And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We shall not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.
On 31 July 1914, following the German government’s announcement of an ‘imminent threat of war’ and the issue of the German ultimatum to Russia, the Bavarian General von Wenninger dashed across Berlin to the War Ministry. The officers he found there were not in a despondent mood, but rather a cheerful one: ‘Beaming faces everywhere, handshakes in the corridors, each man congratulating the next that things are finally on the move. Rumours about the other ultimatum, issued to France – one man asks whether it is really necessary to draw the French into all this, as they always run scared like little rabbits. General von Wild replies that “It would be a shame not to take on those fellows as well.”’1 This level of confidence was also reflected in the general response of the German military leadership. The Kaiser’s aide-de-camp, Max von Mutius, who had been involved in the crucial deliberations about war and peace at the end of July and beginning of August 1914, wrote in his memoirs: ‘I deliberately did not give too much thought to the likely course of events and the duration of the war. Happily, we were all convinced that we would somehow ultimately win the war.’2
The levity with which these soldiers celebrated the outbreak of the Great War is all the more astounding in view of the fact that there could have been no illusions about the scale of the war that would follow. Many contemporary commentators feared that a confrontation between the Great Powers would be catastrophic for Europe3 – and this was not surprising, given the scale of the conflict that was to come. As far back as the 1870s, military planners, politicians and the general public believed that it would be impossible to contain a future war within Europe and that a continental conflict would ensue. The Social Democrat Georg Ledebour stated in the Reichstag in June 1913 that it had been self-evident for decades that the most likely war scenario, should a war break out, would be between the European coalitions.4 This would result from dynamics between the Great Powers and, in particular, of the opposing systems of alliances and alignments, i.e. the Triple Alliance between the German Empire, Austria–Hungary and Italy founded in 1882, and the opposing coalition of Great Britain, France and Russia. The latter, which the Germans called the ‘Triple Entente’, resulted from a series of alliances and agreements: the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1892; the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904; and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907.
Even so, the potential scale of the conflict was only one factor that should have acted as a deterrent. Another was the development of arms technology in the decades prior to 1914: new innovations included the invention of aircraft and submarines, the introduction of lorries and radio communication and, in particular, the enormous increase in firepower due to improved artillery, machine guns (introduced into the German army in 1901)5 and magazine rifles. Several comparative historical studies have analysed visions of future war dating from before 1914: for example, military journals demonstrate that the vast majority of military experts had quite correctly assessed and understood the technical developments and were aware of the implications this increase in firepower would have for a future conflict.6 Given the status of arms technology and the size of the warring armies, a continental conflict between the European alliances would not be a ‘bright and breezy war’ but rather a devastating catastrophe. Contemporary observers as politically diverse as Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels, the Social Democrat August Bebel and the Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke (the elder) recognised that any European war would become a violent continental conflict in which armies of millions of soldiers would spend years fighting each other. Despite all this, the soldiers in the War Ministry celebrated their mobilisation, possibly because many had resigned themselves to a military career spent entirely in peacetime without ever having the opportunity to experience war.
In the event, contemporary ideas about the scale and destructive power of a future war generated two opposing interpretations of the situation in the years before 1914, each of which was ultimately to contribute to the outbreak of war. The first was a widespread feeling that, although such an apocalyptic confrontation might indeed come about, the difficulty of controlling it meant that it was unlikely to occur.7 The Polish banker Ivan Bloch published a multi-volume study on the consequences of modern warfare, the implications of which he saw as so devastating that any war between the major powers must be regarded as political suicide.8 A number of political books and articles in a similar vein appeared prior to 1914. In 1910, Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, in which he declared it impossible for a modern war to have a victor: the book was immediately translated into several languages. In 1913, the German diplomat Richard von Kühlmann published a booklet entitled Deutsche Weltpolitik und kein Krieg (German World Policy and No War), refuting the idea that Germany needed a war.9 In a short book entitled Grundzüge der Weltpolitik in der Gegenwart (Characteristics of World Politics in Our Time10) and written during the autumn of 1913, Kurt Riezler, the personal assistant to the German Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, put forward the view that, despite strong nationalistic tendencies, a great war between the European alliance systems was improbable and that the fear of its devastating consequences made it practically impossible. ‘The system of alliances complicates any calculations and effectively conserves the peace.’11 Such expectations, in so far as they reduced the awareness of risk, were to prove fatal during the July Crisis.
The second conclusion proceeded along opposite lines. While recognising that a continental war in Europe would bring with it extreme dangers, it nevertheless sought to make such a war a possibility. Many soldiers and politicians of the time believed war to be an unavoidable element of politics and therefore an inescapable reality: belief in a lasting peace was naïve and dangerous, and it was imperative to prepare for the challenge of a continental European war, so as to be able to win it. Despite the dangers and uncertainties, many soldiers were eager to put themselves to the test and the armies of Imperial Germany displayed supreme confidence that they would emerge victorious.12 For the most part, the Germans’ optimistic belief in their own military capacity was based on their past successes, in particular the victory over France in 1871. The Wars of Unification had demonstrated that Prussia/Germany enjoyed considerable military superiority over neighbouring Austria or France – and this both in terms of numbers and strategy, including the systematic planning of the General Staff and effective use of the railways for deployment and mobilisation. Needless to say, there were repeated warnings from some contemporary observers against relying too heavily on the successes of the past. In 1891, Chief of the General Staff Count von Waldersee wrote: ‘We are living off our successes of 1870 and we are confident that our army is superior to all others, while we are not in a position to judge other armies properly.’13 This feeling of superiority was further fuelled during the reign of Wilhelm II by a rapid growth in the population and in industrial production. With a population of approximately 65 million, the German Empire in 1914 was the second most populous nation in Europe, after Russia. France, on the other hand, as Germany’s more likely opponent in a future confrontation, had stagnated in growth and had a population of only 40 million.
