Volume I, Issue 1 (Spring, 2015)
ABOUT THE MONUMENT
PHOTO ESSAY: CONCORD NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
The Monument is a biannual publication of history students at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. Articles and essays examine some of the many ways that we examine, remember, and commemorate the past. INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Sudbury Fife and Drum Corps, North Bridge, April 19, 2015. Photo by David Wilson
We examine the historical context of the recent Israeli election, look back at how Merrimack students responded to the Kent St. shooting, speak to History professor Dr. Susan Vorderer, reconsider the historical context of Chaucer, and conclude with a historiographical essay on the origins of World War I. TABLE OF CONTENTS
BY: DAVID WILSON
Concord Photo Essay……….…..1 Interview with Dr. Vorderer…….7
On April 19th, 1775, about 700 British troops marched on the town of Concord, Massachusetts to raid a stockpile of armaments and supplies that American colonists had collected. Under Major-General Francis Smith and Major John Pitcairn, the Regulars made the seventeen-mile trek from Boston Common to Concord, beginning at two am. The signal from the Old North Church in Boston told riders Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott that the British were coming. The British Regulars met the militiamen on the Lexington Battle Green. Here is where the famous “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired by an un(see photo essay, pg. 2)
Review: Anastasia……………….9 Review: Fury…………………...11 Beyond Freedom’s Reach….…...12 Merrimack in History…………..13 Current Events in Context: The Israeli Election of 2015………...14 Research Essay: The Historiography of WWI’s Origins………..16
within Wright’s Tavern across from the green. The militiamen soon realized that they were vastly outnumbered, and the fled down the road to Concord, warning the citizens as they went. Despite Paul Revere’s capture along the Battle Road, the midnight riders were able to warn the Concord Minutemen with enough time for them to prepare for a battle at the Old North Bridge. With the British dressed in their traditional “lobsterback” uniforms, and the colonists in essentially regular, civilian clothes outfitted with powderbags and ammunition sacks, the two parties met on either side of the bridge. The colonists were reinforced by militias from surrounding towns, who marched with a fife and drum corps signaling their loca-
Old North Bridge, Concord, April 19, 2015. Photo By David Wilson
tion to their allies. The Minutemen were dug in on the Buttrick-land side of the bridge, with the regulars on the road side of the bridge. The British troops were commanded by an extremely inexperienced Captain Walter Laurie, and the colonists were led by Colonel James Barrett, who was responsible for the weapon stockpiles that the British were searching for.The British fired first to begin this standoff, killing two colonists. This was the catalyst for the battle, which received the famous response from Major Buttrick, when he ordered his men to “Fire, for God’s sake, fellow soldiers, Fire!” With this return fire, four British soldiers were killed. After a number of volleys back and forth, it was clear to the British regulars that they were vastly outnumbered, and they fell back to the town center, and then retreated back to Boston.
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This was the first colonial victory of the American Revolution, serving as an inspiring morale booster for Americans. The underdog colonists defeating the powerhouse British was unexpected, to say the least, and that energy helped mobilize support for the Patriots early on. While the war would be long and costly, Britain’s eventual recognition of American independence brought with it a wave of pride that swept through the newfound country. This pride lingered into the next century, and indeed is still very present today, reinforced by America’s victories following the Revolution. During the nineteenth century, American society focused a great deal on commemoration of events, erecting monuments all over the country. Two monuments were erected at the Old North Bridge, the first in 1836, and the second on the centennial anniversary of the battle, April 19, 1875. The 1836 Monument is an obelisk that uses somewhat aggressive language towards the British. It stands on the eastern side of the bridge, where the British stood decades before. It was for this memorial’s dedication in 1837 that Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the “Concord Hymn”, most famously reading “By the rude bridge that arched the flood/ Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled/ Here once the embattled farmers stood/ And fired the shot heard round the world.”
With Americans, and particularly Concord residents, still feeling an immense amount of pride for their victory in the first battle of the Revolution, the inscription on the monument does not shy away from the truth about what happened at the bridge, nor does it sugarcoat the deaths of the British who were killed there. The memorial reads, “Here On the 19 of April 1775 was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression On the opposite Bank stood the American Militia Here stood the Invading Army and on this spot the first of the Enemy fell in the War of that Revolution which gave Independence to these United States. In gratitude to GOD and In the love of Freedom this Monument was erected AD 1836."
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The 1875 Monument is possibly one of the most well known monuments in New England, and is often used as a symbol of Massachusetts. It is the logo for the U.S. Army National Guard, and is depicted on the Massachusetts quarter, the U.S. Saving Bonds, and World War II War Bonds. It is a statue sculpted by Daniel Chester French, entitled “Minute Man”. It depicts a colonial farmer holding a plow handle in one hand and a musket in the other. He looks strong, independent, and hardworking- the qualities valued by Americans of the revolutionary era. The statue is constructed out of seven melted-down Civil War cannons. The statue was erected on the centennial anniversary of the battle, along with the centennial bridge, one of five bridges that have stood at the location since the 1760’s. Engraved upon the seven foot high base of the statue is the first stanza of Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”, written thirtyeight years previously. These monuments that were erected in the 1800s and prior boast American pride and British downfall. Indeed, the Americans overthrowing the British crown was inspiring to downtrodden countries across the globe, sparking revolution in France in the 1780’s and all over Europe, perhaps on a smaller scale. The Americans did, in fact, have a lot to boast about, and it was not until the twentieth century that Americans admitted that the fallen British soldiers should be recognized as well. Upon the turn of the twentieth century and America’s strengthening relationship with Britain and the other world powers, Americans felt that the harsh language on the monuments at Concord should be balanced out, since their new allies had once fallen there. This was the motive behind the installation of two plaques on the site. One of the plaques is entitled “Concord Fight” and describes the events that took place on the nineteenth of April, 1775. It tells the story of the brave American colonists who defeated the feared British that day on the North Bridge, recounting the orders given and the lives lost. Unlike the other monuments at this site, however, this plaque ends with a statement bout the current relationship between the Americans and the British. The plaque reads, “On the morning of April Nineteenth, 1775, while the British held this bridge, the minute-men and militia of Concord and neighboring towns gathered on the hill across the river. There the Concord adjutant, Joseph Hosmer, demanded, ‘Will you let them burn the town down?’ There the Lincoln captain, William Smith, offered to dislodge the British, the Acton Captain, Isaac Davis, said, ‘I haven’t a man that’s afraid to go!’ ad the Concord Colonel, James Barrett 4
ordered the attack on the Regulars. The column was led by Major John Buttrick, marching from his own farm. His aide was Lt. Colonel John Robinson of Westford, the Minute-men of Acton, Concord, Lincoln, and Bedford followed, after them came the militia. At the British volley Isaac Davis fell. Buttrick cried, “Fire, fellow soldiers, for God’s sake, fire!’ and himself fired first. The British fled; and here began
the separation of two kindred nations, now happily long united in peace.”The final line of this inscription is one that changes the meaning of Minute Man National Historical Park. The monuments not only represent the Americans who won there, but also the British who lost there. Additionally, the plaque is clear in stating that there is no longer hostility between the United Sates and Britain, and that the two nations are now close allies. It became important to Americans to remember the enemies slain on their land because it was clear that the USA and Britain were becoming strong allies in world powers and it was time to recognize the war between the two. In 1910, four years before the First World War broke out, Concordians believed that it was time to recognize the British lives lost, which resulted in a fourth monument at the site, the Grave of the British soldiers. The massive headstone is placed into a rock wall along the road approaching the bridge from the east. The grave is marked for Thomas Smith and Patrick Gray, the first two soldiers killed at the battle. The headstone is often decorated with British flags, even though the actual bodies are buried about eight feet in front of the grave at the base of the grass section around the obelisk. This grave reads, “They came three thousand miles and died/ To keep the past upon its throne. Unheard beyond the ocean tide, Their English mother made her moan.”
This grave is quite significant because like the Concord fight plaque, it is one of the first in America to acknowledge the death of the enemy at a battle site. The grave is a marker of the improvement in the relationship between Britain and America over the 19th century, offering a tribute in order to balance out for the harm done. It also serves as a sort of peace offering, or truce, or a symbol of a new beginning that is now arguably the most powerful alliance in the world.
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U.S. Army Honor Guard, Participating in Patriots’ Day Commemoration, April 19, 2015. Photo ny David Wilson
Throughout its history, America has been a military powerhouse, and its dominance began at this site in 1775. Along with this power comes respect, and this monument park is a tribute to the lives lost that fateful day in April. Each year on the anniversary, the U.S. Army Honor Guard as well as local militias put on ceremonies reenactments of the battle. April 19th, 1775 has been a monumental day in American history, and Minuteman National Historical Park is a sight worth seeing for anyone who appreciates American history. It commands an immense of respect and sobers any visitors, who recognize the site as the beginning of the revolution that founded America.
