The Ship That Did Not Make Land

 

There is something potent and enduring about the story of the Titanic. I think because it is the story of the shipwreck of European civilization. It is the foreshadowing in miniature of the First World War.

The Titanic was the supreme achievement of the technology of the day, vast and unsinkable. In a similar way, in 1914, Europe had a sense that progress was inevitable. The world had been tamed, and was all under Europe's civilizing wing. Since the Napoleonic period, there had been no really big wars. With increasing globalization and grand alliances, wars, and the causes for wars, seemed to be dying out. It was all clear sailing from here, as remaining evils like poverty, slavery, smallpox, and alcoholism were tackled in turn. Technology had conquered the seas, the skies, the land, the ether, even under the sea. 

And then it all hit an iceberg.

At first blow, like the Titanic, most probably felt there was surely nothing to worry about. The hull was built for this. There would be some demonstration of strength, and it would all be over by Christmas.

Instead, the ship went down, crowded with Kings and Queens and Grand Dukes.

The obvious moral is that of the Tower of Babel. The nations had grown too proud.

Unfortunately, we all seemed to take the opposite lesson: we blamed God as if it was His failure.

Silencing the Guns of August

A lesser breed.

What would have happened if the First World War had not?

A fascinating speculation, because the First World War seems to have wrecked so much. All the magical princesses and dukes in their satin finery; Yeats’s “ceremony of innocence.” One can imagine that all was well in Western civ until it happened, and Western civ has never recovered. Beauty itself seems to have died then. Our confidence in the good and the true.

Fascinating as well because there is a general sense that it was far from inevitable, that it broke out more or less by blunder.

So what would have happened?

I find that in the end I cannot imagine anything being much different. Or rather, I really cannot imagine it never happening. It actually was, I suspect, no blunder, no mistake, and  not evitable. The problem began with Charles Darwin, back in 1859.

The war was started by Germany, make no mistake, and if it had not come to war this time, Germany was going to make a war within a few years somehow. I see no peaceful trajectory for a prewar Germany; barring what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Germany had done very well for itself with a series of European wars in the later nineteenth century, with Denmark, then Austria, then France, and they were cocked and ready to try for the big one: hegemony. They had rattled sabres to the verge of general war several times in the years leading up to 1914. They were going to keep doing so until it came to that.

It is fashionable these days to insist that it was all started blindly by the system of rival alliances. Nobody wanted it, but nobody could stop it once this machinery was set in motion.

Not believable. The intent and value of alliances was to prevent war, to make it less likely, not to make it more likely. Even the Triple Alliance, the stronger of the two, was purely defensive in nature.

Literally, treaty obligations did not cause the war. There was nothing mechanical about it. Russia had no treaty obligation to defend Serbia in case of war. Even if they had, Germany declared war on Russia, not the other way around. Treaty obligations did not require Germany to do this. Russia had not attacked Austria-Hungary, and had not declared war.

Once Germany and Austria had declared war on Russia, treaty obligations still did not oblige France to go to war on Russia’s behalf. The Entente between them was not a formal defensive treaty. Even had it secretly required action by the French, this was a moot point--since it was Germany who declared war on France, not vice versa. And this was obviously not required by any treaty signed by Germany with anyone. This was a conscious strategic decision.

Germany did, on the other hand, go to war with Belgium in open violation of treaty obligations.

The only major power that actually did declare war because of treaty obligations was Great Britain, based on the old (1839) defensive treaty with Belgium. The same one Germany had violated.

In other words, the system of mutual defense treaties did not cause the war. Instead, a stronger set of public alliances before the war, a clearer deterrent, might have prevented it. Would Austria have gone in to Serbia had they known this would draw in Russia and France? Almost surely not. Would Germany have invaded Belgium if they knew this would bring in the UK?

When Austria-Hungary sent its ultimatum after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Serbia, far from being belligerent, acceded to all but one of a set of outrageous demands. They went as far as they could this side of surrendering their sovereignty. Austria was plainly set on war regardless. Given how militarily shaky Austria was on its own, this demonstrates the powerful influence of Germany in the background.

Kaiser Wilhelm reputedly expressed disappointment at Serbia's response to t he Austrian ultimatum. “A great moral victory for Vienna," he wrote. "But with it every pretext for war falls to the ground.” Austria got what they wanted; he did not. He wanted a big war. 

By his own evaluation, moreover, this means Austria and Germany went to war without a decent pretext. One might want to put the blame on Austria—but Austria might have expected only a local war. And Austria had what it wanted without war. It was still Germany that made it general, by declaring war on Russia.

