David Stevenson

The Failure of Peace by Negotiation in 1917

The First World War was launched in the belief that force could be an effective instrument of policy. Underlying the decisions of July and August 1914 was a hard core of calculation, based on the advice to governments that the fighting would be fierce but short, and that its political and economic repercussions could be contained. In addition, because the two sides were closer to military equivalence than in previous crises, both could believe that they had a reasonable prospect of victory. But such equivalence, given the weapons technology of the day, might also deny either coalition a speedy, surgical triumph. And it is from the prolongation of the war as well as its inception – from its not being over by Christmas – that its historical importance derives. Among the consequences were eight million dead, and the dislocation of the Western economic system. Without the war it is unlikely that either Lenin, or Mussolini, or even Hitler, would have come to office. As far as such things can be said with certainty, the First World War was a precondition of the Second. A four-month rather than a four-year conflagration would have had other, now unknowable, consequences. It would not, presumably, have had these.

The First World War and European Integration

The importance of the First World War in European integration history has been understated. Before 1914, intensifying economic integration had not brought corresponding political integration. But once hostilities broke out, Germany pursued indirect economic and military domination over its neighbours and a Central European economic association based on agreements with Austria-Hungary. The drive for the latter had little success, because of Germanys own uncertainties as well as Austria-Hungarys resistance. From 1916 the French government also pursued the goal of border buffer states, together with a permanent inter-Allied economic bloc, but was likewise unsuccessful. Nonetheless, the wartime experience helped to shape later integration initiatives during the inter-war years and even beyond.

The end of history? The British university experience, 1981–1992

The article identifies a crisis of contraction in university history in Britain in the first half of the 1980s, caused by changing trends in government policy and in student demand. By the early 1990s both forms of pressure had eased, and the discipline was experiencing an underfunded expansion that called into question established patterns of research and teaching. Consideration is given to the transition of the later 1980s and to the question of how far the quality of output from history at the universities depends on the quantity of resources channelled into it.

Towards World War

We now come to Germany’s decision to start a European war. It came on 31 July, with the ultimata to St Petersburg and Paris and the proclamation of the Kriegsgefahrzustand, or ‘Condition of Danger of War’, a state of alert and preparation similar to Russia’s pre-mobilisation measures, which was followed by general mobilisation on 1 August. In contrast to the blank cheque, this decision followed three days of hesitation and debate, not least because it was understood to mean hostilities not just against Russia and France but almost certainly against Britain.

Germany’s Fragile Rise

It has become almost a cliché to compare today’s Sino-American relationship with that between Germany and Britain before 1914. Graham Allison has led the trend, highlighting the danger of a ‘Thucydidean Trap’, whereby rising and declining Powers (or revisionist and hegemonic ones) are predestined to clash and often to fight. His Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap? (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York, 2017), now a best seller, sets out the case. Much of the commentary on this theme, however, has come from the US. In fact in 2003 the Chinese Politburo did commission a study of nine nations that had become Great Powers, which in documentary form was shown on China’s leading television channel (Allison’s foreword to Xu, p. viii), while Chinese President Xi Jinping has also taken to invoking Thucydides, although it seems primarily as a means of warning the Americans (translator’s note, p. xiii). Now, Xu Qiyu, Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Beijing, has published the book under review. As the translator points out, although Xu is not a spokesman for the Chinese Government he is a People’s Liberation Army officer and a senior defence intellectual. In China his book has gone through two editions with a print run of 15,600 copies. Xu has presented an online lecture series on Wilhelmine Germany whose introductory instalment has obtained nearly 115,000 views (p. 294). His book is therefore evidence of serious Chinese interest in the First World War analogy, and is the most scholarly study of pre-1914 Germany yet published in the PRC. Fragile Rise will be scoured for its insights as a political parable. But as a historical monograph it has considerable strengths. Xu points out that he is

The Field Artillery Revolution and the European Military Balance, 1890–1914

ABSTRACT This article centres on the introduction of the French 75mm light field gun, and its impact on the European military balance in the two decades before the First World War. It argues that the 75mm (and particularly its new recoil-absorption mechanism) dramatically accelerated the rate of fire and gave France a major military advantage over Germany between c. 1899 and 1906. Subsequently the application of the new technology to howitzers and heavy artillery enabled Germany to redress the balance. On the eve of war, however, Germanys leaders feared a new round of French and Russian emulation, and this fear influenced their policy in the July 1914 crisis. The article also examines the failure to forestall the quick-firing revolution at the First Hague Peace Conference; the new technologys role in the First Moroccan Crisis; its dissemination across Europe and the Franco-German competition to amass reserves of shells.

Fortifications and the European Military Balance before 1914

Abstract This article analyses the evolution of permanent fortifications in Europe between 1870 and 1914. Despite the introduction in the 1880s of high explosive shells, intensive construction continued until the eve of war. Fortifications figured prominently in armaments budgets and in offensive as well as defensive strategic planning, while their design changed radically. Nonetheless, the pattern of development worked against the Central Powers. Austria-Hungary concentrated against Italy at the expense of the Balkans and Galicia; Germany concentrated on Alsace-Lorraine, neglecting the east until 1912. Whereas France modernised its eastern fortresses, Belgium did little, enticing Germany into the envelopment strategy that would draw Britain into the First World War.

Britain, France and the origins of German disarmament, 1916-19

Abstract This article re-examines the origins of Germanys disarmament by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It focuses on British and French policy during World War I and at the Paris Peace Conference. It deals with both land and naval disarmament, and considers the influence of American diplomacy and of Allied public opinion. It traces the connections between the forced disarmament of the defeated countries and proposals for a larger disarmament regime to be negotiated between the victors. It stresses the role of inter-allied rivalries in undermining the stability of the disarmament settlement.

Armaments and the Coming of War, Europe (1904-1914)

Introduction 1. Arms and the Men 2. Continental Equilibrium? 1904-1908 3. The Breakdown of Equilibrium in the East: From the Bosnian Crisis to the Balkan Wars, 1908-1912 4. The Breakdown of Equilibrium in the West, 1908-1912 5. The Great Acceleration, 1912-1913 6. Vials of Wrath, 1912-1914 7. Conclusion

Conclusion: The Vision of War

Unusually heavy railway traffic is hard to conceal, especially during stifling summer nights when most people would be sleeping with their windows open. Inhabitants of the quarters of the north and south that bordered on the two ceintures, the lines that linked up the main-line stations … must have stirred uneasily in their sleep or have been awakened during les heures blanches — three or four in the morning — by the steady rumble of slow-moving trains, a noise that went on right through the night from about the 26th or the 27th… .