World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
have differed over the relative emphasis they place upon the factors involved. Changes in historical arguments over time are in part related to the delayed availability of classified historical archives. The deepest distinction among historians remains between those who focus on the actions of
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
as key and those who focus on a wider group of actors. Meanwhile some historians, such as Fischer, maintain that Germany deliberately sought war while others do not. The main distinction among the latter is between those who believe that a war between the " Great Powers" was ultimately unplanned but still caused principally by Germany and Austria-Hungary taking risks, and those who believe that either all or some of the other powers, namely
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
,
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
and
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
, played a more significant role in risking war than had been traditionally suggested.
Given the catastrophic consequences of the war, and its far-reaching social, political and economic implications, the origins of the war, and in particular who "caused" the war, remain heated questions.
1914–the Color books
As soon as the war began, the major nations issued "
color books
In diplomatic history, a colour book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or pas ...
" containing documents (mostly from July 1914) that helped justify their actions. A color book is a collection of diplomatic correspondence and other official documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, and to promote the government position on current or past events. In wartime or times of crisis, they have especially been used as a propaganda vehicle, to justify governmental action, or to assign blame to foreign actors. The choice of what documents to include, how to present them, and even what order to list them, can make them tantamount to government-issued propaganda.
In the early 17th century,
blue book
A blue book or bluebook is an almanac, buyer's guide or other compilation of statistics and information. The term dates back to the 15th century, when large blue velvet-covered books were used for record-keeping by the Parliament of England. The ...
s first came into use in England as a means of publishing diplomatic correspondence and reports. They were so named, because of their blue cover. During the time of the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
in the early 19th century, they were being published regularly. By the second half of the century, Turkey began publishing its own version in red, and the concept of color books spread to other countries in Europe, with each country using one color: Germany using white; France: yellow; red: Austria-Hungary (Spain also used red later, as did the Soviet Union); green: Italy; gray: Belgium; orange: Netherlands (and Tsarist Russia). This concept spread to the Americas as well, with the United States using red, Mexico: orange, and various countries in Central and South America using other colors; it even spread as far as China (yellow) and Japan (gray).
''
The German White Book
''The German White Book'' (german: Das Deutsche Weißbuch) was a publication by the German government of 1914 documenting their claims for the causes of World War I. B.W. Huebsch, ''The German Army in Belgium: The White Book of May 1915'' (1921). ...
'' appeared on 4 August 1914, and was the first such book to come out. It contains 36 documents. Within a week, most other combatant countries had published their own book, each named with a different color name. France held off until 1 December 1914, when they finally published their '' Yellow Book''.
Other combatants in the war published similar books: the ''
Blue Book of Britain
In diplomatic history, a colour book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or pas ...
Yellow Book of France
In diplomatic history, a colour book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or pas ...
'', and the ''
Austro-Hungarian Red Book
In diplomatic history, a colour book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or pas ...
French Yellow Book
In diplomatic history, a colour book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or pas ...
(), completed after three months of work, contained 164 documents. These works of propaganda aimed to convince public opinion of the validity of their rights. Unlike the others which were limited to the weeks before the start of the war, the Yellow Book included some documents from 1913, putting Germany in a bad light by shedding light on their mobilization for a European war.
Some of the documents in the Yellow Book were challenged by Germany as not genuine, but their objections were mostly ignored, and the Yellow Book was widely cited as a resource in the
July crisis of 1914
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, Causes of World War I, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on 28 June 1 ...
.
It turned out after the war was over, that the Yellow Book wasn't complete, or entirely accurate. Historians who gained access to previously unpublished French material were able to use it in their report to the Senate entitled "Origins and responsibilities for the Great War" as did ex-President Raymond Poincaré. The conclusion set forth in the report of the 1919 French Peace Commission is illustrative of the two-pronged goals of blaming their opponents while justifying their own actions, as laid out in two sentences:
Later, publication of complete archives from the period of the July crisis by Germany, Britain, and Austria, as well as some from Soviet archives, revealed some truths that the Yellow Book conveniently left out. In particular, was Yellow Book document #118, which showed a Russian mobilization in response to Austrian mobilization the day before on 30 July, but in fact, the order of mobilization was reversed; Russian mobilized first. After a contorted explanation by
Quai d'Orsay
The Quai d'Orsay ( , ) is a quay in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Place de la Concorde. The Quai becomes the Quai Anatole-France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai Branly west of t ...
, confidence in the Yellow Book was ruined, and historians avoided using it.
In his essay for the April 1937 issue of Foreign Affairs, Bernadotte E. Schmitt examined recently published diplomatic correspondence in the and compared it to the documents in the ''French Yellow Book'' published in 1914, concluding that the Yellow Book "was neither complete nor entirely reliable" and went into some detail in examining documents either missing from the ''Yellow Book'', or presented out of order to confuse or mislead the sequence in which events occurred. He concluded,
In the German ''White Book'', anything that could benefit the Russian position was redacted.
