Q. Discuss the origins of the First World War.

The outbreak of the First World War is one of the most controversial and debated subjects in
history. The immediate origins of the war can be seen in terms of the crisis following the
assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo,
Bosnia on 28th June 1914. Austria, who believed Serbia was behind this, sent a humiliating
ultimatum to Serbia on 23rd July, which was not accepted in its entirety. Following a series of
diplomatic maneuvers including Russian mobilization, Germany finally declared war on Russia on
1st August, leading to the First World War. However, in order to understand the context which
allowed this crisis to precipitate into a World War, we need to review the conditions in Europe in
the preceding decades.

The historical debate on the origins of the war has been affected by the prevailing political climate
and by the urge to find out who was primarily responsible. The official report on the origins of the
war, written by the victorious powers, and presented to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919
concluded that the war was premeditated by Germany and resulted from acts deliberately
committed in order to make it unavoidable. This German war guilt is enshrined in Article 231 of the
Treaty of Versailles.

The debate over whether Germany intended an offensive war of territorial expansion or a defensive
war is still debated. In 1961, Fritz Fischer, a German historian published Griff nach der Weltmacht
in which he apportioned chief responsibility to Germany for preparing and launching World War I.
According to him, the German desire for territorial expansion and desire to break free of its
diplomatic encirclement culminated in the war. Fischer stated that Germany was ready to go to war
at any cost in order to establish herself as a Great Power. He further alleged that Germany even
went to the extent of provoking her allies into instigating war. He attempted to show that Germany
was pursuing an aggressive policy, inspired by economic interests and designed to achieve world
power. Fischer tried to show that German desire to go to war was a product of the prevailing social
and economic situation in such a sense that personalities and individuals are of little importance to
the event. Fischer never deviated from his basic line of thinking that Germany was eager to make
up for the disadvantage suffered as a result of entering late into world politics and this would have
made war inevitable. In his view there was a continuity in German objectives from 1900 to the
Second World War, although the link between the two is implied rather than spelt out. Fischer
questioned the taboo of German innocence, built up in Germany over five decades.

Fischer’s work was criticized by Gerhard Ritter, a German historian, who saw Fischer’s work as an
act of national disloyalty. Ritter had admitted that German war-guilt literature needed revision but
did not accept Fischer’s thesis. Ritter also criticized Fischer for applying what he saw as a basically
Marxist approach to history without actually being openly Marxist as this would have made him
unpopular. According to him Germany had no desire for world domination and its main aim was to
support its ally Austria-Hungary. Ritter has also accused Fischer of ignoring the environment of the
time and of not comparing the different kinds of foreign imperialism including that of the USA and
Japan. Ritter’s analysis is significant if one is to analyse the Fischer thesis in the context of the
European as well as the global situation of the later decades of the 19 th century. From this point of
view we can identify Germany and Italy in Europe and USA and Japan as the revisionist powers on

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the global scene, giving the situation a global character and drawing an obvious parallel with the
situation of World War II. In this sense we can see that aggression was not the prerogative of any
one country. The imperial aspirations that Germany has been accused of were also experienced by
the other Great Powers. The clearest example of this is the feeble pretexts on which Britain and
USA entered the war.

There are many other views as well on the extent of responsibility that needs to be apportioned to
Germany for the war. Geiss suggests that the main long-term cause of the First World War was the
German desire for Weltpolitik. John Rohl sees the origins of the war in the German government’s
pursuit of a pre-existing plan to split the Triple Entente or provoke a European war. Most historians
however reject the idea of a pre-planned German war. The argument of a defensive German war has
been articulated by scholars such as Egmont Zechelin and Karl Erdmann.

During the interwar years, the idea of collective responsibility for the outbreak of the war came to
become the orthodox interpretation. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister suggested that ‘all
the nations of Europe slithered over the edge of the boiling cauldron of war in 1914’. The debate
over origins began to move away from apportioning guilt towards an assessment of long-term
causes. The interwar period was the golden age of the study of international relations and various
types of long term causes, including the alliance system and old-style diplomacy, imperial rivalry
and the growth of militarism, nationalism and the arms race were advanced.

