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.
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.