ShadowsOfParadox
Well-known member
when it's a defensive pact declaring an offensive war, aka what Austria was doing, doesn't trigger it.
History Causes of WWI and Partition of Germany.
- Thread starter PsihoKekec
- Start date
It is an offensive war in the same way the invasion of Afghanistan was.
D
Deleted member
Guest
I think it is completely absurd and would have never worked, but by the early 20s in the wake of WWI there was certainly buyer's remorse from some of the federal states' populations. I've argued with Francis about this decades ago, on the side of defending Germany. I actually think Germany was one of the better states of the pre-WWI period. I often humour ideas I don't fully agree with, or at least discuss certain aspects of them neutrally. The reality is that it's a moot point because I think there was only enough independence sentiment in Bavaria to support separation, the rest of Germany would have reunified, as would have any area not genocided, i.e. Silesia. And Bavaria would only do it in the context of an equal confederation with Austria. The Rhennish Republic probably didn't have population support.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
I would suggest you look back at the sequence of events that took place after the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with a long list of demands that, if not complied with, would result in war. Serbia agreed to 9 of those 10 demands and offered to negotiate an agreement on the tenth. The text of the ten demands can be found atThe Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia (1914)
The fifth was the one Serbia wanted to negotiate over.
That's essentially a capitulation on the matter and would normally have ended matters there. However, egged on by an injudicious telegram from the Kaiser, the Austro-Hungarian government treated the Serbian response as a refusal and went to war. Because of the structuring of the alliances in Europe and the war-plans of the various parties (in passing, the Schlieffen Plan is a myth; there was a strategic plan along those lines but it was one of a number of staff options).
The internet channel "The Great War" actually covers this interplay very well. It is likely that had it not been for the Kaiser's interference, the 1914 war would have remained a relatively minor Balkan war like all the others. It was the Kaiser's telegram that made that minor war a Europe-wide conflagration that lasted until 1918.
However, whether Germany was in fact responsible for the outbreak of WW1 isn't germaine to this discussion. What is important was that the Allies had as one of their primary objectives establishing Germany as the responsible party, even to including a specific "war guilt" clause in the treaty, Since any treaty has to be judged on whether it succeeds in attaining the winner's strategic objectives, on these grounds, Versailles can be regarded as only partially successful. When considering the context of the treaty as a whole, its hard to avoid the conclusion that as a Treaty it was a profound failure.
Last edited:
The pact that Germany and Austria-Hungary had didn't specify that part.
In any case, Germany was willing to stay neutral, until Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
Sorry, that's not correct. The Entente was uninterested in the Serbian-Austrian situation and barely aware it had happened. That's very clear from the diplomatic records of the time. It was just another Balkan crisis of which there had been a lot.
Except, Germany had publicly declared that treaties were nothing more than a piece of paper and could be ignored at will. That had given them the perfect out when it came to supporting Austria-Hungary and if Germany had not supported Austria-Hungary, Russia would not have supported Serbia. Under those circumstances, at best there would have been an agreement over the remaining article of Austria-Hungary's demands and the situation would have subsided (again, repeat, Serbia had accepted all of Austria-Hungary's demands but one and offered to negotiate on the last), At worst, there would have been yet another minor Balkan War and the matter would have subsided. It was the Kaiser's Telegram that turned an rather stupid local crisis into something that was Europe-wide.
So, why did they do it. Answer, as it is for most wars, eventually comes down to economics. France had (unexpectedly) recovered from 1871 and growing fast. Russia, even more unexpectedly was starting explosive economic growth and was expanding its economic (and thus military) power quickly. Britain had won the naval race and its naval power was moving ahead of Germany's. In 1914, the German General Staff had told the Kaiser that if they didn't go to war in 1914 and cripple French and Russian economic growth, by 1915/16 the correlation of forces would be swinging against them and victory would become progressively less plausible. Therefore, it was 1914 or nothing.