The origins of the First World War however need to be understood broadly in terms of the new
imperialism of the 19th century, the rise of militarism and the unique system of alliances that built
up in Europe in the decades preceding the war. A brief look at the conditions in the Balkans will
also help in understanding why Europe went to war on this issue.

European imperialism was not a new phenomenon and can be traced back to the 15 th century. ‘New
imperialism’ of the 19th century however was a qualitative departure from the earlier forms of
imperialism in terms of intensity, scope as well as consequence. The expansion of Europe overseas
in the 19th century, which gathered force in the 1870s following the unifications of Italy and
Germany and the defeat of Napoleon III, led to new imperialist rivalries among the great powers
and to the belief that the balance of power had to be regarded as a worldwide question and not one
limited to Europe alone. The movement of imperial expansion has been explained in a number of
different ways, and different theories give varying importance to economic, social, cultural and
strategic factors. Among the earliest theories explaining imperialism were those that linked new
imperialism with economic factors and saw imperialism as arising out of modern capitalism.

JA Hobson, a British liberal economist, in a pamphlet titled ‘Imperialism’ (1902) argued that the
main motive for imperialism was finance capitalism. According to him, advanced capitalist
societies in the West were marked by an unequal distribution of wealth and this concentrated
surplus capital would exert pressure on their respective home governments to seek outlets abroad
for investment avenues. This could become a political force for colonization. Lenin too argued that
with the industrial development of Europe and the concentration of capital in fewer and fewer
hands, financers were finding it ever more difficult to invest their money profitably. The European
market was saturated and consequently it became essential to find new fields of investment
overseas. This need, according to Lenin forced the European powers to divide the world between

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them in a struggle for new industrial markets and new areas in which to invest. The result was
increased rivalry, so that according to him, imperialism necessarily led to war. Lenin believed that
German monopoly capital was behind German foreign policy.

Some like Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish revolutionary, argued in ‘The Accumulation of Capital’
(1913) that the nature of modern industrial capitalism inevitably led to rivalries, which would lead
to imperialism, which in turn would lead to war. Karl Kautsky however argued against the claim of
inevitability and believed that imperialism could be avoided if governments chose to democratize
their institutions. Rudolph Hilfirding, an Austrian Marxist in Finance Capital (1910) too saw no
inevitable link between finance capitalism and war believed that the government could allow
surplus capital to be absorbed by the economy.

JA Schumpeter however argues that imperialism was a pre-capitalist, atomistic phenomenon and
denies any link that capitalism may have with imperialism. The link between the two can also be
questioned when we see that two of the most aggressively imperialist countries of the late 19 th
century – Russia and Italy were severely capital deficit. Even between France and Germany, it was
France that was more imperialist even when it was lagging behind Germany in terms of
industrialization. We can see therefore that capitalism played a crucial role in imperialism but its
effects cannot be generalized and definitely no inevitable causative relation between the two can be
established.

Imperialism has also been seen in terms of extra-economic origins. CJH Hayes emphasized the
political climate of Europe, which was one of mass-based nationalism. He also refers to the
importance of public opinion and nationalist sentiment. Others have emphasized military and
strategic factors, such as the need to secure defensible frontiers. Military factors however cannot be
seen as divorced from economic considerations of even questions of national prestige.

James Joll has emphasized the idea of sub-imperialism. He argued that once colonies were
launched, they took on their own momentum and developed vested interests which pushed for
imperialism. Governments occupied areas in order to stop other governments from moving in; the
strategic needs of existing colonies demanded the safeguarding of their boundaries and of the routes
to them, so that the imperialist powers felt obliged to acquire more territory. The case of the French
colonization of Algiers where the considerations of the French military administrators in Algeria
pushed for the colonization of Morocco is a good example.

