Matthew Sherlock

2/17/2020

John Abbot, History 214

World at War: Pride and Power

World War One was a travesty of the highest order; millions of people died for, from

hindsight rather stupid reasons. It was an unfortunate result of cascading failures of diplomacy

and bad military thinking. Something that comes as a shock to a lot of modern minds is how

much popular support the war gained at the outset, even from groups that would have criticized

the war under different circumstances. The thing is, why did it trigger that reaction? Why did the

politicians, the peasants, the officers, and the factory worker all fall in line? Let’s try to parse this

out by going through some of the reasons for it.

First things first, let’s set the stage. Europe in 1914 was a place of global superpowers.

Most of the worlds surface was under the control of one of the empires of the time. There is a

reason that much of the thinking of the time was that the war would be over quickly. The only

enemies that the European states had faced for a long time were peoples that had no real chance

at victory, tribal peoples with little in the way of modern weaponry. They were used to

decimating armies with machine gun fire and artillery. Europeans were used to victory, not

thinking that they could very well be the ones on the killing field when they had face armies that

were similarly equipped. The fast-moving tactics and strategies that France and Germany had

developed in case of conflict between them, quickly fell into the trenches as they were forced

from offence to defense. So, this is why the people of the time were so confident, but why did the

people that other wise wouldn’t have been opposes to the war support it?
 The governments of the first world war was good at one thing above all others things,

they found ways to spin things to their favor. In the minds of the public this was not a war that

was fought so that the princes could dictate terms to their advantage. This was a war of defense,

of their home and of their people. the motherland was in danger, and it needs defending. In the

words of a twenty-three-year-old German law student, “why I should have volunteered for the

war? Of course it was not from any enthusiasm for war in general, nor because I thought it would

be a fine thing to kill a great many people or otherwise distinguish myself. On the contrary, I

think that war is a very, very evil thing, and I believe that even in this case it might have been

averted by a more skilful diplomacy. But, now that it has been declared, I think it is a matter of

course that one should feel oneself so much a member of the nation that one must unite one's fate

as closely as possible with that of the whole.1” The war was not something that human hands

could stop (or so the people of the time believed). If the war couldn’t be stopped, it would be

best if everyone did their best to win the war. As it became clearer and clearer that the war would

be longer and more involving than anyone had anticipated, they just got more and more

desperate. Thus creating one of the great exponential economic time bombs of all time, the

central powers poured resources into the war so that they could force the allied powers to pay the

debts that they had incurred fighting it. The allied powers in turn did the same for similar

reasons. The problem being that as the debts got higher and the desperation to pay those debts

increased, eventually the war would end, and no one could pay. The allies would try to get the

central powers to pay, and they had no money. This twisted logic was bound to eventually cause

cracks to show in the fragile political alliances that were born of the war.

1
Documentary reader, I. The Gathering Storm, C. German Views: Franz Blumenfeld
 Socialism was the preeminent force in pre-war politics. Not necessarily controlling the

government in all cases, but numerous enough to cause trouble should they interfere in the

execution of the war effort. They could muddle in the political process, have their followers’

stage armed revolts and sabotage factory installations. The leadership of the parties however

were not the revolutionary insurgents that many of their detractors believed that they were (and

perhaps that some of their followers wish that they were). They wanted to reform the

government, not destroy it. In that regard the war was an opportunity for them, if the socialist

backed the war effort perhaps their opposite number across the aisle could be more inclined to

listen. After proving themselves as loyal citizens, no one could accuse them of being traitors to

the state for their leftist stance. The problem was the generals, the militaries of the period

(especially the Germans) had very little respect or trust in civilian government. The Army took

control of more and more of the state. The war became all consuming; and it became clear that

no matter the outcome, reform was never on the table. In Germany, resistance and revolt was

bubbling up. The war was becoming untenable, and the Germans had to stop fighting. The

Generals whose mismanagement had lost the war then did what officers do best, they blamed

everyone else for their own mistake.

Before we look at what General Paul von Hindenburg blamed for losing the war, we need

to discuss the real reason for why the war was lost. The first point is that the Germans were not

good creating a pleasant image in the minds of foreign government. They didn’t bother with

distributing propaganda in undecided nations to try to persuade them to remain neutral (or even

to side with them). The Germans also didn’t much care about how their actions looked to their

enemies. An odd statement to be sure, after all don’t the enemy already hate them, but it is

important. The German army kept committing acts that the allies would turn into propaganda.
The destruction of Belgian cities, attacks on civilian sea traffic, and the butchery of Balkan

minorities were used as grist for the propaganda mills. This disinterest in the more diplomatic

parts of conflict and the blasé attitude toward civilian casualties lead to the intervention in the

war by the united states. The German Generals had to win and win fast before the Americans

brought their fresh troops to the western front. So they committed the act that is the second

reason for their loss. They committed the remains of the resources to one final offensive to bring

France its knee. It was almost a success, getting within thirty-seven miles of Paris. The Germans

gained a lot of territory in Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive, but it had little strategic value and cost

them too much to take. The German couldn’t keep all they won, they retreated, and that retreat

became a rout. They had nothing left, what forces they had still had from their more successful

eastern campaign were scattered across the lands that they had intended to turn into puppet states

after the war’s victorious end. They needed to negotiate, lest they lose everything. The

revolutions that were triggered by the war were crushed and the revolutionaries were

scapegoated. The loss of the war couldn’t be the fault of the Army and its leadership, then they

would have to admit that the state was not infallible. It had to be the civilians, it had to be some

other that could be blamed. If only the military had more control of the war effort (despite that

the military had basically taken full control of the government) and the stuffy bureaucrats stayed

out of the way. As stated by Hindenburg “Our repeated proposals for strict discipline and strict

legislation were not adopted. Thus did our operations necessarily miscarry; the collapse was

inevitable; the revolution only provided the keystone.2” This myth of the military being

blameless for their own failures is ultimately a contributing factor in the rise of fascism in post

war Germany.

2
Course Documentary Reader, Part II, 3) General Paul von Hindenburg & the “Stab in the Back”
legend
 World War One is a conflict that still has ramifications to this day. If the Ottoman Empire

had lasted a little longer, or if it simply fell apart rather than being carved apart by the victorious

allies, perhaps we would not have the constant sectarian conflict in the middle east. If the war

happened a little different, maybe we would still live in a world of global European empires. The

world that we have today was shaped, molded, and forged in this one war. All that is and will be

has been touched by this, a war that began with the death of a noble man of a country that

wouldn’t survive it. The deaths of millions started with two slain by angry young man who

thought they were striking a blow for their tribe and nation. What can we learn from all this, did

this conflict have any meaning outside the collapse of the old world and the violent birth of a

new one? Not everything has an answer, and there is not always a lesson to be learned from the

folly of princes and statesmen. There are however somethings that we can learn from all of this.

Beware the race for power, it will never be enough. Be honest with yourselves, lying to yourself

and not admitting that you’re not perfect is only going to hurt you and the people around you.

Don’t assume that giving up your principles would have the results you think it would (this

applies to both the socialists that thought that supporting the war would help convince the

conservatives to work with them, and the generals that thought that brutality would expedite the

war). The Great War was an event that was ripe with lessons and things that could be learned, if

only we had the good sense to listen.