SENSELESS SLAUGHTER?
The First World War, formerly The Great War, was a seismic event that has haunted Europe ever since. It is difficult now to grasp the extent to which it both traumatised and shaped the peace that followed, a peace that turned into little more than a twenty year truce. Like all great historical events, particularly catastrophic ones, it has became shrouded in a predominant myth, in this case the myth of ‘senseless slaughter,’ the ‘Oh What a Lovely War/Blackadder’ view of the events of 1914-18. This prevailing myth has been all the more potent for having some powerful truths at its core. It is however curious that this is now such a widely embraced view, for during the actual course of the fighting it was a view held only by small coteries of Marxist and Anarchist revolutionaries.
The causes of the First World War have long been a source of historical controversy, subject to numerous revisions and feeding an almost insatiable appetite for historiographical debate. However several clear facts have emerged, Austria-Hungary was determined to attack Serbia whatever the Serbs did in response to the ultimatum delivered on July 23 rd. That any attack on Serbia would drag in the Russians. Germany consequently gave the Austrians a ‘blank cheque,’ guaranteeing to go to Austria’s aid if the Russians intervened. For the Kaiser and the German ruling elite the great anxiety was Russia’s growing industrialisation and consequent growing military potential. Many in Germany's ruling elite felt that sooner or later accounts would have to be settled with the Slavs to the north, therefore better sooner than later, that is before Russia really became an industrial power. France as Russia’s ally would have to be knocked out quickly by a rapid move through Belgium to destroy the French Army. Given the events of 1871 this seemed easily the most likely outcome. The rest as they say is history.
The one European power that could have stayed out of the ensuing conflict was Great Britain. However the price for doing so would have been considerable. The annexation of Belgium and a Europe in the control of a militaristic authoritarian Prussian dominated Germany; a Germany that would threaten British interests across the world. The British government therefore chose to support Belgium and republican France.
The slaughter that followed was, it is constantly argued, unable to have been foreseen. However anybody who studied the American Civil War might have realised that it was unlikely to ‘be all over by Christmas.’
The horrors of trench warfare, the degeneration into a war of attrition and the cavalier indifference of the General Staffs of all sides to the suffering and mass slaughter resulting from their tactical blunders and ill conceived strategies have coloured our views of the war ever since. These were young men who died for nothing!
Yet it is important to challenge this glib and easy interpretation. The ultimate defeat of Germany and the treaty of Versailles have, as so often happens, become imbued with the aura of inevitability, obscuring alternative possibilities, not least a German victory.
The treaty of Versailles has become excoriated, viewed as a vicious and malign victors justice visited upon a defeated and prostrated German republic. In particular the issue of reparations and German war guilt quickly became, with some justice, contentious.
However it is worth looking at what a German imposed peace would have looked like. Here we need not speculate since we have both the record of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and the German War aims as outlined in Bethmann Hollweg’s so called September Programme of 1914:-
'Russian territory in Poland and the Baltic would be annexed. Subsequently, in a concession to national self-determination, it was proposed that dependent satellite states should be set up in Poland and the Ukraine at Russia’s expense. In the west Luxembourg and important economic regions of France and Belgium – the Longwy-Briey iron-ore field and the Belgian Channel ports, Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Ostend – would be incorporated within the German empire to boost Germany’s economic capacity and secure her against future British and French hostility. France, Belgium and the Netherlands would be incorporated in a German-dominated economic union – Mitteleuropa – which would stretch from the Atlantic coast in the west to Poland in the east, and from Scandinavia in the north to Turkey in the south. Africa would become a German-dominated continent. French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies in central and southern Africa would be incorporated into a central Africa economic region – Mittelafrika – which would supply German industry with raw materials.[1] '
The indemnities demanded of France would make Versailles reparations look like petty cash. France was to be destroyed once and for all as a European power.
Now the struggles of the imperialist powers at the turn of the century do not make for an attractive narrative and it has become fashionable amongst the left to lump all the European powers together, the same criminal gang. However to do so is both inaccurate and ahistorical, not incidentally a mistake that Marx would have made. The Britain that went to war in 1914 was a very seriously imperfect society, the franchise still so restrictive that it could not seriously make claim to be a democracy, however in comparison with Imperial Germany Britain was a relatively free and open society and the military were very much under the control of civilian politicians. Similarly the French republic represented the progressive end of the spectrum of European politics.[2]
The defeat of the two western Entente powers and the emergence of a triumphant German autocracy would have seen Europe plunged into the darkness of military dictatorship.