Many have also seen cultural factors in the rise of imperialism, in terms of the role of religion. In
the 19th century, many colonial ventures began as missionary activity. The desire of Christian
missionaries to convert the heathen led to the establishment of centres of European influence in
remote parts of the world. This was related also to the European sense of superiority and these ideas
in conjunction with the civilizing mission of the Christian faith served as a justification for
imperialism. These ideas were used to create a common ‘scale of civilization’ and served the
interests of European imperialist ambitions. This can be related to the concepts of the White Man’s
Burden and the moral imperative for empire. An urge for scientific discovery and exploration of
unknown territory also helped to open up Africa. It should of course be noted that trade, missionary
activity and exploration were inextricably involved with each other. Imperialism however needs to
be considered in its specific context, which varied from country to country and time to time.

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Imperialism was a dynamic process, and there was interaction between the imperialists and the
colonies.

In the 1870s, imperialism was focused mainly in Africa and East Asia. In 1885 Bismarck organized
a Conference at Berlin, which culminated in the Treaty of Berlin where it was decided that the
Great Powers would now have ‘spheres of influence’, in Africa and China and territories would be
divided peacefully. The impact of this treaty was immediately felt in Africa leading to the
‘Scramble for Africa’. In roughly 15 years, almost the entire the continent with the exception of
Liberia, Ethiopia and the two Boer Republics was divided between the European powers. By the
early 20th century imperialist rivalries among the European powers were amply evident. Britain was
in conflict with France over Egypt, with Germany in South Africa, and with Russia over Persia. In
the Pacific Russia was in conflict with Japan. There was also the Franco-German rivalry over
Morocco and finally Russia and Germany were in conflict over the Balkans, the area which was to
provide the immediate background to World War I.

A lot has been written about the German desire in this period to attain a Great Power status and to
be an active bulwark against revolution and democracy. In the case of Germany the desire for a
colonial empire was one aspect of a deep sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction about Germany’s
place in the world at the end of the 19th century. Bismarck, although he had occasionally
encouraged the colonialist lobby for his domestic or diplomatic ends, he was fundamentally
disinterested in colonial expansion. Weltpolitik meant for the Germans in the 1890s the invention of
a new world mission for Germany worthy of her industrial, technological, cultural and military
strength. Germany began the construction of a massive navy and this soon made Britain suspicious.

Konne Zilliacus argued that no European nation went to war in 1914 due to treaty obligations,
moral issues or the rights of small nations, but to defend imperialist interests, which consisted of the
private interests of finance and monopoly capital. However, the point to be noted however is that
virtually all these rivalries had been dealt with before 1914, and therefore one cannot make a direct
link between imperialist rivalries and the First World War. It should also be noted that there was no
linear one-to-one relationship between colonial rivalries and cooperative alliances. Britain and
French relations within and outside the European continent illustrate this dichotomy well.

James Joll writes that there were three ways in which the imperialist movement directly affected the
relations between the European states and contributed to the atmosphere which made war possible.
Firstly, the international alignments adopted over colonial questions often cut across the pattern of
international relations that had emerged in Europe itself in the years after the Franco-Prussian war.
Secondly, specific agreements on particular colonial questions sometimes led to a more general
entente, as in the case of Britain’s settlement of outstanding colonial disputes with France and
Russia. Thirdly, the colonial rivalries and arms race which accompanied them affected the whole of
international life, encouraging doctrines of racial superiority and giving support to he crude
evolutionary theories which interpreted the relations between states in terms of the struggle for
survival, by then widely accepted as governing the world of nature. Therefore if we look for a link
between imperialist rivalries and World War I, we see that it was only indirect. With the rapid
growth of colonial empires in the late 19th century, nationalism itself came to be defined in terms of
colonial assets and imperialism. Alliances only came into play when the final conflict erupted in
1914.

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The outbreak of war is a question related to the balance of power. In the years preceding the First
World War, a number of alliances had emerged and Europe was divided into two power blocks.
Traditionally the outbreak of the war is viewed as a chain reaction, whereby Europe was fated to
war due to these alliances. In order to understand how these alliances operated and what the nature
of international relations was in this period, we can briefly look at the major players on the
international scene in this period and the imperatives that guided their foreign policy.

