Prudence vs Recklessness: Assessing Responsibility for World War I
“The debate is really not over who or what initiated the crisis, but who or what was behind it, what aims, decisions, drives, and actions by which powers genuinely caused the war.” - Paul W. Schroeder.
The following is an excerpt from Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered by Paul W. Schroeder.
The debate over the Great War’s origins persists to this day, despite a century of controversy, a massive literature, and considerable general agreement about how the war started and who started it.[1] Though research continues to turn up new details, it has long been clear that among the great powers it was the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, who initiated the so-called July Crisis—for a majority of scholars, Germany more than the Dual Monarchy, for others (including me), Austria-Hungary more than Germany.[2]
The debate, however, is really not over who or what initiated the crisis, but who or what was behind it, what aims, decisions, drives, and actions by which powers genuinely caused the war. One line of interpretation, the majority view, sees the main force behind events in Germany’s drive for world power, i.e., for hegemony in Europe and a world position in the twentieth century competitive with the existing world empires of Britain, Russia, and the USA. This German bid for power coincided in 1914 with Austria- Hungary’s decision to confront the various foreign and internal challenges and threats facing it and to reassert its position as a great power by eliminating its most challenging and dangerous small neighbor, Serbia. A minority view (also mine) sees the main cause as a general breakdown of the international system and its collective restraints and rules, prompting two great powers to conclude that they had to act forcefully now to meet the mounting threats against them even at the grave risk of general war, and the others to believe that this gave them no choice but to respond in kind—thus the downward spiral into general war.
The two master narratives, despite agreements on many facts and questions, and variations and differing emphases within each, are really about what was still possible within the system and what happened to it in 1914. One narrative claims that the Central Powers smashed it. Peaceful remedies for their problems and alter- native courses of action were still open to them in 1914; absent their actions, war need not have developed at this time or later, and the system could have soldiered on. The other narrative claims that while certain contingent events (e.g., the assassination attempt against Archduke Franz Ferdinand) could doubtless have gone differently, the supposed alternative choices available to the Central Powers were illusory, and barring some highly improbable change in outlook and attitudes throughout the system and a serious collective effort to change the game as it was being played, the possibilities of further peaceful development were blocked and a general conflict was in the cards.
Each master narrative, therefore, involves an analysis also of the course of international history over the previous quarter century, and these too diverge. The versions that stress Germany’s and Austria-Hungary’s responsibility allege a long record of aggressive and dangerous actions on their parts—Germany’s naval challenge to Britain, German bullying and threats against France in both Moroccan crises, Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Austro-German humiliation of Russia in the Bosnian Crisis, German attempts to penetrate and dominate the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, Austria’s persistent economic and political pressure on Serbia and military threats against it after 1903, especially in the Bosnian Crisis and both Balkan Wars, and of course the final Astro- Hungarian ultimatum backed by Germany in July 1914.
Proponents of the “systemic breakdown” argument, like me, not only interpret many of these same events and developments differently but also cast a wider net for the war’s causes. The list of things alleged to have helped destroy vital rules and restraints and ruin the system as a civil association include for example, Anglo-French colonial rivalry in Africa, culminating in the Fashoda Crisis of 1898 to 1899;[3] the Spanish-American War in 1898 and its extension to the western Pacific; Russia’s imperialism in the Far East and Japan’s resort to preventive war to stop it, 1895 to 1905; the Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899 to 1902, and the succeeding incorporation of the Boer Republics into a Union of South Africa; France’s challenges to Germany in each of the two Moroccan Crises; the breakdown of Austro-Russian cooperation in the Macedonian question in 1906 to 1907 and Britain’s policy in response; the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 on Persia and Central Asia, especially in relation to Germany; Russia’s promotion of a Balkan League under its protection in 1912, the French reaction to it, and its impact on the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan states, and the whole Near East; Italy’s attack on the Ottoman Empire, in 1911 to 1912, first in Libya and then in the eastern Mediterranean and the Straits;[4] Britain’s agreement with Germany in December 1912 to postpone Concert intervention in the first Balkan War until the warring states had fought it out to a conclusion; Russia’s preparations for war against the Ottoman Empire if it refused to yield on the Liman von Sanders issue; the heightened rivalry and strains between Britain and Russia over Persia, with both, especially Russia, threatening the Persian government; the Anglo-Russian talks in 1914 on potential naval cooperation against Germany in the Baltic; and the Russian and French efforts in 1913 to 1914 to wean Romania away from alliance with the Central Powers and into their camp.
