Europe's Last Summer

[Guest Michaeloppen]

Almost without realizing it, opinion seems to have shifted. I recently read a fascinating book on the cause of World War I. I liked it so much I reviewed on my own (I do a lot of reviews). It's an important book, and I also think highly of my review.

Fromkin, David

EUROPE’S LAST SUMMER: Who Started the Great War in 1914?

Knopf (349 pp.)

$26.95

March 25, 2004

Not another book on the origins of World War I! All the actors are dead, all the documents catalogued and well-thumbed. Is there anything more to say? Definitely, according to this spirited, opinionated account.

We know how it all began. Fifty years of imperial rivalry, shifting alliances, and a frantic arms race raised tensions to the boiling point. With no European conflict for a generation, intellectuals either yearned for the cleansing purge of war or warned of the coming end of civilization. The murder of the Austrian heir, Franz Ferdinand, in June, 1914, sent a shock wave across Europe. In the confused maneuvers that followed, governments lost control, and the dominos tumbled. It was nobody’s fault.

One might call this the Barbara Tuchman interpretation. She is certainly the best popular writer on the subject, and her books remain page-turners after forty years. Historian Fromkin states bluntly that the Tuchman interpretation is passé. He doesn’t claim to present an original view (a la Niall Fergusen’s The Pity of War) but the latest historical thinking. Since the 1960s more information has come to light, notably from German, Austrian, and Serbian sources, which has changed some minds.

Fromkin concludes that Germany caused the war. Apparently even German historians agree. I found this a jolt, but he makes a convincing case.

We all know how Germany humiliated France in 1871. While burning for revenge, French leaders knew their country was weaker than Germany. No one, Germany included, believed France was actively planning war. As for England, it was pro-German until the dawn of the twentieth century. Its public opinion favored Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war. Then Germany took careful aim at its foot and pulled the trigger by deciding to build a great navy.

Russia was the key. The world’s view of Russia as a threat to peace did not begin with Stalin. From the time of Peter the Great, nations viewed the Czar’s empire as a sleeping giant. A century ago, Russia was a run-of-the-mill great power. But that, in the eyes of observers, was only because of its backwardness. A modernized Russia would be a superpower, and by the first decade of the twentieth century, Russia was modernizing with the help of its ally, France.

This upset Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, who assumed Russia would attack Germany as soon as it felt confident of victory. Only a preventive war could save his country, Moltke believed. He had believed this for a decade, and it was no secret to his colleagues. In early 1914, the German foreign minister noted that Moltke told him that in a few years “the military superiority of our enemies would...be so great that he did not know how he could overcome them. In his opinion there was no alternative to making a preventive war while there was still a chance of victory. The Chief of the General Staff therefore proposed that I conduct a policy with the aim of provoking a war in the near future.”

Preventive war also preoccupied Moltke’s opposite number in Austria-Hungary, Count Conrad von Hotzendorf. His bete noir was Serbia, the pugnacious Balkan nation that was stirring up the large Slav minority in the rickety, polyglot Austrian empire. Having watched Serbia prosper after the First (1912) and Second (1913) Balkan wars, Austria used the Archduke’s assassination as an excuse to set matters right. Its second-rate army (no better than Mussolini’s in WWII) could not fight on two fronts. Fortunately, the Kaiser, outraged at the assassination, promised to scare off Russia, normally a close friend of Serbia.

Fromkin stresses that the Kaiser, contrary to the traditional picture, was not particularly bellicose. A month after the assassination, when it seemed Serbia had accepted Austria’s humiliating ultimatum, he pronounced himself satisfied and announced there would be no war. But by this time matters were beyond his control. Fromkin emphasizes the Kaiser’s marginal influence over events; even within his country he was considered a loose cannon.

He certainly had little influence over von Moltke who decided matters were now favorable for his preventive war. Among Moltke’s requirements were that the dispute involve Austria-Hungary which had refused to support Germany in earlier quarrels. Now its cooperation was guaranteed. The second requirement was that the dispute provoke Russia. Russia would then have to attack Germany - or at least it had to appear to the German public that Russia had attacked.

“The war that Russia thrust on us.” That embodies what German leaders announced and what Germans came to believe. When news of Russia’s mobilization became known, the Bavarian military attaché confided in his diary: “I run to the War Ministry. Beaming faces everywhere. Everyone is shaking hands; people congratulate one another for being over the hurdle.”

