If this is up your street, may I recommend Dan Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon, which has over ten hours of podcast material exploring the lead up to the first world war.
Probably the best podcast I've ever downloaded, and insane that it's available for nearly free.
Carlin is entertaining to listen to at times, but the information density is quite low. He takes a long time to say not much, all the while sounding quite profound.
I'd recommend the classic references instead/as well:
* The First World War by John Keegan
* The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
See - at times the pacing is what I quite like - I agree that there are other ways to get information across faster, but Carlin plays with the audio format to force you to dwell on certain things. It has some passages on the human cost / experience of war which are incredibly memorable imo. Of course no one source should be used in isolation and YMMV.
I'm with you. He does a great job of integrating sources, (with lots of quotes from the seminal works, in addition to memoirs and primary accounts) with a really cohesive arc to the story.
Nothing's ever made me feel the way the 2nd-3rd episodes of that show made me feel. There's something about the horrors of trench warfare being described in his way that really brings it home.
> He takes a long time to say not much, all the while sounding quite profound.
Carlin is definitely verbose but personally I think that is part of the appeal! It's easy to skim through a historical account and only hear a series of dates and names. Dwelling on a subject helps with his narrative of reinforcing how horrible these conflicts were and allows Carlin to delve deeper into anecdotal accounts etc.
That was my problem with Carlin too. He just says everything in that profound, dramatic and at the same time empty (due to low density of information) style and it was driving me up the wall.
I'd recommend the whole trilogy of books by Evans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Reich_Trilogy). The broad focus and often ground level perspective on German society is even more apparent in the second volume. I haven't encountered another source that better situates the experience of ordinary Germans in the political and cultural changes of the 1930s.
They are on the list next. Do you have any recommendations covering the Russian Revolution through WW2? I wanted to cover both before I start Hannah Arendt's work.
AFAIK, everything Prophets of Doom onward is completely free. Not sure how long that will last, and I would love for Dan to put out a monthly or yearly subscription via Patreon; his work is of such high quality.
Thanks for clarifying. I am happy to buy the discography, but I was hoping there was a way to do a repeating payment to support the project's continued development, as opposed to doing it on a show-by-show basis.
Blueprint for Armageddon is probably Carlin's weakest series. It tries to cram too much into too little time, and ends up almost incoherent unless you're already very familiar with the details from elsewhere. You walk away with the idea that fighting that war must have been pretty horrible, but not much else.
I've read a lot of WWI books, and _A World Undone_ by G.J. Meyer was easily the best. Would recommend that to start with for anyone who is interested in a history of WWI as a whole. (There are arguably better options for those just interested in the story of the slide into war, since that really needs a lot of space). The audiobook version is great too.
I wonder if this experience of Blueprint for Armageddon might not be an artifact of listening style. I found it very coherent, providing an integrated narrative of the entire war which nothing in my prior experience could match - but I also listened to it during my commute, 60 to 90 minutes at a time. Taken in smaller bites, I don't think I'd have found it to hang together nearly as well.
I've not read A World Undone (although after seeing the suggestions, I'm adding it to my to-read list). I did like Peter Hart's The Great War immensely, though, and recommend that as the best book on the actual campaigns of the war that I've read.
Check out his series "Ghosts of the Ostfront" if you enjoyed "Blueprint for Armageddon" - it's about the Eastern front during WW2 and does a similar job of immersing you into the violence of the conflict while explaining the implications of the various developments.
I was going to recommend the same. This was a part of WW2 that I'd not really been exposed to in school; at least not to this level of detail. Carlin's description of it is gripping.
Tying in the US seems a bit forced here. WWI as a result of Franco-Prussian war I can understand, US civil rights not-so-much.
That Germany was 'destined' to lose is a non-starter anyways. From my understanding it was Britain's decision to enter WWI that really shaped the outcome, and that it was far from a foregone conclusion that Britain would enter a continental European war. If the British didn't get involved, Germany's chance of taking Paris is much better, denying the two front war Germany (rightly) saw as a worst case scenario.
Having read a lot of books on the lead-up to WWI, and a few more on the conduct of WWI myself, I must say that the entire thesis comes across as rather forced.
First off, it's rather well-known that Germany's fear of a two-front war and encirclement led to much of its preliminary war plan. On the other hand, the circumstances that led up to such a scenario were not preordained from its construction. It was largely a result of the early 20th century Germany managing to piss off just about everybody else with amazingly inept foreign diplomacy. In particular, Germany decided to give up its relationship with Russia, which France eagerly took advantage of and bound the two countries fairly close together. Germany's naval race with Britain also did much to antagonize it for no real gain.
Also, Alsace-Lorraine is much oversold as a cause of war. It's true that France did want Alsace-Lorraine back. But many in France were not prepared to go to war to actually achieve that aim. Instead, the situation in France post-Franco-Prussian War was to try to find allies that could help divert German attention, and their allies were the Russians who needed lots of help to even minimally qualify for that role and the British who went to rather great lengths to try to avoid actually fulfilling their commitment when August 1914 came around (Germany marching through Belgium gave Britain the political cover to actually commit).
As for whether or not Germany could win, that's a difficult what-if to answer. The Schlieffen Plan was, in the abstract, a masterpiece of precision planning and timetabling. But the plan also had very little room for change if things didn't work out. Belgium put up an unexpectedly fierce resistance, Austria-Hungary had a surprisingly hard time in Serbia, and Russia was doing better at first than Germany expected. In the end, the German momentum and logistics chain was incapable of carrying them to Paris, which completely ruined their plans and any hope of a quick end to the war. And Germany was completely unprepared for that scenario (to be fair, no one else was).
Correct, if Germany had continued Bismarck's foreign policy [1] then the next war (if it came) would have looked very different. Antagonizing Russia in the Balkans, France in Morocco, and Britain on the high seas were rather gratuitous moves between 1900 - 1914, driven by Wilhelm II's personality more than by any geopolitical factors.
It's amazing how much hubris it took to sink the Second Reich. As far as I can tell, Germany was on track to win the war as late as spring 1917. They had the resources and the right strategy: defensive in the West (retreat to the Hindenburg Line) and offensive in the East. The last crucial mistake was resuming unrestricted submarine warfare at the same time. This predictably drew the US into the war. By summer 1918, the benefits of defeating Russia and Romania in the East were nullified by American troops pouring in at a rate of 10,000 a day, and the war's outcome was pretty much sealed.
In mid-1917, the French army mutinied and was likely unable to resist a concentrated German offensive if it came; the British pushed on a major offensive in Flanders in part to prevent the Germans from realizing this. In 1918 (by which time the French army had recovered from mutinies), the Germans tried their Spring Offensive. And it failed for pretty much the same reason their original push in 1914 failed: their logistic systems just couldn't sustain the offensive long enough to prevent Allied reinforcement.
Even without US involvement, France, Britain, and Germany were effectively all devoid of manpower. Once the Spring Offensive failed, there really wasn't any ability on any side to carry on offensive operations, at least to the point of producing a clear end to the war. So the first country to fall apart from the stalemate would be the one to lose it all. And Germany certainly seems the strongest contender for being the first to fall. It was having problems keeping even its soldiers well-fed, and the Spring Offensive produced a very indefensible salient. Germany's hopes of victory died at the Second Battle of the Marne, and they probably would have died there even had the Americans not started streaming to the front lines.
Agreed that the French mutinies presented a unique opportunity for the Germans but it's hard to predict how it would have played out. Would the Kerensky Offensive have done better if the Germans had sent more troops attack the French? Would the French troops have rallied if confronted with an actual German offensive?
Regarding 1918, the Germans were pushing so hard and getting stretched because the AEF was streaming in [1]. (American divisions were involved in plugging holes at the Second Marne BTW.) The Germans had a superiority of 300,000 men going into spring 1918, and inflicted 150,000 more casualties than they took during the Spring Offensive. Unlike 1914, there was no rush to beat the French before the Russians mobilized. If it wasn't for the US intervention, it would have been offensive after offensive until the Entente caved in.
> Antagonizing Russia in the Balkans, France in Morocco, and Britain on the high seas were rather gratuitous moves between 1900 - 1914, driven by Wilhelm II's personality more than by any geopolitical factors.
Wilhelm II was even planning an invasion of America in the late 1800's/early 1900's, an attempt at gunboat diplomacy[1].
I really dont see how Germany could win in Spring 1917. The german generals had all the data and they were deperate, they launched all out offensives and stratrgy not because they thought it would bring sertain victory but rather because they were desperate.
>As far as I can tell, Germany was on track to win the war as late as spring 1917.
So did this fact provide the ground for the belief, which helped lay the groundwork for the success of the Nazi movement, that Germany had lost the war because it had been betrayed by its leadership?
That would be my feeling, although the German military was actually betrayed by the Germans themselves: the economy collapsed taking the government down with it.
