The Failure to Prevent World War I

The Unexpected Armageddon

Hall Gardner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781472430564
• eBook ISBN: 9781317032168
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

World War I represents one of the most studied, yet least understood, systemic conflicts in modern history. At the time, it was a major power war that was largely unexpected. This book refines and expands points made in the author's earlier work on the failure to prevent World War I. It provides an alternative viewpoint to the thesis of Christopher Clark, Fritz Fischer, Paul Kennedy, among others, as to the war's long-term origins. By starting its analysis with the causes and consequences of the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the study systematically explores the key geostrategic, political-economic and socio-cultural-ideological disputes between France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Japan, the United States and Great Britain, the nature of their foreign policy goals, alliance formations, arms rivalries, as well as the dynamics of the diplomatic process, so as to better explain the deeper roots of the 'Great War'. The book concludes with a discussion of the war's relevance and the diplomatic failure to forge a possible Anglo-German-French alliance, while pointing out how it took a second world war to realize Victor Hugo's nineteenth-century vision of a United States of Europe-a vision now being challenged by financial crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Chapter 1
The “Insecurity-Security Dialectic” and the Unexpected Armageddon

The primary focus of The Failure to Prevent World War I will be on diplomatic decision-making and geostrategic factors (alliance formation) that helped to cause World War I (WWI), yet other significant interacting military-technological, political-economic and socio-cultural-ideological factors will be brought into consideration as well, as these factors impacted state actions and reactions to differing degrees and in differing circumstances. In particular, the book will examine how French demands for Germany to return Alsace-Lorraine, and revise the 1871 Treaty of Paris, helped transform a local conflict between Austria and Serbia into a global war in August 1914—given the fact that Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 had fully alienated Tsarist Russia much as Imperial Germany’s annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 had previously alienated France—even if it had been France under Louis Napoléon who had initiated the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.

The study likewise examines alternative British, French and German geostrategies that were considered by both government and non-government elites—but represent the paths that were not chosen: It is argued that it was largely Great Britain’s failure to find ways to help reconcile France and Germany after Germany’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and to prevent the formation of the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance—which had initially been forged against both German and British interests—that represents the deeper “sin of omission” that helped provoke Imperial Germany in August 1914 into engaging in a largely unexpected and “disproportionate” explosion in the well-known words of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz.

The Failure to Prevent World War I applies the “insecurity-security dialectic” to explain how the decision-making processes that ultimately led to WWI were preconditioned by alliance formations and how those decisions were impacted by both domestic and international considerations that involved the (mis)interpretations and (mis)calculations of rival leaderships, not to overlook the (mis)application of policy from both domestic and international standpoints.¹ It is argued that the dynamic nature of “encircling” and “counter-encircling” alliance formations made global war much more likely, and that, combined with a number of misperceptions and miscalculations on all sides, these tightening alliance formations tended to limit the number of options available as socio-political-military tensions mounted. In effect, foreign policy elites of each of the major powers used differing tools of strategic leveraging to achieve their differing political-economic interests and foreign policy goals before the outbreak of the war, often in the name of “parity”, “balance of power” or even “supremacy.” On the one hand, these tools included promises of positive supports and rewards (greater trade, finance, diplomatic and military supports, colonial trade-offs, for example, through ententes or alliances). On the other, elites also engaged in a more negative approach of military or political economic threats, involving sanctions, tariffs, intimidation and bluff, ideological warfare, if not actual assassination and sabotage, plus steps to feign a shift in alliances and make deals with a different party, among other options—in order to pressure rival states into closer cooperation where possible, and on specific terms that may benefit one side over the other, often upon the threat of war.²

These diplomatic tools also took differing forms of external and internal diplomatic, political-economic or military interventions—whether overt or clandestine—in support for anti-governmental socio-political movements within rival states or against their allies and/or their colonial interests. Here, state leaderships must look both outwardly and inwardly and respond to the interests, demands, as well as the values, beliefs and opinions, of domestic society, whether positively or negatively. Whether democratic or not, differing governments need to take popular attitudes into account to differing degrees. For this reason, in addition to the logistical and bureaucratic barriers in actually implementing decisions, state leaderships, generally in dispute as to what strategies and tactics to take, often engage in nuanced indecisions that are designed to keep options open, and keep other state leaderships (as well as the domestic population) guessing as to what actions might or might not be taken. At the same time, even the best thought-out foreign policy schemes and alliance networks can be disrupted or undermined by the inappropriate implementation of policy or by domestic and international political-economic-financial and socio-cultural-ideological forces, if not by direct foreign manipulations—and even unexpected events that can destabilize both state leaderships and whole societies such as the Archduke’s assassination.

