Initially called the ‘Great War’, this was so cataclysmic in British (and world) history that it seems right to start with Barbara Tuchman’s classic The Guns of August. Describing the May 1910 London funeral of Edward VII, with the royalty and rank of 70 nations on display for the last time, she memorably wrote: “The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendour never to be seen again”.
It was indeed the end of the old order. Filmed for posterity via the Library of Congress archive, the scenes offer a clear snapshot of 1910. In the conflict to follow, four empires
disappeared. The war spawned fascism and communism, and with new states created
and old ones diminished, the map of Europe, and the world, was completely
re-drawn. Colonial powers were much weakened. Global political and economic
tectonic plates shifted in a historic movement not foreseen. Britain’s position
as a world financial and trading power ended. It was surely one of the world’s
great turning points.
Nine sovereigns at George V's funeral 1910
Causes of the war
Looking back, the roots of it were attenuated, maybe starting
with the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and a strong united Germany’s arrival on
the world stage. Competitive colonial ‘Scramble for Africa’ wars, plus conflicts
in the volatile Balkans showed the fragility of Europe’s imperial order. The
Boer War had ended Britain’s splendid isolation - ententes with France, Japan
and Russia soon followed. Germany, allied with Austria-Hungary, was locked in a
naval race with Britain. A diplomatic and military re-alignment took place. And
while nobody much liked or trusted their new friends, there seemed no
alternative.
It used to be said that World War I was inevitable due
to the alliances and guarantees involving Europe’s powers. These entanglements put
the key players on a collision course which sooner or later would lead to war.
All it needed was a spark to light the fuse, and an unstoppable chain reaction,
a European ‘black tornado’, would follow. The spark was the murder of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This idea has since been discredited. Analysis of state
papers and other documents shows there were numerous chances to stop the catastrophe. For
various reasons - bellicosity, indecision, weakness, national honour - none
were taken.
Discarding such a deterministic approach to its causes, the search has been on to allocate blame. Post war, Germany was held accountable by the victorious Allied powers, and forced to accept the Treaty of Versailles. Doubts spread on the justice of this, not least in Germany, and a blame sharing narrative developed - everyone was at fault. It all changed in the 1960s when German historian Fritz Fischer showed his country had long planned to attack France. This version was fiercely questioned in Germany. Currently there is probably no consensus.
Armed alliances mobilise
In July 1914, three weeks after the Sarajevo murder, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Russia backed Serbia, and mobilised. On 1st August Germany declared war on Russia, supporting its 1879 treaty partner Austria-Hungary with a famous ‘blank cheque’. France then mobilised to aid Russia. On 2nd August Germany demanded free passage through Belgium to attack France under the Schlieffen Plan, devised in 1906. Belgium refused, so Britain declared war on the invader Germany. It is worth stressing Britain had guaranteed Belgian neutrality in 1839 and felt honour bound in its obligation. Germany’s Kaiser blustered that Britain had gone to war ‘over a scrap of paper’.
Rival military alliances 1914
The Russian-French-British entente nations and their Imperial allies became known as the Allied Powers. Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, but losing Italy, were termed the Central Powers. The Allies were joined by Romania, Japan, China and in 1917, most notably, by the USA. With other countries and areas involved, it soon became a truly global war.
After being checked in September on the Western Front at the Battle of the Marne, German forces faced years of trench warfare against the Allies. Despite offensives from each side, under fierce attrition, little ground was won or lost. In eastern Europe Russia was defeated by the Germans at Tannenberg, and with Austrian attacks, the war became more mobile with territories seized and occupied. After the 1917 Russian Revolution a ceasefire on the Eastern front allowed Germany to move troops to France in 1918 for a final push. It failed. The Allies, boosted by new tactics and American troops, forced a general German retreat until an armistice was signed in November 1918.
Myths and misunderstandings
As in all wars there are some misconceptions. Simply
confining these to the British context yields several misunderstandings. The dominant
image is of trench warfare. But this was true only on the Western Front. Four
million soldiers died on the Eastern/south Eastern fronts - Russians, Austrians
and Ottomans. It is often downplayed in British coverage.
But the war at sea also played a major role. German
submarine attacks on British shipping caused the loss of millions of tons of
food and other supplies. And the German switch to unrestricted attacks on neutral
(notably US) shipping, brought America into the war. While Jutland was the only
significant naval battle in the conflict, the result was to keep the German
High Seas Fleet bottled up for the duration. Britain’s blockade of Germany
caused such distress and domestic disruption that it was a key factor in the
armistice.
Aircraft were also more important than used to be thought.
The war began only 10 years from the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk flight. But huge
strides meant immediate use of aerial photography. Sadly, British commander John French doubted the air surveillance on German forces in autumn 1914, so much of
Britain’s Expeditionary Force was lost. By the end, aircraft were key to the
Allies’ attack force. An astonishing 200,000 aircraft were built in the war,
53,000 of them by Britain.
The general belief at the start that the war would be
over by Christmas was based on overstated claims of the strength of one’s own
side and ignorance or under-appreciation of the resources of opponents. Some
thought the war would be too costly to last long - states’ borrowing power
would soon run out. German commander von Moltke, when warned of this, replied,
“I’m a soldier not an economist”. The Allies leant on US resources even before
America entered the war. By the end of the conflict they had spent an estimated
$58bn, while the Central Powers had spent $25bn.