Fromkin is at his best answering the old question: how could an assassination in an obscure Balkan country lead to the bloodiest war in history? He dismisses the traditional answer (“things got out of hand”). There were, the author insists, two wars. Only the Austro-Serbian war was supposedly triggered by the murders in Sarajevo. The second war was Germany’s, fought against Russia and her allies. Like Austria, Germany used the assassination as a pretext to start a war - and that pretext was the possibility that Russian would interfere in the Austro-Serbian war.

Once Russia obliged by mobilizing, the little Serbian war could be ignored and the world war begin. Historians would write that the Serbian war had somehow gotten out of control and escalated. But one war did not grow into the other, Fromkin insists. On the contrary, one had to be put aside in order to start the other. On August 1, even before the armies clashed, Conrad was eagerly marching his armies south to what he thought was the Third Balkan war when Moltke told him to forgo that campaign and send the bulk of his army north to Russian frontier. He obeyed but slowly and reluctantly, and thereafter Austrian troops fought as badly as Italians did in the next war (Germany showed terrible taste in allies).

One pleasure of this book is that the author frequently pauses to discuss evidence for his statements and evaluate its reliability. New material appears regularly. For example, historians long assumed the private papers of Raymond Poincare (president of France in 1914) were destroyed at his death. Twenty years ago they were found. There was massive destruction of government files for 1914, especially among the losers, but scholars, mostly in Germany and Austria, have turned up bits and scraps in odd places. Many destroyed files were replaced by forgeries; their presence alone provides useful clues.

Events in the summer of 1914 probably produce more nonfiction than any single historical topic. In reviewing the latest thinking, Fromkin provides a highly readable and stimulating addition to an endlessly fascinating genre.

[salientpoints]

And for those in the UK -

Europe's Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914

by David Fromkin

ISBN 0434008583

published Sept 2004

£20 Hardback

[paul guthrie]

This sounds like a fine read to me since this is exactly my opinion of the cause of the war, a war of aggression by Germany. It is understandable since they did think in just a few years Russia would be sufficiently recovered from the Japanese war that they would be a very serious threat in alliance with the French. Better now than later thought Germany, and from their point of view a preventive defensive war.

A small point, but comparing the Austro Hungarian Army to WW2 Italian Army is ridiculous. They outfought the Italians along the Isonzo while badly outmanned and with inferior supplies and equipment. Further, when Italians were routed in 12th Isonzo, while Germans were a key, there were more AH involved. All this whild holding off a huge Russian Army. A most unfair comparison.

See Isonzo by Schindler, fine work, badly mapped though.

Thanks for an excellent review.

[andigger]

This sounds like a fine read to me since this is exactly my opinion of the cause of the war, a war of aggression by Germany. It is understandable since they did think in just a few years Russia would be sufficiently recovered from the Japanese war that they would be a very serious threat in alliance with the French. Better now than later thought Germany, and from their point of view a preventive defensive war.

Paul,

Have you read Devid Herrmann's book The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War. If not, I think it would reference several events and developments leading up to the war in line with your argument that the war was one of positioning and perceptions.

Andy

[paul guthrie]

Andy I have read an immense amount about causes, origins of WW1 but think not this one. His ideas are far from new though it sounds quite well done. The war was an accident theory has faded for some time now and for some it was never the theory. After Germany received the final peace terms some German is said to have angrily said to Foch " What will history say?" " History will not say Belgium invaded Germany!"

Before somone asks I can't give a source for that butr as Dave Barry says I am not making it up.

[Hugh Pattenden]

Just want to say that I've just finished this book and would recommend it to all.

Hugh.

[Halder]

After Germany received the final peace terms some German is said to have angrily said to Foch " What will history say?" " History will not say Belgium invaded Germany!"

I have a feeling the quote was by Clemenceau rather than Foch.

[AndyHollinger]

I am not home, so I don't have the full Biblio citing ... but in Graduate School, some 30 years ago ... we were all convinced of Germany's guilt in starting the war ... the German Military did it because while they knew they'd never win the Naval Race ... it would continue to sap money away from the Army ... the Socialist were gaining power and pushing for a truely democratic Reichstag and then demand more social spending ... so it was now or never ... Ferd dies and provides the right level excuse at the right time ...

Again, this is fairly well documented and I spent a lot of time with German sources (in 1976) ... so maybe I am old enough to believe in something that went out of fashion and now is back in!!!

I didn't like Tuchman's book ...