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Origins
Dr Lisa Pine
Origins of the First World War
• The subject of the origins of the First World War
is one of much dispute and debate amongst
historians.
• Factors to consider:
1) Imperial rivalry
2) Primacy of domestic policy
3) Germany wanted war
4) International economy
5) Alliance system
6) Arms race
Immediate Cause of War
• 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand (1863-
1914), heir to throne of Austria-Hungary.
• Assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, where he had gone for
army manoeuvres, by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian nationalist
secret society, the Black Hand.
• Princip shot dead the Archduke and his wife.
• This was the spark that ignited the situation into war.
• Immanuel Geiss: ‘Sarajevo was the dramatic culmination of the conflict
between the Danube monarchy and the south Slav national movement
that had been smouldering for so long.’
• But what made this particular event so significant? There were other
crises in previous years and they had not ended in war. For example the
Bosnian crisis in 1908-9 had shown how easily the instability of the
Balkans could upset the equilibrium in Europe.
• Christopher Clark describes the Balkans as ‘a region of high political
tension and instability in the years before the outbreak of war’.
July Crisis 1914
• The chain of events leading to war following the assassination:
• 5 July: Austria asked Germany for backing in event of war with Serbia and received it through
the blank cheque.
• 20th-23rd July: French Prime Minister gives Russia blank cheque of unconditional French
support in event of war during state visit
• 23 July: Austria sent ultimatum to Serbia which if accepted reduced Serbia to a client state of
Austria and if refused gave Austria excuse to crush Serbia militarily.
• Then alliances entangled many protagonists.
• Serbia appealed to Russia for help. Russia mobilized on 31 July.
• 1 August: Germany declared war on Russia and France.
• Germany needed to send troops through Belgium as part of her campaign against France.
• Belgium refused and then Britain was obliged to join war on 3 August because of her pledge
to protect Belgian neutrality, dating back to 1839 Treaty of London.
• 3 August Britain sent ultimatum to Germany to get out of Belgium.
• Ultimatum expired on 4 August without reply and so Britain was at war with Germany.
Imperial rivalry
• The clamour for empire, in particular, in the 1880s and
1890s (Scramble for Africa), created serious rivalry
between the Great Powers and added considerably to
tensions and to the instability of the international
system.
• Imperial rivalry led to a series of incidents including
1905-6 the First Moroccan Crisis and 1911 the Second
Moroccan Crisis (Agadir Incident).
• Also rise in nationalism of peoples living under
Ottoman and Habsburg rule – lots of tension in Balkans
and Balkan Wars in 1912-13.
Primacy of domestic policy
• War could solve or postpone domestic issues at home. For example:
• In Britain, the Irish question could be suspended and the women’s
suffrage movements quietened down.
• In France, problems of income tax and fiscal reform could be
postponed.
• In Germany, war to produce a Burgfrieden – solemn civil truce
between political parties – solidarity in time of national crisis.
• All governments and most citizens were subject to the ‘short war
illusion’: it was going to be over by Christmas (1914).
• The consequence of this miscalculation and the impact of a long
war in the trenches made the First World war a significant turning
point in European history, with unexpected longer-term
consequences of social change and larger mass casualties than had
been anticipated.
Primacy of domestic policy - Germany
• In Germany, armament production helped economic
stability and created employment.
• This was important – Fritz Fischer (1961) maintained
that it was domestic and social pressures that
determined German foreign policy before 1914.
• Sammlungspolitik: domestic policy to unite all strands
of German society together behind Kaiser
• Weltpolitik: Aggressive foreign policy, for example,
distracted attention at home from the massive growth
in socialists into largest political party by 1912.
• The idea of war countered socialism by creating
patriotism and nationalism.
Germany
• German war guilt: Fischer showed not only the
extent of Germany’s annexationist aims in First
World War, but also suggested that the German
government deliberately went to war in 1914 in
order to attain them.
• By July 1914 no room left for manoeuvre because
of war plans and strategies – exploitation of crisis
• The very concept of the Schlieffen Plan for France
and Russia signified that mobilization meant war.
Germany
• Military generals (especially von Moltke) urging
Kaiser to go to war before Russia became too
powerful (Russia’s Great Military Programme Nov
1912)
• Imperial War Council Dec 1912: Kaiser met with
military council in Berlin to discuss plans for
future war
• Septemberprogramm: Germany’s war aims
published September 1914 show that Germany
wanted to create Mittelafrika and Mitteleuropa -
war to achieve these aims
International economy
• Marxist interpretation that the war was inherent in the nature of
capitalism.
• The forces which drove states to expand overseas were leading
inevitably to a clash in which the great cartels would no longer be
able to agree on a peaceful division of annexation areas and would
force their governments to war for economic interests.
• But how war would start at that particular time not explained by
these theories.
• In addition, industrialists stood to gain from war because of
production of armaments.
• Great arms firms, ‘merchants of death’, said to provoke war for
increase in profits: Krupp in Germany, Schneider Creusot in France,
Skoda in Austria-Hungary, Armstrong and Vickers in Britain.
Faulty system of international relations
• This meant that no room was left for diplomacy either.
• War had been avoided in previous crises of 1908, 1911 and
1913, but not so in 1914.
• And previous crises had contributed to the decisions made
in 1914.
• These crises were themselves the product of long-term
developments over decades, esp. Franco-Prussian War of
1870-1, which had established German military
predominance and left France with a bitter grievance about
the loss of Alsace-Lorraine.
• These events set the framework within which the IR of the
first years of the twentieth century were to be conducted.
Alliances
• The nature of the alliance system would
ultimately lead to war.
• Main alliances were between:
• Dual Alliance – Germany and Austria-Hungary,
1879.
• Triple Alliance – Germany, Austria-Hungary and
Italy, from 1882.
• Franco-Russian Alliance France and Russia, 1894.
• Entente Cordiale France and Britain, 1904.
• Anglo-Russian Entente: Britain and Russia, 1907.
Formed the Triple Entente
President
of the
USA
Woodrow
Wilson
(The USA
entered
the war in
1917
declaring
war on
Germany)