1918–1930s
Straight after the war Allied historians argued that Germany was solely responsible for the start of the war: a view reinforced by the inclusion of '
war guilt
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
' clauses within the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
.
In 1919, the German diplomat and former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow went through the German archives to suppress any documents that might show that Germany was responsible for the war and to ensure that only documents that were exculpatory (favorable to the defendant, in this case, Germany) might be seen by historians.Herwig, Holger. "Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany", pages 153–159, from ''The Outbreak of World War I'', edited by Holger Herwig.
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. As a result of Bülow's efforts, between 1923–27 the German Foreign Ministry published forty volumes of documents, which as the German-Canadian historian
Holger Herwig
Dr. Holger H. Herwig (born 1941) is a German-born Canadian historian and professor. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including the award-winning, ''The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918'' and ''The Origins of World ...
noted were carefully edited to promote the idea that the war was not the fault of one nation but were rather the result of the breakdown of international relations. Certain documents such as some of the papers of the Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was the chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I. According to biog ...
which did not support this interpretation were destroyed.
Hermann Kantorowicz
Hermann Ulrich Kantorowicz (18 November 1877, Posen, German Empire – 12 February 1940, Cambridge) was a German jurist.
He was a professor at Freiburg University (1923-1929), and a Visiting Professor, Columbia University (1927), as well as at ...
, one of the few German historians who argued in the 1920s that Germany was responsible for the war, found that the Foreign Ministry went out of its way to stop his work from being published and tried to have him fired from his post at
Kiel University
Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...
. After 1933, Kantorowicz who as a Jewish German would have been banned from publishing, was forced to leave Germany for his "unpatriotic" writings. With the exceptions of the work of scholars such as Kantorowicz, Herwig has concluded that the majority of the work published on the subject of World War I's origins in Germany prior to
Fritz Fischer
Fritz Fischer (5 March 1908 – 1 December 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I. In the early 1960s Fischer advanced the controversial thesis at the time that responsibility for the outbreak of the ...
's book ''Griff nach der Weltmacht'' was little more than a pseudo-historical "sham".
Academic work in the English-speaking world in the later 1920s and 1930s, blamed the participants more or less equally. In the early 1920s, several American historians opposed to the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
such as
Sidney Bradshaw Fay Sidney Bradshaw Fay (13 April 1876 in Washington, D.C. – 29 August 1967 in Lexington, Massachusetts) was an American historian, whose examination of the causes of World War I, ''The Origins of the World War '' (1928; revised edition 1930) remains ...
Harry Elmer Barnes
Harry Elmer Barnes (June 15, 1889 – August 25, 1968) was an American historian who, in his later years, was known for his historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. After receiving a PhD at Columbia University in 1918 Barnes became a prof ...
produced works that claimed that Germany was not responsible for war. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which had seemingly assigned all responsibility for the war to Germany and thus justified the Allied claim to
reparations
Reparation(s) may refer to:
Christianity
* Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation
* Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin
History
*War reparations
**World War I reparations, made from G ...
, was invalid. A feature of American "revisionist" historians of the 1920s was a tendency to treat Germany as a victim of the war and the Allies as the aggressors. The objective of Fay and Barnes was to put an end to reparations imposed on Germany, by attempting to prove what they regarded as the moral invalidity of Article 231. The exiled Wilhelm praised Barnes upon meeting him in 1926. According to Barnes, Wilhelm "was happy to know that I did not blame him for starting the war in 1914. He disagreed with my view that Russia and France were chiefly responsible. He held that the villains of 1914 were the international Jews and Free Masons who, he alleged, desired to destroy national states and the Christian religion."
The German Foreign Ministry lavished special "care" upon the efforts of both Fay and Barnes with generous use of the German archives, and in the case of Barnes, research funds provided by the German government. The German government liked Fay's ''The Origin of the War'' so much that it purchased hundreds of copies in various languages to hand out for free at German embassies and consulates. The German government allowed books that were pro-German in their interpretation, such as Barnes's ''The Genesis of the World War'', to be translated into German while books such as Bernadotte Schmitt's ''The Coming of War 1914'' that were critical of German actions in 1914, were not permitted to be published in Germany.
Chapter 10 of Wilhelm II's ''Memoirs'' is entitled "The Outbreak of War". In it the Kaiser lists twelve "proofs" from the more extensive "Comparative Historical Tables" that he had compiled, which demonstrate the preparations for war by the Entente Powers made in the spring and summer of 1914. In particular he alleged:
:(5) According to the memoirs of the French Ambassador at
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, M. Paléologue, published in 1921 in the ''Revue des Deux Mondes'', the Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militza told him, on July 22, 1914, at Tsarskoe Selo, that their father, the King of
Montenegro
)
, image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Podgorica
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, official_languages = M ...
