Since the author also released "How to be childless – A history and philosophy of life without children" I think I'll have to expect a lot of framing baked into this, including accidentally/intentionally leaving out contexts.
Note the "fueling" of "Nationalism", "committed" atrocities on the German side, while the French side only gets confronted by "wild rumors" and "accusations".
At that time Nationalism was a force for good throughout Europe demanding more egalitarian rights for citizens, democracy and separation of state powers, but also promoting independence of other nations as nationalists of one nation even travelled to other countries to support their Nationalists, for instance to Poland in support of their protests against Tsarist rule.
She leaves out this context, as well as that the French state (throughout being an ancien regime as well as being run by Napoleon) was waging multiple anti-German wars, basically treating the lands to its east like its Hinterland in need of Franconization (E.g. At the end of the 18th century just about 1% of the Elsassians spoke French, and even in 1953 80% of Elasassians were in favor of German speaking public schools).
She also seems to leave out the context, that Bismarck was an aristocrat and thus anything but a nationalist. And since she seems to be in need to see (or letting us see) the word nationalism in todays western liberal meaning, that whole differentiation seems inaccessible to her.
Germany "refrained from ethnic cleansing" (written as if this was some sort of novelty for Germans) because they considered the occupants German. The mild peace-conditions were given by Germany because Bismarck knew that anything else would foster even more French resentment then there already was („Toujours y penser, jamais en parler"), which would then foster more German nationalism, which in turn would hurt his Juncker-Class.
> Since the author also released "How to be childless – A history and philosophy of life without children" I think I'll have to expect a lot of framing baked into this, including accidentally/intentionally leaving out contexts.
I'm a bit lost. How does this relate to the rest of the comment?
I think because advocating for not having children is often something that progressives do and as such the author could be biased against nationalism, no matter the historical context.
I'm not sure how you relate this article to an unrelated book on being childless.
Nevertheless, it is true that Prussian imperialism ultimately was a disaster for Germany. I'm not sure how that relates to a "French side", unless you also want to say that there was an "Austrian side", a "Polish side", a "Danish side", etc.
> At that time Nationalism was a force for good throughout Europe demanding more egalitarian rights for citizens
That aspect of nationalism was dead since 1848 in Germany, in no small part due to Prussia. In fact, the 2nd reich was illiberal, with a parliament which was mostly powerless.
> She leaves out this context, as well as that the French state [...]
The book is about 1870. France had been mostly powerless and diplomatically isolated since 1815. But yeah, nice irredentist propaganda.
> Nevertheless, it is true that Prussian imperialism ultimately was a disaster for Germany.
As long as Germany had a competent leader, they could engage in smart offensive moves and improve its standing. And they could have continued doing so.
The problem was strategic leadership fell into the hands of idiots and they backed the Austrians without a clear strategy beyond 'our armies smash'.
> In fact, the 2nd reich was illiberal, with a parliament which was mostly powerless.
Not really. Bismark had to spend huge amount of effort on managing the parliament. And they were constantly pushing into things and increasing their own power.
Even during WW1 the importance of the parliament is underestimated.
Here is the deal. Good diplomacy you have to back and forth. Make both feel like you want to support them if only they did X/Y. But what Germany did was not even trying to preserve the relationship.
There is a balance there. Not allowing the Austrian to make war in the Balkans is pretty basic, and that's all that was needed. What was Austria gone do, not like they have other options. Worst case Austria and France make a deal, but given the terrible state of the Austrian army this isn't a thread, and it would open up better relations with Russia.
German had all the cards and simply played them in a bad way.
These kinds of causality creations usually only work if you - like i said - leave out details, which is the moment when someone leaves the historical factual and enters the creation of histography, something that has always flourished around the french revolution.
By this logic we get a clear causality by which Napoleon gave us Hitler.
Why stop at Napoleon? Unless you are British, for them Napoleon is the devil. I'd say Cesar gave us Charlemagne, who gave us Napoleon who gave us Hitler! And Cesar was clearly manipulated to do so by Cleopatre. In that scenario you can even blame a woman for everything.
Really? Napoleon gave Europe his civil code, formed the various German noble ruled entities into modern, by its day, kingdoms and proto nations, some that do exist in some form till today.
He was ultra expensionist, and militarily very, very successful. And come on, every army back then pillaged when marching, including the various coallition armies. Heck, the German states, excluding Prussia, were actually really happy with Napoleon, until the wind changed after Napoleons defeat in Russia.
No idea why Brits are still but hurt by Napoleon, first they win, then they fight two world wars as close allies of France and they still don't like them because Napoleon came close to bring the Empire down centuries ago...
> He was ultra expensionist, and militarily very, very successful.
The places where he expanded into do not appreciate it at all. Places he visited while marching do not appreciate it at all. Pretty much all mentions of Napoleon in my country are of the "and destroyed by Napoleon in" kind.
> And come on, every army back then pillaged when marching, including the various coallition armies.
That does not make anyone appreciate Napoleons one.
Well, even napoleon himself failed to properly appreciate that (hindsight: why go after Russia if the British are the problem and there, only, army is sitting in Spain at the moment?). But true, all coalitions against the French were organized by Britain.
Well, Prussian Imperialism went well until 1918. Quite a run, if you ask me. Not saying it was a good thing, but at the time it achieved Prussias goals.
There is a tendency to paint one beligerent of any given war as evil and the other(s) as good. That didn't even work for WW1, it does for WW2, the evil side clearly is the axis. When looking closer so, no side in WW2 was truely good. On the allied side there was Stalins USSR, bombing of civilians and the like. On the Axis nothing to defend so, especially the Germans started a world war with a planned and intentional mass tenocide at its core fornno other reason than murdering all jews in Europe.
1870, and in 1914, things were different. War was still an accepted way of conducting state business. And those used to be way less devastating than WW1 turned out to be.
The axis powers were the aggressors invading their neighbours, that in itself is hugely significant - there's a massive difference between being a french soldier (fighting to stop an invader) and being a german one.
On top of that, the axis powers committed huge atrocities in places like Belgium - murdering entire villages and so on. I genuinely don't understand this "moral relativist" outlook that has been applied since - it is pretty clear to me that the axis side were the evil ones, being both the aggressors and committing the major atrocities of the war.
