Sleepwalkers - Christopher Clark

[SWorrall]

There are two statements I would take issue with. One is that after victory for Germany in a war where Britain remained neutral, Germany would have seized control of Western Europe. I rather think that there would have been an early version of the EU instead, albeit with Germany as the dominant power (as it is now, economically).

The second point is about the war being a just one for France, since she was invaded. For Belgium, yes - the invasion was unprovoked - but France could hardly claim the moral high ground if she is invaded as a result of an alliance with another country, Russia, which went to the aid of a third country, Serbia, with whom she had no formal ties, in its struggle with yet another country, Austria-Hungary, with whom she had no quarrel.

Melvin

Hi Melvin,

Germany would have certainly seized control of Western Europe and was extending its control of Eastern Europe, as far as Ukraine, even as the army in the West collapsed during the Hundred Days of 1918. One need only look at the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to see what a victorious Germany might have done to the rest of Europe. Victory for Germany would also have menat victory for the Austro-Hungarians, the defeat of Italy and a German client area in the Balkans and Italy. With the Ottomans also being victorious the Central and Eastern Mediterranean are under the influence of German client states or vassals, meaning that the British Imperial trade route through Suez becomes untenable and Britains links to Empire are lengthened by many days of travel. The resources of this entire area of Europe come under the control, directly or indirectly, of Berlin. Under the continuation of the Hindenburg Programme all of this would have been directed towards war-making, Ludendorff was the primeover behind the programme and believed that war was the natural condition of the human race, interrupted by peace, rather than the other way around. Britain would not have survived very long if Europe had become a Germanic area. An early version of the EU? Only if you can imagine the EU under the military dictatorship of Hindenburg and, especially, Ludendorff turning out armaments instead of consumer goods.

As to the position of France: Republican France looked for friends after the Franco-Prussian War and found only Russia willing to make an Alliance. The republican French were no fans of the autocratic Russian regime, but held their noses and signed anyway because the Alliance gave them a means to make an expansionist Germany think before attacking France in the future. Britain, the USA and the Allies were in an alliance with the USSR in World War 2 and Stalin was one of the greatest killers in history. Does that make the Alliance in WW2 invalid? The Franco-Russian Alliance before the Great War was supposed to prevent a war, in which it singularly failed, because the Germans perceived a single opportunity to attack before Russian rearmament made it too difficult to try. Belgium did not provoke Imperial Germany, as you say, but neither did the French who restrained mobilisation and pulled their army back 10 km from their frontiers deliberately to avoid provocation. Making of Alliances for defensive purposes does not constitute provocation, unless you consider NATO a provocation? The French did not provoke the attack upon their territory any more than the Russians did. For Germany and Austria-Hungary it was a war of aggression, plain and simple. The Austro-Hungarians fired the first shots in the Balkans after the Serbs had all-but-complied with their Ultimatum, even the Kaiser thought that all reason for war was at an end. The Germans declared war upon Russia, not the other way around, after the Russians tried to seek a means to cancel mobilisation on both sides.

Simon.

[Glenn239]

Sleepwalkers - a great book, underscoring just how complex the origins of the war were, even 100 years later.

The Franco-Russian Alliance before the Great War was supposed to prevent a war

How could the purpose of the Franco-Russian alliance be to prevent a world war, when the course it chose in reaction to Austria’s attack on Serbia could not end without one?

The simplest explanation for the outbreak of the war, and culpability for that, is: Germany was willing to risk general war in backing the Austro-Hungarians declaration of war against Serbia.

The question is more to explaining why the Council of Europe did not unify behind Austria and sanction a military campaign to punish Serbia. The Triple Entente took the position that Austria had failed to prove its accusations against Serbia. It could just as easily demanded of Serbia that it prove to the Council that it was not so.

[Glenn239]

Sleepwalkers really drives home how jointly responsible the Powers were that there was a war. The answers below, all just observations to random particular points, are intended to show how there's always more than one way to look at any issue, reinforcing how it was the clash of differing perspectives, and no one villian, that caused the war.

Right through July Sir Edward Grey was trying to get the Germans to mediate between the contending parties, in the belief that they were honest brokers as they had been before.

