I think we are coming to the end of a stimulating line Hardu, so I promise this will be my last post on the matter. Maybe a Versailles-type promise and I will break it, but I hope not
August 1914 is a case of dominos falling because somebody rocks the table. Austria was totally unprepared for war. Germany in particular had no earthly strategic reason to start a war against any of its neighbours. It did of course have the capacity - which was the problem. The problem in 1914 is that all the powers thought that they would win the war...
I agree, though I do not think that it was so accidental. As you said, they all thought they could actually win. The period of 1950-86 reminds me of the pre-WW1 atmousphere. Power blocks absolutely certain that the balance of (nuclear) power would maintain a peace. There were plenty of table rockers, but better sense maintained a very shaky peace.
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Prior to the 19th century "war" was as much "feud"
Ok, my turn to stereotype. Perhaps you Norwegians do not know how to hold a grudge properly
I disagree about the willingness of treaty reversals. Though I will concede that with a few exceptions (1815 among them) there are not enough treaties of the serverity we are discussing.
Yes, international law is the only law that develops through being broken. There was in fact a treaty of friendship and cooperation between us and you in force in 1801. And there was no British declaration of war prior to the opening of hostilities.
Now weren't pre-1815 treaties dynastic and therefore personal in nature
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Seriously though, as perfidious as it was, it is pre-modern concepts of treaties being morally binding obligations. Has it happened 50-100 years later then I think you might have had a point. However, at the time I believe the engagement to be morally, but not legally wrong.
In war, nations do desperate things. Copenhagen was repeated in Oran, and the name Perfidious Albion did not come about by accident. However, attacking a nation which might conceivably lead to a threat of invasion is not the same as using Belgium as a highway for convenience. That might be bias, but I think Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia or Russia closer in spirit to Copenhagen, pre-emptive invasion of potential enemies. 1914 Belgium should not fit in this category.
The German professors who wrote "The ideas of 1914" were certainly not warmongers. My point is that nobody wanted war in 1914 - except possibly the most revanchist segment of the French populaiton and a handful of Russian slavophiles.
That's an interesting interpretation. Though for so many countries not willing and unprepared for war, they put a damn good show on in 1914.
The strike below the belt once more. The British cabinet went into a blue funk when it heard of the Christmas truce on 1914 and prohibited all further such fraternizaiton with the enemy because iot feared for the moral of the trrops.
They started shelling them too. However, I do not think that overreaction to comradely fraternization to be evidence of anything other than the high-handed treatment of their men as unthinking weapons platforms which pervaded the army for centuries.
You are a true adherent to the Lords Shrewesbury and Macauly interpretation of Continental political systems as pure despotisms I notice. Your description of pre-1914 Europe is the kind I'd expect from the contemporary American right. What you're saying just is not true.
The Imperial Reichstag could not introduce legislation. The Duma was not informing Bloody Nicholas of war, but the reverse. If despotisms is too strong for you,then perhaps you will accept oligarchies. I would also describe Britain as little more than a mercantile oligarchy. Swapping Liberals for Tories every 6 years would hardly count as democratic choice for the majority of Britons either.
How large a reception hall would you book for the men responsible for war? I would wager a small conference room.
Most Germans put the blame for their defeat squarely on incompetent military leadership in 1914. Of course they wanted a new round. They knew they were better at fighting wars than any others - and Versailles had squarely stated that might = right.
Then why no war in 1930? All the necesarry economic problems existed, and Versailles was a closer event. It took Hitler to crystallize the ingredients into war. However, the German people were not ignorant serfs. Neither were the Hungarians. They made a choice, and a choice part-based on resentment should not translate into responsibility for the instrument which provoked such resentment
It was a very real alternative for Britain to stay neutral in 1939 as well. It would have meant throwing every principle and every foreign policy goal overboard. As you say
Entering a war to prevent German hegemony is not the same as entering a war for a landgrab to right past injustices.
