The outbreak of the First World War was therefore not an accident but the result of a process of escalation that turned a limited regional clash into a general global conflict. At least three different levels need to be distinguished: Its origin was the Serbian-Austrian confrontation in the Balkans over the liberation of Bosnian Serbs from Habsburg rule. From this clash a continental conflict for hegemony over the European peninsula developed between the Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria on the one hand and the Franco-Russian Alliance on the other. Finally, this conflagration grew into a global naval and colonial struggle between the Central Powers plus their Ottoman ally and the British as well as Japanese. Only the Italian government broke from the Triple Alliance and waited until the spring of 1915 to enter on the side of the Entente.46 Instead of a particular country being chiefly responsible, the conflict spread incrementally through a sequence of individual decisions, driven by specific national interests. Not stopped by common institutions or a sense of shared responsibility, this cascade of choices drove Europe into war.
Ironically, none of the belligerents ultimately achieved their aims. Realized in the creation of Yugoslavia, the Serbian dream of a greater South Slav state disintegrated with the collapse of communism. The desperate gamble to fortify the Dual Monarchy backfired with the self-determination of its constituent nationalities, which shattered the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Russian hope for dominance over the Balkans and access to the Mediterranean crumbled in revolution, leading to the Soviet dead-end that cut the country off from liberal development. The German intention of maintaining hegemony over the center of the continent triggered another, even more deadly war and a genocidal Holocaust, dividing the country for decades thereafter. While the French succeeded in regaining Alsace and Lorraine, they paid for it by their defeat in World War II and the erosion of their great-power status. Finally even the twice-victorious British somehow lost their empire and saw the United States overtake them.47 Could European leaders have foreseen these outcomes, they might have thought twice about their fateful decisions.
ORIGINS OF WAR
Since the impact of modernity on the transformation of international relations remains under-theorized, most explanations for the outbreak of war in 1914 fail to address its deeper causes. Oblivious to Adam Smith’s aspirations to external peace, modernization theory basically focuses on domestic processes such as economic development, social mobilization, cultural experimentation, and political democratization rather than on the evolution of the international order. Two prominent schools of thought, nonetheless, confront each other: Legal scholars tend to focus on the “gentle civilizer” of international law as a method of increasing cooperation between nations by regulating their interaction with binding agreements and resolving conflicts between them through arbitration.48 Neorealist theorists of international relations are instead skeptical of the chances of peace, because they believe that sovereign states are ready to use force in pursuing their interests in a competitive system without any central authority. Both perspectives contribute in different ways to illuminating the outbreak of World War I.49
Before 1914 the development of international law did make some progress, but this increase of cooperation still proved too weak to keep the great powers from resorting to war. If states shared interests, as in the delivery of the mail or the transmission of telegrams, international conventions facilitated communication between developed countries. When there were transnational problems like the care of the wounded on a battlefield, organizations such as the Red Cross provided services regardless of nationality. In spite of much skepticism, the Hague conferences also managed to codify rules of land and sea warfare because limiting the use of force might serve all parties of an armed conflict.50 But ultimately, the maintenance of peace was consigned to the deterrence of an attack by arming oneself and seeking the help of powerful allies. While alliances stabilized the system in the short run, in the long run they drew more countries into the conflict. In the end, instruments of diplomatic negotiation, conflict resolution, and mediation by international conferences were not strong enough to preserve cooperation.
The behavior of European states in the summer of 1914 therefore more closely resembled the neorealist view, because they acted out of individual self-interest with little regard for the benefit of the whole. The ideology of nationalism put a premium on advancing one’s own cause and divided the world into dangerous enemies to be combated as well as potential friends to be courted. At the same time, the mind-set of militarism considered war not just a legitimate means of politics but also a necessary instrument for pursuing one’s interests. In every country the generals believed in a “cult of the offensive” and persuaded the civilian leaders that victory required adopting attacking strategies even in order to defend themselves. Finally, the widespread outlook of social Darwinism defined international relations as a struggle in which the strong nations would survive whereas the weak would be trampled underfoot.51 Operating on the basis of such “hidden assumptions,” statesmen were willing to cooperate only when it suited their interests and felt little responsibility for preserving peace for the entire continent.
In contrast to the earlier confrontations, the July crisis could no longer be resolved since all the governments involved pursued policies that risked war. After decades of peace, the danger of an outbreak of general hostilities seemed so slight that special sacrifices to maintain cooperation appeared unnecessary. Each country harbored aims of national defense, political revenge, or territorial gain that it could achieve only by facing down its enemies and threatening them with attack. All states were afraid to back down, since that would be construed as a sign of weakness by their own citizens as well as their presumed enemies.52 Moreover, with Britain and Germany choosing opposite sides, there were no disinterested parties left that would be both willing to mediate and strong enough to impose their solution. When it came to the final decision, the European statesmen and generals considered the potential gains from war more important than the losses likely to be incurred in such a conflict. Coupled with this narrowly defined pursuit of national interest, the complacency of decades of peace made them ultimately unwilling to compromise.
Instead of leading to the further progress of civilization, the decisions of July 1914 therefore unleashed the demons of war that revealed a shockingly destructive side of modernity. The nationalist choices of the leaders turned presumably benign developments into their very opposite. Technological innovation provided deadlier weapons for the battlefield; economic development offered greater resources for fighting; social mobility subsumed individualism into mass mobilization; and increased political participation inspired more hostile propaganda. Looking inward to gain new continental possessions, the nation-states of Europe now sought to vanquish one another with the help of their imperial possessions. An efficient bureaucracy marshaled the resources necessary for combat, while a modern military worked out mobilization timetables and drew up war plans that promised easy victory.53 Owing to the weakness of restraints and the absence of an overarching system, Europe degenerated into internecine warfare that came close to destroying the entire continent.
