The origins of the Great War

On April 24th I attended a discussion at my local Durham County Library entitled "The Great War: From Single Political Event to Global War." The event was sponsored by Sister Cities of Durham and the Durham Library Foundation Humanities Society. The presenter was Richard Hill, who taught history in the Durham County Public School System for 32 years, is well traveled, and certainly knows his history.

The presentation was well-attended but I was by far the youngest person there (mean age I would say ~55). Any-who...

As Hill pointed out, most discussions of WWI begin with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 by a 19-year-old student and Yugoslav nationalist, Gavrilo (Gabriel) Princip. The assassination is a fascinating story in and of itself, and involved a good deal of dumb luck, happenstance, and coincidence (the lead driver for the Imperial cavalcade, for example, made a wrong turn down a side street, which is where Princip, gun in hand, just happened to be). Hill then showed some movie clips of soldiers marching past cheering crowds from a site called CriticalPast, which has tons of historic stock footage, some of which dates to WWI. Here is some footage of the funeral for the Archduke:

Hill continued by showing a slide with a bunch of small, difficult-to-read text. This was intentional, though, as his point was to show that assassinations of political figures was actually an extremely common occurrence between the 1890s and the first decades of the 20th century (the US was not exempt from this pattern−William McKinley, anyone?). So, the assassination itself was not to blame. A better question is why was this assassination, at this time and this place, is the only one to have sparked a major conflict. The answer, Hill argued, was a combination of:

• Rising nationalism. It has to be remembered that some of the belligerents were only recently unified into nations that we would recognize today. Hill showed a map of Europe at the end of the 17th century to highlight the fact that Germany and Italy in particular were hodgepodges of associated but independent entities that were not unified until the 1870s. (In fact, the German Empire was officially declared in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in 1871 following the Prussian defeat of France.) With the rise of these states, an increased sense of nationalism and, thus, national honor, emerged. One manifestation of this was the growth of the German navy, which, it was hoped, would compete with Britain for mastery of the seas (suffice it to say, Britain felt quite threatened by this).

Europe on the eve of the Great War. Courtesy of europeaninstitute.org

• Alliances. A complex web of alliances formed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century within (and outside) Europe. The major agreements were: (1) the Triple Alliance, first formed in 1882 between Austria-Hungary and the recently unified Italy and Germany, and, (2) largely in reaction to the Triple Alliance, the Triple Entente (or "Understanding"), which in 1884 involved France and Russia and, after 1907, Great Britain. It is important to note that the Entente should be recognized for what it was, an understanding, rather than as a binding treaty. It was not a given, for example, even up until the outbreak of hostilities, that Britain would come to the aid of France, Russia, and Belgium. Nevertheless, these (and other) agreements ultimately forced the powers to react. 

• Military strategy. Other than Britain, compulsory, and universal, military service was a part of life for citizens of many European countries, which meant that most of the major powers could field potentially massive armies at any time (in the millions). This created significant logistical problems, as these armies had to be called up, fed, equipped and, perhaps most importantly, transported to the right place at the right time. The timing and location of hostilities were in fact absolutely critical−the discussions among military leaders clearly reveal the obsession with getting the battle-ready troops to strategic points before their enemies. This was especially true for Germany, who expected to have to fight on two fronts. One could scarcely think of a situation more conducive to rash decisions. In fact, Germany planned to commit massive forces to the Western Front to quickly bring France to her knees before turning its attention to Russia in the east. France, expecting the Germans to attack from the north through Belgium (as they eventually did), hoped to initially defend against the German onslaught before thrusting across the frontier towards the Rhine. Russia was committed to an invasion of East Prussia (to prevent a massing of German arms to the west) and an attack to their southwest to defend Slavic populations from Austro-Hungarian aggression. Britain, for her part, hoped to depend heavily, and almost exclusively, on her powerful navy.   