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. ... You will take Alsace-Lorraine. ... Our armies will meet at
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
. ... Germany will be annihilated."
In a different approach,
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
in his pamphlet ''Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism'' portrayed the war as
imperialist
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
, caused by rivalries triggered by highly organised financial monopolies, that by frenzied competition for markets and raw materials, had inevitably brought about the war. Evidence of secret deals between the Tsar and British and French governments to split the spoils of war was released by the
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in ...
in 1917–18. In the 1920s and 1930s, more socialist works built on this theme, a line of analysis which is still to be found, although vigorously disputed on the grounds that wars occurred before the
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
era. Lenin argued that the private ownership of the means of production, in the hands of a limited number of capitalist monopolies, would inevitably lead to war. He identified railways as a 'summation' of the basic capitalist industries, coal, iron and steel and that their uneven development summed up capitalist development.
The
National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
approach to the question of the war's origins were summed up in a pamphlet entitled ''Deutschkunde uber Volk, Staat, Leibesubungen''. In 1935, the British ambassador to Germany, Sir
Eric Phipps
Sir Eric Clare Edmund Phipps (27 October 1875 – 13 August 1945) was a British diplomat.
Family
Phipps was the son of Sir Constantine Phipps, later British Ambassador to Belgium, and his wife, Maria Jane (née Miller Mundy). Henry Phipps ...
, summed up the contents of ''Deutschkunde uber Volk, Staat, Leibesubungen'' which described the origins of the war thus:
"Not Germany, but England, France and Russia prepared for war soon after the death of Bismarck. But Germany has also guilt to bear. She could have prevented the world war on three fronts, if she had not waited so long. The opportunity presented itself often—against England in the
Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...
, against Russia when she was engaged against Japan... That she did not do so is Germany's guilt, though a proof that she was peaceful and wanted no war."
In the inter-war period, various factors such as the network of secret alliances, emphasis on speed of offence, rigid military planning,
Darwinian
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...
ideas and a lack of resolution mechanisms were blamed by many historians. These ideas have maintained some currency since then. Famous proponents include
Joachim Remak
Joachim Remak (1920 Berlin – Santa Barbara, Cal., 2001) was a historian of Modern Europe, especially of Germany and World War I.
Born in Berlin, Germany, he fled Nazi Germany in 1938 for the United States. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in history ...
and
Paul Kennedy
Paul Michael Kennedy (born 17 June 1945) is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He has published prominent books on the history of British foreign policy and great pow ...
. At the same time, many one-sided works were produced by politicians and other participants, often trying to exculpate themselves. In Germany these tended to deflect blame, while in Allied countries they tended to blame Germany or Austria-Hungary.
The Fischer thesis
In 1961, the German historian
Fritz Fischer
Fritz Fischer (5 March 1908 – 1 December 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I. In the early 1960s Fischer advanced the controversial thesis at the time that responsibility for the outbreak of the ...
published the controversial '' Griff nach der Weltmacht'', in which Fischer argued that the German government had an
expansionist
Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military empire-building or colonialism.
In the classical age of conquest moral justification for territorial expansion at the direct expense of another established polity (who of ...
foreign policy, formulated in the aftermath of Social Democratic gains in the election of 1912 and had started a
war of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor san ...
in 1914. Fischer was the first historian to have full access to the entire remaining German World War I archives. Previous historians had only been able to access heavily edited archives that had been created in order to support the view that war was the inevitable product of the breakdown of international diplomacy, rather than the end result of German expansionist ambitions.
He was the first to draw attention to the War Council held by the Kaiser Wilhelm II and the top military-naval leadership of the ''Reich'' on December 8, 1912, in which it was declared that Germany would start a war of aggression in the summer of 1914. The Kaiser and the Army leadership wanted to start a war at once in December 1912, but heeded objections from Grand Admiral
Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussi ...
, who supported the idea of starting a war but argued that the German Navy needed more time to prepare and asked that the war be put off until the summer of 1914. The Kaiser agreed to Tirpitz's request. In 1973, the British historian John Röhl noted that in view of what Fischer had uncovered, especially the War Council meeting of December 8, 1912, that the idea that Germany bore the main responsibility for the war was no longer denied by the vast majority of historians, although Fischer later denied claiming that the war was decided upon at that meeting.
Annika Mombauer
Annika Mombauer (born 1967) is a historian best known for her work on General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. She is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History in the History Department at the Open University in Great Britain, and Associate Dean ...
in contrast to Röhl observed in her work on Helmuth von Moltke that despite a great deal of research and debate "there is no direct evidence to prove that military decision-makers understood December 1912 as a decisive moment at which a future war had been agreed upon".
Fischer's discovery of Imperial German government documents prepared after the war began, calling for the ethnic cleansing of Russian Poland and German colonization to provide Germany with ''
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'' (living space) as a war aim, has also led to the widespread acceptance by historians of continuity between the foreign policies of Germany in 1914 and 1939.
