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WORLD WAR Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson General Editor: John Keegan ...
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THE FIRST WORLD WAR ~.:: . ~ ~i . l.-
THE FIRST
WORLD WAR Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson General Editor: John Keegan
1..
-
CASSELL
For Grahame R.P. For Lucy, Harriet and small Ben, top grandchildren; and for Nirej, Mark and Tim, companions in table tennis.
T.W.
First published in Great Britain 1999 by Cassell, Wellington House, 125 Strand, London WC2R OBB www.cassell.co.uk Text copyright © Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, 1999 The moral right of the authors has been asserted. Design and layout copyright © Cassell The picture credits on p. 224 constitute an extension to this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this title may be reproduced or transmitted in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission should be addressed to the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data ISBN: 0-304-352-56X Cartography: Arcadia Editions Picture research: Elaine Willis Design: Paul Cooper Design Typeset in Monotype Sabon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance and encouragement they have received from their colleagues in the History Departments at University College, Australian Defence Academy, and the University of Adelaide. In preparing the typescript for publication Elizabeth Greenhalgh has been, as always, indispensable. In this area many thanks are also due to Robyn Green, Julie McMahon and Julie Cassell. At our publishers, our editor Penny Gardiner has applied her expertise, patience, and wisdom to produce many improvements to the text and format of the book. No editor could have been more pleasant to work for. Finally, and above all, the authors wish to thank their wives, Heather and Jane, for enduring another book on the First World War with their customary critical interest and good humour. Robin Prior Trevor Wilson
Forward post in a German sap on the Galician front, 1916.
CONTENTS - - -...--::~:==:- ...:@:.~~~:+-I ......- - -
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS MAP LIST CHRONOLOGY
5 9 10
First thoughts The variety of historical explanation Making a choice
CHAPTER
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER 3 PERIPHERIES The expanding conflict Action in the Pacific The war in Africa Gallipoli Mesopotamia and Palestine Summing up the sideshows
5
3°
5°
Choices The V-boat campaign E~it Russia Nivelle's day Third Ypres Cambrai Caporetto Gains and losses
CHAPTER 2 The limits on choice Falkenhayn's dilemma The Eastern Front in profile Germany strikes east Italy to war The elimination of Serbia Anglo-French decision-making Travail on the Western Front The limits of accomplishment
4
19 17
The plans of war The plans in action The onset of stalemate The persistence of stalemate
19 15
19 16
Germany faces west The Entente makes decisions Supplying the armies Verdun Brusilov The Somme End of the day
INTRODUCTION THE COMING OF WAR
19 14
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
19 18
13°
6 160
Culmination Germany's options Ludendorff's choice: the east Ludendorff's choice: the west Midway The great reversal Other fronts
CONCLUSION THE PEACE SETTLEMENT AND BEYOND 200 Reconsideration The issue of compensation Disappointments and accomplishments The failure of enforcement Final thoughts BIOGRAPHICA~
TAILS
21 4
FURTHER REAf)I
218
INDEX
220
PICTURE CREDITS
224
KEY TO MAPS
Military units - types
General military symbols
~
infantry
-XXXXX-army group boundary
~
armoured
-xxxx-army boundary
[§]
motorized infantry
............
front line
EJ
airborne
V'I'
defensive line
~
parachute
~
defensive line (3D mapsl
[!J
artillery
~
field work
a
Military units - size XXXXX
CJ
~
paratroop drop
.JtL
sunken ship
corps
ttJ
xx
CJ
field gun
army
xxx
CJ
-%-
army group
XXXX
CJ
pocket or position
division
airfield
x
CJ
brigade
Geographical symbols
.,
III
CJ
regiment
urban area
II
CJ
battalion
road railway
Military unit colours
•
Allied
D
German
river seasonal river
British
canal border French
:==: Austro-Hungarian Russian
D
Italian
Military movements attack
-r
retreat air attack
bridge or pass
MAP LIST 20-21
I.
BRITISH, FRENCH AND GERMAN COLONIAL EMPIRES, 1914
2.
THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN, 1914
36
3·
THE GERMAN INVASION, I AUGUST - 9 SEPTEMBER 1914
36
4·
BATTLE OF THE MARNE, 5-10 SEPTEMBER 1914
37
5·
THE EASTERN FRONT, 1914
42
6.
