War of words: the origins of WW1

The dominant view of the First World War is that it was an avoidable calamity in history. Moreover, because it was allegedly avoidable, it is claimed that all belligerents were equally culpable for the war and that it was in fact political and military cynicism on all sides which was to blame for the loss of millions.

In early January, Education Secretary Michael Gove criticised this view, claiming that there has been a left-wing hijacking of the War which denigrates Britain’s role in the conflict. Gove’s comments have added fuel to an already heated debate about what the conflict means globally and for Britain in particular. Labour MP Tristram Hunt accused Gove of “crass comments” and of over politicising the War’s commemoration. Another critic, Seumas Milne, refutes Gove’s comments that the War was noble or courageous and claims instead that it was an “imperial bloodbath” caused by the greed of all of Europe’s empires, including Britain.

Gove and his party have been guilty of clumsy and celebratory language of the War of late. However, I do agree that the War cannot be simplified and vaguely summed up as the fault of all Empires. With over ten million soldiers and civilians killed overall, the First World War was of course a global disaster unprecedented in history. That said, Gove’s critics have no real answer to why it all started.

Was it simply imperialism? Europe was indeed made up of empires in direct competition. However, the truth is Europe at this time was quite happy to divide up colonial territories without conflict, albeit at the expense of indigenous peoples. Even Belgium had an Empire at this point but this does not mean it had any intention of invading its neighbours. Moreover, there had not been a major continental war involving all European Empires for a hundred years, with France and Britain in particular quite happy to keep it that way. So if Europe was stable, why did war break out in 1914?

Some historians such as Alan Kramer and Max Hastings state that it was Germany that was ultimately responsible for the outbreak of war. Tied up in social Darwinism and a heavily fatalist vision of global dominance, there was an unmistakable war spirit in the German Empire, which pushed for conflict more than any other European power. The German military leadership was goading their government to invade their neighbours for years in the run up to 1914, in the belief that preventive war was inevitable and even beneficial for Germany. It is also important to highlight that, throughout the War, not one battle took place in Germany, as its military leaders fought vehemently in enemy territory until the bitter end. Thus, the evidence suggests that the First World War was a conflict caused by a distinctive German militarism.

So was the War all that avoidable? Imagine Britain had left Europe to Germany’s fate. Although the degree of respect for democracy shown by Allied countries was questionable, particularly in their colonies, they did not compare to the military autocracy of the German Empire. The Versailles Treaty of 1919 was by no means easy on Germany, but it is clear that Europe would have been in a dire situation had the German Empire won and engulfed the continent. To illustrate this, Alan Kramer’s work shows that the German army was responsible for numerous atrocities at the very beginning of the War. For decades, people believed the atrocities were fabricated for propaganda purposes. Although it is true the Allies exaggerated events to demonise Germany, the fact remains that the atrocities did happen. Because of Europe’s new capacity for industrial warfare, German leaders knew that quick victory was necessary and thus set about a brutal campaign. Within the first couple of months of War, Germany invaded and plundered Belgium, Northern France, Northern Italy and almost all of Eastern Europe. Germany imposed forced labour on their inhabitants and ordered systematic executions of thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children.

The idea that no-one and at the same time all of Europe was responsible for the First World War firstly makes no sense and secondly reveals nothing about why the conflict broke out. Of course, once war broke out, all sides perpetrated atrocities and it is important to remember that the War was a human calamity which in no way should be ‘celebrated’. But there is an important historical distinction between the latter years of the War, on the one hand, and its outbreak, on the other, and the majority of evidence points to German aggression as the main catalyst of conflict in 1914. In order to understand the War’s origins, we need to look deeper and accept some of the darker truths about European history.