Britain was actually less severely affected than many others. Of
the country’s six million men under arms, 12% were killed or died, under 2% of
the whole population. For comparison the 1640s Civil War figure was 5%. France’s
World War I deaths were twice as high, at 1.4m soldiers and 4% of its
population. Germany lost 2m soldiers, 4% of its population. Even harder hit
were allies Romania which lost 8%, and Serbia, which lost an enormous 20%, of
their national populations.
Just a military conflict?
A long held belief has this as a soldiers’ war, with
civilian casualties rare. This may be a British perspective but overall it’s
emphatically not true. In central and eastern Europe vast numbers of civilians
died. One million Armenians were deported by the Ottomans to their deaths and
Germany saw half a million excess deaths from malnutrition after the Allies’
blockade. Germany and Austria killed many thousands of civilians in the occupied
territories of Serbia, Romania and Belgium. Russia deported its Jewish
borderland population. These were major war crimes. In total nearly 8m
civilians were killed in this war.
It would be wrong to think of public pressure in any
country being responsible, or even enthusiastic, for the war. The idea was
grafted on later. Neither did British and German troops play a football match
on the front line during 1914’s Christmas truce, though it was clearly still a
memorable moment. Most deaths on the Western front were not caused by machine
guns, but by artillery shells. None of the armies expected this and had instead
planned for a war of manoeuvre and movement. Nor was the ‘lions led by donkeys’
line at all fair. It was dreamt up decades later by politician Alan Clark. Over 200 generals were
killed, wounded or captured. By 1918 Britain’s army was in fact strong and
efficient.
There was poor understanding of post traumatic shock
among troops, and the mental effects of battle generally, but it improved as
the war went on. Over 3000 men on the British side were court martialled and
sentenced to death, but only about 10% of them were actually shot, nearly 80% of
these for desertion (some of which could have been provoked by trauma). Shell
shocked men were usually shipped back home for treatment. There were about
80,000 recorded cases of psychological injury among British forces during the
war.
Publicity and individuals
Figures like Gen. Joseph (Papa Jo) Joffre and TE
Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) became well known to the public via newsreels and
their own writings. Joffre posed as an honest, calm, sensible figure. He
courted public popularity but actively sought the credit for others’ actions
and even worse, blocked their careers. And TE Lawrence was only one of several Allied
agents working among Ottoman subjects to foment rebellion and weaken a military
opponent of the Allies. But as with so many British history ‘heroes’, he was a
great self-publicist.
Peace settlement and war guilt
The 1919 Versailles peace conference majored on President Wilson's 14 points, much circulated and discussed during the war. This agenda dealt with war guilt, damage to civilian property, colonies, nation-building via self-determination and other issues. As a result of Versailles Germany lost 10% of its territory but was largely unoccupied. Reparations were linked with its ability to pay but in the event were mostly unenforced. The treaty was noticeably less harsh than that ending the 1870-71 Franco Prussian War, and the savage Brest Litovsk peace that Germany had just imposed on Russia. But Versailles was painted as extremely severe and grotesquely unfair by nationalists, notably but not exclusively Hitler, in order to beat the Nazi drum.
With 18m military and civilian deaths World War I was
historically the costliest in human lives and resources. Margaret Macmillan’s
detailed 2013 study, The War that ended
Peace, is a fine assessment of the causes of this conflict. She remains
broadly neutral on war guilt but today’s historians largely feel Germany, a
highly militarised state, must take most of the responsibility. Whether or not it
meant to precipitate a general war, Germany was willing to take that risk. It
was hugely reckless in July 1914 to give Austria an unqualified ‘blank cheque’.
Why was Germany so keen to back Austria’s determination to crush Serbia and launch a Balkan war? An autocratic state whose generals believed wars - against Denmark, Austria and France - had served them well, Germany’s ruling elite felt threatened by democracy. Its parliament now had a socialist majority, hostile to militarism and promising an end to the Kaiser’s rule. The conservative leaders felt a triumph abroad would help stem this tide.
In 1914 Germany was confident it could quickly defeat
Russia and its ally, France. It discounted Britain, the other Entente party, as
its army was small - ‘contemptible’ as Kaiser Wilhelm famously remarked. Germany
jammed the St Petersburg to Paris wireless links, lied to every state in denying
knowledge of Austria’s ultimatum, and rejected Britain’s proposed four-power
conference. Hardly the actions of a state trying to avoid war.
The disastrous belief in myths
The Schlieffen Plan required German troops to cross to
France through Belgium, whose neutrality Britain had guaranteed. It has been
said that Britain used Belgium as a mere pretext to join the war. This is untrue.
Much of the ruling Liberal party was firmly opposed, as was public opinion,
until Germany invaded Belgium. Some say that Britain could have stayed neutral,
but this strains belief. A Europe controlled by any militaristic authoritarian
state would not have been in British interests and would be counter to
everything in Britain’s foreign policy history. Britain and others needed to
stop German plans - it was a war that had to be fought.
After the 1918 armistice, the German Dolchstoss im Rücken claim of not being
defeated, but ‘stabbed in the back’ took hold, and was keenly spread by right
wing elements. It was a conspiracy narrative. The country had been betrayed by
the ‘November criminals’. No responsibility for the calamity but national
self-pity, a key factor in Hitler’s re-run 20 years later.
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