THE EASTERN FRONT, 1915: MASURIA, 7-18 FEBRUARY 1915;
54-5
GORLICE-TARNOW, MAY-JUNE 1915 7·
55 60-61
THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, 1915-18: THE TRENTINO OFFENSIVE, MAY-jUNE 1916;
60
THE ISONZO BATTLES, JUNE 1915 - SEPTEMBER 1917;
60
CAPORETTO, 24 OCTOBER - 12 NOVEMBER 1917;
61
VITTORIO VENETO, 24 OCTOBER - 3 NOVEMBER 1918
61
8.
THE BALKANS: I: 1914-18; II: SEPTEMBER-NoVEMBER 1918
63
9·
THE WESTERN FRONT, 1915
69
10.
GALLIPOLI, 1915
84-5
II.
GALLIPOLI: SUVLA BAY, 1915
88-9
12.
THE MIDDLE EAST, 1914-18
92
13·
PALESTINE, OCTOBER 1917 - OCTOBER 1918
93
14·
BATTLE OF VERDUN, FEBRUARY-jUNE 1916
15·
THE EASTERN FRONT, 4 JUNE - 15 SEPTEMBER 1916
16.
BATTLE OF THE SOMME, JULy-NOVEMBER 1916
120-21
17·
ARRAS AND VIMY RIDGE, APRIL 1917
140 -4 1
18.
OPERATION ALBERICH, 9 FEBRUARY - 18 MARCH 1917
19·
THE NIVELLE OFFENSIVE, 16-19 APRIL 1917
20.
PASSCHENDAELE, JULy-NOVEMBER 1917;
10 4-5 114
BATTLE OF MESSINES, JUNE 1917
14 2 14 2 -3 15 1 15 1
21.
OPERATION MICHAEL, 21 MARCH - 4 APRIL 1918
17 2 -3
22.
THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE, APRIL-JULY 1918:
17 8 -9
OPERATION GEORGETTE, 9-29 APRIL 1918
17 8 -9
OPERATION BLUCHER-YORCK, 27 MAY - 18 JULY 1918
179
23·
ALLIED ADVANCE, 8-25 AUGUST 1918
18 4
24·
UNITED STATES INVOLVEMENT IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR, 1917-18
188
25·
THE MEUSE-ARGONNE OFFENSIVE, 26 SEPT - II Nov 1918
18 9
26.
ALLIED ADVANCE, SEPTEMBER-NoVEMBER 1918
19 6
27·
ADVANCE TO VICTORY, 5 OCTOBER - II NOVEMBER 1918
197
28.
THE PEACE SETTLEMENTS IN EUROPE FROM 1919
20 3
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
CHRONOLOGY 1914 June 28
Aug 7
Liege captured by
the Masurian Lakes
Germans.
and driven off
Aug 11-25
Alsace-Lorraine and
Ferdinand, is
is repulsed with huge losses. Aug 16
at Sarajevo (then part
Force completes disembarkation in
empire).
France.
Germany gives
Aug 20
support to
Aug 3
Siege of Tsingtao by Japanese begins.
Oct 10
Antwerp surrenders to the Germans.
Oct 29
Turkey enters the
German troops enter
war on the German
Brussels.
side.
German armies on
Oct-Nov
First Battle of Ypres,
the right of their line
as Germans in the west make
decide to take action
forces all the way to
unsuccessful thrust
against Serbia.
the River Marne.
for the Channel
Austria-Hungary
ports.
Austria-Hungary
Aug 25
NovS
declares war on
launches campaign in
Serbia.
Galicia.
Basra in
French fortress of
Mesopotamia.
Russia mobilizes in
Aug 26
support of Serbia.
Maubeuge
German ultimatum
surrounded. Aug 26
Germany declares Aug 26-31
German forces in
Nov 7
British forces land at
Japanese capture Tsingtao.
Dec 20
French attack
Togoland surrender.
inconclusively in
Russian northern
Champagne but
German ultimatum
army invades East
persist in
to Belgium.
Prussia and is
maintaining the
Germany invades
defeated at
offensive until
Belgium, France
Tannenberg.
March 1915.
Aug 27
in accordance with the Schlieffen
Sept 3
Plan. Britain declares war
Sept 5-10
on Germany in response to Germany's refusal to
10
Sept 23
drive French-British
and Luxembourg
Aug 4
of Serbia.
should its rulers
war on Russia. Aug 2
Austrians driven out
Austria-Hungary
to Russia. Aug 1
Aug 23-30
German soil. Sept 15
British Expeditionary
of the Austrian
assurances of
July 31
French army invades
Archduke Franz assassinated by
July 30
Russians defeated at
the throne of
Bosnian nationalists
July 28
Sept 9-14
The heir to Austria-Hungary,
July 6
Belgian fortress of
Sept 8
Germans capture Lille.
