Death of a Nation

by Stephen R A'Barrow

  On 9th July, Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, told the German Ambassador to London, Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky, that there were no agreements that entailed Britain having any military obligations to Russia and France. He added at the end of the conversation that he saw, ‘… no reason for taking a pessimistic view of the situation.’ (The situation being the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne and his wife.) Grey had even made an appointment with an oculist in Germany for early August.(4) And three weeks before hostilities began, Oxford University awarded the German Ambassador an honorary doctorate in common law in recognition of his efforts and love of English literature and philosophy.

  Wilhelm was informed of Ferdinand’s assassination during Kiel regatta week. In his memoirs, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, he wrote of his nervousness about the European situation and the possibilities for escalation but insisted his Chancellor and the German Foreign Office advised him to take his holidays regardless and not to change his plans, so as not to cause undue alarm. Thereupon in mid July, the Kaiser and his Military Chief of Staff, Moltke, along with most of the leading members of the German military establishment, went off on their summer holidays; the Kaiser aboard his royal yacht cruising around the Norwegian fjords.(5)

  On 23rd July, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, spoke in a foreign affairs debate and said relations with Germany were, ‘Very much better than they (were) a few years ago… the two great Empires begin to realise that the points of cooperation are greater and more numerous than the points of possible controversy.’ On the same day, Grey told the Austrian ambassador, Count Mensdorff, that a war between Austria, Germany, Russia and France would be terrible, naturally leading him to assume that Britain’s intention was to remain neutral if this were to come about.(6) And as late as 29th July, King Albert of Belgium still planned to go on a European motoring holiday.(7)

  The press appeared similarly unaware of the precipice the Great Powers were sliding towards. On the 24th July 1914 The Economist was more concerned with the prospect of civil war in Ireland over the issue of Home Rule than a war in Europe. It was not until the 31st July (two days after the Russians started their mobilisation and four days before major hostilities began) that, for the first time in its history, the London Stock Exchange closed and the Bank of England doubled the interest rate to 8 per cent. The August edition of The Economist nevertheless still only spoke of the ‘fear’ of war, stating that:

  The financial world has been staggering under a series of blows such as a delicate system of international credit has never before witnessed, or even imagined… Nothing so widespread and so world-wide has ever before been known. Nothing… could have testified more clearly to the impossibility of running modern civilisation and war together than this… collapse of prices, produced not by the actual outbreak of war, but by fear of a war [my italics] between some of the Great Powers.(8)

  The Daily Telegraph on 31st July described the crisis as coming ‘like a bolt out of the blue’, adding, ‘Even those who had most warmly advocated closure [of the London Stock Exchange] had not expected it would happen this way, without a word of warning.’(9)

  At the time these editions went to print, Russia was already at war with Germany and Austria. Last minute fears had become terrible realities. History has shown, time and again, that investors and stock markets tumble as rumours and fears of war escalate. The world prior to 1914 had become more globalised than it had ever been before, or would be again until well after the Second World War. The European empires had only hastened the process of globalisation and increased global trade. Yet the markets did not react to the coming crisis until the very last moment.

  The British wartime leader, David Lloyd George, spoke of Europe gradually ‘slithering over the cliff into the cauldron of war.’cl (10) Long after the war was over he added that it was a war no one had wanted, but no one had been prepared to do anything to stop.

  THE MOTIVES OF THE GREAT POWERS AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  For Great Britain, the ostensible reason for war was its only formal military obligation, which was to defend the neutrality of Belgium. But Britain had plans to violate Belgium’s neutrality, if Germany did not, and she did actually violate both Greek and Chinese neutrality during the course of the war. Neutrality was therefore only one issue. British foreign policy was divided between a hawkish Conservative Foreign Office, on the one hand, and a Liberal Government — that feared making any firm military commitments in case it emboldened either side — on the other. The hawks at the Foreign Office nevertheless continued to prepare for a war against Germany, irrespective of the lack of any military conventions attached to the Entente agreements.cli The confusion that was generated, and the mixed signals emanating from London, were Britain’s fateful contribution to the diplomatic failures that led to war. Nevertheless, seen in a longer context, Britain’s foreign policy motives had remained largely unchanged for centuries. After all, Britain had stood against Philip II of Spain in the sixteenth century, and against France from the time of Louis XIV to Napoleon. Now she would stand against Germany, to re-establish her oldest and most cherished foreign policy objective; the maintainence of a balance of power in Europe.

