I’ve done enough reading on this and I don’t see how Germany earns the blame.
Both sides had alliances they had to support: Austria-Hungary gets their Prince assasinated - is unhappy with Serbia’s response to A-H demands for soothing the situation and declares war. From my view A-H had a legitimate gripe. So,
Austria-Hungary declares war - not Germany. To me that is the deal-breaker. If Germany made the declaration I’d see it “history’s way”. But they just went and backed up their alliance partners as did the allied side. Assessing them full blame at Versailles seems more like a pile-on after the fact due to old grudges and suspicions.
I don’t claim to be anything near an expert on this subject - but I know the Dope has some great students of history out there.
So please enlighten me as to my “mistaken” analysis.
Can you provide a cite for your premise? On those rare occasions when I think of World War I, I for one don’t think of anybody starting it except the assassin.
I’m no expert but I seem to recall that the problem was that Germany used their alliances as an excuse to start a land grab invading a neutral country, Belgium, in order to get at the prize of France.
Well firstly the other Central powers faired even worse than Germany, of course. Neither Austro-Hungary not the Ottoman Empire survived Versialle.
Secondly the big ‘crime’ of Germany, in particular in the eyes of Britian, was the invasion of Belgium. Belgium was neutral, and not part of those interconnected treaties that led to WW1, but was invaded anyway (and was the subject of atrocities by Germany, they may have been blown up by Allied propaganda but they certainly happened).
The assasin was a Serb - not German. Serbs were actually on the winning side.
My premise was based on the Treaty of Versailles article 231? not sure of that- that put the whole blame of the war on Germany. But it’s documented that Austria-Hungary declared war first.
Yes they did those things - this still doesn’t translate into “blame” for the entire war. Blame is supposed to be fixed to the starters. I could argue Serbia was the starter, but I can see A-H as starter also.
Yes, Austria-Hungary started it, and Germany joined in (Unneccessarily, as AH was not really under attack).
France, Britain and Russia had treaty obligations to defend Serbia – so France and Germany were at war. Germany wanted at least part of France, and the easy way to France was through Belgium.
So Austria-Hungary and Germany were, on the whole, the main aggressors in the war, and Britain only became involved because of treaty obligations first to Serbia and then to France.
In very broad outlines, the German war strategy was offensive in nature (The Schliefen Plan) While the French was plan was defensive (The Maginot line). The German’s ‘invaded’ France through Belgium. So the Germans ‘started’ it. This, of course, ignores many of the details outlined above.
The main reason that the Germans ‘started’ it was because they lost it. Similarly, saying that the Japanese started WWII at Pearl Harbor ignores the actions of the Western Powers 1936-1941.
I would reckon the many Iraqis would argue about the causes and who started the current war.
Possibly just a misreading of the original thread but this is about WW1, The Maginot Line was not started until 1930.
The French (as did all the main powers) went into WW1 with an offensive attitude, that is exactly why it was so hard to prevent once war started to become nessacary.
I was always taught (mid-to-late 1980s, central PA) that Austria-Hungary deliberately made ridiculous demands of Serbia, demands that they KNEW Serbia couldn’t fulfill, for the purpose of ginning up a legitimate-looking casus belli.
Article 231 says it all. The Germans got the blame for World War One because the Allies said they did. Mainly due to lobbying by France, of course. France took the brunt of the casualties on the Western Front, most of the fighting was on French soil, etc. and they wanted revenge. The best way to insure that they got the territorial and monetary concessions they desired was to paint the Germans out as being “the ones to blame.”
And jayjay, you are correct. The Serbs even caved to the demands in the end, but it was too late. The die had been cast, and the Austrians weren’t about to stop a war they so badly wanted. The problem was that everybody wanted a war, and everybody thought it would be over in a few months.
How odd. The first hint I ever had that ‘history is written by the winners’ was being taught before highschool that the assassination was just the fuse in an explosive situation.
I was never taught that Germany started WWI, just that Germany lost the war caused primarily by the final democratization of Europe, and the treaty led to WWII (because if Germany had not been so humiliated at Versailles, the people would never have followed such a nut job).