1915
Russians counter-
Jan-Feb
Carpathian
attack in Galicia.
campaigns by
Germans defeated at
Austro-Hungarians
the Battle of the
and Russians end
Marne.
indecisivel):
Austrians invade
Turks repulsed in
Jan 26
withdraw from
Serbia for the second
attack on Suez
Belgium.
time.
Canal.
CHRONOLOGY
Feb 19 March 10
March 22
Naval attack on the
Sept 25
Allied offensive in
attack on the left
Small-scale British
Champagne.
bank of the Meuse at
success at Neuve
British forces in
Chapelle.
Mesopotamia
Austrian fortress of Oct6
surrenders to
besieged by the Turks for several months,
Austria-Hungary
surrender.
and Bulgaria invade
Germans launch gas
Serbia
April 25
Allies land in Gallipoli to facilitate
Austrians.
Brusilovoffensive
Oct 8
End of the British
against Austro-
Oct 9
British and French
Nov 16
Gorlice-Tarnow in May 8
Nicaragua declares
May 9
French attack in
war on Artois.
June 3
Dec 19
Przemsyl captured by
Lord Kitchener
Salonika.
is torpedoed en route
End of French action
to Russia. June 18
Last German forces
Allies decide to
in Cameroon
evacuate Gallipoli
surrender. June 24
Defeated Serbian army evacuated to
Italy enters the war
Hungarians. June 5
drowns when his ship
peninsula. Nov 27
Commencement of
forces land at
in the Champagne. Nov 23
German~
on Allied side.
June 4
action at Loos.
German offensive
Galicia.
Austrian offensive in the Trentino.
Belgrade captured by
Constantinople. breaks through at
May 14
Oct7
projected British naval attack on
British forces at Kut,
Germany,
Russians. attack at Ypres.
Verdun. April 29
capture Kut.
April 22
May 23
Germans commence
Artois and in
Przemysl in Galicia
May 2
April 10
Dardanelles begins.
Limit of German advance at Verdun.
July 1
Opening of Anglo-
Corfu.
French campaign on
Sir John French is
the Somme.
replaced as British
July 14
Major British attack
the Central Powers.
commander-in-chief
on the Somme
June 16
End of the French
in the west by Sir
captures sections of
offensive in Artois.
Douglas Haig.
June 23
First battle on the
July 9
Isonzo between
1916
Italians and Austro-
Jan 8-9
Surrender of German
Gallipoli campaign. Feb 21
Feb 26
British launch last
Romania enters the war on Allies' side.
Aug 28
General Maude takes command in
Germans attack French fortress
Germans enter Warsaw.
Aug 6
British evacuate Helles, ending the
Africa. Aug 5
Aug 27
Hungarians begins. forces in South-West
German main defensive line.
Mesopotamia. Aug 29
Hindenburg and
system at Verdun.
Ludendorff assume
Germans capture
command in
Fort Douaumont, a
German~
major attempt to
key fortress of
overrun Gallipoli
Verdun's defences.
first time in warfare
Russian offensive at
in British operation
Lake Naroch.
on the Somme.
Peninsula, without success.
March 18
Sept 15
Tanks used for the
II
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Oct 24
French counter-
April 16-20
Nivelle offensive
Nov 19
against the Germans
Nov 18
British operations on
in Champagne
Nov 20
the Somme end.
reduces French army
Dec9
Nov 19
Allied forces capture
to mutiny (29 April).
Monastir in Balkan Dec6
Central Powers and Romania.
June 7
British attack in the
by Austro-German
Ypres salient captures
1918
forces.
Messines Ridge.
Jan 8
Lloyd George
June 18
Kerensky offensive.
becomes British
June 29
General Allenby
Germany announces submarine
July 31 Sept 3
German forces in
President Wilson issues 14 Points.
March 3
Treaty of BrestLitovsk imposed
assumes command of
warfare.
British forces in
by Germany on
Palestine.
Russia.
Third Battle of Ypres
March 21
Ludendorff
commences.
offensive against
Germans capture
British in Somme regIon.