  A quote from the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, on 31st December 1792 in relation to revolutionary France, underlines how little British foreign policy had changed since the Napoleonic era. Britain continued to regard it as her duty to fight any nation that threatened Britain’s interests and/or the balance of power on the Continent. Grenville argued, ‘England will never allow France to acquire (ever greater) power, under the auspices of some apparent natural right… If France really wishes to maintain England’s friendship and peace, she must demonstrate that she is ready to give up her aggressive and expansionist plans and declare herself content with her own territories, without humiliating, disturbing and violating the rights of other states.’(15) A fine sentiment, and one that many British colonial subjects (both in existing colonies and those that would come to be colonised) would have to wait over a century and a half to see realised. In reality it was a sentiment that Great Britain was no more willing to ascribe to than those she was criticising, either in 1792, or in 1914. The British Empire failed to ‘declare herself content with her own territories’ either before or after the First World War. The real underlying motive at the British Foreign Office was that it had come to see Germany as Great Britain’s main economic, military and imperial rival, with whom war had become all but inevitable. Britain thus abandoned its policy of ‘splendid isolation’ and allied itself to those powers that only a few years before had posed the greatest threat to her imperial ambitions — namely Russia and France — with whom she would now seek to rebalance the power struggle in Europe and the wider world.

  France’s motivations were simple and were reinforced by her prime minister, Raymond Poincaré, who was from Lorraine. France wanted revenge. She had never overcome the sense of loss and humiliation over her crushing defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1870, especially the loss of her beloved Alsace-Lorraine. Since her defeat, her great power status rested upon her ability to build alliances to keep further German expansion in check. The alliances she made, first with Russia and then with Britain, swung the balance of power in Europe back in her favour. Nevertheless, France remained keen not to be seen as the aggressor in any future conflict. It can be argued that whilst Britain’s main responsibility in failing to halt the slide into war was her failure to enunciate her intentions clearly, France did nothing whatsoever to try to dissuade or hold back her Russian ally from pushing Europe over the brink.

  Russia had no military obligations to Serbia whatsoever. From 1806–90, Russia had been a close ally, first of Prussia’s and then of Germany’s. Prussia and Russia had taken the laurels together in chasing Napoleon’s Grande Armeé back across Europe. Tsar Alexander’s son had married the daughter of the King of Prussia to cement their alliance. Prussia had refused t
o break the great power alliance that had defeated Napoleon to join Britain and France in the Crimean War. Russia had benefited when Prussia defeated Austria and then held her ambitions in check in the Balkans, and finally Germany had supported Russia in her war against Japan. What possible motives did Russia have to go to war against Germany? Prestige and pan-Slavism? In reality both feared one another’s economic and military build-up and regarded each other as the main potential future adversary on the Continent. Since her humiliating defeat by Japan in 1905, Russia had embarked on a radical process of restructuring, industrialisation and military overhaul that was due for completion in 1917, by which time it was estimated she would have outstripped Germany’s military potential. However, mobilisation meant more than a show of strength, or just an attempt to prevent Austria from exacting retribution on Serbia; it meant the invasion of Germany, as that is what her military strategy and mobilisation had prepared for.