While I don’t blame Germany (kaiser Wilhelm, maybe) for WWI, this analogy doesn’t hold water. The western powers were trying to stop an aggressive, brutal, expansionist and racist (to a degree which disgusted even the less-than-racially idealistic west) Japan from cruelly attacking and butchering more-or-less innocent poeple acros China, Manuchuria, and Taiwan.
I’m always more than willing to believe that the winners write the history. Consequently, I am quite willing to believe it may be unfair to blame the A-H’s and the Germans. But reading the no doubt limited summaries above, it sounds like they were to blame. The suggestion is that A-H were itching for a fight and used the assassination as an excuse, and Germany invaded Belgium and then France. Is this inaccurate? Is there some reason why starting a war and invading a neighbour was reasonable? I don’t have a position here, I should add. I’m just curious.
The Kaiser did increase atmosphere of war happening before Sarajevo with his expansion of the Army and Navy. He was a bit of a loose wheel. He gave Austria-Hungary support after the murder of Franz Ferdinand (which Serbia was involved in) but didn’t think A-H would really go to war until it was too late. Pretty much all parties deserve some blame, Germany more than severtal others.
A really interesting book on the lead-up to the war is The Guns of August which talks of the motives of the various countries before the war breaks out. IIRC, one of the interesting points was the length of time it took for mobilization of the armies, and how this helped create momentum for war. (Hijack) I’ve read that JFK had read this book (which came out in 1962) before the Cuban Crisis (Oct of '62) and it helped influence his decisions.
Taiwan had already been a Japanese colony since 1895 and was not subject to attacks and butchering.
Britain didn’t have a treaty obligated it to defend France or Russia, much less Serbia. IIRC, France was not bound to Serbia either.
Blame for the war is difficult to hand out. But there is a strong case to be made that Germany was looking for a general war in 1914 and was the only country in a position to decide whether or not a war would occur.
Russia, France, and Britain were not looking for a war that year. They were willing to fight if necessary but would have prefered not to (at least at that time).
Serbia had been practicing some pretty shady dealings in Austria-Hungary. They really were guilty of assassinating Ferdinand - the head of the Black Hand (the group that arranged the murder) was a Serbian intelligence agent. But they just wanted to destabilize Austria, not provoke it into a war. Austria-Hungary, while weak for a Great Power, was much stronger than Serbia.
Austria-Hungary was looking for a war. Their domestic political situation was unraveling (one of the problems, ironically, was Ferdinand’s status as heir apparent). The government in Vienna felt that a short victorious war against a little country like Serbia would be just the thing to prop up the prestige of the government and bring the Empire together.
But Austria knew its limitations. They knew they could not afford to get into any war with another major power and invading Serbia created the possibility that Russia might declare war. (Russia had been a rival of Austria and Turkey in the Balkans and had assumed a position as unofficial protector of Slavic states like Serbia.) So Austria asked Germany for reassurance that if they started a small war and it grew bigger, Germany would declare war in support of Austria.
Germany, as I said above, was looking for a war. Their strategic situation was getting worse. Their allies were relatively weak and growing weaker. Russia was getting ready to start a major military program that would leave them much stronger. And Britain was becoming more attached to France and Russia. So Germany figured that if a war was going to happen someday (and everyone thought that) that they should get it started as soon as possible before their chances of winning got any worse. So when Austria asked for reassurance, Germany eagerly gave it and told them to start any war it wanted.
Not only does it not hold water, it’s not an analogy at all. What on earth would you identify as actions provocative to Japan by Europe/the US in the runup to the Pacific War? An oil embargo? Well pardon me if I crimp your style as you carry out your ongoing Chinese slaughter, but that’s not exactly causus belli, is it?
I’d say that TokyoPlayer is half right in that Taiwan had been seized as a colony by the time the Sino-Japanese war started, but heck, you could say the same thing about Manchuria. True, though, that the Taiwanese were never visited by the same slavery and oppression that Japan concurrently visited upon the Koreans. (Korea was seized at the same time as Taiwan in 1895. Fortunately for the Formosans, Japan decided the latter would serve as its model colony and for most part got the smiling face of Japanese imperialism. Korea, on the other hand, got something else.)