The British Ambassador to Austria-Hungary was Maurice de Bunsen, not Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg.

The fact that the Serbia / A-H situation was a pretext is shown by the fact that, the moment that general war broke out the A-H government were told to halt their offensive agasint Serbia and distract the Russians from the east of Germany. Germany's war needs came first, those of A-H a distant second.

Military imperatives are not evidence to pretext; should Russia defeat Germany and occupy Berlin, the war was over and finis Austria; any Austria campaign in Serbia would be irrelevent. Therefore, the German advice was nothing more than sound military logic.

Once the Germans issued the notorious 'blank cheque' to the Austro-Hungarians, and then packed the Kaiser off to his cruise around the Baltic (to stop him backing down), war was inevitable.

The implication from this is that Entente would enter a world war at the moment Austria and Serbia had a war. Now, all things considered, just by the inevitable fall of the Ottomans in Europe, Austria and Serbia were pretty likely to have a war at some point. Since an Austro-Serbian war was likely at some point, and as you say, a world war was inevitable as soon as Austro-Serbian war occurred, then wasn't it the existence of the Triple Entente from 1907 that made a world war inevitable?

France withdrew its forces 10km from the border, to avoid giving Germany a casus belli. If war is forced upon a country why should it back down?

If France had done something that, as your statement infers, was thought sufficiently provocative in Paris to suppose Germany could take it as a casus belli, then it must have been understood in Paris that it was still a casus belli when done 10km further west.

[SWorrall]

How could the purpose of the Franco-Russian alliance be to prevent a world war, when the course it chose in reaction to Austria’s attack on Serbia could not end without one?

The question is more to explaining why the Council of Europe did not unify behind Austria and sanction a military campaign to punish Serbia. The Triple Entente took the position that Austria had failed to prove its accusations against Serbia. It could just as easily demanded of Serbia that it prove to the Council that it was not so.

What reactions by the Franco-Russian Alliance ensured war? The Russians wanted to order a partial mobilisation against A-H only, but discovered that they had no plan to do so. On ordering full mobilisation the Tsar sent a telegram direct to the Kaiser to explain in clear terms that there would be no action against Germany, it was directed against A-H alone. The German plan (not known to anyone else, even their A-H partners) depended upon getting mobilised before the Russians started. Alarmed at being behind they ordered their own mobilisation. In the case of every country involved, mobilisation did NOT mean war, except for Germany where mobilisation and war could not be separated. The first would inevitably lead to the second. The French government was at sea for most of the July Crisis, with the Germans jamming their radio signals back to France. They deliberately withdrew their forces from the border areas to avoid giving Germany a casus belli, which ruined the German propaganda claims (prepared before the outbreak of war) that the French had encroached upon their territory (the same false ploy used in 1939 against Poland and in 1941 against the USSR). The war began because A-H declared war upon Serbia. No-one forced them to do so and without the German 'blank cheque' they would not have done so. No-one forced the Germans to mobilise and thus go to war. No-one forced them to declare war upon Russia. They conciously chose to do that, despite the telegrams from St. Petersburg explaining the Russian actions. The fact is that the German Cabinet and their High Command had connived at a localised war and were willing to risk general war in order to undermine the Serbs and thereby the Russians. They gambled for the highest stakes and lost.

You mean the Concert of Europe? The Council is a modern EU construct. The Concert depended upon every party being an honest broker and being willing to talk, negotiate and come to an agreement. In July 1914 the A-H would not do so, because the Germans were backing them. The Germans would not do so, and frustrated every attempt to stop the conflict, because they did not want to stop it.

