The origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and military documents by Anika Mombauer (review)

Anika Mombauer is an authority on the origins and opening phases of the First World War. She has authored Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2001); The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus (Longman, 2002); and Die Julikrise. Europas Weg in den Ersten Weltkrieg (C.H. Beck Verlag, Munich, 2014).

The origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and military documents complements Mombauer’s earlier scholarship on the path to war and the conflict’s outbreak. The collection is arranged in two sections. Part I includes source material from 1911-1914, the period of “avoided wars.” Part II covers the July Crisis of 1914 and the onset of war. In both parts, the documents are organized chronologically into chapters. Each of the four chapters in Part I covers one calendar year (1911 through 1914), while the documents in Part II are organized in seven chapters that follow the complex decision-making threads leading from the first moments after Franz Ferdinand’s death to the first shots of the war. While there may have been other ways to organize the documents—by nation or region for example—Mombauer’s arrangement is most suitable, as it underscores the cumulative impact of decisions and reactions as the crisis evolved from the diplomatic realm to the battlefield.

Mombauer’s selections come from official or archival collections, as well as published memoirs, diaries, and letters. Some of the documents in the selection are familiar, while others have only recently been rediscovered since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The documents give voice to a broad range of speakers. Many of them were prominent political or military leaders from the major powers; others came from smaller states, and will be lesser known to most English-speaking readers.

Beyond her editing and translation work, Mombauer has added considerable value to the documents with a general introduction on the historiography of the First World War’s origins, as well as shorter introductory remarks at the beginning of Parts I and II. She opens each chapter with a brief contextual statement. And at the top of each document, Mombauer names the relevant historical actors (speaker, recipient, or audience, as applicable), and summarizes the essential content of the document in a few words. Understandably, in the interests of brevity, Mombauer does not attach biographical information to historical actors in each document. Instead, she has included a glossary of names that includes key information such as nationality, rank, appointment, and term of service. Readers will need to look elsewhere for further contextual information on the historical actors however.

In sum this selection of documents illuminates a series of significant controversial issues. Among the most important of these, we see how decision-makers in Berlin and Vienna came to view Franz Ferdinand’s assassination as a timely pretext for war (178, 185, 192-193). Some of the documents help to clarify France’s ambiguous role in the July crisis. We find clear evidence, for example, that the French were determined to stand firm behind Russia as Nicholas II ordered general mobilization (pp. 463-465). From a transnational perspective, it also emerges that military staffs across Europe tended to push their civilian leaders toward mobilization, despite misgivings that it would provoke war (pp. 458-459, 483).

This collection of documents will be useful to specialists in diplomatic and military history of the First World War period, as well as instructors and students who seek convenient access to a cross-section of primary material on the origins of First World War.