Fischer alleged the German government hoped to use external expansion and aggression to check internal dissent and democratization. Some of his work is based on
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was the chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I. According to bio ...
's
Septemberprogramm
The ''Septemberprogramm'' (, literally "September Program") was a memorandum authorized by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I (1914–18). It was drafted on 9 September 1914 by the Chancel ...
which laid out Germany's war aims. Controversially, Fischer asserted a version of the ''
Sonderweg
(, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe.
The modern school of ...
'' thesis that drew a connection between aggression in 1914 and 1939. Fischer was later to call Bethmann-Hollweg the "Hitler of 1914". Fischer prompted the ''Primat der Innenpolitik'' ("primacy of domestic politics") school, emphasizing domestic German political factors. Some prominent scholars in this school include
Imanuel Geiss
Imanuel Geiss (9 February 1931 – 20 February 2012) was a German historian.
Life
Imanuel Geiss was born in Frankfurt am Main, the youngest of the five children of a working-class family affected by the economic crisis. His unemployed fathe ...
,
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler (September 11, 1931 – July 5, 2014) was a German left-liberal historian known for his role in promoting social history through the " Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th-century Germany.
Life
Wehler was bo ...
,
Wolfgang Mommsen
Wolfgang Justin Mommsen (; 5 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was a German historian. He was the twin brother of historian Hans Mommsen.
Biography
Wolfgang Mommsen was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grands ...
and
Volker Berghahn
Volker Rolf Berghahn (born 15 February 1938) is a historian of German and modern European history at Columbia University. His research interests have included the fin de siècle period in Europe, the origins of World War I, and German-American rel ...
.
In a major 2011 conference entitled "the Fischer Controversy 50 Years On", a group of historians and academics debated the legacy of Fischer's work. The conclusion was that "...a consensus emerged that Fischer had got it right in attributing 'a significant part of the historical responsibility for the outbreak of a general war' to Germany and that Fischer's thesis of the continuity of German war aims still stands fifty years later." Yet by August 2014, many new books had appeared which by their divergent views collectively continue the controversy.
Opposition to the Fischer thesis
The "Berlin War Party" thesis and variants of it, blaming domestic German political factors, became something of an orthodoxy in the years after publication. Nonetheless many authors have attacked it. German conservative historians such as
Gerhard Ritter
Gerhard Georg Bernhard Ritter (6 April 1888, in Bad Sooden-Allendorf – 1 July 1967, in Freiburg) was a nationalist-conservative German historian, who served as a professor of history at the University of Freiburg from 1925 to 1956. He studied u ...
asserted that the thesis was dishonest and inaccurate.
Ritter promoted the idea that Germany displayed the same traits as other countries and could not be singled out. In a 1962 essay, Ritter contended that Germany's principal goal in 1914 was to maintain
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
as a great power, and thus German foreign policy was largely defensive as opposed to Fischer's claim that it was mostly aggressive.Ritter, Gerhard, "Anti-Fischer", pages 135–142 from ''The Outbreak of World War I'' edited by Holger Herwig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Ritter claimed that Fischer attached unwarranted significance to the highly bellicose advice about waging a "preventive war" in the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
offered in July 1914 to the Chief of Cabinet of the Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry, Count Alexander Hoyos, by the German journalist Viktor Naumann. Ritter charged that Naumann was speaking as a private individual and not as Fischer claimed on behalf of the German government. Ritter felt that Fischer had been dishonest in his portrayal of Austro-German relations in July 1914. Ritter charged that it was not true that Germany had pressured a reluctant Austria-Hungary into attacking
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
. Ritter argued that the main impetus for war within Austria-Hungary was internal, and though there were divisions of opinion about the course to pursue in Vienna and Budapest, it was not German pressure that led to war being chosen. In Ritter's opinion, the most Germany can be criticized for in July 1914 was a mistaken evaluation of the state of European power politics. Ritter claimed that the German government had underrated the state of military readiness in Russia and France, falsely assumed that British foreign policy was more pacific than what it really was, overrated the sense of moral outrage caused by the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I.
F ...
on European opinion, and above all, overestimated the military power and political common sense of Austria-Hungary. Ritter felt that in retrospect it was not necessary from the German point of view to maintain Austria-Hungary as a great power but claimed that at the time most Germans regarded the Dual Monarchy as a "brother empire" and viewed the prospect of the Balkans being in the Russian sphere of influence as an unacceptable threat. Ritter argued that though the Germans supported the idea of an Austrian-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, this was more of an ''ad hoc'' response to the crisis gripping Europe as opposed to Fischer's claim that Germany was deliberately setting off a war of aggression. Ritter complained that Fischer relied too much on the memories of Austro-Hungarian leaders such as the Count István Tisza and
Count Ottokar Czernin
Ottokar Theobald Otto Maria ''Graf'' Czernin von und zu Chudenitz ( cs, Otakar Theobald Otto Maria hrabě Černín z Chudenic; 26 September 1872 – 4 April 1932) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian diplomat and politician during the time of ...
who sought to shift all of the responsibility for the war on German shoulders. Ritter ended his essay by writing he felt profound "sadness" over the prospect that the next generation of Germans would not be as nationalistically-minded as previous generations as a result of reading Fischer.