Sources consulted:
http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/battledetail.aspx http://www.nps.gov/mima/north-bridge-questions.htm
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‘If not now, when?’: Dr. Vorderer’s Insights on the Journey to Find One’s Passion By: Colleen Baxley and Emely Cardenas We had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Dr. Susan Vorderer, associate professor in the History Department here at Merrimack College. The native Bostonian was kind enough to set aside some time to answer some of our questions. Not always inspired by history, Dr. Vorderer sheds light on what it is like to be a scholar as well as a student. Having attended Tufts University as an undergraduate and Boston College for both her Masters and PhD, Dr. Vorderer, like many students, experimented with her course of study, even having taken a year off to learn Russian. She was a double major in Political Science and History while at Tufts, but it took the right professor and the right time period for Dr. Vorderer to realize her appreciation for history was actually love. Always a good student, Dr. Vorderer admits that she did not always love history. She said that like many students, she had a string of uninspiring teachers, leading her to enter college unsure of her path. Having almost gone to law school, Dr. Vorderer recognizes that she had other career aspirations, but none of them were as engaging as history. While at orientation at Tufts, she was assigned an advisor from the Foreign Languages Department who ordered her to take Survey of Western Civilizations, similar to our European Experience courses at Merrimack. It was this course’s presentation, done in such a way that Dr. Vorderer could only describe the feeling as being as if “a door had been opened” that made her realize that learning can be invigorating. After taking all of the courses that this professor offered, Dr. Vorderer discovered what she hopes to pass on to her students about finding their passion- ‘If not now, then when?’ With this motto in mind, Dr. Vorderer went on to receive her PhD from Boston College, having done her dissertation on Imperial Russia. Dr. Vorderer conducted a study on a small textile town in European Russia (about 150 miles northeast of Moscow), Ivanovo-Voznesensk which specialized in calico cotton. In her dissertation, Dr. Vorderer discusses the phenomenon of “serf millionaires” in which unfree persons created greater incomes than that of the elite whose land or factories they were made to work on. With this in mind, the transition from a textile town to a textile city in which radicalism grew due to capitalistic exploitation of factory owners was also a point of interest within Dr. Vorderer’s dissertation. Working as an academic requires that one is constantly researching and is always striving to obtain new knowledge, and Dr. Vorderer is currently conducting research on Katherine Gertrude Harris, a prominent British woman who travelled to and from St. Petersburg in the 1770s and 1780s. When travelling in London, Dr. Vorderer stumbled upon a series of journals written by Harris, whose brother was ambassador to Russia. Hoping to gain some insight on Russia in this time, Dr. Vorderer was surprised by the amount of detail within the journals on Catherine the Great’s reign in a style that covered more than just the lavish balls and over-the-top gowns. Harris travelled through the countryside seeing Catherine the Great’s “improvements” for the serfs first-hand. Through journaling, this educated British woman expressed her concerns for the working conditions of women workers in the fields and factories. Having immersed herself in Harris’ journals, Dr. Vorderer suggested that investigating this woman’s life was a fun way to experience the period, especially through the lens of a woman with a sharp eye and keen observational skills. Acting as a catalyst in piquing her interest in Russian history was Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She said that reading it was like entering a “world of opulence” that captured the childish romantic side of her. Being a historian and knowing what was to come, whilst being immersed in such a tale, brought with it a bittersweet feeling, like the “sickly sweet smell of decay.” This world was also a spark for her (Continued on page 8)
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love of Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, with whom she would, if given the opportunity, share a drink or even a whole meal. Dr. Vorderer describes the monarch as multifaceted and being “sweet, vicious and intelligent.” She sees Catherine the Great as being a “formidable woman” who is impressive because of her ability to have managed not just to survive in the Russian courts as a disliked German princess, but to also thrive as a true monarch. She is an example of how a woman in the 18th century not only obtained power, but was able to keep it. Her life is also a reminder of the double standard that women faced; she had an impressive but horrible reputation that she likely would not have had if she had been male. It was this interest in Imperial Russia led Dr. Vorderer to pursue a career in sharing her passion with others. While teaching at Merrimack, Dr. Vorderer agrees that she has been lucky enough to be able to stake her claim on the realm of modern Europe within the department. She compares this with that of a larger institution where she would have only been able to teach Russian history. While she says that she loves all of the modern European courses, she admits that her Imperial Russian course has never let her down. The level of interest of the students and the quality of interaction is usually better within the upper level courses. Of course, she says, each year is different and with each new “constellation of students,” a uniqueness is created within each class that continues to make teaching interesting. Dr. Vorderer often uses novels in her courses to present the material in a more personable way. When asked about her favorite piece of fiction to use in a course, she immediately recalled the German novel Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Effi becomes a ‘fallen woman’ when she allows herself to be seduced. Dr. Vorderer describes this novel as a great way to transport students to the 19th century world of limits and expectations uncommon in today’s society. Dr. Vorderer also likes to use the nonfiction work of George Orwell from the 1930s called The Road to Wigan Pier. This investigation into the conditions of Great Britain during their economic depression sheds light on how in a world of plenty, so many communities face difficulties in regards to housing, employment, and other basic means of survival. Dr. Vorderer said that this is a very compelling primary source that presents this time period in an interesting way students rarely see. We can look forward to possibly seeing these two titles in Dr. Vorderer’s upcoming upper level courses in the Fall of 2015, ‘History of Modern Britain’ and ‘20th Century Europe.’ When asked about advice to give to those interested in pursuing history, Dr. Vorderer expressed a desire that we lived in a different environment because on a national level, degrees in history and other humanities have been receiving a bad reputation in the job market. In today’s society, humanities don't sell as well as engineers or other STEM-based careers, making the study look poor in comparison. Few realize that employers won't teach how to think but can teach you what they want you to do. If you study history, you develop the skills to take raw data and make something of it which is a true asset. You are able to synthesize and analyze material and communicate effectively, which are skills that should be celebrated as abilities any job/career would need. Dr. Vorderer suggests that history and humanities majors who hone these skills should to be confident enough to sell oneself well in an interview. The confidence of those who study the humanities always seems to be lower because when looking for work, there is never a calling for history majors specifically. Dr. Vorderer says that if you want to pursue history you need to make sure that you love it because the road is not necessarily delineated. You need to realize what you are getting with history because not only do you know “stuff,” but history can give you such skills that you can do anything with--it gives you something valuable and translatable in a very clear way. After concluding our interview with Dr. Vorderer, we decided to address a rumor swirling around the history department. When asked about her involvement as a Russian spy, Dr. Vorderer was a good sport by admitting that “my secret is out,” and exclaiming “how else could I afford my lavish lifestyle?” We enjoyed our time getting to know the person behind the lecture.
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A STORY FRAUGHT WITH LIES: THE TRUTH BEHIND ANASTASIA By: Colleen Baxley and Emely Cardenas Russian history is fraught with scandal, terror, and confusion. One of the biggest questions in relation to Russian history is based around the circumstances surrounding the death of the Romanov family in 1918. Popular culture was fueled by the scandal surrounding the Russian Royal Family. Such interest was only heightened with Anna Anderson, an American woman claimed to be the long lost Russian princess, Anastasia, until her death in 1984. Though DNA testing in the 1990s proved the woman was a fraud, the possibility of a living heir led to the capitalization of the story by the film industry. In 1997, 20th Century Fox released the animated film Anastasia and while the story is captivating, little is historically correct. Nicholas II, the Tsar from 1894-1917, felt that all of Russia saw him as their ‘little father,’ yet constant fervor towards rebellion haunted his reign. Nicholas and his wife Alexandra, the princess of Hesse, were blessed with four girls, but cursed with being unable to produce a male heir to the Romanov dynasty. After the successful births of Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the Tsarina Alexandra was feeling helpless about producing a male heir. She, therefore, turned to mysticism and found solace in a man from Siberia whom she later named as her spiritual guide. This Siberian, Alexandra’s guide, was a man named Rasputin (Radzinsky, 103). A fear of industrialization, social mobility, and self-consciousness of radicals led Nicholas to retreat from the push towards modernization and find comfort in the occult (Warth, 337). Unfortunately for the Romanovs, rumors began being whispered about their new advisor’s personal life that consisted of a multitude of orgies with many young women as well as an excessive use of alcohol (Radzinsky, 103). Many of Nicholas II’s advisors warned him of Rasputin’s behavior and reputation, but for the sake of his son and heir, Rasputin was allowed to stay in the family’s good graces, acting as a healer to Nicholas’ son, Alexei (107-9). Because of this decision, suspicion and hatred of the Tsarist regime began to rise up, not only in officials, but also in the public (110).
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World War I brought about new challenges for the family. Nicholas II decided that his uncle, the commander-in-chief of the Russian forces, was not winning the war against Germany fast enough, so he claimed the position for himself in 1915. This act made Nicholas II solely responsible for any military failure (148). With Nicholas II at battle, Alexandra was put in charge of domestic affairs. Being from Hesse, many thought Alexandra was either a German spy or sympathizer, leading to public concern. Along with this fear, Russians felt that Rasputin too heavily influenced Alexandra. Rasputin began using his hold over Alexei’s condition to have certain men ap-
pointed as ministers, providing him with an inside man to the inner workings of Russian politics (14951). Even the tsar’s extended family feared the influence Rasputin had over Alexandra and Nicholas II. These concerns led to the assassination of Rasputin in 1916 by the tsar’s cousin Grand Duke Dmitri and the extremely wealthy husband to the tsar’s niece, Felix Yusupov in an attempt to save the dynasty from ruin (163). Nicholas II exiled his relatives for the murder but the belief that Rasputin controlled the tsar and his family had already become widespread. The Romanov family could not rehabilitate their reputation and in 1917 the tsar was deposed.
(Continued on page 10)
Events leading up to World War I such as the Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday, and the 1905 Rebellion also led to the formation and mobilization of revolutionaries in Russia. The tsar’s family life set the tone for his reign. Suspicion and hatred led to the decision to murder the autocrats in Russia. By 1918, the entire Romanov dynasty was killed by the Bolshevik resistance. Evidence surrounding the murders was scarce, leading to many conspiracy theories regarding the fate of the family. Three of the children were believed to have survived the onslaught of the Bolsheviks. Anastasia and Alexei were the most prominent of these rumored survivors. In the Disney film version of the Romanov’s story, Meg Ryan and John Cusack lend their voices as Princess Anastasia and a servant boy turned con artist for the animated interpretation of the rumors surrounding the mysterious deaths of the last Russian dynasty. Under the guise of a children’s movie, 20th Century Fox explored the mysticism and scandal that encompassed the fall of Imperial Russia. The film accurately displays the hysteria surrounding the questionable fate of the Romanov family while trying to appeal to children; however, the movie fails to take into account the full history of the last Russian monarch. The film opens on a scene depicting a Grand Ball held by the Romanovs. The year is supposedly 1916 and the 300th anniversary of the Romanov line is being celebrated. The biggest issue with this piece is that the Winter Palace had been vacated by the royal family long before, and the last time that it had been used in celebration was in 1903. Furthermore, the 300th anniversary of the Romanov family would have been in 1913 since Michael I, the first Romanov, came to power in 1613. The movie also claims that Anastasia, born on June 18, 1901, was eight years old during this celebration, but in reality was 15 in 1916. In addition to this, the Romanovs were not in the palace when the February Revolution occurred and actually survived for some time after it. The film implies the immediate death of the
royal family due to the rising up of the Russian public against the Tsar under the evil influence of Rasputin. The film then jumps to 1926, making Anastasia 18 and leaving an orphanage with the intention of going to St. Petersburg. In reality, at this point in history, St. Petersburg had been renamed Petrograd in 1914 at the start of WWI and then renamed Leningrad in 1924. The name change was an effort to sound more Russian and less European further separating the Bolsheviks from the tsarist regime. 20th Century Fox succeeds in suggesting the involvement of a strict Communist regime through the use of the color red, the sickle and hammer, a soldier in the Soviet uniform, the mechanization of society via song and dance, and also the change of passport ink color from blue to red. Despite the film’s major inaccuracies, it is not without its minor offenses, one of which is the role of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Anastasia’s grandmother. Anastasia survives in the film with the help of her grandmother. Unfortunately, the Dowager Empress makes it on the train and Anastasia is unable to make it aboard. It is then implied that her grandmother goes and lives in Paris following the death of the rest of the family. In reality she first went to London and then later made her way back to her homeland of Denmark. While it is understandable why Paris--a wellknown city that a younger audience may better recognize--was chosen as the European city featured as the family’s place of reunion, it is not historically correct. The most notable discrepancy between the movie and history would be the character of Rasputin. In the opening scenes at the Grand Ball, it is made to seem as though Rasputin was evil, had magical powers and was a traitor to the Romanov family. The film also accuses Rasputin of being the main cause of the downfall of the Tsarist regime, and the death of the Romanovs. In reality, Rasputin was very loyal to the family and it was the combina-
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tion of decisions made by the Tsar that turned the people against him and, in turn, caused the end of the Romanov line. The only characteristic with any possible legitimacy is Rasputin’s possession of magical powers. He had always been considered to be one of the most mysterious men in history, and the most notable reason behind this is his perceived immortality. The Tsar’s nephew decided to kill Rasputin, and first tried to poison the mystic. Then when the poison did not work, they beat and chased him through the Yusupov Palace down towards the Neva River. They shot him and finally threw Rasputin in a river tied to a stone. Later on, Rasputin’s autopsy revealed that he did not die of the poison or the gunshot wounds, but from the drowning. Obviously, while not immortal as the film shows, there are some historic facts that point to possible extraordinary traits attributed to the occult.
20th Century Fox took artistic license with their movie to appeal to a younger audience, as many movies do. However, the artistic license taken with Anastasia blurs the facts enough to skew the true nature of the story. 20th Century Fox’s tale of the demise of the Romanov Dynasty turns historical fact into just that, a tale. Works Consulted::Newman, Sarah. "Alexandra and Rasputin." The Historian 108 (Winter 2010): 11-13. Radzinsky, Edvard. The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II. Translated by Marian Schwartz. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Slater, Wendy. 2005. "Relics, Remains, and Revisionism: Narratives of Nicholas II in Contemporary Russia." Rethinking History 9, no. 1: 53-70. Before Rasputin: Piety and the Occult at the Court of Nicholas II." The Historian 47, no. 3 (May 1985): 323-37.
