In 1914, on the eve of the war, Oswald Spengler finished his great work The Decline of the West, which argued that there were natural life cycles for civilisations and that the Western world had reached its winter. Underlying much of such concern about degeneration and decline were widely shared assumptions drawn from Darwin’s theory of evolution. Although he was talking about the evolution of species over thousands of years and in the natural world, it struck many intellectuals in the nineteenth century that his ideas could be applied to human societies as well. Using Darwin in this way seemed to fit conveniently with nineteenth-century views of progress and science. Social Darwinists, as they came to be known, believed that they could explain both the rise and the disappearance of different societies with the help of such concepts as natural selection. (Herbert Spencer, one of Social Darwinism’s key figures, preferred to call it the survival of the fittest.) And in a leap which had no scientific basis and which was to reinforce racialist theories, Social Darwinists generally assumed that human beings were not a single species but a variety which they confusingly and interchangeably called races or nations. Further confusion was added by the fact that it was not always clear whether a type of people was being described or a political unit such as a state. Another difficulty lay in determining which nations were moving up the evolutionary scale and which were doomed to extinction. And was there any way to alter the direction of travel? Social Darwinists suggested that there was, that nations could and ought to pull themselves together. If they failed in the attempt, perhaps they deserved their fate. After all, Darwin himself gave the subtitle of The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life to his On the Origin of Species.
Such ideas were very much in the air in the years before 1914 and even those who had never read Darwin or Spencer accepted without question that struggle was a fundamental part of the evolution of human society. Not surprisingly Social Darwinism resonated with military men, for it seemed to justify and indeed elevate the importance of their calling, but it also infused the thinking of civilians, whether writers such as Zola, political leaders like Salisbury, or businessmen like Rathenau. It could produce either pessimism that there was no way for a weaker society to avoid extinction, or a sort of grim optimism that as long as there was the possibility of struggle there was hope. As might be expected, in the prewar crises and in 1914 itself decision-makers generally favoured the latter view. As the Austrian general Conrad, whose writings reflect the strong influence of Social Darwinism, put it: ‘A people that lays down its weapons seals its fate.’52 As an indication of just how far such attitudes had permeated, a young British captain wrote from the trenches during the Great War: ‘It has been rightly said that any living organism that ceases to fight for its existence is doomed to destruction.’53
What Social Darwinism did as well was to reinforce a much older view, expressed by Hobbes among others, that international relations were nothing more than an endless jockeying for advantage among nations. And in that struggle, war was to be expected, even welcomed. ‘Is not war’, asked an article in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institution in 1898, ‘the grand scheme of nature by which degenerate, weak or otherwise harmful states are eliminated from the concerted action of civilized nations, and assimilated to those who are strong, vital, and beneficial in their influences? Undoubtedly this is so …’54 And it was not just nature that benefited from war; it was the individual nations themselves. ‘All petty and personal interests force their way to the front during a long period of peace,’ said Bernhardi in a controversial and influential book, Germany and the Next War, which was published just before the Great War. ‘Selfishness and intrigue run riot, and luxury obliterates idealism.’55 In an analogy that was often used, war was compared to a tonic for a sick patient or a life-saving operation to cut out diseased flesh. ‘War’, said the Italian Futurist and future fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, ‘is the sole hygiene of the world.’56 What comes out in Kessler’s diaries, among much else, is an acceptance of war as a probability; time and again at moments of crisis Kessler’s friends and acquaintances talk, often in a quite matter-of-fact way, about the prospect of hostilities breaking out.
Those in positions of power in European countries were inevitably affected by the intellectual currents of their time; they also found that they had to deal with something unknown to earlier statesmen such as Metternich: the public. The nature of politics throughout Europe was changing as society changed and the broadening of the franchise brought new classes into political life and fuelled new political movements. The old liberal parties which stood for free markets, the rule of law, and human rights for all were losing ground to socialist parties on the left and to increasingly chauvinistic nationalist parties on the right. A new breed of politicians was going outside established parliamentary institutions to appeal to popular fears and prejudices and their populism, especially among the nationalist parties, frequently included anti-Semitism. The old hatred of Jews as the killers of Christ was now updated to portray Jews as aliens, whether by religion or blood, who did not belong with the French or the Austrian or the Russian people.57 In Vienna, the rising politician Karl Lueger discovered that he could mobilise the lower classes by appealing to their fears of change and capitalism, their resentment of the prosperous middle classes, and their hatred of Jews, who came to stand in for the first two. He did so with such success that he became a mayor, over the opposition of Franz Joseph, in 1897 and remained, highly popular, in office until he died in 1910. His abilities as a political organiser impressed the young Adolf Hitler who had moved to Vienna in 1907.58 Hatred and fear of others was projected onto other societies as well as within one’s own and helped to create the atmosphere in which war became more appealing.