I saw on an AHC program the German calculation about unrestricted sub warfare: that they could choke Britain in six months, but it would take the US two years to ramp up a real fighting force. So it made good sense, but a miscalculation in a different way.
It was a severe miscalculation. First, Germany already had a strategy to win the war - beat Russia first - and any attempt to knock out Britain at the cost of involving the US was a major distraction. Second, even if US troops took longer to arrive, the US Navy was ready to help defeat the submarine campaign right away [1].
Your version is a somewhat closer reflection of the version of what is taught in school today (ie. there is no magical 1869). However, the actual conflict was sparked over Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand's assassination. You excluded some fundamental points that help understand a much broader series of issues (namely, a very late unification of Germany causing upset in many alliances, region-wide instability beyond Germany and a crumbling Austro-Hungarian empire desperate to cling to power).
As an example, read Aethelric's post here as it is important in explaining the seeds that set Germany as it was in 1869.
The region we now know as Germany was a series of small towns with mostly independent rule. With instability (especially crumbling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Germany established formal alliances quickly as the political climate grew in intensity.
Franz Ferdinand was shot, the European states fought and the US (with late entry) injected fresh ideas, troops and supplies, which decisively turned the tides of a messy war.
So, 1869 was more like a traffic light that triggered the car crash. Without understanding the history, you can't really understand each participant's trajectories or motives. To limit the answer to "1869" is only slightly more informative than limiting the answer to "Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand's assassination".
Yes, Britain. We take it for granted today but Britain and France being allies was quite an amazing thing. They had been traditional enemies for about 800 years (let's not forget about the Napoleonic Wars earlier in the century either). The Crimean War in 1853 saw them united against a common enemy - Russia.
The Crimean War was also significant because Austria-Hungary, though not much of a belligerent, turned on Russia which left them without allies when facing Prussia in 1866 and of course the two Empires were critically still enemies when the Archduke was assassinated.
One can keep going backwards in history with cause and effect, but for the two points above, I like to see the Crimean War as the turning point of the European alliances that were in place at the start of "the Great War".
In the long run, Britain will always tend to ally against the dominant continental power. This is because Britain's enduring interest is to ensure that western Europe doesn't unite under one power, as this would threaten Britain itself. Before German unification, the dominant continental power was usually France.
(I believe this is also why Britain joined the EU in the first place - it's not a threat if Britain has a seat at the table.)
The upshot of this is that Britain was always going to enter WWI once it looked bad for France - if not Belgium, some reason would have been found.
>In the long run, Britain will always tend to ally against the dominant continental power.
Without that, the modern era would probably never have happened. That is because one state would have probably converted Europe into an empire, dominated by a single culture and religion, instead of the great competition of ideas and technologies that happened because there were so many independent states.
One could argue that the Europe of the many states only lead to the horrors and suffering of the world wars, while a multiculturaly diverse but politicaly uniform Europe, built by, say, Napoleon, could have been a United States of Europe. Not being a bunch of countries inflicted so many different nationalisms has worked pretty nicely for them.
I doubt that anything as diffuse as a nation will have a tendency that can be explained in such rational-seeming ways. It's possible that Britain tended towards jealousy towards the dominant continental power, but it is difficult to compare such a theory to reality.
The dominant continental powers have been Rome, France, Germany and Russia. Each have, to put it mildy, their own special characteristics.
* Rome conquered and held on to (most of) Britain.
* France was Britain's neighbour. Each was a potential invader of the other right through the middle ages and most of the modern period.
* Up to 1945, Germany was an extraordinarily belligerent power that made enemies of just about everyone.
* Similarly Britain was a rival of soviet Russia only as part of a broader alliance that went far beyond any attempt at realpolitik.
For all the noise and heat regarding the EU, post cold-war Europe is a remarkably friendly place. By historical standards, there is "against" any more.
The argument was that the US had gained a "defend the rights of man", i.e. Democracy, attitude because of the Civil War (though honestly with the early end of Reconstruction, I'm not sure it's valid). This attitude eventually encouraged the US to come directly into the War, though the US had been giving significant support to England and France prior to that point.
I agree that it's weak though. And Britain is definitely the reason Germany wasn't capable of overrunning France. America at best made it clear that Germany could not win. While 120,000 troops lost by the US is far less than the Europeans, that is by no means a small number, especially considering such brief involvement.
There really was no reason to ever believe the US would ever get involved in WWI. Even WWII there was no indication the US would actually enter the War directly until the Japanese forced the choice.
> Even WWII there was no indication the US would actually enter the War directly until the Japanese forced the choice.
That seems like conventional wisdom, but the U.S. started a large military build-up before Pearl Harbor. The military draft began in 1940. And of course the U.S. was actively supporting the UK through lend-lease.
There were still isolationists in Washington and even prominent supporters of Hitler in the public sphere (if you ever wonder how misguided people can be, remember that), but certainly there were many indications that the U.S. would enter the war.
But, until Pearl Harbor and the Philippines there was no clear pretext for the US to declare war. And had they not attacked, it's not clear that FDR could have gotten congress to declare war. Some of those prominent supporters were significant industrialists like Ford, they would have fought intervention by all means.
I've heard that too, but how did the draft, Lend-Lease, and the build-up get passed through Congress before Pearl Harbor if there wasn't sufficient support?
Maybe the first and third were seen as necessary to protect a neutral country? Or being short of declaring war, they were less objectionable? But I'm just guessing ...
> I've heard that too, but how did the draft, Lend-Lease, and the build-up get passed through Congress before Pearl Harbor if there wasn't sufficient support?
Lend-Lease had fairly staunch resistance, as it basically shredded any pretense of neutrality. The draft and the military build-up were supported in large part due to neutrality--the need to have a sufficiently strong military to deter potential aggression (this was the strategy of Switzerland). When FDR extended the draft term from 12 months to 18 months, it passed by a single vote in the House.
My guess is that most people were already aligned with the Allies, and there was money to be made. I think the arguments for Germany were less of a "let's join Germany" and more of a "let's just not get involved", thereby seeding the European continent to Germany.
But, yes the US had a constant stream of arms being supplied to Britain and Russia during the period before the war.
If the US's involvement was because of 'defend the rights of man', it sure took it's time getting properly involved. It doesn't even really make sense, because it's not like the Germans were going to enslave the French if they won.
During WWI and WWII, the US made a fortune selling armaments to the allies and then joining the war towards the end. In WWII we claimed an equal share of the spoils, at least in Europe. England, France, US and the USSR split the spoils of WWII but the USSR definitely deserved 3/4 of it for their sacrifice.
I always akin it to tag team wrestling. The first guy beats the other team almost silly, then tags out and the fresh guy comes in fresh and finishes them off.
World wars aren't a 1 on 1 fight though. WW1 was a 3 on 2 fight and the US involvement early would have made it 4 on 2, tipping the scales considerably.
Yes, but the US was staunchly isolationist during that period (since it's founding). In fact, the founding fathers wrote extensively about not getting involved in European wars; military isolationism was in our DNA. That's hard to believe today. Wilson actually campaigned on an anti-war platform (as did FDR).
... You mean apart from the Indian wars which annexed territory, the Mexican-American war which annexed territory, and the Spanish-American war which annexed territory? Then there was the War of 1812, where the US tried and failed to annex Canadian territory. Or the Barbary wars.
The US not wanting to involve itself in internal European wars does not mean it was militarily isolationist. The US has been projecting military power beyond its borders pretty much since its inception. Military power projection is in the US's DNA, not isolationism.
I would say that invading the territory of other nations and annexing it counts as involving yourself in the affairs of other nations. Historically, the US didn't want to interfere in Europe, absolutely, but it stuck its fingers in pretty much every other pie, excluding sub-Saharan Africa.
I mean, how do you characterise sending warships to scare Japan into opening up for trade in 1868 as 'isolationism'?
Isolationism doesn't mean never projecting military power, it means not getting involved in alliances that don't serve, or barely serve our own interests.
George Washington's farewell address addressed this:
"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."
Thomas Jefferson said that one of the "essential principles of our government" is that of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
Monroe:
"In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defense."
Seward:
"defending 'our policy of non-intervention—straight, absolute, and peculiar as it may seem to other nations'...[t]he American people must be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the wisdom with which they should exercise the powers of self-government, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alliances, intervention, and interference."
You seem to be arguing that the US projects military power in it's own interests. That's undeniable, but claiming that as a counterpoint that we weren't isolationist in the 19th century is not what isolation means. For recent examples: invading Afghanistan was for our own interests; we were attacked by a group sheltered by their government. Iraq was not. Syria is not. Balkans in the 1990s was not. Panama was because of the canal and trade routes. WWI and WWII ultimately was in our best interests but it wasn't obvious at the time, particularly early on, and the cost was immense. Right now, we are so intertwined in alliances that if just about any country goes to war outside of sub-saharan Africa, we are automatically at war.