A positive element of the film Fury was the accuracy of its combat scenes. Although to the untrained eye the firefights may seem like a scene out of Star Wars, it is more accurate to 1940s By: Mark McNall & Collin McLaughlin combat than it appears. The rounds being fired by During the Second World War, the widespread use both the Americans and the Germans that seemed to almost glow like lasers through the air. This is of tanks shaped the face of battle in fundamental ways. The First World War was fought in trench- due to the use of tracer rounds loaded periodically es, while WWII was fought in open fields and cit- into the weapon's feeding systems; this is a very common military practice. These tracer rounds, ies, where tanks played a major role. Mastering composed of chemicals at the base of a projectile, the techniques of this new type of warfare was challenging and very crucial to success. The expe- ignited when the cartridge or projectile is rience of tank combat is explored though the char- fired. The bright chemical trail allows a weapon's operator to "walk in" their fire on a target, removacter of Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) in the ing the need to aim accurately down the sights for movie Fury. each shot.
Movie Review: Fury
Set in Germany, 1945, a few weeks before the final surrender of German forces, and directed by David Ayer, Fury follows the story of Norman and his fellow soldiers as they advance across the German countryside. We meet “Wardaddy” (played by Brad Pitt), the tank commander to which Norman has been assigned. Norman is the newest member of the team, a group of no-nonsense and determined veterans hardened by the experience of war. Norman's adjustment to his new life is anything but smooth, as he is compelled to kill an unarmed German soldier and witness the accidental death of a pair of very friendly civilians, and he struggles to understand the reality of his life at war. Fury shows the darker side of war and illustrates that war is not as clean and heroic as it is commonly depicted.
The tank on tank battles in the film are also very accurate in terms of numbers and movement of American Sherman tanks against German “Tiger” tanks. While watching the gruesome, yet exhilarating, combat scenes Fury has to offer one cannot help but to cringe from the sheer brutality of the portrayed warfare. Not only did soldiers have to deal with the power of a tank blast, the tanks often also had machine guns as secondary weapons, and also tanks could drive over any obstacle. Tanks were often used to crash through walls to make paths for soldiers. Fury is able to capture the compelling drama of tank warfare without sensationalizing or glorifying the violence. 11
Book Review: Adam Rothman, Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015) By: R. M. Davis On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee officially surrendered to the commander of the Union forces, Ulysses S. Grant, in Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending fighting in the state and triggering similar capitulations across the South. For many Americans, however, the Civil War was far from over. Over 800 miles away in the city of New Orleans, widowed mother and former slave, Rose Herera, was still doing battle in a Louisiana courtroom. Sitting in the defendant’s chair was Herera’s former owner, Mary DeHart, shocked and dismayed by the insolence and disloyalty of her old servant. Ironically, DeHart found her own freedom threatened due to charges brought about by her ex-slave. After spending five nights in a local jail, DeHart was released only after posting the $1,000 bail—the exact sum her husband had spent to purchase Herera and her children four years earlier. This little known, but compelling legal battle is chronicled in Adam Rothman’s new book, Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery. Relying primarily on a Reconstruction era report from the State Department investigating the threat of kidnapping and containing official documents from Herera’s case, Rothman constructs a narrative of the Louisiana slave’s life, culminating in the fight to recover her children. In 1863, when Herera was still considered to be the property of the DeHarts, the family left New Orleans for Havana, acutely aware of the Confederacy’s—and slavery’s—precarious position. Herera was too sick to make the journey. Her three children, six-year-old Joseph Earnest, four-year-old Marie Georgiana and two-year-old Marie Josephine, however, were taken to Cuba (where slavery would remain legal until 1886) against her will, forced to leave their ailing mother behind. When Mary DeHart returned to the United States in 1865, Herera, a recently-freed woman, demanded that authorities arrest her former master on charges of kidnapping, sparking a long, arduous--but ultimately successful--struggle for custody of her children.
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Rothman begins with a description of Herera’s place of birth, Point Coupée, Louisiana, reciting a familiar story of cruel antebellum slavery and slaveowners’ self-serving, paternalistic justifications. In the second chapter, the author examines the pre-war culture of New Orleans and its unique type of urban slavery. His analysis of newspaper ads and auction reports (reminiscent of historian Walter Johnson’s more in depth investigation, Soul by Soul) works to uncover the city’s lucrative slave market and the interstate trading of men and women that thrived up until, and even during, the Civil War. Rothman is most effective elsewhere, however, shedding light on what he calls the “mayhem of wartime emancipation.” As Herera’s story suggests, freedom did not come easily; for many, the transition was a complicated, non-linear process. Although it is possible that few slaves were actually taken to Cuba, the fact that rumors about this kind of post-war kidnapping were so pervasive is evidence of slaveowners’ very real dedication to the preservation of their property as well as newly freed people’s genuine fear of slavery’s restoration. Moreover, Rothman explains, the fight continued beyond emancipation. Some brave, outspoken men and women advocated for equality, agitating for full black citizenship and the right to vote. More commonly, people fought personal battles. Once liberated, former slaves worked tirelessly to reconnect with loved ones. For many, like Herera, freedom was not truly achieved until the ties of kinship, heartlessly severed by the inhumanity of slavery, were recovered and families were rightfully reunited. This interesting microhistory, appealing to both scholars and casual readers, exposes some of the South’s confusion in grappling with unprecedented moral, legal and political questions after the war, as former slaves and slaveowners alike tried to adjust to a restructured society. Above all, Beyond Freedom’s Reach brings to life for the reader Rose Herera, a bold, determined and inspiring figure. Herera’s story is that of a woman who vowed never to relent in the quest to be with her children, and who fulfilled that vow in the face of enormous and institutionalized adversity. While not a groundbreaking work, Rothman’s book reveals a more personal side to slavery and shines a long overdue light on one woman’s amazing ability to shed the image of a helpless, dependent servant and assert herself as a fierce, loving mother and free citizen of the United States.
Merrimack History: Response to the Kent State Shooting By: Kevin McPherson They say history repeats itself, today we see unrest in urban communities over police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement. Forty five years ago the outrage was over the shooting of four college students at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970. The students had been protesting the Nixon Administration’s policies in Southeast Asia, and specifically the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. The protests lasted three nights and tensions grew when martial law was declared following the burning of the on-campus Army ROTC building. The next day the size of the gathering grew larger and tear gas was used to disperse the students who then admittedly began volleying rocks or whatever they could get their hands on at the Guardsmen. It was at this point that the Guardsmen fired their weapons into the crowd, killing four college students. Americans expect our Armed Forces to be a force for peace and stability. We place trust and respect in the uniform understanding that they are serving and protecting our freedom. When that trust is violated as it was on May 4, 1970 the country responded with anger and disbelief. President Nixon’s own Committee on Campus unrest described the events as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.” The events on that day in Ohio sparked nationwide outrage especially on college campuses where students felt a solidarity with those at KSU. The movement even reached Andover, Massachusetts where students here at Merrimack College staged a protest and a march to voice their opinions on what was happening in this country. The shootings occurred on a Monday, and on Tuesday May 5, 1970 Merrimack College students joined the nation in expressing their anger over not only the shootings in Ohio, but also the movement of troops into Cambodia. This cause brought together a fairly divided nation while also serving to draw a line between those protesting and those who supported the Nixon Administration in its Southeast Asian pursuits. I sat down with Dr. Michael Rossi of the Communications department who was a student at Merrimack at the time of the shooting and of the protest. Dr. Rossi said that he had participated in the protest along with a mass of other Merrimack students. According to Dr. Rossi one of the biggest selling points for the gathering was that these students were choosing to skip class which was an uncommon occurrence on campus in 1970 according
to him, “The world was very different back then... Merrimack students weren't cutting classes so that itself was kind of momentous. Even in the spirit of the time it was a little more conservative here then you might expect.” Dr. Rossi went on to describe a rather peaceful protest and he doubts that many students were in their classes at all that day. Following a rally on campus, students marched to downtown Andover. in this moment in Merrimack history students came together to make a difference in this world and forced people to question what they believed in while staying true to what they believed in. Why is it that today we still fight the longest war in United States history yet there is far less civil unrest about that very war in the Middle East then there was about the one in Vietnam? In the 1970’s the protests reached as far as Merrimack College and today there is very little questioning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The question of why we were in Vietnam was not easily answered especially as the war spilled into the 70’s. The war was part of a complicated Cold War policy of keeping Communism out of Southeast Asia especially necessary after the fall of China. There was a great fear among the US leaders that, after Korea, there would be a domino effect in the region if Vietnam fell. That is a complicated answer most people did not want to hear during the war especially when so many kids were being sent to their death unwillingly through the draft system. Compared to the situation today where the answer to the question “what are we doing over there?” can be overly simplified by the answer “we were attacked.” While the policy, action, and situation in the Middle East are for more complicated than simply implicating 9/11 it is easy to calm unrest and win public support by saying this is a necessary war to defend the dignity of the United States. Wars are won and lost in the eyes of the public. Public opinion and support for a war a huge unrecognized factor in war which is why propaganda during World War I and II were so widely used and pictures from the bloody battles were generally censored from public view. A phenomenon started during the War in Vietnam where the media became imbedded with theses soldiers and the horrors of battle were seen every night on the news. Today’s culture has become complacent with the wars in the Middle East because for the first few years “we were attacked” was a completely acceptable answer and now we continue to fight these wars out of habit. We see the scenes of these battles only towards the end of a news broadcast or as a special report that very little people watch and nothing gets done about. I am not saying we should riot in the streets but complacency at this time is rampant
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and the public should be asking meaningful questions of our government and our leaders.Is it too controversial to say we have hidden the wars in the Middle East behind the answer we were attacked?
throughout the urban community there is outrage over police brutality. Maybe it is because within our police officers and military personnel we place an immense amount of training, power, and equipment and with that power we trust that their judgWhy is it so hard, as a nation, to accept men in ment has advanced past that of an ordinary citiuniform killing civilians when civilians kill civilians in astronomical numbers every day? There is zen. We trust their judgment to be better than our tremendous respect throughout the country for the own in times of stress. People say “with great power comes great responsibility” but power also men and women in the military and on our police comes with tremendous culpability and accountaforce yet when those people push the boundaries bility. We, rightfully so, hold the uniform to a of their responsibilities and open fire on citizens higher standard than the general population howthey find tremendous backlash. We especially see ever we must also always remember that they are that in today’s society. The City of Baltimore restill people themselves and while they are honoracently lit itself on fire in anger over the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of Police officers and all ble people they are still capable of human error.
Historical Context of a Current Event: The Israeli Election of 2015 By: David Wilson srael’s Government Since its establishment in 1948, the state of Israel has governed itself through a parliamentary democracy, and the legislative body is the 120-seat Knessets. All Israeli citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote, and all voters are expected to declare themselves as members of a party, usually either the Likud Party or the Labor Party. The citizens are then ranked within their party based on participation and devotion, so for example, the most devoted and loyal member of the Likud Party is the #1 member. At election time, the citizens then vote not for individuals, but for the political party that they wished to have power. Then, following the vote count, the number of seats awarded to each party is based upon the percentage of the vote that each party has won. The party then chooses the top ranking members to fill those seats. A party only needs 1% of the vote to gain a seat in Parliament, which allows many different voices and opinions to be heard. Because one party rarely gains a large majority of seats, the minority parties usually must form coalitions in order to achieve their goals. Once all of the representatives have been chosen, they then elect a Prime Minister. This is the process through which Benjamin Netanyahu gained power.
