ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

How have different historians accounted for the outbreak of the First World War?
The First World War 1914-18 is mainly remembered for its huge toll of suffering and human life. Considering this, the
subject has attracted wide scholarship over the years. There is consensus among many historians that the war was
fought to determine who would control the future of the Middle East and consequently dominate Europe. However,
the Great War certainly cannot be attributed to a single cause, and consequently, historians have debated about its
origins. In order to gain a comprehensive perspective, this essay first provides a description of the factors that
culminated in the outbreak of war, followed by the various propositions by historians who attempt to explain the
same.

FACTORS LEADING TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The outbreak of the First World War was an outcome of a short-term crisis in the Balkans and many other long-standing
developments. Between 1871 and 1914 a number of factors served to undermine international stability.

(1) The Franco-Russian War of 1870-71 culminated in the unification of Germany, which resulted in the ‘German
Question’, i.e., how Germany would behave as the most powerful military and economic power. In 1914, Germany’s
steel output was higher than Britain, France and Russia combined and it also ranked second in coal production. It was
the second largest expanding naval power and also had a well-trained military. A series of important alliances were
formed in the years that followed. In 1872, the League of the Three Emperors, consisting of Germany, Russia and
Austria-Hungary, was formed. The Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary (1879) and the Triple Alliance
of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (1882) were entered into. The Re-Assurance Treaty was signed between
Germany and Russia. This diplomatic double-dealing gave Germany maximum flexibility.

(2) A large number of nationalist groups agitated for religious toleration and self-government in Bulgaria. This
eventually escalated into a war between Russia and Turkey from 1877 to 1878 over the future of Bulgaria, culminating
in defeat for the Ottoman Empire, which was forced to sign the Treaty of San Stefano (1878). The Bulgarian Crisis
ended the League of the Three Emperors and the Re-Assurance Treaty since the countries did not adhere to the norms.

(3) Some scholars believe that the scramble for territories between France, Italy, Britain, Germany, Russia, United
States and Japan intensified the rivalry between many European powers in the context of ‘new imperialism’.

(4) In 1897, Kaiser Wilhelm II announced that Germany would adopt a ‘world policy’ or Weltpolitik, which involved
naval expansion and heavy involvement in colonial affairs. The emergence of Germany as a major colonial and naval
rival caused deep concern. Weltpolitik impacted the European diplomatic alignments. The Franco-Russian Alliance of
1894, pledged military co-operation in the event of war against any member of the Triple Alliance, and the Entente
Cordiale was signed in 1904 between Britain and France. The term Triple Entente signified the new diplomatic
friendship between France, Russia and Britain. All of these alliances sought to check German ambitions.

(5) In October 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1911, the French and German naval powers
threatened each other at the Moroccan port of Agadir. This Bosnian and Moroccan crisis brought the European
powers to the edge of war.

(6) The Balkan League consisting of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro was formed in 1912. This Pan-Slavic
coalition aimed at forcing the Turks out of the Balkans. The First (1912) and Second (1913) Balkan Wars proved to be
unfavourable. The Treaty of Constantinople (1913) allowed Turkey to gain Adrianople. The dream of a Pan-Slav
coalition was ruined.

(7) Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the nephew of Franz Josef I, was assassinated at Sarajevo on 28 th June 1914, by Gavrilo
Princip whose cause was ‘Young Bosnia’, a nationalist group which aimed to drive the Habsburgs out of Bosnia. The
German Kaiser gave Austria a ‘blank cheque’ to start war with Serbia. A second blank cheque was issued by France to
Russia to prevent Austria-Hungary from attacking Serbia. According to McDonough, the two blank cheques were
different because the French supported Russia to deter Austria-Hungary, but the Germans supported Austria-Hungary

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aimed to provoke. The Austrian government delivered a ten-point ultimatum to Serbia and demanded full acceptance,
and subsequently declared war on 28th July, 1914. This was the July Crisis of 1914. Russia entered the war to save
Serbia and Germany declared war on Russia. Germany invaded Belgium and attacked France. Italy decided to remain
neutral. On 4th August 1914, Britain finally declared war on Germany over the issue of Belgian neutrality. The First
World War, which most of the participants believed would be over quickly, lasted for four savage and bloody years.

(8) Some historians believe that the atmosphere throughout Europe in 1914 promoted a war mentality, and
declarations of war created excitement. War offered a colourful escape from a dull existence and provided
opportunities for individual heroism. (9) Some accounts of the origins of the war have stressed that increased
mechanized nature of warfare, the importance of railway transport and the ability to mobilize greater and greater
numbers of men eased the process of war.

