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Mobilization and Inadvertence in the July Crisis
- International Security
- The MIT Press
- Volume 16, Number 1, Summer 1991
- pp. 189-203
- Article
- Additional Information
Correspondence Mobilization and Inadvertence in the July Crisis To the Editors. Jack S. Levy Thomas J. Christensen Marc Trachtenberg Marc Trachtenberg’s recent article makes an important contribution both to our understanding of the origins of World War I and to some larger theoretical debates for which the July 1914 crisis is a particularly important case.’ By arguing that political and military leaders fully understood the implications of the military mobilization plans in 1914, that the politicians did not capitulate to the generals, and that decisions for war resulted from the deliberate calculations of political leaders rather than from their loss of control over events, Trachtenberg poses a serious challenge to the commonly-held view of World War I as an inadvertent war.2Trachtenberg also forces us to rethink our understanding of the widely-acknowledged German policy shift on the evening of July 29-30, when German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg abandoned his long-standing pressure on Austria to invade Serbia, and demanded that Vienna accept great power mediation and a favorable negotiated settlement in order to avoid war. Trachtenberg argues that Bethmann reversed his policy in response to news of the imminent Russian partial mobilization rather than to a warning from British Foreign Secretary Grey that Britain would not stand aside in a continental war. If correct, this argument, in conjunction with Trachtenberg’s assertion that Bethmann had never been confident of British neutrality, would undermine the hypothesis that if Britain had made an earlier commitment to intervene on the side of France and Russia, this would have induced German leaders to restrain their Austrian ally, and a world war could have been avoided, at least for a while. These historical issues are important for theoretical debates regarding the spiral model, the deterrence model, and inadvertent war.3 lack S. Levy is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University Thomas I. Christensen is an SSRCiMacArthur Fellow in Ziiternational Peace and Security and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University. Marc Trachtenberg is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania 1. Marc Trachtenberg, “The Meaning of Mobilization in 1914,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 120-150. Subsequent references to this article appear in parentheses in the text. I thank Jack Snyder, Ed Rhodes, and Roy Licklider for their helpful comments. 2. A classic statement of the ”inadvertent war” interpretation is Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Dell, 1962). See also the citations in Trachtenberg, ”The Meaning of Mobilization ,’’ pp. 120-124. 3. On the possibilities of effective British deterrence of Germany in 1914, see Sean M. LynnJones , “Detente and Deterrence: Anglo-German Relations, 1911-1914,” Znterizational Security, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall 1986), pp. 142-145; Scott D. Sagan, ”1914 Revisited,” International Security, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall 1986), pp. 166-171; Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. Isabella Intrrnnfional Security, 5ummer 1991 (Vol 16, No 1) 01991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 189 International Security I N O Trachtenberg is correct to emphasize the importance of the deliberate calculations of political leaders rather than their loss of control over events in July 1914, but he goes too far in suggesting that there was no element of inadvertence in the processes leading to World War I. In particular, Trachtenberg is incorrect, first, to suggest that Bethmann assumed all along that Britain would enter the war, and second, to downplay the impact of Grey’s warning on July 29. I have already argued at some length that German political leaders not only hoped for but in fact expected British neutrality throughout the ~risis;~ that their preference for a local war in the Balkans over a negotiated peace and their willingness to risk a continental war against Russia and France were contingent upon this assumpti~n;~ and that only when this premise became untenable on July 29 did Bethmann reverse course and pressure Austrian leaders for restraint and negotiations based on the Halt-in-Belgrade plan.6 My aim here is to demonstrate that, contrary to Trachtenberg’s argument, Bethmann ’s policy shift on July 29-30 resulted...