The Germans' planned envelopment of the French army (red) and France's thrust
towards the Rhine (blue). Courtesy of westpoint.edu

• Colonial networks. Hill stated that colonialism did play a subsidiary role in the war. Asian states, for example, were increasingly resisting the expansionist policies of European nations, a process that led to the humiliating defeat by Japan of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Russia also sought an exit to the Mediterranean and was thus always looking to lop off pieces of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, and Britain wanted control of the Suez Canal to ensure quick passage to her Indian possessions, and these powers were intent on protecting these interests.

• General factors. This last category was kind of a catch-all for other important causes. Hill first noted the incredible advances in communication technology−telephones, wireless devices, motion pictures−that permitted an unprecedented ability to disseminate information to massive audiences and, thus, to influence (and, in many cases, deceive) the public. Rapid advances in military technology also led to an arms race among the great powers (recall Germany's construction of a state-of-the-art navy to rival Britain's). 

So, what caused the cataclysm that became the Great War? Hill brought things full circle to argue that:

1. Europe lacked a system with the ability and authority to mediate international disputes. Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal as part of his 1919 fourteen-point piece plan was mean to fill this void (it was created in 1920, although the United States never joined). Closely tied to this factor was the inability (or refusal) of existing states to add new political units.

2. The destructive power of modern mechanized warfare was tragically under-appreciated. Of course, it's not like there weren't warning signs: the horrifying capabilities of machine guns, for example, were evident both in Britain's colonial wars and in the Russo-Japanese War.

3. A willingness on the part of the great powers to go to war in order to maintain national unity.

During the Q & A session, one audience member referred to a documentary that he had seen claiming that a (if not the) main cause of the war was actually the Berlin-to-Bagdad railroad, which was being constructed by the Germans to ensure a steady supply of oil from the Middle East for her growing navy. There does seem to be some merit to this claim, and it does fit nicely in Hill's "Colonial networks" theme. UPDATE 10.14.16: I am currently listening to Chris Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, which is a really, really comprehensive look at the roots of the war. It the book, he relates how the Germans, under pressure from the British, gave up plans to run the line all the way to the Persian Gulf, which largely muted British opposition.

Really interesting event. Kudos to the sponsors and to Mr. Hill...

19th century German science as seen through literature

Another post from my lengthening backlog...

The Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG hosts an event they call "Food for Thought," which brings UNCG scholars to speak about lively topics. I had never attended, but I saw the title for the February 11 talk, "Visions, Dreams, and Divinations: Literature and Science around 1800," and was intrigued by the fact that a visiting German scholar, Susanne Gomoluch, was speaking. Apart from my interest in the history of science, I've spent quite a bit of time in Germany, so, my interest piqued, I went.

She began by providing some historical background, and the political situation in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th century is particularly critical. At the time, what is now Germany was a loose confederation of autonomous states and principalities that was, until 1806 when it was dissolved by Napoleon, the Holy Roman Empire. This was followed by several loosely affiliated German confederations until the eventual unification of Germany under a single government in 1871.

Holy Roman Empire in 1789. By Robert Alfers via Wikipedia.

The looseness of the political arrangement is important in this context because there simply was no unified policy towards anything. Germany lagged behind Great Britain and France in industrialization, for example, largely because of this lack of centralized decision-making. This also meant, though, that a diversity of perspectives on science emerged in the German states. Dr. Gomoluch spoke about a number of interesting issues, but the most fascinating was a character named Karl Phillip Moritz (1756-1793). Moritz, among other things, was a high school teacher, professor of archaeology and, most pertinent here, the editor of Das Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte (The Magazine of Experiential Psychology as a Reader for Scholars and Laymen), which was one of Germany's first journals of psychology. The journal featured much early work on mental pathology, deaf studies, social deviance, and the interpretation of dreams.

An interesting presentation, and LIHC also provides a pretty nice spread of food... 

Ashby Dialogue, Part 2

So, this past Monday (February 24), we had our second Ashby meeting. This session's theme was Human Adaptation to Sedentism and Urbanism. Gwen Robbins Schug and I moderated the session, although Gwen did most of the heavy lifting. We had a great student turnout this time as well.