Fischer argued that in private, Ritter admitted that some evidence supported Fischer on some points. In a letter to Hans Rothfels on March 26, 1962, before publishing an article attacking Fischer, Ritter wrote:
"I am alarmed and dismayed by your letter of 21 March. If Bethmann, as you write, in July 1914 had the 'desire' 'Wunsch''to bring about war with Russia, then either he played without conscience with the fate of the German people, or he had simply incredible illusions about our military capablilities. In any case, Fischer would then be completely in the right when he denies that Bethmann seriously wanted to avoid war...If what in your view, Riezler's diary reveals is correct, I would have to discard my article, instead of publishing it...In any case we are dealing here with a most ominous 'unheimlichen''state secret, and all historical perspectives are displaced 'verschieben sich'' since...Bethmann Hollweg's September Program then appears in a wholly different light".
Trachtenberg concluded in 1991:
:It is certainly not true, however, that the views of the Fischer school have come to be almost universally shared, either inside Germany or out. The older interpretations of people like Pierre Renouvin, Bernadotte Schmitt, and
Luigi Albertini
Luigi Albertini (19 October 1871–29 December 1941) was an influential Italian newspaper editor, member of the Parliament, and historian of the First World War.
As editor of one of Italy's best-known newspapers, ''Corriere della Sera'' of Mila ...
--which, while quite critical of Germany, never went so far as to claim that the German government deliberately set out to provoke a general war--are still very widely accepted.
Later works
In the 1960s two theories emerged to explain the causes of World War I. One championed by the West German historian
Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (18 January 1925 – 8 May 1989) was a conservative German historian who was influential as a military and diplomatic historian who played a leading role in the ''Historikerstreit'' of the 1980s. In his controversial book ...
argued that in 1914, a "calculated risk" on the part of Berlin had gone awry. Hillgruber argued that what the Imperial German government had attempted to do in 1914 was to break the informal Triple Entente of Russia, France and Britain by encouraging Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia and thus provoke a crisis in an area that would concern only
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. Hillgruber argued that the Germans hoped that both
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
would decide the crisis in the Balkans did not concern them and that lack of Anglo-French support would lead the Russians to reach an understanding with Germany. Hillgruber argued that when the Austrian attack on Serbia caused Russia to mobilize instead of backing down, the German Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was the chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I. According to bio ...
under strong pressure from a hawkish General Staff led by General Moltke the Younger panicked and ordered the
Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan (german: Schlieffen-Plan, ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on ...
to be activated, thus leading to a German attack on France. In Hillgruber’s opinion the German government had pursued a high-risk diplomatic strategy of provoking a war in the Balkans that had inadvertently caused a world war.
Another theory was
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
's "Railway Thesis" in his 1969 book ''War by Timetable''. In Taylor's opinion, none of the great powers wanted a war but all of the great powers wished to increase their power relative to the others. Taylor argued that by engaging in an arms race and having the general staffs develop elaborate
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
timetables for mobilization, the continental powers hoped to develop a deterrent that would lead to other powers seeing the risk of war as too dangerous. When the crisis began in the summer of 1914, the need to mobilize faster than potential opponents made the leaders of 1914 prisoners of their logistics. The railway timetables forced invasion (of
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
from Germany) as an unavoidable physical and logistical consequence of German mobilization. Taylor argued that the mobilization that was meant to serve as a threat and deterrent to war instead relentlessly caused a world war by forcing invasion.
Other authors, such as the American Marxist historian
Arno J. Mayer
Arno Joseph Mayer (born June 19, 1926), is an American historian who specializes in modern Europe, diplomatic history, and the Holocaust, and is currently the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University.
Early life ...
in 1967, agreed with some aspects of the "Berlin War Party" theory but felt that what Fischer said applied to all European states. In a 1967 essay "The Primacy of Domestic Politics", Mayer made a ''Primat der Innenpolitik'' ("primacy of domestic politics") argument for the war's origins. Mayer rejected the traditional ''Primat der Außenpolitik'' ("primacy of foreign politics") argument of diplomatic history, because it failed to take into account that all of the major European countries were in a "revolutionary situation" in 1914.Mayer, Arno, "The Primacy of Domestic Politics", pages 42-47 from ''The Outbreak of World I'', edited by Holger Herwig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. In Mayer's opinion, in 1914 Britain was on the verge of civil war and massive industrial unrest, Italy had been rocked by the Red Week of June 1914, France and Germany were faced with ever-increasing political strife, Russia was facing a huge strike wave, and Austria-Hungary was confronted with rising ethnic and class tensions. Mayer insists that
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
was disintegrating in face of the challenge from the extreme right and left in Britain, France and Italy, while being a non-existent force in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Mayer ended his essay by arguing that
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
should be best understood as a pre-emptive "counterrevolutionary" strike by ruling elites in Europe to preserve their power.