The German public regarded their empire as the military hegemon of Europe. This view derived in part from a ‘tally of guns, soldiers and ships’, in other words a comparison of Germany’s resources and those of its allies with the resources of likely opponents,14 specifically the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance. However, it also drew on the considerable support for the army amongst the German population, and on popular trust in the competence of the military leadership. The armed forces were regarded, not as a necessary evil, but as an object of pride and admiration,15 an attitude that was typical for the time and was not unique to Germany, although it was particularly prevalent there.16 The military shaped the lives of almost all men throughout the German Empire, as reservist status followed active military service, and the network of regionally organised Kriegervereine (veterans’ and reservists’ associations) constituted the largest mass organisation of the German Empire. With nearly 3 million members, they were larger than any single political party or trade union.17
Widespread belief in the necessity of a strong army to defend the country, and pride in the army that had united Germany in three victorious wars, was part of the Zeitgeist. This overconfidence and its manifestation in a sense of cultural superiority were viewed by critics of the time, and even more so by later observers, as the product of unjustified hubris: in his Unzeitgemäβen Betrachtungen (Unfashionable Observations), Friedrich Nietzsche criticised ‘the extirpation of the German spirit for the benefit of the German Reich’.18 Others also condemned the ruling militarism: the Social Democrats (SPD) criticised the army’s rigid class structures and advocated a different system of defence (a militia army). And yet, even among SPD voters, there was a general consensus that this army, backed by the German people, would be able to overcome any adversary. Sources of the time often quote Luther’s confident words: ‘And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, / We shall not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.’19
German military leaders were also confident that they could solve the problems expected to arise both from developments in arms technology and from the escalation of the war through the European system of alliances. In the years immediately following the unification of Germany in 1871, military planning for war had still been realistic in its approach: Moltke the Elder, Chief of the General Staff until 1890, had prepared the Empire for a war on two fronts, opting for a largely defensive strategy that included some smaller-scale attacks in the east. He had considered a decisive military victory to be unlikely and stressed how difficult it had been for Germany to bring the Franco-Prussian war to a conclusion in 1871, even after the French field army had been almost entirely wiped out. Moltke aimed to end a future war by securing a limited number of victories leading to separate peace agreements.20 However, given his forebodings about nationalistic passions that would be unleashed by war on a European scale, his assumption that it would be possible to establish a peace through compromise was perhaps somewhat optimistic.
While this was for the most part a realistic scenario, it was also an unappealing one. The second of Moltke’s successors, Alfred Count von Schlieffen (Chief of the General Staff 1891–1906), dramatically altered Germany’s plans for war, in a way that would make him a hero amongst the General Staff. While he lacked Moltke’s glowing reputation as military leader during the Wars of Unification, he had risen to prominence as a strategic authority thanks to his new and original answers to the challenges of modern warfare. Like Moltke, Schlieffen understood the problems created by developments in arms technology that favoured a defensive strategy; like Bloch and Angell who considered a continental war to be suicide, he recognised the fatal implications of such enormous increases in firepower for future battles. Indeed, like Bloch, Schlieffen also argued in his essay ‘Der Krieg der Gegenwart’ (‘Modern Warfare’) that the interlocking of modern national economies meant that a long war would bring about widespread financial collapse. His conclusions, however, were radically different from those of writers such as Bloch: Schlieffen’s main aim was not to avoid war, but rather to make it possible once more through newly developed tactics and strategy. He favoured relatively short, decisive operations designed to avoid the kind of long drawn-out conflict that Moltke the Elder had envisaged,21 and it was to this end that Schlieffen made decisive modifications to Germany’s war planning and developed the strategy that bears his name.
The first alterations Schlieffen made were technical adjustments: newly erected Russian fortifications had raised doubts about the limited offensives Moltke the Elder had envisaged in the east, where the vast and unfavourable terrain also meant that any initial success would remain inconclusive if the Russians retreated inland. Schlieffen therefore gradually began to alter Germany’s war strategy by weakening the German presence in the east and planning for ever greater numbers of troops to march westwards, changing the distribution of troops in the west and east from 2:1 to 4:1 and ultimately 8:1.22 While he still provided for the deployment of an army in the east, he concentrated increasingly on the problem of fighting a decisive campaign in the west. Studies in military history, for example of Hannibal’s pincer movement at the Battle of Cannae or Napoleon’s disregard for questions of Prussian neutrality at the Battle of Ulm, strengthened his determination to seek victory in the west, defeating the enemy by envelopment, avoiding a frontal attack and violating the neutrality of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands in order to outflank the French. These changes occurred incrementally: it was not until 1897 that Schlieffen gave up the idea of breaking through the strongly defended French eastern border and instead proposed to march through Belgium.23
If everything had proceeded as planned, Germany would have enjoyed a substantial numerical advantage on all fronts: the campaign was set to start in the west, so that, by the time the Russians had finally mobilised themselves for battle, troops from the Western Front would be available for redeployment in the east. Schlieffen hoped to achieve victory through ‘superiority in numbers’ on the battlefield, and this was probably the most attractive aspect of his plan.24 It was also a risky strategy that left no room for error, with success depending on the operations interlocking with one another like clockwork. Even so, it was received enthusiastically by the General Staff, who believed that Schlieffen had found the answers to the substantial challenges of modern warfare and to the specific problems of a war on two fronts by making short and decisive offensives possible again. Schlieffen saw the flanking manoeuvre not only as the solution to his problem, but as the quintessence of the art of warfare: ‘Attacking the flank is the most important idea in military history.’25 Whereas Moltke had proposed a strategic defensive on both fronts, Schlieffen offered the possibility of outright victory: Germany would defeat France first, before joining with Austria to confront Russia, a conflict that would perhaps be lengthy and tenacious but would no longer present an existential danger.26
Schlieffen’s influence on the upper echelons of the German army was in part due to the fact that he was a demanding superior who was particularly good at spurring ambitious and intelligent officers on to high achievement. He worked extremely hard – ‘he knew nothing of rest or recreation’27 – and asked a lot of his men: namely, that the officers of the General Staff demonstrate the same level of commitment to their roles as he did to his own as their superior. ‘It was difficult to satisfy him; few men were assiduous enough for his standards. He was cutting and sarcastic about many. … But those who enjoyed his confidence were secure in his favour.’28 Schlieffen, for his part, was intellectually brilliant, his ideas often surprising and original; he presented his officers with a multitude of tasks, war scenarios and exercises, using these to test his own ideas and their responses. Even so, it must be said that the westward attacking strategy named after him, and especially its final iteration dating from 1906,29 was riddled with weaknesses. Schlieffen’s own view was that the German army was 24 divisions (i.e. considerably more than 300,000 men)30 short of the force needed to pursue the offensive from the German border through Belgium and to the coast, and then to swing round towards the south and southeast to surround Paris, encircling and annihilating the French army at the border. A number of logistical questions also remained unanswered by Schlieffen’s plan.31 Indeed, it has been argued that the very term ‘plan’ is something of a misnomer, in that it was not really a concrete proposition whose creator believed it could or should be implemented, but more an intellectual exercise, a suggestion that was in part intended to support the argument for a vast increase in army numbers.32
