Jess Pantinople- 21336376

7/10/2013
RESEARCH ESSAY
ASSIGNMENT
Was World War I the inevitable outcome of how
European politics and society had developed in the
decades before 1914?


Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
1
RESEARCH ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
Was World War I the inevitable outcome of how European politics and
society had developed in the decades before 1914?
INTRODUCTION
War, according to scholars, is inevitable. It is embedded into mans psychology and is a result
of mans violent tendencies and his fighting instinct. These instincts are as natural as his
desire to live, drink, eat and beget children
1
. Not only this, his desire for war also stems
from his social-cultural conditioning, largely different to others. It is this difference that
man finds himself chiefly bound up with striving for political or economic power.
2
As long
as man is man, wars will never cease to exist.
3

World War I was no different; it preceded major
events, such as the rise of nationalism and the
new imperialism, which characterised
nineteenth-century politics and society in
Europe. Such events were long thought to be
the long-term causes of the War.
4
But, was the World War I really caused by these political
and social developments in Europe as past historians have thought?

This essay is a drive

1
K. Young, The Psychology of War, in Clarkson, J.D. and Cochran, T.C. (eds.), War as a
Social Institution: The Historians Perspective, New York, Columbia University Press, 1941,
p. 4; Sigmund Freud, Thoughts for the Times on War and Death, 1915.
http://www.panarchy.org/freud/war.1915.html (accessed 1 October 2013); H. Nickerson, Can
We Limit War?, New York, Kennikat Press, 1933, p. 3
2
Young, p. 4
3
Nickerson, p. 3
4
For decades, historians have attributed World War I to the rise of nationalism, imperialism,
militarism, the system of alliances and public misperceptions that dominated European
affairs long before the War. See S.B. Fay, The Origins of the World War, New York, The
Macmillan Company, 1929; C. Bloch, The Causes of The World War: An Historical Summary,
London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1935; G.P. Gooch, History of Modern Europe 1878-1919,
London, Cassell and Company Ltd., 1923; F.B. Tipton & R. Aldrich, An Economic and Social
History of Europe, 1890-1939, London, MacMillan Education Ltd., 1987; J. Joll, The 1914
Debate Continues: Fritz Fischer and His Critics, in Koch, H.W. (ed.), The Origins of the
First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, London, The Macmillan Press

WAR IS INEVITABLE; IT IS
EMBEDDED INTO MANS
PSYCHOLOGY
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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away from this traditional thinking. By postulating that there was a more direct and
sinister cause for the War, this essay aims to disprove such theories and put forward a new
viewpoint that European statesmen may had a larger influence for the outbreak of the War.
THE DIRECT CAUSES OF WAR
To facilitate a deeper understanding of the immediate origins of the war, it is necessary to
investigate the actions of
such officials especially in
the aftermath of the Sarajevo
assassinations. The
Archduke Franz Ferdinand I
and his wife Sophie were by a member of a group of Bosnian Serb assassins for nationalistic
purposes, which steered to a series of diplomatic crises that led to Austria-Hungarys
ultimatum to Serbia.
5
In hindsight, the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
throne was nothing new; the king of Portugal in 1908 and the king of Greece in 1913,
amongst others, were assassinated as well. But none of them brought the same degree of
political crisis that Sarajevo warranted. What was different this time?
For these statesmen, the assassination was the last straw in their long-standing internal
struggle.
6
The German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II saw the assassination as a crime against

Ltd., 1972; I. Geiss, Origins of the First World War, in Koch, H.W. (ed.), The Origins of the
First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, London, The Macmillan Press
Ltd., 1972; F. McDonough, The origins of the First and Second World Wars, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1997 and F.C. Lane, National Wealth and Protection Costs, in
Clarkson, J.D. and Cochran, T.C. (eds.), War as a Social Institution: The Historians
Perspective, New York, Columbia University Press, 1941 for such views.

5
W. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, History Review, vol. 1, no. 69, 2011, p.
15; S.R. Williamson, The Origins of World War I, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
vol. 18, no. 4, 1988, p. 799; D. Stevenson, Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before
1914, International Security, vol. 22, no. 1, 1997, p. 150
6
While only the accounts of German and Austrian officials are shown, the essay does not
solely blame these officials for the outbreak of the War. S. McMeekin, July 1914: Countdown

THE ASSASSINATION OF FRANZ
FERDINAND WAS NOTHING NEW.
WHAT CAUSED IT TO WARRANT SUCH
A POLITICAL CRISIS?
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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a close friend and as a universal threat to the whole European monarchy. Thus he needed a
war to avenge his friend, as well as to protect monarchical interests from these Serbian
bandits".
7
Conrad von Htzendorff, Austria-Hungarys chief of staff and head of the militarist
party in Vienna, saw the assassination as an attack to Austria-Hungarys prestige and status
as a great power. Even before Sarajevo, he foresaw the decay of the empire either from
internal strife or violent overthrow by its enemies. Von Htzendorff saw a war with Serbia to
finally settle the score once and for all.
8
The Austrian-Hungarian foreign minister, Count
Leopold von Berchtold, advocated an immediate war with Serbia, and he was one of the
creators of the Serbian ultimatum, which imposed harsh conditions to its addressee, and was
designed to be rejected.
9