The Axis didn't exist in WW1, that was the Central Powers Germany, Austria and the Ottomans. You see how two of those didn't exist anymore during WW2? And the Entente, there were no Allies neither during WW1, included Japan and Italy. Go figure.
And there is nothing morally relativist about stating the fact that the "guilt question" of WW1 is very, very different from WW2. The Versaille Treaty made that answer very simple, too simple and too one sided. Understably at the time for sure, but it doesn't hold up to proper analysis.
Once the Balkan powder keg blew up, everyone declared war. Which at that time was custom, ever since people tend to just send armies right away. So whether or not you are a soldier fighting an enemy on his or your soil is an academic question, when you are officially at war.
Do no, it doesn't even work remotely for WW1. Unless of course, you oversimplify things and have your judgement clouded by WW2.
If anything Versaille was to weak and the answers not clear enough.
German/Austrian alliance were clearly the aggressors and the German/Austrian were very aggressive unleash the armies into Serbia and Belgium.
One can argue that Russia partially mobilized first (in the border region), but unlike in the German case, they were still willing to do diplomacy for a lot longer.
Britain in fact did try to use diplomacy and Germany was the power preventing any such settlement.
Versaille was either to harsh or too weak, exactly what you don't want. It also was the only realistic thing back than.
I just don't apply modern, post WW2 moral principles on going to war at WW1. Sure, the Austrian approach to the Serbian situation was just plain stupid, as was Germany backing them. Bit it was totally understandable from their point of view. After all, back then, before the trench warfare hell started, everybod still thought it would something like back during Napoleon's days and in 1870 or the Prussian-Austrian war (people tend to overlook the fact Germany and Austria were not always close allies), you send ypur army, besiege some cities, meet in an open field battle, or multiple, the winner takes what he wants and the looser, including the population, accepts the outcome for the time being. Rinse and repeat. Still war, still bad, bad far from the hellscape modern turned out to be. WW1 was a true watershed in history, one we tend to fail fully appreciate as it is overshadowed by WW2 in every aspect.
> Versaille was either to harsh or too weak, exactly what you don't want. It also was the only realistic thing back than.
No it wasn't. In fact, it took a massive amount of influence by Wilson himself to make it so. So much infect that Wilson actually was forced to promise a military alliance to France just so France would go along with it.
Many influential figures in French were very well aware that the treaty was toothless. Foch being a leader of that group was absolutely convinced that the Ruhr region would have to be taken to insure French security, and he was right.
At the same time in the US, the Republicans, who were totally shut out by Wilson also believed that the war should continue and Germany would have be totally defeated.
Wilson was the problem. Wilson first refused to be part of the alliance. Second he then essentially forced the allies to accept the armistice based on his 14 points, something that he simply couldn't actually promise with France and Britain as 'allies'. French went along with it partly because they thought the armistice would put them in a better position as Germany was blockaded.
Wilsons arrogance and his rejection of real alliance with France and Britain allowed the German to wedge themselves in between and get a favorable deal.
The Wilson instead of fully embracing a version of the League of Nations lead by the victorious powers of US, France, Britain all allied together (as the UN became) and instead based everything on a notion of equality and collective security. A concept that was purely theoretical and most political scientist then or now didn't think it made sense.
Wilson also was reluctant to put to much debt on Germany, while also firmly rejecting any debt based deals Britain proposed for collective debt forgiveness. And beyond that there was no effective vector put in place to punish Germany for not paying.
> I just don't apply modern, post WW2 moral principles
Not sure what modern principles you are talking about. I am applying real politic principles that existed then too.
> Napoleon's days
The Napoleonic wars were horrible with a huge number of deaths. But still in a single day, Napoleonic battles had huge casualties. And lots and lots of people hard realized that the advances in artillery would mean even more deaths.
What you are talking about is the short war illusion. But this is partly debunked by historians. Many people, knew that the war would be incredibly blood and likely not all that short. Even Molke the Elder said that the concept of these small wars he was winning was gone end and 'people's wars' would be the norm in the future.
There were also the examples of the Crimea War and the Russo-Japanese War and the War of 1870 also showed that it could turn into a much bigger peoples war.
Also, WW1 wasn't horrible because of trenches, but simply because modern war his horrible. Casualty rates in WW1 aren't that different from places like the Normandy in WW2. And that was evident in the Russo-Japanese War as well.
The idea that WW1 trenches were some revolutionary thing that fundamentally changed warfare isn't really correct. What was 'revolutionary' about WW1 was the scale and the resources involved.
Sorry, I just odn't understand how this can be morally relativist.
- Germany declared war on Russia - and France. Not the other way around
- Germany invaded neutral Belgium and committed atrocity after atrocity there to international outrage - which you seemed to ignore as a factor?
- France and the UK fought almost the entire war in france defending france from invasion. When Germany finally gave up on invading france the war ended.
It really seems pretty clear cut. The "both sides are as bad as each other" argument doesn't stand up at all?
Presumably, you also think that Ukraine and Russia are equally culpable.. despite that one side is clearly the aggressor and badly behaved actor that initiated the war. And it is a good parallel - if it were not for fear of nuclear annihilation that conflict could easily have escalated by now to include western powers more directly - similar to how WWI did. That doesn't mean "both sides are equally culpable, there's not bad side".
And yes with the benefit of hindsight Versailles was counterproductive, but that was later - we're talking about the war itself not the aftermath. Versailles shows that France and Britain thought Germany was responsible for the war and the "bad" side pretty strongly.
I have no idea why you come to the conclussion I think Ukraine is guilty... If anything, I think Russia didn't do anything different than the US and NATO did since the war on terror started.
Once war is decleared so, and given the historical lack of formal declarations I refuse to take the timing of those as abreal factor in judging guilt, it doesn't really matter if you prefer offense or defense. And I never did, and never will, excuse, compare or relativise war crimes. And yes, no doubt when it comes to crimes against civilians the Central Powers were much worse than the Entente.
My point being, the guilt question was made too simple at Versaille. Which I understand. If the war wouldn't have been as long and as devastating, those terms might have been different. We tend to apply the crystal clear question of guilt from WW2 on WW1. That is a fallacy so, understandable to a degree since the belligerents where very, very similar, as were the battlefields in Europe (and sure, lets just ignore the Pacific Theatre of WW2 in this context), and WW2 is much more present in collective memory. Fact is so, WW1 happened before, had completely different basis and context, socially, technologically, militarilly and politically.
