The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims PDF
Preview The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims
The Origins of the First World War Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims The Origins of the First World War Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims EDITED BY H. W.KOCH SECOND EDITION ~ MACMILlAN Introduction, selection and editorial matter © H. W. Koch 1972, 1984 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First edition 1972 Reprinted three times Second edition 1984 Published by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-37298-2 ISBN 978-1-349-07437-2 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-07437-2 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 15 14 13 12 II 10 9 8 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 Contents Preface VB Acknowledgments IX Introduction H. W. KOCH The 1914 Debate Continues: Fritz Fischer and his Critics 30 JAMES JOLL 2 Origins of the First World War 46 IMANUEL GEISS 3 1914 - The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered 86 JOACHIM REMAK 4 World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak 101 PAUL W. SCHROEDER 5 World Policy, World Power and German War Aims 128 FRITZ FISCHER 6 Cabinet versus Economic Warfare in Germany: Policy and Strategy during the Early Months of the First World War 189 EGMONT ZECHLIN 7 Gerhard Ritter: A Patriotic Historian's Justification 292 KARL-HEINZ JANSSEN 8 Social Darwinism as a Factor in the 'New Imperialism' 319 H. W. KOCH VI CONTENTS 9 War Guilt 1914 Reconsidered: A Balance of New Research 343 KARL DIETRICH ERDMANN 10 July 1914. Reply to a Polemic 371 EGMONT ZECHLIN Notes on Contributors 386 Bibliography 387 Index 396 Preface The purpose of this revised edition is, as was the case in the first edition, to introduce readers who cannot easily read German to some of the main strands of the renewed argument over the origins of the First World War and Germany's war aims. Instead of the editor selecting excerpts from articles or books, with one exception all articles have been reprinted in their entirety. The exception is the article by Fritz Fischer, the first part of which has been omitted since it discusses in great detail the objections of some of his German critics, a discussion so technical as well as polemical in nature that it would have required the complete reprinting of their articles as well. Inevitably, a volume such as this can never take the place of reading Fritz Fischer's, Egmont Zechlin's, Erwin Holzle's or Gerhard Ritter's work, or for that matter the diaries of Kurt Riezler edited by K. D. Erdmann. Fischer's two main works have been made available in a translated but unfortunately heavily abbreviated version. Gerhard Ritter's main work, The Swords and the Sceptre, has been available in an excellent translation since 1974,. though it runs into four volumes. A translation of two of Egmont Zechlin's major articles is offered in this volume. Regrettably, footnotes had to be omitted for one major reason: in the case of both Fischer's and Zechlin's contributions the text of the notes amounts to more than the actual articles. Including the notes would in fact have meant doubling the number of pages of the present volume. Hence the harsh decision had to be made to omit footnotes from all the articles reprinted. However, personalities with which the reader may not be familiar are adequately identified in the index. Apart from those articles which have previously been published in English, most of the German originals have been translated by the editor with considerable assistance from Dr Derek McKay of the London School of Economics, for whose help I am greatly indebted. The exception is Egmont Zechlin's Vlll PREFACE contributions, which were translated by the late Heinz Norden and Brian Follett respectively. However, any mistakes which occur are my responsibility, as is the selection of the articles, which like all selections represents an uneasy compromise between what is desirable and what can actually be done, especially in view of the length of the two major contributions. I t is a pity that there has been no room to include some of the work of East European historians, but this shortcoming is partly counter-balanced by the fact that Fritz Fischer, for instance, appears to have drawn heavily on their research as well as sharing some of the lines of their argumen t. H. W. KOCH Acknowledgments I am grateful to Fritz Fischer, Imanuel Geiss, Egmont Zechlin, James Joll, Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Paul W. Schroeder and Joachim Remak for their permission to include their essays in this collection. I wish to thank the following for permitting the use here of material originally published by them: Past and Present; Batsford Ltd., London; Historische Zeitschschrift;Journal oj Modern History; and Zeitschriftfiir Politik, Munich. H.W.K. In trod uction Since the publication of the first edition of this volume the debate about the origins of the First World War and Germany's war aims has, until very recently, calmed down. The temper and the tone in which the debate was conducted, so it seemed, were back to normal again. This, however, does not mean that a generally accepted consensus has been established. Optimis tic historians like Joachim Remak concluded that: 'Fritz Fischer's decade has ended. It began, neatly enough, in 1961 with Griffnach der Weltmacht, and drew to a close, in 1969, with Krieg der Illusionen. In between, there has been more discussion, scholarly and otherwise, than has been caused by any other single historian in our lifetime.' That this conclusion was somewhat premature, the publications between 1970 and 1983 have shown. Hence in the light of these publications it has been considered necessary to revise this volume in order to include new material, unfortunately at the expense of some of the earlier contributions which, though intrinsically important, have had to be omitted. But first we have to pose the question why Fritz Fischer's theses should have caused the furore they did? Any answer to this question is bound to be complex. For one thing we have to look at the roots of modern German historiography and here we are immediately confronted by the massive and impressive work of Leopold von Ranke whom Lord Acton once described as 'the Columbus of modern history'. He taught history to be critical and applied to the best of his ability the regulative idea of objectivity, for which he was seriously criticised even by his contemporaries such as Droysen. But his primary concern was the state, the power oft he state and the relations between the states. To avoid any misunderstanding at the outset, Ranke's concept of power was contained by moral restraints and was never an end in itself - as it was to become to his successors in an environment strongly influenced by Social Darwinian notions.
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