By the way, a very interesting cut on this is the Starmedia History of the Great War on youtube. This is a Russian history of the outbreak and course of WW1 and its viewpoint is extremely valuable (which doesn't mean its correct, it means it shows us how the Russians were - and are - thinking. What it does do is show the extent to which Russia was industrializing in 1905-1914.
Austria-Hungary in 1918 and Germany in 1945. Both worked, Germany very well. Its essential to look through the eyes of people of 1918, not 2019. In 1918, the creation of nation-states around the ethnic identity of the populations was the great idea. It was seen (particularly by the Americans) as the solution to all international political ills. We'll come back to that a bit later but in the meantime, I'd refer you to Tooze's Deluge where this is examined in detail. Deluge is compulsory reading for this period. It's one of the few authoritative evaluations of what went on in the 1916-1918 era. In 2019, we know that this kind of nation-statism doesn't work very well - at best its a double-edged sword - but in 1918 it was the great hope of mankind.
If you want to be an analyst, one has to learn to be dispassionate about these things. Especially things that happened a hundred years ago. I watch Russian television as well (a lot) and get much the same feeling but that doesn't change the value of the information therel
In 1914, the Prussian-led German Empire was respected by its inhabitants. "Happy" is a serious overstatement; there was considerable industrial and political unrest within Germany aimed at, not necessarily the United Germany but the way that United Germany was being run. That discontent was escalating (socialists held the majority in the German Parliament and their strength was growing) and was one factor that led to the pessimism in the GGS over the way the situation was developing. War was seen as the major way out of this situation. On the other hand, that German population had seen the German Empire putting Germany on the world map, making it a great power and generally putting it into the councils of the Great Powers. So, from that point of view, the successes of the Empire were admired. But loved? No.
1n 1918, the Prussian-led German Empire was hated by its inhabitants. And hated not an overstatement; that's why civil wars (multiple ones) were breaking out all over Germany. The German population were starving, they had taken massive casualties, their country was collapsing around them and it was obvious they were pariahs. The German Empire was blamed for all of that. That's why the Kaiser abdicated (or one of the reasons why). Given the degree of civil war and unrest that was prevailing plus the imminent unconditional surrender (averted by the November Armistice), suggesting there would have been a Vietnam-style resistance in 1918 is out of the question. After all, there wasn't in 1945, for exactly the same reasons.
They didn't. Chopping countries up in nation states based on ethnic and cultural groupings was an American idea and it was squarely aimed at the British and French Empires. Woodrow Wilson's primary political aim was ending the great multinational empires and he saw what became the Versailles Treaty as a tool to do just that. This, in fact, is why the option of splitting Germany up into four nations (another American idea by the way) was firmly rejected by Britain and France (who had empires) and Italy (who thought having one would be rather nice). This was predicated on the anticipated German unconditional surrender in December 1918 (and why Woodrow Wilson wanted to avoid that surrender). What we are looking at here is the possibility of the US succeeding in forcing the concept though. By the way, the US proposed the same thing in 1944-45 and that evolved into the zones of occupation. It worked in 1945, the question is would the same idea worked in 1918, in one case after the November 1918 armistice and in AH, after the December 1918 unconditional surrender by Germany.
As a by-the-way, the German strategy from October 1918 onwards, following the crushing defeat of the German Army during the 100 days, was to seek an Armistice and then use the winter months to rebuild their shattered army and try to regain control of the country. Then, their plan was to resume the fighting in the spring of 1919. The British and French were perfectly well aware of that and their opposition to the November Armistice was based on that knowledge. What changed their mind was the perception that, no matter what the GGS planned, once the war ended in an armistice or not, it would not be possible to restart it. So, the emphasis became one of creating an Armistice that would not allow a resumption of hostilities,
Last edited:
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
In any case, Germany was willing to stay neutral, until Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary.
