A hundred years ago Europe was in the middle of (to most of us) unimaginable horror - trench warfare, poison gas, millions of (mostly) men dying, countries bankrupted. From what I have read about it, most people seem to think that conflict on some level was pretty much unavoidable, with the two major alliances armed and poised to move on the slightest pretext. So preventing the war would take more than preventing the pretext that actually set it off.
So how far back would you have to go, and what systemic changes would have to have been made, to change things enough that no major war would have happened? We can’t expect to have prevented all war, but how could small local conflicts have been prevented from spreading?
Alternatively, you can argue (good luck) that the war was, on balance, a good thing and that it needed to happen.
For me, I would go back at least to 1837 and put someone besides Victoria on the throne of England, someone perhaps who was kinder and gentler and who could have influenced the culture of Britain to be less aggrandizing and more amenable to making room for other powers at the table of colonialism*. And I would have done something about France to make it less cocky and insular and more wise about how it conducted its affairs (perhaps this means going back and preventing Napoleon somehow). If France had won the war with Prussia in 1870 and had been wise in their pursuit of peace after that, it might have made a big difference. I’m less sure what kind of changes to suggest to Germany or Austro-Hungary. Best would be to find some way for the A-H empire to collapse peacefully of its own weight without forcing it through war (as the Ottoman Empire might also have done) but I don’t know what changes to suggest to make that happen.
But I am not a historian by any means. I have read a few books, some of them quite a few years ago, so I am eager to hear from others better educated than myself.
*Not that I think that colonialism was a good thing, far from it, but it was the way of things in the 19th century and I truly don’t see a way to change that.
WWI started with Adam and Eve bickering over dinner.
Honestly, the more I learn about that horrid mess the more I am convinced it was unavoidable. You’d have to unravel 200 years of complicated, largely unavoidable interactions to prevent at least some multinational war by about 1930.
It was the the beginning of the end for European colonialism and Europe as a major military force in the world. What WWI started WWII pretty much finished wrt the ability of Europe to project military power globally…or, recently even locally. Those are most likely good things, though I’m not sure if the cost to benefit ratio is there.
I’m not sure how far back you’d need to go. At one point Germany and the UK were on pretty good terms. Basically, if you were able to bring those countries closer and break apart the military alliances that caused the cascade effect of attack and defense treaties bringing everyone all in you could have, perhaps, stopped the war…and WWI part 2 as well. Perhaps you could have built something like the EU before WWI if you could figure a way to get the countries on board and give up their nationalist tendencies.
But, given that all of that would be pretty difficult if not impossible before the slaughter of two wars that ravaged Europe, and that all of the EU stuff was built on the wreckage those wars caused, my WAG is that war was inevitable in Europe, and that the European powers at the time were the preeminent super powers, militarily and economically in the world, and had huge overseas colonial empires, it was inevitable that their squabbles would encompass the globe and bring everyone in, including the US who was just a bit player before the Europeans self destructed.
You could argue that the EU was only possible due to the “never again” mindset about intra-European wars. It’s certainly been much more effective than either the United Nations or the League of Nations in spite of its problems.
getting napleoleon 3 a wife who didn’t want to be empress of Europe… and having a different monarch than Victoria would of helped matters greatly although she didn’t seem to make decisions herself she just gave her ministers carte blanche for example
when they presented her with the infamous anti gay bill they had to explain to her what homosexuality was and then she removed all female references …
In the words of that noted philosopher Clemenza from The Godfather. “That’s alright – this thing’s gotta happen every five years or so – ten years – helps to get rid of the bad blood.”
Well, once the US got its independence it might have teamed up with France to kick England’s ass, and a few years later teamed up with Napoleon to kick France’s ass …
Maybe if Republics had united to dethrone Royalist powers earlier, the world would be a better more secular place.
A simpler way to avoid WWI might be to allow one of the earlier near wars to occur (and there were plenty of near-misses in the two decades before WWI). How about this one? The Dogger Bank incident (when Russian warships sank British civilians (believing them to be Japanese (!) war ships)) leads to Britain declaring war on Russia during the Russo-Japanese war. That might lead to an earlier Russian revolution, and would certainly move Germany and Great Britain closer together (since Russia and GB would be less friendly) which would disrupt the pattern of alliances that was a major factor in causing WWI.
Although the EU is largely more about economic than political unity.
It was really the League of Nations (and its successor the UN) that represented the “never again” mindset, though of course it ultimately failed.