Your definition of isolationism makes no sense. The alliances that France had with the UK and Russia at the start of WWI served France's own interests, for example, yet France wouldn't be painted as isolationist. Countries make alliances that serve their own interest - how often do you see countries making alliances for net loss?
And despite you quoting several people including terms like "forbearing at all times, and in every way ... intervention and interference", I have already furnished you with more than a few examples of the US actively intervening and interfering. The US not only meddled a heap in the Americas, but also outside it's own area (like the Philippines and Japan, already mentioned). Neither does 'non-intervention' square with things like backing Cuba in a war of independence against Spain. That's the living, breathing definition of 'intervention'.
You seem to be missing my point that the US was politically isolationist with respect to Europe, but it wasn't isolationist outside of Europe.
> Afghanistan was for our own interests; we were attacked by a group sheltered by their government. Iraq was not. Syria is not. Balkans in the 1990s was not.
This is all total propaganda. Iraq was 100% in the US's interests (or perhaps better put, the incumbent government's interests), and the US fabricated a casus belli to invade, against the wishes of its allies, and with no quality intelligence. Syria is a leftover from the Iraq debacle; the US would lose considerable international reputation if it just shrugged and walked away from the consequences of the clusterfuck it caused in Iraq. There was no alliance requiring that the US invade unilaterally in the case of Iraq, and the consequences of that populist action are now tearing Europe apart. There is more to national interests than conquering territory and acts of military revenge.
If the US got itself involved in conflicts that weren't in its interests, then it'd be much more involved in sub-Saharan Africa. Or filling eastern Ukraine with gung-ho marines and reverting the annexation of Crimea. I don't expect any nation to act against its interests, but if people are going to persist with the myth that the US really is the 'world cop', then it's a corrupt cop who looks the other way when there's no kickback coming its way.
England definitely slowed Germany down but Germany was decidedly winning.
Prior to US involvement, the front line was quite close to Paris. After, it was just over the border of Germany, and then as you said, they knew it was over. US' involvement was huge.
Well, obviously it was centuries ago but it has ebbed and flowed since then. For the 20th century though a lot of Scottish nationalism originated in the Scottish renaissance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Renaissance).
No, the US broke a stalemate. The Germans were near Paris for most of the war - the location of Paris is what makes the Schieffen plan attractive. The US took a year or so to get onto a War production footing, but then her production started to force the issue. In combat, US helped to stem the German 1918 spring offensive, and were most decisive in the final offensive.
There really was no reason to ever believe the US would ever get involved in WWI.
On the contrary, I think it is exceedingly likely that the US will always intervene (if it has the capacity to do so) if a single military power looks like taking over most of Europe. It's why the US intervened in both WWI and WWII, and created NATO.
Absolutely. Obviously the Civil War did play a role (there's nothing in history that isn't connected in some way), but trying to set it up as a major cause of WW1+2? No thanks.
To me, the whole article seems to be the author trying to shoehorn history into his idea that the events of the year 1866 would somehow predestine the next half century. He brings up some interesting observations, but his main thesis doesn't hold water.
It's not even a case of "blowback" - such as could be argued about 19th century US imperialism and militarisation in Asia leading to it being dragged into WWII by Japan - his argument seems little more than the USA became a united country in 1866, and that united country would later show up five minutes before the end of two world wars to show Europe how it's done, saving everyone's ass[1].
By that reasoning, everything the USA has been involved in stems from "1866". Or various British Acts of Union led to two world wars. Or the Magna Carta, or the French Revolution, or anything before 1914 that involved any of the participants.
Furthermore, even if we un-ironically believe "1866" led to the US cavalry riding to everyone's rescue in two world wars, that is the end result, not setting the stage.
I know some people love to believe everything must revolve around the USA, but trying to argue that the two greatest events of the 20th century actually stemmed from 19th century internal American politics that meant relatively little to Europeans even at the time seems pretty desperate.
[1] Before anyone downvotes for this interpretation of what he wrote, he literally states the following simplistic, insulting garbage about WWI (where US involvement was barely more than symbolic): "[the USA] would intervene to defeat Germany just in the nick of time".
I wonder how he feels about the USSR intervening to defeat Japan just in the nick of time in WWII.
The US Civil war did preserve a powerful United States but its impact was probably much greater in showing how modern wars would be fought, with much less lining up with muskets and firing in orderly lines and far more repeating rifles and rapid movements. You could also say Sherman's march presaged "total war". Railroads and steam power changed logistics forever. The transition was far from complete though.
I still don't get how Franco-Prussian war was the cause for WW-I after nearly 45 years. Sure, French were pissed off with Prussia in 1870 but then almost two generations passed by before WW-I. The whole article talks about France and Germany as if they are each single person fighting with other and waiting for 45 years to take revenge. Lots of things changes during two generations - governments, art, politics, economies... So connecting dots like this doesn't make any sense.
Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was a source of ongoing resentment by the French. As was France's loss of its status as the dominant land power in Europe. War was not inevitable, but the unresolved issues from the Franco-Prussian war ensured that the two dominant continental powers would be enemies. France's desire to be secure against Germany leads it to form an alliance with Russia, which then puts Germany in a terrible situation of being surrounded by two great powers. You're right, it's not like two people held a grudge for 45 years, but the war made it likely that the two nations would fight each other again.
And then the Treaty of Versailles went on to cause the forced repairations and subsequent hyperinflation and depression in Germany leading to the Nazi takeover and WW2.
An interesting anecdote, France weathered the world depression of the 30s much better than other countries because they kept getting reparation payments from Germany.
When I hear this I think of the main plot of the fantasy book "The Magic of Recluse" [1] where the increase of Order (good) came with the resultant increase in Chaos (evil).
The analogy is that the Allied powers could probably have avoided the post-tranquility strife by not asking for The German Empire could not give.
By creating this imbalance, they fed the very outcome they dreaded (another Great War).
In the Recluse Saga Chaos is not evil, and Order is not good. It is exactly that. Order and Chaos. Albeit most Chaos wizards tend to be evil, and most Order wizards tend to appear more evil. A lot of the heroes in the saga are actually Grey, or those who use a balance between Chaos and Order. Cyador, for example, was a decent empire despite being inherently Chaos.
You essentially argue that the alliamce system caused the WW1 but I don't think that argument works very well. An alliance system alone does not cause war. The questiom is why within a given international situation some people start a war.
The reason the relation did not change was not just Alsace-Lorraine, there are other issues. So I really think it can not be called a root cause of WW1.
I suppose it comes down to whether you're arguing what started the war or what started the world war. Without the alliances, Austria-Hungary would have invaded Serbia and that would have been it.
Other comments have greatly expounded on this, but I would point out that 45 years isn't long if you figure that government and military leaders would have been in their 50's and 60's and would have had vivid memories of such a drastic event, even if they were too young to participate directly. They could have also lost older relatives in the fighting.
I don't think you understand the extent of the distrust and resentment that existed between the French and the Germans. It goes back much further than 1871.
You could probably go back to the Middle Ages, but let's start with Napoleon. His invasion of the German territories officially destroyed the last vestiges of the Holy Roman Empire. This, of course, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire any longer; but it did symbolize the national identity of the Germans at the time. (You ought to know that German national identity does not hinge on a political nation state but rather on a shared language, culture and history.) Apart from this abuse of national pride, Napoleon's armies of occupation were seen as evil oppressors, and his forced recruiting of soldiers for the Russian expedition didn't help either.
Napoleon's defeat, though a great relief to the rest of Europe, was a blow to the French pride. (As far as I am aware, he is still a national hero in France to this day.) It was followed by the Vienna Congress and the reordering of Europe, after which there was a period of relative stability. However, the distrust remained, especially as Prussia became more and more powerful.
Come 1871, defeat in the Franco-Prussian War was an absolute disaster for France. It was the greatest humiliation imaginable, both militarily and politically. Its armies outclassed, its king captured, it had to watch as the enemy paraded through the streets of its beloved capital. Adding insult to injury, Bismarck proclaimed Wilhelm of Prussia Emperor of the united Germany in the mirror hall of Versailles - the holy of holies of the French monarchy.
France could not forget. In the next four decades, it watched Germany's growing power with growing fear, seeking alliances to protect itself. At the same time in Germany, France continued to be presented as the historical archenemy. (In this period, a huge statue was built depicting an ancient Germanic tribal leader, Hermann. Symbolically, his raised sword points towards France.)
Everywhere in Europe, nationalistic fever ran high. The lead up to the Great War was an incredibly tangled mess of bad diplomacy that ignited animosity rather than allay it. Everybody knew war was coming, and nobody was trying very hard to prevent it. After all, they thought, it would be short, it would be glorious, and there would be the chance to right old wrongs.