Thanks in part to the new media, the nation was now acquiring a vivid personality of its own – think of John Bull or Marianne or Uncle Sam. Although identifying with a nation rather than with a region or a village was relatively new for most Europeans, many of them were making up for lost time. For nationalists the nation was both greater and more important than the individual human beings who made it up. Unlike its members, the nation was eternal or close to it. One of the key assumptions of late nineteenth-century nationalism was that there had been something called a German or a French or an Italian nation for centuries, its members marked out from their neighbours by shared values and practices, usually better ones than those of their neighbours. ‘From the time of their first appearance in history the Germans showed themselves a first-class civilized people,’ said Bernhardi.59 (In Europe only Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire did not, for obvious reasons, develop strong nationalist sentiments; they had too many, separate and conflicting, already.) While the general pattern was the same – members of a nation were identified by such shared attributes as language or religion and linked together by their history – the content of nationalism inevitably varied. The British had a Waterloo railway station; the French had Austerlitz. In Russia, governments in the last part of the century followed a policy of Russifying the many national minorities, forcing Polish or Finnish students, for example, to learn in Russian and go to Orthodox services. And Russian nationalism encompassed not only Russia’s own past but increasingly Panslavism with Russia itself as the natural leader of all Slavs. The new nationalism did not bode well for minorities, whether linguistic or religious. Could Polish-speakers ever be truly German? Could Jews?60
While not all nationalists by any means were racists, there were those who regarded nations as separate species as much as cats or dogs are. Much research went on by professors and enthusiastic amateurs to measure such things as skull or penis size, make lists of racial characteristics, or examine skeletons in an attempt to come up with scientific classifications in which the races were ranked. How they were ranked usually depended on the nationality of whoever was doing the ranking. In Germany Ludwig Woltmann, a doctor and social anthropologist, developed elaborate theories to prove that the Germans wer
e essentially Teutons while the French were Celts, an inferior race. True, France had enjoyed great achievements in the past but those, Woltmann was convinced, were due to the French race’s Teutonic roots, before the Celtic strain had come in to dilute it. He spent much time in France looking at statues of eminent French of the past to spot their Teuton characteristics.61
The ideas which underpinned the development of nationalism across Europe owed much to the work of historians, Treitschke, for example, who created the national histories which came to dominate the field. And they were promoted by patriotic leagues such as the veterans associations in Germany or the Ligue des Patriotes in France or the National Service League in Britain. Past national glories and present triumphs were celebrated all over Europe with festivals and commemorations. ‘We learnt’, said a distinguished British soldier, ‘to believe the English were the salt of the earth and England the first and greatest country in the world. Our confidence in her powers and our utter disbelief in the possibility of any earthly Power vanquishing her, became a fixed idea which nothing could eradicate and no gloom dispel.’62 While the British celebrated the 100th anniversary of Trafalgar in 1905, the Russians had their great victory over Napoleon at Borodino in 1812 to celebrate in 1912. The following year Germans outdid them both with a huge celebration of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig which included a display put on by some 275,000 gymnasts. And nationalism was fostered as well by eager volunteers, whether political leaders, teachers, bureaucrats or writers. In Germany, it has been estimated, most of the novels written for adolescents before the Great War dealt with the nation’s great military past, from the defeat of a Roman army by Germanic tribes to the wars of unification.63 The popular British novelist G. A. Henty who wrote over eighty books about stirring adventures (whether his heroes were with Clive in India or Wolfe in Quebec the plots were always identical and invariably showed the triumph of the plucky British boy) was clear about his purpose: ‘To inculcate patriotism in my books has been one of my main objects, and so far as it is possible to know, I have not been unsuccessful in that respect.’64
Education was seen as particularly important in giving the young the right ideas, perhaps because it was feared that they might so easily get the wrong ones. A manual for French schools which was revised just before the Great War pointed to the beauty of France, the glories of French civilisation, and the ideas of justice and humanity which the French Revolution had showered on the world as reasons for French patriotism. ‘War is not probable’, French children were to be taught, ‘but it is possible. It is for that reason that France remains armed and always ready to defend itself.’65 In 1897 80 per cent of the candidates taking the higher French secondary-school qualification, the baccalauréat, stated that the purpose of history was primarily patriotic. This was not particular to France; the history taught in countries across Europe was increasingly focussed on the nation, showing its deep roots, its longevity and its glorious accomplishments. In Great Britain in 1905, the new Board of Education published ‘Suggestions’ for teachers which recommended using patriotic poems to teach the right sort of British history. (To be fair, they also suggested that the history included the achievements of peace as well as those of war.)66 In Germany, where the teaching of history tended to mean Prussian history, a leading educator told teachers that their purpose should be to develop ‘a patriotic and monarchical spirit’ and make the young aware that they must be prepared to defend Germany against its many enemies. ‘To defend honor, liberty, and right; to offer up life, health and property on the altar of the Fatherland, these have always been the joy of German youths.’67
Nations in such a view needed the enthusiastic support of their members if they were to endure. They were, or so many nationalists held, like organisms in the natural world. They struggled for survival and to evolve. Like other organisms they needed nourishment and a secure and adequate habitat.68 Bernhardi argued that, while there were universal laws governing the rise and fall of nations and their states: ‘We must not forget that States are personalities endowed with very different human attributes, with a peculiar and often very marked character, and that these subjective qualities are distinct factors in the development of States as a whole.’69 So even immutable laws could be bent by the right people. Moreover, nations such as Germany with ‘the greatest physical, mental, moral, material, and political power’ ought to prevail; that could only benefit humanity as a whole. What Germany needed, in his view, was more space and, if necessary, they must use force to acquire it. (The Nazis were later to make this idea of Lebensraum one of their key goals.) ‘Without war’, he went on, ‘inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow.’70 In the view of nationalists such as Bernhardi, and it is possible to find similar quotations from British or French writers, the needs of the nation were in themselves justification for aggression.