I fear not. You have the situation flipped around. When the Kaiser's message to the Austro-Hungarian government made it clear that Germany would side with and support Austro-Hungary, that was when the Russian Empire decided to support Serbia. Which was what the German government wanted since they had already decided to go to war with France and Russia in 1914. See Deluge, the Youtube The Great War and Starmedia's World War One.
D
Deleted member 18
Guest
Let's look at a brief timeline in the leadup to the assassination (with a couple of codas) that establish the extent of Serbian complicity in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
10-11 May 1903: The “May Coup” in Belgrade removes the relatively pro-Austrian Obrenovic dynasty in favor of the pro-Russian Karadordevic pretenders. The savagery of the coup, involving the brutal execution of the King, Queen, and several Ministers, shocked Europe and left Serbia politically isolated for several months. The coup had been organized by then-Captain Dragutin Dimitrijevic, a rising star in the Serbian General Staff, who allegedly hacked the queen to death with his own saber and had the mutilated bodies of the royal couple tossed out of a window into the street. The execution of the Queen’s brothers was handled by lieutenant Vojislav Tankosic, who would later play a direct role in the conspiracy to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.
May 1911: Formation of the Serbian secret society “Union or Death,” which was aimed at fostering the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and union of South Slavs under the rule of Belgrade. The constitution of the union was written by Vojislav Tankosic, and it soon became entwined with the “Black Hand” society formed in 1901 formed to carry out the May Coup, with Dragutin Dmitrijevic as a key leader.
Late 1913: Danilo Ilic, leader of the Sarajevo branch of the Black Hand and an organizer for the ostensibly native and independent “Young Bosnia” revolutionary group, meets directly with Dmitrijevic in Belgrade. An account of the meeting is not available, but shortly afterward the Black Hand begins making preparations in earnest for assassinations in Sarajevo. The targets fluctuate between the governor of Bosnia, General Oskar Potiorek, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, or even the Emperor Franz Josef.
January 1914: At a meeting in Toulouse of Serbian irredentist groups called by Vojislav Tankosic, “Union or Death” agreed on the assassination of General Potiorek. Mehmed Mehmedbasic was selected as the assassin and sent by train to Sarajevo with poison and daggers. Along the way the train was searched by police in an unrelated matter, and Mehmedbasic threw away his weapons in fear they were looking for him. Once he arrived in Sarajevo he contacted Ilic to inform him he’d lost the poison and needed new weapons to carry out his task.
March 1914: Dragutin Dmitrijevic orders the assassination attempt be changed to Franz Ferdinand due to his confirmed arrival in Sarajevo on St. Vitus’ Day. Dmitrijevic would later claim during his show trial in 1917 in Salonika that he ordered the assassination in his capacity of Chief of Military Intelligence rather than as head of the Black Hand. The Black Hand executive committee would later claim that Dmitrijevic had not acted with the full assent of the leadership.
26 March 1914: Ilic summonsMehmedbasic to Mostar and informs of the change in targets, and recruits together the rest of the assassination team. They request arms via Milan Ciganovic, a Serbian border guard officer reporting to Tankosic. In the meantime the assassination unit gathers back in Belgrade and carries out training.
26 May 1914: Major Tankosic provides the assassin group with six handgrandes and four pistols taken directly from Kragujevic Arsenal, but money, maps, aid infiltrating across the border, and suicide pills.
30 May 1914: Serbian border guards complicit with the Tankosic and the Black Hand escort the assassination group over the Sava River to Iskovac’s Island where they meet agents of the Narodna Odbrana (National Defense), another paramilitary force connected to the Black Hand. Unlike “Union or Death” the Narodna Odbrana was less hostile to the government of Prime Minister Nikolai Pasic. The agents reported back to their leadership, including the head of the society Boza Jankovic, who in turn reported to the government.
5 June 1914: Serbian Prime Minister Pasic is briefed on the assassins by Narodna Odbrana. His handwritten notes about the briefing would later be recovered by the Central Powers.
