In World War 2, it's pretty safe to say that, even without glossing over ethical problems on the Allied side, Germany was clearly not only in the wrong with regards to their regime being evil, but obviously the aggressor in starting wars with other countries and causing the whole mess to happen in the first place. In World War 1, it seems like that because the USA was fighting for the Allies that they were in the right and Germany was in the wrong. Germany did invade France and Russia but I'm not so sure it's that simple. Europe was a spark waiting to become a blaze, and it so happened that when the conflagration erupted, Germany had the strongest land army. Nearly everybody was at war with nearly everybody else and France and Russia weren't being forced into war with Germany against their will as would be the case in the 1940s. It seems likely that they would have been the ones invading Germany if they had armies strong enough to do so. As far as I know (but my knowledge here is very, very limited) they didn't have some twistedly evil oppressive government. I do know they treated their own troops much better than the French did. It's hard to say that unrestricted submarine warfare makes them the aggressors since the US view on this was a bit biased. "We should be able to send all the supplies we want to your enemies, but if you try and sink the supply ships you should first broadcast your existence, ostensibly to save civilian lives but actually so that we have time to surround you and sink you." Plus it was interesting how, because the Allies favored air bombardment to wreck their enemy's economy and Germany favored u-boats to wage economic warfare, it became inhumane to sink civilian ships but perfectly okay to bomb civilian cities. I know that was mostly a WW2 issue, but it does show that there was probably never any true moral compass behind the "Don't wage unrestricted sub warfare" statements. I also fail to see a moral difference between Germany's u-boat campaign against England and England's blockade of Germany. Now, I know much less of WW1 than WW2, but from what I do know, neither side really had any reason to call itself objectively in the right while the other side was in the wrong.
Every participant in WWI was wrong, because war is an evil that can sometimes be justified by the goal that it is uniquely suited to attain. WWI didn't have a rational cause, much less a goal. America dodged a gigantic bullet by being a latecomer to that clusterfuck.
This is a great questions and I wish that I had more time to devote to my answer. I think Germany was probably 60% the bad guy in WW I. A huge bit of the blame for what initially occurred goes back to the alliances that existed and the method for fighting a war. Both sides had pacts that obligated themselves to fight for the other. It was also a common understanding that the side that mobilized and attacked first would win. The initial dispute was between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Germany was obligated to join Austria-Hungary and the UK and France were tied to Russia. When the problems devolved into war, Germany was able to mobilize far faster than France and the UK so they attacked "first" and managed to fight the entirety of the war on French soil as a result. I do not think Germany deserves much blame for the start of the war. Neither Austria-Hungary nor Russia de-escalated following the assasignation in Serbia of the Crwon Prince. I do blame Germany for some of its tactics and for prolonging the war after maybe 1915 or 1916. They were not going to "win" (this is debatable though) and they should have negotiated a reasonable peace.
I'll tell you that the history of it has been a matter of much debate among the professionals. But I'll give you the short answer: Yes, Germany was "the bad guy" in the Great War. To understand why, we need to return to Germany under Bismarck during the late 1800s. Remember that Germany had only become a united country as of 1870--after the Franco-Prussian War. That war was instigated largely by Bismarck. It's effect, just as Bismarck had hoped, was the union of the various Germanic states under Prussian leadership. But it was a tenuous union: there were protestants in the north, Catholics in the south, Marxists in the urban manufacturing centers, and of course a strong conservative element in the form of the Prussian military state. How to hold it all together? Bismarck embarked on a two-fold policy: (1)create the world's first welfare state to pacify the proletariat; (2)conjure the image of "encirclement"--the idea that Germany was surrounded by (and in some cases infiltrated by) malicious agencies that sought to prevent Germany from living out its destiny as a great power in the world. There were the hated French to the West; the monstrous Russians to the East; the back-stabbing Austrians to the South; the British with their Navy on the high seas; and of course the Jews and the conspiracy from within. Germany, according to the encirclement myth, was hemmed in from all sides, a victim of anti-German jealousy from lesser nations. Bismarck hoped to create solidarity among the German people with this myth and he succeeded. But there is the sense in which Bismarck understood this myth to be an artificial creation. He understood how to manage it; his successors did not. When Bismarck was forced out of power in the 1880s, the Kaiser promoted a new colonial expansion scheme based on a greatly enlarged and improved navy. This made Britain nervous, of course, and caused other European countries build up their armies to keep pace with the paranoia of the Germans. So the powder keg that was Europe in 1914 was largely a keg that was stocked with Bismarck's encirclement pretense. The pretense eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy as other countries began to regard Germany with ever greater suspicion. So yes, Germany was to blame. They deserved to be blamed. The notion that they were somehow unfairly punished began with John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, in which he asserted that the heavy financial penalties imposed on Germany would eventually result in another world war. He was correct in this regard, again because of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He provided a narrative that Germany and her apologists were all too ready to believe. The truth is that Germany only paid back 1 installment before defaulting in 1921. After that, Germany got off fairly light. If you compare Germany's fate at Versailles to that of say, Hungary, they had very little to complain about.