Moreover, imperialism came increasingly to be seen as a measure of a nation’s power and vitality and as an investment for the future, not least as a way to get space for expansion. As Tirpitz said in 1895 as he was dreaming of a great German navy and empire: ‘In my view Germany will quickly sink back from its great power position in the coming century if we do not promote our general maritime interests energetically, systematically and without delay – to no small extent also because the great new national task and the economic benefits to come will offer a strong palliative against educated and uneducated Social Democrats.’71 (No matter that most of the new colonies did not pay for themselves or that few Europeans showed any desire to move to Africa or Asia when they could go to North or South America or Australia.) British schools celebrated Empire Day. ‘We drew union jacks’, a working-class Englishman remembered, ‘hung classrooms with flags of the dominions, and gazed with pride as they pointed out those massed areas of red on the world map. “This, and this, and this”, they said, “belong to us.”’72
Although Salisbury complained in 1901 of the ‘present passion for Imperialism as if it were a sort of zone of poisonous atmosphere we have got into’,73 he found, as other statesmen were discovering, that public opinion was both volatile and exigent when it came to colonies. Bülow, for example, found himself hemmed in during his quarrel with Britain over Samoa at the turn of the century; he was obliged to turn down a generous offer of compensation elsewhere from Chamberlain for fear of what the German public and, equally important, the Kaiser would say.74 Although most of the colonial disputes in Africa and the Far East had been settled by the time of the Great War, there was still potential for conflict over China, where a revolution in 1911 had led to a shaky Republican government, and much closer to Europe in the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the hostilities stirred up between Britain and Germany in Africa and the South Pacific or between France and Germany over Morocco remained to increase the antipathies of one European people to another. At the celebrations for the Kaiser’s fifty-fifth birthday in January 1914, the German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg told Jules Cambon, the French ambassador in Berlin:
For forty years, France has pursued a grandiose policy. It has secured an immense empire for itself in the world. It is everywhere. During this time, an inactive Germany did not follow this example and today it needs its place in the sun … Every day Germany sees its population growing by leaps and bounds; its navy, its trade and industry are making unparalleled developments … it is forced to expand somehow or other; it has not yet found that ‘place in the sun’ which is its due.75
Such national rivalries were, in the minds of Social Darwinists, perfectly natural. As Kurt Riezler, a thoughtful German journalist who became a close adviser to Bethmann Hollweg, put it: ‘Eternal and absolute enmity is fundamentally inherent in relations between peoples.’76 In setting off the naval race, Tirpitz was convinced that conflict was bound to come between the declining power of Britain and the rising one of Germany. In 1904 August Niemann, a well-known German authority on war, wrote: ‘Almost all wars have, for cent
uries past, been waged in the interests of England, and almost all have been incited by England.’77 Nationalism was not just about pride in one’s own nation; it required an opposite to define it and fed on fears of others. All across Europe, the relations between Germany and Russia, Hungary and Rumania, Austria and Serbia, or Britain and France, were coloured and often poisoned by national and racial fears of the other. When Count Zeppelin’s airship was destroyed by a storm in 1908, the British suspected that much of the patriotic excitement in Germany and the rush by the German public to subscribe funds to replace the airship was directed against Britain.78 It is easy to find examples of hostility on the British side too, in the Foreign Office, for example, which was increasingly dominated by those such as Eyre Crowe who were suspicious and apprehensive of Germany. In 1904 Francis Bertie, the British ambassador in Rome, wrote to a friend in the Foreign Office: ‘Your letter of the 2nd breathes distrust of Germany and you are right. She has never done anything for us but bleed us. She is false and grasping and our real enemy commercially and politically.’79 While there were always British and Germans, right up until the outbreak of war in 1914, who talked in terms of shared values, even a shared Teutonic heritage, their voices were drowned out by the increasing hostility which permeated all levels of society. That had the effect of limiting the options for the leaders in both countries who were swayed by their own views and the pressure from their publics. In 1912, for example, when there was a serious attempt made to wind down the naval race, the accumulated suspicions and the state of public opinion in both countries undercut it.
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