Arab- Israeli Conflict At the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the fact that both Israeli Jews and Muslim Arabs claim Jerusalem and its environs as holy land. In the nineteenth century, the idea of Zionism, or the belief that Jews deserve a Semitic State in the region of their holy land, took hold among many Jews in Europe who faced increasingly harsh discrimination and violence. This holy land is also believed to be the homeland of Islam and Christianity. Although Jews began making this journey to the Middle East in the 19th Century, it did not become popular until after the First World War. With the massive influx of Jews into Palestinian lands came violence, and a lot of it. Before World War II, there were small conflicts between Jews and Palestinians, but in 1937 came The Great Revolt, which resulted in 20,000 British troops moving into the area to enforce peace. During World War II, the British mandate did not allow Jews to immigrate into the Israel/ Palestine region. This blockade forced Jews to remain in Europe, where they were brutally subjected to the terrors of the Holocaust, resulting in the death of six million Jews and millions of others. After World War II, the British partitioned Palestine, giving Jews, who made up onethird of the population, 52% of the land, and Arabs, who made up the other two-thirds, just 48% of the land. In 1967, there was a brutal war between the Arabs and the Israelis, resulting in the death of tens of thousands of people and new borders drawn that gave Israel claim to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Sinai and Suez Canal and the Golan Heights.
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This war put Israel in control of territory in which two million more Palestinian Arabs lived. Dispute over these claims are still active today, and violence has been occurring for the last forty years. Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected to the Prime Minister position in 1996 and served until 1999, and was then re-elected in 2009 and again in 2013. Israel held elections again in March of this year, which resulted in Netanyahu’s reelection to a fourth term as Prime Minister. Netanyahu is on the center-right wing of the political scale, but in his most recent campaign, he targeted the far-right wing conservatives and the undecided. He is the leading member of the Likud party, which has had the majority of control of Israel over the last two decades. He based his campaign around the security issues that Israelis are worried about- security from Palestinians, that is- in order to gain the votes that he needed, however, many believe this strategy was just a distraction from the major social issues that he didn’t want to address- poverty, employment rates, social intolerance of non-Jews. Israel is an extremely divided nation, so Netanyahu was forced to find an issue that would unite the voters behind him. While the people hold very different views on some problems, all of them are concerned with the constant Palestinian threat. Throughout his campaign, up until the last few days, the Prime Minister was theoretically in support of a two-state solution, which was being encouraged by the United States and other Western powers. The Arab-Israeli conflict has been affecting a large portion of the world for decades, mostly through oil embargoes placed upon the powers supporting Israel by Arab states, which is why so many world powers have an interest in Netanyahu’s plans for peace (or lack thereof). In the last few days of the election, Netanyahu denounced his claim of recognizing a Palestinian state to regain popularity in the polls. This suggests that recognizing a Palestinian state was not one of his priorities since he sacrificed it so quickly. His Opposition
pledged to work with Palestinian neighbors at securing a border, however, they did not mention what sacrifices they would be willing to make in order to achieve that, which could be what led to their decisive loss. U.S. Relations Since Israel declared its statehood in 1948, the United States has backed them politically, militarily, and financially. Being one of the first nations to recognize the Jewish state, the U.S. has provided massive amounts of aid to Israel. Today, the country receives approximately $3 billion per year in U.S. aid, which makes up a large portion of Israel’s defense budget. The majority of that money comes from U.S. taxpayers’ dollars, coming in the form of cash and military supplies. The aid from the United States pays for more of Israel’s defense than Israel’s own taxpayers. Additionally, the United States, which has a strong influence as part of the Security Council, has almost always advocated for Israel in international affairs and the United Nations. Since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, relations between Netanyahu and Obama have been tense, with Netanyahu questioning Obama's commitment to Isreal, while Obama has criticized Isreal's continued insistence on building new settlements in the West Bank. The tension between the two leaders reached a new level in the spring when Netanyahu accepted an invitation from the Republicanled Congress to address both houses of Congress to critique the Obama Administration's diplomatic efforts to reach an accord with Iran in an effort to halt the Iranian nuclear program. Recently, Palestine has attempted to go through the United Nations to be recognized as a state, however the United States says that it, as a member of the Security Council, will veto the action unless Israel will also recognize Palestine. The United States does not want to risk their relationship with Israel by recognizing the state of Palestine before Israel consents. Israel also has the constant threat of an embargo being placed against them by the United States. The world recognizes that the Arab-Israeli conflict has been a massive tragedy. Although the last century in the Middle East has been one of bloody, regional disputes, the effects of this fighting stretch across the globe. The elections earlier this year put in place the government that will determine whether or not to end this cycle of violence and settle on peace, and because of that, Benjamin Netanyahu will be feeling a lot of pressure from around the world during this term.
During the 2015 Knesset election, there were a handful of contending parties, but the two frontrunners were the Likud party and the Zionist Union, a coalition between the Labor party and the Hatnuah party, which was working towards the major goals of both parties involved. The Zionist Union had a strong platform, with one of their main arguments being that they would rebuild the Sources relationship with the United States that President Netanyahu had neglected. Additionally, they15http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-americareally-spends-on-israels-defense-2012-9
The Origins of World War I: Assessing the Historiography at the root of many of the causes of conflict that are examined in WWI literature and the war’s extensive historiography—a historiography with as compelling a Spurred by modern warfare’s advanced technology, World War I proved to be an unprecedented display of death and devastation. From the rubble and smoky story as the war’s origins itself. haze of the war’s aftermath emerged the equally unprecedented practice of According to historian Dennis Showalter, “The understanding of the First World seeking out and punishing those deemed responsible. Confused and traumatized War is connected more than that of any other modern conflict with the war’s by the horrors of the Great War, Europeans demanded an explanation, trigger- historiography” because its written history developed as soon as fighting ing—for the first time in history—a large-scale campaign waged by govern- did. At the onset of war in August 1914, “color books,” named for each counments, politicians, journalists, novelists and scholars to ascribe blame to the try’s uniquely hued cover, were written for “domestic and international conguiltiest nation. This debate, debuting at the war’s start and ever intensifying sumption” in an attempt to rally support at home and sympathy abroad. with no end in sight, has resulted in what historian Christopher Clark describes [5] The Belgian Grey Book, the Austrian Red Book, the French Yellow Book, as “an historical literature of unparalleled size, sophistication, and moral inten- the Russian Black Book and the German White Book were edited collections of sity.”[1] The pervasive and enduring discussion of entangling alliances and highly selective and dubious (half of the Deutsches Weissbuch’s thirty docufierce international competition provides modern leaders with a case study in ments are believed to be forgeries) political papers released by the state in order decision making. John F. Kennedy, for example, requested that his cabinet read to prove the defensive, and therefore justifiable, nature of the respective governBarbara Tuchman’s famous analysis of WWI, The Guns of August, during the ment’s decision to fight.[6] Efforts continued in September as a German governCuban Missile Crisis, while President Jimmy Carter has written about the value of ment-sponsored committee wrote a defense of its country entitled Truth about Germany: Facts about the War. In England, six Oxford historians were charged considering the war’s origins when confronting today’s international crises.[2] In the past century, a variety of hypotheses regarding responsibility has been with a similar task, producing Why We Are at War: Great Britain’s Case, a presented and certain schools have fallen in and out of esteem. The debate— highly[7] critical account of the Second Reich’s alleged militarism and expansionist originally centered on Germany’s alleged war-guilt—eventually drifted towards aims. By: R. M. Davis
notions of collective culpability, giving rise in the1930s to the conviction that no single nation was to blame, only armaments, alliances, failed diplomacy and imperialistic capitalism. [3] But this school has its inherent problems. The position relies on the examination of broad forces and trends (like imperialism) at the expense of the actions of individuals. Its followers fail to take into account the unique nature of each of the great powers and the distinct ways in which nations pursued the very types of policies they criticize. The debate gradually subsided throughout the 1940s and 50s. That is, until West German historian Fritz Fischer’s explosive work in the 1960s inspired new scholarship, portraying WWI as a conscious German design for either power or distraction from its growing social unrest.[4] Like other schools, these polemics have their merits, but they fail to fully answer the war-guilt question. Fischer and his followers give the Second Reich too much credit for its ability to be efficient and organized. In fact, the Kaiserreich was particularly disorganized. Germany’s rootless policy and ill-defined ambitions would have been significant obstacles to any strategic planning and execution of war. More recent scholarship tends to examine individual countries. The British, French, and Russians have all been indicted, to varying degrees, for their isolation of Germany. Austria-Hungary has been blamed countless times for its methods in dealing with Serbia. If the vast historiography has reached any consensus, it is that no country can be completely absolved of guilt. The tendency of the German nation, however, after 1890, to act with negligence and a lack of focus in its misguided efforts to grapple with domestic turmoil and navigate the European system, resulted in a dangerously unpredictable, alienating policy, setting the stage for general conflagration in 1914. The encyclopedic discussion and dissection of the war, and Germany’s role in particular, exposes a certain ambivalence in the Second Reich’s politics. Germany is regularly found
In May 1919, Germany published a second White Book, Deutschland Shuldig? (Germany Guilty?), as a means of preempting the coming Treaty of Versailles.[8] The Treaty, signed June 28, 1919, dispensed harsh punishment to the war’s losers, forcing Germany to reduce its military, cede significant territory and pay reparations. The conditions of the agreement were justified by a clause, Article 231, which expressly blamed Germany for the twentieth century’s great disaster. Horrified by the financial and moral implications of this “warguilt clause” (a French idea), Germany worked with alacrity to disprove the charges, granting unprecedented access to sources and archives to patriotic, nationalistic—and often government-funded—historians, encouraging proGerman work and investigations into the “war-guilt lie.” [9] In 1921, the Weimar Republic created the War Guilt Section. This government body consisted of one branch dedicated to disseminating literature to trade unions and various clubs and another concerned with scholarly research in Germany’s defense.[10] By 1930, this mass propaganda distribution center had 1,700 to 2,000 organizations working to undermine the legitimacy of the treaty as well as its own academic journal, Die Kriegsschuldfrage.[11] Historians Albrecht Menolelssohn-Bartholdy, Johannes Lepsius and Friedrich Thimme were asked to create a definitive defense and collection of German documents, leading to the controversial, forty-volume Die Grosse Politik der Europaischen Kabinette, published over the course of 1922 to 1927. As German government official and industrialist Walter Ratheneau told the Reichstag on June 13, 1922, the book was intended to absolve Germany morally, once and for all. [12] Fearing the prospect of a WWI historiography dictated by Germany, Europe responded. Britain, France and the newly-formed Soviet Union were quick to counter with their own edited accounts of the war, strategically placing blame where they saw fit.[13] London released British Documents on the Origins of the
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War 1898-1914, an official collection ordered by Foreign Secretary Ramsay MacDonald, in installments from 1926 to 1938 as an answer to Die Grosse Politik. In France, Raymond Poincaré, president during the war, originally resisted any publications for fear they might undermine the presumption of German war guilt. Nonetheless, he eventually begged the high-ranking diplomat, Maurice Paléologue (who preferred a posthumous publication) to release documents, recognizing that the debate would carry on with or without France. The Ministry of Public Instruction, the government body responsible for historical inquiry into the war, created the journal, Revue d’histoire de la guerre mondiale, and published its own definitive collection, Documents diplomatiques francais 1871-1914, in 1936.[14]