When war came, almost everybody rejoiced. The Franco-Prussian war was still very much in living memory, and the military leaders of France and Germany were baying for blood. Four years of the deadliest war ever seen stilled the peoples' thirst for blood, but not the hate. Now it was France's turn to humiliate Germany, which it did it's utmost to accomplish with the Treaty of Versailles. (Signed, of course, in the same hall of mirrors that had seen Germany's triumph in 1871.)
France tried to ensure that Germany would never be able to fight another war. Of course it failed, and of course the attempt only served to increase German hatred. Hitler and his party then played a masterful game of psychology with the German people, in which the "shame of Versailles" had a very prominent part. War broke out again, the French defenses broke, and once again German soldiers paraded through Paris. Not one to forgo symbolism, Hitler had the French government sign their surrender in the same railway wagon that had seen the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne (which hat ended fighting on the Western Front in 1918). I need not go into the brutality of the ensuing occupation of France.
With this long history of mutual hatred, it is an incredible feat of the post war governments of Germany and France that they managed to forge a friendship between their nations. A lot of the credit is due to Charles de Gaulle and the first German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Their Elysee Treaty of 1963 paved the way for what has become a very close international friendship and the center piece of the European Union. But it was a long road.
> Napoleon's defeat, though a great relief to the rest of Europe, was a blow to the French pride. (As far as I am aware, he is still a national hero in France to this day.)
Yes, to this very day he has a tomb fit for an Emperor[0]. Established in 1861, only a short ten years before the Franco-Prussian War.
It does make sense. The antecedents of World War I can be traced back to the demise of Charlemagne and how he chose to split his empire among his three sons. Obviously there are many proximate causes that contributed to the outbreak of the war, the fundamental instability of the French German relationship is a huge contributor. The Franco Prussian War crowned what was essentially the anti-Christ to the French in their own capital and united France and Russia in containing a unified Germany's expansion
As I remember The Guns of August, The British government was not aware that its military had promised the French assistance, and did not intend to participate in the war until informed about it.
I imagine some rather awkward conversations took place.
Germany: too big for Europe, too small for the world.
It's worth reviewing the run-up to WWI. The pre-WWI model of Europe, an endless struggle between Great Powers which had gone on for a millennium, is Putin's model of the world. That's because it gives Russia a role in the world. As an economic power, Russia is in 12th place, behind S. Korea. In a peaceful, trade-based world, Russia is a bit player. Especially since the price of oil tanked.
Thus the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the war in Ukraine from 2014 to now. Putin's desire to be a player on the world stage drives this.
The post-WWII world was, for a long time, two superpowers with nuclear overkill capability glaring at each other but not doing much. That was surprisingly stable. But it is not, historically, a normal condition.
Right now, it's all too easy to bungle into a major war. Likely possibilities are N. Korea vs S. Korea and the US, China vs. somebody over the South China Sea, and Russia vs. Ukraine heating up.
Maybe you should get your history correct. Before WW1 we were not in a situation where there were constant great power wars. There were limited wars 1860-1870 (Crimea, Franco-Prussian) but thats all , the last large great powers war was Napoleon and that was 120 years before WW1.
So from the Numbers one can argue that we are today still in a sitiation of endless struggle and we should expect a major war very soon.
I dont think that argument holds much water. Most nations before WW1 did not want war, just as now.
Also the idea that Germany is to small for the World is strange, because Britain was smaller, and before WW1 Germany had a huge population and industrial base. Germany had bad strategy, not a bad position.
In the years just before WWI, the Balkan Wars involved the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, which were great powers in their day. There was also that little problem in the Russian Empire in 1917. The latter part of the 19th century had the unification of Germany, the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. The United Kingdom managed to keep their wars far from home for the latter half of the 19th century, except for a problem with Ireland.
Yes the Balkan Wars involved Great Powers, but its not like we have no wars that 'involve' great powers now (looking at you Syria). So again, from 1870 until 1914 there were very few wars, the hole population of europe basically had not experienced war.
I would thus argue that the world of 1914 was not more inherently in a great power struggle then we are now.
Crimean War was not limited at all. It was waged in way larger area than just Crimea, and here I mean not only the Black Sea surroundings. It also had a Baltic Sea, a White Sea and even a Pacific theater of war, with close to two million people involved directly. Although not as big as the entire chain of Napoleonic Wars before, it was major and extensive nevertheless.
> In a peaceful, trade-based world, Russia is a bit player. Especially since the price of oil tanked.
In a "peaceful, trade-based world" you may find that nations with scarce resources are no longer willing to pump it out at prices set in City of London.
True, but not remotely on the scale of a world war. And it is not as if those other regions were peaceful until the cold war came along. I mean, regular warfare has been the way of the world for thousands of years. The old war is sometimes referred to by historians as the long peace.
I've read Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers too (good book). However it's hard to see how the Great Powers "model" applies when everyone has nuclear weapons or can acquire them relatively easily.
Mass destruction (chemical) weapons existed and were employed in WW1. You'd expect that WW2 should have consisted mostly by aerial bombardment with much improved chemical (and other kind of horribly effective) weapons, yet what happened was an abstinence from both sides, respecting a mutual agreement of resorting to conventional weapons only. (Well, on battlefields at least, and only if discounting U.S. show off with nuclear ones at a moment when the war's conclusion was clear already.)
> Prussia had recently adopted a new model of rifle: one that was bolt action and so allowed for rapid fire, in comparison to the Austrians’ outmoded muzzle-loading Lorenz rifle-muskets.
This really made a long-lasting impression, in Austria today (so 150 years later) we still use the phrase: "the prussians don't shoot that fast". We use it when there is still time and a solution isn't ready yet.
"Two things of note happened in 1866 that would set the stage for the future, and in a very odd way, they served to counterbalance each other.
The first was the Austro-Prussian War. Now, why would a two month war between Germanic peoples be any type of benchmark in history? Well, it becomes incredibly important once you realize that it set the stage for the Franco-Prussian War and the Unification of Germany. Those two events nearly made World War I inevitable."
Well this is silly. If the Austrians had won, then we might have had a Franco-Austrian war. There was a problem in Alsace and Lorraine, a German-speaking population under the French. This had to be settled somehow. One of the two leading German nations would have done it: either the Prussians or the Austrians. Since the Prussians had won the 7-week war, it was them.
But too many what ifs... you can't do that in history, too many branches stem away from the root of a tree of possible alternatives.
What a fail. The very first paragraph is factually wrong. Didn't read the rest.
Due to already receiving negative feedback on my comment let me explain.
The assasination didn't happen in Serbia but Bosnia that was at the time occupied by Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's a huge fail by somebody who tries to explain to us what 'really happened'.
True, you are correct. Though it could be attributed to the author as a smaller mistake, as Franz was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. I am more confused to how the US's reconstruction had anything to do with setting the stage for World War 1.
> For just as 1866 guaranteed a militarily and culturally strong Germany which would wear down Britain, France, and Italy to a near breaking point in World War I, it also guaranteed a truly united United States, with a society that held the majority view that democracy and equality were worth fighting for – and which would intervene to defeat Germany just in the nick of time.
Nothing in the piece supports this statement, and I find this pretty hard to agree with. The first part of the article is a rehash of known facts and history. The last few paragraphs are, from what I can tell, irrelevant to the overall theme as well as thinly-veiled glorification of the United States Civil Rights Act.
> Though it could be attributed to the author as a smaller mistake, as Franz was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist.
Not to nitpick but he was a Yugoslav nationalist. Though he was an ethnic Serb from Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time occupied by Austria-Hungary.
During his trial he stated: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be freed from Austria."[1] He was a member of the Young Bosnia movement which included ethnic Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats.
The distinction will become important especially during WWII and later during Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s, and it's at the heart of the rise and fall of Yugoslavia.
The distinction is extremely important as since the breakup of Yugoslavia Serbian nationalists have tried and practically succeeded in erasing Young Bosnia's ideology presenting them as right-wing Serbian nationalists. Even saying they were Yugoslavian nationalists probably doesn't correctly convey to people of today what they really meant and wanted—they mostly also considered themselves anarchists/libertarian communists (one of the most read authors among the group was Kropotkin, Princip was actually reading his Memoirs of a Revolutionist the night before the assassination). Čabrinović was extremely active as an anarcho-syndicalist and had prior problems with authorities for organizing workers' struggles. They saw national (under the premise that most peoples of west Balkans are really the same ethnic group divided by religion) liberation as a means to further workers' liberation (if one looks at economic conditions of Bosnia, and most of Balkans at that time it can make some sense, but that's a different topic). What complicates their case was the fact that the assassination was materially supported by the Black Hand, a secret nationalist organization in the Serbian Army. To see how words and designations can mean little in politics, later in 1920's Yugoslavia there was a prominent “Yugoslavian nationalist“ movement ORJUNA (ORYUNA, Organization of Yugoslavian Nationalists) which was an openly fascist organization—the complete opposite of what Young Bosnia was.
