|
The Treaty of Versailles had as one of its principal clauses what became known as the ‘Guilt Clause’ whereby Germany admitted responsibility for the war and accepted to pay indemnities and compensation to many countries in Europe, but especially France. Such a clause was rare in international treaties to resolve conflicts, because it created a massive psychological and economic impediment to future peaceful relations in trade and diplomacy. Countries that have gone to war in the past have become great friends in the future. Such a clause appeared to set the stage for another war in a generation.
The assassination of the Austria-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand
and his wife by a Serbian nationalist was the spark that lit all the
political tinder. The Austria-Hungarian Empire demanded some form of
compensation and retribution, but Serbia’s reluctance or refusal was
the pretext used to invade her. What was the aforementioned political
tinder? It was made up of France’s desire for revenge following defeat
in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1, a colonial crisis over Morocco,
and two wars in the Balkans in 1912-3. The last piece to the puzzle was
a system of interlocking alliances obligating countries to militarily
support each other in cases of extreme need.
The easy answer to whether Germany started World War I is yes, because
they were the first country to invade another one, Belgium, who had
clearly announced itself as neutral, although Austria-Hungary was the
first to officially declare on another country, but there are more
complex issues at work that will be investigated in the following two
parts; firstly, that tensions had risen to an unforeseen level making
it difficult to avoid war, and secondly economic development had pushed
European countries into each other’s way.
Part A) Emotional and political tensions purposely developed
The previously mentioned system of alliances divided Europe into two
principal groups of countries: the Triple Alliance of 1882 of Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy; and the Triple Entente of 1907 of France,
Russia and the United Kingdom, although there were other secondary
treaties, such as the one between Serbia and Russia, which provided a
similar kind of obligation. When war broke out in August 1914, Italy
was the only one of the six to stay out of it, but when she did, she
chose the side of the Entente Cordiale. Also, the Ottoman Empire joined
on the Triple Alliance’s side in November 1914. The principal piece of
these alliances was not just that they were based upon an agreement
that if any party was attacked, the other would join in, but that they
also specified exactly which country was the one who would trigger the
agreement. In the case of Germany and Austria-Hungary, this was Russia.
The consequence of which pushed Russia into the arms of the United
Kingdom and France, who has resolved their many quarrels with the
Entente Cordiale in 1904. A decade earlier, France and Russia agreed to
help each other in the same terms as above if either country was
attacked by Germany. Such agreements placed heavy burdens on all sides,
which could not be easily brushed aside if one got cold feet.
But let us take a brief step backwards to late XIXth Century when many
European countries were thinking of grand projects and visions and saw
strange lands, such as Africa and Asia, as the fulfilment of visions of
empires and wealth. Their motivations to embark on colonial projects
are beyond the scope of this discussion, but these projects need to be
mentioned as they ensured that the European powers were kept in a state
of constant competition with each other, which at times developed into
violence through various proxy forces. In the case of Africa, France
and the United Kingdom got the biggest pieces, while Germany was left
with Namibia, Tanganyika and Cameroon, and Italy got Libya. The manner
in which the pieces was decided at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 when
14 European countries got together to peacefully resolve contending
claims to Africa. But, a few lands remained undecided, such as Morocco
and Ethiopia; the first of which was independent in name, but fell
increasingly under French and Spanish influence as the XXth Century
began leading to German resistance to growing French power.1
Europe of 1914 was replete with old feuds, the most important of which
was the desire for revenge in France after they were badly beaten in
the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1 and witnessed not only the fall of
their Second Empire but the declaration of the new German Empire at
Versailles. The cost of this war was not only money but also losing
most of the Alsace and Lorraine.2 Of the many cultures in Europe,
French and German were some of the strongest in terms of history and
self-image and as they shared the same border and were each other’s
closest competitor, so it was no great surprise that they regularly
fought each other, and any loss on either side was taken quite
personally. Therefore, losing territory was quite shocking and needed
to be redressed. Another feud was the one occurring around and inside
the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The varied cultural mix of this country
was one that required a great deal of balancing so that no one people
felt ignored. There were Slavs, Magyars and Germans. Each cultural
group maintained its own customs and language assuring a strong
cultural dislocation internally and making it the focus of many foreign
pressures as smaller countries tried to pick off parts that were
culturally close to them. The most pertinent example was Serbia, which
was hoping to unite all Serbs, a Slavic people, under one banner, so
there was a lot of political comments being thrown across, but
Austria-Hungary was reluctant to act as Russia, being a Slavic country,
supported Serbia’s idea in spirit.3 There was a certain amount of
impatience in Austria-Hungary to deal with Serbia, and the lack of
co-operation of Serbia following the Archduke’s assassination in the
eyes of Austria-Hungary offered the best opportunity to assuage the
impatience, which was fully supported by Germany.