As an organizing theme for the session, we used Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel (henceforth GGS), which attempts to explain why Europe and her descendants came to dominate today's world. We watched PBS's video adaptation of the book, and Gwen assigned several articles that critiqued Diamond's arguments there and in his other popular book, Collapse. The latter explores the effects of anthropogenic environmental degradation and how this has led to the fall of past societies. One of Diamond's major goals with GGS was to discredit the idea that Western domination was the result of racial superiority. He argued that societies were forced to deal with the hand that geography dealt them and some areas were more conducive to the development of "complex" societies than others based on factors such as the length of the growing season and the presence of domesticateable plants and animals, most importantly draft animals, wheat, and barley. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Diamond has been heavily criticized for what many perceive to be an environmentally deterministic perspective (you can see one of his rebuttals to that charge here).

So, using this as a backdrop, several prominent points arose in our discussions, thanks mainly to Gwen's guidance:

• The first, and probably one of the most infuriating to anthropologists, is that in both GGS and Collapse, Diamond appears woefully out-of-date on his characterization of human societies. His use of terms like "band," "chiefdom," "state," and even the concept of "complexity" are based on decades-old anthropological paradigms. While useful for organizing variation, in practice they unrealistically pigeonhole the vast amount of diversity out there. I wonder how Diamond's definition of "complexity" would change if he were not a Western researcher?
• Collapse also fails to cite the latest archaeological research, which is, after all, the best record we have for the development of past societies. The best example of this comes from his discussion of Easter Island (known to those that live there as Rapa Nui). In Diamond's scenario, reckless Polynesians chopped down thousands of trees in order to transport those iconic stone statues (known as mo'ai). While this story certainly raises the issue of how fragile ecosystems truly are and how destructive humans can be, the archaeology tells a very different version. Gwen had us read a fascinating article by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo that demonstrates (1) deforestation was largely the result of introduced rats that ate palm nuts and thus prevented forest regeneration and (2) the huge statues were not moved on tree rollers anyway (they were probably dragged, upright, with ropes).
• Diamond's books are attractive because they provide unicausal explanations for very complex phenomena. In GGS, for example, it was all about agriculture: the raising of crops (wheat and barley) created food surpluses, which encouraged the domestication of draft animals, which led to social stratification and, ultimately, to the "complex" state-level societies that came to dominate the world today. However, these sorts of explanations, even when they work for a particular time and place, rarely apply to ALL times and ALL places. The native peoples of North America's Pacific Northwest, for example, developed very complex societies based largely on a fishing, not a farming, economy. 
• This whole issue of societal "collapse" is also problematic. Several people brought up the fact that societies rarely, if ever, fully collapse but, rather, undergo a long decline where people typically move away from the population centers into the hinterlands. 
• We also agreed that, while Diamond's arguments have their flaws, he is doing what many an anthropologist has failed to do: bring these "big picture" issues to a popular audience.  

References:

Diamond, J (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton, New York.

Diamond, J (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Penguin Books, London.

Hunt, TL, Lipo, CP (2010). Ecological catastrophe, collapse, and the myth of "ecocide" on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). In (McAnany, PA, Yoffee, N, Eds) Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire, pp. 21-44.  

Cultural misunderstandings: a case study from the British settlement of North America

I'm in the middle of reading Bernard Bailyn's latest book, The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations 1600-1675, and I came across a very interesting example of two cultures talking past one another. A little background: the colony at Jamestown was founded in 1607, and over the next few years, colonists, including the now famous John Smith, undertook expeditions to map the area and to collect (or steal) provisions from the Indians (the colonists were in bad shape almost constantly during the first decades). As might be expected, both cultures were feeling each other out in order to maximize their respective advantages. On the one hand, while the Indians were interested in European trade goods, they wanted to constrain the colonists within small, coastal settlements focused on trade (rather than permanent homesteads). The Europeans were also looking to trade but, for myriad reasons, many where also looking to stay and settle permanently on land occupied by various tribes. Ok, I'll have Bailyn (2012: 57-58) pick it up at the point where he describes a cultural misunderstanding relating to power relationships (note the olde English spelling in the quotes):