Riga. Sept 20-0ct 4 Three successful
March 26
Doullens conference appoints Foch to
the West commence
limited objective
withdrawal to
operations conducted
command of
Hindenburg Line.
by General Plumer in
French and British
Kut recaptured by
the Third Ypres
armies on the
British forces.
campaIgn.
Western Front.
March 11
British enter
March 12
First Russian
Oct 24
Italian defeat at
Oct 27
Allenby commences
Revolution. German retreat to
March 27
German troops enter
April 9
Germans attack
Ukraine.
Caporetto.
Baghdad.
March 14
Armistice between
in-chief.
unrestricted
Feb 24
Dec 10
French commander-
1917
Feb 23
Allenby captures Jerusalem.
Romanian capital,
Prime Minister.
Jan 31
Petain becomes
Battle of Cambrai.
offensive. Bucharest, captured
Dec7
May 15
Clemenceau becomes French premier.
attack at Verdun.
against British in
battle for Gaza. Oct 29
Austro-Germans
the Hindenburg Line
continue advance
Flanders. April 12
Haig issues 'Backs to
begins.
from Caporetto and
the Wall' message.
March 15
Tsar abdicates.
capture Udine.
German troops
April 6
United States
Bolshevik seizure of
occupy Helsinki.
Nov 7
declares war against German~
April 9
German troops enter Crimea.
April 24
Germans resume
April 25
British and
General Diaz takes
advance on Amiens.
enjoys brief
over command of the
success, including
Italian army from
Australian troops
the capture of Vimy
General Cadorna.
halt German advance
Third Ypres
on Amiens at Villers-
campaign ends.
Bretonneux.
Ridge.
12
Nov 9
April 19
British advance in Palestine.
Opening of British offensive at Arras
April 15
power in Russia. Nov 7
Battle of Arras ends.
Nov 10
CHRONOLOGY
May 26
Georgia and
Sept 14-15
Baku attacked by the
Sept 18
British commence
Armenia declare independence from
June 9 June 15
Germans attack on
the Hindenburg position. Sept 19
Last major action in Peace conference
June 28
Treaty of Versailles
General Franchet
Sept 25
Bulgaria seeks an armistice.
Sept 26
French-American offensive in the
ratify Treaty of
Meuse-Argonne.
Versailles.
Last German Sept 28
Ludendorff informs the Kaiser that an
near Reims.
armistice should be
Conrad sacked as
sought. Oct 1
Damascus falls to the British.
Oct 6
German government
French counter-
makes first attempt
attack on the Marne.
to negotiate an
Aug 4
Small British force
armistice. Oct 8-9 Oct 21
attack at Amiens.
Czechoslovakia declares
British advance in Flanders begins.
Cambrai captured by the British.
Caucasus. British counter-
independence. Oct 24
Italian forces
British advance
commence battle of
across old Somme
Vittorio-Veneto.
battlefield begins.
Oct 26
Ludendorff replaced.
British recapture
Oct 30
Turkey concludes an
Bapaume. Americans launch
armistice. Nov 4
Armistice
offensive at St
concluded with
Mihiel.
Austria-Hungar~
Allies attack
US Senate refuses to
Hindenburg Line.
Western Front begins
occupies Baku in the
Nov 19
Sept 27-0ct 5 British attack; breach
July 18
Sept 14-15
signed.
Combined
d'Esperey appointed
Austro-Hungarian
Sept 12
begins at Paris.
commander-in-chief
forces.
Aug 29
with German~
Jan 4
commander of
Aug 21
Armistice signed
by Allenb~
offensive on the
Aug 18
Nov 11
Italians halt
allied forces at
Aug 8-12
kaiser.
1919
Salonika.
July 16
by the British.
Palestine commenced
Austrians along the
July 15
Abdication of the
Noyon.
Piave. June 18
Nov 9
operations against
the Aisne. Germans attack at
Maubeuge retaken
Germans.
Russia. May 27
Nov 8
Nov 4
Final Allied offensive
Bulgarians at
launched on Western
Salonika.
Front.
13
INTRODUCTION
. . .- - -
- - -.....~::..;..::==::=. ...~.~:==~:r--J
THE COMING OF WAR
THE APPLICATION OF INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY
to the weaponry of war, in a time of international tension;, witnessed the development of huge armaments manufacturers. Shown here is the Krupp factory in Germany in 1909.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
THE COMING OF WAR FIRST THOUGHTS
Few events of the past so tax the historian's powers of explanation as the onset of great wars. This is not, usually, because lines of explanation are lacking. It is because the explanations on offer are so many and varied - not to say contradictory and mutually exclusive. At one time (by way of an example that is not the subject of this book), the outbreak of the Second World War seemed easy to account for. It appeared the self-evident consequence of the unique malevolence and aggressive urges of a single ruler (Adolf Hitler), a single governing force (the Nazi party) and a single nation (Germany). Then, with the appearance in 1961 of A.