And of course France and Britain thought the way they did, why wouldn't they?
Versaille had flaws, serious ones. As one French General put it, it wasn't a peace treaty but rather a cease fire for the next 20 years (he nailed it, didn't he?). Any stronger measures so, e.g. post-WW2 style occupation of Germany, was out of the question so. France tried in Saarland, and failed. Heck, the Entente settles for Versaille instead of pushing into Germany at the end of WW1. And they had their reasons for that.
TLDR: WW1 was bound happen no matter, tensions were too high across Europe. The question of guilt is far from easy, and doesn't equate moral superiority of either side. As history shows, the whole thing blew up in the Balkans, and Germany and Austria just happen to have "started" WW1. Also, the timing of declarations of war is utterly pointless in deciding guilt.
All I am taking issue with is this belief hat "both sides are as bad as each other" and "it just happens that Germany started it but really guilt is equal".
I've stated facts - that in our reality, Germany did primarily start the war, Not Britain or France. It was a war of aggression and attempted conquest by Germany, and a war of defense and survival for France. That's reality and that has a huge input into the "was there a right side and a wrong side" question - exactly the same as Ukraine today, which is why I brought it up. I just don't see how you can get from this to "they were both as bad as each other".
It is not the case that in some alternate reality the war could have easily been started by France or Britain. First, there's a reason why France built the Maginot line and Germany didn't bother with building one - because everybody expected that Germany would be the aggressor. Britain would have no reason to mount such an aggressive war on continental Europe and France would have been too weak. So I doubt this counterfactual would ever have happened.
Secondly, imagine it all happened again today. That Germany invaded France. Surely France would undertake the same actions (ie defend itself) and I would expect that the UK and US would be allies seeing as it is being attacked by a destabilising aggressive power.
Britain and France were morally correct and the great war was a "just war" from their perspective. "Britain and France are just as guilty as germany" is just modern bunkum.
You got one fact wrong so, it was Austria-Hungary that did start the war. It was them who did everything to create a casus belli in Serbia, despite Serbia agreeing to basically all of Austria-Hungary's demands. If you need an evil party to point your finger at.
Not sure what to make of the rest of you post so, if already ignore everything about the beginning of WW1, and still come to simple, clear cut conclusions on guilt based on the Versaille treaty, written by the victors and signed by the loosers, of which only Germany was still left, whom surrendered unconditionally.
Edit: The Marginot line was built after WW1 to prepare for the ultimate round two of WW2. You seem to confuse those two conflicts to a certain degree.
It's a long discussion, but in my opinion, Imperial Germany suffered the same failure as the Napoleonic empire: a failure to acknowledge that their imperialism caused diplomatic tensions, and that they could not eat their lunch and keep their neighbours happy. Bismarck tried to freeze Europe in that situation, but that was unsustainable, and ultimately it failed and left Germany in a bad diplomatic situation when WW1 started.
It's not about judging whether that particular was evil or not, it's about acknowledging that its diplomatic policy was doomed to fail.
> Bismarck tried to freeze Europe in that situation
No he didn't, he was quite flexible in his approach as for what was needed at any point in time.
> it failed and left Germany in a bad diplomatic situation when WW1 started.
Not really. Germany was in a fantastic situation when he left. And even by WW1 Germany wasn't in a bad situation. Relationship with Britain had been improving for years. Relationship with the Ottoman had also been improving. British French relationship wasn't that close. And British Russian relation were a disaster.
The reality is Bismark did brilliantly and the people that came after him were idiots.
- Building a huge North Atlantic Navy, rather then a smaller Baltic Navy.
- Instead of Balancing Russia and Austria going all in on Austria
- Creating international crisis over irrelevant issues to bring France/Britain, Russia/Britain closer together.
And then to start the War did the dumbest possible things and instantly made sure Britain was on the other side.
> Instead of Balancing Russia and Austria going all in on Austria
That was already Bismarck's choice : he signed a secret deal aligning Germany with Austria in case of conflict, and jeopardized his relations with Russia at the Berlin conference.
> And then to start the War did the dumbest possible things and instantly made sure Britain was on the other side.
Britain would have been on the other side regardless, already in 1875, Britain and Russia were more likely to align with France if Germany sought a preventive war.
It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. For the time, it worked fine. The Bismarck had no sqy in adapting it, and there is no way to tell if would have been able to do so if he were allowed, can hardly be blamed on Bismarck.
But I agree, Europe most likely was bound to blow up anyway. Bismarck at least tried to prevent that. Sure, most likely until he thought Prussia could win, but try, and succeed, he did. As much as he was a non-democrat, people got the Nobel Peace Price for less.
I honestly have no idea why people paint Napoleon as a proto-Hitler (mostly Brits, which is strange since Britain defeated him) and Bismarck as some kind of either incompetent idiot or yet another stepping stone that got to WW2. I don't know, maybe those people mix up Bismarck and Hindenburg in their imagination, because the actually did put Hitler and the Nazis in power.
Prussian imperialism was failing from 1914 when they failed to reach Paris and force France to surrender. Moltke the Younger recognised this at the time, but it took 4 years for rest of the German High Command to see it, and for the Allies to get their act together. Even if the German spring offensive in 1918 had succeeded, it would have only pushed the British Army back across the Channel, it wouldn't have stopped the British naval blockade which was crippling Germany, nor would it have stopped the build-up of US troops in France.
Agree, Germany lost WW1 when they failed to capture Paris and kick France out of war. And they lost WW2 when the same happened with the USSR at Moscow. That being said, the Entente got their act together as fast as Germany and Austria did in WW1. Without means to break static defenses, the stalemate at the Western and Italian fronts was a certainty, in hindsight. Wars of movement, in the East during WW2 went rather well for Germany. Especially after the shipped Lenin there, but this isba whole bunch of different cans with different worms.
I'll have to read up on that period again, so what I say might very well getting some things wrong. Prussia, under Bismarck, was very much on its way to form a proper Nation. It fought multiple wars, including against Austria-Hungary. Also true, Bismarck saw the risk of a global, and disastrous conflict if the European powers were not balanced well, hence his, IMHO, ingenious system of mutual alliances, non-aggression pacts and the like that was designed to isolate whatever nation started to declare war on others. This is something especially Americans seem to totally miss, the same way Brits have a biased view on Napoleon.
