Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914

1 o n July 23, 1914, the Habsburg monarchy of Austria-Hungary presented an ultimatum to the neighboring kingdom of Serbia that was designed to be unacceptable.' The fundamental issue in the international crisis that followed was whether the Austro-Serbianstandoffwould trigger a showdown between the two great European blocs: the Central Powers of Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the Triple Entente of Russia, France, and Britain.' The events of 1914remain a crucial test for any theory of the origins of modern wars, and pivotal among the issues that they raise is that of how far technical military considerations determine security policy. With this in mind, scholars have focused their attention on the thesis propounded at the time by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, namely, that the July 1914 crisis got "out of David Stevenson is Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of French War Aims against Germany, 1914-1919 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2982),The First World War and International Politics (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2988), Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2996), and The Outbreak of the First World War: 1914 in Perspective (Busingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 2997). I should like to thank the three anonymous readers of this article. Their constructive comments were extremely beneficial. 1. This article uses the following abbreviations: BD: George P. Gooch and Harold W. Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 2898-2924, 11 vols. (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office [HMSO],1928-36); CGS Chief of the General Staff; DDK: Maximilian Montgelas and Walther Schiicking, eds., Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, 2924, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Berlin:Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaftfiir Politik und Geschichte,1926);EMA: Etat-majorde l'armhe (French General Staff); FO: Foreign Office; GGS Grosser Generalstab (Prussian Great General Staff); GP: Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,and Friedrich Thimme, eds., Die Grosse Politik der Europuischen Kabinette, 2872-2914, 40 vols. (Berlin:Verlagsgesellschaft fiir Politik und Geschichte, 1922-27); HHStA: Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna; KAM: Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv-Militararchiv, Munich; KAW: Kriegsarchiv, Vienna; PAM: Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn; PRO: Public Record Office, London; and SHA: Service historique de l'armhe de terre, Vincennes, Paris. 2. The Austro-German alliance dated from 1879; the Franco-Russianfrom 1891-94. Britain had no contractual obligations to France and Russia, but cooperated with them diplomatically after compromising over extra-European disagreements in the "ententes" reached with France in 1904 and Russia in 1907. In 1882 Italy had concluded the Triple Alliance treaty with Austria-Hungary and Germany; but as it rarely aligned itself with them in the crises of 1905-14, I normally refer here to the Central Powers rather than the Triple Alliance. International Security,Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer 1997),pp. 125161 0 1997by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 125 lnternational Security 22:1 1 126 contr01.”~ None of the European states, in other words, desired a great war, but they fought one nonetheless because of misperception and miscalculation, because military professionals had excessive influence, and because the imperatives of war preparation overrode those of war avoidance. If this interpretation is correct-as many strategic theorists have assumed-what happened once might happen again, perhaps between nuclear powers. That World War I was in some measure inadvertent was accepted by Luigi Albertini, whose three volumes are the fullest history of its origin^.^ A.J.P. Taylor, in his best-selling history of the conflict, further popularized the notion of a ”war by timetable,” into which all the powers were propelled unwillingly by railway mobilization sched~les.~ In contrast, Fritz Fischer and his followers have insisted that the war was the deliberate outcome of German policy. Although Fischer no longer maintains that the Berlin government had been planning to launch a European war since the so-called War Council of December 8,1912, his research has underlined that elements in the German leadership increasingly viewed one as an option.6Marc Trachtenberg and Jack S. Levy have exposed further evidential and analytical weaknesses in the thesis...