Another disadvantage to Schlieffen’s strategy was presented by the political implications of starting a war by attacking neutral states – although this is an aspect that seems to have carried more weight with historians writing about Schlieffen after the war than with the strategists of the time.33 It is true that, shortly before his death in 1891, Moltke did express to Waldersee his horror at a memorandum published by Schlieffen that outlined the idea of attacking through Belgium.34 For the rest, however, the General Staff viewed the breach of neutrality only in terms of the military advantage it would offer over France, and accepted it without much discussion. In similar debates in other states, decision-makers had reached different conclusions. The French Chief of the General Staff, Joseph Joffre, for example, emphasized the military advantages of circumventing Germany’s defences by attacking through Luxembourg and Belgium35 and indeed, on 9 January 1912, requested governmental permission to violate Belgian neutrality in the event of war. However, his request was denied, out of consideration for the British position. In the French case, unlike in the German discussions, political considerations won out. Indeed, the French historian Georges-Henri Soutou has argued that it was on that January day in 1912 that France won the First World War.36
The Schlieffen Plan was testament to the Germans’ complete confidence in their military abilities, and raised the question of how this fitted in with their intelligence assessments of the armies opposing them. The German military leadership made use of the constant stream of incoming news and updates as a source of fresh justifications for their belief in German superiority. This was certainly true of the news from France, which was central to German interests and was regarded both by Schlieffen and by his successor as Chief of the General Staff, Moltke the Younger, as Germany’s most dangerous opponent.37 At the same time, however, German analysts, military attachés and officers of the General Staff identified numerous French weaknesses. Analysis of large-scale manoeuvres revealed that French military leaders were too cautious and schematic in their approach, failing to take the initiative when necessary;38 meanwhile, studies of French fortifications concluded that the enemy had chosen a defensive position. Furthermore, the stagnating French population and the three-year conscription obligation for military service39 seemed to indicate that the enemy would lack the human resources for a longer war and would therefore quickly yield. This analysis went hand-in-hand with an inherent respect for the French soldiers, whom Moltke the Younger believed to be intelligent, educated and ardently patriotic. However, he also regarded them as nervous and believed that their morale would quickly collapse, causing the army to fall to pieces and ultimately leading to defeat.40 What German military leaders feared most was that the French army would make an orderly retreat inland, for example to the Loire valley, which would then be an obstacle to a rapid victory on the Western Front.41
This insight into the German perspective reveals how the intelligence from behind enemy lines was incorporated into an optimistic picture of the situation. This approach was widespread: General von Kuhl, one of Schlieffen’s most gifted protégés, wrote in 1920 that the General Staff had correctly identified many of the military challenges and had not by any means underestimated them. His apologia showed clearly that the Germans had indeed amassed a large quantity of detailed and often accurate information about the enemy and that they recognised that in terms of numbers the opposing coalition had the advantage. Kuhl also painted a dark picture of the threat faced by the German Reich, one it had not been able to avoid, but he ultimately came to a positive conclusion: ‘In the event of war, it was better if the General Staff went optimistically rather than pessimistically into the field. We had to compensate for our lack in numbers with the determination of our troops. The army that went to war in 1914 was the best army Germany had ever had.’42 Admittedly, ‘it was no secret to us that this would not be a war like the one against Austria’s badly led forces in 1866 or like that of 1870, in which we had enjoyed substantial superiority. This would not be a “bright and breezy” war. We were treading a difficult path, but with enthusiasm and confidence.’43 German intellectuals painted a similar picture. Hans Delbrück prayed that ‘God spare Germany and the cultural world this war’,44 but should it come to pass, he wanted to win. The historian Friedrich Meinecke wrote: ‘We want peace, but if war is to be inevitably pressed upon us, we must and we shall be victorious, at any cost and whatever it takes, and drawing greatly on the strength of our people.’45
The discourse on war was often paradoxical, shaped both by the determination to be victorious and an awareness that a war would be a catastrophe. There is no doubt that it would have been far better and more professional for the General Staff to have warned politicians emphatically against the great dangers of a continental war and advised that it was therefore to be avoided. Social dynamics, however, operated to instil military leaders with an awareness of their duty to demonstrate enthusiasm for war, particularly because this was expected of them by others. The future Secretary of State of the Foreign Office, Gottlieb von Jagow, observed in 1911 that to a certain degree soldiers always hoped for war, adding that ‘a soldier who only hopes for peace is an absurdity’.46 It would therefore have seemed unsoldierly to recommend that the avoidance of war was the more responsible course of action. This would have both undermined the self-image of the General Staff and amounted to questioning Germany’s readiness for war; an inability to confirm this readiness would have been considered a serious failing on the part of the military planners – particularly against the background of the ever-increasing cost of armaments, which reached new heights in the German army bills of 1911 and 1913.47 The admission that the German army was only ‘partially ready for defence’ would return to haunt Germany two world wars later, in the form of the Spiegel Affair, in 1962. For the rest, however, there was no doubt among the General Staff that the decision on whether or not a war could be avoided lay not in Germany’s hands alone, but in those of its enemies, with their malicious intentions.
The contradictory opinions of the time were personified by Germany’s Chief of the General Staff in 1914, Moltke the Younger, who was fully aware of many of the risks involved, most importantly the impossibility of calculating the probable duration of a continental war. Even during the July Crisis of 1914, he was already talking of a ‘horrific war … that will annihilate European culture for decades’;48 and he was so weighed down by the burden of his enormous responsibility that the Prussian Minister of War, Erich von Falkenhayn, described his ‘mood swings’ as ‘barely, if at all’ intelligible.49 In the end, however, Moltke’s desire for war and his absolute confidence in a German victory were clearly demonstrated when on 1 August 1914 it suddenly seemed that war in the west might be avoided with France and Britain staying neutral, and when for a period of a few hours the Kaiser withdrew his support for the planned attack on the Western Front. Moltke’s response was hysterical, testifying not only to his concern for his detailed deployment plans, but also to his dismay at the thought that the war, having previously seemed so certain, might in fact be completely avoided: ‘This was what I always feared. We could have won the war on both fronts … now all we need is for Russia to duck out.’50
Yet although Moltke believed that Germany would win the war, this was not to say that he overlooked the dangers that could arise from its escalation; others, such as Falkenhayn, while ardently hoping for a war in Europe, had for years assumed that it would benefit the United States and Japan.51 In Falkenhayn’s case, however, soldierly activism and confidence in Germany’s readiness proved to be stronger than any sobering considerations. True, a war would jeopardise the soldiers’ lives or health; but such thoughts were often suppressed, even though terms such as ‘struggle for existence’ and ‘war of extermination’ were often part of the social-Darwinist vocabulary of the time. On 11 September 1914, for example, the Kaiser’s Adjutant General, Moriz von Lyncker, wrote of his son’s death in battle: ‘Of course, we knew in advance that this would be a war of extermination; but one always believes that one’s own life and those of one’s family will be spared. That was also my assumption, and now I feel it very keenly.’52
German military leaders considered war to be inevitable in the world of power-political manoeuvre, and they longed for the opportunity to test the army’s soldierly metal, firm in the belief that Germany was equal to the difficult task of war on two fronts against Russia and France. The military leadership believed that, in such a conflict, in spite of all the enemy’s preparations and advantages, Germany would still ‘stay on top in the long run’, as Falkenhayn said in 1912.53 For some strategists, such as Moltke the Younger, the consideration that the German army might be denied future victory because of Russia’s large rearmament programme further lessened their inhibitions during the July Crisis of summer 1914, though in Moltke’s case this attitude might arguably also be seen as a militarist’s attempts to justify and rationalise his desire for war.