After 1870 Germany, France, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia were undoubtedly the great
powers of Europe, with Italy staking a claim to be regarded as one of them. The balance of power in
Europe consisted in the shifting balance between them and in the various alignments they adopted.

Britain in the 1870s followed an isolationist policy. She had been the first country to experience the
economic benefits of the industrial revolution and was still the leading trading nation in the world.
Britain’s interests were mainly outside Europe and her strategy was dominated by the fact that she
ruled India and needed to protect this Asian possession. For this reason she was suspicious of
Russia’s eastward expansion into Asia and was also therefore concerned with the fate of the
Balkans. The eastern question was temporarily resolved following the Congress of Berlin in 1878;
however the rise of Germany on the continent was now a source of concern for her.

For France, the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1870 was a constant factor in her foreign
policy up to 1914 and ensured that France would always side against Germany in any international
alignment. However within a few years of the defeat in 1870 France had regained her position
among the Great Powers of Europe.

The case of Austria-Hungary was more complicated. The Habsburg emperor Franz Joseph had lost
Lombardy in 1859 and Venetia in 1866. At the same time the war with Prussia in 1866 had finally
destroyed the possibility of the Habsburgs playing a leading role in Germany. In 1867 the Emperor
made a compromise (Ausgleich) with the Hungarian nationalist leaders by which the empire was
transformed into a Dual monarchy, with Hungary linked to Austria simply by the fact that they had
the same sovereign and that the conduct of foreign and military affairs was in the hands of joint
ministries. Austria now also had to come to terms with the heterogeneous races which made up the
empire. Inhabited by different races – Germans, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats,
Italians and others – and with widely differing levels of economic development, it was the emperor
and the imperial army and administration which alone gave it any sort of unity. The growth of
national states in this period, therefore inevitably raised the problem of national minorities.

The Italian Risorgimento, the movement for unification, was one of the great liberal causes of the
century. Italian unification however had been political rather than social and economic. The result
in the generation which grew up after the achievements of the Risorgimento was a growing
disillusionment about Italian life and politics and a growing desire for a radical change, whether by
a revolution or by a war for national expansion.

This brings us to Germany, the other newly unified nation, which was to be a key player in the
international scene in the decades following its unification. The years between 1860 and 1871 had
been a period of extraordinary industrial growth in Germany. The unification of Germany, bringing

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as it did the removal of the last barriers to internal trade as well as a common banking and currency
system, helped to speed the industrial development which was already underway before 1870.
Germany’s preponderance in the new balance of power in Europe was therefore firmly based on
industrial and demographic factors. The immediate effect of the establishment of the Reich was to
change the power balance in Europe. Traditionally, Europe had always had a weak centre and the
unification of Germany combined with rapid industrialization, military power and bureaucratic
efficiency lent Germany a position of almost latent hegemony over the continent. Post 1871 the
pressure of foreign trade and the increasing participation of Germany in world markets created an
increased demand for a German role in world politics, an ideal that would acquire the cult slogan
name weltpolitik.

Germany’s emergence as a great power was largely Bismarck’s work and he had realized that the
preservation of peace was in Germany’s interest, and he declared Germany, ‘a satiated power’.
Although by no standards a pacifist, Bismarck was a rational thinking statesman who has always
warned against the ill-consequences of Germany being drawn into a European conflict. In
pursuance of this policy Bismarck sought to cement Germany’s position in Europe through
diplomacy rather than aggression, an approach which was in the mould of Metternich’s
conservatism. Initially, Bismarck had tried to revive the Holy Alliance between the three
conservative states of Austria, Russia and Germany with the purpose of preventing a conflict
between these three states, especially since they were not natural allies. In 1873 he had proclaimed
the Dreikaiserbund or the League of Three Nations.

