• Purpose: challenging prevailing view that leaders slipped into a world war no one wanted. 
• Prevailing themes of current WWI scholarship focus mainly on security dilemma and defensive realism. 
  • Rigid alliance commitments and mobilization plans, arms races, ignorant civilians/bellicose generals, domestic political and decision-making pathologies and massive misperceptions of tech & enemy intentions
• He suggests that new evidence contradicts security dilemma theory and defensive realism.  Germany went to war with fully open eyes, aware of long/bloody war. 
  • I wonder how he resolves public statements of a really short war. 

Three sections: old historiography of WWI’s origins, close connection between IR theory and WWI, three main contributions of new history and how these challenge the conventional wisdom and IR theory. 

Old Historiography

• Debate about blame started right after war’s end.  State’s published official documents selectively to prove their own innocence. 
• By 1930s, prevailing view was that no great power wanted war and that everyone deserved blame for letting diplomatic crisis spiral out of control. 
  • Remained dominant into 1950s.  WWII had to look exceptional to maintain focus on Hitler’s crimes.  Facilitated W. German integration into NATO by suggesting that German militarism started and ended with Nazis. 
• Late ‘50s-early ‘60s: new scholars reject simplistic notions that war occurred despite peaceful intentions of all parties.  Argued that Germany’s process was marred by miscalculation/misperception/militarism, but NOT that that German leaders deliberately tried to provoke a general European war in 1914. 
• Albertini blamed other states, but primarily Germany for pushing
  Austria to take a hard-line stance against
  Serbia and sabotaging British mediation proposals.  He suggested
  Germany wanted a local war that would shatter alliance between
  Russia and
  France (and ententes with

•  
  • He suggests that they miscalculated their ability to contain a Balkan war. 
• Tuchman and Taylor noted poor German decisionmaking but emphasize systemic problems of militarism and mobilization (cult of offensive, speed = critical). 
• Schlieffen Plan really important; primary evidence light and is highly intertwined with political question of war guilt. 
  • Former German officers tried to salvage general staff by saying that Moltke unwisely altered crucial elements and squandered the opportunity for an epic knockout blow. 
  • Much of the evidence was destroyed in WWII bombing and only German officers had much access. 
  • Ritters argues that Germany’s politicians endorsed S.P. because they were driven by “militarism,” military-technical calculations about where to strike, speed of mobilization, when to strike first. 
  • German politicians, he argues, were dependent on military strategists that had built a “dangerous and inflexible short-war strategy premised on the belief” of attacking as soon as war seemed imminent. 
• 1960s consensus: Great War began inadvertently.  If Germany deserves most blame, it committed most accidents (not because of its political designs). 
• Fritz Fischer controversially argues that Germany engineered an aggressive war—“grab for world power.” 
  • He argues that German imperialism sought o divert attention from domestic problems and that German leaders had decided as early as Dec. 1912 to launch a preventative war. 
  • He further argues that this wasn’t driven by fear of neighbors but rather a situation where Germany wasn’t strong enough to pursue hegemony.
• By 1970s, most historians had come to accept Germany was even more to blame. 

WWI and IR Theory

• Why is WWI so important to IR theory?  Perhaps most important event of 20^th century.  Another important factor: how IR theory developed.  163
• Classical realist theory burst onto scene after WWII, seeking to explain Nazi Germany’s apparently insatiable lust for power and how int. comm. failed to stop NG before it was too late. 
• Some defensive realists have suggested that Munich principles (strength, resolve) might not apply to
  USSR and nuclear-armed adversaries. 
• Attempts to generalize WWI and WWII helped defensive realism (and its core concepts: sec. dilemma, spiral model, offense-defense variables
• Sec. dilemma: anarchy and uncertainty drive states to perceive foreign military preparations as hostile even when they are done for self-defense. 
• Spiral model: action-reaction process of arms racing, diplomatic tensions and hostility that often flows from the sec. dilemma.  Suggests that war can break out even though no one particularly intended or wanted one. 
• Intensity of spirals and sec. dilemma explained by offense-defense variables.  War more likely when states think that offensive military operations are more effective.
• Defensive realists see WWI as perfect example of sec. dilemma, spiral and offense-defense variables.  Germany drives Entente together, which in turn threatens
  Germany.  That propels

• If everyone thinks that being struck first is a major weakness, then it would require unusual statesmanship to keep talking (and a willingness to be hit). 
• Offensive realists more convinced by states seeking regional hegemony instead of theories depending on fear of encirclement. 
• Defensive realists often distinguish between greedy/predatory motives (beyond security) and security-seeking motives (self-defense, protecting status quo).  (165)
• DRs often argue Germany in 1914 sought security.  When
  Germany took belligerent risks, leadership feared rising