In a 1972 essay "World War I As a Galloping Gertie", the American historian
Paul W. Schroeder
Paul W. Schroeder (February 23, 1927''International Who's Who 2000'', Vol. 63 (Europa, 1999: ), p. 1391. – December 6, 2020) was an American historian who was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois. He specialized in European interna ...
blamed Britain for the First World War. Schroeder argued that the war was a "Galloping Gertie", that it got out of control, sucking the Great Powers into an unwanted war.Schroder, Paul, "World War I As a Galloping Gertie", pages 142-151 from ''The Outbreak of World War I'' edited by Holger Herwig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Schroeder thought that the key to the European situation was what he claimed was Britain's "encirclement" policy directed at Austria-Hungary. Schroeder argued that British foreign policy was anti-German and even more anti-Austrian. Schroeder argued that because Britain never took Austria-Hungary seriously, it was British policy to always force concessions on the Dual Monarchy with no regard to the balance of power in Central Europe. Schroeder claimed that 1914 was a "preventive war" forced on Germany to maintain Austria as a power, which was faced with a crippling British "encirclement policy" aimed at the break-up of that state.
The American historian Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., lays most of the blame with the Austro-Hungarian elites rather than the Germans in his 1990 book, ''Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War''. Another recent work is
's ''The Pity of War'' which rejects the Fischer thesis, laying most of the blame on diplomatic bumbling from the British. Ferguson echoes Hillgruber in asserting that the German government attempted to use the crisis to split the Entente.
Post 2000
According to
Annika Mombauer
Annika Mombauer (born 1967) is a historian best known for her work on General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. She is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History in the History Department at the Open University in Great Britain, and Associate Dean ...
in 2015, a new consensus among scholars had emerged by the 1980s, mainly as a result of Fischer’s intervention:
:Few historians agreed wholly with his ischer'sthesis of a premeditated war to achieve aggressive foreign policy aims, but it was generally accepted that Germany’s share of responsibility was larger than that of the other great powers.
Regarding historians inside Germany, she adds that by the 1990s, "There was 'a far-reaching consensus about the special responsibility of the German Reich' in the writings of leading historians, though they differed in how they weighted Germany’s role.
American historian
David Fromkin
David Henry Fromkin (August 27, 1932 June 11, 2017) was an American historian, best known for his interpretive account of the Middle East, ''A Peace to End All Peace'' (1989), in which he recounts the role European powers played between 1914 an ...
has blamed elements in the military leadership of Germany and Austria-Hungary in his 2004 book ''Europe's Last Summer''. Fromkin's thesis is that there were two war plans; a first formulated by Austria-Hungary and the German Chancellor to start a war with Serbia to reinvigorate a fading Austro-Hungarian Empire; the second secret plan was that of the German military leadership to provoke a wider war with France and Russia. He thought that the German military leadership, in the midst of a European arms race, believed that they would be unable to further expand the German army without extending the officer corps beyond the traditional
Prussian aristocracy
The Junkers ( ; ) were members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights. These estates often lay in the countryside outside of major cities or towns. They were an impo ...
. Rather than allowing that to happen, they manipulated Austria-Hungary into starting a war with Serbia in the expectation that Russia would intervene, giving Germany a pretext to launch what was in essence a preventive war. Part of his thesis is that the German military leadership were convinced that by 1916–18, Germany would be too weak to win a war with France, England and Russia. Notably, Fromkin suggests that part of the war plan was the exclusion of
Kaiser Wilhelm II
, house = Hohenzollern
, father = Frederick III, German Emperor
, mother = Victoria, Princess Royal
, religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United)
, signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...
from knowledge of the events, because the Kaiser was regarded by the German General Staff as inclined to resolve crises short of war. Fromkin also argues that in all countries but particularly Germany and Austria documents were widely destroyed or forged to distort the origins of the war.
Christopher Clark's 2013 book ''The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'' refocused the origins back to the Balkans and sought to redistribute agency back to the diplomats. He also sought to distribute responsibility to all of the Great Powers, paying particular attention to Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and Russia. Clark argues that the Germanic powers sought a localised war to punish Serbia, but in doing so knowingly risked war with Russia. For its part Russia accepted the risk of war by upsetting the balance of power in the Balkans in 1912-13, encouraging anti-Austrian irredentism, and deciding to support Serbia come what may. France did not restrain Russia, positively encouraging her to face down the Germans and support Serbia in 1914. Clark concludes that while all the continental powers risked a general war, none sought that war.