What allowed WW1 to happen, among a lot of other reasons, was Wilhelm II's dismanzling of Bismarks alliances and treaties.
Also true, despite giving Prussia its first social insurance system, Bismarck was an aristocrate through and through, and by no means a democrat.
But drawing a direct line from Bismarck, to the war of 1870, ober WW1 to WW2 goes to far. Heck, that lone is already sketchy if one tries to link the Nazis directly to WW1, going even further back is somewhat misleading.
Edit: To emphasize, my comment is related to the article, explicitly not the book discussed in said article which I didn't read. Overall, I like it when wars are looked at and analyzed from different perspectives than battles and the like. So, I think the book authors approach of covering those aspects, and she does have some body of work for that on tha war of 1870, is a very interesting and important one.
> What allowed WW1 to happen, among a lot of other reasons, was Wilhelm II's dismanzling of Bismarks alliances and treaties.
That's a commonly held view, but Bismark is partly responsible for the inability of Germany to win WW1. He was the one that set up pre-WW1's alliances, and especially, he was the one that alienated Russia with duplicitous diplomacy. That policy, which culminated at the Berlin conference is, ultimately, the thing that allowed France to break from its diplomatic isolation.
On the contrary, it was Bismark's successor who wrecked the private non-aggression deal between Russia and Germany by initially agreeing to its continuation and then suddenly pulling out. Bismark succeeded in diplomatically isolating France, his successors succeeded in uniting France first with Russia and then with the UK.
Robert Massie's book "Dreadnought" does a thorough and impressive job of explaining the long background to the tragedy of WW1.
> it was Bismark's successor who wrecked the private non-aggression deal between Russia and Germany by initially agreeing to its continuation and then suddenly pulling out.
They pulled out because it was doomed. Germany had to choose between Russia and A-H, and that choice was made well before Bismarck's retirement, at least since the Berlin conference.
From that point, the Russian-German alliance was a walking-dead. There are russian sources citing frustration and depreciating the alliance before Germany formally broke it.
Bismarck, and that is my take, was one of the few people as it turned out, that understood fully well that Germany / Prussia was in no position to ever win a two front war in Europe. He also seems to have understood that fast, quick wars, like the war of 1870, was the only kind of war Germany could win. And that those wars were a thing of the past. hence his well balanced system of treaties, including secret ones, to reduce the likelihood of that happening.
And France getting out of isolation was actually a good thing, or at least not a bad one. Or was France, after 1870, on the attacking side of any war? It wasn't. it wasn't even involved in a lot of wars not forced upon it by others until the futile attempts to hold on to the colonies post WW2.
And no, Bismarck did not set-up the pre-WW1 alliances, the alliances in place leading up to WW2 were not designed by Bismarck. Those alliances were the result of Wilhelm 2's actions in dissolving the rather ambiguous Bismarck system, which led to the building of the Prusso-German-Austrian block on one side and the British-French-Russian one on the other. Exactly what Bismarck wanted to avoid, and did as long as he had a say.
EDIT: Prussia, and Germany general, was only able to win quick wars. Everything else required allies, and that fact was already by Frederick the Great and driven home clearly by the Napoleonic wars. The reasons are, in a nutshell, the fact any prolonged war will inevitably be a two front one. That Prussia didn't have the necessary resources for a prolonged war. And that without secured access to the sea, any colonies Prussia / Germany had were basically useless. And that access was a non-started as soon as the Royal navy, or even the French one later, got involved. So in the end, either Prussia / Germany won quick and decisively, or it was outgunned, outnumbered and outresourced on two fronts. Bismarck had nothing to do with that, that is caused by geography.
And history showed us the Germany was well able to win on one front: The Eastern one in WW1 and the Western one, initially, in WW2. Throw in a second one, and the war is lost. Or rather not winning quickly on the second one, and the war is lost (as shown by Barbarossa's failure to defeat the USSR at Moscow, and even then it is doubtful the USSR would just have rolled over). Funny side effect of that: the German armed forces, and as an extent, but to a lesser degree, German industry suck at logistics and supply chain management to this very day.
> that understood fully well that Germany / Prussia was in no position to ever win a two front war
Here is the thing. Germany was in position to win a 2 front war by 1914. We take the word of German generals (who made lots of mistakes) for granted.
What they could win is a war where Britain and US invested massive resources against them.
The reality was that the French army was utterly ineffective on offense until 1918 and lost way more men then Germany in offensives. So the French army could certainty have been contained on the German border even with a 1:1 force commitment (or less). And the French could certainty not push threw Belgium the way the Germans did as that would ruin their relationship with Britian. The Franco-German border would have been hell to attack.
And Russia after 1905 was clearly very weak politically. The were massive issues with nationalities and peasant-landlord relations that could be exploited.
If Germany had a limited objective of splitting Finland, Baltics and Poland away from Russia (and Western Ukraine if all goes) it would have been a very different war.
German can make good propaganda about Russians being the aggressor and flood British/US newspapers with Russian soldiers burning East Prussian homes (and worse) and then counter-attack.
Thanks to overwhelming artillery (and shell) production they can push threw the Russian as quickly as logistic allows (not very quickly). Remember, Russia had basically no domestic shell production in 1914. They were massively lucky the overwhelming effort was on France. Take look at what happened in 1916 when they actually focused on the Russians, artillery was overwhelming. This would have been far more the case in 1914.
They could have capture the major part of what they want, in 1914/1915 and then defend or focus on Ukraine.
How many millions of French would run head first against the defense before they would want to settle? What British poletican is gone say 'Germany is mainly fighting Russia but lets raise 5 million men to run against the German army so France can get back what it lost in 1870'.
And the propaganda writes itself, German army frees Jews, Pols, Lithuanians, Fins from Russian yoke. Something that would be massively popular in both Britain and US.
Germany and Austria assuming Britain and the US are neutralish would win against Russia and France. That what we really learn from WW1. Without British money neither France, Italy or Russia could have fought as long as they did in the first place.
Well, Germany one, initially one front each per world war. All it took for the stalemate in the West to settle in was the British being allied with the French, and then Germany couldn't realistically win in the West anymore.