And this seems to have been preordained. When the German ambassador visited the Russian Foreign Ministry to present the declaration of war, he actually gave two separate written memos. The first declared war because Russia had not responded to the German ultimatum to immediately demobilize. The second declared war because the Russian response was deemed inadequate.

In other words, the declaration of war seems to have been decided in advance, regardless of the Russian response.

"The Crucified Canadian"; a famous German war atrocity of the time, now often disputed. Here features in a poster from the Philippines.

Social Darwinism was no doubt a factor across Europe. But this was especially so in Germany. This was pointed to by Rudyard Kipling in 1897. In his poem “The Recessional.” He wrote:

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget! 

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Kipling was apparently referring to the Germans, and their atheistic pseudo-scientific “master race” ideology. “Reeking tube and iron shard” as resident idols rules out just about anyone else. It was probably generally understood at the time. Hitler and the Nazis did not suddenly invent this stuff in the 1930s. How could they? It goes back clearly at least to Nietzsche and his ideas about a “master morality” and a “slave morality.”

When war began, there was considerable popular resistance in the UK to getting involved. Witness later events in Ireland. This was also obviously true of the US. Notoriously in Canadian terms, this was so in Quebec. No jingoism, no militarism, no notions of a master race, no Social Darwinism, among the democracies.

In France, it was the same story. As the Serbian crisis unfolded, pacifist demonstrations against war easily outnumbered nationalist demonstrations against Austria or Germany.

Visible support for war was stronger in the monarchies of Austria and Russia. This might only have had to do with a relative lack of free speech and of the right to protest. But neither could match Germany here. In Germany, contemporary witnesses reported real popular enthusiasm for a fight. Hermann Hesse, from Switzerland, wrote in the German press expressing alarm over the warmongering and anti-foreign attitude that he witnessed: “Friends, not in these tones!” 

German execution of leading civilians of Blegny, Belgium.

There were many reports of German atrocities in Belgium at the start of the war. These are often now dismissed as mostly British propaganda. But Vernon Kellogg, neutral American present during the German invasion—presumably a detached observer—was alarmed by the Social Darwinist philosophy he heard espoused by Germans he encountered.

“Initially a pacifist, Kellogg dined with the officers of the German Supreme Command. He became shocked by the grotesque Social Darwinist motivation for the German war machine - the creed of survival of the fittest based on violent and fatal competitive struggle is the Gospel of the German intellectuals.” (Wikipedia).

Kellogg sounded the general alarm in his book Headquarters Nights.

It is commonly said that the Treaty of Versailles assigned full war guilt to Germany; and that this was a major cause of the Second World War in turn. This is not quite true. The treaty spoke of German “aggression,” but not war guilt per se. And this was diplomatic boilerplate. Almost identical phrasing was put in the peace treaties with Austria or the Ottomans or Bulgaria. It was required to justify reparations.

Interestingly, in no other nation did the general population make much of it, or read it as assigning overall guilt. Everyone else indeed took it as boilerplate. Why the difference in Germany?

A clear case of “methinks the lady doth protest too much.” The extreme German reaction betrayed awareness of being in the wrong. This is typical of someone with a guilty conscience, when they are not prepared to reform. They tend to react hysterically when someone points out their guilt.

Italy had an alliance with both Germany and Austria, requiring them to come to their aid if they were attacked by Russia. Italy did not come to their aid. In taking this position, Italy declared their opinion that Germany and Austria were the aggressors.

Britain and the US, both neutrals at the start of the war, both also separately concluded that Germany was the aggressor, and chose sides accordingly. 

US enlistment poster

That looks close to a consensus by neutral parties.

One can be cynical and suppose that this charge of German aggression was a cover for simply acting in their own best interest. But Britain, the US, and Italy were all functioning democracies, to a far greater extent than Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. There was a limit to the amount of deceit they could get away with; they needed to worry about public opinion. Their general public had to buy it as well.

Why, in the face of the evidence, does everybody seem so keen to deny German war guilt?

I think it is a typical case of a general human tendency to deny the existence of evil. We want, absurdly, to insist that, if Hitler was evil, he was uniquely evil, and single-handedly responsible for everything in Nazi Germany. He was, we are told, a “madman.”

That is obviously ridiculous. Were he at any point clearly mad, those around him would have stopped obeying his orders. Nor did the vast majority of what happened in Nazi Germany depend on any kind of explicit orders from Hitler.

Perhaps it is too frightening for us to admit that a large proportion of any population, even a majority, can indeed choose to be evil. Perhaps it is frightening because it requires us to examine our own motives and acts—might we, too, be doing evil? Much safer to keep whistling past that graveyard.

Remembrance Day Gallery

An Old Hope

Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!

