Embedded Intentions
The first World War is arguably one of the most fascinating and byzantine wars. The first of two world wars have given us many eye-opening historiographies that have provided us with new insight upon how one is to analyze the events of different wars. The war was ignited by the assassination of the Hungarian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28th of June in 1914 by a Serbian Black Hand member Gavrilo Principip. This led to a series of events that resulted in the outbreak of the first World War. Accusation of who is to blame can be placed on many of leaderships, for example one could argue that Serbia is responsible for the outbreak of the war while. On the contrary, one could equally argue that Serbia, whilst being an active contributor to the factors that commenced the war, was not the sole contributor nor the most prominent of those to blame. This issue is complex because of many factors from different nations that affect other nations, a solid example of this is when the British and the French set up a naval blockade (which is cutting off usage of the water channels that lead to Germany and other central powers). Thus, affecting the German army by cutting off their food supply lines. Furthermore, it disrupted the U.S. economy seeing as they could no longer trade with the central powers of Europe. It is evident that other choices made along the way by different countries could have caused a slight butterfly affect. Throughout the course of this paper two of the major powers will be picked apart to see who is at fault for inciting the first world war.
Although one country is not all it took to incite the first World War, one could argue that Germany is to blame for the outbreak of the first World War, and rightfully so. Research suggests this when Germany offered the “Blank Cheque” to Austria-Hungary. The letter in question demonstrates to us that Bethmann-Hollweg informed Austria-Hungary that Germany would support them 100% for an y decision made by Austria-Hungary by stating “The Emperor Francis Joseph…will faithfully stand by Austria-Hungary, as is required by the obligations of his alliance and of his ancient friendship” (Bethmann-Hollweg, 1914).This allows Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia knowing very well that Germany would be right next to them supporting Austria-Hungary on the front lines. If the “Blank Cheque” it is unlikely that Austria-Hungary would have invaded Serbia without German support. This is a clear indicator that Germany alone had the opportunity to stop the down spiral that led to the World War by simply removing the “Blank Cheque” that was proposed which would in turn prevent the first World War. One could also argue the fact that Germanys reason to supplying Austria-Hungary with the “Blank Cheque” was in fact to sedate Germany’s thirst to be a global superpower in the world and that is what led to the beginning of the first World War. This topic is touched upon in the podcast with Annika Mombauer and John Röhl. In the podcast Röhl tells us that “The First World War for me was an attempt by imperial Germany to dominate Europe by force of arms” Röhl goes on to state that “you have Albert Ballin, … virtually in tears saying to the German leaders themselves, how could you do this,...ridiculous attempt to dominate Europe by force of arms when in fact we would have dominated Europe anyway by economic terms and trade terms within 10 or 15 years.” (Röhl, “Expert Opinion: Origins of the First World War”). This shows us that Germany were eager to take hold of an opportunity to be a global power by any means. Furthermore, Röhl informs us about documents that were discovered back in the 1960’s Röhl tells us “It was a meeting of him [the Kaiser] and three or four of his generals and three … And the important point there was that the Reich chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg was not invited, the foreign secretary was not … They were discussing whether to have an immediate war or whether to postpone the war for another year and a half.” (Röhl, 2014) The research suggests that Germany was preemptively anticipating a war, this is further reinforced when Röhl informs us about Bethmann-Hollweg’s programme of September 9th, 1914. Röhl informs us that the document in question was “outlining what Germany was going to demand in the expected victory over France – expected just in a day or two maybe” (Röhl, 2014). This makes it easy to see that Germany were to blame for the war.