# Ideological differences between the belligerent monarchies involved WWI **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 18, 2017, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618 "2017-09-18T07:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/21 "2017-09-18T15:37:10Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > I recently got a book called _ **The Fall of the Dynasties** The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922_, by Edmond Taylor. It has a lot of historical and psychological background on the Romanovs, the Habsburg-Lorraine, the Hohenzollerns, and the Hamids, and how the rulers’ personalities in addition to the internal and external tensions and the maze of alliances let to WWI. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s been fascinating so far. For instance, I had not known that Nicholas II watched his grandfather die from an assassin’s bomb, or that his father was a brutal, overbearing, icy father as well as a brutal tyrant, or that the sultans of the Ottoman Empire were deliberately kept uneducated by the eunuchs who ran the harems. I would like your response to this article. > **[BBC - History - World Wars: The Origins of World War One](https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml)** > > Explore the origins of the World War One (WW1) conflict. Uncover the early signs in Europe, and the German strategies. The Origins of World War One By Dr Gary Sheffield We are not used to seeing World War One as an ideological struggle, a battle between democracy and autocracy. Yet that is in many respects exactly what it was. The original coalition of course contained Tsarist Russia, but Britain and France had a shared democratic heritage. In 1917, the defeat of Russia and adherence of the USA to the coalition polarised the conflict to one between a group of states committed to liberal and democratic values, and a militarist autocracy. The coalition was imperfectly democratic. Both Britain and France had large colonial empires whose people did not have access to democratic forms of government, and both sought to extend their empires at the expense of their enemies. In Britain, universal male suffrage, along with the vote for some, but not all, adult women, was only introduced at the end of the war. All states behaved in some ways that were at odds with liberal democratic principles, persecuting pacifists for example. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/22 "2017-09-18T15:43:16Z")
I think nationalism was the driving ideology of World War I. The fun thing about nationalism is that it divides you even from the other countries which share your ideology. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/23 "2017-09-18T15:44:47Z")
Militarism was a factor. In Germany, this led to the creation of the most powerful land army in Europe, proven in the Franco-Prussian war. Germany was quite a new country, anxious to prove themselves equal to the established empires. At sea, they were in an arms race with the British and French as to who could develop a fleet with the greatest firepower. In the East, there was Russia. Some say it was based around the rivalries between branches of Queen Victorias extended family after she died, since the British, German and Russian monarchs were all related. But really, ideological differences were not strong, they all manifested the same sort of ambitions and the empires were either in competition with each other or held alliances to keep the others in check. The countries involved had a massive technology upgrade in the late phase of the industrial revolution, this made them rich and with access to powerful military technology. It was an accident waiting to happen. WW1 was a war between imperial rivals. WW2 was the ideological war. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/24 "2017-09-18T15:48:13Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Thanks watchwolf49. I would like to know if we can really say there was anything ideological about WWI. Ideology certainly came into play in WWII. Yes, because WWI meant the destruction of the old European system that had trudged along for 100 years since the end of Napoleon. Monarchies destroyed, dynasties overthrown, economic ruin, millions and millions of people killed and displaced and their livelihoods destroyed. And into those ruins come the ideological movements of the 1930s. Facism, communism, socialism, fuck even monarchical restorationism. The point of all these movements was to rebuild society from the ruins of World War One, either into a brand new vision or to somehow turn back the clock. And of course most of these were collectivist mass movements. It wouldn’t do to give people freedom and liberty and peace and security, that’s just crazy talk. They needed to be put in their place and work for the greater good and build a new society where they would be cogs in a great national machine. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/25 "2017-09-18T15:58:26Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > I would like your response to this article. > [BBC - History - World Wars: The Origins of World War One](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml) > > The Origins of World War One > By Dr Gary Sheffield My problem with the Sheffield quote is that he is looking at the nature of the regimes involved but not their objectives. Britain and France weren’t trying to advance democracy, and Russia wasn’t trying to export autocracy. These ideological differences were part of who they were but not why they were fighting. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/26 "2017-09-18T16:01:06Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > I would like your response to this article. > [BBC - History - World Wars: The Origins of World War One](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml) > > \ I’m going to preface this by saying I am not an historian of any sort; I just like reading history. That being said, I’m not sure I agree with this article. From what I’ve read, ideologies or types of government had very little to do with who wound up on which side. If it had, I think Russia would probably have been on the same side with Germany, since the rulers of each believed in an absolute monarchy. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/27 "2017-09-18T16:58:30Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > From what I’ve read, ideologies or types of government had very little to do with who wound up on which side. If it had, I think Russia would probably have been on the same side with Germany, since the rulers of each believed in an absolute monarchy. This. Germany and Britain toyed with the idea of an alliance but it came to nothing. Britain was realizing that its generations of rising serenely above European continental politics behind its undefeatable fleet were coming to an end while Germany wanted an ally to support it in an inevitable war against Russia, a war it wanted sooner than later as the bear was only growing in strength as time went on. Rebuffed, Britain turned to France (which indirectly tied it to Russia) and Germany to its Germanic cousin, Austria. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCEUZ4rFiac) is a simplified view from the Beeb on the origins of the Great War. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/28 "2017-09-18T17:43:47Z")