I understood it that since the US unified and was able to allow african americans into the military, they were strong enough and stable enough to participate. Additionally since african american (human) equality was front and center, germany's hate-fueled racist agenda was especially distasteful adding social and political motivation to participate.
1. Bismark would have never supported Germany's behaviour leading up to WWI. The people in charge thought they had the genius of Bismark, but had a bit more in common with Nero.
2. The primary 'hate-fueled racist agenda' in WWI was the Serb-Austrian relationship... And that was less about direct racism, and more about imperialism. (Which the Entente was completely guilty of.)
This seems extraordinarily nitpicky given that the first paragraph exists merely to set up the simplistic view of the war's causes which the rest of the article is dedicated to knocking down.
I mean, by all means point it out, but bailing out on the whole article because of that is a bit much.
Bailing out of the whole article because of that little mistake is the only right thing to do if you want your brain to stay clean and not influenced by dilettants of the Internets. Why should I now read the whole article when I know I have to check every other 'fact'?
Fellow HNers who read the whole thing already confirmed that the article is bullshit. So I think I was right. Experience my friend.
The core of the work is claiming that the reunification of Germany and the Franco-Prussian war along with the US civil rights movement post Civil War set the stage for World War 1. The first point is not novel nor unbelievable. I find that the second point is far fetched, and the author doesn't really support this argument in article.
Well when it comes to WW2 he says
"The U.S. military that desegregated in 1948 had recently assisted in putting down the second German attempt at empire in the 20th century – an attempt that itself grew out of bitterness and hate caused by the terms of surrender dictated by the French at the conclusion of World War I."
Which is all essentially bullshit. The Treaty of Versailles was not unusually harsh, certainly when keeping in mind Germanys conduct in Belgium, unrestricted submarine warfare, and invention of chemical warfare and it was much more lenient then what Germany planned on leveraging against the allies. Germanies economic problems came much more from large amount of wartime borrowing and trying to weasel out of Treaty though intentional inflation, followed up by the global great depression.
Yet for some reason everyone, including the French, agreed a decade later to cancel the reparations which were expected to be fully repaid in 2008 (~90 years after end of WW1).
But more importantly, those who (order) misconduct in war are very rarely the same people who pay the reparations.
The bit where it says "in Serbia" seems to be talking about where the assassination happened. That could potentially refer to where he was Archduke instead, but that would be a really odd way to construct the sentence if so, and in any case would still be wrong.
> Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia [1]
Even if the author meant that Franz was an Archduke in Serbia, he would still be mistaken.
And it meant that there was a precedence for taking up arms for equality and freedom...for a war that would, "make the world safe for democracy," as President Woodrow Wilson put it in 1917 when he requested a declaration of war on the German Empire.
What was the German Empire doing to threaten equality, freedom, and democracy that France and England and the US weren't also doing? The argument that the US entered because it declared itself to be in favor of those ideals is quite a stretch.
Wilson in his speech asking for American involvement in the war cited the injustice of submarine warfare more than anything, so I agree this point at least seems to fall flat.
German submarine warfare upset the US because they sank some US shipping at considerable loss of life, rather than because of any inherent moral flaw. Had they steered clear of civilian shipping (trickier than it sounds because some military ships disguised themselves as merchant marine vessels) or at least avoided sinking anything that was likely to belong to the US, things might have turned out very differently.
Moral arguments in political speeches should not be taken at face value, since their inclusion is for emotional arousal rather than reasoned analysis.
Germany invaded the neutral country of Belgium and killed about 60,000 civilians in Belgium, looted and burned cultural artifacts, and conscripted laborers. That in combination with unrestricted submarine warfare really did mean German conduct in the war was far crueler then the Allies.
You don't think the Entente killed civlians, looted, or conscripted laborers from occupied territories? (Even if we ignore the broader context of how they treated their colonies!)
Also, while Germany was carrying out unrestricted submarine warfare, the Royal Navy was busy - literally starving - Germany, with its unrestricted naval blockade. Their justification was that soldiers eat bread - therefore, bread has a military purpose, and can be blockaded.
"That in combination with unrestricted submarine warfare really did mean German conduct in the war was far crueler then the Allies."
Both Britain and Germany tried to prevent the US from shipping arms and supplies to the other country, via whatever tools they had available. The US either chose to not even try to ship supplies to Germany, or if they did, since British naval power was in the form of ships,so they could turn away US merchant-ships without blowing them up. But with US shipping supplies to Britain, the only tool Germany had available was the submarine warfare, which is a much blunter tool.
From the perspective of an American citizen, I think that the 'unrestricted submarine warfare' pretext was bogus. The US should not have shipped supplies to either side, and then there would have been no submarine warfare against US ships.
Follow the money. The financial aspect of the war was interesting in itself, if you can bear finance as an intellectual subject at all. [1] I haven't studied this very deeply but of course the Morgans are involved. Modern wars (starting from around the 18th century) all involve a financial angle and though I feel that certain bankers were criticized for racist reasons, the assistance of bankers in providing and retiring war debt is important. I think it would be likely that my studies would end up supporting the idea that the American side was hoping to fund or supply that which could be conveniently funded or supplied without actually fighting.
German conduct in the war was far crueler then the Allies
Even if we grant that the German Empire was more cruel in waging war, which I am by no means prepared to do, the war did not take place in a vacuum. If the purpose of America entering the war was to make the world safe for equality, freedom, and democracy, then the conduct of the belligerents outside of the war is totally fair game. To that point, I'm sure I don't have to remind you how Great Britain had been treating its colonies for hundreds of years.
Both of the things you mentioned, were things that Germany was forced into doing, as a matter of survival.
For example, Germany had no intentions of conquering Belgium. They simply wanted to travel through Belgium in order to reach France, and put an end to the war early on. This was something they were necessarily required to do, because they were sandwiched between both France and Russia, and hence, couldn't afford to fight a prolonged war. Germany offered Belgium neutrality and immunity as long as they were allowed to pass unimpeded through their highways, but Belgium instead refused and actively tried to kill the German soldiers passing through. Hence why Germany then had to wage war against Belgium.
For more nuance on this topic, check out Dan Carlin's very detailed podcast on WW1.
Are you serious? Invading a neutral country, burning the the entire village of Louvain, executing 6,000 civilians in reprisal strikes were all things Germany was forced into doing? Belgium actively tried to German soldiers because they were being invaded! That's a reasonable response to being invaded! I have no idea how you can write something like this.
There is definately a legitamate argument that WW1/2 were essentially the West using the lessons they learned from colonialism on each other. This is pretty explicit in WW2 with Hitler's plan to ethnically cleanse and colonize Eastern Europe. At the same time, the horrible atrocities Belgium committed in the Congo don't make the murder of civilians any more inexcusable.
> Both of the things you mentioned, were things that Germany was forced into doing, as a matter of survival.
Germany wasn't forced into anything. They still had the option of not starting the war at all.
> ... but Belgium instead refused and actively tried to kill the German soldiers passing through. Hence why Germany then had to wage war against Belgium.
"Passing through"? They were invading. (Yeah, they were intending on just passing through, but they were still invading to do so.) Belgium was actively trying to kill German troops? Yeah, that's the way it goes when you march your army into another country without their permission. This is why Germany then had to wage war against Belgium? Putting troops across the border was already an act of war against Belgium.
Given that Germany insisted on starting the war by invading France, these were things that Germany was "forced" to do in order to have the best chance to win. But not invading France was actually an option.
"France entered World War I because Russia and Germany were going to war, and France honored its treaty obligations to Russia.[58]"
Not that Germany wanted to wage war against Russia either. Germany declared war against Russia because they declared war against Austria which had declared war against the Serbs who had assassinated their archduke.
"The event that was widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I occurred on June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was shot to death with his wife by the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. Over the weeks that followed, Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack, hoping to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism in the tumultuous Balkans region once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austria-Hungary declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention. ... Russia declared its intention to back Serbia in the case of such a conflict, Austria-Hungary went ahead with its war declaration against Serbia on July 28, one month after the assassinations."
"Germany warned Russia, still only partially mobilized, that to continue to full mobilization against Austria-Hungary would mean war with Germany. While insisting that Russia immediately halt mobilization, Germany began its own mobilization; when the Russians refused the German demands, Germany declared war on the czarist empire on August 1."
I don't mean to imply that Germany or any country is blame-free, but WW1 doesn't feature any clear cut good-vs-evil simplification the way WW2 does.
If I'm going to blame anybody, I'll blame Austro-Hungary for deliberately designing their ultimatum to be unacceptable to Serbia. Why did they do that? Because they wanted war with Serbia.
So Germany had to honor their agreement with Austro-Hungary, and therefore had to violate Belgium's borders? If they had displayed as much honor and integrity toward Belgium as they did toward Austro-Hungary, that would have been a good thing. It's not "behaving honorably" when you only do it toward some.