Clark notes the speed of the crisis rendered diplomacy futile: "German efforts at mediation – which suggested that Austria should “Halt in Belgrade” and use the occupation of the Serbian capital to ensure its terms were met – were rendered futile by the speed of Russian preparations, which threatened to force the Germans to take counter–measures before mediation could begin to take effect".
Furthermore, while Clark does not seek to place responsibility on Russia alone, he places more emphasis on Russian actions than many previous historians, stating: "Yes, the Germans declared war on Russia before the Russians declared war on Germany. But by the time that happened, the Russian government had been moving troops and equipment to the German front for a week. The Russians were the first great power to issue an order of general mobilisation and the first Russo-German clash took place on German, not on Russian soil, following the Russian invasion of East Prussia. That doesn’t mean that the Russians should be ‘blamed’ for the outbreak of war. Rather it alerts us to the complexity of the events that brought war about and the limitations of any thesis that focuses on the culpability of one actor."
The book challenges the imputation, hitherto widely accepted by mainstream scholars since
1919
Events
January
* January 1
** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the ...
, of a peculiar "war guilt" attaching to the German Empire, instead mapping carefully the complex mechanism of events and misjudgements that led to war. There was, in 1914, nothing inevitable about it. Risks inherent in the strategies pursued by the various governments involved had been taken before without catastrophic consequences: this now enabled leaders to follow similar approaches while not adequately evaluating or recognising those risks. Among international experts many saw this presentation by Clark of his research and insights as groundbreaking.
In Germany itself, where the book received much critical attention, reactions were not all positive.
Volker Ullrich
__NOTOC__
Volker Ullrich (born 21 June 1943) is a German historian, journalist and author.
Career
Volker Ullrich was born in Celle, Lower Saxony, Germany.powerful military establishment. According to
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler (September 11, 1931 – July 5, 2014) was a German left-liberal historian known for his role in promoting social history through the " Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th-century Germany.
Life
Wehler was bo ...
, Clark had diligently researched the sources covering the war's causes from the German side only to "eliminate any of themwith bewildering one-sidedness" (''"verblüffend einseitig eliminiert"''). Warming to his theme, Wehler attributed the sales success of the book in Germany to a "deep seated need n the part of German readers no longer so constrained by the taboos characteristic of the later twentieth century, to free themselves from the burdensome allegations of national war guilt"
Vernon Bogdanor has criticized Clark for downplaying the German and Austrian refusal of offers of mediation. Over the course of the July Crisis Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, offered a four-power conference of the Great Powers to help mediate the conflict. Clark dismisses Grey’s attempts as “half-hearted” and founded on a “partisan indifference to the power-political realities of Austro-Hungary’s situation”.
Russia accepted the four power conference proposal but Austria-Hungary rejected the proposal. Germany also rejected the proposal on the grounds that they believed only Germany would support their ally. Bogdanor believes the Germans were mistaken. “That’s mistaken. I think Grey would have taken the Austrian side and would have said concessions were needed by Serbia to keep the peace…and it would have been very difficult for the Russians not to go along with that."Britain and 1914 - Professor Vernon Bogdanor 46mins YouTube. The Russians further proposed that the conflict be subject to the court of arbitration in the Hague but this too was rejected by Germany and Austria-Hungary. To Bogdanor the rejection of the options of the four power conference and the court of arbitration weigh heavily against Germany and Austria-Hungary when looking for the causes of the war.
Sean McMeekin
Early life and career
McMeekin grew up in Rochester, New York and studied history at Stanford University (B.A. 1996) and the University of California, Berkeley (M.A. 1998 and PhD 2001) as well as in Paris, Berlin, and Moscow. He also held a ...
, in his books ''The Russian Origins of the First World War'' and ''July 1914'', also places more emphasis on Russian actions and in particular Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov’s bellicosity and duplicity. McMeekin argues that Russia’s Balkan policy, and crucial support for Serbia, only make sense in the context of her wider strategic desire to control or capture Constantinople and the Straits from the ailing Ottomans. This is similar to the Russian's plan during the Bosnian Crisis of 1908 in which they had also wanted to gain the Straits around the area. Furthermore, Russia's foreign policy of gaining these Straits were the same during the Balkan Wars. He further argues that during the July crisis Sazanov must have known that Russia’s partial mobilisation would inevitably lead to general mobilisation and likely war. Moreover he highlights that Sazanov deliberately lied to the British about Russia’s mobilisation, rendering the British unable to restrain their entente partner through ignorance of the advanced state of their military preparations.
Margaret MacMillan
Margaret Olwen MacMillan, (born 1943) is a Canadian historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is former provost of Trinity College, Toronto, and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryerson Univer ...