Such a necessity of a war was not viewed by the general public. After the news of the
assassination spread, the sentiment in Britain and France was one of sympathy and pity for
the slain Archduke and his family. However, they thought of it as a confined Austro-
Hungarian issue, and there was no reason to believe such a crisis would lead to a war. In the
British press, the assassination was downplayed to genealogies of the Hapsburg monarchy
and their apparent curse of
meeting violent deaths.
10
It
was not until three weeks
after the assassination that a
threat of a continental war

to War, New York, Basic Books, 2013 provides an in-depth account of French and Russian
officials in the aftermath of the assassination.
7
J.G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, 3
rd
edn., New York, St. Martins Press, 1982, p. 3
8
Ibid. p. 6
9
D. Fromkin, Europes Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914, Boston, William
Heinemann, 2004, p. 165
10
C. Pennell, A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War
in Britain and Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 22-23

EUROPEAN PUBLIC DID NOT SHARE
THIS SENTIMENT FOR A
CONTINENTAL WAR.
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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was imminent, with The Times mentioning a possibility of a political crisis.
11
Even then, the
European public assumed anti-war rhetoric. On 30 July, two days after the War had started,
Jules Hedeman, the Berlin correspondent of Matin, wrote, I repeat. Germany does not
desire war. She desires it less today than yesterday, and yesterday less than the day before
yesterday.
12
In Britain, the Liberal Daily News and Manchester Guardian ran strong anti-
war campaigns up until 4 August, as did the Socialist press such as the Labour Reader and
the Glasgow Forward.
13

What do these comparisons
demonstrate? Firstly, it
shows that indeed, these
central government officials advocated a war that stemmed from their own internal
animosity and struggle. Secondly, the internal struggles that beset these officials were
confined to them, and their justifications for war were not shared by the majority of their
realms. This shows that the War was initially a cabinet war, and became more of a peoples
war as it drew more and more innocent people into the crisis. If the Kaiser and his allies only
observed diplomacy rather than a war, it can be predicted that the War would have been
averted. Such a prediction offers a more causal and direct explanation than the long-term
factors of imperialism, nationalism, the system of alliances, militarism and public
misperception that past historians have long assigned blame to.



11
N. Ferguson, Political Risk and the International Bond Market between the 1848
Revolution and the Outbreak of the First World War, Economic History Review, vol. 59,
2006, p. 98
12
M.S. Neiberg, Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, Cambridge,
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 90
13
Pennell, p. 25

THE ACTIONS OF THESE STATESMEN
PROVIDE A MORE CAUSAL AND
DIRECT EXPLANATION FOR WAR.
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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THE HISTORIANS TABOO
For decades, historians have assigned blame to such abstractions that caused years of
continental tensions waiting to detonate.
14
But, as this essay showed, there was a far more
direct and sinister cause for the war. But why, after almost a century of fact-finding, have
historians put sole blame on something metaphysical, theoretical and immaterial? Actions
speak louder than words, and the actions of these statesmen have divulged a much more
intricate root of the War. But why is this area of research unsearched? To quote one
historian, it is shocking that this more contributory cause of the outbreak has not been
seriously examined.
15

This area of research marks a line that professional historians dare not cross. This version of
history, called counterfactual history, often postulates alternative scenarios that could have
happened to gauge the importance of a particular event.
16
In this essay, to prove that the
actions of statesmen played a major role in the War is to ask the question: what if the Kaiser
and his allies observed
diplomacy rather than anger
and hatred? Could the War
be averted?
Such inquiry are purely
speculative in nature, for
they do not use direct evidence that is present and is merely an act of imagination.
Furthermore, it does not involve cause-and-effect analysis that is considered the keystone of
historical research.
17
To say that the action of a few individuals would cause a war that cost
millions of lives is unimaginable. This is a massive disproportion between cause and effect;

14
Stoessinger, p. 2
15
W.M. Johnston, Some Causes of World War I and Historians Taboos, The Journal of
General Education, vol. 39, no. 2, 1987, p. 77
16
M. Bunzl, Counterfactual History: A Users Guide, American Historical Review, vol. 109,
no. 3, 2004, p. 845
17
Ibid., p. 845