Like their military counterparts, the political leaders of the German Reich proceeded from the assumption – at least at the start of the July Crisis – that they would prevail in any major conflict to come. On 8 July 1914, just over a week after the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne, Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg observed to his secretary, Kurt Riezler: ‘If war comes from the east, so that we are drawn in for Austria–Hungary and not Austria–Hungary for us, then we have a chance of winning it. If war does not come, if the Tsar does not want it or France loses its nerve and urges peace, then we have a chance to break up the Entente.’54 Bethmann wanted to neutralise what was seen as an increasing threat to German foreign policy, namely the danger of diplomatic isolation, by a calculation that Andreas Hillgruber has termed a ‘theory of calculated risk’.55
Of course, Germany was making an enormous mistake in taking this risk, because Bethmann, in his calculation of the odds for a German victory, was ‘only’ reckoning with a war against the Russo-French alliance. In reality, the war would not be limited to these opponents. In summer 1914, however, there was no reason to go so far as to risk the ‘leap into the dark’.56 Granted, military and political tensions in 1914 were running high thanks to the European arms race, and in Germany the debate was dominated by a feeling of diplomatic isolation (‘encirclement’)57 and by fears of Russia’s increasing strength and the antagonism between ‘Germans’ and ‘Slavs’. And yet, as the industrialist Hugo Stinnes and later also Ferdinand Foch were to observe, booming industry and significant population growth in Germany meant that a waiting game would benefit the Germans more than the stagnating societies of France and Britain. Gottlieb von Jagow, the Foreign Secretary,58 had said much the same thing when Moltke had been considering preventative war in the spring of 1914.59
In The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clark describes the July Crisis as ‘a modern event, the most complex of modern times, perhaps of any time so far’.60 The crisis will not be renarrated here.61 In order to understand the conflict, however, it is important to identify two things: the political objective of the war and the motivation of the German government in 1914. Clausewitz described war as the continuation of politics by other means; by this logic, the political crisis of July 1914 did not end with the outbreak of war in August, but rather underwent a transformation and continued, in its new form as an armed conflict, until autumn 1918. However, the reality of the First World War raises some questions about Clausewitz’s argument.62 Was the conflict really a continuation of politics, a planned political manoeuvre, or was it in fact a ‘sleepwalk’ into war, a catastrophic derailment of politics, a failed bluff, or, as Lloyd George described it, an unintended slide into war?63 The former argument, namely that Germany was actually planning for war, was put forward by Fritz Fischer in Krieg der Illusionen (War of Illusions) (1966), although his thesis that Germany had been strategically planning for war since a ‘War Council’ in 1912 now has few supporters.64
It is certainly true that each of the powers involved in the July Crisis wanted something that could not be achieved by political means and whose realisation required them to wage war on one another, and that the protection of alliances was of great importance to all the Great Powers. The multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, Germany’s most important ally, blamed the Serbian government for the Sarajevo assassinations and wanted to hold it to account, with the intention of intimidating any other nation states with claims on its territory and ensuring its own internal and external political security. The Germans, for their part, who believed Austria’s actions towards Serbia to be legitimate and necessary and felt increasingly isolated in the years leading up to 1914, wanted to support their ally. The immediate cause for the First World War therefore seems to have been a dispute over the question of whether Austria–Hungary was entitled to use war as a means to call Serbia to account for its alleged complicity in the Sarajevo affair. Even at the start of the European war, however, it was quite clear that its immediate causes and the wider issues at stake were grossly mismatched; this ensured that the Serbian question, while not disappearing entirely, soon became very much a secondary consideration in the war. Why, then, was a world war necessary? What did German politicians expect to gain from it?
Answers to this question have been many and varied. As Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg was second only to the Kaiser in his influence on German politics in July 1914, and for the first phase of the crisis, from the murder of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 until the issue of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July, he largely managed to exclude other powerful figures from the decision-making process. Thanks to his intellect and ‘gravitas’ he was much revered by those around him; at the same time, however, while he was not quite ‘the Hitler of 1914’,65 he was nonetheless one of the most disastrous figures in German history. It is possible that his actions in summer 1914 were strongly influenced by his grief over the death of his wife in May,66 a personal loss which may have affected his estimation of the broader political picture. Certainly, his views in general were extremely pessimistic at the beginning of July, and his biggest flaw was perhaps his willingness to ignore his own better insights and yield fatalistically to pressure from other government departments and more determined political opponents.67
What was Bethmann trying to achieve during the July Crisis? He was prepared to offer diplomatic support for the action taken by Austria, regarding this response as a legitimate measure of political self-defence. Although he recognised that a war between Austria and Serbia could escalate into a continental war and reckoned that Germany had a good chance of winning, he did not really believe that the situation would escalate that far. It proved unfortunate that his pessimism and fatalism were not counteracted by those around him. The most important, if somewhat questionable, source for Bethmann’s decision-making and objectives during the July Crisis is the record kept by his secretary, Kurt Riezler,68 whom Bethmann surprised with a bleak tour d’horizon in a late-night conversation on 7 July at his country estate in Hohenfinow: ‘Austria weaker and less capable of action by the day; seriously undermined by [Pan-Slav] agitation from the north and the south-east. At any rate, incapable of supporting German interests in a war.’ ‘Action against Serbia may lead to world war.’ ‘The future belongs to Russia, which is growing and growing and looms ever larger in our nightmares.’ ‘Chancellor very pessimistic about Germany’s mental state. Woeful decline of the political elite.’ Riezler did not even attempt to challenge Bethmann, depressed and pessimistic as he obviously was: ‘The secret intelligence he shares with me paints a disturbing picture … I am in total shock, not having realised that the situation was so bad.’69 And although Riezler in his own book, published in 1914, had expressed his conviction that a war between the Great Powers would be self-destructive and was therefore improbable, he failed to contradict Bethmann, nor did he attempt to contest his fatalism and to encourage a more positive interpretation of the political situation.
Figure 2. Bethmann Hollweg in his uniform as a Major of the Reserves.