The thing about the encirclement doctrine was that it had very strong roots in fact. The Thirty Years War was an unimaginably destructive conflict, but particularly so for Germany:
But the idea of German encirclement assumes a united German nation, and there was no such thing in 1618. In fact, rather than being surrounded by enemies, Germany itself was divided into Calvinist, Lutheran, and Catholic camps. The foreign encirclement in that case was merely the foreign powers attempting to render aid to one camp and damage the other. Gustavus Adolphus and the Swedes were aiding the Lutheran Germans, but were opposed to the Bavarian, Catholic Germans. The armies of Wallenstein aided the Bavarians, but opposed the Lutherans. It is true that France financed the Swedes for a time in order to keep Germany in chaos, and that foreign influence from various directions worked against the formation of a unified Germany, but this was only possible because Germany was, in fact, disunited to begin with. The truth is that only a fierce military-state like Prussia could have united Germany in the first place, and only at that point can we even begin to speak about a coherent "Germany" being encircled in any meaningful way.
I find some disconnect between participating in an arms race and being responsible for war. Perhaps Germany should have asked Britain to scuttle half their navy so Germany wouldnt have to deal with the threat of a blockade.
You're assuming that Britain and Germany were natural enemies. Not so. Britain and Germany (the Prussians) had assisted one another in the 7 Years' War and again at Waterloo; both shared a common mortal enemy in France. Moreover, the British were highly suspicious of Russia (a traditional ally of France), which the Germans regarded as sub-human. Britain was the best ally Germany had. It was the policy of naval expansion that the Kaiser embarked on, more than anything else, that pushed Britain into the Triple Entente. By all accounts Britain should have been an ally of Germany, in which case Germany would have no need to worry about a blockade.
I made no such assumption, I never even thought about alliances when thinking about my original statement. Sure Britain and Prussia were allies again France, but that was Napoleon, not whatever French govt existed 80 years later, I wouldnt consider that a usefull comparison. I would go further to say that Great Britain's mortal enemy was not France, the enemy was whatever nation threatened dominance of continental Europe. My original thought was that Germany saw itself on the world stage as an equal to Great Britain or any other world power at that time and as such should have an army/navy to match that status. Im not sure how a unified Germany became the bad guy when they chose not to be subsevient to Great Britain in terms of naval power.
I too find it a huge leap to go from "Germany started the naval arms race" to "Germany was in the wrong to fight WW1 and Britain and France were in the right"
All of the great powers are equally to blame for WWI. They all competed with each other for colonial largess, they all entered into secret treaties in anticipation for the next war. Germany gets so much blame for the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Napoleon III was every bit as much to blame for the cause of that war and France declared war on Prussia. They got their *** handed to them and it became obvious that a united Germany was by far the strongest power in Europe. It destroyed the Anglo-Austrian "balance of power" achieved by the Congress of Vienna wherein Britain desperatelly tried to check any continental power from again rising and threatening their beloved overseas empire. France had a serious case of little man syndrome after the 1870 war and was chomping at bit to get Alsace and Lorraine back. Austria is probably most directly to blame because of their desire to bolster their imperial holdings in the Balkans led them to shake down Serbia. Russia dialed it up by threatening to invade Austria - which triggered the Franco-Russian alliance against the Austro-German alliance. Britain could have probably stopped the whole war by simply telling the French that they could not count on Anglo involvement but the Asquith government believed that Germany needed to be dealt with and George V was ready to humble his uppity cousin Wilhelm. Well, the pundits were right, Germany was by far the strongest power. The combined might of Britain, France and Russia were barely able to keep German forces from overrunning Paris in August 1914 and could only force a stalemate on French soil. The Russians, despite massive numerical advantages, were slowly driven deep into their own territory by a far smaller German force and the rather lackluster Austrian army. Only the arrival of the United States in the theater in 1918 managed to break Germany. As for the concern of encirclement - it was no myth. Apart from Austria (a germanic people), every other power in Europe was committed to containing Germany. Germany had quite literally not taken a hostile act towards any of its neighbors was did not instigate the 1870 war. The paranoia over German power caused corresponding paranoia in Germany leading to a martial state. But all of Germany's political leaders were pragmatic and all desired peaceful growth of the German Empire. The martial state mentality did not disappear with the end of the Great War. It provided the perfect breeding ground for the Nazis to step in and build their power base in the 1920s.
Well, the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg tried to avert war. Moreover, the Kaiser himself tried to broker peace throughout July 1918 and when war with Russia proved inevitable, he attempted to limit the scope of the war. In fact, even as German troops were beginning to advance into Luxembourg on the evening before the war began, Wilhelm tried to broker a deal with Britain that would keep britain and france out in exchange for limited German assistance to Austria in the event of an attack by Russia. These are not the actions of a warmonger, despite what Allied propaganda portrayed him to be.