But yeah, had the Germans played it smarter, things could have ended differently in 1914. Thing is, they didn't.
Also, the US played a much smaller role in WW1 than people think, Germany lost too early for the USmilitary and numbers to make much of a difference. Most, almost all, of the fighting by the Entente in West was done by the French and British.
> then Germany couldn't realistically win in the West anymore.
They don't need to win in the West. That's my point. Germany has no interest in the West. The only thing they care about is stopping the French from passing over the border.
> Thing is, they didn't.
My point was, the analysis that 'Germany couldn't win a 2 Front war' is wrong. Its central to German conception of strategy in that period and it was incorrect.
The overestimated both France and Russia in terms of their abilities.
> US played a much smaller role in WW1 than people think
Actually is played a much bigger role. Read Adam Tooze book 'The Deluge'. The US economy was essentially fully mobilized by Britain with the help of JP Morgan.
And once they joined they provided even more. That's why after WW1 the US was basically a financial super-power.
And the military reserves were very important, and influenced allied strategy.
There is some truth to it. In WW1, they had a lot to loose in the West and little to win. They tried anyway (maybe because to preempt any invasion from France, no idea...). In WW2, if it wasn't for ideological reason, they had little to win in the East.
I forgot who said it, but there truths to it: The Germans are tactically brilliant, operationally lacking and strategically bankcrupt. I am German, working in international environments, and I see parallels in industry.
There aren't many books on that war, for sure. I recently read one of them. This sounds like a pretty weak history:
> the Germans won because they were more effectively organised, better trained and mobilised more men than the French.
That sounds like a non-military opinion. Most of the battles in that war were "battles of encounter," where some units just happened to fight, and then the local commanders escalated it. The Germans always devolved more power to their commanders to act based on local conditions, while the French had a sluggish, top-down organization. John Keegan in Six Armies in Normandy calls that art operativ, as the Germans put it.
At the very least that sounds like “more effectively organized” to me.
It’s interesting that the Napoleonic wars include a similar running theme, but with the shoe on the other foot: fast-moving, aggressive French organized into independent corps vs staid, conservative Austrians and Prussians.
This is also the story of the second italian war of independence, a few years earlier , where the same Napoleon III and French army were successful against Austria-Hungary.
There were important, even decisive "soft factors", as well. E.g., literacy among common solders and even officers was much higher in German forces, which has impact on communications, the ability to navigate troops, etc.
(At least, this was deemed an important factor in French post-analysis. – "The Culture of Defeat", orig. "Die Kultur der Niederlage", by Wolfgang Schivelbusch has a great chapter on this.)
The author doesnt seem to be a traditional "military" historian, her CV lists books related to war, but more focusing on mobilization and civilians. So that makes sense.
As a war college graduate myself, I'd agree and disagree. Wars are ultimately won and lost in the terrain of the human mind. People are defeated when they believe in their collective minds that fighting is no longer worth it. That's straight from Clausewitz. But militaries in wars ultimately create the conditions which facilitate those thoughts, and are the primary drivers of who wins and who loses.
To say that the military aspect of a war is the "least interesting part" betrays an anti-military bias. But it is true that the military aspect of a war is not the only aspect which is necessary to understand how and why a war was won and lost, and its long-term effects on the belligerent nations.
Believe me, I don't have an anti-military bias. I read the stuff compulsively. I hosted an author at Google who wrote about Clausewitz (and if I hadn't, no one else would have and he wouldn't have come).
I was thinking that the causes of the war, the unification of Germany as a result, the Paris Commune, and the lasting enmity in the French as a result of losing Alsace-Lorraine are all more "interesting."
Fair enough. I'd agree that long-term, the causes and effects of a war matter more. They're just caused to occur largely (though not exclusively) by the effects on people's psyches of military action happening on the battlefield. Military history is an unpopular genre these days, and I think part of it is the whole "oh, you joined the military, you must have been stupid and had no other options" prejudice. Which is alive and well in well-educated places like here. My apologies.
Who was the author? I'm curious. I took my courses via correspondence, and didn't have the chance to get a Masters (not that an MS in National Security and Strategic Studies would help in tech). But it always struck me how much Clausewitz is misinterpreted in popular culture as the "wars are politics by other means" guy, when he meant that as only one side of a Hegelian dialectic.
I’m surprised to hear there aren’t many good books on the war given how significant it was in shaping Europe. That was impressed upon me in high school European history.
Feels weirdly incomplete without any mention of this, even if "ostensibly on grounds of Prussian provocation" isn't really wrong, apparently leadership on both sides was in a state of preferring war over peace (please insert an appropriate amount of expletives while reading!).
I never bought into the narrative that somehow the wily Prussians 'tricked' the poor French into declaring war on them.
Yes the Ems Dispatch was editorialised - but at that point France had already decided they would declare war if Prussia didn't agree to their demands.
I'm not entirely sure what other options Prussia had at this point, accept to humiliate themselves further by accepting all French demands (that no Hohenzollern would ever be permitted to be a candidate on the Spanish throne for the rest of time).
People will believe anything they want about casus belli, so long as it suits their politics. A week ago, someone here on HN was trying to convince me that the US State Department had a conspiracy to start the Ukraine war.
If people really want to do something, they find reasons / excuses. And if people want to really believe something, thebdo so too. The latter quite often leads to BS conspiracy theories. The former to false flag operations, lies, propaganda and very real conspiracies (the Suez Crisis comes to mind).
If you want to understand 20th and 21st century European history, you really do need some background in the Franco-Prussian war. There's obviously no specific moment when Germany became ascendant. It was a process that took several hundred years, going back to the efforts of Prussia to distinguish itself amongst the member polities of the Holy Roman Empire.
But the war did solidify or make official many important features of 20th century Europe. Namely, Germany as a unified whole with a German speaking core that defines its contemporary borders, the centralization of the rivalry between France and Germany, Germany as the dominant military and economic power of Europe, the stabilization of French Republicanism sans monarchy, the relative irrelevance of the Austrians, the end of a common belief in great power stabilization as a long term objective in favor of a more manichean struggle for dominance, etc.