During the July Crisis, Bethmann was advised by the leading officials of the Foreign Office, the Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow and the Undersecretary of State Arthur Zimmermann. It appears that Bethmann and his most important colleagues were agreed on all key points of strategy, in particular on the decisive question of whether the Austro-Hungarian government should be encouraged to take action against the Serbs. Bethmann was unsure whether the emperor Franz Joseph would decide to act. During early July 1914, the issue of war or peace might still have been determined by the German government’s influence in Vienna: it would have been enough to warn the Austrians that action against Serbia lay outside the scope of the alliance. However, neither Bethmann nor his closest colleagues believed that the situation would escalate into war.70 It was not until the end of July that the Chancellor suddenly realised that the rigid stance of the other powers meant that a large-scale war was looming; worse, that Great Britain too would intervene on the side of the enemy, upsetting all his calculations.71 In desperation he began to change course, but Russian mobilisation and pressure from the German military defeated him and he predicted that the outbreak of war would be ‘a stroke of fate, beyond human control’.72 The war was no stroke of fate, however, but rather the result of complex political interactions. By the end of July 1914, Bethmann was unable to stop the avalanche on his own. Meanwhile, he had been instrumental in creating the snowball that had become this avalanche, and he knew this: when on 3 August he spoke of his ‘clear conscience’ in a speech to the party leaders in the Reichstag on the outbreak of war, witnesses described how his voice became ‘flat’.73 By early August, Bethmann was facing a political disaster. He offered the Kaiser his resignation, but the Kaiser refused to accept it: ‘You have cooked up this soup and now you must eat it.’74
To a great extent, the Kaiser and his advisers had let Bethmann steer his own political course during the July Crisis. However, Wilhelm II had also made an impact on the overall picture. In the days immediately following the attack, he pressed for severe retaliation against Serbia: ‘The Serbs must be sorted out, and the sooner the better!’75 He was scathing about those who advised caution, such as the German ambassador to Vienna, Heinrich von Tschirschky und Bögendorff; and on 5 July 1914 assured the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Berlin, Lajos Count von Szögyény, that Austria ‘could count on Germany’s support, even in the event of a “serious European complication”’. This applied in particular, he said, to ‘any action taken against Serbia. In his opinion, however, this action must not be slow in coming. Russia’s response would certainly be hostile, but he had been preparing for that for years, and should it come to war between Austria–Hungary and Russia, then we can be convinced that Germany will uphold her time-honoured loyalty to the Alliance and stand at our side.’76 Immediately after this, Wilhelm left on a trip to Norway, boasting to his friend Krupp that he would not shrink from war and would not ‘simply be knocked down’ this time.77
Such martial language was deceptive, however, and the sources show that neither Wilhelm II nor his advisers believed that much would happen. As the Kaiser’s Adjutant General, von Plessen, noted after a meeting on 5 July 1914:
His Majesty reads out a letter from the Austrian Emperor and a memorandum from the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, both of whom describe how Austria is preparing for war against Serbia and solicit assurances of German loyalty. The Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary also attend. We are convinced that Austria should act against Serbia sooner rather than later and that the Russians – although they are friendly with the Serbians – will not enter after all.78
Plessen’s reading of Russia’s position was wrong; others who attended the meeting, such as the Prussian Minister of War, von Falkenhayn, also made the erroneous assumption that Austria would not undertake any action at all, and that there was not much to worry about.79 Meanwhile, events had already been set in motion: even while the Kaiser was still in Norway, the Austrians presented an ultimatum to Belgrade, which was rejected. Austria–Hungary broke off diplomatic relations and declared war on Serbia on 28 July.
When Wilhelm II returned to find that the crisis was threatening to escalate into a war, he suddenly attempted to hold back the tide. He observed that the Serbian response to the ultimatum was in fact adequate and, in view of the short notice, had been a great achievement; Germany, he said, would never have responded to such overtures with mobilisation.80 Wilhelm considered possibilities for compromise such as a ‘Halt in Belgrade’, in which the Serbian capital would be occupied by Austria–Hungary as a bargaining chip to allow for negotiations and prevent further action: Bethmann conveyed this idea to Vienna.81 In fact, the Kaiser was still wavering between his desire to prevent a war and his own militaristic bluster, while his advisers kept him on course for war. On 28 July 1914, Falkenhayn noted: ‘[The Kaiser] gives confused speeches in which the only clear information is that he now wishes to avoid war and is therefore resolved even to leave Austria in the lurch. I remind him that events are no longer under his control.’82 As late as 1 August, when a report from Britain momentarily gave the impression that the English and the French might remain neutral, Wilhelm made efforts to limit the scale of the war by confining it to Russia.83 After this, the July Crisis ended for him with a nervous breakdown and complete bewilderment. He could not justify the war that he had helped to bring about, albeit more by shortsightedness and negligence than by design.
This lack of clear direction was to characterise the Kaiser’s conduct throughout the war. He spent the next four years in an unsettled and contradictory mood that manifested itself as bluster, despondency and boredom; he irritated those around him with nervous, endless boasting, constantly demanding distractions and taking refuge in anecdotes. He often evaded difficult decisions by giving long and relentless speeches that prevented others from having their say.84 At times, his inappropriate bombastic fantasies were acutely embarrassing to his astonished audiences; on other occasions, he would be completely demoralised, obliging his advisers to expend much energy lifting his spirits. Those around him began to adopt a strategy of providing him with news, whether good or bad, in small doses, in order to avoid spontaneous over-reactions.85 At times, Wilhelm II represented the war as a defensive struggle of the German Empire against democracy and Anglo-Saxon materialism; on other occasions, he spoke of it in terms of grandiose plans for conquest, with the enemy forced to kneel before the imperial standard.86 However, few people took this seriously, and the Kaiser himself was inconsistent in his discussion of such ideas. Those around him were agreed that Wilhelm II hoped for peace, even if principally for the good of his own person and comfort. The Kaiser’s main difficulty lay in his inconsistency, his superficial understanding of the situation and his strong inclination to avoid difficult decisions. His unstable personality was in fact a significant structural problem for the German Reich, since at no point during the war was Wilhelm II a ‘quantité négligeable’. As established by the constitution, all decisions ultimately ran through him; and only he could coordinate Germany’s strategy, particularly when political and military leaders were unable to agree on a way forward and a decision was needed. Even a sympathetic reading of Wilhelm II’s attitude cannot easily ignore the assessment of the Kaiser by the head of his military cabinet, General von Lyncker, who observed in May 1917: ‘He is not equal to this great challenge, having neither the nerve nor the intellect to tackle it.’87 Even so, it was difficult to marginalise the Kaiser, who, in spite of his errors, remained a dominant personality. When he complained to his wife at one point during the war that he was nothing more than a shadow of a Kaiser, her wry reply was ‘You, a shadow?’88 This was not simply a loyal wife’s attempt to encourage her husband: it was also the truth. The Kaiser could not be sidestepped, since he was regularly obliged to decide disputes between the various offices advising him; what is more, along with his cabinets, he continued to hold the power to decide who occupied central decision-making positions, including those of the Chancellor and the Chief of the General Staff. Lacking clear and carefully considered ideas of his own, the Kaiser was not the strong political and military leader of Germany that he would have liked to be and that many contemporaries assumed him to be. He and his heads of cabinet, however, were to a certain extent the head of personnel and the central decisive body of the German Empire; and indecisive and irresponsible though Wilhelm II might often have been, he remained and was determined to remain the Kaiser. Right to the end, he was able to hold his own, even in difficult debates and discussions; what is more, as later chapters will show, although his interventions were often catastrophic they were also on occasion entirely rational.89
Figure 3. Wilhelm II and his entourage at the Imperial Headquarters in Pless (Upper Silesia); from the left: Baron von Münchhausen, von Chelius, Rudolf von Valentini, Wilhelm II, von Plessen, von Gontard, Baron Moriz von Lyncker, von Etzdorf, Prince Pless, Friedrich von Scholl, von Hirschfeld, Georg von Treutler, von Müller, N. N., von Niedner.