Lorraine and the Straights that connected the Black and Mediterranean Sea.[19] Writing in 1927 at Leipzig University, historian Erich Brandenburg admitted his country’s possible “short-sightedness,” but insisted vehemently that Germany had never intended to incite a war.[20]
The harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles sparked non-state sponsored debate as well. A school of thought emerged in the 1920s that questioned the extreme notion of Germany’s sole responsibility and hoped to eradicate the war-guilt clause and massive reparations. These “revisionists” sought to find a more moderate truth, while some even proposed the idea of Triple Entente, specifically British, French and Russian, culpability. Naturally, these ideas took the strongest hold in Germany. A pioneer in revisionism, German historian Max Montgelas came to the defense of his country in The Case for the Central Powers, making claims that Germany and Austria-Hungary had only intended to maintain the status quo. Instead, he argues, it was the Franco-Russian alliance that harbored belligerent goals, specifically the reclaiming of Alsace-
supports much of what Barnes argues.[24] The German government went to great lengths to encourage this kind of American revisionism, regularly inviting Fay to contribute to its historical journal, and purchasing 250 copies of his book to be issued to diplomats. The War Guilt Section provided Barnes with research material, propagated his writings, funded visits to Berlin, Munich and Vienna and translated This change in historiography offered a chance to his book into German and French to be distributed improve international relations—a development even more desirable after World War II. With the overseas.[25] The revisionists inevitably spawned the anti- international community of scholars moving towards revisionists, a group whose work was highly cen- a consensus of collective accountability, French and sored in the Weimar Republic. The scholarship of German historians met in 1951 in Paris and Mainz to an agreedBernadotte Schmitt, a professor of modern history at eliminate one-sided textbooks and create [33] The concluupon, uniform, historical curriculum. the University of Chicago, was never translated into sions of the French, led by Renouvin, and the GerGerman.[26] His study, The Origins of the First World mans, under the leadership of historian Gerhard War, upheld traditional views depicting Austria-
Outside of Germany there were very few European scholars calling for the revision of Article 231, though British historians G. P. Gooch and Edmund D. Morel and French historian George Demartial did argue against their profession’s complacency and advocated for truth over patriotism.[21] It was in fact the United States that became the biggest target for war-guilt propaganda. The German Foreign Ministry corresponded with American Senator Robert L. Owen, requesting a review of the war-guilt clause. This partnership engendered overseas Russian WWI historiography has a unique discussion, prompting a speech before the U.S. origin. The Bolshevik Party came to power in No- Senate on December 18, 1923 in which Senator vember 1917 with an ostensible commitment to Owen made appeals on Germany’s behalf.[22] abolishing secret diplomacy.[15] In keeping with that Many American scholars, like Harry Elmer Barnes, promise, the Soviet government vowed to release came to accept the revisionist philosophy. His war-relevant documents, which were ultimately work, The Genesis of the World War: An Introducpublished through scattered sources and in an tion to the Problem of War Guilt is an angry critique unfinished three-volume work. [16] The Soviets were of the historiographical status quo and a fierce also equally dedicated to, as historian Niall Ferguson condemnation of the Versailles Treaty. In his 1926 says, portraying the war as “an imperialist self- treatise, he contends that Germany had every right immolation scene,” thus incriminating the tsarist to assemble a navy or expand its empire in the regime.[17] A brainchild of the state, the jour- twentieth century just as all European powers nal Krasnyi Arkhiv, which published 106 issues had. In fact, Poincaré and Russian diplomat Alexanfrom 1922 to 1941, focused on exposing the previous der Izvolsky were incendiary figures from the start, capitalistic, imperialistic government.[18] In an looking to convert Russian Foreign Minister Sergei attempt to legitimize the revolution, the Soviet Sazonov to their “war party.”[23] Another respected Union, unlike other nations, strategically selected American historian, Sidney Bradshaw Fay, pubdocuments in hopes of implicating its own country lished Origins of the World War in 1928, which, in the war’s origins. while not an outright indictment of the Entente,
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Hungary as the instigator of war and Germany as its all-important ally and supporter.[27] Prominent French scholar, Pierre Renouvin, a professor of contemporary history at the Sorbonne, published The Immediate Origins of the War in 1927 and was one of the first historians to directly respond to and criticize the revisionists.[28] Also from the Sorbonne, Professor Camille Bloch wrote in defense of the Versailles verdict in 1935 in The Causes of the World War, claiming that the German Kaiser and Chancellor Theobald von BethmannHollweg had intended violent conflict in hopes of capitalizing on France’s and Russia’s unpreparedness.[29] The debate’s extreme, polarizing nature waned as the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s gave rise to a new, more palatable view. A belief in shared culpability and a sort of fortuitous stumbling into conflict gained in popularity as nations tried to put the tensions of the First World War behind them. The rise of Marxism and a general criticism of the post-industrialized society worked in concert with a more liberal Europe’s attempt to heal itself after the war, leading to the creation of a new school of thought based on a collective responsibility. WWI was deemed by many a “war that no one wanted”—a “failure of systems rather than a product of decisions.”[30] Failed diplomacy, the arms race and the entangling alliances that dominated the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were seen as chief causes for fighting’s outbreak.[31] The release of many famous wartime memoirs reinforced this idea. Bethmann-Hollweg’s and British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey’s accounts, published between 1919 and 1921, and in 1925, respectively, are descriptions of the impossible positions in which politicians found themselves in July 1914. First Lord of the Admiralty at the start of the war, Winston Churchill’s The World Crisis, published between 1923 and 1931, as well as the memoirs of Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1933), depict the world struggle as an inevitable phenomenon beyond anyone’s control. [32]
Ritter, marked a shift toward moderation on both sides: the portions of the report regarding WWI describe the Franco-Russian pact as merely a natural product of the alliance system and any German aggression as the manifestation of very legitimate fears of encirclement.[34] Even those who preserved the creed of German guilt in the post-WWII era did so in a much more moderate way. Italian historian Luigi Albertini’s threevolume treatise, Le origini della guerra del 1914, published in Milan between 1942 and 1943, asserts that Germany urged Austria-Hungary to strike against Serbia in 1914, but not with the intent to ignite a general conflict. While Albertini’s work ascribes most of the blame to the Central Powers, namely Austria-Hungary and Germany, it appealed to readers on both sides of the debate, as his scholarship is also highly critical of Poincaré, Grey and Sazonov.[35] In 1954, historian Raymond Aron published The Century of Total War. Although the work builds on the belief of Renouvin that the statesmen of Berlin and Vienna wrongfully risked war, it illustrates the complexities of the conflict that Aron contends cannot be reduced to the guilty and the guiltless.[36]
pus describes a world that was turning away from diplomacy and towards military action. Keegan concedes that A. J. P. Taylor was too extreme in his conclusion that military timetables had caused war, but asserts that Prussia’s success with timetables in 1870 prompted Europe to become increasingly concerned with mobilization dates and further entrenched in secret alliances and inflexible war plans. “Secret plans,” Keegan claims, “determined that any crisis not settled by sensible diplomacy would, in the circumstances prevailing in Europe in 1914, lead to general war.”[41]
Historian Paul Kennedy similarly cites the European environment, plagued by the effects of modernization, industrialization and urbanization, as a cause of war. In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Kennedy focuses on the growing suspicion and rivalries in Europe, coupled with the creation of agreements and military pacts. This coalition mentality, Kennedy argues, encouraged countries to act in haste during crises like that of July 1914. [42] Modris Eksteins, a historian also concerned with the active underlying forces of European society, goes so far as to depict WWI as a sort of social conflict. He argues that a more progressive, avantto the The idea that war was accidental or simply a prod- garde Germany was forced to assert itself [43] conservative, old-fashioned Anglo-French. uct of the flawed European system continued to appear in WWI literature. One of the most legendary There are fundamental problems with any school of and popular portrayals of this stumbling into war thinking that holds all, or none, accountable. In her was The Guns of August, published by historian book, The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, Barbara Tuchman in 1962. Tuchman claims that as historian Margaret MacMillan even describes it as July 1914 came to a close and war looked more and “dangerous thinking” to accept WWI as an inevitamore probable, “governments struggled and twisted bility. Of course there were underlying factors— to fend it off,” but “it was no use.”[37] In a famous trends and circumstances—that helped to create an investigation into the power of army schedules environment conducive to war, but there were also released in 1969, British historian A. J. P. Taylor individuals responsible for their countries’ policies asserts that the extreme focus on speedy and effi- and decision-making.[44] Leading up to the conflict, cient military timetables forced countries to become Europe was a web of provocative alliances. Stevenincreasingly unwilling to turn to diplomacy, for fear son makes a valid point that general war was much of becoming weeks, days, or even precious hours more likely after “industrialization…transformed behind in their plans.[38] Taylor lays most of the the power to produce and destroy” and because responsibility on the Central Powers, yet he fits “central military antagonism polarized the two big partially into the collective culpability school, blocs.”[45] This arms race and sense of rivalry, believing the war was in no way “deliberate,” but however, is not evidence in itself that all nations were equally culpable. More important is how the actually “produced by muddle.”[39] powers responded to this environment, and that one Historian David Stevenson suggests in “The Politics of the Two Alliances” that while alliances were not nation, above all, still felt powerful enough to solely to blame for war, it is impossible to explain compete on the world stage, but that its position the decisions made by the major powers during July was becoming increasingly precarious. Germany, in 1914 without considering the hostile, two-bloc other words, felt as though the window of opporEuropean system.[40] Equally concerned with inter- tunity to prove itself in this type[46]of tense, competinational relations, historian John Keegan’s cor- tive Europe was quickly closing. 18
There is no significant evidence that any nation hoped for or designed a world war, but the Second Reich, with its fatalistic mentality, maintained a unique willingness to resort to violence. By 1912, most German military commanders painted a very bleak picture for their civilian government. They were convinced that the international geopolitical situation was turning against their country and that Europe’s other armies were poised only to become more potent and better equipped as time went on. [47] As early as December 8, 1912 at the now infamous “war council” held at the Royal Palace in Berlin, German government officials were already discussing the importance of British neutrality, the production of U-boats and efforts to popularize war. [48] At the meeting, Germany’s leaders expressed confidence in the likelihood of a victory for their nation as long as fighting were to take place before Russian armament increases in 1916; as Helmuth von Moltke, the German chief of staff put it: “War the sooner the better.”[49] Although this conference did not result in, as some historians would argue, a design for war (the specific naval expansion and propaganda campaign proposed by the Kaiser never came to fruition), it showed, as Christopher Clark says, that Berlin was “strikingly untroubled by the prospect of such an outcome.”[50] More important, it exhibits the way in which the German generals doubted there being any chance to break their country’s encirclement through peaceful measures.[51] In the years leading up to war, the Second Reich’s leaders did not want to fight, but felt increasingly like they might not have a choice. As conflict seemed more and more inevitable, historian Michael Howard argues, “war avoidance” became a low priority.[52] In their clumsiness, the Germans even exposed their frighteningly cavalier attitude towards combat to the international community when, in November 1913, King Albert of Belgium met with Wilhelm in Berlin. The Belgian military attaché reported that the Kaiser talked of marching on Paris while Moltke spewed similar bellicosities about the likelihood of an impending war with France.[53] Even in the first half of 1914, a peaceful time when conflict seemed less likely than it had in the past, men like Moltke and Generals Alfred von Waldersee and Alfred von Schlieffen still insisted war would prove unavoidable.[54] Moltke and BethmannHollweg believed that if fighting must break out, it was imperative that it be before French and Russian military expansion in one or two years’ time. [55] Waldersee even wrote in his personal journals
that though Germany had no reason to fear any bly pushed the world in the direction of state rivalimminent attacks, they had equally little reason to ry, imperialistic expansion, conflict, and war” and hurried along the “uncontrolled slide” into catastroavoid war, as their success seemed probable.[56] [61] Some historians have nonetheless chosen to focus on phe.