The origins of the alliance system as was seen in the years preceding the war can be traced to
Bismarck’s foreign policy in his years as the imperial chancellor of Germany between 1870 and
1890. What was different about this policy of alliances was that earlier alliances were only made
before wars and lasted through the duration of the war. The alliances that Bismarck envisioned were
to be forged in peacetime with no immediate prospect of war for reasons of security. The reasons
for Bismarck’s policy were largely pragmatic. Bismarck wanted to maintain a balance of power in
Europe between the five Great Powers – Britain, Russia, Germany, Austria and France in order in
order to safeguard German interests against a hostile coalition. He especially sought to isolate
France. ‘Always try to be one of the three in a world of five great powers’, was the maxim on which
his foreign policy was based.

An alliance with Britain and France could not materialize and even Russia was not willing to
commit herself to a Germany which was increasingly being perceived as a threat. It was only the
alliance with Austria-Hungary which was able to work. In 1879 the Dual Alliance was formed
between Germany and Austria-Hungary by a secret treaty. In the search for a third power, Germany
had to settle for Italy, with which a secret Triple Alliance was forged in 1882. In 1887 a
Reinsurance Treaty was signed with Russia, which guaranteed secret neutrality of Russia in the
event of a conflict. After 1890 when Bismarck was dismissed, German foreign policy changed to
one of Weltpolitik. The policy of assurance towards other European countries was ended and the
spirit of the Dual Alliance changed from being an alliance for defence to being a springboard for
Germany’s own ambitions. It was also used by Italy to bolster her efforts in the Libyan war against
Turkey and by Austria in her Balkan policy.

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With this change in policy a new system of counter alliances also began to emerge. In 1893 a Dual
Alliance was made between France and Russia. An alarmed Great Britain began its quest for allies
in the Pacific with the Anglo-Japanese treaty of 1902, clearly directed against Russia. In 1904 a
Dual Entente was signed between Britain and France, based on a colonial settlement whereby
Britain and France got a free hand in Egypt and Morocco respectively. In 1907 the Anglo-Russian
Entente was signed and colonial claims in Persia, Tibet and Afghanistan were settled. It should be
noted that these alliances were by and large agreements and not definite military alliances.
Therefore their importance should not be exaggerated.

The formation of such alliances undoubtedly led to increased tensions in Europe. The secret nature
of these treaties added to the suspicion. Alliances however could not automatically lead to war and
conversely alliances could contribute to peace by acting as a deterrent against possible aggressors. It
was the change in the nature of these alliances from defensive to aggressive that made a difference.
The theory of two balancing power blocs actually implies preservation of balance of power and
thereby preservation of peace. AJP Taylor points out that the pre-1914 alliances were so precarious
and fragile that they cannot be seen as the major cause of war. This indicates that a fundamental
problem which contributed to the outbreak of the war was the lack of a fully effective balance of
power in Europe, not its existence. Alliances were important, but as James Joll has argued no
European power really accepted that the alliance system consisted of two firm and balanced power
blocs and no major European power subscribed to the idea that the alliance system was a complete
deterrent against war. Each power made wrong calculations about the likely behaviour of its
alliance opponents.

While the specific terms of the alliances were kept secret, the knowledge of the very existence of
these alliances determined direction of mobilization plans. It seems that the alliance system raised
expectations about likely allies in a future war, and influenced the military plans of each power.
However each nation seemed to base its decision for war on an assessment of national interests,
which were linked to alliances, but were not, in all cases, determined by them. The alliance system
determined extensive timetables which were chalked out in planning for war. It is to this extent that
a link can be drawn between the alliance system and the outbreak of the First World War.

The growth of militarism is the years preceding the outbreak of the war, has also been perceived as
a factor leading up to the war. Militarism refers to the arms build up and escalation of tension
before the war. Europe has been viewed as an ‘armed camp’ from 1870 to 1914. Michael Howard
argues that each announcement of increased armaments’ expenditure by a European power before
1914 was viewed as a threat by its perceived rival, and thus created an atmosphere of mutual fear
and suspicion which played a major part in creating the mood for war in 1914. However, the idea
that a buildup of arms naturally leads to war remains dubious. The belief that high expenditure on
arms leads to a desire for war remains unproved. Niall Ferguson has claimed that the role of the
arms race in encouraging the First World War has been greatly exaggerated.