Part B) War was unavoidable?
The European continent has seen countless wars. It is hard to argue
that it is more to prone to them than other continents, although its
small size and dense population may lend itself to tensions, because
any growth in population requires more land to grow crops and more food
and better nutrition result in a growing population, so people and
nations collide. Each side of the argument feeds into the other and
accelerates it. As countries develop and become industrialised, this
growth becomes more pronounced. Countries have visions of themselves,
which involve grandeur and uniqueness. Such visions when untrammelled
are dangerous and when coupled with economic growth leads to violence.
European history is littered with the failed visions of arrogant
empires lying on top of thousands of dead people who failed to
appreciate them.
Humanity has devised beautiful things over the course of history and
these have changed as time progressed, but there is also horror in
humanity, one of which is the capacity for violence. Go to a museum and
look for any display on weapons of death and torture, it is disturbing
at their number and variety, which at times exceeds that of paintings,
sculpture and drawings. The Industrial Revolution in Europe had begun
in the late XVIIIth in the United Kingdom, but quickly spread to other
countries. Germany was the quickest to take advantage of the new
techniques and tools.4 Her growth would soon rival and past the United
Kingdom’s in some areas, especially in terms of military production.
Their greatest area of competition was the navy as Germany wanted to
build one to surpass the United Kingdom’s who had dominated the seas
for the past couple of centuries.5 Interestingly, their navies only met
once during World War I, and the result, arguably a draw, resulted in
the retreat of German war ships to their ports never to come out again.
Not only were their major achievements in the textile industry and the
development of steam engines, but also in arms development. Governments
could see that they could fight more wars quicker and across greater
expanses of territory. Wars could also be testing grounds for new
weapons, such as gas used by Germany in 1917. This new growth enabled
the development of new weaponry, the most of famous of which was the
Maxim gun used to conquer Africa and the ‘Big Bertha’ series of guns
developed by the Krupp industries in Germany. Every country was trying
to build the next big thing so as to be ahead of their adversaries, or
in other words, an arms race developed, which so often leads to war,
because the competition becomes too heated.
One of the guiding principles behind a country’s arrogance is
nationalism or the idea that your nation is the best of all others and
one must always be loyal to it. Such strong feelings are blinding. It
can be argued that such feelings were stronger in Germany than in any
other of the six main protagonists, because firstly Germany was the
artificial product of many smaller states, such as Prussia,
Hohenzollern and Bavaria, which possibly required a ‘bigger’ vision to
unite them6, and secondly the history and image of the Teutonic knights
as great warriors having held sway over large parts of central Europe
in the XII and XIIIth Centuries resides in the state of Hohenzollern.
To prove that one is the best, the best way was to conquer other
countries. Africa was an easy success, because most African countries
lacked the economic and technological prowess of most European
countries as well as suffering from the consequences of the Atlantic
slave trade, but the real success would be to win in Europe. In this
regard, there was a lot of political jostling to increase one’s
position in Europe and undermine one’s primary opponents, which made
for strange alliances, such as a democratic France with an autocratic
Russia. Whenever a European power ‘lost’ in any of the smaller wars
fought outside the continent of Europe, such as the case of the British
in the Sudan in 1880, they lost prestige in Europe in comparison to
other countries, which often lead to governments falling as Disraeli’s
did in the United Kingdom in 1880.
Conclusion
Some countries do start wars and should rightfully be blamed for
it. The world of Europe in 1914 was one where the whole continent was
standing on a knife’s edge and anything could tip into the abyss,
therefore picking one country out of this period is a bit unfair. The
number of instances that Europe came close to war in the late XIXth and
early XXth Centuries are innumerable, but each time wise minds managed
to pull things together. Sadly, in August 1914, there were not enough
around, as many others wanted to resolve old grievances and took
advantage of the opportunity offered. Interestingly, all of the six
main parties believed that the war would be over by Christmas. How
wrong they were!
Germany was guilty of many things before and during World War I, such
as the use of mustard gas against British troops and the massacre of
thousands Herero people in Namibia in 1907. Such extreme instances of
violence were used to create a highly negative image of Germany readily
available when World War I ended. If you look at the media in France
and the United Kingdom during the war itself, the impression one got
was that of a Hun, evil and violent ready to destroy the democratic
world of both countries. This image was highly pejorative and played
into popular fears that easily lent itself to placing the war as one
that Germany had started.
Bibliography
- Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. Knopf, 1993.
- Keegan, John. The First World War. Vintage, 2000.
- Martel, Gordon. The Origins of the First World War. 3rd ed, Seminar Studies, Pearson Education Ltd. 2003.
- Buchan, John. A History of the First World War. Lochar Publishing, 1991.
- Winter, Jay and Baggett, Blaine. 1914-18: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. BBC Books, 1996.
|