18 June 1914: Pasic sends a telegram to the embassy in Vienna, instructing ambassador Jovan Jovanovic to warn the Austro-Hungarian government of a threat to Franz Ferdinand. The telegram is lacking in specifics of the plot known to Pasic and the Serbian government, making it relatively ineffective.
21 June 1914: Jovanovic elects to speak to Finance Minister Leon Bilinski, who has nominal responsibility for Bosnia-Herzegovina as a province outside the dualist structure of Austria-Hungary. According to Jovanovic’s military attache Colonel Lesanin, Jovanovic spoke only about the risk that the Archduke might find from an “inflamed public opinion” and might lead to “incidents” that would fatally damage Austro-Serbian relations. Bilinski later noted that he took the conversation to be more of a threat than a warning.
28 June 1914: Assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
2 November 1915: Major Vojislav Tankosic dies from wounds received in action.
23 May 1917: Dmitrijevic is condemned to death alongside seven other Black Hand officers in Salonika for an alleged plot to assassination Prince-Regent Alexander Karadordevic.Dmitrijevic claimed responsibility for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and claimed he was being done away with to sweep the affair under the rug. Pasic confirmed this opinion in correspondence with London, noting that Dmitrijevic could not be pardoned due to the admission.
The internal politics of Serbia in this period are deeply, deeply confused and involve a snake’s pit of secret societies fighting with each other over approaches and strategies and especially political power even as they relentlessly pressed an agenda of Serbian aggrandizement. It should be noted that the Serbian government, represented primarily by Prime Minister Pasic, was in the middle of a struggle between factions of the Serbian military when the assassination took place. Dmitrijevic as the head of Military Intelligence as well as a vital figure in the murky conspiracies around the Black Hand, “Union or Death,” and Narodna Odbrana was more than capable of posing a direct threat to Pasic. He had already organized one bloody coup and there is no reason to imagine he would have been incapable of organizing another one if he felt the need.
Thus responsibility for the assassination can only be disputed in part. Serbian military and intelligence resources were certainly used in the assassination and this was known to Austro-Hungarian authorities by the time of the July Ultimatum. Given the clear inability of the Serbian government to exercise control over its own military, and the military’s complicity in the assassination, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that any Serbian investigation would be perfunctory at best. Indeed the initial Serbian response to the assassination was to claim that it had no responsibility or role and to refuse to investigate at all. While the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum may have strongly broached Serbian sovereignty it is also clear that stringent oversight of the investigation backed up by superior military force was probably the only course of action that would have rooted out Dmitrijevic, Tankosic, and their conspirators.
And in the end the Serbian government was not so much opposed to Dmitrijevic as more wary than he was. The government provided considerable support to Narodna Odbrana, which had run weapons and agents into Bosnia-Herzegovina for some time and which sustained a vigorous propaganda campaign stirring up Bosnian Serbs in Austrian territory. After the war Pasic would go on to act as the first Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, later Yugoslavia- and he set the tone for the future of that unhappy union by pursuing a policy of establishing Serbian superiority over the government. In the end he only disagreed with the tactics being pursued by one part of the Serbian paramilitary forces acting against Austria-Hungary and still actively supported others.
Serbia was frankly a terrorist state that got away with it.
I'll hunt down some other sources to address the July Crisis in depth later on but a few things there are worth noting; that while Germany did notoriously offer Austria-Hungary a "blank cheque" that ignores the Entente side of the diplomatic scrum. During the visit of President Poincare to Russia in the middle of the Crisis he directly urged the Russians to support Serbia; the ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paleologue, likewise worked very hard to support the hawkish elements of the Russian General Staff and Foreign Ministry who wanted a war with Germany as well as Austria-Hungary. In the order of mobilizations we see the Russians mobilized first, followed by France, and then by Germany; while the Russian Ministry of War lied to Tsar Nicholas about the extent of Russian mobilization we clearly accept the equivalence of mobilization with war then Russia and France were both well ready to accept a general war in 1914 and had powerful elements which acted to thwart any attempts to stop the war. And with the Russians we see they acted on war aims very readily (eg the annexation of Galicia and the anti-Jewish pogroms and Russification pursued very rapidly after October 1914) that suggests they had their own expansionist agenda predetermined before the start of the war and that defending Serbia was rather a convenient excuse to fulfill their objective of destroying Austria-Hungary.