already been claimed. Ironically, as historian Zara Steiner states: “It was the British example which provided both the impulse and the obstacle to German expansion.”[68]
systems, rather than these types of statements from individuals. The shift in historiographical thinking in the 1930s, coupled with the rise of Marxism, also led to a more literal Marxist interpretation of the Great War—a view in which gluttonous capitalism and competitive imperialism were to blame for hostilities.[57] This school had early origins with Lenin’s pamphlet “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism” in 1916. Lenin states that “under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market” and because the capitalistic countries of the world had already seized and divided up all unoccupied territory by the turn of the twentieth century, only redistribution, and therefore conflict, was possible. He also expresses his own perspective on the nascent historiography extant at the time of his work’s publication: “bourgeois scholars,” writes Lenin, were defending imperialism “in veiled forms” as they fumbled with “partial and secondary details,” ignoring the real crux of the issue.[58]
Although, as historian Roland Stromberg observes, the idea that capitalism was at the root of WWI is “as old as the war itself,” this thesis is far from an answer to the war-guilt question.[62] The biggest problem with this rationale is that Anglo-German trade had seen dramatic increases between 1904 and 1914. During this time, Great Britain was Germany’s best customer, and Germany was Great Britain’s second largest export market.[63] The overwhelming belief in London in the twentieth century was that war would induce economic chaos, not prosperity, and possibly even political dissent from the left. A motion put before the House of Commons in April 1897 had called attention to inadequate food production in England, leaving the nation’s leaders wary of the fiscal implications of fighting or blockade up until and throughout the war.[64] Furthermore, the most outspoken German advocates of war, like the Pan-German League and Parti Colonial were comprised of mostly teachers and intellectuals who had virtually no connection to big business.[65]
Lenin laid the groundwork for a less widely-accepted way of thinking, but one that continued to appear periodically in WWI historiography. Some researchers investigating the origins of the First World War went so far as to say that the private sector— businessmen and manufacturing companies— encouraged governments to declare war, hoping to profit from the lucrative armaments market. One German historian, Willibald Gutsche, rationalizes WWI as the work of greedy steel and mining companies, large banks, engineers and shipping firms. [59] Left-wing British politician, Konni Zilliacus, makes the claim in his Mirror of the Past: A History of Secret Diplomacy (1946) that the plutocracy financed organizations like Navy, Air and Empire Leagues, Colonial Societies, and British capitalist parties, which lobbied successfully for imperialism, protectionism and armaments. Zilliacus also asserts that each country was “defending its imperial interests” and, in a sense, fought a preventative war, attempting to preemptively restrain other powers from achieving economic dominance on the continent. [60] Similarly focused on imperialism, historian Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Empire, published in 1987, scrutinizes the pre-war fixation with competition and formal conquest. He concedes that the Marxist interpretation is not a complete explanation, but believes that “the development of capitalism inevita-
Capitalism did have its effect on world events in that the imperialism it helped, in part, to inspire was a major source of tension and one of the chief catalysts in triggering confrontation. Countries like China, Morocco and Egypt became highly sought-after prizes and diplomatic battlegrounds as each country pursued its own goals of economic expansion and worldwide prestige. As colonies and foreign markets were divided up among the powers, conflict naturally ensued and the world changed: according to historian Joachim Remak, had it not been for pressures and disagreements in Africa and Asia, British Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne would not have considered abandoning non-alignment when he came to power in 1900 or felt it necessary to negotiate a defensive agreement with the French—the Entente Cordiale—In 1904 .[66]
The Second Reich’s leaders in 1890 did not heed the words of their former Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, that Germany was in fact a territorially satiated nation.[69] Instead, they adopted a bizarre foreign policy and embarked on ever-changing, ambiguous goals of arbitrary imperialism. Great Britain was never against legitimate German efforts to expand. Grey was only concerned about British possessions, not, for instance, German efforts to secure ports and coaling stations, penetration of Sweden, Denmark and Holland, or work on the BerlinBaghdad Railroad.[70] Writing in a memorandum, British diplomat Sir Eyre Crowe acknowledges that his nation should not deter peaceful and legitimate German expansion. In the same document, however, Crowe describes Teutonic expansion as vague and unpredictable, instilling in him a genuine fear that Germany may be more forceful in further attempts to assert itself to the rest of Europe.[71] It was not the idea of German imperialism per se that led to a hostile Europe, but rather the way in which its policies were carried out. Great Britain was left constantly guessing at the Germans’ actual aims, leading the British to misconstrue their motives. As Remak states, with an expanding industry, Germany had the right to seek out markets and natural resources, but so often its foreign policy defied “rational explanation” and was just “action for action’s sake.”[72]
It was German imperialism, though, and German foreign policy that did the most irreversible damage. Not unified until 1871, Germany had to organize and industrialize rapidly to stay on par with the rest of the top nations of the world. It did not acquire many useful colonies—Germany had come late to the imperialistic party—and always felt left behind and inadequate as a world power.[67] When the country was ready to embrace overseas expansion, most of the world’s valuable possessions had 19
Historian Richard Hamilton characterizes Wilhelmine imperialism along the lines of “bullying tactics.” In 1894 alone, Germany instigated arguments over Samoa, the Congo, the Sudan, Morocco, Turkey, and Portugal’s African colonies. “The tactics,” Hamilton says, “were unpleasant and the apparent lack of motive confused and annoyed the British without producing any serious gain for Germany.”[73] The effects of this alienating, alarming and seemingly random foreign policy became most apparent during the Moroccan Crises, as indiscriminate attempts to weaken Anglo-French relations only resulted in further German isolation.[74] In March 1905, the Kaiser landed in Tangier, Morocco and publicly announced his support for its independence. He then asked for an international conference to vote for an open door policy and prohibit the French’s exclusive influence in the northwest African country. Despite France’s willingness to compromise (the influential anti-German diplomat, Théophile
Delcaseé, was dismissed and a part of Morocco was offered to Germany), the Wilhelmine government insisted on staging the conference, which convened in Algeciras in 1906. Remak describes the British as “disturbed” by the “German bullying” and when a vote was finally taken, only Austria-Hungary sided with Germany.[75] The incident at Tangier not only intensified the growing British suspicions of the Second Reich, but the initial capitulation of the French exposed Paris’s weakness, and London’s need to protect its fellow Entente member. The AngloFrench relationship became stronger than ever before.[76] While no binding agreements were reached, the Moroccan Crisis sparked informal military discussions between the French and the British about theoretical army sizes and coordinated strategies.[77]
horrors of WWII and with a sense that the question [84] Internationally, Fischer did not present an enhad been answered, the war-guilt discussion lay tirely new view on the issue (his work agreed, in large part, with the popular and widely accepted dormant for many years. Nowhere in the world was there more unanimity scholarship of Albertini and Taylor), but domesticalabout the war’s origins than in Germany. The Wei- ly, it was a scandal. In an almost blasphemous mar Republic’s innocence campaign had been so betrayal of the patriotic self-censorship that had successful and so pervasive that German historians evolved as German tradition, Fischer became the first followed suit, becoming increasingly entrenched in major West German historian to denounce his countheir views and unapologetic in their defense of the try as the principal instigator of WWI. These findings had serious implications. As Joll states: “One Second Reich. Moreover, in the time of the Third can understand why those Germans who are willing Reich, those who voiced their support of the Versailles verdict risked losing their jobs. Hitler put a to accept Hitler’s responsibility for the Second World stop to all WWI inquiry, fearing his regime might be War and even, to some extent, Germany’s responsiundermined or eclipsed by memories of bility for Hitler, find it hard to reopen the whole [85] the Kaiserreich. In the 1940s and 1950s, Germans question of war guilt in the First World War.” If continued to believe that their country held no--or at Prussian militarism was responsible for the entire twentieth century, Hitler was not the anomaly. worst--secondary blame for WWI.[82]
In 1911, there was a native revolt in Morocco, which warranted French military intervention. The Germans, in a theatrical attempt to remind the French that Morocco was still nominally independent, yet ostensibly to protect German citizens in South Morocco (in true clandestine and unintelligible German fashion, the foreign ministry only used this excuse well after the event), sent a gunboat, the Panther, to Agadir during the crisis.[78] Germany had no real designs in Morocco. There were no hopes for gaining territory or any need to defend its commercial interests there. The Germans were simply motivated by misguided efforts to cultivate prestige and weaken British and French relations.[79] In fact, although Germany intended to force France into negotiations, the Germans were in Morocco for an entire month before they decided what it was that they were demanding. Eventually, 100,000 square miles of territory in Central Africa was given to Germany in exchange for its recognition of a French protectorate over Morocco.[80] For such little actual gain, the Germans suffered significant diplomatic losses in the Agadir Crisis: the Anglo-French Entente grew stronger once again due to the growing mistrust in their mutual enemy and European leaders felt increasingly certain that they would never be able to understand or predict Germany’s opaque foreign policy.[81]
As a result, Fischer and his “Hamburg School” of followers suffered personal attacks. Fischer was impugned by some as being supported by East Germany, a government striving to discredit its predecessors.[86] West German historian Wolfgang J. Mommsen wrote “The Debate on German War Aims” in direct response to Fischer, criticizing him for exaggerating evidence and ignoring context and the circumstances in which decisions were made. [87] Gerhard Ritter, known at the time as the “dean of German historians,” called Fischer an “old Nazi” and accused him in 1964 at the Congress of the German Historical Association in West Berlin of fabricating sources. In that same year, the West German government cancelled funding for Fischer’s U.S. tour.[88]
It was in this environment that historian Fritz Fischer published Griff nach der Weltmacht in West Germany in 1961. His book, eventually translated into English as Germany’s Aims in the First World War, though claiming to be “neither an indictment nor a defense,” implicated the Germans as being chiefly responsible for the war’s outbreak. Fischer describes Germany as unrelenting in its quest for world power, a navy comparable to England’s, a central European customs union and an opportunity to overturn the colonial status quo. The controversial historian argues that the Second Reich’s wartime goals and campaigns for dominance and annexation as laid out by BethmannHollweg’s Septemberprogramme—German plans created in the first few weeks of WWI—were not a matter of opportunity, but a continuation of fullyformed ambitions discussed well before fighting began. As early as 1912, he contends, Rathenau had completed plans for a Central European customs union, approved by Bethmann-Hollweg. Before the war, the German chancellor was concerned about Russia’s abundant natural resources and manpower and believed France to be a chief obstacle that needed to be eliminated. Germany, Fischer maintains, encouraged Austria-Hungary to confront Serbia in 1914. The Second Reich did so with “eyes wide Yet in the 1930s, WWI historiography’s early years of open,” knowing that Russia would never let the dual dissecting imperialism, many believed that coloniza- monarchy “act in the Balkans unopposed” and that a tion in general, not one country’s actions, generated general war was not only possible, but likely.[83] enough conflict and competition to precipitate The book sparked a furious backlash. In the introwar. As shared responsibility remained the consen- duction to a later, translated version, historian sus among the scholarly community continuing into James Joll describes the work as being at “the the 1940s, and Europe was distracted by the plunge centre of one of the most violent academic controinto another world war, the once loud and heated versies,” reigniting the debate over a question debate fell nearly silent. Overshadowed by the thought to be long answered in West Germany. 20
Ritter continued to be Fischer’s fiercest critic. In his work, he accuses Fischer of taking politicians’ words out of context and confusing nationalist, patriotic rhetoric for actual political intentions.[89] He criticizes Germany’s Aims as being too exaggerated in its depiction of a unique German preoccupation with world power and makes the case that other nations harbored expansionist strategies too.[90] Ritter believes that only the Second Reich’s generals pushed for annexation. He stands firm with the West German status quo that had developed up until the time of Fischer’s scholarship, depicting the army and the civilian government as having very different agendas, defending the chancellor and ascribing all notions of aggression to the armed forces.[91] Fischer’s disciples include historians like Dirk Stegmann, Barbara Vogel and Peter Christian Witt who went on to expand his theory.[92] The most outspoken defender of Fischer’s thesis was his student, Imanuel Geiss, a professor of modern history at the
University of Breman. In his work, Geiss disputes what he sees as the illusion of encirclement, describing the two bloc alliances as springing mostly from German militarism and bad policy in their quest for power.[93] He believes that, in the time leading up to the events of 1914, the German empire constituted the biggest threat to peace. Germany’s world policy, he maintains, “made war inevitable,” while its pact with Austria-Hungary and Italy was quickly transformed from a defensive agreement to a “basis for German ambitions as a fledgling world power.”[94] As the Fischerite point of view gained more traction around the world and its stigma in West Germany began to erode, the position inspired further theories of a German preemptive strike or an especially aggressive Second Reich bent on world domination—ideas that have occasionally appeared in WWI historiography ever since. Historian John C. G. Röhl believes that Germans were in fact trying to establish hegemony on the continent and that the Kaiser and his staff saw the controversy in July 1914 as a “golden opportunity” to fight the Franco-Russians. [95] In the legacy of Fischer, historian Jerzy Marczewski argues that Wilhelmine policy was nothing short of “maximum expansion,” while historian David Fromkin believes that Moltke and German General Erich von Falkenhayn seized control from the Austro-Hungarians during the Serbian crisis and crafted the preventative war they had always wanted.[96] Fischer’s treatise reignited an important dialogue and appropriately refocused scrutiny on the most deserving country, but did so through an overextended, problematic philosophy. Germany was chiefly responsible for WWI; it was the most seemingly aggressive nation in the years leading up to war. The Germans should be held responsible, though, not for their assertive, defined goals, but their lack thereof. After Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890, German foreign policy and government decision-making took a dangerous turn. His less cautious and less able successors abandoned his complex, well-structured plans for a poorly executed, haphazard pursuit of status and prestige.[97] While Germany’s policies were without a doubt the most alarming and troublesome of that of all the powers, they were not the foundation of a bid for world domination, but were, rather, a result of the government’s unclear aims and inability to navigate the European system. After 1890, Margaret MacMillan asserts, there was a degree of “indifference” in German foreign policy as leaders allowed their country to “drift” further into
dependency upon the Triple Alliance.[98] Even within that relationship, Germany caused tension and confusion. Vienna was fearful of Germany’s inconsistent policies and their overtly aggressive propaganda and naval armaments.[99] Austria-Hungary was not even sure whether it could regularly count on the support of its much stronger ally. In November 1912, at his hunting lodge, the Kaiser personally promised Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand outright support in the First Balkan War (1912-1913), but as conflict broke out, Berlin eventually worked to restrain Vienna and cooperated with Britain in maintaining peace and undermining its partner. [100] Germany never had concrete plans to exploit tensions between the two blocs of powers and, in fact, even confused and alienated its own ally. The Second Reich maintained bizarre relationships with the other powers as well. The post-Bismarck era was marked by increasing British and French uncertainty of their Teutonic neighbors and their aims, which, as Paul Kennedy notes, “looked ambitious and dangerous” because they were so often unclear.[101] In 1898, the Germans rejected British statesman Joseph Chamberlain’s offer for a defensive alliance with the British, fearing that an agreement of that kind would dash the hopes for good relations with the Russians.[102] Just a few years later, however, in 1901, Germany changed its strategy, aspiring to ally itself with Great Britain and, accordingly, was hesitant to commit to supporting the French in Morocco. Nevertheless, in their usual desultory fashion, the Germans never reached out to the British to initiate any cooperation over the course of the six months following their rejection of the French. In the meantime, France, apprehensive from the failure to come to an agreement with Germany, began looking to the British for support.[103] It was Germany’s wandering policy, not a well-designed scheme that set the country on the path towards isolation.
