Britain at this point remained in the ‘splendid isolation’ prized during the 1880s when it had the strongest navy, the most prosperous economy and the largest empire in the world. However several factors had sapped British confidence. Grey wrote in is retrospect ‘The real reason for going into the War was that, if we did not stand by France and stand up for Belgium against this aggression, we should be isolated, discredited and hated; and there would be nothing before us but a miserable and ignoble future’ British involvement in the Great War was the result of a bankrupt diplomacy which had enabled Britain to run its Empire on the cheap. If it failed to act, Britain would be abdicating its position as a great power, its Empire would be under threat and – if a German hegemony was established in Europe - its security might be jeopardised. Britain therefore had no choice but to declare war on Germany
Liberal academics, such as G.Lowes Dickinson in ‘The International Anarchy (1926)’ believed that this devious and often secret diplomacy was responsible for the atmosphere of mistrust and hostility which brought about fear which led to war. It is true that countries were drawn into war by mutual commitments and by the military plans that followed from them. This the Italian Prime Minister declared on 1 August 1914 that Italy was not obliged to back Austria and Germany to become militarily involved without being bound by any treaty. It had been argued too, that Germany’s unconditional promise of support to Russia far exceeded its treaty obligations – which could only mean that Germany wanted a European war.
Some historians held that the existence of the rival armed alliances itself made was at some point inevitable. However the alliances were primarily defensive and this should have lead to greater restraint, rather than aggression. The situation leading up to war was at odd with the terms of alliance. Russia had no actual alliance obligation to go to the aid of Serbia. Despite the Dual Alliance Germany had no treaty obligation to give Austria a “blank cheque”. Was evidence of Germany going to war for gain, as Germany position was economically strong, it shows Germany wanted a war and was prepared for a war. France should have declared war on Germany as soon as Germany declared was on Russia, but did not; Britain only intervened after the German ultimatum to Belgium, matter not covered by the entente but infact through their own fears.
On the Entente side, the allies were effectively fighting for their survival as major powers, but public opinion demanded the formulation of more appealing war aims than this. As a major threat to their status was the growth of German power. British and French war aims in particular came to concentrate upon the destruction of those forces which made Germany an ‘international danger’. Propaganda demanded the elimination of Junker militarism, and of the power of the house of Hohenzollern as essentials for a stable peace, for a Europe ‘safe for democracy’. It was not quite consistent with these aims that the provisions upon which Britainwas most insistent were the elimination of the German navy and colonial empire. Both were less of a threat to ‘democracy’ than to British trading interests. The French equivalent was to demand the return of Alsace and Lorraine. It was only indirectly, and over the next course of the year, that the dismantling of the Habsburg Empire and the establishment in its place of independent nation states, also became an article of faith for allies.
Russia had little to gain by defeating Germany, expect for more troublesome Polish subjects, and its official war aims soon came to concentrate upon the old attractions of the Dardanelles and Constantinople. In Mar-Apr 1915, Britain and France finally agreed that Russia should had these in the event of victory, as long as they were compensated by gains in Egypt and the Near East. In the event of an Entente Victory, therefore the Ottoman Empire, too, was doomed to disintegration
The claim that in 1914 States went to war due to motives of gain. Although the victors in 1918 were quick to formulate questions of ‘war guilt’, the outbreak of the conflict makes more sense if it is seen as a combination of miscalculations. The government of Austria - Hungary erred in believing that a clash with Serbia could be settled without wider complications. Russia’s partial mobilisation on 30 July was undertaken without sufficient awareness of its effect upon German policy. In Berlinthere was a whole series of misjudgements that the hope that an Austro-Serbian clash could be localised; the failure to appreciate that the invasion of Belgium would bring Britain into the war; the long-term failure to anticipate foreign reaction to the bullying tone of Weltpolitik. Also, the further naive supposition that a brief and successful war might ease domestic difficulties was an error shared with Vienna and St. Petersburg.
One of the earliest interpretations of the War was that given by Lenin. In his pamphlet Imperialism – The Highest Form of Capitalism he argued that capitalist countries were bound to engage in competition for gain of new markets and fields of investment. Imperial rivalry would inevitably led to war among ‘powerful world plunderers armed to the teeth’. Lenin’s idea was taken up by Marxist historians and still contributes to out understanding of the causes of war and of its global nature. In the late nineteenth century most of Africa and much of Asia had fallen under European rule or ‘protection’. The grab for empire was largely inspired by economic interests, through European nations aso aimed to enhance their power and prestige. Britain and France acquired the largest empires and they nearly came to blows on several occasions before making up their differences in 1904.