10-11 May 1903: The “May Coup” in Belgrade removes the relatively pro-Austrian Obrenovic dynasty in favor of the pro-Russian Karadordevic pretenders. The savagery of the coup, involving the brutal execution of the King, Queen, and several Ministers, shocked Europe and left Serbia politically isolated for several months. The coup had been organized by then-Captain Dragutin Dimitrijevic, a rising star in the Serbian General Staff, who allegedly hacked the queen to death with his own saber and had the mutilated bodies of the royal couple tossed out of a window into the street. The execution of the Queen’s brothers was handled by lieutenant Vojislav Tankosic, who would later play a direct role in the conspiracy to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.
May 1911: Formation of the Serbian secret society “Union or Death,” which was aimed at fostering the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and union of South Slavs under the rule of Belgrade. The constitution of the union was written by Vojislav Tankosic, and it soon became entwined with the “Black Hand” society formed in 1901 formed to carry out the May Coup, with Dragutin Dmitrijevic as a key leader.
Late 1913: Danilo Ilic, leader of the Sarajevo branch of the Black Hand and an organizer for the ostensibly native and independent “Young Bosnia” revolutionary group, meets directly with Dmitrijevic in Belgrade. An account of the meeting is not available, but shortly afterward the Black Hand begins making preparations in earnest for assassinations in Sarajevo. The targets fluctuate between the governor of Bosnia, General Oskar Potiorek, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, or even the Emperor Franz Josef.
January 1914: At a meeting in Toulouse of Serbian irredentist groups called by Vojislav Tankosic, “Union or Death” agreed on the assassination of General Potiorek. Mehmed Mehmedbasic was selected as the assassin and sent by train to Sarajevo with poison and daggers. Along the way the train was searched by police in an unrelated matter, and Mehmedbasic threw away his weapons in fear they were looking for him. Once he arrived in Sarajevo he contacted Ilic to inform him he’d lost the poison and needed new weapons to carry out his task.
March 1914: Dragutin Dmitrijevic orders the assassination attempt be changed to Franz Ferdinand due to his confirmed arrival in Sarajevo on St. Vitus’ Day. Dmitrijevic would later claim during his show trial in 1917 in Salonika that he ordered the assassination in his capacity of Chief of Military Intelligence rather than as head of the Black Hand. The Black Hand executive committee would later claim that Dmitrijevic had not acted with the full assent of the leadership.
26 March 1914: Ilic summonsMehmedbasic to Mostar and informs of the change in targets, and recruits together the rest of the assassination team. They request arms via Milan Ciganovic, a Serbian border guard officer reporting to Tankosic. In the meantime the assassination unit gathers back in Belgrade and carries out training.
26 May 1914: Major Tankosic provides the assassin group with six handgrandes and four pistols taken directly from Kragujevic Arsenal, but money, maps, aid infiltrating across the border, and suicide pills.
30 May 1914: Serbian border guards complicit with the Tankosic and the Black Hand escort the assassination group over the Sava River to Iskovac’s Island where they meet agents of the Narodna Odbrana (National Defense), another paramilitary force connected to the Black Hand. Unlike “Union or Death” the Narodna Odbrana was less hostile to the government of Prime Minister Nikolai Pasic. The agents reported back to their leadership, including the head of the society Boza Jankovic, who in turn reported to the government.
5 June 1914: Serbian Prime Minister Pasic is briefed on the assassins by Narodna Odbrana. His handwritten notes about the briefing would later be recovered by the Central Powers.
