British Historians and the First World War
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2018-09-14 "Two Souls Dwell in the German Nation": British Historians and the First World War Wainwright, Samuel George Wainwright, S. G. (2018). “Two Souls Dwell in the German Nation”: British Historians and the First World War (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/32953 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/107790 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY “Two Souls Dwell in the German Nation”: British Historians and the First World War by Samuel George Wainwright A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2018 © Samuel George Wainwright 2018 Abstract Historical scholarship on British-German relations prior to 1914 often emphasizes mutual antagonism. This antagonism, supposedly, reached a nadir during the First World War, with ‘the Hun’ being demonized as the enemy to civilization, but was replaced with a more sympathetic narrative after 1919, rooted in a reaction against the allegedly punitive peace settlement. This conventional view is too simplistic. Pre-war British historians overwhelmingly adopted favourable attitudes towards Germany, and often used their professional writing to encourage congenial relations between the two countries. Conceptually, their arguments centred upon the ‘two Germanies’ thesis, an abstraction which enabled British admiration for German cultural and intellectual achievements to exist in tension with fears concerning Prussia militarism. This literature shaped demi-official British views on Germany before the war, which were anti- Prussian rather than anti-German in orientation. The ‘two Germanies’ thesis continued to influence how historians conceptualized Germany after hostilities erupted in 1914. Following the war, this continuity enabled Germanophile historians to retain an idealistic view of Germany. This conviction led them to embrace and disseminate revisionist interpretations which posited that the European Powers shared responsibility for the conflict. The idea that all the belligerent states were equally responsible for the war encouraged the view that the grievances which a relatively ‘guiltless’ Germany sought to redress were legitimate. Germanophile historians occupied a central role in supplying the vocabulary by which politicians could frame post-war reconciliation. Placed within this context, pro-German historians provided the intellectual and moral justification for sympathetic policies towards Weimar Germany. There can be no doubt that the appeasement policies adopted in the 1930s resulted in part from the conciliatory atmosphere that historians inculcated in the previous decades. ii Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Dr. John Ferris. Not only did he supervise this project, but he also provided me with constant feedback and support. His advice and patience were invaluable to this project. I would also like to personally thank Dr. Warren Elofson, Dr. Timothy Stapleton, and Dr. Annette Timm. Their compassion, empathy, and kindness ensured that I was able to complete my first semester. I am also truly indebted to Lori Somner, whose charity and generosity made this project possible. I would also like to thank several professors from Carleton University. Dr. Aleksandra Bennett, thank you for your encouragement and support, you believed in me before I ever believed in myself. Dr. Andrew Johnston and Dr. Andrew Wallace, thank you for your continued friendship, guidance, and advice. Natalie Wainwright and Jordan Ross provided me with comfort and comedic relief throughout. I am indebted to Emily Labine for her support, kindness, and affection. She ensured that this process was both enjoyable and manageable. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Benoit Allain-Melanson, Colin Robertson, Erik Saizew, and Gorden Taggart for their constant friendship and camaraderie. Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without my wonderful parents, Maureen and David Wainwright. Thank you for your endless patience, guidance, and support. Without your encouragement and love I would never have achieved this goal. iii For Melville Keith Thompson. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Dedication iv Table of Contents v Chapter One: Historiography and Methodology 1 Chapter Two: British Historians and the Historical Practice in the Pre-War Period 23 Chapter Three: British Historians and the Great War 50 Chapter Four: British Historians and the Treaty of Versailles 79 Conclusion 107 Bibliography 111 v Chapter One: Historiography and Methodology Historical scholarship on British-German relations prior to 1914 often emphasizes mutual antagonism.1 This antagonism, supposedly, rose steadily from 1900. It reached a nadir during the First World War, with ‘the Hun’ being demonized as the enemy to ‘Western Civilization’ but was replaced with a more sympathetic narrative after 1919, rooted in a reaction against the allegedly punitive peace settlement. This conventional view is too simplistic, because it marginalizes the influential cultural, intellectual, and religious voices which continued to advocate for friendship and reconciliation even when British-German relations were characterized (and defined) as ‘antagonistic’. Pre-war British historians, for example, overwhelmingly adopted favourable attitudes towards the German Empire, and often used their professional scholarship to encourage congenial relations between the two countries. This pre- war literature shaped demi-official British views on Germany during the war, which were anti- Prussian rather than anti-German in orientation. This literature also directly inspired revisionist scholarship in the inter-war period, and – in a period when the academic (and intellectual) sphere overlapped with the political sphere – influenced government policies and public debates on issues such as territorial disputes, reparation payments, and war guilt. These revisionist discoveries provided intellectual and moral justification for sympathetic policies towards the Weimar Republic and inculcated a conciliatory atmosphere that prepared the public for the appeasement policies in the 1930s. 1 See e.g. Paul Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 (1980), John Mander’s Our German Cousins: Anglo-German Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1974), Robert K. Massie’s Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (1991), A. J. A. Morris’s The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament, 1896-1914 (1984), Peter Padfield’s The Great Naval Race: The Anglo-German Rivalry, 1900-1914 (1984), Jan Ruger’s The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (2007). Richard Scully maintains that Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism is “still the dominant master-narrative despite three decades of subsequent scholarship.” Richard Scully, British Images of Germany: Admiration, Antagonism & Ambivalence, 1860-1914 (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2012), 1. 1 The preoccupation with deteriorating British-German relations has shaped how historians understand Britain’s relationship with Germany before 1914. Historians tend to treat British- German relations teleologically, accepting that conflict between the two countries was unavoidable. That the two nations went to war with one another has caused historians to largely neglect cultural evidence. Historians and literary critics have often referred to cultural evidence only when it has supported their teleological interpretation.2 Preoccupation with declining relations has led historians and political scientists to assume that the intensification in diplomatic antagonism between the two nations must have distorted British historical scholarship on Germany in the pre-war period. Manfred Messerschmidt, for instance, argues that a discernible demarcating point occurred in 1894-1908, when British historical writing assumed greater opposition towards the German State.3 He suggests that pre-war British historians turned from enthusiastic Germanophiles to unreasonable critics in the decades preceding the First World War.4 Catherine Ann Cline, citing Messerschmidt, suggests that the propagandistic views which pervaded historical authorship during the war originated before it. The historical establishment’s explanation for the war “had, in a sense, been developed before its outbreak.”5 Likewise, Panikos Panayi claims that negative perceptions of the German Empire dominated historical textbooks before 1914. He argues that while earlier academic studies had focused favourably upon the Saxon invasions in the fourth and fifth centuries, pre-war scholarship increasingly fixated on the German State as a menacing threat.6 Similarly, Peter E. Firchow maintains that the First World 2 Scully, British Images of Germany, 2. 3 Steven Siak, “‘The Blood that is in Our Veins Comes from German Ancestors’: British Historians and the Coming of the First World