Wehler’s twist on the Fischer thesis provides a more complete picture of why Germany would be planning a war, in that it was part of Innenpolitik instead of Ausenpolitik. This means to say that the war was planned as a way to remove domestic pressures inside of Germany and was not really a true foreign policy plan. The destructive impact of industrialisation caused tensions in Germany’s social and economic structure, including the tension for constitutional change and social change. These tensions were diverted outwards in order to maintain the status quo. War with Russia was also seen as inevitable to the Kaiser and his advisers so the thinking was, why should it not help strengthen bonds with Austria-Hungary.
Opposed to the Fischer thesis is the consensus theory, that all of the great global powers had their part to play in the outbreak of war. This was the predominant theory until the Fischer thesis in the 1960’s but is now seen as the result of German authorities trying to push the blame onto others. This theory is supported by Erdmann who uses the diaries of Riezler which show that Germany had not been planning war. The theory follows from the July crisis of 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot and killed in Serbia. Austria sent their 14 demands to Serbia but required Germany to help them carry it out. Germany offered Austria the “blank Cheque” to Austria. When Serbia refused to allow Austria all of their demands Austria declared war closely followed by Russia in support of their ally Serbia. Russian mobilisation caused the German army to initiate the Schieffen plan, pulling France into war as well. The Schlieffen plan involved going through Belgium so also dragged Britain into the war.
The consensus theory is supported by the idea of encirclement which also undermines the Fischer thesis. Hildebrand, Hillbruger and Schollgen put forward the idea that German foreign policy between 1908 and 1914 was driven obsessively to break the encirclement of other allied countries, and that Germany’s reasons for going to war where purely defensive not offensive. The first Moroccan crisis of 1905 was the event that first started the fear of encirclement. The Germans were hoping that negotiations about the future of Morocco could drive a wedge between the already existing alliance of Britain and France but only succeeded in pushing then closer together. Germany also failed in their attempts to separate the Russians from their alliance with the French but this also failed. This combination of failures not only served to embarrass Germany but made the fear of encirclement very real.
The idea of a defensive war on Germany’s part is also supported by the events in the Balkans following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. With Serbia becoming a stronger power to the south Austria believed it would cause unrest in its own empire. Austria with German support attempted to diminish the Serbian nation by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina. With Serbia’s strong alliance with Russia Germany now had enemies on every side and the Balkan war of 1912 made the Germans even more obsessed with the threat of encirclement. The increase of a Slav threat caused Germany to increase the size of its army, causing France and Russia to do the same. This increased military action caused Germany to become concerned that the Entente was catching up with her in terms of military strength and that if war was to happen to preserve their own interests then it had better happen sooner rather than later.
For me the idea that the German war was a defensive operation cannot hold much sway because of the huge scope of the German plan and more importantly the Schlieffen plan and how it aimed to gain such vast swathes of land and knock out its major global competitors. This means that the Fischer thesis has a very strong case that German war was entirely for personal gain. With the German war plans giving Germany such massive international gains and the evidence from diaries and the German War Council of 1914 make it impossible to believe that Germany was not planning this war. The Wehler twist does however fill in a lot of holes with the Fischer thesis giving a more reasonable reason for Germany going to war. Overall the vast majority of the blame has to lie with Germany, with the evidence of Germany planning for the war because of the internal pressures of the SDP and the international gains it would bring. However other powers cannot be absolved of blame as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango.