J.
P. Taylor's The Origins of the
Second World War, such simplicities vanished. Taylor, with characteristic exuberance, incorporated in his book a startling variety of explanations as to why a European war and then a world war broke out between 1939 and 1941. The assertion which most seized attention, and most excited controversy, was Taylor's argument that the Second World War did not spring from the deliberate intent or lust for conquest of any power or person. It was the result of an accidental conjunction of fortuitous events. At the time he wrote, it may be noted, Taylor was an advocate of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In that capacity he was seeking to refute the widely held view that the possession of nuclear weapons acted as a deterrent to potential aggressors and so prevented wars. Taylor was concerned to demonstrate the contrary: that great wars are caused not by intent or wellestablished plans, but by chance, accident and miscalculation. So, he argued, the Second World War broke out not because any nation intended it but because governments were engaged in familiar games of bluff and brinkmanship. Their intention was to secure advantages at the expense of their neighbours without actually generating conflict. On this occasion, however, the process went wrong. To quote Taylor's riveting judgement, war erupted in September 1939 because Adolf Hitler 'launched on 29 August a diplomatic manoeuvre which he ought to have launched on 28 August'. Curiously, this is not the only level of explanation offered in The Origins of
the Second World War. Taylor also locates the onset of that conflict well back in history: in the long-standing animosity between France and Germany, and not least in the ambiguous and unresolved outcome of the Great War of 1914-18 - an outcome encapsulated in the plainly unsustainable Treaty of Versailles of 1919. At the same time, Taylor apparently reverts to a judgement he had once held forcefully but seemed now to be abandoning. He proclaims that the Second World War - certainly as a world war - was solely the result of Hitler's and Germany's unprovoked and gratuitous acts of aggression. In this third view, r6
THE COMING OF WAR
Hitler without cause unleashed his forces against 'two World Powers' (the Soviet Union and the USA) 'who asked only to be left alone'. The point might be made that these lines of argument, being at best inconsistent and for the most part flatly contradictory, scarcely belong in a single work of historical explanation. But that was not, overall, the response to The
Origins of the Second World War. Rather, it has been assumed that an event as cataclysmic as a world conflict requires explanations that are multi-faceted, located on different planes, and even mutually exclusive. No doubt this willingness to entertain what appeared to be Taylor's leap into complexity, uncertainty, and - dare one say it? - downright nonsense had been well prepared for. It followed from the bewildering range of explanations which had come forth to account for the onset of a previous great conflict. That conflict was the Great War of 1914-18, which does happen to be the subject of this book. THE VARIETY OF HISTORICAL EXPLANATION
From the moment of its outbreak, dispute has attended the matter of responsibility for the coming of war in 1914. As against the simplistic views proclaimed by the warring governments, namely that battle was the consequence of aggression by one power or group of powers, quite different explanations were soon being offered. Early in the war, a Russian political exile living in Switzerland delivered the judgement that the international explosion was the product of large economic forces embodied in the capitalist system. In his view, the militant imperialism which capitalism, by its very nature, had generated led inexorably to this bloodbath. At a quite different level, the view was strongly asserted, again while the conflict raged, that the war was the responsibility not of peoples or of economic forces but of the 'old diplomacy'. That is, a clique of unelected permanent officials in the foreign offices of the various powers had, wilfully or unintentionally, worked great evil. They had bound the countries of Europe into a system of competing alliances that left no freedom of choice or room for manoeuvre when a particular quarrel erupted in one remote region. Where otherwise such a dispute could have been contained,_ the alliance obligations of the powers dragged first one nation and then another into a Europe-wide maelstrom. Other explanations soon emerged and gained endorsement. War was seen as the irresistible product of fears and enmities generated by changes in the established power balance within Europe. From 1870 Germany had grown in population and economic strength to the disadvantage - and resentment - of its neighbours. And during the same period nationalistic Balkan states, often patronized by Russia, had shaken off the shackles of Turkey and were threatening the multi-national basis of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Another view locates the source of the Great War in the internal instability of 17
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
established regimes threatened by powerful discontent at home. In this view, ruling elites whose hold on power was becoming contested by the aspirations of an alienated proletariat or militant feminists or ethnic minorities chose to provoke external conflict as a means of allaying pressures within. More recently, this type of argument has transformed itself into another, which explains international violence as the emanation of a profound sense of disempowerment among the masses within advanced industrial societies. That is, the dispossessed of one nation, instead of directing their wrath against the exploiting classes within their own countries, developed a paranoid antipathy towards imagined enemies beyond their borders. This rendered them responsive when their national leaders summoned them to arms. Such wide-ranging, 'in-depth' explanations have not won universal endorsement. Reference may again be made to A. J.