I have read about it on Wikipedia and such, and am puzzled about how it started - by a perceived insult? There must be so much more to it that have not come across in my brief readings about it. Perhaps because it was so long time ago it os difficult to understand certain concepts that today seems insane to declare war for
If you read up on how wars historically got started the only thing you can conclude is that the people that somehow gravitate towards positions of power in autocratic countries are the last people that you want to have with such power. War is essentially inevitable once such a character takes over.
A Hohenzollern (ruling house of Germany at the time) had been offered candidacy to a Spanish throne. France agitated that this should not happen, Prussia relented, than France pushed the issue even further saying that not only was it disallowed this time, but that it should be disallowed for any Hohenzollern to do this until the end of time. That was a bridge too far for Prussia - who refused - so France declared war.
The revisionism that somehow Bismarck tricked France into war with the Ems Dispatch comes from people trying to backport Hitlerism 60 years into the past.
This is called the Sonderweg theory . . . the idea that Germany somehow followed a unique historical path which none of the European powers did and which made Hitler's emergence more or less inevitable.
It's basically crap, as it blames the Germans for what happened even beyond the guilt which they should carry as the nation which elected Hitler into power. It denies the idea that such a dictator could dupe other nations into fascism, and that's both inaccurate and a dangerous assumption to make. It's basically a high-class academic version of "well, that could never happen HERE!"
It's complicated but most of it comes down to two things. First, was Napoleon III's domestic situation. He had fashioned himself as a second Bonaparte and there were two main aspects to Bonapartian politics, domestic modernization and foreign domination through military victory. While Napoleon III had succeeded quite well at the former (really exceeding his uncle) he had only moderate foreign successes and a few blunders to his name. Napoleon III and his ruling clique became convinced that a good old fashioned European land war was the only thing that could keep France united and legitimize the second French Empire. And there may have been some truth to this. Regardless, they saw it as vital to maintaining the "Empire" which they believed had brought France out of a dark historical period.
Second, was what about what German unification did to what we call "The Balance of Powers". "The Balance of Powers" is a concept that things are good when there are several European powers who have relatively balanced economic and military powers. But that things get very bad when one power becomes dominant and seeks to annihilate or mortally wound its counterparts. It was a concept favored by the high born, elite educated aristocrats who made up the ministers in Europe's Empiral bureaucracies. To this view, things which might disturb his balance are bad and things which maintain the balance are good.
For over a century, the unification of Germany had been one of those "bad" things which might come to pass. It loomed as a boogieman over the old European, "Balance of Powers". Independently, the German speaking states of Northern Europe had become the most economically developed parts of the continent. There was a feeling that if they joined together, their economic power and as a consequence, their military power would eclipse all of Europe. And this was not just the feeling of the French. The Russians were concerned about this question. And the Austrians too. They had the most complicated situation of all because many of the German states had been part of The Holy Roman Empire which had Austria had dominated. As the German states rose, many Austrian aristocrats benefited but they also understood this rise as a threat. Thus they had worked against German unification for decades.
I think the French figured that smashing an infant German state before it had time to develop cohesion was there best chance to avoid German domination. This of course was a blunder. The war pushed Southern German States into unification and created the popular basis for a cohesive German nation.
Now, regarding the infamous "insult" which was the French excuse for war. The insult itself is not really important. The French and Germans both were eager for the war. France for the reasons stated above, Germany for the reason that they figured it would bring the South German states into their union. The French were looking for a reason and Bismarck with his publication of the Ems Dispatch obliged them. In the end, it could've been almost anything.
As a foot note, there is a ton of debate about whether "The Balance of Powers" was really the product of the magnanimous wisdom of conservative ministers or whether it was just an inescapable reality which they accepted, it being simply too hard to project power at the scale necessary to dominate all of Europe at this time. Regardless of its root intention, "The Balance of Power" is something we see at work in European politics. The treaties that ended European wars from the thirty years war until the Franco-Prussiian war were rarely very punitive. Usually they attempt to give the victor some kind of upper hand but they don't usually involve measures that another power might feel they truly cannot accept. They indeed often look as though they are trying to create some kind of stable peace.
"The Germans drew different lessons. Believing that unification had come about as a result of military competence, they mapped the future of the German Empire in terms of military power. Thus, Chrastil concludes, German victory in 1871 became catastrophic not just for Germany but ultimately for the rest of the world."
My impression is that that lesson was NOT drawn at the time by the German A-listers, and especially not by Bismark - the AAA-list genius behind both this victory, and Germany's long process of unification. Bismark was very public, both before and after the Fraco-Prussian War, in his general opposition to European wars. Especially larger or longer wars. And he was very opposed to risking Germany getting caught in a two-front war.
But then Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm I got old and died, and was soon succeeded by his grandson, Wilhelm II - who didn't like Bismark's cautious foreign policy. Wilhelm II wanted vigorous & rapid expansion, to enlarge Germany's (and his) place in the sun. Bismark, who was getting a bit old & unsteady himself, was replaced in 1890 with a new German Chancellor, more to the young Kaiser's liking.
Note that both WWI and WWII stuck Germany in large, long, two-front European wars. And that Germany got into WWI under the same Kaiser (Wilhelm II) who had dumped Bismark for being too cautious and anti-war.
> Wilhelm II wanted vigorous & rapid expansion, to enlarge Germany's (and his) place in the sun. Bismark, who was getting a bit old & unsteady himself, was replaced in 1890 with a new German Chancellor, more to the young Kaiser's liking.
Otto von Bismarck was very adept at putting together treaties and alliances to hold things at bay or in stasis until Prussia could benefit. Bismarck understood to have limited objectives--Bismarck had a plan--Bismarck always had a plan.
> To be fair, it wasn't clear that even Bismarck could have kept all the plates spinning indefinitely.
The biggest plate (the Russian alliance) was already falling when Bismarck was replaced, it hit the floor when German diplomats decided Bismarck's two-faced policy was unsustainable.
This aligns with what I've read in Robert K Massie's "Dreadnought". It feels odd to title the book "Bismarck's War" and then come to that lesson. It should really have been titled "Wilhelm's Lunacy".
Wilhelm's obsession with a massive fleet to compete with England lost any hopes of forming an alliance with them and resulted in Germany being seen as a threat. Having a large fleet puts you at odds against England no matter what - that is their last line of defense. It's interesting to think what might have happened had Germany abandoned any aims on a massive navy and focused all those resources on it's army instead. My hunch is no mis-alignement with England and a very different looking world today if that happened.