• ORs argue that Germany wanted hegemony.  Security in some sense, but a different model than the DR emphasis on security dilemma/spirals. 
• DRs do not necessarily think that defensive (security-seeking) motives explain all or most conflict.  Jervis’ article on SD considers extreme of all status quo states. 
• Van Evera: offensive dominance a “principle cause” of WWI that also drove many of the other mechanisms of war (by exacerbating insecurity).  It also made expansion cheaper and consequently more appealing.   (166)

New Historiography of WWI

• Challenges assertion that WWI was largely inadvertent conflict stemming from misperception, miscalculation or militarism. 
  • IS WAR RATIONAL? Van Evera’s work seems to flow from idea that it isn’t. 

 Central themes of new historiography (167). 

1)      New evidence from Zuber: Schlieffen Plan wasn’t a war plan but a ploy to increase size of German army.  He suggests German aims in Sept. 1914 were much more limited (167). 

2)      Both old and new evidence demonstrate German leaders were not misguided by expectations of quick and decisive victory.  Prepared for long, bloody war. 

3)      Decisionmaking in July and early August 1914 show that crisis dynamics did not cause WWI. 

• Previously, pretty much everything we knew about S.Plan came from Ritter’s analysis of the few surviving documents.  End of Cold War revealed that some documents had been kept elsewhere. 
  • First really relevant Zuber source: “Der Schlieffenplan,” written by a German historian in interwar period.  He had direct access to prewar German planning documents and the officers that wrote those plans.  Analyzed Schlieffen’s strategic thought… summaries of deployment plans, studies on force structure and operations.
  • Second Zuber source: a set of Schlieffen’s and Moltke’s critiques of war games conducted in the west from 1904-8.  Zuber: “almost certainly the only surviving original documents concerning [the two’s] west-front war planning.” 

First Zuber theme: there never was a Schlieffen plan. 

• It did not provide actual or perceived basis of a German operational plan before or after 1905.  It was mainly a political ploy to convince reluctant ministry of war to pursue dramatic increase (we can win if you fund us).  (168)
• Does not address: why would Germany policy-makers be swayed if they did not “perceive” that the Schlieffen Plan was the basis of military planning? 
• Schlieffen was concerned about Germany not fully exploiting its military potential—it had fewer soldiers than
  France!
• But Reichstag wouldn’t go for major peacetime army, so the ability to wage a war depends on mobilizing vast numbers of trained reservists. 
  • You won’t have element of surprise.  Ability relies in organizational acumen, something Germany has more than
    France.  It’s also well-positioned to win a long-slog (more people, cohesion). 
• Schlieffen uses many imaginary units.  “Obvious implication” is that he’s gunning for universal conscription, like the French used (169).  He’s not the first to make that connection, but he is the first to say that’s why the SP was primarily written. 
• Zuber dismisses view that Moltke’s marginal notes and supplemental observations indicated he thought it was the basic operational blueprint.  But Moltke came into office at 1906 and didn’t review it until 1911. 
  • Zuber: Moltke looks at it in 1911 because Agadir crisis made him really concerned about size of German forces and a proponent of heavy troop increases.  Schlieffen Plan addressed just that problem…

Four basic inconsistencies of Schlieffen Plan that Zuber relies on…

1)      Schlieffen Plan doesn’t war-game a German rush into

·        If this were the blueprint and driving force behind a preventative war, presumably it would rely mostly on examples of

·        No evidence suggests that German army ever intended to abandon

2)      The form of the SP was unlike that of any previous or future war plan or op-order. 

·        Depending on imaginary units suggests that this operations plan is nothing of the sort, he says. 

o             Really?  USMC won wargames with

·        Zuber: use of notional units fine for training exercises, but not a war plan.  (This is a lot more understandable than his previous point).  170. 

o             Incomplete.  What if the SP were a broad outline of potential German strategy rather than a specific point-by-point plan?  Then it would make sense to discuss possible future conditions.

·        “The possibility of ever raising the adequate forces for the SP was remote. Therefore it seems logical that the memo was not really meant to guide subsequent German operations” (171). 

o             Assuming that

3)      Would have placed ALL German forces against

·        Zuber: a real war plan would have aligned with German assessment of the Russian threat.  German intel in 1905-6 indicated

LOT of movement.    

·        Schlieffen’s pre-SP plan work included a lot of divisions for handling

4)      No real war plan would have been treated like it was.  It passed from Schlieffen to his daughters, who didn’t regard it as a particularly momentous document (172).