The A-H allegations against the Serbian state were groundless. It was not the Serbian state which ordered the killing of Franz Ferdinand, but a high-ranking officer in military intelligence who was up to his neck in ultra-nationalist groups. The same man had caused a coup in Serbia only a few years previously. The Ultimatum to Belgrade had a timeframe so short that it was not supposed to be possible to answer. The clauses were not supposed to be acceptable, Sir Edward Grey remarked upon reading it that it was 'the most formidable document ever sent by one country to another that was sovereign'. Nonetheless the Serbian Government acceded to every clause in the Ultimatum save only one. Even if they had fully accepted it the A-H Ambassador had orders to reject that acceptance, no matter what, and leave Serbia anyway.War was going to happen anyway. The Kaiser read the reply and declared that 'With this every justification for war falls away'. It satisified everyone except the war party in Vienna and Berlin. The grouping of politicians and soldiers in Berlin had even sent the Kaiser on his cruise around the Baltic to keep him incommunicado, lest he prevent the war they so desperately wanted. When he returned from his cruise, newly-briefed about the machinations in Vienna and Berlin, Bethmann Hollweg was there to meet him and tendered his resignation because he knew of the Kaiser's disapproval of the actions of the Cabinet. Wilhelm rejected it famously declaring 'You made this soup, now you are going to eat it'.

Simon.

[egbert]

Simon, did you already read the 800something pages of the "Sleepwalkers", which is based on the very latest Serbian/Russian/Austrian/German/French/British archive findings? The team around Clark managed to find new facts because this was the first team that was able to read all of these different language sources and compile their findings into one book.

Again -did you read it please?

[mhurst]

The French did not provoke the attack upon their territory any more than the Russians did. For Germany and Austria-Hungary it was a war of aggression, plain and simple. The Austro-Hungarians fired the first shots in the Balkans after the Serbs had all-but-complied with their Ultimatum, even the Kaiser thought that all reason for war was at an end. The Germans declared war upon Russia, not the other way around, after the Russians tried to seek a means to cancel mobilisation on both sides.

Simon,

Surely the Russians knew, or should have known, that even partial mobilization, which they tried at first, would be seen as a provocative act? Germany may have declared war first, but war was surely coming anyway? once Russia had taken those first steps. If there is a real villain of the piece (or should that be peace?) then it's Austria-Hungary, who went ahead with declaring war even though Serbia had managed to satisfy, or stall, all of her demands. Russia wasn't allied with Serbia and so wasn't under any formal obligation to assist; she only did so out of a feeling of pan-Slavic unity. The French must have rued the day that they signed a treaty with Russia - the original Balkan conflict was none of their business, yet the consequences were devastating.

Melvin

[mhurst]

The A-H allegations against the Serbian state were groundless. It was not the Serbian state which ordered the killing of Franz Ferdinand, but a high-ranking officer in military intelligence who was up to his neck in ultra-nationalist groups. T

Maybe, but it is almost certain that the Serbian government knew of the plot beforehand and made only very half-hearted attempts to warn the Austrian of it. If a rigorous investigation had been allowed to take place in Belgrade, perhaps under international leadership, the Serbian government would have faced a very embarrassing time.

[SWorrall]

Right through July Sir Edward Grey was trying to get the Germans to mediate between the contending parties, in the belief that they were honest brokers as they had been before.

The British Ambassador to Austria-Hungary was Maurice de Bunsen, not Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg.

The fact that the Serbia / A-H situation was a pretext is shown by the fact that, the moment that general war broke out the A-H government were told to halt their offensive agasint Serbia and distract the Russians from the east of Germany. Germany's war needs came first, those of A-H a distant second.

Military imperatives are not evidence to pretext; should Russia defeat Germany and occupy Berlin, the war was over and finis Austria; any Austria campaign in Serbia would be irrelevent. Therefore, the German advice was nothing more than sound military logic.

Once the Germans issued the notorious 'blank cheque' to the Austro-Hungarians, and then packed the Kaiser off to his cruise around the Baltic (to stop him backing down), war was inevitable.

The implication from this is that Entente would enter a world war at the moment Austria and Serbia had a war. Now, all things considered, just by the inevitable fall of the Ottomans in Europe, Austria and Serbia were pretty likely to have a war at some point. Since an Austro-Serbian war was likely at some point, and as you say, a world war was inevitable as soon as Austro-Serbian war occurred, then wasn't it the existence of the Triple Entente from 1907 that made a world war inevitable?

France withdrew its forces 10km from the border, to avoid giving Germany a casus belli. If war is forced upon a country why should it back down?