The Insecurity-Security Dialectic

By contrast with the more traditional “security dilemma,”³ that tends to use an overly mechanistic action-reaction model to analyze the ricocheting impact of external threats upon the foreign policy actions of rival states, the insecurity-security dialectic as applied in this book seeks to examine the impact of foreign policies on both the external and the domestic policies of rival states and societies. The insecurity-security dialectic also looks at the domestic political and bureaucratic rivalries within states, as differing, conflicting socio-political factions with differing ideological values and often unclear goals seek to take advantage or manipulate both perceived external and internal threats for both domestic and international purposes. In essence, this book argues that both “inner” and “outer” politics are relevant to the decision-making processes that lead to war and that there is no absolutely clear primacy of either “inner” (Primat der Innenpolitik) or “outer” (Primat der Aussenpolitik) politics.⁴ This is due to the fact that policy choices are made in specific domestic and international contexts in which either domestic or international factors take precedence. In the case of WWI, this book argues that international threats—that appeared to directly impact both Austrian and German domestic political concerns—took precedence in Vienna and Berlin’s decision to go to war.

As perceived “threats” to state governance and its legitimacy to rule the general society at large can stem from both internal and external sources, the policy dilemma is to ascertain which issues, disputes, conflicts or potential “threats” should take precedence in order to determine appropriate policies and to ascertain whether or not the primary concerns can somehow be modified through domestic reforms and/or international diplomacy—assuming these primary concerns are not judged to be intractable. One of the great ironies of the pre-WWI epoch is that London was able to resolve its seemingly intractable international disputes with its historical rivals, France and Russia, as well as with the United States, but was unable to concurrently accommodate an upstart Germany while also unable to effectively mediate between Paris and Berlin over Alsace-Lorraine, among other issues.

Recent analysis has pointed to the rise of an “inherently aggressive” Prussia/Germany as the primary culprit for the outbreak of the so-called ‘Great War.’ Generally basing its arguments on Berlin’s December 1912 and September 1914 war plans (which were really discussion points, not official goals), plus a new interpretation of the ever revised Schlieffen Plan, this school (derived from the work of Fritz Fischer⁵) has argued that new studies on the causes of WWI undermine key neo-realist paradigms of IR theory, including the “security dilemma” and “defensive realism.”⁶ Placing its emphasis on “inner” politics, and downplaying exogenous factors as well as the systemic context, this point of view argues that Berlin did not fear Anglo-French-Russian “encirclement” but went to war for “offensive” purposes, as well as with a view toward repressing class conflict and consolidating its power and authority at home.⁷ Berlin’s pan-German goals were accordingly aimed at enlarging its hegemony in Europe in accord with its Mitteleuropa schemes, not to overlook expanding its Mittelafrika interests overseas in “a place in the sun”—once a rising Germany with a growing population would no longer be checked by the Anglo-French-Russian Alliance, linked more indirectly to the United States, among other countries.

This book seeks to challenge these views in both theoretical and empirical terms. The first point is that while Berlin did go to war in the belief that it could somehow consolidate power at home, it engaged—reluctantly—in a two-front war in the effort to repress both domestic class and ethno-national conflicts—which Berlin saw as backed by foreign influences. The French, Russians, Serbs and British were believed to be supporting either social democratic, ethno-nationalist or even militant Socialist/Anarchist ideologies that were all seen as provocative and domestically destabilizing; the elites of Vienna and Berlin thus feared that these socio-political movements and ideological pressures could potentially abolish their aristocratic social status and privileges, if not undermine the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian monarchies themselves. In effect, Berlin’s efforts to build a strong sense of German nationalism, which was initially linked to Protestantism (Bismarck’s Kulturkampf), were artificially imposed upon a divergent population, which possessed differing social, ethnic, religious and ideological values and goals.⁸ As many of these differing social groups did not necessarily accept the legitimacy of Prussian hegemony over Alsace-Lorraine, if not over the rest of Germany, not to overlook burgeoning Social Democratic opposition to Prussia’s three-class system (as well as against many of the inequitable socio-political systems within some of the other German states), Prussian/German elites feared that a number of socio-political factions and groups could be manipulated by foreign influences against Hohenzollern rule.

In addition to Austro-Hungarian fears of ethno-national independence movements supported primarily by Russia and France, Berlin likewise feared French claims to Alsace-Lorraine (and support for Catholicism). In addition to representing a glacis or barrier against a future French attack (which was not a figment of Bismarck’s imagination), Prussian control over Alsace-Lorraine represented the imperial keystone that helped sustain Prussian hegemony over the rest of the German states. If Prussian controls over Alsace-Lorraine collapsed—which seemed plausible in the period 1910 to 1914 after Bethmann Hollweg ineffectively tried to modify Alsace-Lorraine’s political status within Germany—Berlin feared that the rest of Germany could eventually disaggregate.

One could thus argue that the vehemence in which Prussian/German elites began to adopt a pan-German ideology, but really only once Berlin had entered into the fog of combat after September 1914, was not only due to the Austro-Hungarian empire’s lack of ethnic and national cohesion, but also due to the Prussian monarchy’s increasingly perceived lack of legitimacy to rule over the rest the German states and divergent population—including rule over the imperial keystone of Alsace Lorraine that largely glued the empire together after 1871. That perceived lack of legitimacy was, in turn, reinforced by the geostrategic, political-economic, and socio-cultural-ideological pressures of British, French, Russian, plus American “encirclement.”