Many historians believe that the considerations of the leading powers regarding the balance of
power was a much greater influence than a simple build up of arms on policy during the July crisis.
According to LFC Turner the crisis cannot understood without knowledge of the balance of military
power, military planning and strategy. The balance of power in the Balkans was turning sharply
against Austria-Hungary and this was a vital factor which caused her to argue for a ‘preventive war’

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to weaken Serbia. AJP Taylor argued that the outbreak of the First World War was caused almost
entirely by rival plans for mobilization by the European powers. All European powers had
developed detailed war plans in expectation of war. Military planners believed in a swift
mobilization of forces and lightning offensives. However the relationship between military plans
and actual decisions for war is complicated.

When considering militarism as a cause for the war, we should also consider it in the context of a
cultural phenomenon as well. Militaristic language in which war was glorified as good, leading to
rebirth and peace seen as degenerate came to affect the language of international relations in this
period. When the war broke out it was greeted with hysterical enthusiasm over all European
capitals.

The early years of revolutions in France, Hungary and Italy, which were finally suppressed in 1848,
had left an ideological legacy which would have a far reaching impact on the future of Europe. The
crushing of the revolution represented the climax of an idealistic approach to society and politics
which drew from the enlightenment, which championed the idea of a rational universe. The liberals
of the enlightenment had championed ideas such as the importance of the individual, private
property, rule of law and the implementation of peaceful change. The revolutions seemed to refute
the very fundamental premises of liberal thought which had dominated politics till then.

The roots to the militaristic attitude of the late 19 th and early 20th century can be seen in what has
been seen by many as the crisis in the liberal, Enlightenment, rational values, which in turn was
being translated into politics. This challenge can be seen as a kind of neo-Romanticism. This kind
of a mindset found expression in both ends of the ideological spectrum. On the Left Marxism
seeped in a violent rhetoric of class war saw an extreme like the Syndicalism of George Sorel. On
the right, this was reflected in the rise of a new brand of irrational politics, to be shaped by the elites
who would use irrational means like myths to move the masses. The age of mass politics was
finally ushered in to stay. The elitist concept of democracy was replaced by the concept of universal
male suffrage. Many like Bismarck spoke with great skepticism about the great years of romantic
idealism. Perhaps it was Bismarck’s statement that ‘the politics of Germany would no longer be
decided by ideas and assembly speeches but by blood and iron’ that truly marked the end of liberal
ideology and the introduction of a brand of irrational politics. The cultural crisis of this period was
therefore a crisis in liberal values and explains much of world politics in this era.

When we see those thinkers whose ideas percolated down to the masses and also contributed in a
most powerful way to the creation of a militaristic environment in this period, the names of Charles
Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche stand out. Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) Origin of Species
challenged the Christian conception of origins and placed the origins of species in a competitive
process of natural selection. Darwin’s ideas were later adapted as Social Darwinism, which applied
Darwin’s ideas to society and argued that society also evolved through struggle and therefore class
struggle was perceived as natural. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) believed that life was a constant
struggle, and existence fundamentally chaotic. He believed that there was no absolute morality.
Struggle as a moral obligation was central to his thought. As a part of evolution, he believed that the
pinnacle of development was the ‘superman’ or ubermensch. Nietzsche saw in this superior man the
natural urge to dominate, and in them he saw potential tyrants as well. The ideas of Nietzsche and

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Darwin were distorted, vulgarized and popularized and used to justify later philosophies such as
Nazism and Fascism. This was the kind of language that permeated down to the masses.

These new ideas provided a rhetoric in which international relations came to be debated, but it
should be clarified that this language didn’t create the war itself. The effect of these ideas can
however be seen in the manner people were responding to the European situation. Militaristic ideas
also explain the unnatural hysteria on the eve of the war.