What purpose is served by presenting these two bareboned lists of alleged crimes against the system? Both doubtless prove that the game of international politics from 1890 on was one of intensive imperialist competition, full of dangerous crises. But everyone already knew that; no one has ever disputed it. Everyone also agrees that the war did not arise, at least directly or primarily, over colonial-imperialist competition outside Europe. The great colonial-imperialist powers and rivals, Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, and the USA, all ended up eventually on the same side. The main struggle for power in the years before 1914 was on the Continent and between land armies, and the most critical danger was the rivalry between the three great Central and Eastern Euro- pean monarchies over Southeastern and Eastern Europe.
As a proponent of the “systemic breakdown” thesis, I do not merely accept these points; I insist on them. To believe that High Imperialism lay at the root of a systemic breakdown in inter- national politics by 1914 has never required believing that struggles over colonies and empire directly caused the war or constituted its main issues. The question is what kind of practices, reigning assumptions, and rules of the game were part and parcel of High Imperialism and became thereby common, accepted, and legitimate. The purpose of seeing these two lists of gravamina side by side is not to decide which powers were more to blame for the war, which state’s motivations and purposes were legitimate or illegitimate, revisionist or status-quo-oriented, aggressive or defensive, etc. ad infinitum. Questions such as these have long passed the point of diminishing returns and proved a cul-de-sac. The point of the comparison is to raise again the issue of the nature and role of the system. Can the war be understood best as a system effect of a simple, common kind, resembling many in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the outcome of so complete a breakdown of any systemic rules and practices that could have held it back that general conflict sooner or later became highly likely, if not absolutely inevitable? Did state actors in 1914 and before regularly pursue substantive goals of such a nature and by such means as to make it impossible for international politics to continue for long as the practice of a civil association dedicated to keeping the practice going?
To some this will seem a deceptive maneuver, substituting a new set of terms claimed to be more objective and intersubjectively verifiable than the old, but actually just as laden with value choices, ultimately unanswerable questions, and subjective judgments as the old. Instead of asking whether certain policies and actions were aggressive or defensive, designed to provoke war or preserve peace, one now asks whether they supported or undermined the operation and survival of the international system as a civil association. What difference does this really make?
To see how it can help in a concrete way, try a thought experiment. Assume ex hypothesi that, as argued here, in order for tolerable peace and stability to prevail in international politics, the individual states participating in it and pursuing their individual substantive goals must simultaneously also act as members of a civil association working to maintain the practice, and that this requires members, especially the great powers, to have shared formal and informal understandings on acceptable rules, norms, and practices, a general agreement on what limits have to be observed and joint responsibilities fulfilled, and the ways to do this. In other words, they must understand at least in general terms certain necessary minimal rules of the game and be willing to follow them.
Now apply this assumption concretely to the July Crisis and the quarter century of international politics earlier. Ask the same question of each important action, decision, and policy. Can it be defended as a legitimate way to play the game, something compatible with the international system operating as a civil association?
This is not an unreasonable or inappropriate test. It is often applied, though seldom explicitly articulated. Those who contend that the Central Powers caused the war by their policies and actions in 1914 implicitly assert as a principle or general rule that a great power cannot legitimately confront a small neighbor, especially one allied to a rival great power and under its protection, with ultimate demands that it hopes and expects will be rejected, in order to have a plausible pretext for a war to eliminate that neighbor as a political factor in the region. Why not? Because it is dishonest, aggressive, bullying, bellicose? These are epithets; they may be deserved, but are not reasons. The reason is that any such action constitutes so egregious a violation of essential rules of the international system as a civil association as to destroy it. You cannot adopt such a policy and expect the other players to swallow it and let the game continue.
I agree. On what the Central Powers did, the principle involved, and the immediate consequences, the argument is sound. They acted like two players in a Wild West high-stakes poker game who, losing the game and convinced that it was deliberately rigged against them, kick over the table and draw their pistols, preferring to shoot it out rather than let it go on as before. But then this same principle and reasoning must be applied to all the actions, decisions, and policies of all the other actors as well, in the July Crisis and before, to determine whether these too can be defended or not as legitimate ways to play the game and maintain the system as a civil association. Before assuming that the Central Powers actions were decisive in wrecking the game by violating its essential prevailing rules, one needs to determine what were by 1914 the prevailing rules and consider the possibility that by then the principles on which the Central Powers acted were already the actual prevailing rules.
