1 O N July 23, 1914, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria-Hungary
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1 onJuly 23, 1914, the Habsburg monarchy of Austria-Hungary presented an ultimatum to the neigh- boring kingdom of Serbia that was designed to be unacceptable.' The funda- mental issue in the international crisis that followed was whether the Austro-Serbian standoff would trigger a showdown between the two great European blocs: the Central Powers of Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the Triple Entente of Russia, France, and Britain.' The events of 1914 remain a crucial test for any theory of the origins of modern wars, and pivotal among the issues that they raise is that of how far technical military considerations determine security policy. With this in mind, scholars have focused their attention on the thesis propounded at the time by German Chancellor Theo- bald von Bethmann Hollweg, namely, that the July 1914 crisis got "out of David Stevenson is Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of French War Aims against Germany, 1914-1919 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2982), The First World War and International Politics (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2988), Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2996), and The Outbreak of the First World War: 1914 in Perspective (Busingstoke, U.K.:Macmillan, 2997). I should like to thank the three anonymous readers of this article. Their constructive comments were extremely beneficial. 1. This article uses the following abbreviations: BD: George P. Gooch and Harold W. Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 2898-2924, 11 vols. (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office [HMSO], 1928-36); CGS Chief of the General Staff; DDK: Maximilian Montgelas and Walther Schiicking, eds., Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, 2924, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Berlin:Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft fiir Politik und Geschichte, 1926); EMA: Etat-major de l'armhe (French General Staff); FO: Foreign Office; GGS Grosser Generalstab (Prussian Great General Staff); GP: Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Friedrich Thimme, eds., Die Grosse Politik der Europuischen Kabinette, 2872-2914, 40 vols. (Berlin: Verlagsgesellschaft fiir Politik und Geschichte, 1922-27); HHStA: Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna; KAM: Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv-Militararchiv, Munich; KAW: Kriegsarchiv, Vienna; PAM: Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn; PRO: Public Record Office, London; and SHA: Service historique de l'armhe de terre, Vincennes, Paris. 2. The Austro-German alliance dated from 1879; the Franco-Russian from 1891-94. Britain had no contractual obligations to France and Russia, but cooperated with them diplomatically after compromising over extra-European disagreements in the "ententes" reached with France in 1904 and Russia in 1907. In 1882 Italy had concluded the Triple Alliance treaty with Austria-Hungary and Germany; but as it rarely aligned itself with them in the crises of 1905-14, I normally refer here to the Central Powers rather than the Triple Alliance. International Security, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer 1997), pp. 125161 0 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 125 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.22.1.125 by guest on 28 September 2021 lnternational Security 22:1 1 126 contr01.”~None of the European states, in other words, desired a great war, but they fought one nonetheless because of misperception and miscalculation, because military professionals had excessive influence, and because the im- peratives of war preparation overrode those of war avoidance. If this interpre- tation is correct-as many strategic theorists have assumed-what happened once might happen again, perhaps between nuclear powers. That World War I was in some measure inadvertent was accepted by Luigi Albertini, whose three volumes are the fullest history of its origin^.^ A.J.P. Taylor, in his best-selling history of the conflict, further popularized the notion of a ”war by timetable,” into which all the powers were propelled unwillingly by railway mobilization sched~les.~In contrast, Fritz Fischer and his followers have insisted that the war was the deliberate outcome of German policy. Although Fischer no longer maintains that the Berlin government had been planning to launch a European war since the so-called War Council of Decem- ber 8,1912, his research has underlined that elements in the German leadership increasingly viewed one as an option.6 Marc Trachtenberg and Jack S. Levy have exposed further evidential and analytical weaknesses in the thesis of inadvertent war. Trachtenberg has reasserted that in all the European capitals sovereigns and civilian politicians rather than the military were in charge, and that they understood the implications of mobilization. Levy has clarified how the political preferences with which the civilian leaders entered the crisis made a peaceful outcome unlikely from the ~utset.~ In this article I build on Trachtenberg’s and Levy’s arguments about the origins of World War I, and broaden the basis of discussion. Much work on the 3. Bethmann in Prussian Council of Ministers, July 30, 1914, DDK, Vol. 2, doc. 456. Cited David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 2904-1914 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 404. 4. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1924, Isabella M. Massey, trans. and ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1952). 5. A.J.P. Taylor, The First World War: An Illustrated History (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1963), pp. 16-22; cf. Taylor’s War by Timetable: How the First World War Began (London: MacDonald, 1969). The inadvertency thesis has clearly influenced Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York Simon and Schuster, 1YY4), chap. 8. 6. Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, (London: Chatto and Windus, 1967), and Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1921 to 1924, Marian Jackson, trans. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1975). See the qualifications in Fritz Fischer, ”Twenty-Five Years: Looking Back at the ’Fischer Controversy’ and Its Consequences,” Central European History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (September 1988), pp. 207-223. 7. Marc Trachtenberg, ”The Meaning of Mobilization in 1914,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 12e150. Reprinted with revisions in Trachtenberg’s History and Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), chap. 2. Jack S. Levy, “Preferences, Constraints, and Choices in July 1914,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 151-186. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.22.1.125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914 I 127 problem still focuses on the events of 1914, and grounds generalizations about prewar diplomacy on one test case. I consider the larger process of destabili- zation since 1905, and focus on the militarization of international politics. I do so by analyzing the interaction between diplomacy and extraordinary military measures during international crises. Presumably influenced by Clausewitz, Alexander L. George has argued that the key to successful "crisis management" (in the sense of achieving the maximum political gain while avoiding unde- sired hostilities) lies in coordinating policy with military measures. Politicians may use such measures to support diplomacy by carrying out faits accomplis, signaling resolve, and deterring a resort to force. Military measures ensure preparedness if war breaks out. Yet implementing them may conflict with the diplomatic requirements of not humiliating, panicking, or provoking the an- tagonist. The political authorities therefore should control military deploy- ments, and those deployments be kept to a minimum.' Following George's approach, and drawing on my own research in the diplomatic documents and military archives, I reexamine not only the events of 1914 but also the four previous major international crises: those occurring over Morocco in 1905-06 and 1911 and over the Balkans in 1908-09 and 1912-13.9 Historians of the period have concurred in viewing the crises selected as the most serious of the prewar decade. Each witnessed extensive military preparations. Further, each prefigured July 1914 in being a confrontation be- tween the opposing coalitions of the Central Powers and the Triple Entente rather than between two states in isolation." I consider the interaction between 8. Alexander L. George, "Crisis Management: The Interaction of Political and Military Considera- tions," Survival, Vol. 26, No. 5 (1984), pp. 223-234. 9. The bulk of the new primary research on which this article is based is detailed in Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War. In addition, I draw on the reevaluation of the prewar decade in David G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996). I refer in the notes to these books where appropriate rather than giving extensive archival citations here. Stevenson's Armaments is a broad study of the role of competitive military preparedness in the origins of World War I. In this article I focus on the theme of extraordinary military measures in the pre-1914 international crises of 1905-14, and provide a more explicit framework for conceptualizing the phenomenon of militarization in international politics. 10. I have excluded bilateral conflicts such as the Austro-Italian