The role of national self-determination in the origins of the war has been another important area of
debate. Martel has argued that the First World War grew out of a clash between ‘Slav nationalism’
and the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. This type of interpretation which sees the Balkan
crisis in the context of the long running ‘Eastern Question’ views the First World War as one which
was fought for the future of Central and Eastern Europe. According to this view the primary
responsibility for beginning the war is shared between Austria-Hungary, which wanted to restore its
prestige, and Serbia which stood in a good position to benefit from European rivalry in the region.
John Leslie, a British historian however has cast doubt on the importance of the Austro-Serb
quarrel. He points out that Austria-Hungary can be held responsible for planning a local Austro-
Serb conflict, linked to the question of Balkan nationalism. Germany however was not interested in
this quarrel and deliberately used it as an opportunity to launch the European war.

Balkan nationalism, which emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, has been traditionally
viewed as an outburst of oppressed European Christians against Muslim Turkish domination, in
ethnic and religious terms. Due to the unique isolated Balkan terrain, the dominant form of
consciousness in this region was village patriotism. There was also a divide between the rural areas
dominated by people of Slav origin and the urban areas populated largely by Greeks. The identity
of the people was asserted at two levels. The first was the ethnic identity based on linguistic
differences and the second was the religious identity. The Ottoman Empire of the 17 th century was
multi-ethnic and multi-religious, in which ethnic identities could be preserved more easily.
Hardening of religious identities was only witnessed late in the 19th century.

An important element of Balkan nationalism was the peasantry, who had high participation levels
due to their religious millenarianism. A second important element was the intellectual class who
began to espouse modern values of nationalism. Early Balkan nationalism was understood in the
context of Enlightened Despotism. Libertarian Enlightenment of the time of Napoleon and the
French Revolution also influenced Balkan nationalism. Another strand which flowed into this was
the Romantic reaction to Enlightenment, with its focus on culture and preservation of tradition. The
local Turkish Chiefs or Pashas were also an important element in the emergence of Balkan
nationalism. Due to the vast nature of the Ottoman state, there was invariably a struggle between
these power local officers and the central government at Istanbul. It was in this conflict that these
governors often chose to foster Balkan nationalism to serve as a tool. Muhammad Ali in Egypt and
Ali Pasha in Greece were such powerful governors.

The most important element in Balkan nationalism was however the role of the Great Powers, in
what they termed as the ‘Eastern Question’. This Eastern question concerned the disposal of the
Balkans after the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In this region increasing Russian interests were
witnessed and Russia began to lay claims to the Balkans for strategic reasons, on religious and

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racial grounds. As a part of the racial argument, Russia encouraged Pan-Slavism in the Balkans.
Austria-Hungary too was deeply concerned with the question of nationalism in this region primarily
because it was a multi-ethnic region where Balkan nationalities often overlapped with ethnic
identities.

Among the most dominant Balkan states was Serbia. The Serbs were a Slav people who had been
conquered in the 14th century by the Turks. The Serbian capital, Belgrade was dominated by the
Local Provincial Governors or Pashas, who were engaged in a power struggle for Serbian
autonomy. In 1804, they revolted against Turkish rule. Their outrage was directed against the
Christian nobility who were loyal to the Turks. The Christian nobles decided to appeal to Russia for
help. Between 1815 and 1830 under Russian pressure, the Pashas were replaced by the Christian
notables. In 1830, Serbia was also granted autonomy. In 1878 following a Russo-Turkish war,
Serbia was declared an independent state at the Congress of Berlin. For Serbia however this was not
the realization of her nationalism and she sought to unite all Slavs into a Yugo-Slav union with
Russian help. It was the Austrian insecurity at this that led directly to the World War.

