“Everyone’s Favored Year for War—or Not?”

To the Editors (Jack S. Levy writes):

Jack Snyder’s article “Better Now Than Later: The Paradox of 1914 as Everyone’s Favored Year for War” makes an important contribution to scholars’ understanding of World War I. Snyder argues that all of the continental powers were pessimistic about the future, optimistic about the prospects for war in 1914, and influenced by better-now-than-later thinking.¹ The hypothesis that preventive logic strongly influenced German and Austria-Hungarian decisionmaking is familiar,² but the idea that it significantly influenced Russian and French decisionmaking is relatively new. It is also paradoxical. Underlying shifts in power that create incentives for one state to fight sooner rather than later should generate the opposite incentives for its adversary.³ Snyder documents the “puzzle of simultaneous optimism” in 1914 (p. 73), and makes a theoretical contribution by analyzing the utility of a modified bargaining model of war for explaining this puzzle.

I agree with many of Snyder’s arguments about the outbreak of World War I and with his conclusions about the limitations of the standard bargaining model of war.⁴ I do not, however, accept his central thesis that 1914 was “everyone’s favored year for war.” Concerns about the future were countered by fears of a devastating war. None of the European powers wanted a world war, though each was willing to take substantial risks to maintain its influence and avoid a humiliating diplomatic defeat. German political leaders wanted a localized Austro-Serbian war and were willing to accept a larger war with Russia and France, but only if they believed they could avoid a three-front war that included Britain. Although French leaders feared that Russia’s commitment to France might decline as Russian military power continued to grow, Snyder is wrong to conclude that leaders in both St. Petersburg and Paris were eager for war in 1914 (p. 79). Both states had concerns about their military readiness, and both recognized that war would be more risky in 1914 than in two or three years, when Russia would be stronger.

In arguing that an important cause of war in 1914 was that “all of the continental great powers judged it a favorable moment for a fight” (p. 71), Snyder fails to answer the question, “What kind of fight?” Most political and military leaders in 1914 recognized the possibility of several different kinds of war: an Austro-Serbian war that was localized in the Balkans; a continental war resulting from Russian, German, and French intervention in support of their respective allies; and a world war resulting from the intervention of Britain on the side of its Entente partners. For what kind of war was this a favorable moment, and for whom? Snyder’s argument is conceptually ambiguous, because it fails to differentiate among different kinds of war.⁵

In practice, this question of what type of war is not problematic for Russia or France. Given the commitments of Russia to Serbia and France to Russia, and given the Entente with Britain, Russia preferred a world war to a continental war and a continental war to a local war. France would fight alongside Russia regardless of the conditions under which war occurred.⁶ Whether each preferred a world war to a negotiated peace, as entailed by the favorable-moment-for-war hypothesis, is a more interesting question, and I return to it later. The issue of what kind of war, however, is relevant for Austria-Hungary and Germany. Here I focus on Germany.

Given their fears of the rising power of Russia and the continued decline of Austria-Hungary, and influenced by preventive logic,⁷ nearly all German leaders, like their Austrian counterparts, preferred a local war to a negotiated peace, expecting that a crushing victory by the Dual Monarchy over Serbia would end the Serbian threat to the integrity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.⁸ To achieve this goal, they were willing to risk Russian intervention and a continental war. A more widely debated question is whether German leaders preferred a world war to...