So Germany had the choice: Fulfill treaty obligations toward Austro-Hungary, or observe Belgian neutrality, or do both and be at greater risk of losing the war. Arguably, they chose what worked out to be the worst (at least, the most destructive) of the three options.
In hindsight, yes, every German from that era would have made different choices. However, at that time, it was hard to anticipate the extent to which other countries would involve themselves. The Germans of that time probably anticipated that at least one/some of the following would have occurred:
a) Serbia would give in to Austria's demands
b) Russia would not fully mobilize and commit itself so fully to war with Austria
c) In the event of war with Russia/France, Belgium would grant Germany right of passage, and remain neutral in the war
d) The UK would remain neutral in the war
e) USA would remain neutral in the war
Each of the above was a coin-toss in terms of likelihood, and if any of the above came up in Germany's favor, a long drawn out war would have been averted. Unfortunately for Germany, every one of those diplomatic outcomes went against them. Could Germany have made better decisions, with the benefit of hindsight? Of course. But I think it's unfair to portray them as evil villains, the way the Nazis rightfully are.
Austria didn't declare war against Serbs (the ethnic group), but it declared war and invaded Serbia (the country in which only a part of the ethnic group lived). Moreover, Gavrilo Princip wasn't even a citizen of Serbia but the citizen of Austria-Hungary, and the assassination wasn't sponsored by Serbia either.
An interesting data is that the invading Austrian army consisted in large part of ethnic Serbs from Bosnia that were serving in Austrian army.
Yes, Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian by ethnicity, like almost half of the population of Bosnia at the time, a then recently annexed province that was previously occupied by Ottoman Empire (Turkey). In fact, there probably was few ethnic Austrians in Bosnia, since Austria-Hungary was an Empire that simply treated Bosnia and many other similar regions as colonies. So, Gavrilo Princip was a member of an underground indigenous movement who was fighting the colonial power. It is debatable whether it is terrorism or not (one side's villains are the other side's heroes), but it is a historical fact that Serbia (the country) didn't instruct him, nor helped him, nor the assassination was in Serbia's interest. Simply put, the Austria was eyeing to invade Serbia for a long time before that, and used the assassination as a pretext for invasion that was going to happen sooner or later no matter what. Serbia accepted many outrageous Austrian demands, but Austria still invaded...
The recent PBS series "The Great War" goes into considerable detail about the forces that influenced America into siding with England and France. Well worth watching.
If the US really was working from a 'rights of man' angle that the article suggests, it would have invaded Belgium a couple of decades earlier for what it was doing in the Congo.
The whole 'world cop' angle is such a fabricated myth; the US never goes to war on principle, only for its own benefit, like any other country.
So, I had always learned that the American Civil war was a foreshadowing of WWI, both the high number of casualties, and the entrenchment which was being utilized by the end of the Civil War... I knew about the Austro-Prussian and the Franco-Prussian Wars, but I didn't know about the casualties, OMG:
> Total casualties in killed, wounded, and missing broke 100,000, with Austrian losses nearly doubling those of the Prussians.
In two months of fighting? That's crazy, and at a 1-2 rate, definitely the end of the muzzle-loaded rifle.
> Combined casualties from the combatants (killed, wounded, missing) neared the 1 million mark.
In 9 months of fighting? That's insane. Those numbers far exceed the American Civil War, which was Approx. 650,000 for the entire four years. It should have been obvious to both France and Germany that WWI was going to be much much more deadly, they both had directly experienced it a generation before. It's sad this didn't give them pause.
This is a common mistake when reading about military history. Casualties are not deaths. It is the lose of fighters for a wide range of reasons (death, injury, illness, catpure, and etc).
Roughly 650k people were killed during the American Civil War, but the casualties were closer to 1.8mil.
Much of the casualty count of the Franco-Prussian War is related to the fact that France lost entire forces in engagements. Mass routes nearly always lead to inflated injury and captured counts which in turn leads to high casualties.
By comparison, few of the engagements were as one-sided in the American Civil War. The combat death rates were actually fairly close to each other over time (~160k/yr).
Both France and Germany (Prussia) had observers placed with the US and Confederate Armies during the US civil war, where observation balloons, quick-firing rifles (lever-actions), rail artillery, and other innovations were created.
They went back home, wrote reports, and were ignored by their leadership. Dooming the first several years of fighting in The Great War to be a repeat of all the other wars, with astronomical casualty counts on both sides.
I think they are erroneously including the number of men captured in the Franco-Prussian number. They aren't sharing sources for this article so it is hard to know but Wikipedia (which does source the number) lists 475,000 of that million number as prisoners of war that probably survived the war and were repatriated.
Well, even if you do divide it in half, that's still a rate of death of 500,000 a year. So using that as a way of estimating deaths of another conflict, it should have been enough to stop an actual war. That requires the people ruling the countries to actually care about the effects this would have on their own populations...
Sadly, even using that as an estimate it would have been off by more than half of how many would actually die.
Absolutely! I don't think your conclusions are wrong, it is pretty crazy that they would make that large of an error in the article. I assume they mixed up "missing" and "captured".
It is also worth remembering that everybody thought the war in 1914 would be short, there were very few people who thought it would drag out for years. All involved probably did some mental math based on actions like the the Franco-Prussian war and figured that the same level of casualties, or even twice as many, was worth it.
If they would have known, which we do with hindsight, that it was going to take 4+ years of fighting it may have never happened.
Agreed, but did they have any reason to believe it would be shorter than the Franco-Prussian War? I agree, they definitely believed it was going to be over quickly, but why would they have thought it was less than 9 months (easy to assume 500K killed based on previous experience). In addition to that, you had two countries that were literally preparing for this conflict for years, poking each other around the world up to that point.
I think anyone who thought it was going to be short, would have been completely ignoring all evidence that would have stated otherwise.
There were many reasons that they thought it might be short and quick. They didn't think the economies could take that kind of strain for a long time, they thought technology would make wars faster (British cavalry journals before the war thought the machine gun would help more than hinder the cavalry), and they just had too much faith in their first strike capability (France with plan XVII and Germany with Schlieffen plan).
The biggest problem was that it had been over 40 years since Europe had been at war. This meant that there was little evidence based study to do with new military technology advances and it was too easy to dismiss colonial conflicts (Boer War, Russo-Japanese War) as not indicative of what a general war in Europe would look like.
It is actually remarkable to hear some people argue that a world war today would be short (if it is non-nuclear) because of the same reasons.
> Agreed, but did they have any reason to believe it would be shorter than the Franco-Prussian War?
Yes. Germany came within spitting distance of Paris thanks to the Shlieffen plan, and was only hobbled at the eleventh hour by overextended supply lines.
Meanwhile, the Entente was counting on the Russian juggernaut, with its millions of men to overrun East Germany. The Russians saw great successes against Austrian forces, but met a complete disaster when they engaged the Germans. As it turned out, the Russian empire was a paper tiger - completely unprepared to fight a war.
Geany might be able to spit on Paris put taking it is ahole other problem. Germany was never actually close taking Paris.
Calling Russia a paper tiger is complely wrong, just because they were not quite as effective as Britain, Germany and even France does notean they were a paper tiger. Compared to Austria, Turkey amd even Italy they managed a efficent economy and had a huge well trained army. The problem was that the civilian government failed, the militay and economic side were suprisingly strong.
Would the war have actually ended early if Germany had taken Paris? With the British and Russians still unmolested on their own turf, wouldn't the French have tried to retake the city instead of surrendering? Or at least their allies keep fighting? (I realize this perception is colored by how it played out in WWII so I'm curious whether it would also apply to WWI)
The British expeditionary force was tiny, and the Russians were smashed. Neither could have fought on in Europe after France was eliminated.
Unlike WW2, it was also not an existential war - it was just another European conflict. An armistice gets signed, the losers pay reparations, everybody goes home.
I think the comment above is questioning the belief that France would have packed it in and called it a day if Paris was captured (I believe the answer is no) not what would have happened if France was out of the war.
In that case, they underestimate the importance of Paris as a center of bureaucracy, logistics, communication, as well as that of the fortifications between it and the border.
France may have been able to hold on for a while longer, but losing Paris would have almost certainly made an armistice the preferable option. It would not have been able to regain its territory, its industrial output and manpower would have been dwarfed by Germany, and its allies were in no position to offer assistance.
> It is also worth remembering that everybody thought the war in 1914 would be short, there were very few people who thought it would drag out for years.
The war happened because of that, largely (and the related belief that it would not only be short, but heavily favor the aggressor—a belief often referred to as "offense dominance"—which is why the first beginnings of readiness in response to crises set off an unstoppable rush to war.)
> Not only had the Prussians humiliated them on the battlefield, but they had marched through the streets of Paris – and if that wasn’t enough, they had taken the French territories of Alsace and Lorraine and added them to their Germanic realms.