I admit that I don't know as much as I should about the causes of World War I, but what if anything did the Baghdad Railway have to do with it? Robert Newman in A History of Oil makes the case that Britain instigated the war in order to quash the German project linking continental Europe with the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
Entry for 8 December 1912, from the diary of George Alexander von Muller, Chief of the German Naval Cabinet:“Sunday: summoned to the palace to see His Majesty at 11 o’clock along with Tirpitz, Heeringen (Vice Admiral), and General von Moltke. H.M. with a telegraphic report on the political situation sent by the ambassador in London, Prince Lichnowski. As Grey’s spokesman, Haldane informed Lichnowski that if we attack France, England will come to France’s aid, for England cannot tolerate a disturbance in the European balance of power. H.M. welcomed this message as providing the desired clarification for all those who have been lulled into a false sense of security by the recently friendly English press. H.M. painted the following picture: Austria must deal firmly with the Slavs living outside its borders (the Serbs) if it does not want to lose control over the Slavs under the Austrian monarchy. If Russia were to support the Serbs, which she is apparently already doing (Sassonow’s remark that Russia will go straight into Galicia if the Austrians march into Serbia), war would be inevitable for us. But there is hope that Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania—and perhaps even Turkey—will take our side. Bulgaria has already offered Turkey an alliance. We really went to great lengths to persuade the Turks. Recently, H.M. also tried to convince the crown prince of Romania, who stopped here on his way to Brussels, to come to an agreement with Bulgaria. If these powers ally themselves with Austria, it will free us up to throw our full weight behind a war against France. According to His Majesty, the fleet will naturally have to prepare for war against England. After Haldane’s statement, the possibility of a war against Russia alone—as discussed by the chief of the Admiralty in his last talk—will not be considered. So, immediate submarine warfare against English troop transports on the Schelde River or near Dunkirk, mine warfare up to the Thames. To Tirpitz: rapid construction of additional submarines, etc. A conference is recommended for all interested naval offices. Gen. v. Moltke: “I consider a war inevitable—the sooner, the better. But we should do a better job of gaining popular support for a war against Russia, in line with the Kaiser’s remarks.” H.M. confirmed this and asked the secretary of state to use the press to work toward this end. T. called attention to the fact that the navy would gladly see a major war delayed by one and a half years. Moltke said that even then the navy would not be ready, and the army’s situation would continue to worsen, since due to our limited financial resources our opponents are able to arm themselves more rapidly. That was the end of the meeting. There were almost no results. The chief of the general staff says: the sooner war comes, the better; however, he hasn’t concluded from this that we should give Russia or France, or even both, an ultimatum that would trigger a war for which they would carry the blame. I wrote to the chancellor in the afternoon about influencing the press.”
The powder keg was in the Balkans. The political circus that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A dual monarchy set up by the Comprimise of 1867. The Hapsburgs served as Emperor of Austria and KIng of Hungary. There were two seperate capitol cities and both countries were self-governing. There were eleven principal national groups and thirteen officially recognized languages. The tension in the area is still high as shown by the need for NATO troops and trials for "ethnic cleansing". Europe was divided into armed camps. Germany and Austria-Hungary were surrounded by England, France and Russia. England and Germany were in an arms race, It was bound to explode. It was a war that just happened. Find a copy of Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August". There is enough blame for everybody.
I teach high school world history, and we teach (at least per the state of Texas standards) that it was everyone in Europe's fault, and that America only got involved because of self interest. We put a lot of emphasis on the Treaty of Versailles and how "punishing" the "bad guy" at the end of a war isn't necessarily the best thing to do.
Doesn't the not punishing the loser thing that was taught about Versailles lead to the Marshall Plan after WWII? What we did in Europe and Japan to rebuild those areas after the devastation? What we did in Korea, Phillipines and now in Iraq?
I also teach world history. The powder-keg theory leads to the teaching that Germany was mistreated after the war, which leads to the subtle implication that the Nazis were in some way justified in reacting so violently against it. None of that is true, in my opinion, but that's often what gets emphasized. There were many contributing factors to the war. A clear number one on that list is the continuity of German aggression.
Europeans butchering each other had a long pedigree and I would not care a whit had the US not intervened in that insane slaughter. We did so because the Brit war effort was underwritten by our financiers, who held the British war bonds. England was about to go under and with it the US financial system. So that miserable jerk Woodrow Wilson, who had recently won reelection with the slogan "he kep us out of war" took us in via the Zimmerman telegram---when everybody with a brain knew there was no way Mexico could attack us and stand a chance. Getting into that war was stupid and led to the next one. We should have let them bleed each other to death. At least the Germans would have kicked the bolsheviks out of Russia. WW I was an even bigger disaster for us than the Spanish American land grab, in which we stole the Phillipines and got Japan as an enemy and Puerto Rico, which is still costing us billions a year.
The Germans helped the Bolsheviks take power in Russia. They sent Lenin back to Petrograd for precisely that purpose.