If France had done something that, as your statement infers, was thought sufficiently provocative in Paris to suppose Germany could take it as a casus belli, then it must have been understood in Paris that it was still a casus belli when done 10km further west.

What have de Bunsen and Bethmann to do with this point? Grey made six separate attempts to prevent a general war, even after the A-H attack had begun with the idea of 'Stop in Belgrade'. He did not succeed because the Germans ignored, delayed or rejected his proposals every time, until their own motives, and the hidden background, became clear.

Military logic it may have been, to the Germans. But none of this was made clear to their Ally in Vienna. When you have Allies you take them into your confidence and plan jointly. The Austro-Hungarians intended a ground campaign against Serbia, in the belief that the Germans were going to look after their backs while they got on with it. This was the understanding which led them to declare war on Serbia in the first place. Instead they were ordered to stop their offensive and look after the Germans back against Russia, which did nothing, however, to stop the Russian advance into East Prussia. Fortunately for the Germans they won at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, but the Austro-Hungarian army played no part in stopping the Russian advance.

There was no Triple Entente, however useful the idea may be. There was a Franco-Russian Alliance, a Franco-British Entente and a British-Russian Entente. Three two-way agreements, not a single three-way one. An Entente is NOT an Alliance and confers no guarantees of mutual support or assistance. So the Ententes did not cause the war. Right up until the last two days no-one knew what Britain would do. The British preferred it that way, believing that it would retard both parties from advancing to general war. Agreeing to stay out, as many Liberals wished, would have emboldened Germany. Deciding to be involved alongside the Franco-Russians would have made them firmer in advancing to war with Germany. That was the view in Westminster.

'The implication from this is that Entente would enter a world war at the moment Austria and Serbia had a war.' Look at it the other way around: If Austria-Hungary had not declared war upon the Serbs, and then attacked them, there would have been no war at that time. The declaration by Vienna was made possible by the blank cheque, they would never have done it without that. So the blank cheque and constant urging from Berlin to 'get on with it' pushed the Austro-Hungarians to war. The Germans declared war upon Russia, not the other way around. The Italians were in a formal three-way Alliance with Vienna and Berlin, but did NOT go to war because Rome considered that their Alliance partners were waging aggressive war, which invalidated the Alliance.

'an Austro-Serbian war was likely at some point' war does not just happen by accident. It takes a concious will to make that step. It was Vienna, pushed by Berlin, which took that step in July 1914.The Great War was not inevitable, it was not guaranteed, or even likely. The world at the start of 1914 was as peaceful as it had been for decades and many commentators thought a golden age was dawning. But the Germans took a calculated risk, a risk they understood and accepted, in giving open-ended support to the Austro-Hungarians. They were wrong to have done so.

'If France had done something that, as your statement infers, was thought sufficiently provocative in Paris to suppose Germany could take it as a casus belli, then it must have been understood in Paris that it was still a casus belli when done 10km further west. That is a misreading, accidental or deliberate, of what I wrote. France, like many countries, had screening forces close to the border, to report upon initial incursions and try to slow them down. These were withdrawn 10 km backwards. The calculation was that the Germans would complain about French incursions into German territory as a casus belli. The French were correct on this point, the Germans did make this complaint, but since there were no French troops near their own borders the claim was spurious and foolish. N.B. they also withdrew from their border with Belgium, in case the Germans tried to claim that the French had infringed Belgian neutrality as a casus belli. Instead it was the Germans who invaded Belgium first.

By your argument having forces anywhere at all is a provocation. It would not matter where they were stationed? How far back should France have pulled its border forces? 10km? 20km? 50km? Paris? Bordeaux?

Simon.

[egbert]

Simon, your deliberations are well known with historians since almost a century. Today's historians in the UK and elsewhere have a wider access to archives and are more and more unbiased than what you have learned in your school years.

I suspect you DID NOT read "The Sleepwalkers". Read it and than attack Melvin @ all with good presented arguments if you like.