Weeellll, Elsaß was German (i.e., part of the Holy Roman Empire) until 1639 & Lothringen was German until 1766. They were both retaken from France in 1871, retaken by France from Germany in 1919, occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940 and restored to France in 1945. Out of the past 1,000 years, Elsaß has been de jure German for 687 and Lothringen has been German for 814.
So describing them as French territories is a bit … Francophilic.
All the way down to Rome, occasionally. But please don't call the thing today's northern Italy was part of "Germany". That empire was an administrative framework for nomadic kings that had little to do with today's concepts of nation or ethnicity. If you can't do without mapping to current states, you have to pick Austria, because Vienna is where the Habsburg emperors had their main residence.
That's like listing how long Texas or California were part of Spain/Mexico. It's true, as history, but it wouldn't make the US any happier if those lands went back to Mexico. Current facts on the ground say that those are part of the US, and have been for over a hundred years.
Nobody is asking France to return Alsace-Lorraine, but in a historical article, one might expect at least a footnote to say that this wasn't just French territory! And I don't think the comparison with Texas is all that fitting: this particular territorial dispute goes back almost to the days of Charlemagne, with sovereignty changing numerous times. This isn't so much a case of "It was yours, now it's mine" as of "It was mine, then it was yours, then mine again, then yours again - now we can't really say whose it ought to be, but I still want it".
My point was that, no matter how many times it went back and forth, it had been France for over a hundred years. That's "just French territory" for most reasonable purposes.
(Except this is Europe, where a hundred years is not a particularly long time...)
I would advise people here to read 'The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'. It a wonderful book exploring the causes for WW1 and focusing on just that. I think the strongest part of the book is that it goes beyond reiterating the usual accepted causes (diplomatic isolation of Germany, push for war from the military circles) and explores the complexity of pre-war diplomacy without assuming inevitability of the war. I think this resulted into a more unbiased approach: instead of trying to explain what caused the war postfactum, the author instead tries to adopt the political outlook of the contemporary politicians which really helps with understanding why certain actions were made and why they made sense politically - like Austria-Hungarian ultimatum.
The other interesting thing about German unification is it led directly to the new nation deciding that universal health care should be a state sponsored thing.
The need for Germany to secure their left flank to avoid a two-front war and France's realization that it has nothing to gain from war with Germany also led to the creation of the European union in response.
The idea was to deeply intertwine their economies so neither nation would benefit from war with each other.
As for the US, their only objective is to prevent the rise of a dominant european power that can compete with them. e.g. WWI prevent germany from capturing france, WWII prevent germany from occupying russia (lend-lease) and then enter the war to prevent russia from occupying europe.
Nit pick alert ! The EU was created in response to the opportunity that the fall of the Soviets provided - to bind in and develop the economies of eastern europe. The binding of France to Germany was achieved with the European Economic Community, the removal of German military infrastructure and the comprehensive occupation of Germany by the UK, France, USSR and USA.
I don't see the USA as invested in preventing the rise of a European power that shares, approximately, the values of the USA. The USA entered WWII reluctantly, and the effect of it's entry was to shorten the war by many years, possibly a decade. Christ alone knows what the USSR would have looked like as the eventual winner in 1955. My thinking is, shattered in every conceivable way.
US decided only to commit to D-day when the soviets were gaining ground on the Germans. In fact by the time they made the decision to do that, the soviets had already liberated half of ukraine. 4 months after the decision, the soviets had liberated the whole of ukraine.
The soviets war machine steamrolled the rest of Germany and only US forces would be able to stop them from occupying the whole of europe.
Your explanation of US action fails the reality test. There is no evidence that the US acted to prevent a dominant power in Europe. They joined the war because Germany acted in a way that made it almost impossible for them not too.
Bear in mind that germany declared war on the US in december 1941 and the US took some time to mobilize, it was only in 1943 the US agreed to cross the channel and open a second front in may 1944.
This decision was made after the battle of stalingrad and battle of kursk which destroyed the German army ability to mount major offensives and when the soviets liberated half of ukraine. If they wouldn't have done this then the russians would still have captured Berlin in 1945 and there would be nobody to stop them from 'liberating' the whole of europe.
This second front wasn't needed, Germany was losing the war already. It was needed though to prevent the russians from occupying the rest of europe.
The combined state would be geographically secure, resource independent and demographically superior to the US.
I was talking about WW1. Wilson acted again the allies when he restricted financial transactions with them. The germans forced his hand with the Zimmermann telegram and unrestricted submarine warefare.
About WW2 I would say that the US wanted to invade Europe earlier but the Brits did not agree. Also it was completly impossible to do it earlier and that why the Brits didnt agree.
If it was all about stopping the Soviets, why would they give them that many weapons. The Soviets would have taken years longer without the blockade of Germany and Land-Lease.
In WWI the US finally intervened as Germany pursued unrestricted submarine warfare, directly ignoring US wishes. However, the US also realized that continental europe ignoring US wishes would be the default regardless of which party won. If Berlin won then the combined nation would be able to gain domination of the seas and therefore global trade. If the allied won, then they would have excluded america from world trade to rebuild their economies.
As for WWII, the US could have focussed on Japan but instead they had a Europe First strategy which involved denying nazi germany european hegemony. However, by the time they actually decided to invade it was clear Germany was already defeated by the soviets and it was a matter of time.
PBS just ran a 3 part "The Great War" which is an interesting documentary on the American perspective of WW1. It did strongly argue that America's entry into the war ensured the defeat of Germany.
There's some fun alternative histories to be written there. I would suggest that life in Africa, India and China in the late 20thC would have been significantly more unpleasant than it was. A chaotic and strongly resisted end to empire such as the one seen in Mozambique but involving billions rather than millions would not have been a happy story.
What's interesting to me here is that, it seems like a lot of the causes/triggers to WWI/WWII were due to conflicts between nations and/or assassinations. We don't necessarily have anything as big as 2 equal nations fighting, capitals getting invaded etc.
So does that mean WWIII will probably never happen given that we don't have any of of these crazy causes/triggers?
We certainly have these triggers and it's possible! The Middle East is in chaos, and it's causing conflict between US and Russia, as well as the China-US conflict.
Europe has been fighting vicious wars for centuries, climaxing in WW2. What's kept Europe peaceful since WW2 is the realisation that if they go to war again they might destroy everything! WW 2 was enormously destructive. However the US was not destroyed as Europe was by war, so they have maybe not learned these lessons yet.
Yeah, the only thing that US learned from WW1 and WW2 is that wars can be a great way to make money. Since then most of the wars that US started was due to economic reasons: either to control some valuable natural resources, like oil, or to punish the countries that refused to make business with them.
You are correct, the US does all of this, just like every great military power in history - and all wars are for economic reasons. States are not moral actors, they seek to expand their power and influence and it's up to us to keep them in check.
Forget ideology, forget politics, forget racism. It's just economics.
Also, when you say States, do you mean modern nation states? If so what about conflicts prior to the formation of the modern state... were these not wars? When a modern state is confronted by another actor - then?
But who will the US go to war with? It would have to be either China or Russia, both of whom learned the lessons of WWII at least as well as Europe did.
Some people would like to go to war with Islam, knock over a bunch of unstable Middle Eastern theocratic regimes, and essentially re-establish colonialism qua 'peace keeping operations' in a number of very resource-rich temperate countries, while denying strategic positional advantage to the other two actors you mention.
Other people would like to have the US go to war with itself and exploit its geographic advantages to set up a nuclear-shielded autarky and then immanentize the eschaton, partly from narrow tactical considerations and partly in fulfillment of religious prophecy/worldview.
I'm being a bit vague to avoid seeming too partisan or hurting anyone's feelings.
I wonder whats more profitable? Destabilization of major global (read: strategic/tactical capabilities wrt nuclear weapons) belligerents from "internal struggle", or engaging in endeavors that pit such belligerents against one another?
If a rational actor had to pick their poison (if one is maximizing for profit, one needs to live long enough or in a environment that well better support/help realize such), I'd suspect they'd pick the former, then use/co-opt the appropriate the effective popular indoctrination/social dogmas in such respective countries to foster such ends as a force multiplier.
Maybe more drawn out than proxy war to MAD campaign, but less is at risk tactically along the way (setting aside spontaneous break out of ICBM volleys in response to extended amazon 404's for a period of time, or something on such similar level) to achieve relatively similar strategic aims "governments" usually have their eyes on if they are in position of relative power asymmetry they can leverage agaisnt others towards economic gains.
I'm only an amateur historian but I'd say you're very wrong. I'll be surprised and happy if we avoid a major international war in the next 5 years. I will be astonished if we avoid one over the next 20.
Nice. My college history class started way before the Romans, stayed a long time on what it liked, ran out of time just after the French Revolution, and never got to the 19th or 20th centuries. So, for those two centuries, I've used books, video documentaries, Web sites, etc. The OP here is a nice contribution.