  Only Austria-Hungary had planned to use limited war as an instrument of foreign policy in July 1914. Along with Italy, Austria had long been viewed as a second-rate power, no longer a bona fide member of ‘the club of great nations’. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, German military authorities were often quoted as saying that Germany had ‘shackled herself to a corpse’.(21) Nevertheless, in the bloody assassination of the heir and heiress to her throne, Austria had been given what can only be described as ample provocation by Serbia and Germany was the only European power to side with the victims of terrorism against the (state) sponsors of terrorism. Austria was initially emboldened by Germany, who had written her a ‘blank cheque’ to do whatever she pleased with in order to restore her honour and standing among nations. Kaiser Wilhelm II had however underestimated the extent of the aggressive intentions the usually cautious 83-year-old Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph was prepared to countenance towards Serbia. Austria did not enlighten her ally, Germany, as to the full spectrum of her extensive aims with regards to Serbian territory until the war was already underway. Austria initially sought to humiliate Serbia politically, then to crush her militarily and finally to dismember her as a state, thus dissolving the greatest threat to Austria’s ambitions in the Balkans and reasserting her status as a great power capable of resolute action both at home and abroad. This went far beyond what Germany had believed Austria’s intentions to be, and far beyond what Russia was prepared to accept.

  In the case of Germany she had prepared for a war on two fronts since the establishment of the Franco-Russian alliance. The idea of a preventive European war before Russia became too strong had gained currency in Germany among the military planners. The lack of alternative strategies and the dependence on merely one plan of action — the Schlieffen Plan — blinkered German policy from the outset. It was also predicated on the false assumption that Britain would remain neutral and that Germany would be allowed to fight a limited European war against France and Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s pronouncements that Germany must have the right to expand with unlimited horizons were a clear challenge to the established order. Germany’s motive was to break her isolation, continue her economic, naval and imperial expansion, and stake her claim to being not only a great European power but a global player.

  As for the USA, who broke the four-year stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front, she ostensibly joined the conflict after the sinking of the passenger liner the RMS Lusitania and the lifting of Germany’s unrestricted U-boat campaign. She had no territorial ambitions in Europe. The USA wanted to ensure unfettered access to world markets and that the loans she had made to underpin the Allied war effort were repaid. Leading US politicians and businessmen obviously also saw an economic opportunity to expand her markets at the expense of now much-weakened European competitors. The more utopian ideals of fashioning a new world order based on President Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points, the basis upon which Germany came to sign an armistice, would not be ratified by Congress and not realised in any way, shape or form until after the Second World War.

  THE BLAME GAME

  In the depths of the July crisis of 1914, Sir Edward Grey argued:

  The truth is that whereas formerly the German government had aggressive intentions… they are now genuinely alarmed at the military preparations in Russia, the prospective increase in her (Russia’s) military forces and particularly at the intended construction, at the insistence of the French government and with French money, of strategic railways to converge on the German frontier… Germany was not afraid, because she believed her army to be invulnerable, but she was afraid that in a few years hence she might be afraid… Germany was afraid of the future.(16)

  Grey was looking to pin blame on Germany’s fear of encirclement by allies that were growing stronger, and that Germany needed to launch a pre-emptive strike whilst she still could. Grey’s view was echoed in one of the most popular histories of the First World War, written in 1954. It sums up the causes of war in the following terms: ‘Germany did not fix on war in August 1914… (But) they could win it now, they were more doubtful later. Hence they surrendered easily to the dictates of a military timetable. Austria-Hungary was growing weaker. Germany believed herself at the height of her strength. They decided on war for operational motives, and the two decisions together caused a European war.’(17) This view emphasised that the German generals’ plans for war, which were dictated by the railway timetables and the potential speed of mobilisation of their enemies, meant that military logic replaced diplomatic calculations as the crisis escalated.

  A more contemporary and ironic view of the root causes of the First World War comes from the fictional character Captain Blackadder (in the television series Blackadder Goes Forth, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton) when his down-trodden working-class manservant, Private Baldrick, asks his upper-class lieutenant, ‘How did the war start, Sir?’ The lieutenant answers, ‘War started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire building.’ Captain Blackadder cynically retorts to the lower-ranking officer by saying, ‘George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperial front… The real reason is that it was simply too much effort not to have a war.’(18)