One might reflect – even though it’s kind of a silly truism and unrealistic – that WW I could have been prevented if the European powers had had the wisdom to form a more inclusive and more binding League of Nations and done so before hostilities broke out, instead of an ineffectual one after the war was over.
Wikipedia provides this backgrounder in the article on the League of Nations:
At the start of the 20th century, two power blocs emerged from alliances between the European Great Powers. It was these alliances that, at the start of the First World War in 1914, drew all the major European powers into the conflict. This was the first major war in Europe between industrialised countries, and the first time in Western Europe that the results of industrialisation (for example, mass production) had been dedicated to war. The result of this industrialised warfare, which provided modern weapons, coupled with outdated 19th century strategies, led to an unprecedented casualty level: eight and a half million soldiers killed, an estimated 21 million wounded, and approximately 10 million civilian deaths.
By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the war had had a profound impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe and inflicting psychological and physical damage. Anti-war sentiment rose across the world; the First World War was described as “the war to end all wars”, and its possible causes were vigorously investigated. The causes identified included arms races, alliances, militaristic nationalism, secret diplomacy, and the freedom of sovereign states to enter into war for their own benefit. One proposed remedy was the creation of an international organisation whose aim was to prevent future war through disarmament, open diplomacy, international co-operation, restrictions on the right to wage war, and penalties that made war unattractive.
Stop Wilhelm from biting Uncle Somebody on the leg at a wedding reception when he was a kid.
If Wilhelm had been an ok guy…Just if Victoria’s grandchildren had remained family to each other. Nicholas and Wilhelm telegraphed each other in 1914 about mobilization. If they’d just decided to go play tennis at Grandmother’s, things would have been fine. The Austro-Hungarians would decide not to mobilize if they had no support from Germany. The British would decide no to go to war against family, and everyone would have a Long Talk with Franz Joseph.
Maybe if they had stuck with a multinational pan-European kind of idea after defeating Napoleon. They seemed to have a good thing going, like when England, France, and Russia ganged up on the Turks. But it all fell apart pretty predictably.
I like this one. Possibly, an earlier Russian revolution would have ended better (i.e. republican instead of communist) and would have defused the fear of communism as a motive for war in central Europe.
NATO is a military alliance between independent nations and was largely aimed at the Soviet bloc (and now Russia and other areas near Europe). The EU is the beginning of the blurring of national boundaries and identities, which blunts the kind of nationalistic jingoism that has been responsible for so much misery in the world. Economic unity is a peaceable influence, one doesn’t attack one’s own factories and banks that happen to be located in another political area.
Kaiser William I died in 1888. His son Frederick became Kaiser. But Frederick was already dying of throat cancer and only lasted ninety-nine days on the throne before he died and his son became Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Let’s say Frederick had lived another thirty years (not impossible; his father and his son both lived to very old ages). Frederick was apparently a stable leader who probably would have led Germany much better than his son did. He almost certainly would have been less erratic than his son was.
I am impressed :dubious: with the OP’s determination that WWI could have been averted if England had been “less aggrandizing” and France less “cocky”. But I would go with this:
As far as a systemic improvement to prevent the disaster that was Wilhelm II, I’d advance gynecologic surgery and antiseptic technique, so that Willy could have been delivered by C-section and not had his arm yanked so hard during a difficult delivery that it was damaged and left permanently withered and unusable.
Quite possibly he might have turned out to be a more decent sort, content with Germany’s continental dominance without starting a naval arms race with Britain or pushing to obliterate France as a power. At least, he might’ve realized at the last moment that the Austrians had lied to Germany about plans to deal with Serbia and refused to support their attempt to crush the Serbs militarily. The Austrians would not have dared to invade Serbia if they knew they’d have to face the Russians alone.
You really want to stop it? Shoot Otto von Bismarck as soon as he turned 21 (I’m against shooting kids)
Once Germany became a united country, it was going to be a economic/military powerhouse no matter who the ruler was…and that was going to present a clear and present threat to both France and Russia, who would move into alliance no matter who led the new German polity.
England was friendly to Germany, mostly from believing that France was the dominant power in Europe and England’s historical policy of allying with those in opposition to the prime power led them towards Germany…until the Germans took on the role of Dominator and began building the High Seas Fleet.
But once Germany became united, there was the seeds of conflict, just needing a spark…or a damn-fool thing in the Balkans…
It’s bizarre that Britain ended up in an alliance with France and Russia - the two countries which it had traditionally been most hostile against. Britain had always had relatively good relations with Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire and it would have seemed more natural for Britain to join with the Central Powers. Germany really screwed up by driving Britain away from its natural allies and into the arms of its traditional enemies.