18 June 1914: Pasic sends a telegram to the embassy in Vienna, instructing ambassador Jovan Jovanovic to warn the Austro-Hungarian government of a threat to Franz Ferdinand. The telegram is lacking in specifics of the plot known to Pasic and the Serbian government, making it relatively ineffective.
21 June 1914: Jovanovic elects to speak to Finance Minister Leon Bilinski, who has nominal responsibility for Bosnia-Herzegovina as a province outside the dualist structure of Austria-Hungary. According to Jovanovic’s military attache Colonel Lesanin, Jovanovic spoke only about the risk that the Archduke might find from an “inflamed public opinion” and might lead to “incidents” that would fatally damage Austro-Serbian relations. Bilinski later noted that he took the conversation to be more of a threat than a warning.
28 June 1914: Assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
2 November 1915: Major Vojislav Tankosic dies from wounds received in action.
23 May 1917: Dmitrijevic is condemned to death alongside seven other Black Hand officers in Salonika for an alleged plot to assassination Prince-Regent Alexander Karadordevic.Dmitrijevic claimed responsibility for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and claimed he was being done away with to sweep the affair under the rug. Pasic confirmed this opinion in correspondence with London, noting that Dmitrijevic could not be pardoned due to the admission.
The internal politics of Serbia in this period are deeply, deeply confused and involve a snake’s pit of secret societies fighting with each other over approaches and strategies and especially political power even as they relentlessly pressed an agenda of Serbian aggrandizement. It should be noted that the Serbian government, represented primarily by Prime Minister Pasic, was in the middle of a struggle between factions of the Serbian military when the assassination took place. Dmitrijevic as the head of Military Intelligence as well as a vital figure in the murky conspiracies around the Black Hand, “Union or Death,” and Narodna Odbrana was more than capable of posing a direct threat to Pasic. He had already organized one bloody coup and there is no reason to imagine he would have been incapable of organizing another one if he felt the need.
Thus responsibility for the assassination can only be disputed in part. Serbian military and intelligence resources were certainly used in the assassination and this was known to Austro-Hungarian authorities by the time of the July Ultimatum. Given the clear inability of the Serbian government to exercise control over its own military, and the military’s complicity in the assassination, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that any Serbian investigation would be perfunctory at best. Indeed the initial Serbian response to the assassination was to claim that it had no responsibility or role and to refuse to investigate at all. While the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum may have strongly broached Serbian sovereignty it is also clear that stringent oversight of the investigation backed up by superior military force was probably the only course of action that would have rooted out Dmitrijevic, Tankosic, and their conspirators.
And in the end the Serbian government was not so much opposed to Dmitrijevic as more wary than he was. The government provided considerable support to Narodna Odbrana, which had run weapons and agents into Bosnia-Herzegovina for some time and which sustained a vigorous propaganda campaign stirring up Bosnian Serbs in Austrian territory. After the war Pasic would go on to act as the first Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, later Yugoslavia- and he set the tone for the future of that unhappy union by pursuing a policy of establishing Serbian superiority over the government. In the end he only disagreed with the tactics being pursued by one part of the Serbian paramilitary forces acting against Austria-Hungary and still actively supported others.
Serbia was frankly a terrorist state that got away with it.
