World War 1

[Dcdrac]

I was discussing this war with my father today and he put forward the notion that if Arch duke Franz Ferdianand had not been assainated would World War 1 might not have broken out

I argued yes it would still have broken maybe not in 1914 but there would have been a war still, there were so many conflicts of interest, Imperial, weapons races and economic clashes it was just a matter of when not if.

Thoughs? discussion?

[Craig4]

The assassination was the spark that set off the bomb but the bomb was set at the end of the Franco/Prussian War and the Second War of Italian Unification. Both of these (and the Crimean war) left long simmering territorial disputes that were just waiting for a chance to settle.

The Arch Duke was a real dick who had managed to piss off everyone up to and including the Pope with his choice of a bride. There weren't a lot of tears shed over the embarrassment of his family life being removed from the court in Vienna. Europe was not going to war over him.

[catsmate1]

The assassination was the spark that set off the bomb but the bomb was set at the end of the Franco/Prussian War and the Second War of Italian Unification. Both of these (and the Crimean war) left long simmering territorial disputes that were just waiting for a chance to settle.
Yep. There were too many factors in play; the war could have started in 1898 or 1906 or 1878 or 1911..........

The Arch Duke was a real dick who had managed to piss off everyone up to and including the Pope with his choice of a bride. There weren't a lot of tears shed over the embarrassment of his family life being removed from the court in Vienna. Europe was not going to war over him.
If it wasn't for the "suicide" of Rudolf at Mayerling, Franz Ferdinand wouldn't have even been the heir.

[paiute]

History often looks like one long slow inevitable fall of gigantic dominoes no single man or act could have deflected much.

[Laeke]

The assassination itself could have failed (it very nearly did, some accounts of it could be slapstick humor...) and this particular crisis averted, but it seems that it was inevitable: European powers had an habit of going at war in this fashion and while the system established by Castlereagh & Metternich after the Napoleonic wars more or less deterred a continent-brawl for a century, no one foresaw how different, brutal and gruesome modern warfare would be.

In another thread about Victorian wars, I pointed to Churchill My Early Life, and it is also pertinent to mention it here: everyone thought Europe was living a definitive age of peace, British soldiers at the end of the XIXth century were bored out of their mind by colonial interventions, to the point of being careless: the cavalry regiment of Churchill charged with swords at Madhi rebels for the sport of it. When they saw the wounded, amputated, regroup; the commanding officers "promptly remembered they had carbines". Boer War was an exciting opportunity to fight "a real war" against whites with even equipment. It is not difficult to infer that the prospect of a "good European war" would have been met with some deluded romantism.

While Churchill doesn't cover the years of WWI, he mentions it a lot: it took an heavy toll on the morale and spirit of those (individuals and collectives) who fought in it, including officers from the high society (Churchill lost many friends and accointances).

[Craig4]

My sense is that the British had no interest in helping the French recover Alsace Loraine. If there's one "do-over" the Germans probably wished they had round about 1916 would be the invasion of Belgium. That's really when the British had the treaty obligation to enter the war.

[catsmate1]

My sense is that the British had no interest in helping the French recover Alsace Loraine. If there's one "do-over" the Germans probably wished they had round about 1916 would be the invasion of Belgium. That's really when the British had the treaty obligation to enter the war.
I suspect German control of the French channel ports would also have triggered British intervention.

[Laeke]

I suspect German control of the French channel ports would also have triggered British intervention.

Channel ports are absolutely a sensitive issue.
The germans were very much eager to go to war (as the famous blank support of AH proves): I read -but don't remember the source- that they were convinced that a war was absolutely necessary with regards to Russia, which was making great progress towards industrialization thanks to foreign capital (French, notably) and the sooner would be the better as they would only weaken relatively with years passing on.

However, while I am not a fan of counterfactual history, the death of Franz Ferdinand could have been averted. But in such a multi-causal event, a single change seems too insignificant to change the tide of fate.

[angrysoba]

The assassination itself could have failed (it very nearly did, some accounts of it could be slapstick humor...) and this particular crisis averted, but it seems that it was inevitable: European powers had an habit of going at war in this fashion and while the system established by Castlereagh & Metternich after the Napoleonic wars more or less deterred a continent-brawl for a century, no one foresaw how different, brutal and gruesome modern warfare would be.