> It's interesting to think what might have happened had Germany abandoned any aims on a massive navy and focused all those resources on it's army instead. My hunch is no mis-alignement with England and a very different looking world today if that happened.
I don't think so. The biggest mistake Germany made was letting its alliance with Russia lapse in 1891, in favor of trying to snag an alliance with the UK, which wasn't interested in one (Britain favored a policy of neutrality on the continent). This leads France to seize the opportunity and ally with Russia in 1894. A series of colonial issues leads the UK to realize around 1900 or so that not having any allies wasn't exactly a good thing, especially when you've got lots of people you're butting heads against.
Wilhelm was an absolute wrecking ball when it came to diplomacy. His tendency to show support for anyone fighting the British in colonial ventures in the late 1890s (especially the Boer War) couldn't have helped any chance for a UK-German alliance. It's only after tentative attempts to come to an agreement break down in 1901 that the naval arms race actually becomes an issue in UK-Germany relations: indeed, it's not really until dreadnoughts make the existing fleets (lopsidedly in favor of the UK) obsolete that German navy buildup actually poses a threat to the UK. The treaties the UK does enter into are less military alliances than they are colonial tension defusing, and Wilhelm's tendency to do the opposite would have likely made any formal UK-Germany treaty rather short-lived.
The naval arms race mostly takes place after the UK-German treaty attempts ended, and redirecting that money to a larger army would probably have pushed UK even harder into the Franco-Russian camp: during its period of continental isolation, its greatest fear is that of a second Napoleon, who conquers most of Europe and shuts the British out of it. A stronger German army makes that look more plausible, and aligning against Germany helps avert that catastrophe.
> I don't think so. The biggest mistake Germany made was letting its alliance with Russia lapse in 1891
The alliance lapse was forced by then, the issue is that Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two historic German allies, were competing for influence over the Balkans. Bismarck, rather than taking a side or remaining neutral, tried to become the arbiter of that dispute, and led a duplicitous diplomacy towards Russia. That was largely due to his attempt to freeze Europe in a diplomatic state that benefited Germany, rather than acknowledging the changing nature of diplomacy and trying to find new allies and a new balance.
By 1891, German diplomats were faced with a tough choice: either continuing a two-faced policy which was doomed anyway, since Russia was not stupid, or acknowledging that and letting the alliance lapse.
I hear echoes of "every power is a prisoner of its last victory". You can see the same thing in Soviet and American Cold War doctrine, but also in the way that just about everybody started WWI (and why the casualties were so horrific).
By the time WWI rolled around, German veterans still in service were almost exclusively veterans of colonial wars. However, just about everybody from the Kaiser and central command down to the rank and file believed that a war against other Europeans would (and should) be fought differently from those colonial wars. Thus, the military philosophy that they thought won the Franco-Prussian war was brought to the present with very little modification, but enacted by people who had never actually seen its use.
This still happens today, too. Look at the volume of tanks that NATO countries shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan. What tank losses occurred were predominantly from infantry, because there were simply no enemy tanks available to engage.
> This still happens today, too. Look at the volume of tanks that NATO countries shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan. What tank losses occurred were predominantly from infantry, because there were simply no enemy tanks available to engage.
"Fighting the last war" has been another way I've heard it referred to. It is why, for instance, I didn't agree with the US DoD curtailing the F-22 purchase plans in favor of more counter-insurgency focused efforts.
As to tanks in Iraq/Afghanistan, lets not get tricked into thinking they were useless because there were no tanks for them to fight. They proved supremely useful as mobile pillboxes or observation posts, that could sit somewhere and use their sensor suites that were far and away better than the binoculars or nvg's a solider could put to their face.
First the war in Ukraine showed us that tanks are obsolete, not. Noe it shows us manned aircraft are obsolete, and I go out on a limb and say those are neither. A javelin doesn't replace a tank, and a dronw doesn't replace attack aircraft and helicopters. What we in the West have tonaccept so, and that is difficult for public that grew up post-Vietnam, is that even our top notch, ultra hightech military hardware can and will be destroyed in a war. And that includes everything from submarines over cruiser to aircraft carriers, from tank over helicopters to fighters and bombers. The only reason we didn't see losses there since Korea / Vietnam is kind of wars the West fought since.
The quote is pure nonsense as is most historical narratives.
> Believing that unification had come about as a result of military competence
It did.
> they mapped the future of the German Empire in terms of military power.
All empires are created in terms of military power. In what terms was the german empire supposed to compete against the british, french, russian, american, japanese, etc empires? The statement cannot be dumb because it's devoid of substance. It's literally a meaningless statement.
> Thus, Chrastil concludes, German victory in 1871 became catastrophic not just for Germany but ultimately for the rest of the world.
How was it 'catastrophic' as without it, germany wouldn't have existed? Also, 'rest of the world'? Germany's rise and germany's role in ww1/ww2 primarily affected germany's neighbors. Just because it was catastrophic for parts of europe doesn't mean it was catastrophic for everyone else. It's the same nonsense like 'the world is against russia' when most of the world is on russia's side or neutral. Like they all read from the same propaganda manual.
Germany being divided in South and North Germany (or eventually forming a somewhat loose federation) wouldn’t exactly have been a tragedy for the German nation.
It was not the Prussians and Germans that declared war first in WW1, that honour belongs to Austria-Hungary. There were too many people at the time who wanted that war for various reasons for it not to happen ine way or the other. Some French wanted Alssace-Lorraine back. Austria wanted the Balkans. Germany wanted to settle tensions with Russia before the latter cought up enough to make that impossible (again, history showed the reasoning was largely correct), Russia did want Austria to get the Balkans and Britian was bound by alliances they needed to maintain their colonies. Not to forget the Ottomans, they and the Russians wanted the same patches of land along the black sea. And the Ottomans and British wanted the same land across North Africa.
WW1 was almost guaranteed to happen, if anything Bismarck's treaties might have delayed that.
> It was not the Prussians and Germans that declared war first in WW1, that honour belongs to Austria-Hungary
Of course. Because Germany had their back. If AH was in weaker position it might not have evencome to that because they would have been more willing to compromise in general.