Those who fought on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 denied German militarism this triumph and deserve our respect and gratitude for this. Niether the manner in which the war was fought nor the failure of the post war settlement should obscure this reality.
Of course it would have been better had the war never been fought, that the international labour movement had acted in concert, that the German Social Democrats in particular had stood firm to their principles, however they did not and the subsequent tragedy ensued.
[1] http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/german-world-war-i-aims-%E2%80%93-the-%E2%80%98september-programme%E2%80%99/once
[2] The same could not be said of course for Tsarist Russia; however this would not be the first time in the 2oth Century that the western powers enlisted the support of an unpleasant autocracy.
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| A Contemporary Cartoon |
The one European power that could have stayed out of the ensuing conflict was Great Britain. However the price for doing so would have been considerable. The annexation of Belgium and a Europe in the control of a militaristic authoritarian Prussian dominated Germany; a Germany that would threaten British interests across the world. The British government therefore chose to support Belgium and republican France.
The slaughter that followed was, it is constantly argued, unable to have been foreseen. However anybody who studied the American Civil War might have realised that it was unlikely to ‘be all over by Christmas.’
The horrors of trench warfare, the degeneration into a war of attrition and the cavalier indifference of the General Staffs of all sides to the suffering and mass slaughter resulting from their tactical blunders and ill conceived strategies have coloured our views of the war ever since. These were young men who died for nothing!
Yet it is important to challenge this glib and easy interpretation. The ultimate defeat of Germany and the treaty of Versailles have, as so often happens, become imbued with the aura of inevitability, obscuring alternative possibilities, not least a German victory.
The treaty of Versailles has become excoriated, viewed as a vicious and malign victors justice visited upon a defeated and prostrated German republic. In particular the issue of reparations and German war guilt quickly became, with some justice, contentious.
However it is worth looking at what a German imposed peace would have looked like. Here we need not speculate since we have both the record of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and the German War aims as outlined in Bethmann Hollweg’s so called September Programme of 1914:-
'Russian territory in Poland and the Baltic would be annexed. Subsequently, in a concession to national self-determination, it was proposed that dependent satellite states should be set up in Poland and the Ukraine at Russia’s expense. In the west Luxembourg and important economic regions of France and Belgium – the Longwy-Briey iron-ore field and the Belgian Channel ports, Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Ostend – would be incorporated within the German empire to boost Germany’s economic capacity and secure her against future British and French hostility. France, Belgium and the Netherlands would be incorporated in a German-dominated economic union – Mitteleuropa – which would stretch from the Atlantic coast in the west to Poland in the east, and from Scandinavia in the north to Turkey in the south. Africa would become a German-dominated continent. French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies in central and southern Africa would be incorporated into a central Africa economic region – Mittelafrika – which would supply German industry with raw materials.[1] '
The indemnities demanded of France would make Versailles reparations look like petty cash. France was to be destroyed once and for all as a European power.
Now the struggles of the imperialist powers at the turn of the century do not make for an attractive narrative and it has become fashionable amongst the left to lump all the European powers together, the same criminal gang. However to do so is both inaccurate and ahistorical, not incidentally a mistake that Marx would have made. The Britain that went to war in 1914 was a very seriously imperfect society, the franchise still so restrictive that it could not seriously make claim to be a democracy, however in comparison with Imperial Germany Britain was a relatively free and open society and the military were very much under the control of civilian politicians. Similarly the French republic represented the progressive end of the spectrum of European politics.[2]
The defeat of the two western Entente powers and the emergence of a triumphant German autocracy would have seen Europe plunged into the darkness of military dictatorship.
Those who fought on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 denied German militarism this triumph and deserve our respect and gratitude for this. Niether the manner in which the war was fought nor the failure of the post war settlement should obscure this reality.
Of course it would have been better had the war never been fought, that the international labour movement had acted in concert, that the German Social Democrats in particular had stood firm to their principles, however they did not and the subsequent tragedy ensued.
[1] http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/german-world-war-i-aims-%E2%80%93-the-%E2%80%98september-programme%E2%80%99/once
[2] The same could not be said of course for Tsarist Russia; however this would not be the first time in the 2oth Century that the western powers enlisted the support of an unpleasant autocracy.