I wonder if this is completely true. It seems there should have been some signs of how modern warfare would be given the 1905 Russo-Japanese War which was very similar to a mini-World War I in terms of the equipment used.

Also, as you mention the Mahdi, the battles against the Khalifa's armies used Maxim guns which pointed towards the way in which they could be used against charges. The Second Opium War had also seen the use of Maxim guns (I think) as well as the continuing development of the rifle that was shown in the Franco-Prussian War.

It may be that many who called the shots disregarded all this new data but surely someone must have been able to predict the destruction of a European-wide conflict.

I'm mostly speculating here, of course, as I really don't know.

[Laeke]

That military experts realized how modern evolutions would impact war in Europe is certainly possible.

But if such lessons were learned, it does seem that they were not heard: once more, judging by Churchill own word, the Great War was a terrible experience, opposite to the expectation of even the career officers.

All that being said: European diplomats were not oblivious to the dreadful consequences of continent wide wars as soon as a century earlier... Firstly because they lived it. The Congress of Vienna tries to sort Europe after Napoleon in the best possible manner to avoid future war but also cement "the balance of powers" as a doxa through novel institutions (the "Concert") that sought to fix a deeply broken diplomatic order that failed to prevent a succession of general confrontations, quite catastrophic for their time.

In a similar manner, total wars where the whole population is mobilized were already envisioned by Clausewitz on the basis of what could be learned in his time (Aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, bis).

So maybe the whole "European strategists were too callous in apprehending the real consequences of the latest weapons, even though they used them or observed the US Civil War & the Russo-Japanese conflict of 1905" is just one of those partial-truths turned overblown-myth (like "All WW1 commanders were butchers", which very much devolves from the former), I do not know... Yet the evolution of technologies & doctrine were so huge during that war that I believe they could not be foreseen.

[Craig4]

I suspect German control of the French channel ports would also have triggered British intervention.

Yeah that's probably true. Also, if the Germans tried to blockade or threaten trade with France using u-boats. That would have forced a British action.

[Corsair 115]

I wonder if this is completely true. It seems there should have been some signs of how modern warfare would be given the 1905 Russo-Japanese War which was very similar to a mini-World War I in terms of the equipment used.


Well, there are always a few visionaries who grasp the potential of new weapons systems and have a good idea of what they entail. But military organizations (any large organization, really) has a lot of inertia in it, resistant to change, and those visionaries tend to be disregarded as cranks. Most folks expect the next war to be fought like the last one. They're conditioned by their past experience.

[Brian-M]

Here's the most complete and lucid explanation for the cause of WWI that I've ever heard...

uk37TD_08eA

[ddt]

My sense is that the British had no interest in helping the French recover Alsace Loraine. If there's one "do-over" the Germans probably wished they had round about 1916 would be the invasion of Belgium. That's really when the British had the treaty obligation to enter the war.
The Belgian neutrality has always seemed to me to be a convenient excuse, but not the real underlying reasons.

I suspect German control of the French channel ports would also have triggered British intervention.
More in general: British policy had always been a balance of powers, so it couldn't let Germany beat France again. Germany had also done its best to antagonize Britain in the preceding years: the fleet building program, and the two Moroccan crises, for instance. And during the July crisis, it was quite clear that Germany was acting in bad faith vis-a-vis Britain's attempts at mediation.

[Craig4]

Here's the most complete and lucid explanation for the cause of WWI that I've ever heard...

uk37TD_08eA

Genius. By the way, the final episode is the best ever seen in English speaking television. Over the top, with a dissolve to the (then) present day battlefield. Amazing. It's Rowan Atkinson doing his dry wit right up to the point where he leaves the implied slaughter in sharp relief. Amazing television.

[catsmate1]

Genius.
Indeed and excellent summary of pre-WW1 Europe. Though Blackadder left out the Ottoman Empire.

By the way, the final episode is the best ever seen in English speaking television. Over the top, with a dissolve to the (then) present day battlefield. Amazing. It's Rowan Atkinson doing his dry wit right up to the point where he leaves the implied slaughter in sharp relief. Amazing television.
Absolutely. I watched it with my father (a little too young for that war) and it impressed us immensely; I remember the viewer response, letters to the BBC (some from WW1 veterans) praising it.