be playing and reevaluated its relationship with Russia, concluding that it may need further security in the face of the Teutonic menace. Once again, it was mere German clumsiness that repelled other nations. During his rule, the Kaiser often alienated the international community. His erratic and unstable personality was worrisome to other nations; Europe’s leaders were unsure whether or not to take him at his word in his calls for German dominance and belligerence. Wilhelm’s bellicose speeches, bold correspondences and angry marginalia became infamous, as historian Max Hastings sardonically suggests, “the exclamation mark was his favoured instrument of policy-making.”[104] The German emperor’s intentions were often ridiculous and ephemeral (for a brief period he wanted to create a South American “New Germany” and encourage colonization in and migration to Brazil), but had little effect on actual policy.[105] While the country and the Kaiser’s ostensible aggression had a direct role in both bringing the Triple Entente closer together and creating tension between the two opposing blocs, Wilhelm was not the mastermind behind a designed crusade for hegemony.
Even the aggressive rhetoric recklessly thrown around by the Kaiser and his government was just that—rhetoric—and not an expression of tangible objectives. The principle of Weltpolitik, or world policy, perpetuated by Bülow and other leaders, included vague notions of German expansionism and a dedication to finding its imperial “place in the sun.” This was inherently problematic—most land was either taken or, as in China, highly contentious. [106] As the Second Reich promoted propaganda and commissioned endless speeches constructed around Weltpolitik and the German call for ascendancy, neighboring powers naturally grew concerned. Great Britain in particular knew that its empire was the greatest obstacle to German expanThe Kaiser’s personal attempts to cultivate alliances sion and feared that a more autocratic state like or control foreign policy often exacerbated the Germany could transform grandiloquence into action situation for the Germans. In 1905, while cruising overnight.[107] together on the Baltic, Wilhelm convinced the Tsar While Weltpolitik was a major contributor to the of Russia, Nicholas II, to sign an impromptu defenformation of a hostile Europe, it was not the basis of sive treaty, effectively neutralizing Russia’s treaty a German attempt at world domination. The policy, with France. Afterwards, both governments were first of all, was impossible to define. Bülow never outraged at the actions of their respective heads of publicly expressed any of its actual aims.[108] Even state and the agreement was immediately annulled, within the government there was confusion. Walderbut the close call did have lasting effects for Germa- see wrote in his journal: “We are supposed to purny. Great Britain, which was already intrigued by sue Weltpolitik. If I only knew what that was supthe Franco-Russian alliance, grew suspicious of the posed to be.”[109] MacMillan describes the oscillating inscrutable, underhanded game Germany seemed to foreign policy of Germany between 1890 and 1897 as 21
“incoherent.” In 1894 Leo von Caprivi, chancellor at the time, told the German ambassador to London that the Solomon Islands were a crucially important imperialistic target, yet within two months, Berlin lost all interest there.[110] The German world policy never resulted in many actual gains. Its practical achievements after 1897 included only the modest acquisition of the Caroline Island and a segment of Samoa.[111] With its forceful rhetoric, aggressive speeches, and Weltpolitik, the German government postured itself as a threat to peace, seriously alarming the major powers and isolating the Second Reich. This heavy-handed approach had a direct effect on Europe at large, and set the stage for war in 1914. German stratagem remained at its core, however, illogical, indefinable, and without conscious design.
combat.[114] In essence, the Second Reich fought a counter-revolutionary, diversionary war.[115] Historian Michael Gordon, writing in 2014, agrees that a sole focus on foreign policy is insufficient in understanding the First World War. He describes the elites of the Wilhelmine era as living in an “anxietyridden condition,” disturbed by the societal vicissitudes that accompanied Germany’s budding modernism and remarkably quick industrialization. Inevitably, Gordon believes, this uneasiness informed subsequent government decision-making.[116]
fervor at home.[120] Sammlungspolitik also involved state-sponsored propaganda. There were films, pamphlets, battleship launches and public ceremonies celebrating the fortitude of Germany. Even naval armament, to some extent, had its origins in the quest to quell social unrest. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and other officials believed the expansion of the navy could inspire German prestige and develop as a project for citizens to rally behind.[121] However, this ostentatious bellicosity used as means of uniting Germans only worked to instill fear in the [122] While the fear of social upheaval in pre-war Germa- rest of the world. ny may have been very real, any organized attempts Throughout the historiography of the war, the tense to combat the issue or divert attention from it were relationship between Great Britain and Germany— not. The labor strikes that occurred in Germany and one exacerbated by the naval race—has been elites’ trepidation over a new, more progressive examined endlessly, yielding various hypotheses lower class were not unique problems, but ones that about how competition between the two nations was the Second Reich was especially ill equipped to allowed to escalate into armed conflict. A viable, manage. Their unreliable political system included but less popular view, defended wholeheartedly by a federal parliament, the Reichstag, which main- Ferguson in 1999 in The Pity of War, contends that tained the power to approve the national budget and London, not Berlin, was at the center of the sour a federal council, the Bundesrat, which oversaw relations. The author claims that any chance at foreign affairs and the army and navy. The council Anglo-German cooperation broke down, not due to never amassed much power. In Bismarck’s time, he Germany’s strength or aggression, but as a byproddesignated himself not only Chancellor, but Prussian uct, in fact, of its weakness: Britain felt it needed to Minister-President and Foreign Minister, running appeal to stronger allies like Russia, France, or the foreign affairs out of the Prussian Foreign Minis- United States, even if it meant marginalizing othtry. With such broad control, when Bismarck was ers. There is no doubt that Germany was outpacing gone, it became unclear where responsibility and Britain and France economically and industrially, final authority lay. In this atmosphere, Ferguson admits, but it was not beating them finanthe Reichstag often tried to establish some sort of cially. By 1913, Britain had accumulated 3.9 billion control and influence government policy by with- pounds of foreign assets, while France had about holding approval of budgets, resulting in devastat- half as much, and Germany only a quarter.[123] The ing political paralysis in times of crisis. [117] Social historian also argues that Grey and his government uproar shed light on the inefficiency of the German were constantly overestimating the belligerence of system, but did not inspire notions of using war as a the Second Reich, wrongly accusing them of Napoledistraction. In fact, Bethmann-Hollweg believed that onic schemes. The threat posed by the German this environment made war even riskier—defeat navy, for example, was exaggerated. In 1912, Germany had nine dreadnoughts to the British’s fifteen; could open the door to revolution.[118] at the start of war, the Entente had forty-three The internal distress of the Second Reich was more of an indirect cause of WWI. Dissent led Germany to warships, while the Central Powers had only twenadopt certain policies that helped to create an envi- ty. As other historians and defenders of the Second ronment hospitable to war in 1914. Just as Volker Reich often point out, Tirpitz’s plan for naval armanever connected to any specific offensive Berghahn, a historian who wrote on Germany’s ments were[124] campaigns. domestic situation, argues, internal and external
Among the scholars involved in the historiographical debate, many came to see this point of view, questioning the extremism of Fischer’s thesis, while some still took a strong stance in his defense. Others were inspired by his work to explore new ways of thinking about WWI. One particular offshoot, the “domestic crisis school,” argues that local, not global politics, was at the center of the war’s outbreak. [112] The work of West German historian Eckart Kehr (a contemporary of Fischer whose ideas were actually published before Germany’s Aims) became increasingly popular in the midst of the Fischer controversy, and his theory of der primat der innenpolitik, or the primacy of domestic politics, offered a new perspective. Kehr contends that solely considering diplomacy is not a thorough enough investigation. He argues that the Second Reich was chiefly responsible in starting the First World War, but only in that the state’s foreign policy was “a means to their domestic ends.” Essentially, much of Germany’s pre-war decisions were conservatives’ attempts to quell the social conflicts that arose in the 1890s and preserve patriarchal, agrarian capitalism. Kehr notes that the German agrarian elites originally rejected the building of a naval fleet in 1890, but came to embrace the idea at the turn of the century in the spirit of Anglo opposition because the British—an industrialized power—victory over the Boers—an agrarian factors are interdependent.[119] In the late nineteenth society—represented a blow to their traditional century Bülow, the Kaiser and conservative advisors position of power.[113] adopted a policy of Sammlungspolitik—a program Arno Mayer, a historian from Princeton University, dedicated to galvanizing nationalist support and takes the argument even further, claiming that undermining socialism through, in part, an active because of internal turmoil, German policymakers foreign policy. Bülow once revealed that the Gerwere especially willing to engage in violence in mans had taken Samoa, knowing it to be of no use, 1914; their fear of revolution trumped their fear of solely in hopes of inspiring pride and patriotic 22
Although Germany never formulated explicit plans for the navy, the program remained the most incendiary element of Anglo-German relations. Even a historian like Keegan, who tends to lay blame on abstract concepts, like diplomacy and rivalry, admits that the worst rivalry of all was the one actively provoked by the Germans when they decided to embark on building a fleet comparable to the best in
the world—the British navy.[125] Although the British always maintained their naval supremacy, the German fleet was still a direct threat to Britain, a country whose defense and security was based on the water. It was also a country that relied heavily on imports: Britain imported seven-eighths of its raw materials (excluding coal) and half of its food supply.[126] An enemy blockade would be devastating. In addition, an agreement between Grey and French diplomat Paul Cambon specified that the French fleet protect all Entente interests in the Mediterranean while the British fleet protect the Channel. Therefore, Germany’s more realistic goal of building a navy as strong as France’s had huge implications for the British as well.[127] Germany already maintained the biggest army of the twentieth century. Naval expansion, then, was an especially antagonistic, alarming practice as Britain and the other major countries worried that too much power would be concentrated in the hands of one nation.[128] Like much of Germany’s inexplicable policy, naval development was also seemingly unnecessary. Tirpitz and Bülow made claims that a fleet would benefit the Germans’ colonial exploits, and yet there was very little economic significance to their colonies after 1897.[129] As Geiss writes: some politicians in Britain were “disturbed and even frightened by the menace of the German fleet, of Germany’s vague, ill-defined demands, her pretensions and the ostentatious display of her military and naval power.”[130] Unable to discern the actual motivations behind the fleet, Great Britain and the rest of Europe often assumed the worst.