It must be said that the Kaiser’s speeches on the outbreak of war constituted some of the biggest oratorical successes of his 30-year reign. To rapturous applause, he uttered the famous words: ‘I no longer see political parties, I see only Germans’, and went on to declare ‘We are not driven by the desire for conquest.’90 These words very much reflected the spirit of early August 1914 in Germany, when the war was seen as a legitimate defence against an external attack. The German public and their political representatives, in other words the parties in the Reichstag (the most important agent of decision-making, after the Chancellor, Foreign Office and the Kaiser), were fully and unanimously in support of the government, since they too saw Germany as under attack from the Entente. This attack was represented in the first instance by Russia, supported by France, but then also by Britain. The German public quickly came to see Britain as Germany’s arch-enemy, the most treacherous and most powerful force in the opposing coalition, and ultimately also as the instigator of the war, spurring its allies on instead of holding them back. The Germans understood the war as a long-term English objective, a strategy for removing an unwanted and increasingly powerful rival.91 As the historian Karl Alexander von Müller noted, ‘I remember very clearly the feeling in Germany on the outbreak of war: the Germans were shored up by the firm and honest belief that this was a defensive war, one that they had been obliged to fight, an enforced conflict against an unimaginably superior opponent.’92 Support for the war and for the associated legislative measures, including a war loan of 5 billion Marks, was a particularly bitter pill for the left-wing parties and especially the social democrats to swallow;93 however, the right wing of the SPD managed to gain the upper hand in discussions at party level, urging the party to support the government’s course of action. In the end, a powerful wave of public opinion moved the SPD, which had been the strongest party in the Reichstag since the 1912 election, to abandon its fundamental opposition to the government. A large majority of Germans believed that Germany had been left with no choice but to defend itself against hostile attack. It testified to the government’s success that it was able to make this seem plausible and prevent the emergence of doubts about German policy during the July Crisis. Many members of the Reichstag were indeed critical of Germany’s largely inadequate diplomatic preparations for conflict, and Britain’s entry into the war gave rise to further anxieties; however, as the Liberal deputy Conrad Haußmann declared, while all parties admitted that the situation was much less advantageous than had been hoped, ‘momentum was gathering behind the feeling that we were a match for anyone, so let them come’.94
When it comes to defining the aims of the German government as embodied by the Kaiser and the Chancellor, and those of the German public and their political representatives, i.e. the Reichstag parties, one element common to all after August 1914 was the willingness to wage a defensive war. There was no common plan for conquest, and no common political objective other than self-protection – something that had figured prominently in the Kaiser’s speeches and which was to remain for the SPD a key objective of the war throughout its duration. The only identifiable official purpose for the war was a response to what the overwhelming majority of Germans saw as an outrageous attack by the Entente. This, of course, was a very one-sided and misleading view of the July Crisis.
It is important to recognise that this solidarity was not destined to become a permanent feature of the political scene. The inconsistent, anxiety-ridden enthusiasm that accompanied the outbreak of war – described by Theodor Heuss as closer to ‘serious determination’ than ‘enthusiasm’95 – reflected neither a shared desire for conquest nor a universally supported ‘bid for world domination’, but rather a solid collective determination to stand together against the danger. Under the shadow of the external threat, historically hostile and coalition-shy parties in the Reichstag had declared a truce and found common ground, in order to stand together. This had created an extraordinary situation, in which the deep rifts in Wilhelmine society seemed to have been overcome.96 This was an important aspect of the war, in that it demonstrated how the cause of national defence could unite Germans across the social and political divisions of the time. Finally, it is important to note that when other, more aggressive war aims came to the fore, they manifested themselves in a retrospective search for the meaning and direction of the conflict that proved exceedingly detrimental to this recently established sense of unity. The political truce had been based on a shared understanding that all political and social differences would be set aside in the moment of danger in order to bring the enforced defensive war to a successful conclusion. This consensus held only for a limited time, as the concept of the defensive war was undermined by the attempts of the political Right and elements of the Centre to use the conflict to expand German territory; meanwhile, the Left began to question the political status quo and demand reforms that reflected left-wing policies of the pre-war years.
The military, although described by Clausewitz as merely an instrument of politics, in fact also played an important role alongside the Kaiser, the Chancellor and the political parties in the formulation of German war aims. Here too, however, there was a lack of strategy, at least as defined by Andreas Hillgruber in the form of an integrated political-ideological plan97 (although it is true that, as Hew Strachan has argued, no European government before 1914 had a fully developed concept of strategy).98 Certainly, the German General Staff had a plan of operations rather than a strategy, and the war ministries (not only in Prussia, but also in Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg) had made only hesitant and substantially flawed economic preparations for war.99 The plan of operations formulated by the General Staff was quite distinct from political and, as it happened, also naval planning. It envisaged the invasion of Belgium, followed by the out-flanking of the French field army and its subsequent annihilation; in its detail, however, it did not really constitute a defensive strategy. In fact, had Germany’s political leaders aspired to conquer Europe and establish a German hegemony, their military planning would not have looked any different from that of summer 1914: first, France would be wiped out in battle, and then, with the help of Austria, Russia would be defeated and the whole of continental Europe would be brought under German control. This, at least, was exactly how Germany’s intentions would be interpreted abroad, particularly by its opponents, who judged the Reich’s intentions not only according to its words but above all in terms of its military deeds. To this extent, the first month of the war was characterised by a dichotomy between Germany’s political and military strategy that was not apparent to the public at home but was all too clear to others abroad, leading to very different interpretations of the war inside and outside Germany. The idea that Germany was fighting to defend itself was a difficult argument to defend abroad while German troops were storming through Belgium and northern France and reinforcing widespread notions of a ‘Prussian militarism’ that was seeking to dominate Europe.100
Nonetheless, there is reason to doubt whether this was really, at least as far as Germany’s military leaders were concerned, a war to establish German hegemony in Europe. Helmuth von Moltke, the Chief of the General Staff, was burdened by the weight of his enormous responsibility; but he ultimately opted for war, despite being fully aware that it would be bad for Europe. His reasoning was purely strategic: the war was a preventative measure against the increasingly powerful and well-armed Entente. The Prussian Minister of War, Erich von Falkenhayn, by contrast, had for years been longing for a war as an outlet for his enthusiasm for military action – he felt only disdain for the idea of ‘peacekeeper armies’.101 Even Falkenhayn had some reservations, however, feeling that a large-scale war would not benefit Europe;102 in late July 1914 the Italian military attaché, Count Calderari, reported Falkenhayn’s dry response to a comparison of the prevailing contemporary enthusiasm for war with that of 1870: ‘But that one was justified!’103 Did Falkenhayn believe, then, that there was no real reason for celebrations in July 1914? Another indication of his scepticism was the fact that, as Prussian Minister of War, he was at pains to enlist all volunteers for the war before the enthusiasm had ‘dissipated’.104 Even so, for Falkenhayn personally, the outbreak of war was good news: as he said to the Chancellor on 4 August: ‘Even if this means the end of us, it was good while it lasted.’105 Remarks like this, along with his flippant jokes about the war, earned Falkenhayn a number of personal enemies including not only Bethmann Hollweg but also the Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, who accused him of not taking things seriously.106 But his enthusiasm and his advocacy of war – which excited his professional military interests and were stronger than his political instincts – were evidently widespread in the upper echelons of the German armies, and perhaps in the lower ranks too.107 The military leadership believed that Germany could win the war, and that the natural political justification for the conflict would present itself. There is no doubt that, had victory become a reality, the military would have been strongly in favour of a hegemonic policy, but this would have been a consequence and not the cause of the outbreak of war.