(10) The role of popular attitudes towards war has been explored recently. According to scholars, there was no popular
resistance to the declarations of war and only a few socialists refused to take up arms when war broke out. The middle-
class intellectuals formed the basis of the pacifist movement and opposed war. However, in the crisis of July 1914,
militarism, nationalism and racism proved more influential than socialism and pacifism.

HISTORIANS’ DEBATE
1.“War Guilt Clause”

The responsibility for causing World War I was placed on the Central powers by the Versailles settlement in 1919. In
the “War Guilt Clause” (Article 231) of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to accept responsibility as the primary
aggressor. The German Foreign Office prepared documents from their archives to prove that all belligerent states were
to blame. Between 1922 and 1927, 40 volumes of documents were produced to back this claim. Other governments
also responded by producing their own volumes of archives. Germany's argument gained international sympathy in
the 1920s and 1930s.

2. Collective responsibility

Germany's argument gained international sympathy in the 1920s and 1930s. Lloyd George wrote, “the nations
slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war.” The idea of collective responsibility for the outbreak of war
soon became the orthodox interpretation as the debate moved away from apportioning guilt. In the 1960s, computer
research by two American political scientists stated that no one power was solely responsible for the outbreak of war.

3. Germany and the origins of war: Fritz Fischer and his critics

A famous German historian, Fritz Fischer, published “Germany’s Aims in the First World War” (1967). The book
apportioned chief responsibility to Germany for preparing and launching the First World War. This commonly came to
be known as the ‘Fischer Thesis’. Fischer studied unpublished documents and opined that Germany had expansionist
aims. Once the war began, Germany developed a clear set of aims to acquire large territorial gains in central and
eastern Europe, very similar to Hitler’s later craving for Lebensraum. Fischer wrote a follow up thesis in 1969 called
“War of Illusions” which concentrated on German foreign policy from 1911 to 1914, and argued that the outbreak of
the First World War was carefully sketched by the Kaiser from 1912 onwards. He suggested that German foreign policy
was a key means of diverting attention from domestic discontentment. Fischer believes that the First World War was
no preventative war, it was planned and launched by Germany with the aggressive aim of dominating Europe. He sees
a continuity in German foreign policy from the Kaiserreich (the empire) to Nazi Germany.

Criticism of Fischer

The orthodox view of collective responsibility was challenged by Fischer and he was criticized on several grounds. He
was accused of ‘reading history backwards’ and for depicting imperial Germany as a breeding ground for the
expansionist aims of Hitler’s Germany. The book was also accused of being ‘Germanocentric’.

Gerhard Ritter, another German historian, considered Fischer’s work an act of national disloyalty. He stated that it
was unfair to blame Germany exclusively for the outbreak of war. The primary aspects of Ritter’s counter-thesis on
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German policy were: 1) There is no evidence of a German plan for war or domination. 2) Germany acted defensively
throughout the July Crisis to preserve its status quo. Thus, to summarize their arguments, where Fischer saw
premeditation and intent, Ritter saw blindness and miscalculation.

Scholars like Immanuel Geiss and Hans Ulrich Wehler believe that the dominant long-term cause was Weltpolitik,
while the short-term cause was the German ‘blank cheque’ to Austria-Hungary.

4. A ‘defensive’ German war

Over the years, the ‘type’ of war became a central issue of the debate. The chief critics of Fischer believe that German
leaders desired only a ‘defensive war’ in 1914. This interpretation was first developed by two German historians -
Egmont Zechlin and Karl Erdmann. They accept that Germany should take primary responsibility, but reject the view
that German policy was determined by domestic difficulties and that it planned an aggressive war of expansion. They
suggest that German leaders were gambling on a localised European war, to break free from Germany’s diplomatic
‘encirclement’.

5.German domestic politics and the road to war

Some historians have examined the domestic politics of Germany to ascertain whether they had an impact on the
foreign policy. Paul Kennedy has demonstrated how Weltpolitik was often used as a distraction from domestic
problems. Arno Mayer has suggested that the German government hoped for great diplomatic victories to consolidate
the monarchy, hold back reform, and prevent revolution.

A chief historical concern is to explain whether Germany followed an exceptional path, and this came to be known as
the Sonderweg Thesis. Imperial Germany was an ‘industrial feudal society’, i.e., an unhealthy mixture of a modern
society and a pre-industrial, ruling elite. The best-known critics of this view are Geoffrey Eley and David Blackbourn,
who strongly reject the idea of a unique German path towards democracy. They also disagree that imperial Germany
used war and foreign adventures to divert the masses from domestic problems.