While the Balkan question was an old one, in the 20 th century the situation had become more
volatile. Austria had begun to feel threatened by the very existence of Serbia. Till the time of
Metternich and Bismarck, Austria had been reined in. However following the dismissal of
Bismarck in 1890, the character of German foreign policy changed to a more aggressive stance and
under the new approach of Weltpolitik no attempts were made any longer to rein in either Austria or
Russia. The Dual Alliance was in fact used now to urge the Austrians on to a forward policy in the
Balkans. The new German foreign policy, among other things took the form of a challenge to
Britain, as a part of which Germany started building a huge navy. The second was the expansion of
German power on the continent through what was called the Mitteleuropa Policy, which aimed at
concrete economic dominance over the European continent. Thirdly, the new German foreign
policy also used the Dual Alliance to push for intervention in the Balkans.

The other European powers were also disconcerted by the rhetoric adopted by Germany in their
expansionist drive. There was a constant feeling that Germany had arrived late on the scene, and
therefore there was a sense of urgency and aggressiveness in her policies. Germany’s deliberate
escalation of crises which could have been controlled such as the Moroccan and Bosnian crises also
added to this feeling. Germany’s declaration of war in 1914 at Russian mobilization was also seen
in similar light. Germany of course saw 1914 as a defensive struggle against her perceived
encirclement.

Bosnia, which had been conquered by the Turks in the 15 th century, was at the core of the Austrian-
Serb rivalry as both of them desired to control Bosnia. In 1878 at the Congress of Berlin, Bosnia
had been placed under Austrian rule. Austria began to fear the impact of the Young Turk movement
in the predominantly Muslim Bosnia, and in 1908 annexed Bosnia. Russia and Serbia immediately
protested. However Germany now threatened Russia with the prospect of a European war if she
decided to intervene, forcing Russia to step down. At the same time in Serbia, terrorist groups
began to emerge with the aim of carrying out terrorist activities to liberate Bosnia. This forms the
background to the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Austria was now
assured of Germany’s support (‘blank cheque’) against Russia and Serbia. In the crisis following
the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand therefore, both Germany and Russia now knew

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 they could not turn back. Russia began to mobilize her troops and on this pretext, Germany declared
war on Russia on 1st August and on France on 3rd August. .

On 4th August, Britain declared war on Germany. While Britain’s real reason for entering the war
was to prevent a disruption of continental balance of power, her official pretext was German entry
into neutral Belgium. USA too entered the war on the pretext of the German submarine blockade. It
is interesting to see that as status quo powers both Britain and USA were able to enter the war on
idealistic grounds, in which they were almost as aggressive as Germany.

Recent works have tried to suggest a link between different kinds of economic pressures and the
outbreak of the First World War as well. Paul Kennedy has suggested that economic interests are a
key reality behind diplomacy. In this view politicians have autonomous freedom to pursue foreign
policy and even make vital decisions for war, without reference to economic interest groups in
society. However the economic and industrial resources of each nation ultimately determine the
success or failure of these decisions. This implies that economics plays a vital role.

There is also the view of Carl Strikwerda who argues that the crisis of 1914 needs to be understood
within a framework which investigates whether all European leaders actually believed that political
and military power were essential to economic success. He shows a very high level of economic
cooperation and integration in Europe prior to 1914. Most industrialists desired mutually beneficial
economic relations and many wanted greater economic integration within European trade and
financial sectors. The most significant influence over foreign policy was thus exercised by the
political leaders and not the industrialists. Thus the link between economic imperatives and Great
Power status can be questioned.

The above discussion suggests that any single explanation for the outbreak of war is likely to be too
simple. While in the final crisis of July 1914 the German government acted in a way that made war
more likely, the enthusiasm with which war was greeted in all the belligerent countries and the
assumption by each of the governments concerned that their vital national interests were at stake,
were the result of an accumulation of factors – intellectual, social, economic and even
psychological as well as political and diplomatic – which all contributed to the situation in 1914.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 James Joll – Europe Since 1870
 Frank McDonough – The Origins of the First and Second World Wars
 AJP Taylor – The First World War
 Dwight E. Lee (Ed.) – The Outbreak of the First World War
 David Thomson – Europe Since Napoleon
 Koch (ed.) – The Origins of the First World War
 Paul Kennedy – The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

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