I am no expert on economics. It fascinates me, but it is, in the end, a social science. Which means to me that its data are unreliable. So I am not qualified to comment on this recent piece. But I include it because of its possible relevance to my own point that Western Civ died in the First World War.

Despite the title, its thesis seems to me to be hopeful. It argues that free trade and globalization make war increasingly unlikely. The century of relative peace between Waterloo in 1815 and Sarajevo in 1914, sometimes called “Pax Britannica,” was, it holds, no lucky accident. The First World War was a desperate rear-guard action by the traditional old landed elites, seeing their powers slip away. And, if we can ever shake off the last vestiges of socialism and Keynesianism, we may yet get back on track.

The argument seems to me to make some sense. After all, more land or even more resources means nothing in an industrial economy and given free trade. Let alone that, in modern democracies, you have to give any conquered people the vote. The one group to whom it would matter is the old landed warrior class, committed both to land and to war, who would see an expanding empire as an opportunity for their younger sons. Moreover, going to war would magnify their political power back home.

Germany was clearly more worried about Russia than France...

I note that the nations most responsible for the war’s outbreak were those in which the old landed warrior class were a) most dominant, and b) most threatened; yet also the nations that c) as nations, had the most to lose. The initial culprit was Austria: a terribly rickety aristocratic government already clearly in decline. Next to break the peace was Czarist Russia, by mobilizing in response: still run by aristocrats, but developing quickly. After that, industrialized but autocratic Germany. It was the ancien regime’s last throw of the dice, driven to desperation by their declining importance in the modern world.

How Germany Could Have Won WWI

Black: German Empire. Grey: German client states.

Though Hitler’s initial gains were more spectacular, the first Great War, far more than the second, was a close-run thing. In Hindsight, Germany’s strategy was exactly backwards. Their plan was to knock out France before Russia had fully mobilized, then turn and take on Russia. They should have knocked out Russia before it had fully mobilized, then taken on France.

Why? Firstly, Russia was more committed to war than France. While Germany was dealing with Russia, French attacks might have been less than vigorous, as happened in WWII. Once Russia and Serbia were knocked out of the war, France might have had little incentive to continue. They might have sued for an honourable peace; and Germany had no further territorial interests in the West, except perhaps for Luxembourg. Secondly, this might have kept England out of the war: they came in because of the violation of Belgian neutrality, and in fear of losing the balance of power between Germany and France in the West. No attempt to take out France quickly means no invasion of Belgium, and so perhaps no British entry. They had no love of, and much rivalry with, Russia. Thirdly, going after Russia immediately would have taken a great deal of pressure off of Austria and Turkey, who were both engaged with Russia in the East, but had no front with France. They needed the help; in the event, both collapsed during the war. Fourthly, defending in the West would have been much easier than Germany realized at the time. With the machine gun, defense was far cheaper and offense far more expensive than had previously been the case. Let France take all the awful losses of charging machine guns and completed trenchworks; meanwhile, the vast distances and Russia’s unreadiness still favoured a war of movement in the East. Fifthly, Russia was Germany’s main objective and main concern from the beginning: they wanted war now because they feared that Russia would be able to militarily overtake them in a few years. They had no similar quarrel with France. Sixthly, we know from actual events that Russia was politically weak and would probably not withstand well the shock of early defeat. The French Republic had sufficient popular support that it was strong and resilient.

German postcard.

So, in our alternative history scenario, Germany concentrates on Russia, and England stays neutral. Italy, acting purely out of self-interest at the time, has a treaty obligation to join the Central Powers. It stayed neutral, then joined the Entente, because it saw which way the wind was blowing. With England, its traditional ally, out, the wind might have looked better the other way. Italy would then have stayed neutral or even joined the Central Powers. The Italian reward might have been Tunisia, Corsica, Albania, even Savoy. Without Britain’s involvement, in turn, Germany would not have needed to be so active against shipping on the high seas, which means the US too would almost certainly have stayed out. Japan, like Italy out for the main chance, would have stayed neutral or allied with Germany.

Given that the whole war was a very close run thing anyway, this should have been enough to give Germany a clear victory. It could have knocked out Russia and taken Poland and the Baltic States as its own, kept its own possessions in Africa, China, and the Pacific, then, if France was not interested in a status quo ante peace, could probably have marched into Paris. As reward, Germany might have taken over France’s African possessions, for what they were worth.

German cavalry on parade, Berlin.

Having accomplished this, had there been, as is likely, a later collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany could have marched in unopposed and taken its various lands as her own. Turkey would be yet more solidly a German sphere of influence. Then, had war later come with England, Germany would have had the upper hand.

It really was close.