Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?

We haven't posted book reviews here before, but given the nature of this book, I figured I might as well share the review I posted in my regular blog.

The book is Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? by David Fromkin. A wonderful, meaty history (and historiography) of the origins of the Great War. Fromkin dispels some of the popular myths about how the war came about. These arose partly through the energetic efforts of all the participants to shift blame and partly through the efforts, either by most of the same participants or by other forces, to destroy or obscure relevant materials that will make understanding events clearer.

Fundamentally, Fromkin credits a basic and understandable but false analysis of the principle nature of the conflict that began in 1914. His central thesis is that there was not one war but two, and that the two wars arose not out of an imperialistic aggression on the part of the Central Powers but out of a nearly paralyzing paranoia, an existential fear on their part--Austria's fear of implosion as Balkan nationalism rose and Germany's fear of future defeat and domination by a modernizing Russia. It's a fascinating book, an easy read, and I would strongly recommend it.

One myth that Fromkin dispels is that the period immediately before the war was some hazy, golden period of peace and stillness. Not only had there been two wars in the Balkans in the years immediately preceding the Great War, but there had been numerous other proxy and brushfire wars around the world instigated by the great powers, and less than 10 years before Russia had engaged in a world war of its own that more or less directly brought about the 1905 Revolution, which seriously threatened the Russian state. Add to this that an arms race was taking place in Europe that would not be equaled until the Cold War and it becomes impossible to sustain this image of the Great War as a sudden and unexpected storm from a summer sky.

Also contrary to popular perceptions, the war was not caused by the desire of the German Kaiser for an expansion of his realm. Kaiser Wilhelm and Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the heir-apparent to Kaiser Franz Joseph of Austria Hungary) were more inclined towards diplomacy and negotiation than towards the use of force, despite Kaiser Bill's penchant for sabre-rattling. And the German Navy, far from seeking a war to overthrow the British Navy, was devoted to expansion so as to protect its own commerce and industry; if it anticipated war, that was a war far in the future--it was only too conscious that it could not defeat Britain in the near term.

The aggressors were the civilian ministers in Austria, who feared the rise of Serbia and saw the Balkan wars as a warning that nationalism was coming to destroy their polyglot, two-crowned, and impossibly unstable regime. If they were not able to crush Serbia and thus send a message of the limits of nationalism, they could foresee a day when their empire would simply fall apart.

Likewise, the officer corps of the German Army, aided and abetted by the German Foreign Ministry, looked to bring about a war on their terms as soon as possible, because they perceived that a war *would* happen sooner or later between Germany and Russia, and the longer it was left, the stronger Russia would grow, until its ability to overwhelm Germany would be unquestioned. Moreover, tied as the Army was to its belief in the superiority of the Junker aristocracy, it could not expand indefinitely while refraining from opening the ranks of the officer corps to those who were socially undesirable in its eyes.

There's a great deal more in this excellent book: an examination of Serbia's role in the assassination of the Archduke, a detailed account of that event, discussions of the internal politics of France and Britain, a sketch of the relationship between Kaiser Wilhelm and the Russian Czar, Nicholas, a biography of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the scorn heaped on his wife by the Austrian Court, an analysis of the diplomacy of the war crisis itself and how it was hidden--not only from the people of Europe but from the leaders in Germany and Austria whom the principal actors feared might bring about that most undesirable of things, a negotiated settlement. I'm sure I'm missing out other fascinating bits, but just recounting these parts makes me want to sit down and read it all over again.