Many believe 1914 is a Bible prophecy... it is fascinating because some interpreted that the world would end on that exact year using numbers of years provided by a 3000 year old prophecy, and we actually got a world war. That would be like the Maya 2012 hype actually happening.
When talking about the world wars, it's fairly obvious that WWII occurred as a result of the consequences of the WWI peace treaty. So the question about what caused both world wars is really a question of what caused WWI. I happen to have been going back through this history recently, so it's well been on my mind.
There are many putative causes for WWI. Wilson, for example, favored the idea that secret treaties was what caused the mess to blow up, but the evidence is fairly against it (basically, everyone who was making the decisions either knew or correctly guessed what the countries were going to do, and the only real question in the July Crisis was what Britain would do, and the British themselves didn't seem to have made up their mind). Other theories include the idea of "timetable war": the timetables for mobilization were too inflexible such that starting them meant they had to be seen through to completion, but that's more of an excuse that the military gave to justify their actions. Franco-Prussian war comes up a lot, but as I'll shortly explain, France wasn't particularly in an offensive war mood.
To understand what caused WWI, it's helpful to see the state of the countries in the immediate years preceding the war. Britain was distracted with the Irish Home Rule crisis (so much to the point that the July Crisis didn't really get noted until after the Serbian ultimatum!), and many feared that revolution or civil war was imminent. France, for its part, had had its internal divisions sharply exposed by the Dreyfus affair, and the Third Republic was a succession of weak governments. With the memory of the Franco-Prussian war, plus a strong socialist/reactionary divide, and the embarrassing and very public Dreyfus affair, its army was heavily demoralized and was in no mood to fight an offensive war, particularly not against Germany with no allies. Russia had lost the Russo-Japanese War in a shocking defeat, and was using primarily French funds to rebuild and modernize their army (which was dooming the Schlieffen Plan, as Germany planned to knock out France while Russia was mobilizing its army). The Russian government very nearly fell after their lost loss in a war, and they didn't expect to survive the next war if they lost. Austria-Hungary was basically two countries (Austria and Hungary) who had to work together but couldn't due to deep internal divisions. Some elements of the government (including Franz Ferdinand) saw the Balkans as a way to solve the problem by creating a third internal division that could overrule Hungarian objections to everything. Italy was a weak power who everyone pretended was a great power. The Ottoman Empire was slowly crumbling and featured more or less the last virgin land for colonial expansion.
Last of all is Germany. By 1910, Bismarck's foreign policy had been completely torn up, and Germany saw itself surrounded by the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia. Its only allies were Austria-Hungary, which looked dangerously unstable if it lost a war, and Italy, which had more or less adopted a policy of be-friendly-to-everyone and couldn't be counted on to join in a war (in 1914, it did declare its neutrality). Internally, Germany had a rather sharp revolutionary/reactionary divide, a rather common feature in Europe. German foreign policy in the early 1900s was especially bad, as Germany started antagonizing most players, not helped by the tendency of Kaiser Wilhelm II to say things without consulting advisers or considering any coherent policy (which sounds unfortunately familiar to present times). Britain's traditional policy with respect to Europe had been to maintain a splendid neutrality and only intervene to maintain a balance of power on the continent; Germany hoped to convince Britain that France and Russia were greater threats and to bind itself to an alliance with Germany--which was shockingly naive, especially after Germany decided to try for naval parity with Britain in the naval race. The most Britain would have been willing to commit to would have been to stay out of certain offensive wars and to help mediate disputes and restrain other countries, which was far less than Germany wanted, given its fears of Franco-Russian two-front war.
In the lead-up to WWI, there are a series of instructive crises. The first is the Moroccan Crisis, when Kaiser Wilhelm objected to French influence in Morocco, with the hope of being able to break the Entente Cordial (prelude to the Triple Entente) between France and Britain. It didn't, and Germany found no one willing to support its side, so it was forced to back down with no real gains. A few years later, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, to which Russia stridently objected; this time, France and Britain convinced Russia to back down with no real gains from the issue. Then France moved to formalize its status in Morocco as a protectorate, to which Germany (not without reason) objected. Germany bungled the issue by asking for unreasonable demands in compensation (great way to lose support!), and was ultimately forced to settle with minimal compensation. Then Italy invaded the Ottoman Empire to get itself a colony in Libya, which convinced the Balkan minor states that it was finally open time to carve the Ottoman Empire up. The great powers were so terrified of the resulting destabilizing effects that they forced the war to a conclusion, but the Balkan states themselves, upset with who had gotten the spoils, immediately fought each other within a few months to change hands.
In these various crises, major powers had mobilized and prepared for war, sometimes as a bluff, sometimes a fear of war being declared on them (better to mobilize before war gets declared on you), and sometimes as a genuine attempt to get to war first. So when a Serbian terrorist assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, many observers more or less expected that yet another muddling-through would happen. So why didn't it?
It's worth noting that all the major countries had major internal divisions, and governments generally saw war as a way to bring their country in unity--and, ironically, also saw the divisions in other countries as indicating that they wouldn't come together in war (the first part ended up being the case--only the Ottoman Empire failed to see unity in the war, and even then, the Arabs mostly did decide to wait until after the war to move forward on their grievances). There was also a general sense, particularly among the military, that war was inevitable and that it should be timed opportunely. The change in the relative qualities of the armies mattered too: the German's war plan (emphasis on the singular) had them defeating France while Russia mobilized, so the fact that the Russian army was improving, and the military logistics in European Russia in particular were improving, meant that their time frame for defeating France was shrinking.
Ultimately, it was the July Crisis that started the war. Austria-Hungary, after dithering a bit, made up its mind to go to war against Serbia and crush it. The ultimatum it gave was made with the express purpose that it would be so insulting that it wouldn't be accepted. When Serbia did fail to fully accept the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary suddenly got cold feet, but the German high command pushed Austria-Hungary to actually declare war and defeat Serbia before anyone had time to respond. Even then, the initial reaction of countries like Britain and Russia was to try to push Austria-Hungary to achieve just a limited war ("halt in Belgrade"), which Austria-Hungary rejected. Russia's reaction was initially to mobilize against just Austria-Hungary, before the military convinced the tsar to include Germany as well. Germany seems to have made up its mind to go to war against Russia before the declaration of Russian general mobilization, although it delayed its announcement until after the war. Germany's war plan meant invading France and Belgium, and the Belgians and French made their preparations for mobilization for defense at the same time, although France was very careful to maintain that the war would be purely defensive for the purposes of British opinion. Italy decided it couldn't handle another war in the aftermath of its Libyan campaign, and declared its neutrality fairly early on. Britain throughout the entire crisis dithered and essentially deadlocked on whether or not to go to war. The German invasion of Belgium provided enough incentive to get Britain to join the war against Germany (the Germans were distraught, having thought the entire time that Britain would remain neutral).
So what caused the war? In the end, it's hard to boil it down to a single statement that does justice to the situation. My best attempt is that WWI was caused ultimately because the people who had been keeping the peace suddenly decided to not do so this time. There are many reasons why the countries thought that war was justified, indeed potentially useful, and there are many reasons why the countries ended up dividing Europe into two main opposing alliances. Such a situation, however, need not lead to war: the Cold War is a great example of how a dueling alliances need not break out into general war (and the reasons why are similarly debated).
I strongly take issue with the idea that peace treaty of WW1 caused WW2. The treaty wwas dead in the water before Hitler ever came to power.
WW2 happend because a fascist party managed to gain power after the greatest economic crisis in german history. This is somewhat related to WW1 and the Peace Treaty but saying the Peace Treaty is the reason is not substainable.
> I strongly take issue with the idea that peace treaty of WW1 caused WW2. The treaty wwas dead in the water before Hitler ever came to power.
Hitler's prestige within Germany was strongly bolstered by his ability to unwind provisions of the Versailles treaty. For example, the remilitarization of the Rhine valley (demilitarized by Versailles), the annexation of Austria (forbidden by Versailles), or the reestablishment of military conscription.
The problem is that by the time Hitler did this stuff the Treaty was already full of holes, totally defunct, and France already had to garantie not to take the same kind of military action again.
So yes, it is true that it gave Hitler prestige put Hitler had already a lot of control of the state and was already preparing for war at that time.
The war happened because Hilter and co wanted war. Hilter came to power because of a economic crisis. The rest is just Hitler gambling again and again, not the root cause.
> I strongly take issue with the idea that peace treaty of WW1 caused WW2. The treaty wwas dead in the water before Hitler ever came to power.
The treaty directly led to the economic crisis which led to Hitler coming to power; even if the treaty was dead by then, it's work in setting the stage for WWII was done.
No not really. If anything one could argue that Germany was not willing to devaluate because it would increase debt. However it would have still been smart to do.
Both the hyperinflation and the great depression did not happen because of war payments, maybe one could argue the german political class did stupid things because of the treaty.
Probably the best podcast I've ever downloaded, and insane that it's available for nearly free.
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