AH would be also allied/aligned with the South German state(s) which would’ve meant that its relations with Prussia would have been cold and antagonistic if not openly hostile.
> There were too many people at the time who wanted that war for various reasons for it not to happen ine way or the other.
In some ways it’s a direct outcome of what happened in the 1870s.
No unified Germany, would have meant there would’ve been much lesser need to form alliances to contain it (e.g. Russia and Prussia would’ve probably been allies/much closer since they both hated AH)
Which makes a Franco-British rapprochement much less likely (Britain was generally pro-Prussia in 1870 after all). Also in the future UK would’ve likely aligned with Prussia/North Germany just to maintain the balance of power in Europe.
All in all.. yeah there would still be war, we’d just be more likely to see a higher number smaller scale conflicts instead of something like WW1.
No unified Germany, which it only became after WW1, would have meant the German states were up for grabs by what ever large powered had territorial ambitions. And how something like that plays out was demostrated by the 30 Years War.
Austria was very willing to go to war in Serbia alone, it did help that Germany wanted to go to war with Russia. And Russia was very willing to go to war with both, Germany and Austria. After all so, as I said earlier, reasons for war in Europe were plenty. And everyone thought these wars would have been quick affairs like the war of 1870. Turned out everybody was wrong.
Regarding potential history if Germany didn't unite, I do not speculate. Especially since I doubt history would have been any better anyway.
> German states were up for grabs by what ever large powered had territorial ambitions
You’d still have North Germany Prussia and Austria aligned South Germany which would’ve been fairly strong power in their own right and none of the major powers (especially Britain) would’ve any interest in allowing the other to gobble up neighboring German states (that didn’t matter as much back in the 1600s due to technological/logistical/economic/etc. reasons)
> Austria was very willing to go to war in Serbia alone,
Austria was certainly not willing to go to war with Russia alone.
> After all so, as I said earlier, reasons for war in Europe were plenty
German overconfidence about their capacity to wage a war on two fronts possibly being the main one.
Also no unified Germany would have meant that France and Britain wouldn’t have had that many reasons.
But you said yourself that in your scenarion Austria would be allied with South Germany. And you conviniently forget the Ottoman Empire. Sure, WW2 history is much better known, and the Ottomans didn't exist by then anymore. But still, the Ottomans went to war against Russia by themselves, and were actually allied with Germany and Austria in real life. Also not to forget, not that long before WW1 Britain and Russia went to war over Crimea.
But sure, if your world looks better when everything can be blamed on Germany since, at least, Bismarck, by all means go for it.
Regarding Germany confidence, I mentioned that more than once, didn't I? Germany had one shot, they tried with some variation of the Schlieffen plan. They failed, but were too comitted to stop. Not that the Entente wpuld have been ready to negotiate a peace treaty to begin with.
But let's speculate, and pick an other evil war mongering nation responsible for the misery of the world, one that is equally redicioulous. The British Empire. Had Napoleon not tried to defeat Russia, but instead comitted to defeat the British in Spain, he could have formed a united nation in central Europe out of France, Spain, the various German Kingdoms and maybe even Austria as a very close ally. As a result, no German nation to behin with, hence no Hitler and no WW2 in the form we know it. So, the Brits are at fault, especially Wellington withbhis audavity to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo! See how that is completely laughable? History doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it did happen the way it did for a reason. What ifs are completely pointless, understanding why things happened the way they is very important so.
They didn’t. Britain and France went to war with Russia to stop it from dismembering the Ottoman empire.
The war over Bessarabia, Crimean just happened to be nearby and it was very strategically important in the region.
> when everything can be blamed on Germany since, at least, Bismarck, by all means go for it.
I’m not “blaming” Germany, just saying that its unification disrupted the balance of power in Europe. Many of the things which led to WW1 were mainly a reaction to that.
> So, the Brits are at fault,
Why do you think I’m try to blame on anyone for anything?
> What ifs are completely pointless,
They might be fun. I don’t believe we can just assume that history is 100% deterministic.
> understanding why things happened the way they is very important so.
> Germany being divided in South and North Germany (or eventually forming a somewhat loose federation) wouldn’t exactly have been a tragedy for the German nation.
Germany's late development was indeed a tragedy for the german nation. Compared to france, britain, russia, etc, their inability to unite and compete relegated germany to a 2nd rate nation forever and the german nation has little say in world affairs compared to britain, france and russia. There is a reason why britain, france and russia are permanent members of the security council while germany isn't.
> And it likely would’ve meant no WW1
WW1 was a result of interests outside of germany. WW1 happens regardless of where germany exists or not.
To be fair, had Germany not become unified, the next big war would likely have been between Russia and A-H, earlier than 1914. It's hard to imagine what history would have become after that, especially whether a WW1 would have happened.
This perspective might be true for the Europeans and north Americans, but
by the same ( imho stretched ) reasoning the Franco-German War lead to the downfall of colonial empires and therefore liberated significant parts of the world.
Not to mention the parliamentarians, press , and the people in the streets in France who clamored for war. Napoleon III was actually hesitant to go to war
Note the "fueling" of "Nationalism", "committed" atrocities on the German side, while the French side only gets confronted by "wild rumors" and "accusations".
At that time Nationalism was a force for good throughout Europe demanding more egalitarian rights for citizens, democracy and separation of state powers, but also promoting independence of other nations as nationalists of one nation even travelled to other countries to support their Nationalists, for instance to Poland in support of their protests against Tsarist rule.
She leaves out this context, as well as that the French state (throughout being an ancien regime as well as being run by Napoleon) was waging multiple anti-German wars, basically treating the lands to its east like its Hinterland in need of Franconization (E.g. At the end of the 18th century just about 1% of the Elsassians spoke French, and even in 1953 80% of Elasassians were in favor of German speaking public schools).
She also seems to leave out the context, that Bismarck was an aristocrat and thus anything but a nationalist. And since she seems to be in need to see (or letting us see) the word nationalism in todays western liberal meaning, that whole differentiation seems inaccessible to her.
Germany "refrained from ethnic cleansing" (written as if this was some sort of novelty for Germans) because they considered the occupants German. The mild peace-conditions were given by Germany because Bismarck knew that anything else would foster even more French resentment then there already was („Toujours y penser, jamais en parler"), which would then foster more German nationalism, which in turn would hurt his Juncker-Class.