[SWorrall]

Simon, did you already read the 800something pages of the "Sleepwalkers", which is based on the very latest Serbian/Russian/Austrian/German/French/British archive findings? The team around Clark managed to find new facts because this was the first team that was able to read all of these different language sources and compile their findings into one book.

Again -did you read it please?

Yes I did Egbert. Clark's layout of the timeline is fairly good, but his analysis and conclusions are poor. Moreover they fly in the face of the conclusions of almost all other recent academic writers, such as Mombauer, Steiner/Neilson, Herwig/Hamilton, Evans/Strandmann, K. Wilson, S. Williamson, Mulligan, Joll/Martel and others. Almost all are recent works, or recent revisions of classic works based upon the latest material and the overwhelming conclusion is that Germany bore the main responsibility, with a rising focus on the responsibility of Austria-Hungary becomeing evident. Fischer has his flaws and tends to take a worst-case reading of the evidence, but the central idea has never been effectively refuted.

I know that Clark is popular in Germany at this time, having read interviews with him in some of your online media. One can understand that, since he gives out a message that is pleasing to a German audience. But that does not make his conclusions accurate or correct. Between his work and that of Margaret MacMillan recently one would think that the Fischer controversy and the archive-based academic research of the last 50 years had never happened.

Simon.

[egbert]

Simon thanks for responding. I am glad you have read the book already, I am only at page 250 so far. I would not say the book is popular, although it is a bestseller in Germany as WW! pales behind WWII. But yes today's generation will be more and more interested. Prof. Clark's book sums up all the latest "newer generation " research and it intrigues that it is written by an undisputed honorable Professor from University of Cambridge. He and other colleagues like Prof. Neitzel from London School of Economics are historians who dig into sources not available until recently. They both were part of a recent historian discussion round that was broad casted about who is to be blamed for the outbreak of WWI. Both surely made a lasting impression with their new work. When asked they even advocated to rewrite the history books with respect to who is to be blamed, a singular country or several equally together.

In this context and many more, I was not aware of Sir Grey`s secret treaties with the French who were agreed without notifying the British parliament and who had a profound impact on French perception about the future role of the UK in a European war against Germany. Also I was not aware that the Quai d'Orsay was smithing alliances without the knowledge of the Assemblee Nationale. But as I said, I am only at page 200something.....

[SWorrall]

In this context and many more, I was not aware of Sir Grey`s secret treaties with the French who were agreed without notifying the British parliament and who had a profound impact on French perception about the future role of the UK in a European war against Germany. Also I was not aware that the Quai d'Orsay was smithing alliances without the knowledge of the Assemblee Nationale.

Grey's talks with the French were known by Asquith, who approved of them. Both knew that the Liberal Party and Cabinet would not approve of anything that contained an element of a formal military agreement, so they forgot to mention it to them. They resulted in verbal agreements only and no definite military or naval commitments. This enabled the Royal Navy to pull back its main strength to the North Sea and Atlantic, to face the German Fleet. The Army talks resulted in an outline plan to use the BEF alongside the French Army, but without any guarantees to the French that this would happen. It was a detailed planning framework, upon which the French placed more reliance than they should have done, snice the British periodically explained to them that nothing definite was to be expected. They should not be spoken of as 'treaties' as they were nothing more than plans, and gentleman's agreements.

Simon.

[Glenn239]

What reactions by the Franco-Russian Alliance ensured war? The Russians wanted to order a partial mobilisation against A-H only, but discovered that they had no plan to do so.

.

The second half of your sentence answering the first, even if one swallows the alleged Russian ‘discovery’ that they had no such contingency. In a Cold War analogy, the Kremlin fires an SS-18 at New York with the intention of self-destructing it over the Atlantic. (Firing a ballistic missile isn’t acts of war, you see). Then, halfway to New York, the generals inform the Kremlin that the missile has no self-destruct mechanism...

On ordering full mobilisation the Tsar sent a telegram direct to the Kaiser to explain in clear terms that there would be no action against Germany, it was directed against A-H alone.

The German doctrine was very simple; the Power that ordered its army to mobilize at another Great Power first was the aggressor, and if that Power was claiming their innocence, they were lying. Whether the Russians did or did not agree with that principle, the Germans and their 30 army corps didn’t care. The perspective in Berlin was simply different than in St. Petersburg, being on interior lines with threats to two fronts.