In three days of elaborate ceremony and elusive conversation, fending off Powhatan's [a local chief] question of the colonists' purpose in settling, [John] Smith was urged, on behalf of his people, to acknowledge Powhatan 'as their lord' and to accept for himself the role of a subordinate chief. This, of course, to the extent that he understood the proposal, he ignored, but in the end, symbolically at least, he had no choice. After being feasted 'in their best barbarous manner' and treated like a defeated enemy about to be slain, he was brought to what appeared to be an execution block, surrounded by warriors 'ready with clubs to beate out his braines.' Then at the final moment he was suddenly released, adopted as a subordinate werowance, and by extension his people were symbolically enclosed within the constraints of Powhatan's regime. Never, of course, experiencing these events as acts of subordination, and declining the benefits offered, Smith recorded the story of his captivity at first briefly and with little drama (he 'procured his owne liberty'), then elaborated it in retelling, finally embellished it as an elaborate ceremony on the tale of how Pocahontas 'the King's dearest daughter' (who was eleven at the time) 'got his head in her armes, and laid her own upon his to save him from death.'

The parallel effort to subordinate and control barbarous and threatening people, at least symbolically, was played out reciprocally by the English the next year. Smith and Newport [describe him], on order from London, led a troop of musketeers to present Powhatan with a plethora of gifts, inlcuding copper objects, a bedstead and bedclothes  a red coat, and a copper crown, the last a gift heavily freighted with symbolism from the great King James. When with difficulty they managed to place the crown on Powhatan's forcibly bowed head, the ceremonial reduction of the chief of chiefs to the status of a vassal or local lord of King James was complete, symbolically confined within England's sovereign power.

In other words, both cultures carried out elaborate ceremonies that, while meant to subordinate each other, were perceived as meaningless rites because neither culture recognized them for what they were intended to be. The same thing happens all the time with modern cultures; sometimes these interactions can be humorous, but many times they can have serious, even tragic, consequences. For those who say that understanding other cultures is a waste of time, proceed at your own peril...

UPDATE 4.28.13

I've just finished the book, and it was a fascinating read. What struck me most was how heterogeneous the colonizing populations from Europe really were. Recent histories of colonial America have stressed, and correctly so, that Native Americans were not a single, monolithic unit but rather a diverse collection of rich cultures. So too for the incoming Europeans, whose various nationalities, religious views, and socio-economic circumstances determined to a great extent how they interacted with both native cultures and each other.

My Human Biological Variation class was recently engaged in a discussion about the biological reality of race among modern humans and, and it often does, the point that the concept's definition differs from place to place was raised. One student, originally from England, was surprised at how obsessed Americans seemed to be with their origins: people identify as African-American, German, Irish, Native American, and so on, while it is very rare for an English citizen to identify as, say, German-English or African-English. I bring this up because I came across a passage in the book that was particularly salient within this context. In his description of the complex socio-ethnic conditions of a Manhattan recently conquered by the English, Bailyn (2012: 516) outlines the response of the newly incorporated citizenry:

In the late 1660s and 1670s the new English province of New York was far different from its neighboring New England  It was a world in flux, its people caught up in complex ethnic tensions, its economy growing but shifting in organization  it government newly established and weakly related to the society it ruled. The great majority of New Yorkers in Manhattan (an estimated 76 percent of a significant sample) were Dutch, as were the settlers sin what were now called Albany and Schenectady, and they expected to remain Dutch under the English regime. In fact, their "Dutchness" was becoming more prominent  as a process of what Joyce Goodfriend has called the "crystallization" of ethnic groups set in. The various groups, she explains, now in a more open society became more self-aware and felt the need to define themselves in institutional form and to preserve their distinctive characteristics  So the Dutch, despite the differences among them, began to "coalesce"-to consciously value their distinct common ground  in the language, religion, customs  and values. So too other groups sought their own places in this province of tolerated diversity.

I'm not sure how "tolerated" all that diversity really was, but this "crystallization" really does seem to be a common response among peoples within multi-ethnic communities, and it may may go some way in explaining the desire of Americans to be so self-aware of their ancestry.