What, then, did Germany hope to gain from the war? The military leadership wanted to test their capabilities and were united in the belief that Germany would emerge victorious. The politicians and diplomats saw that their policy had strayed catastrophically off course, and were now trying to repair the situation. The Kaiser did not understand what was happening: his initial outrage at the murder of his friend Franz Ferdinand gradually gave way to anxiety and bewilderment, and he delivered a number of well-crafted speeches that exhorted his people to unite in support of a defensive war and to find inner unity. Yet although the German public and the political parties were agreed that they were being forced to fight a defensive war, this basic consensus would eventually be difficult to square with a military strategy that was sending German armies deep into enemy territory on several fronts.
Even so, the impression that military leaders had formed by late July 1914, that there was ‘panic amongst the political leaders’, was not entirely unjustified.108 True, by failing to recognise the real likelihood that the July Crisis would escalate into a world war, German politicians committed a number of grave errors that were to dog them throughout the war, starting with their failure to mobilise Germany’s allies. Bismarck had considered the Triple Alliance unbeatable,109 and as late as April 1914 Moltke was assuring his Italian colleague, General Alberto Pollio, that ‘if Italy, Austria and Germany reach out in good faith to one another, they can confidently stand firm against a world of enemies’.110 But the Alliance did not go to war as one because, in the most likely justified expectation that Rome would make awkward demands or even block progress, German and Austrian leaders had not kept their Italian allies informed about their diplomatic preparations against Serbia. This was perhaps only further proof that they did not believe a great war was imminent and therefore did not consider it necessary to draw Italy into the affair. The Austrians were in any case afraid that Italy might demand payment for involvement in the Serbian conflict, in the form of Austrian territory: this would contravene Austria’s primary objective in the July Crisis, in other words the interdiction of all territorial claims based on the principle of the nation state. When, at the end of July, with the prospect of a great war coming clearly into view, German and Austrian diplomats at last approached Rome, Italy withheld support, citing the strictly defensive clauses of the Triple Alliance treaty.111 Romania, the remaining ally of the Central Powers, remained neutral for similar reasons.
Table 1. Peacetime forces of the European armies, 1904–13 (officers and ranks, in thousands)
| Britain | France | Russia | Austria–Hungary | Germany | Italy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1904 | 209 | 575 | 1,900 | 362 | 607 | 221 |
| 1905 | 214 | 595 | 1,900 | 362 | 610 | 221 |
| 1906 | 197 | 590 | 1,000 | 362 | 614 | 250 |
| 1907 | 179 | 602 | 1,000 | 367 | 617 | 250 |
| 1908 | 183 | 611 | 1,000 | 366 | 619 | c. 247 |
| 1909 | 182 | 567 | 1,209 | 369 | 610 | c. 247 |
| 1910 | 182 | 574 | 1,303 | 371 | 610 | 239 |
| 1911 | 183 | 594 | 1,345 | 353 | 613 | 254 |
| 1912 | 193 | 611 | 1,332 | 391 | 646 | 256 |
| 1913 | 192 | c. 700 | 1,300 | — | 782 | 256 |
Table 2. The military strength of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente powers, 1911
| Army corps | Divisions | Total strength | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 26 | 90 | 3,479,000 |
| Austria–Hungary | 16 | 57.5 | 2,025,000 |
| Central Powers comb. | 42 | 147.5 | 5,504,000 |
| Italy | 12 | 37 | 1,200,000 |
| Triple Alliance comb. | 54 | 184.5 | 6,704,000 |
| France | 21 | 70 | 3,348,000 |
| Russia | 37 | 137 | 3,750,000 |
| Dual Alliance comb. | 58 | 207 | 7,098,000 |
| Great Britain | – | 7 | 350,000 |
| Entente total | 58 | 214 | 7,448,000 |
If, as Fritz Fischer argues in his second major work, the Germans had been planning for a continental war as a long-term aim, their failure even to secure the diplomatic support of their allies would seem to indicate considerable incompetence.112 True, scepticism about Italy’s ability to deliver had long been widespread among Germany’s politicians and military leaders, as demonstrated by Bismarck’s bon mot: ‘Italy counts for nothing on her own; Italy wants to run before she can walk.’113 However, Germany was far from indifferent towards the sixth of the Great Powers, and right up until 1914 Moltke’s instructions for troop deployment included plans for several Italian divisions on the Upper Rhine – even though Pollio, the Chief of the General Staff, had warned that Italy was still recovering from the war in Libya and would not be in a position to send troops to Germany in the event of a war in the immediate future. Sceptical though Moltke and his General Staff might have been about the military value of Germany’s ally, they believed that Italy would side with Germany,114 which would be particularly important in view of the fact that the Entente had recently gained a clear numerical advantage through considerable French and Russian efforts to increase their armies.115
Entry into the war without the support of Italy and Romania, whose military strength numbered five army corps and two cavalry divisions, substantially diminished Germany’s chances of victory even before the first shot had been fired.116 Meanwhile, a second factor now came into play, one that has justifiably been seen as Germany’s capital error in the first days of the war: the violation of Belgian neutrality. The German plan for war required troops to march westwards through Belgium, even though Belgian permission had not been granted.