6.Role of Alliances and Diplomacy

Woodrow Wilson believed very strongly that secret diplomacy had brought the European great powers into collision
in 1914. According to Bernadette Schmitt, the July Crisis was a struggle to decide the balance of power in Europe
between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. However, A. J. P. Taylor argues that the pre-1914 alliances were
so precarious that they cannot be seen as the major cause of the war. For him, the fundamental problem was the lack
of a fully effective balance of power in Europe, wherein even a formal alliance in 1914 did not guarantee support for
war as in the case of Italy.

7.Powers of Political Leaders

John Rohl argued that leading German figures were planning war. In Germany, the power to declare war and to
conclude peace resided solely with the kaiser. Russian ministers of war, the navy and foreign affairs received their
instructions from the Tsar. The Habsburg emperor had supreme command of the armed forces. In Italy the monarch
enjoyed considerable power. The ‘Unwritten Constitution’ of the United Kingdom meant that everything depended
on precedent. The prime minister and his cabinet exercised these powers on the monarch’s behalf. In France, the
president commanded the armed forces and negotiated treaties. James Joll explains the outbreak of war in terms of
the decisions taken by the political leaders in 1914, but argues that these decisions were shaped by the impersonal
factors, which meant that the leaders had only limited options open to them in the final days of the crisis.

Personal Forces Impersonal Forces

Expansionist aims Capitalism
War plans International anarchy
Calculated decisions International alliances

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8.War by ‘timetable’: Militarism, armaments and war plans

It has often been claimed that a mood of militarism pervaded Europe before 1914. Michael Howard argues that
increased armaments’ expenditure by a European power before 1914 was viewed as a threat by its perceived rival.
McDonough opines that this idea is dubious since the proportion of GDP spent by the major European powers on arms
expenditure was quite small.

Niall Ferguson has claimed that the role of the arms race in encouraging the First World War has been greatly
exaggerated. The country with the largest growth in military expenditure before 1914 was Britain, which least wanted
war.

Many historians believe that the considerations of the leading powers regarding the strategic balance of power was a
much greater influence on policy during the July Crisis. German chiefs of staff believed that the balance of power was
moving sharply away from Germany. Recent studies show that the military planners had the most decisive influence
over foreign policy.

9.Nationalism

The role of national self-determination in the origins of the war has been another important area of debate. Gordon
Martel has argued that the First World War grew out of a clash between ‘Slav nationalism’ and the multi-ethnic Austro-
Hungarian Empire. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the final straw in this struggle for mastery in
the Balkans. In Joachim Remak’s view, the Habsburg-Serb quarrel was not a minor issue, but the major issue which
brought the rest of Europe was dragged into ‘the Third Balkan War’.

John Leslie has cast great doubt on the importance of the Austro-Serb quarrel and believes that Austria-Hungary can
be held responsible for planning a local Austro-Serb conflict. Germany used it as an opportunity to launch the European
war.

10. Marxist and Economic interpretations

V.I. Lenin in his work “Imperialism: the highest stage of Capitalism” saw war as being the direct consequence of
imperial rivalry. The First World War has been seen as the culmination of a search for territory and markets, led by
capitalists whose aims were supported by governments. Marxist scholars attribute capitalism as the cause of the Great
War as well as the ‘sorry state of Europe’ since the Industrial Revolution. On these lines, Eric Hobsbawm in “The Age
of Empires” stated that industrial capitalism fuelled new imperialism and brought the powers into conflict.

The Marxist-Leninist explanation has never achieved general acceptance among the majority of traditional historians,
since the aims of government and business are often deeply divided. There is no evidence that there was any business
interest in planning a war in 1914.

11.Modern economic considerations

According to Paul Kennedy, economic interests are a key ‘reality behind diplomacy’. The economic and industrial
resources of each nation ultimately determine the success or failure of those decisions. McDonough opines that it was
not industrialists who had the most significant influence over foreign policy, but political leaders.

CONCLUSION
The First World War has been greatly studied by scholars belonging to different disciplines. Whether the war must be
attributed to Germany’s expansionist aims or whether all powers must bear equal responsibility, whether it was
ideology or popular support, arms race or diplomacy, still continues to be debated in academic circles. One must
juxtapose the prevalent socio-economic and political conditions of the time to arrive at a comprehensive
understanding. But what is certain is that, no one could foresee that the war would last for over four years and claim
so many lives. It was to be a short-lived one, but escalated into one of the greatest wars of humankind. Explaining the
First World War thus remains an enduring intellectual challenge and will continue to engage the minds of students for
many years to come, given the complexities of issues involved.