I'll hunt down some other sources to address the July Crisis in depth later on but a few things there are worth noting; that while Germany did notoriously offer Austria-Hungary a "blank cheque" that ignores the Entente side of the diplomatic scrum. During the visit of President Poincare to Russia in the middle of the Crisis he directly urged the Russians to support Serbia; the ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paleologue, likewise worked very hard to support the hawkish elements of the Russian General Staff and Foreign Ministry who wanted a war with Germany as well as Austria-Hungary. In the order of mobilizations we see the Russians mobilized first, followed by France, and then by Germany; while the Russian Ministry of War lied to Tsar Nicholas about the extent of Russian mobilization we clearly accept the equivalence of mobilization with war then Russia and France were both well ready to accept a general war in 1914 and had powerful elements which acted to thwart any attempts to stop the war. And with the Russians we see they acted on war aims very readily (eg the annexation of Galicia and the anti-Jewish pogroms and Russification pursued very rapidly after October 1914) that suggests they had their own expansionist agenda predetermined before the start of the war and that defending Serbia was rather a convenient excuse to fulfill their objective of destroying Austria-Hungary.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
An excellent summary of the situation. Thank you for putting it together. The Kaiser's blank check remains the key to the whole situation though and behind that lies the German General Staff assessment that 1914 represented the last chance Germany would have to engage the French-Russian alliance with a reasonable chance of success. The French and Russians were almost certainly aware of that conclusion (and had probably made the same one - there's nothing secret about these things and then there was less secrecy than there is now) so they saw the German moves for what they were. Here's the thing though; it was in both the French and Russian interests to delay the inevitable war to 1915 or even 1916. Literally every month that passed made the chance of winning more certain.
D
Deleted member 18
Guest
I'll look at the July Crisis later, but France and Russia both took very aggressive postures in 1914 that clearly indicated a willingness, if not an eagerness, to have it out then and there. The fate of Serbia was certainly not something that would have tilted the balance against them in 1915 or 1916 so why did they decide to go to war right then if they had better odds later? The eagerness with which they did press ahead knowingly into war in 1914 does not give much cause to imagine that they would have not found an excuse to exercise their military superiority later on in any case; and given that pan-Slavist elements in Russia had been openly salivating about destroying Austria-Hungary for decades and that France had fanatically sought the chance to recover Alsace-Lorraine since 1871 and had held out a demand for a border along the entire course of the Rhine even longer, there's little reason to imagine that would not have been a catastrophic development for Germany and Austria-Hungary.
So I mean in so far as you're making that argument it seems like the Germans were justified in seeking preventive (if not preemptive) war in 1914.
@Francis Urquhart Not sure if I can even reply, because everything I could say has been said in a much more well informed and better written way than I ever could.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
I think they knew that Germany was determined to fight in 1914 when they had the best chance of victory. If we follow the French and Russian logic through, they knew they would be better off fighting in 1915 than in 1914 and even better off in 1916. Same logic for 1917 probably 1918. Eventually, there would come a point where the wheel would start its next cycle and it would be the Germans who looked at a steadily increasing advantage.
I suspect that what lay behind the French/Russian position was that, since they knew the Germans were determined to start a war, now was as good a time as any. I think the trump the French and Russians were holding was that the knowledge the Russians could mobilize much faster than five years earlier would throw a wrench into the German plans (which it did of course). Such things are short-lived secrets and have a close sell-by date. All it needed was for somebody to get a map of the Russian railways in 1914 and compare them with the 1905 editions. By the way, I wouldn't put too much weight in the French etc meetings at general staff level; they're contingency meetings. Those go on all the time in the most unlikely of circumstances. There was a NATO meeting back in the 1970s when possibility of American troops being assigned to peacekeeping in Northern Ireland came up. The British and Americans officers were looking at each other with "Oh Dear God NO!!!" expressions on their faced. You'll never get a source for that of course.
That could be argued although it would be a weak argument since preventative or preemptive war generally requires an immediate and credible threat to be valid. A generalized threat like "the military balance will tilt in their favor" doesn't hack it. In the latter case, changes in policy and an increase in the defense budget is more appropriate.
By the way, as your history shows all too well, the Serbs were (and are) a deeply unlikable people. Even the Russians don't like them. In fact, one Russian acquaintance of mine describes them as 'the school bully who runs to his big brother every time somebody fights back'. So, unlike a lot of academics in this area, I don't actually blame the Austro-Hungarians for the ten points. They were diplomatically inept and should have gone through a brief "negotiation" of the Fifth Point then invaded. Again, it was that telegram from Germany that lay at the heart of the situation.