The point that Sleepwalkers really drives home is that no one – then or now – has a monopoly on spin, or corners the truth, or informs the public that one viewpoint is valid and others are not. If there were 100 figures in the crisis and 1,000 historians looking at it afterwards, there would be 1,100 different views of what was and was not important, all of them valid to one extent or another, all of them containing contradictions and paradoxes. What Sleepwalkers does is better fills in how the Austrians and Germans were looking at things by accounting for Franco-Russian behavior more in the way that their enemies perceived it to be, not the way their friends tried to ‘spin’ it.

The start of the Great War is a lesson for humanity for all time. The origins were subtle, paradoxical, simple and complex, irrational and rational, unpredictable and inevitable, all at the same time. The universe does not apologize for its capacity to be complex beyond human understanding, nor is it wise for future generations trying to avoid another such catastrophe to try and ‘steamroller’ the rich, delicate, dynamics of causation into some simple talking point.

[Glenn239]

You mean the Concert of Europe? The Council is a modern EU construct. The Concert depended upon every party being an honest broker and being willing to talk, negotiate and come to an agreement.

The Concert of Europe, I think evolved as an informal Great Power grouping dating from the Napoleonic times. In terms of what it was and what it did, it was not about what you are suggesting. The Concert was not a caped crusader fighting injustice for the little guys in Europe – these seem American concepts alien to Europe prior to 1918. The Concert was a cabal of Great Powers painfully aware that Europe was a dangerous place in which war was always around the corner. It’s purpose was not ‘honesty from every party’, because in Imperial Europe the concept that any party was being ‘completely honest’ would probably be considered absurd. Its purpose was to smooth over difficulties such that Great Powers did not go to war over matters that diplomacy could solve, and if they did, that the war would be as short and small as possible. If dishonesty or studied inattention, or any level of insincerity served the purpose of reaching an accord short of war, the Concert would adapt that method and the truth be damned.

The A-H allegations against the Serbian state were groundless. It was not the Serbian state which ordered the killing of Franz Ferdinand, but a high-ranking officer in military intelligence who was up to his neck in ultra-nationalist groups.

The same man had caused a coup in Serbia only a few years previously.

A case in point on how two conflicting perceptions can both be true. Apis had participated in the murder of the king of Serbia. So what did Serbia then do? Put him in charge of the Serbian government organization that could murder the heir of Austria! It would be a little like a baggage handler in Belgrade blowing up an airliner, then the Serbian government promoting that baggage handler to head of airport security. And, having done so, having given a demonstrated terrorist psychopath the power to do again what he had done before, the Serbians had the audacity to claim that Serbia was not responsible for his using his position to blow up another airliner! Do you see how, by simply changing the perspective, the Austrian viewpoint becomes valid and the Serbian viewpoint becomes absurd?

[Glenn239]

That is a misreading, accidental or deliberate, of what I wrote. France, like many countries, had screening forces close to the border, to report upon initial incursions and try to slow them down. These were withdrawn 10 km backwards. The calculation was that the Germans would complain about French incursions into German territory as a casus belli.

You’d indicated that France moved its screening forces 10km west so as not to give rise to giving Germany a casus belli. I responded by stating that a casus belli 10km removed does not magically turn the pumpkin into a carriage; it is still a casus belli. In terms of what the Germans could presumably claim was the act of war, that would be five French army corps, suddenly and without provocation, mobilizing along Germany’s frontier on 30 July 1914 in unison with Russian mobilization at Germany.

By your argument having forces anywhere at all is a provocation. It would not matter where they were stationed? How far back should France have pulled its border forces? 10km? 20km? 50km? Paris? Bordeaux?

Any mobilization at Germany could be claimed by the Germans to be aimed at Germany. How far beyond the frontier is not the point; the one that mobilizes first is the aggressor, so France must remain passive and mobilize only after Germany had done so.

[Glenn239]

What have de Bunsen and Bethmann to do with this point? Grey made six separate attempts to prevent a general war.