tension with Germany. In the tradition of revisionists like Barnes, some recent scholarship still maintains Russia and France were motivated in going to war, or at least in entering into their surprising and provocative alliance, because of their respective hopes of claiming the highly sought-after Straights and to recover the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.[133] In other words, the partnership was based on expansion and revenge. In his 2011 book, The Russian Origins of the First World War, historian Sean McMeekin argues in this same vein, claiming that much of Russia’s foreign policy was centered on finding a warm water port and a fear that an improving Turkish army would make that objective difficult. He argues that the historiography focuses more on Germany’s war aims only because its army’s early success provided the opportunity for leaders to consider expansion and more aggressive ambitions. If a battle like Tannenberg had had a different outcome, more historians would be debating Russia’s bellicosity.[134]
Russian proposal, worried it may contradict their arrangement with Austria-Hungary. None of Bismarck’s successors had his propensity for judiciously maintaining foreign relations and skillfully fitting the country’s agreements and treaties neatly together. As a result, the Russians, fearing isolation, turned to the French, while the Germans became intrinsically more reliant on their only viable ally—Austria-Hungary.[139] More often than the Franco-Russians, the AustroHungarians have been cited as the principal instigator of WWI due to their provocative ultimatum to Serbia on July 23, 1914. Landlocked Serbs wanted to expand, access more markets, and encourage subversion in the multi-cultural Austria-Hungary. [140] Their country, due to the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, increased in size by 80 percent, while the dual monarchy was left in a very precarious position as a world power.[141] It was no secret then that Austria-Hungary was looking to absorb its chief rival and biggest threat, Serbia, and that its chief of staff of the armed forces, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, was a zealous hawk who had been agitating for action against the Serbs since 1906.[142] Historian Max Hastings is among many who reserve harsh judgment for the Austro-Hungarians, criticizing their desperation to become a more formidable world power and the speed with which their military leader’s impulse turned violent. Between January 1, 1913 and June 1, 1914, Hastings notes in his book Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War, Conrad asked his government for war a total of twenty-six times.[143]
There is very little evidence that either France or Russia designed a war for expansion. French revanche has been dispelled by recent scholarship as a myth, and though a thorn in the side of France, lost territory was far from a reason to risk world war. In fact, Alsace-Lorraine was a profitable center for the nations on either side as it served as the nexus between the very successful FrancoGerman banks and industry.[135] In 1914, the Tsar and the Russian government had even less reason to provoke conflict, knowing that their country would be much better prepared in two years time upon the of their military plans and armaments Austria-Hungary should bear secondary blame for The British were effectively alienated once again as a completion [136] production. result of another German diplomatic blunder in the war. Its failure to act swiftly and decisively January 1896. The incident—known today as the The Franco-Russians cannot be considered blame- following the assassination of the Archduke FerdiKruger Telegram—involved a congratulatory less—their decision alone to ally with one another nand on June 28, 1914 opened a window of oppormessage from the Kaiser to Paul Kruger, the presi- was antagonizing, turning German fears of encircle- tunity for controversy and allowed events to escalate dent of the South African Republic, commending his ment into a reality. Their partnership, however, did into chaos. The international community was initialwork in repelling British invasion. Regarding Great not inspire, but rather was a result of a mutual ly sympathetic to the nation whose heir to the Britain’s efforts in South Africa, most powers were distrust of Berlin and its strange policies and dis- throne had just been murdered and had always in fact privately in support of Kruger, but were turbing rhetoric.[137] In fact, it was the same strange considered Serbia an inherently violent and backprudent enough to remain publicly neutral.[131] As German policy that directly led to its enemies’ ward place. If the dual monarchy had taken immeRemak states: “the Germans did not even possess union. As historian George F. Kennan writes in The diate, punitive action, there likely would have been enough good sense to avoid policies that were Fateful Alliance, “the decline of the special Russo- no opposition. It was Austria-Hungary’s decision to bound to create friction…with Great Brit- German relationship was the prerequisite for the wait nearly a month (which incited fears that the ain.”[132] Limited by their own tunnel vision, Ger- establishment of any significant political and mili- Central Powers were planning a much larger war) mans remained seemingly blind to the realities of tary intimacy between Russia and France.”[138] When and include its more powerful allies in a situation the world and unwittingly agitated the British with in 1890 the Tsar made an offer to the Kaiser to unrelated to them that led to the outbreak of general renew the Reinsurance Treaty (an agreement de- conflict.[144] their unnecessary and unwise policies. Beyond the historical investigation of prewar Britain, signed by Bismarck three years earlier in which both If Austria-Hungary should be held accountable for nations consented to remain neutral if the other much of the literature on the Great War’s origins mishandling the events of July, the Germans should were to end up at war), the Germans rejected the also seeks to explain the nature of Franco-Russian be afforded as much blame in the blind support of 23
their inept ally. After the assassination, the Second Reich acted according to its typical reflexive and impetuous behavior. On July 5, 1914, AustriaHungary’s foreign minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, sent Alexander Hoyos, his chief of staff, to Berlin to arrange a meeting between the AustroHungarian ambassador to Germany, László Szögyény, and Wilhelm II to see what role the Germans were willing to play in the dual monarchy’s plans for action. Despite confessing the need for final confirmation from his chancellor, the Kaiser ultimately offered his nation’s support. By July 6, BethmannHollweg had also sent the allies word of his agreeing to whatever aid the country requested in its strike against Serbia. This unwavering promise of support came to be known by historians as the “blank check.” The blank check, issued casually and without much consideration of the devastating alliance mechanism it could initiate, was vital in Austria-Hungary’s decision to take action. The question of German support had been on every leader’s mind since the commencement of discussions of revenge.[145] The Austro-Hungarians, militarily and economically relatively weak, and certainly isolated without the help of Germany, would have been far less likely to engage in conflict without the help of their ally. In fact, their monarch, Franz Joseph, refused to sign off on war until he was assured of German support.[146] This blind faith—a pledge of support without hesitancy or reflection—was typical of the Second Reich, always plunging into the tides of conflict without sticking a toe in the water first. The issuing of the blank check was only the grand finale in a series of German indiscretions and careless decisionmaking. The famous Prussian efficiency of the army never carried over into the civilian government in the forms of diplomacy or foreign policy, as German leaders, with vague dreams of success, always seemed to have their hand in twice as many matters as the rest of the world, but with only half the results. The Germans’ reassurance to AustriaHungary, a country which holds secondary responsibility for its direct role in precipitating conflict, was the tipping point in a world disposed toward war— a world created, in large part, inadvertently by Germany. The Triple Entente is not blameless in the events leading up to WWI. The British, the French and the Russians all participated in the same arms race and secret diplomacy that made Europe such a powder keg in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were quick to grow suspicious and often
acted on fears grounded in an overestimation of German belligerence. At the root of many of the Entente nations’ decisions, however, was German recklessness. Nevertheless, the Second Reich never forged concrete plans to spark a world war. Like so many of its gestures, the call to fight or desire to prove themselves was mostly rhetoric, uttered without thinking and without intention. Even the clearest expression of belligerence communicated by the men in Berlin on December 8, 1912, though alarming and proof of a unique German perspective, never resulted in the actual war preparations that were discussed. It was Germany’s clumsy attempts to flourish, not devious, calculated plans that led to war.
with an in depth dissection of rivalry and conflict— knowledge that may give the world a better chance at fending off the demons of division, competition and violence that plagued Europe in 1914. Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (New York: Harper, 2013), xxiii. [1]
Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson, eds., An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1914 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), x-xii. [2]
Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus (London: Pearson Encumbered with domestic turmoil, and suffering a Education Limited, 2002), 106. sense of inadequacy on the continent, Germany’s [4] policies unraveled in confusion and isolation after Frederick Hale, “Fritz Fischer and the HistoriogBismarck’s dismissal in 1890. Patriotic, truculent raphy of World War One,” propaganda and the insistence on developing a The History Teacher 9, no. 2 (February 1976): 259, world-class navy were intended to serve the German accessed April 19, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/ people in their time of disunion, but only managed stable/492292; Dennis Showalter, “The Great War to inflame the international community. The Kaiser, and Its Historiography,” Historian 68, no. 4 (Winter prone to his fits of rage and his perpetually chang- 2006): 718. ing plans; Weltpolitik with its menacing bombast; [5] Showalter, 713. and Germany’s seemingly arbitrary, antagonistic foreign policy (including the Moroccan Crises and [6]Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World the rejection of the Reinsurance Treaty), culminated War I (New York: Basic Books, 2009), xxxiii; Holger in an anxiety-ridden Europe and an estranged two- Herwig, “Of Men and Myths: The Use and Abuse of bloc system. This Europe, crafted unskillfully by History and the Great War,” in The Great War and Teutonic leaders, was poised perfectly for war in the Twentieth Century, ed. Jay Winter, Geoffry July 1914. With one bullet, one pledge of support, Parker and Mary R. Habeck (New Haven: Yale Univerand one ultimatum, the world that Germany had sity Press, 2000), 301. unintentionally created, spiraled into an unprece- [7]Mombauer, 25, 31. dented catastrophe. [8]Mombauer, 43. Like other nations, the Second Reich was fearful of war, but less so. Leaders and politicians, like Wil- [9]John W. Langdon, July 1914: The Long Debate, helm and Bethmann-Hollweg, and military men, like 1918-1990 (Oxford: Berg Publishers Inc., 1991), 2. Schlieffen and Waldersee, often expressed belief in [10]Langdon, 3. the war’s inevitability. Moltke’s insistence on “war [11] the sooner the better” has now become infamous Mombauer, 53. and cited innumerable times throughout the volumi- [12] Keith Wilson, ed., Forging the Collective Memory: nous historiography of WWI. In the literature of the Government and International Historians through past century, historians have focused on quotes like Two World Wars (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, these and tried to make sense of the devastation and 1996), 11-12. failure to compromise in 1914. The majority place [13] Showalter, 714. responsibility on Germany, to varying degrees, but countless other creative and cogent theories have [14]Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in been promulgated. Nonetheless, the blame game is History: Debates and Controversies 1914 to the less about condemning those from our past and Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, more about ensuring the brightness of our fu- 2005), 9. ture. As the investigation continues, without a [15]Wilson, 64. conclusion in sight, historians provide the world 24
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