One possible reason for the escalation of events at this juncture might be that the German strategists planning the details of operation, including a request to march through Belgium and the seizure of the key stronghold of Liège, had assumed that the Belgian government would content itself with symbolic resistance.117 This was perhaps not as improbable as it seems in retrospect. In Luxembourg, for example, the other neutral state to be occupied by German troops immediately after the declaration of war, the government had confined itself to a diplomatic protest; Grand-Duchess Marie Adelheid had used her car to block the road in front of German troops, but after this symbolic act of resistance events had been left to take their course, and the grand ducal family had remained in the country.118 The German government had assumed that Belgium would do something similar. On 2 December 1914, Bethmann Hollweg informed the Reichstag that in early August 1914 he had hoped the Belgian government would decide ‘to spare the country and withdraw to Antwerp after some protest’.119 However, the Belgian government was determined to fight, and the German plan for a surprise attack on Liège went ahead.
Once it was clear that Germany was determined to push forward, the British broke diplomatic cover, coming forward as defenders of the Belgian neutrality guaranteed by the Great Powers. When the German leadership realised that Britain was about to enter the conflict, Bethmann Hollweg led efforts to change course and possibly even to avoid war altogether,120 but the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, its rejection, Russian mobilisation and pressure from the German military to keep to its timetable,121 meant that the politicians could no longer control events. In early August, Bethmann had made a half-hearted attempt to prevent the military from violating Belgian neutrality;122 he had then tried to negotiate with the British ambassador to deter Great Britain from entering the war by promising that France’s possessions would remain intact, at least in Europe,123 and impulsively dismissing the five-power guarantee of Belgium as a ‘scrap of paper’.124 True, Bethmann Hollweg did not deny that the invasion of Belgium was an ‘injustice’, but in line with the widespread German view of the time he defined it as an act of national self-defence. In December, he revised his definition of ‘injustice’, claiming that Belgian documents had been found to prove the country had in reality not been truly neutral but had cooperated with Great Britain.125
Germany’s political reputation was severely damaged by the violation of Belgian neutrality, a blunder that belonged to the military but also to the politicians who had not categorically forbidden them to invade Belgium. Now Germany found itself forced to fight not only against Russia and France but also against two additional opponents: one small but courageous, and the other very large and powerful – namely, Belgium and Britain. The Central Powers would probably have won a war fought against Russia and France alone, but Great Britain’s declaration of war on 4 August 1914 had what Falkenhayn admitted to an American diplomat were enormous implications, not only for the length of the war (which he estimated at three to four years), but also for its eventual outcome.126 British intervention also influenced Italy’s behaviour. When the Triple Alliance was established in 1882, the Italian Foreign Minister, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, had appended the so-called ‘Mancini Declaration’, which stated that the Alliance would under no circumstances be aligned against Great Britain.127 Due to its long coastline and the British naval superiority in the Mediterranean, Italy was not in a position to wage war against the Royal Navy. A later revision of the treaty had dropped this clause, but the facts that originally inspired it had not changed over 30 years later.
Great Britain might well have entered the war in any case, but if Germany had not provided the grounds for war by invading Belgium, the interventionist Foreign Office led by Sir Edward Grey would have faced much greater domestic political resistance. For Grey, war was a question of honouring Great Britain’s obligations within the 1914 constellation of alliances and ententes, and not simply a reaction to the German invasion of Belgium. British calculations were summed up on 25 July by undersecretary Sir Eyre Crowe: ‘should the war come, and England stand aside, one of two things must happen; (a) Either Germany and Austria win, crush France, and humiliate Russia … what will be the position of a friendless England? (b) Or France and Russia win. What would then be their attitude towards England? What about India and the Mediterranean?’128 This was also the view of Sir Edward Grey, and from this vantage point, Britain had nothing to gain by maintaining its neutrality (even if historians such as Niall Ferguson have speculated that this might in fact have offered Britain the best chance of retaining its empire).129 In a speech in early August 1914, Grey outlined two compelling justifications for entering the war: firstly, Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality, and secondly, the fact that without British intervention the German fleet could attack the defenceless French coast. In 1912, Britain and France agreed that the French fleet should concentrate on the Mediterranean while the British fleet would defend the French Atlantic coast.130 However, in late July 1914 the Germans promised not to attack the latter if Britain remained neutral.131 Such questions lost much of their significance with the invasion of Belgium, a clear violation of international law that provided British interventionists with a justification for war. It also damaged Germany’s reputation from the very beginning of the war, not merely in enemy states but in most neutral countries. It was during these early days that Germany lost the fight for ‘hearts and minds’ across the rest of the world. The situation was soon compounded by ‘Belgian atrocities’ in the form of violent assaults on civilians by inexperienced and nervous German troops. The Belgian population reacted to the German invasion with action that in some cases amounted to partisan warfare, whereupon thousands of civilians died as a consequence of German overreactions to either real or imagined attacks from the rear. Great cultural monuments such as the library in Leuven were destroyed by fire.132
Map 1. European alliances before 1914
Although the international indignation over the German invasion of Belgium was understandable, it is important to note that plans for marching through neutral territory were a favourite element of General Staff planning before 1914 and were in no way peculiar to the Franco-German situation. What sets the German invasion of Belgium apart is the fact that, in this case, political leaders allowed the military to put their plans into effect. In this respect, the charge of ‘German militarism’ was justified, and not only Germany’s opponents but neutral states too accused the Reich of breaking international treaties. No one was convinced by the argument of legitimate self-defence brought forward by the German leadership, since all warring parties had been equally subjected to existential threats. German intellectuals and academics tried to smooth things over by publishing a pamphlet ‘Es ist nicht wahr’ [‘It is not true’] but their arguments were so clumsy – amounting to a justification of militarism rather than a refutation – that they only further damaged Germany’s reputation. Indeed, such amateurish efforts to awaken international understanding for Germany’s self-defence argument only made things worse, since they gave the impression that not only the leadership of the Reich but also the intelligentsia was prepared to trample on the rights of neutral states.
In August 1914, the Great War became a reality. Germany and Austria had pitted themselves against an unexpectedly large coalition: Great Britain was on the side of the enemy; Italy and Romania remained neutral; Belgium was refusing to allow German troops to march through to France and was fighting bravely against the invaders. Their decision to resort to military action had aroused public opinion, not only throughout the Entente camp, but also in important neutral states (notably Italy and the USA) against them. Furthermore, pressure from military planners coupled with a tendency to panic meant that their diplomatic preparations for war were inadequate. As Prince Hatzfeld remarked shortly after the outbreak of war: ‘If our Foreign Office was aiming to brandish a sword at all Germany’s enemies at once, it has succeeded magnificently.’ The Kaiser was even more damning: ‘Our allies are dropping away like rotten apples before the war has even begun … There has been a complete breakdown of German and Austrian foreign policy. This could and should have been avoided!’133 The diplomatic catastrophe was, of course, not to be without consequences for Germany’s chances of victory – and yet in the first months of the war, it did look as though the German army might manage to prevail.