Look at Serbia. It is remarkable that a century after 1914 a wide scholarly consensus should agree that Germany and Austria- Hungary were responsible for starting the war, and no such consensus prevail in regard to Serbia’s policy, conduct, and role. Here was a state created and enlarged not merely by its own efforts in war, revolution, and ethnic cleansing, but also by international recognition and action. It had been rescued more than once from military disaster by great powers, including Austria-Hungary. It was built on a state ideology of extreme romantic ethnic-integral nationalism. Its goal, ostensibly Serb unification, was actually in practical terms a Balkan mini-empire in which Serbs ruled over minorities of Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Croats, Hungarians, and Germans.[5] It targeted all its neighbors at one time or another for territorial acquisitions, principally first the Ottoman Empire, then later Austria-Hungary. Well before 1914, it laid claim in its propaganda and public instruction to large portions of Austro-Hungarian territory. In defiance of clear treaty obligations, it openly encouraged revolutionary movements and secretly supported terrorist activity in Austria-Hungary, and in 1914 was indirectly involved in the assassination of the heir-apparent to the throne, the worst blow short of war that could be struck against the Dual Monarchy. Can anyone suggest a rule of principle to justify this conduct as compatible with maintaining the system as a functioning civil association?
Or look at Russia. The main debate has been over the purpose and timing of its partial and general mobilizations in July and their role in the outbreak of war, but this is less important than what it generally aimed at in the crisis and what advice and support it gave Serbia. One thing that was clear in the crisis, or should have been, was that any peaceful settlement would have to include satisfaction for the Dual Monarchy in the form of serious penalties for Serbia and effective restraints on its future conduct. The one thing clear about Russia’s reaction was its determination not to allow the Dual Monarchy to gain this, not out of sympathy for the Serbs or their actions (many Russians considered them dangerous troublemakers) or for reasons of Russian security and strategy, but because any such Austrian success would damage Russia’s prestige and leadership in the Balkans and offend Russian public opinion and its national honor. Again one has to ask, “Can you play the game this way very long and expect it to survive?”
The same refrain applies in lesser degree even to France and Britain. True, France did not give Russia an explicit blank check in 1914, but it had already given Russia its blank check in 1912 and repeatedly confirmed it thereafter, unwilling to do anything that might possibly jeopardize the Russo-French alliance against Germany. Understandable though this is, it breaks a cardinal rule of crisis management: that one must be ready to restrain and manage not only one’s opponents but if need be also one’s allies. Britain also did not encourage Russia to back Serbia, but made no attempt to control or curb it either. Preoccupied with a crisis in Ireland, serious internal disagreements over what role if any Britain should play in a possible European war, the Russian challenge in Persia, and the danger of losing Russia to Germany, the British government did not consider an Austro-Serb-Russian quarrel important or its concern.
Even better proof of the widespread, virtually universal indifference to the system and its function as a civil association by 1914 is the fact that for twenty-five days after the assassination, nothing whatever was done to mobilize the European Concert for purposes of mediation, intervention, or control. In the wake of so explosive an event, following closely on a decade of mounting tensions and rivalry elsewhere, an escalating land arms race, constant crises, and three wars in the Balkans and the Near East that threatened to become general wars within less than three years, such inaction is almost incomprehensible. The usual explanations (e.g., that Britain, France, and Russia were lulled into it by vague assurances that Austria would not do anything rash) are pitifully inadequate. The reality is that in Europe, especially in the West, the reigning attitude toward Austria-Hungary and the Balkans was indifference—“Not our problem.” This indifference, moreover, did not arise in 1914; it rose from broken rules, shattered precedents, and violations of norms accumulated over a quarter century of unrestrained High Imperialist competition.
- Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered by Paul W. Schroeder is out now. See all his work here.
Notes:
1 Samuel R Williamson Jr. and Ernest R. May, “An Identity of Opinion: Historians and July 1914,” Journal of Modern History 79, no. 2 (2007): 335–87.
2 Francis R. Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers 1815–1918 (New York, 1990); Samuel R. Williamson Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (New York, 1991); Günther Kronenbitter, “Krieg im Frieden”: Die Führung der k.u.k. Armee und die Großmachtpolitik Österreich-Ungarns 1906–1914 (Munich, 2003).
3 Christopher Andrew, Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale: A Reappraisal of French Foreign Policy, 1898–1905 (New York, 1968); Roger Brown, Fashoda Reconsidered: The Impact of Domestic Politics on French Policy in Africa, 1893–1898 (Baltimore, 1970); Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism in the Dark Continent (New York, 1961).
4 Richard J. B. Bosworth, Italy: The Least of the Great Powers (London, 1979); Richard J. B. Bosworth, Italy and the Approach of the First World War (New York, 1983).
5 Wolf D. Behschnitt, Nationalismus bei Serben und Kroaten 1830–1914: Analyse und Typologie der nationalen Ideologie (Munich, 1980); Katrin Boeckh, Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Weltkrieg: Kleinstaatenpolitik und ethnische Selbstbestimmung auf dem Balkan (Munich, 1996).