~
Taylor in his eND phase.
Drastically revising his earlier (Course of German History) views about the causes of the Great War - as he was doing simultaneously for the causes of the Second World War - he concluded that large events such as those of July-August 1914 need not have been the product of large antecedents. They may have sprung from a succession of trivialities: chance, accident, diplomatic manoeuvres that went awry, declarations of war that were intended as bluff rather than as a determination to prosecute conflict, and plans for war mobilization that placed military movements outside human dictates and at the beck and call of railway timetables. Europe, Taylor proclaimed, was as peaceful in 1914 as at any time in the preceding
half-centur~ But
fortuitous events and diplomatic misjudgements
took over, deterrents failed to deter, and mobilization schemes designed to preserve the integrity of nations swept Europe into self-destruction. MAKING A CHOICE
How do we deal with this bewildering range of proffered explanations for the outbreak of the First World War? One thing is not possible. These varied accounts cannot be merged into a single all-encompassing explanation. If we see the war as the product of deliberate predatory intent on the part of the rulers of one great power, then chance and accident and developments in transportation are not significant. If we regard the war as springing from the imperatives of capitalism in its most advanced state, then it is pointless to invoke the ambitions and fears of less-developed countries like Russia and Austria-Hungary, or the instability generated by developments in the Balkans. If we wish to view the war as the product of a great psychological upheaval undergone by the masses of western Europe passing through the agonies of industrialization, then it hardly matters what the diplomats were up to or what agreements they had surreptitiously entered into. Somehow, forms of explanation must be assessed so as to eliminate those with insufficient substance and to test the potency of those that remain. One thing had better be said at the outset. War occurs because the great mass 18
THE COMING OF WAR
of human beings are prepared, at least in certain circumstances, to regard the resort to arms as an acceptable proceeding. They may wish to enrich their communities, and so enhance their own self-esteem, by engaging in predatory acts at the expense of their neighbours. Or they may only be prepared to engage in battle to resist what appears to be the aggression and violence of others. Either way, a deliberate choice for war is being made. In that respect, even 'little Belgium' helped to cause war in 1914. If Belgium had lain down and allowed the German army to overrun its territory, the consequences for the Belgian people could well have been profoundly unpleasant. But the clash of armies would not have been among them. Such generalities remind us that war is located in human nature. But they do not answer the particular questions. In the circumstances of 1914, were some nations engaging in acts of aggression, and if so under what compulsions, while others were seeking only to preserve their territorial integrity against attack (an attack which they may, or may not, have done something to provoke)? Or were all nations, or anyway the principal nations on both sides, contributors to a state of international disharmony so intense that it boiled over - perhaps for trivial reasons - into active conflict? As a first step in resolving these matters, it is appropriate to set aside as
Although carefully keeping itself outside the system of rival alliances, Belgium did not manage to escape involvement in the conflict. German troops enter Antwerp on 9 October 1914.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
downright unsatisfactory some of the explanations for the coming of war which have been referred to. One among them is the Leninist view which regards capitalist imperialism, in the form of rivalry in the colonial field conducted by state instrumentalities for the benefit of the possessing classes, as the pre-eminent force generating international conflict in 1914. What Lenin was accounting for was conflict between Britain and Germany, the two most industrialized powers, which he postulated were bound to come to blows on account of their increasingly desperate struggle for markets and raw materials. Nothing about the actual course of events bears this out. Plainly Britain's colonial rivalry with France and Russia, neither of which was anywhere near the highest stage of
EUROPE'S IMPERIAL POSSESSIONS IN 1914
The world-wide distribution of European colonies and often their proximity led to the conflict spreading to such unlikely areas as the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. So, because of these minor skirmishes, what was essentially a European war became known as a world war.
Gambia-
Port Guinea-
SOl