References:

Bailyn, B (2012). The barbarous years: The peopling of British North America: the conflict of civilizations 1600-1675. Alfred E. Knopf, New York.

Goodfriend, JD (1992). Before the melting pot: society and culture in colonial New York City, 1664-1730. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

In the Garden of Beasts

The other night my wife, Noell, and I attended a book discussion hosted by the UNCG libraries of Erik Larsen's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. The book was an excellent read, and follows the exploits of William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to a Germany ruled by Adolf Hitler, and his family. From Amazon.com:

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the "New Germany," she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance-and ultimately, horror when a climatic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition

We were lucky enough to have Dr. Karl Schleunes, a professor emeritus of history at UNCG and an expert on early 20th century Germany, lead the discussion. As Dr. Schleunes summarized it, Dodd (who was FDR's third or fourth choice) was sent to do two things: (1) to negotiate the payment of U.S. loans to Germany (American banks had made huge loans to help bail out the German economy in the aftermath of World War I), and (2) to steer Hitler along a more moderate path. He then summarized the historical context that preceded Dodd's appointment.

Perhaps the two most important events were the German experience in World War I and the onset of depression in 1929. Germany ended the war having defeated one enemy in the East (Tsarist Russia) and, in the west, with her armies situated on foreign soil. The German people had to reconcile this with the fact that their government signed an armistice and then negotiated a treaty in 1919 that laid much of the blame for the war on Germany (a not unrealistic interpretation of events) and forced it to concede complete defeat. Germany was thus on the lookout for scapegoats. Dr. Schleunes also pointed out that in 1928, when the German economy was relatively strong, the Nazi party received a paltry 2.7% of the vote. However, in the years after 1929 (the onset of the depression in the U.S. and elsewhere), the Nazis secured ever larger percentages, eventually capturing 40% by the 1930s. Germans appeared, in other words, to be looking for a political party that could restore Germany to her rightful (as many saw it) place among the world powers while, at the same time, providing an explanation for the humiliating defeat in World War I.

This is the situation that Dodd, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, stepped into when he arrived as ambassador in 1933. The consensus among the discussion group was that, despite his best intentions and efforts, Dodd was mostly a failure as ambassador. Hitler obviously did not steer a moderate course, and Dodd resigned his post in 1934. There was quite a bit of discussion on why exactly he was unsuccessful. I think Noell has it mostly right when she argued that Dodd simply was not interested playing political games: in order for an ambassador to succeed, they need people to like them, they need to compromise, and they need to tell people what they want to hear. Dodd really didn't have any of these qualities (depending on how you feel, this could be to his credit or discredit). During his BookTV talk, Larsen was asked his thoughts on Dodd's performance. He gave Dodd a B+ grade, stating further that no one was likely to have succeeded in such a position (a point that the discussion group touched on as well).

One of the more eye-opening things about the book (at least for me) was the level of anti-Semitism within the U.S. State Department. Everyone talked about the so-called "Jewish Problem." One of the audience members, when referring to a particular individual in the book that committed suicide because of her Jewish ancestry, asked how one could tell whether or not someone was actually Jewish. This question became particularly important after the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which encroached on, or even eliminated in many cases, the rights of Jews in Germany. Apparently, one had to track down, and keep, the baptismal certificates of your grandparents (there is no equivalent in Judaism) to demonstrate that they were not Jewish. If one had two, three, or four Jewish grandparents, was part of a religious community (i.e., they went to Synagogue), or married to someone of Jewish ancestry, then they were considered Jewish. If one only had a single Jewish grandparent (and in possession of baptismal certificates for the other three), then they were not considered Jewish. (All of this, of course, rested on false assumption that there was some fixed, identifiable thing called the "Jewish race.") 

A couple of interesting tidbits that I learned during the discussion, thanks largely to Dr. Schleunes :

• Hitler did not actually become a German citizen until 1932, the year before he was named chancellor (he was Austrian)
• The Nazi government defended laws that outlawed marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans by citing American miscegenation legislation, which prohibited breeding between whites and blacks

Anyway, I highly recommend the book...