Another good, easily-accessible source on the build-up to war is the BBC TV Series The Great War. This was made in 1965 when there were still WW1 veterans in largish numbers whose memories etc were still clear and lucid. They're all gone now of course. The Youtube Great War Channel is still the best easily-accessible source.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
After losing the war against Japan and diplomatic failiure in 1908 and 1878, the Russia was vary of losing face again and thus unwilling to back down. And in France there was strong pressure to avenge the humiliation of 1870/71 right away.
D
Deleted member
Guest
I split this thread from the other one to make both healthier places for their respective subjects...
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Well, this little number would basically sum things up: Nightmare!Versailles. Essentially, anything like that would have pretty much everyone jump the ship and/or stab the guys who made it in the back faster than you can say 'oh shit'.
D
Deleted member
Guest
I don't think there's any viable way to make a true partition of Germany work in WW1, nor would it really be moral (though Francis is a maximal realist, so he's not worried about morality).
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
The key point to remember is that Germany was a few days or (at most) a handful of weeks away from total collapse and unconditional surrender. The Germans themselves admitted this; their HQ strategy was to get a temporary armistice covering the winter, use the time bought to try and rebuild their shattered army and then restart the war in the spring of 1919. The French and British were perfectly well aware of that and their positions in the Armistice negotiations were set accordingly. In WW2 terms, the Germans in October 1918 were in much the same position as the Nazi Germans were in March 1945. If they didn't get an armistice, they would have to surrender unconditionally.
As history showed, in 1918 they got their armistice in 1945 they didn't. In 1918 they miscalculated in that they assumed the Armistice would be temporary and they could resume the war from a more favorable position in 1919 (see Tooze, Deluge). The British and French realized that once the war stopped, that would be it. Getting it restarted was impossible so whatever happened at an Armistice was going to be it. Which was why they were quite happy with stringing things out until the inevitable German collapse in December 1918. It's worth noting by the way that the British and French had contingency plans for a 1919 offensive as well that assumed the planned German restart of the war in 1919 actually took place. Plan 1919 turned into an evaluation of alternatives, in effect a study of how future wars would be fought when it became apparent that a restart of WW1 was impossible. It was the US and only the US that wanted to accept a November 1918 armistice and they muscled the agreement through using their economic power.
So the answer to your question as to how splitting up Germany could be achieved, the answer is simple. String out the armistice negotiations until December 1918 and then they become irrelevant. The German Army has collapsed and disintegrated , the German Navy had mutinied, Germany itself was wracked by revolutions and civil war - including a lot of varied separatist groups. In fact one could argue that Germany was in a worse condition in 1918 than it was in early 1945. The only real difference was that the Russian Army was coming in 1945 and it was royally pissed off. Anyway, in December 1918, Germany collapses completely and would have to be occupied simply to prevent mass starvation. With Germany occupied, the question simply becomes who occupies where and the partition is done. Essentially that was what happened in 1945. It's how Korea got divided where it did.
So, if it is to be claimed that a partition of Germany was impossible in 1918, the onus is on those making that claim to show why a policy that worked extremely well in 1945 wouldn't work in 1918. It is worth noting by the way that Russia in 1945 believed that the zones of occupation would become separate countries (the way the Russian Zone of Occupation in Germany became the DDR and they were quite shocked when that didn't happen. The Russians (and the British Labor Party) made opposition to the reunification of the three western zones a primary political objective, something that officially remained until 1990. Even the UK Conservatives in 1990 opposed reunification.
That's not strictly true; the determining factor of a maximal realist is that they will do things in their professional capacity that they would regard as repellent in their private capacity. Also that war is the ultimate form of immorality and that its better to avoid it if possible. If it can't be avoided, it should be won quickly and decisively. The ultimate immorality that lay at the heart of the Versailles Treaty was that it made another war inevitable.