  In his 2004 Channel Four television series and accompanying book The First World War, Professor of German History at Oxford, Hew Strachan, argued that Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ‘Weltpolitik was not a policy of war for the fulfilment of German objectives, it did not make Germany responsible for the outbreak the First World War. But it did challenge the status quo in three (fundamental) ways — colonial, naval and economic.’(19) If we examine these challenges to the status quo, it would suggest that the colonial issue was the least likely to lead to war. Germany exported three times as much to Romania in 1913 as she did to all her colonies, and 75 per cent of her exports went to Europe, with Britain being one of her biggest markets. And, despite the clamour for more colonies on the right-wing fringes of German politics, over 90 per cent of Germans who emigrated voted with their feet when they chose the United States.(20) The entire colonial project never absorbed more than 3.8 per cent of Germany’s overseas investments and only accounted for 0.5 per cent of German trade. Strachan argued that in terms of colonies, ‘(colonial) territorial expansion was not a high priority for Germany and was not a cause of World War One.’(21)

  Where Germany did pose a substantial threat to the status quo was economically. The world had, for the first time, become a truly globalised economy and Germany had become one of its central players. Her foreign trade in 1914, before the war began, accounted for 34 per cent of her Gross National Product.(22) Germany had become the world’s second largest economy and exporting nation, acquiring ever more export markets for its manufactured goods at the expense of Great Britain and France. This economic threat was more than symbolically matched by the great fleet which Germany was building, with the express intention of challenging British maritime d
ominance.

  In the near hundred years since the First World War came to a close, historians have sifted the evidence and shifted their focus on the causes of the ‘Great War’. In addition to those reasons ascribed to Germany that have already been mentioned, the key reasons have focused on the breakdown of the balance of power in Europe, the naval arms race, the complexity of the rival alliance systems, and their mutual obligations, the battle for control of the world’s trade and markets, militarism, democratic deficits, the escape into war to avoid domestic crises, imperial and colonial rivalries, and the class struggle. There is no simple answer. The reasons that brought about the Great War that was supposed to end all wars were complex and not predetermined. All nations had planned for war, had built up deterrents, had fine tuned plans for mobilisation — plans which became increasingly fossilised and inflexible, but few historians would now contend that the great powers were determined on a world war. Tensions and preparations had gone on for years, but when war came, it came suddenly and unexpectedly. One thing is clear; very few people expected the kind of war that did come. Whilst there was a sense of foreboding in certain quarters, there was also much talk on all sides that the troops would be home by Christmas. Many hoped and expected this to be another short, sharp war followed by an international conference to knock heads together, something akin to the two Balkan Wars which had taken place in 1912 and 1913, or the Prussian wars of German unification, all of which had lasted but a few weeks or months and had counted the death tolls in tens of thousands, rather than tens of millions.

  As diplomatic efforts unravelled with the Russians beginning their mobilisation, the hawks among the German General Staff, including General Erich von Falkenhayn and Gottlieb von Jagow at the Foreign Ministry, began urgently advising Bethmann-Hollweg and the Kaiser to strike before Germany lost the initiative on mobilisation and all hope of a swift victory or a localised war disappeared.(23) Wilhelm made last-ditch efforts to avoid a catastrophe, his efforts having been acknowledged in retrospect by the British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir William Goschen, who wrote: ‘Of course a good deal of it [the German case] is true; namely, that particularly at the end Germany did try and persuade them at Vienna to continue discussions and accept Sir Edward Grey’s proposals… That the Emperor and Co. have worked at Vienna is certainly true’.(24) German diplomats did in fact change tack and were pressurising Austria to accept Grey’s proposal for a four-power conference, and a negotiated settlement, right up to the point where they learned about Russia’s mobilisation; the single most significant action following the assassination of the Austrian heir to the Imperial throne and the act that effectively threw a hand grenade into the negotiating room. Kaiser Wilhelm’s last desperate pleas to his cousin Tsar Nicolas II came too late when he appealed ‘our long and enduring friendship must, with God’s help, avert a bloodbath.’ The response from his cousin came on 1st August and stated, ‘Received after the declaration of war.’(25)