Austria –Hungary and Russia, controlled older empires in Europe itself. Both aimed at expansion in the Balkans. Austria particulary wanted to gain more Adriatic coastline while Russia’s dream was to control Constantinople, the gateway to the Dardanelle Straits, and thence to the Mediterranean. Both feared that their existing empires would disintegrate if the many different ethnic groups under their sway intensified their demands for self-government.
Italy’s burning ambition to establish its Great Power status by acquiring a Mediterranean empire was one of its motives for joining the Triple Alliance. Germany’sWeltpolitik challenged especially the British claim to be ‘the greatest of governing races that the world had ever seen’ (Joseph Chamberlain). Since Britain, already envious of Germany’s industrial might, was determined to maintain its imperial supremacy.
While imperial friction did not necessarily lead to fighting there was always that danger and it certainly helped to kindle the crisis of 1914. Austria’s arrogant treatment in that year of the ‘mischief making’ Slavs inside its empire and on its boarders had been likened to Britain’s behaviour towards its colonial subjects. Such attitudes helped to precipitate the First World War and for this all the major powers must bare some blame.
This international competition for territory contributed to the start of WW1. It created strong sense of winners and losers which would have led to jealousy, animosity and therefore strong tension.
German propaganda portrayed the war as an attempt to escape strangulation by the encirclement policy of jealous and hostile neighbours and righteously proclaimed that Germany was ‘not driven by the lust of conquest’. On 9th September 1914, under pressure from industrial and Pan-German interests, the Chancellor signed the so-called ‘September Programme’. This made it clear that the war aim of achieving ‘security for the German Reich in west and east for all imaginable time’ involved an unparalleled programme of annexations and expansion. Predictably, the ‘September Programme’ has provided historians who have considered German guilt of premeditated aggression in 1914 – such as Fritz Fischer – with their main weapon.
The Fischer controversy plays an important part in literature on the outbreak of war. Fischer challenge to German revisionism in 1960s and uncovers a sense of desperation amongst Wilhelmine war-makers and policy makers. It presented three very provocative theses. The first one asserted that the German government in July 1914 accepted, and indeed hoped that a major European war would result from its backing of Austria against Serbia. The second suggested that the annexationist war aims of the Imperial government not only predated the outbreak of war, but also showed a remarkable similarity with the plans made by the Nazis for conquest after 1933. The third, argued that the sources of German expansionism were to be found less in Germany’s international position then her social, political and economic domestic situation on the eve of war.
After William II dismissed Bismarck in 1890 the diplomatic situation changed dramatically. In spite of his close family ties with the Tsar, the new Kaiser thought that friendship with Russia might stand in the way of German ambition and he refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty. An unlikely partnership was then formed in 1894 between republican France and autocratic Russia, sustained by their common fear of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria and Italy) as well as by heavy French investment in the Russian economy. Germany was now less secure since, if war broke out, it would have powerful enemies on both sides.
In the short term, both sides sought to strengthen their alliances by tempting neutrals into their ‘camps’. The greatest uncertainties surrounded Italy, formally linked by the Triple Alliance to Germany and to Austria-Hungary, yet set against the latter by all the precedents of 19ths century history. Only the Entente could offer Italythe Habsburg territories in the Tyrol and down the Adriatic cost that its nationalists demanded to complete the process of unification. Thus Italy finally sided withFrance, Britain and Russia.
“Fifty years were spent in the process of making Europe explosive. Five days were enough to denote it’. June 28th 1914, the final crisis was triggered by the assignation in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of the Austrian Emperor. His murderer was a member of a Serbian terrorist organisation known as the ‘Black Hand’. Is another example of gain, as their motives behind the assassination were annexing Bosnia.
In conclusion, through assessing why states went to war in 1914, we analysed both sides of the arguments. States went to war due to the fear; like the Triple Entente who simply went to war for their own survival as major powers.The proclivity of much of the general historiography on the war in Europe has been to emphasise the constraining effects of circumstance on individual actors and to alleviate individuals’ responsibility for causing a world war. Many leaders are held to have acted ‘defensively’ due to fear, feeling that their nation, in the words of study written by H.H Herwig (The Origins of War) was ‘in decline’ or, at least ‘seriously threatened’.