IT IS SHOCKING THAT THIS
CONTRIBUTORY CAUSE FOR WAR HAS
NOT BEEN EXAMINED IN MORE
DETAIL.
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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an event such as World War I should be caused by something greater or equal-sized
phenomenon.
But such counterfactuals do pose a benefit. The counterfactual example what if the Kaiser
and his ministers observed diplomacy rather than anger and hatred? shows the relative
importance of their role in the outbreak of the War. This also reveals the very roots and
origins of the War, one which has been overlooked by past historians. However, the use of
counterfactuals in historical research must be moderated, lest that part of history becomes
science fiction.
18
Nevertheless, counterfactuals enable the historian to devise multiple
approaches that offer an alternative view of events.
CONCLUSION
The views presented in this essay are not exactly definite or correct in the strictest sense,
for these views are partly based from conjectures of alternative scenarios that did not occur.
Some historians might even dismiss these views, because they were founded on unorthodox
methodology far, far different from historical convention. However, these views were
conceived from meticulous research into primary documents between June and August 1914,
the most vexing time in Europe before the continent plunged into War. And, these primary
evidence support the idea that these statesmen played a major role in the War, which
provides a more proximate and direct explanation than the abstract postulations past
historians have put forward. Also, in reflection, it would be a major injustice for the millions
of people who lost their lives if history limits the origins of the War to such immaterial,
theoretical concepts. A much more fundamental, explicit explanation for the origins of World
War I was long overdue.
For the central figures, they had an opportunity to exercise restraint and diplomacy that
could have at least saved lives, or at least subsided some of the tension amongst them. After

18
Johnston, p. 83
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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all, the sole responsibility lies in them to decide whether to go to war or not. Unfortunately,
fear, paranoia and misperceptions dominated the thought processes of these figures. For the
Kaiser, vengeance and fury
over the death of his close
ally, as well as his need to
protect the integrity of the
monarchical system presided
over more logical notions of patience, restraint and diplomacy. Von Htzendorff and
Berchtold both despised Serbia, and took great lengths to start a war with her. It is this
misaction of a few that were answered gravely by the millions of lives that were supposedly
under their protection. World War I was not a result of politics and society, but is a result of
government incompetence in the midst of a crisis.
Word Count: 1976












A MORE FUNDAMENTAL EXPANATION
FOR THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR I
IS LONG DUE.
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bloch, C., The Causes of The World War: An Historical Summary, London, George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., 1935
Bunzl, M., Counterfactual History: A Users Guide, American Historical Review, vol. 109,
no. 3, 2004, pp. 845-858
Fay, S.B., The Origins of the World War, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1929
Ferguson, N., Political Risk and the International Bond Market between the 1848
Revolution and the Outbreak of the First World War, Economic History Review, vol. 59,
2006, pp. 70-112

Freud, Sigmund, Thoughts for the Times on War and Death, 1915.
http://www.panarchy.org/freud/war.1915.html (accessed 1 October 2013)

Fromkin, D., Europes Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914, Boston, William
Heinemann, 2004
Geiss, I., Origins of the First World War, in Koch, H.W. (ed.), The Origins of the First World
War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, London, The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1972
Gooch, G.P., History of Modern Europe 1878-1919, London, Cassell and Company Ltd., 1923
Johnston, W.M., Some Causes of World War I and Historians Taboos, The Journal of
General Education, vol. 39, no. 2, 1987, pp. 77-84

Joll, J., The 1914 Debate Continues: Fritz Fischer and His Critics, in Koch, H.W. (ed.), The
Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, London, The
Macmillan Press Ltd., 1972
Lane, F.C., National Wealth and Protection Costs, in Clarkson, J.D. and Cochran, T.C.
(eds.), War as a Social Institution: The Historians Perspective, New York, Columbia
University Press, 1941
McDonough, F., The origins of the First and Second World Wars, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1997
McMeekin, S., July 1914: Countdown to War, New York, Basic Books, 2013
Mulligan, W., The Origins of the First World War, History Review, vol. 1, no. 69, 2011, pp.
12-17

Neiberg, M.S., Dance of the Furies, Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2011
Nickerson, H., Can We Limit War?, New York, Kennikat Press, 1933
Pennell, C., A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War
in Britain and Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012
Stevenson, D., Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914, International Security,
vol. 22, no. 1, 1997, pp. 125-161
Jess Pantinople- 21336376 7/10/2013
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Stoessinger, J.G., Why Nations Go to War, 3
rd
edn., New York, St. Martins Press, 1982
Tipton, F.B. & Aldrich, R., An Economic and Social History of Europe, 1890-1939, London,
MacMillan Education Ltd., 1987
Williamson, S.R., The Origins of World War I, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol.
18, no. 4, 1988, pp. 795-818

Young, K., The Psychology of War, in Clarkson, J.D. and Cochran, T.C. (eds.), War as a
Social Institution: The Historians Perspective, New York, Columbia University Press, 1941