Causes of World War I

The study of history has been practiced for at least as long as civilization has existed, and it seems that every historian has a different idea of what exactly happened. This is especially true when discussing major world events, ones that greatly impact every civilization, involved or not. Of course, historical records are often lost, and it is hard to fully understand everything that has ever happened, no one knows entirely how the citizens of Pompeii reacted when the volcano erupted, for example. More recent world events have more information available, especially after the 1800s. War is one of the things historians are most fascinated by, so the historical record becomes even more expansive after the first shots are fired, especially in the infamous War to End All Wars. 'But,' a layman may ask, 'what exactly happened before that first shot? Which shot was the first shot? And why was that shot fired in the first place?' Historians have long attempted to answer those questions, in various ways, impacted by information about the war as it increasingly becomes available. No source hesitates in fingering Germany and Austro-Hungary for igniting World War I's powder keg, but they vary on exactly what primed the explosion in the first place.

Whenever multiple viewpoints and biases are involved, multiple accounts of events emerge, as they do in the three sources being written about. One covers why exactly Helmuth von Moltke helped cause the war, rather than being ineffectual at preventing it. Mombauer, who authored the text, is attempting to prove a very specific point, so her work only goes into detail about things that Moltke impacted or was impacted by, leaving out, for instance, just how France's army prepared for the war, or the build-up of Serbian nationalistic tensions (Mombauer). Another lists every cause that David Fromkin felt there was for the war, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire's leadership to the speed of communication in 1914. He delineates these in order to show that World War I was not a bolt of lightning appearing out of the blue (to use his own extended metaphor), and why, exactly, it could happen again. He says that he does this because World War I was the main cause for most events throughout the century after it occurred, so understanding why it happened is incredibly important when attempting to understand the entirety of the 20th century (Fromkin, 7). His point needed to be proven through a more thorough and expansive analysis of events than Mombauer's, so he spends much less time on individual causes, but more time on the entirety of the subject (Fromkin). The last goes through very specific and detailed essays that explore governmental jockeying and the societies that helped begin and maintain the war effort. Since the historians only coordinated on topics, not on a specific point to prove throughout the entirety of the collection, each work tries alone to discuss a very limited aspect of World War I in about 30 pages, so they are more condensed than either of the other works (Afflerback).

In every work herein analyzed, Germany, more than the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is blamed for truly starting the war, despite the Empire being at the core of the Serbian crisis that was at the core of the beginning. Theirs was the Archduke (and heir) assassinated, and they were the ones who requested that Germany protect them while the exacted their vengeance upon Serbia, so why exactly is Germany deemed the most responsible? None of the books were published in a country that was allied with Germany during the war (although An Improbable War? Had several German contributors), but the war was 90 years behind the author of the oldest work reviewed here, so that bias is unlikely to be entirely at the root of things, even considering how the sources these historians used could very easily have been biased by just that, hearkening from an earlier time. However, most secondary sources used were published from 1970-1990, by both German and English-speaking authors, so inherited bias is unlikely (Mombauer, 298-317; Afflerbach 341-358; Fromkin 331-336). It is very likely that Germany truly did cause the war, did escalate it, or has been agreed upon by everyone to have done both or either of those things, which is nearly the same as actually having done them.

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