·        Not particularly compelling.  Schlieffen holds on to the original copy, but it’s entirely implausible that copies weren’t made.  As for the daughters… well, the document was a personal memento and I doubt that anyone would have understood how important troop studies were to war strategy anyway. 

Thesis 2: Western Strategy.

• Zuber starkly disputes CW.  He says that Schlieffen/Moltke knew that Germany would be outnumbered on both fronts and that the war plans hinged on winning the first battles, not a single battle of annihilation. 
  • By contrast, swinging German right flank around Paris would be such a battle of annihilation that would likely depend on
    Germany outnumbering. 
• “The Germans were confident that they could defeat the French in any battle.  But this would not end the war.”  It’s not clear who that last line is attributed to.  172
• Neither general planned right flank to move west of Paris. 
• Zuber tries to explain away the big arrows through Belgium west to
  Paris by saying that the campaign went “fortuitous.”  I’d prefer “as planned” (173). 

Thesis 3: Concoction of the SP.

• Post-war staff claimed that Moltke and a few dead officers had misunderstood the plan and made poor alterations.  That’s why we lost the Marne!  But Zuber says that’s BS—a lot more people deserve blame for mistakes in German strategy. 
• Keir says that this thesis has already been established by past scholarship.  Ritter was the first of many to defend Moltke from bungling SP. 
• Zuber says Ritter has created another myth by taking at face value the claim by Groener and other retired army officers) that SP was template for all subsequent war plans leading up to 1914.  Ritter, he claims, ignored all of the inconsistencies because he wanted to make militarism look evil (the SP forced the war!)

Critiquing Zuber

• He says that Germany deserves no blame if there was no SP—
  France and
  Russia were the aggressive ones. 
• He contends that Germany’s war was initiated by F-R.  But that misses, some say, the operational context of

• Others say that natural evolution and continuity in SP over 1905-1914 suggest that it wasn’t an aberration.  Moltke made reasonable adjustments as situations arose.  OK, so the march around Paris wasn’t entirely expected.  But Holmes suggests that that wasn’t was important as the more central goal of encircling French forces wherever they could be found. 
• Others dispute Z’s assessment that Russia was strong and that the lack of staff rides says something meaningful about the plan’s seriousness. 
• Lieber says that Z provides a useful (if not entirely evidenced) corrective.  Main point: Germany seems to have focused on destroying French forces, not conquering
  Paris.  Seems indicative of planning for a long war. 

Cult of the Offensive

• Van Evera thinks that planners dreamed of quick/decisive/offense-dominated wars by ignoring lessons of US Civil War, Russo-Turkish, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War.  177
  • ENTIRELY unconvincing.  The single most applicable example (geography and matchup) is the Franco-Prussian War and other Bismarckian beatdowns.  US Civil War: really wide spread field of combat and the breakdown of normal state military procedures.  France is the size of
    Texas—there aren’t trenches or static defenses!  Boer War: defender depended on unusual guerilla tactics—not at all indicative of what would be possible in great power war.  Russo-Japanese War: decisive strike decapitates Russian fleet.  End of story. 
  • Jervis argues that they wouldn’t have gone to war if they had known that the defense was stronger.  (The defender did not fare EPICALLY better; like castles and attackers). 
  • Forster thesis: Forster argues that German leaders were aware that WWI might be protracted.  German generals were “remarkably uniform in their view that the next European war” would likely be a costly struggle.  178
  • Moltke didn’t conclude from the German unification wars that the offense was more effective than it had been. 
    • German officers understand that railroads have serious limitations in cross-border logistics. 
    • They were also made vulnerable by Russian railroad construction
    • Moltke, 1874: “defense [has] a great advantage…”
    • “We cannot expect rapid and decisive victories” suggests a LOT of introspection.  But is his a minority view? 
  • 181: was Schlieffen meant to be a blueprint for a knockout or the plan to win the first few battles of a protracted war?
  • German stockpiles of ammunition and shells were woefully inadequate. 
  • “military and civilian  leaders agreed on almost all elements of prewar decisionmaking and policy. “ What about the ammo?

General view of the crisis dynamics

• German leaders lost control of their military; ushered in a conflict that it neither expected nor wanted.  
• Three key claims: German leaders tried to avert war when they realized that they could not rely on British neutrality; Germany was compelled to start a preemptive war because of fear of a Russian or French attack; German political leaders failed to avert war because they caved under relentless pressure from German military leaders. 
• Leiber argues that this was merely a golden opportunity for German leaders to start the war they wanted. 
• Moltke not particularly surprised that Britain would fight alongside
  France. 
• Basic goal of Germans: to maneuver Russians and French into striking first blow. 
• German removed a line stating that mobilization would mean war.  (They didn’t want to unduly scare the Russians).  That seems well-reasoned (187).