The second point is that neo-realist conceptions of “defensive” and “offensive” realism are inadequate in the sense that there are rarely clear dividing lines between “offensive” and “defensive” actions.⁹ Germany saw itself building its navy against British naval superiority since 1893, and as Churchill observed in 1912, the Anglo-French-Russian Entente was definitely outbuilding the Triple Alliance. Hence Bethmann Hollweg’s efforts over three years to negotiate naval reductions with London were overruled by Admiral Tirpitz and the Kaiser in December 1912. Concurrently, the French saw it in their interests for London to continue the Anglo-German naval rivalry in an effort to strain the German political-economy. Berlin eventually did opt for a two-front war, but only after ruling out the possibility of attacking Tsarist Russia alone in April 1913—in the assumption that Britain, France and Russia were fully aligned militarily.

It was also believed that both France and Russia possessed their own “offensive” plans, and thus Berlin had to devise a strategy to deal with both powers, plus British plans to counter a potential German thrust in Belgium; Germany legitimately believed that France could strike into Alsace-Lorraine (which it did), if not through Belgium as well, but London had refused to countenance a French attack through Belgium for fear that Paris would be seen as the “aggressor.” At the same time, Russia was linked to French geo-strategy, leading it to attack Germany’s eastern flank in East Prussia on the 17 August 1914. Yet Berlin did not want to be seen as the aggressor either, and hence become the state politically and legally responsible for initiating the conflict. (See discussion of “war guilt”, this chapter.) One can also argue that if Berlin had thoroughly planned the war in accord with “aggressive” pan-German goals, then one would have expected Berlin to have engaged in much closer defense cooperation with Vienna, and that Berlin would have possessed a more coherent grand strategy. Instead German elites squabbled over tactics and short-term policies.

While pan-German demands were evidently present before the war, and helped to pressure Bismarck into expanding German colonies, for example, and to press for a more powerful navy, thus pushing the German leadership step-by-step towards a militarist “politics of the diagonal,” the precise war goals of pan-German advocates only began to crystallize in March 1915 after the draft proposals of the 1914 September Program when it was rumoured that Berlin was considering the option of seeking peace with London. On 20 May 1915, six pan-German organizations and corporations appealed to Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg not to renounce the German war effort. Then, on 20 June 1915, some 1341 individuals signed the “Manifesto of the Intellectuals”—before the German government stopped the petition. Both documents urged Berlin to clarify German war aims in the quest for greater access to coal, iron ore and agricultural products. Pan-Germanists wanted Berlin to press more forcefully for German predominance over Belgium, France, and the Baltic states; to roll back Russian influence (Mitteleuropa); to expand German colonialism (MittelAfrika); and to challenge global British predominance. In effect, these documents predate Hitler’s quest for Lebensraum and his desire to crush French revanchism once and for all while likewise subjugating Russia. But these strong pan-German statements also indicate that Berlin did not actually adopt pan-German goals in August 1914—nor immediately after the war had already broken out.¹⁰

Perhaps most crucially, Berlin did not rationalize the decision to go to war in August 1914 on the basis of pan-Germanism, but on “anti-Tsardom.” In effect, Prussian elites were not able to manipulate domestic pan-Germanism against both France and Russia, but had to play on domestic anti-Tsarist prejudice (which was also an integral aspect of Marxist/ Socialist ideology) in order to co-opt the Socialist parliamentary opposition and justify war. In order to obtain war credits from the Reichstag in 1914, the war had to be sold as “patriotic”—and not against France, but primarily as a “defensive” effort against Tsarist Russia. This appears true as the majority of the German population did not share pan-German goals—but would defend the country against the Russian and pan-Slav “menace.”

And despite the Fischer school’s emphasis on German Mitteleuropa schemes, and on German demands that France accept “neutrality” in case of any conflict with Russia, Berlin, as Fischer himself notes, did propose an alliance with Great Britain and the establishment of a “United States of Europe” (that would include Great Britain and France, but exclude the US). Moreover, in 1912, the Kaiser proposed an “an offensive and defensive alliance with France as a partner and open to other powers to enter ad libitum.”¹¹ The question remains whether these proposals for an Anglo-German-French alliance (initially stemming from Bismarck) were really capable of being negotiated, and whether or not it had ever been possible to reach an Anglo-German-French accord over Alsace-Lorraine with possible Russian diplomatic supports. As shall be argued, the possibility of “United States of Europe” failed to a large ext...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Introduction
• 1 The “Insecurity-Security Dialectic” and the Unexpected Armageddon
• 2 Origins of the Franco-Prussian War
• 3 Global Consequences of the Franco-Prussian War
• 4 French Calls for Revanche and Bismarck’s Nightmare of Coalitions
• 5 British Intervention in Egypt and the Threat of a Continental Alliance
• 6 Bismarck’s Strategy and Anglo-German Alliance Talks
• 7 The Failure of Caprivi’s New Course
• 8 1894: Year of Anglo-German Alienation
• 9 Fissures within the Continental Alliance
• 10 The Failure of Anglo-German Alliance Talks
• 11 Britain’s Quest for New Allies
• 12 The Anglo-German Détente and Eurasian Conflicts
• 13 The Question of Alsace-Lorraine
• 14 Stumbling into Armageddon
• Conclusions: The Failure to Prevent World War I
• Selected Bibliography
• Index