You said,

“Right through July Sir Edward Grey was trying to get the Germans to mediate between the contending parties”

The British ambassador to Austria-Hungary was Maurice de Bunsen, not the Chancellor of Germany. If Britain wished to make mediation proposals to Austria, then Britain must do so in direct negotiations with Austria, petitioning the Germans to support them. If, without invitiatioin, the British instead appointed the Chancellor of a foriegn government the British ambassador to Austria, then the British would have no one to blame but themselves when that foriegn official ignored the British interests while pursuing his own.

There was no Triple Entente, however useful the idea may be.

When he British Ambassador to Russia surmised in August 1914 that Germany’s purpose was to test the “Triple Entente”, he was inventing a term that didn’t exist to explain a motive that could not be real?

An Entente is NOT an Alliance and confers no guarantees of mutual support or assistance.

By having no formal commitment, the Entente had no formal character or definition. That fact cuts both ways; by having no definition, the real level of obligation was also undefined. That could be very small (as you say), or it could be very large (as you do not say).

Edited 23 January , 2014 by Glenn239

[mhurst]

And another thing....In a memorandum of 1912, von Schlieffen himself had this to say about Belgian neutrality:

“This country (Belgium) is regarded as neutral, but in fact it is not. More than 30 years ago it made Liege and Namur into strong fortresses to prevent Germany from invading its territory, but towards France it left its frontiers open. If, blindly trusting in the sanctity of neutrality, we were to attack along the whole front Belfort – Montmedy, a practical and unscrupulous enemy would soon effectively envelop our right flank through Belgium and Luxembourg. Belgian counter-measures would be too weak or too late to be effective. In a war of aggression against France the laws of self-defence would make it impossible for Germany to respect Luxembourg and Belgian neutrality. The French are now as convinced of this as we.”

(1914 Fight the Good Fight. Britain,The Army &The Coming of the First World War, Allan Mallinson, 2013 p. 111)

I can't help feeling that in the last sentence he was perfectly right, to which he might also have added Britain.

[Martin Bennitt]

Here's Bogdanor's review of Margaret Macmillan's latest in this month's issue of History Today. He says she has "no truck" with Clark's thesis.``

http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2014/01/how-europe-abandoned-peace-first-world-war

Cheers Martin B

[cdr]

Bit of a 'self excusing" argument by von Schlieffen there. He does 'forget' the fact that the Namur Liège fortress group finds its origin in German suggestions

to the Belgian governement

Carl

[StuartAB]

He's speaking at Birmingham next Tuesday; we had Hew Strachan tonight.

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/warstudies/events/2014/centenary0402.aspx

Stuart

[neverforget]

I blame the parents !!

Seriously though, I too have just finished this truly epic work, and can have nothing but praise for it. I felt that it was going to be pretty hard going in some ways, and I don`t know what made me do it, but I made the odd decision to read the "conclusion" chapter before I read the book itself. Maybe I was impatient to see where he was coming from before I invested my time to take the book on as such, because it is a big read. Anyway, I know it`s a strange thing to do, but I think it helped me to see where the book was going before I started, rather than have it unfold after many days reading.

[egbert]

A brilliant discussion amongst renowned historians took place last week here. One was Prof Neitzel from London School of Economics and Science.

Discussion in German language; I know some here speak German and may follow this outstanding discussion "Sleepwalkers" or "Fire Raisers"?

Actual discussion starts at 08:00 minutes

[egbert]

The best of the best discussion was this month about "The Sleepwalkers" with author Cristopher Clark and Prof Neitzel . Here in German language only

[centurion]

Christopher Clark is giving the 2nd Centennial lecture (Roads to War) at BU on Tuesday it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

[cdr]

The best of the best discussion was this month about "The Sleepwalkers" with author Cristopher Clark and Prof Neitzel . Here in German language only

Thanks Egbert very interesting link

I'm impressed by Christopher Clark's command of the German language. Some interesting points on the impact

of German high command on politics. I did not know that accepting German war guilt was punishable by law since 1937.

Carl

somebody did make a reference to the German empire as not being Mordor !