, in her book, ''The War That Ended Peace'', puts the blame for the start of the First World War on the decision making of a small group of people, primarily blaming the leaders of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Russians did not want to back down after mobilizing, due to the fast mobilization that they had ordered. German leaders were also to blame due to their issuance of the Blank Cheque to Austria-Hungary during the
July Crisis
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on 28 June 1914, when Gavrilo Pri ...
, which pushed Austria-Hungary into going to war with Serbia. Finally, the leaders of Austria-Hungary were culpable for planning to invade Serbia after the
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on 28 June 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip. They were shot at close range whil ...
.
Historian William Mulligan, in his book, ''The Origins of the First World War'', believes that the First World War had started due to the fall of international relations which had then led to various empires around the continent feeling threatened which had then led to poor decision making. European powers had weakened due to crisis such as the Bosnian Crisis and the two crises in Morocco which happened as a result of the weakening power in the Ottoman Empire in the area. Mulligan believes that an arms race was facilitated due to the powers becoming weaker and this arms race led to even more fear and instability. All this fear and instability then exploded in the
July Crisis
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on 28 June 1914, when Gavrilo Pri ...
and poor decisions were made because European powers believed that the power of their countries were at stake.
Alexander Anievas also puts the blame of the start of the First World War on the decline of relations between the European powers in the article "1914 In World Historical Perspective: The Uneven and Combined Origins of World War I". Anievas believes that countries in Europe such as Germany and Russia had tried to bolster their empires due to the collapse of influence from the Ottoman Empire in the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
region of Europe. In this attempt, major crisis's such as the Bosnian and Morocco crisis's broke out These crisis brought forth another of problems on the European stage. For example, due to the Bosnian Crisis, Russia had now suffered a major embarrassment on the world stage which led to the downfall of their relationship with Austria-Hungary and which also led to the aggressive behavior that Russia was showing during the
July Crisis
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on 28 June 1914, when Gavrilo Pri ...
in which they ordered an early mobilization. Furthermore, with the nation of Germany, the crisis that had occurred in Morocco led to the fall of relations between Germany and other major European countries. The Germans felt threatened by other European countries they had now began to build up their weapons which in turn had led to Russia building up weapons too which led to nations fearing a war from breaking out.
Political scientists Richard N. Lebow and Thomas Lindemann argue that the First World War broke out partly due to ideas about
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
. They say that the aggression that was shown by Austria-Hungary and Germany to Serbia shortly before the war happened was due to Social Darwinist ideas. This is due to the Serbians being Slavic and therefore the Austrians felt that they are inferior to Austrian-Hungarians and Germans and therefore the belief came that these nations were justified to conquer Serbian territory in order to build up their empires.
See also
*
Causes of World War I
The identification of the causes of World War I remains controversial. World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914, and hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded. Moreover, the Russian Civil ...
*
Diplomatic history of World War I
The diplomatic history of World War I covers the non-military interactions among the major players during World War I. For the domestic histories of participants see home front during World War I. For a longer-term perspective see international re ...
**
American entry into World War I
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, p ...
**
Austro-Hungarian entry into World War I On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within days, long-standing mobilization plans went into effect to initiate invasions or guard against them and Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental ...
**
British entry into World War I
Britain entered World War I on 4 August 1914 when the King declared war after the expiration of an ultimatum to Germany. The official explanation focused on protecting Belgium as a neutral country; the main reason, however, was to prevent a Fre ...
**
French entry into World War I
France entered World War I when Germany declared war on 3 August 1914.
World War I largely arose from a conflict between two alliances: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Britai ...
**
German entry into World War I
Germany entered into World War I on August 1, 1914, when it declared war on Russia. In accordance with its war plan, it ignored Russia and moved first against France–declaring war on August 3 and sending its main armies through Belgium to captu ...
**
Italian entry into World War I
Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the First World War is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, in a historiographical perspectiv ...
Ottoman entry into World War I
The Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I began when two recently purchased ships of its navy, still crewed by German sailors and commanded by their German admiral, carried out the Black Sea Raid, a surprise attack against Russian ports, on 2 ...
History of the Balkans
The Balkans and parts of this area are alternatively situated in Southeast, Southern, Eastern Europe and Central Europe. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its common and often turbulent history regarding centuries ...
*
International relations (1814–1919)
This article covers worldwide diplomacy and, more generally, the international relations of the great powers from 1814 to 1919. This era covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), to the end o ...
*
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
*
War guilt question
The war guilt question (german: Kriegsschuldfrage) is the public debate that took place in Germany for the most part during the Weimar Republic, to establish Germany's share of responsibility in the causes of the First World War. Structured in ...
* Bresciani, Marco. "From 'East to West', the 'world crisis' of 1905-1920: a re-reading of Elie Halévy." ''First World War Studies'' 9.3 (2018): 275-295.
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* Mombauer, Annika. "The German centenary of the First World War." ''War & Society'' 36.4 (2017): 276-288.
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