The best description I’ve ever seen of the causes for World War I was in historian John Keegan’s introduction to his book _The Second World War_. It is long and well worth reading in the original. It’s good, clear, readable, plausible. And Keegan attributes little of the impetus for war to ideology. He describes it as almost a demographic phenomenon: new developments in health, industry, record-keeping, communication, transportation, and so forth enabled Europe to field previously undreamed-of warmaking potential. > [@](#): > > The truth of 20th century European civilization was that the world it dominated was pregnant with war. The enormous wealth, energy and population increase released by Europe’s industrial revolution in the 19th century had transformed the world. It had created productive and exploitative industries… linked the productive regions of the world with a network of communications… generated the riches to increase tenfold the population of historic cities. It had built the infrastructure - schools, universities, libraries, laboratories, churches, missions - of a vibrant, creative and optimistic world civilization. Above all, and in dramatic and menacing counterpoint to the century’s works of hope and promise, it had created armies, the largest and potentially most destructive instruments of war the world had ever seen. > > No society on earth had ever proportionately put forth soldiers in such numbers as Europe did in August 1914… some 20 million Europeans, nearly 10% of the populations of the combatant states, donned military drab and shouldered rifles to take the train to war… it would be four years and five autumns before the survivors returned, leaving on the battlefields some 10 million dead. The vast crop of fit and strong young men which formed the fruit of 19th century Europe’s economic miracle had been consumed by the forces which gave them life and health. Read the book – at least the chapter on WWI, “Every Man a Soldier.” Very illuminating. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/29 "2017-09-18T20:25:49Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > The best description I’ve ever seen of the causes for World War I was in historian John Keegan’s introduction to his book _The Second World War_. It is long and well worth reading in the original. It’s good, clear, readable, plausible. And Keegan attributes little of the impetus for war to ideology. He describes it as almost a demographic phenomenon: new developments in health, industry, record-keeping, communication, transportation, and so forth enabled Europe to field previously undreamed-of warmaking potential. > > Read the book – at least the chapter on WWI, “Every Man a Soldier.” Very illuminating. But that quote does not really address the goals or the OP’s question. The traditional answer is that the belligerents didn’t understand the risks of total war; but they’d had Napoleon’s sweep across al of Europe a century before; plus Franco-Prussian war 40 years before, and the Crimean war, and if they paid attention, the American Civil war or the Russo-Japanese war - to tell them what an industrial warefare could do to troops and battlefields. the only excuse might be for naval battles - they had only a remote example from the Sea of Japan to warn what that could look like. Even in the American Civil War, wholesale slaughter happened thanks to railroad carloads and industrial quantities of supplies. but it seems it was just that until WWII, governments did not realize the enormous cost of settling differences with troops. Today, even invading Iraq or North Korea runs the serious risk of assured victory measured in a painful number of lives. Plus, today loss is measured generally by total unconditional surrender (another feature of WWII) So the solution for dominance in the Balkans was for Austro-Hungary to simply say “surrender or else” and intend to carry throuh with the threat to invade… The question is why they kept going once it was apparent that Bosnia had powerful allies? Simply, the mentality was to fight it out with the assumption they could win. Where “win” meant quickly getting what they wanted. One item I recall talked about how in WWI everyone marched off with great fanfare assuming there’d be a few border skirmishes, the obviously weak side (the other side) would say “uncle” in German or Russian, negotite a treaty and hand over whatever was in dispute and back away - and everyone would be home by Christmas. But nobody suffered an obvious defeat and the trench stalemate got bgger ane more deadly… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/30 "2017-09-18T20:56:00Z")
But that quick short decisive war almost happened. The Germans came within a few miles of Paris in the first month, and could have won the war in the initial offensive. Once the French were defeated it’s off to the negotiating table for everyone, because the British can’t do more than blockade the continent, and the Russians can’t do more than stall the push to the east. So a few border changes and swaps of colonies and payment of tribute and the war is over. A few different decisions by the German High Command, and the lesson of World War I would be: “The first side that can mobilize and go on the offensive always wins” rather than “Going on the offensive is suicide and stalemate always wins”. And note that in World War II we had a near replay of the same scenario, only this time with better communications and motorized transport the Germans won their decisive knockout blow in six weeks. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/31 "2017-09-18T23:42:49Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But that quick short decisive war almost happened. The Germans came within a few miles of Paris in the first month, and could have won the war in the initial offensive. Once the French were defeated it’s off to the negotiating table for everyone, because the British can’t do more than blockade the continent, and the Russians can’t do more than stall the push to the east. So a few border changes and swaps of colonies and payment of tribute and the war is over. > > A few different decisions by the German High Command, and the lesson of World War I would be: “The first side that can mobilize and go on the offensive always wins” rather than “Going on the offensive is suicide and stalemate always wins”. > > And note that in World War II we had a near replay of the same scenario, only this time with better communications and motorized transport the Germans won their decisive knockout blow in six weeks. Since the debate over the causes of WWI is itself an ideological debate, which camp do those who say that WWI was ideological belong to? Not the Marxists for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/32 "2017-09-19T00:08:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > A few different decisions by the German High Command, and the lesson of World War I would be: “The first side that can mobilize and go on the offensive always wins” rather than “Going on the offensive is suicide and stalemate always wins”. Yeah. That’s why drawing on “the lessons of history” is so risky; it’s hard to be sure what’s causative and what’s luck when you can’t rerun the experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/33 "2017-09-19T00:20:49Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > But that quote does not really address the goals or the OP’s question. The traditional answer is that the belligerents didn’t understand the risks of total war; but they’d had Napoleon’s sweep across al of Europe a century before; plus Franco-Prussian war 40 years before, and the Crimean war, and if they paid attention, the American Civil war or the Russo-Japanese war - to tell them what an industrial warefare could do to troops and battlefields. the only excuse might be for naval battles - they had only a remote example from the Sea of Japan to warn what that could look like. Even in the American Civil War, wholesale slaughter happened thanks to railroad carloads and industrial quantities of supplies. > > but it seems it was just that until WWII, governments did not realize the enormous cost of settling differences with troops. Today, even invading Iraq or North Korea runs the serious risk of assured victory measured in a painful number of lives. Plus, today loss is measured generally by total unconditional surrender (another feature of WWII) The other problem with the “they didn’t understand the risks” theory is that half the nations involved in WWI joined the conflict after the war had been going on for a year already. Some were nakedly territorially ambitious, some were helping out friendly nations, but you’d have to be clinically insane not to realise that the same thing that had already happened to everybody else’s army - hundreds of thousands of deaths - was also going to happen to yours, even if you ended up on the winning side. They thought it was worth it. They were fundamentally okay with enormous casualty lists in a way that it’s difficult for us to comprehend. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/34 "2017-09-19T00:28:29Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But that quick short decisive war almost happened. The Germans came within a few miles of Paris in the first month, and could have won the war in the initial offensive. Once the French were defeated it’s off to the negotiating table for everyone, because the British can’t do more than blockade the continent, and the Russians can’t do more than stall the push to the east. Meant to add in my earlier post - and the Germans actually won the war in the East in WWI, and imposed harsh treaty terms on Soviet Russia (this victory is very useful context in understanding the terms of the Versailles treaty, and in understanding the confidence of Germany in attacking the USSR in WWII). ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/35 "2017-09-19T00:50:37Z")
Germany was arguably not an absolutist monarchy; especially moving into the 20th Century. Here is a survey of competing historical arguments: > **[To what extent was Wilhelmine Germany an entrenched authoritarian state? -...](https://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/history/to-what-extent-was-wilhelmine-germany-an-entrenched-authoritarian-state.html)** > > See our A-Level Essay Example on To what extent was Wilhelmine Germany an entrenched authoritarian state?, Modern European History, 1789-1945 now at Marked By Teachers. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/36 "2017-09-19T02:11:28Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > No. The UK didn’t want Germany to become the dominant power in Europe, but that had zero to do with differences in the German and UK Constitutions, and everything to do with long-standing British policy that it was not in British interests that any one power should dominate continental Europe. It occurs to me that Britain only lost their position as the dominant world power after another country dominated a completely different continent. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/37 "2017-09-19T05:55:07Z")
The only “ideological” difference was that Germany wanted to be the dominant super power in Europe and the others didn’t want her to be one. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/38 "2017-09-19T12:22:41Z")
> [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#): > > Not an ocean just a little bit of sea 🙂 Over here we don’t use “ocean” for any little bit of salt water, we save it for the big ones and even then we talk about the sea off Cornwall not the Atlantic. Curiously enough, the North Sea was often called ‘The German Ocean’ before the First World War; this practice stopped when a wave of Germanophoba swept over our land. [https://www.raremaps.com/maps/medium/0012dd.jpg](https://www.raremaps.com/maps/medium/0012dd.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/39 "2017-09-19T16:08:39Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Curiously enough, the North Sea was often called ‘The German Ocean’ before the First World War; this practice stopped when a wave of Germanophoba swept over our land. > [https://www.raremaps.com/maps/medium/0012dd.jpg](https://www.raremaps.com/maps/medium/0012dd.jpg) Thanks eburacum45. What year does that map date back to? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618/40 "2017-09-19T20:24:57Z")
1746, actually. But the name appears in atlases up to the end of the 19th century. H.G Wells used it in his early novels. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ideological-differences-between-the-belligerent-monarchies-involved-wwi/796618.md?page=3)