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The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus (Making History)

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From 2006 until 2011 she was the secretary of the German History Society. [2] [ failed verification] As of 2014, she was a member of the editorial board of 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War. [3] She chaired the Open University department's Research Steering Group and the departmental REF panel until December 2013. [1] Media [ edit ] Guilt or Responsibility? The Hundred Year Debate on the Origins of the First World War (2015-12-31) Annika Mombauer's research interests are in nineteenth and twentieth-century European history, in particular Imperial Germany and the origins of the First World War, in the history of the First World War and in its historiography. Interviews with prominent newspapers and TV and radio broadcasters in Germany and as far afield as the United States, Brazil, Serbia and Turkey have allowed me to share my knowledge on this crucial episode in our history with international audiences. My contributions have also entered the political discourse. In 2017, members of the ‘Die Linke Partei’ quoted my interview with the national daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in the German Bundestag when advocating that the government should reject the new revisionist views in favour of my interpretation.

As it turned out, the same was true in 2014, when the German general public was again interested in this old-fashioned topic and in old-fashioned diplomatic history. By telling this intricate and complicated story so well, and by saying what many wanted to hear, Clark became (even more) famous and was able to sell his serious work of scholarship in truly staggering numbers. Footnote 125 Germany and the Origins of World War One’, in Matthew Jeffries (ed.), Ashgate Reseach Companion to Imperial Germany, Ashgate, London 2014, 413-431 According to Gerhard Hirschfeld and Gerd Krumeich, the German Reich had “maneuvered itself into a cul-de-sac from which it could not find a way out, but it certainly was not solely responsible for the escalation of the crisis.” Footnote 80 Whether or not Germany acted out of a sense of strength or weakness hardly mattered, in the end, for the outcome of the crisis. Its potential enemies were strengthening their military might, and there is certainly a good deal of evidence suggesting that Germany's leaders feared a time in the not-too-distant future when Russia would be too strong to defeat. Because of its geographic position (i.e., flanked by two hostile powers) and with no alternative to the only plan for deployment in the event of a two-front war, fear of an uncertain future outweighed the fear of a war that one believed one could somehow envision (leaving aside the fact that such visions ultimately fell far short of reality). In the summer of 1914, Germany's leaders were still confident in their momentary advantage over their adversaries: it is thus possible that they combined feelings of superiority with fear of their potential enemies, and that they were motivated by both in equal measure.RFE/RL: There has been a lot of speculation that the situation around the world now -- say, in Ukraine or the dispute between China and Japan over islands and resources in the South China Sea -- and the situation in the summer of 1914. Do you see parallels and lessons that can be applied to the world today? The goal of German and Austrian diplomats following the Sarajevo incident was to try to localize a conflict in the Balkans. Now, this may have been unrealistic, but the ideal scenario in both Berlin and Vienna was for Austria-Hungary to be able to confront Serbia without the other powers intervening. Russia's own policy or position, of course, was to continentalize the crisis and then the conflict. To make sure that France would get involved, and also Britain. To make sure that if it came to war, Britain and France would fight on their side. So, in this sense, turning it into a European and world conflagration was actually Russia's policy. That is not to say that Russia bears sole responsibility either. That is to say, it was the combination of the Austro-German response to Sarajevo and then the Russian response to the Austrian move against Serbia. This is what produced the Great War.

My work forms part of secondary teacher professional development in the UK and contributes to secondary school curriculums and textbooks in Germany and the UK. It provides one of many interpretations of the origins of the war (which I happen to think is the right one, but with which not everyone agrees!), enabling pupils and students to evaluate different viewpoints and come to their own conclusions. Yet, Krumeich rejects the idea that ambitions of world power or imperial predominance were behind German decision-making, instead identifying “a distinctive fear of the future” as the motivating force for the behavior of the authorities in Berlin. Footnote 74 Ever since the First World War started, historians have debated why it began; we’re now looking at a hundred year debate; we’re looking at mountains of documents; thousands of books written on the topic; and yet even now historians don’t agree on why war started in 1914. John has worked at the University of Sussex for all his academic life – and why are you so interested in the topic? Clearly, then, some important areas of consensus do exist. But disagreements on nuance and detail continue unabated, and here the devil is in the detail. Historians reading the same evidence come to opposing conclusions or evaluate the importance of specific events in an entirely different way. For example, they continue to argue over the significance of Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia, the importance of the Russian mobilization, as well as about the nature of, and intention behind, the British mediation proposals. In fact, the most recent publications spend a great deal of time considering these controversial aspects in particular.What stands out from Mombauer’s discussion is just how policy-relevant is the discussion on the origins the First World War. The debate on who started the war was, indeed still is, of critical importance if one wants to understand the future course of European history. In particular, there is the question of Germany – a key focus of Mombauer’s study. If Germany wanted to evade the Versailles settlement after 1918, she needed to avoid the charge of having planned an aggressive war in 1914. After 1945, if she wanted to avoid the charge of continuity in German history stretching from the Kaiser to Hitler, drawing a distinction between the accidental war in 1914 and the war planned by Hitler in 1939 was even more crucial. In the context of this argument on German foreign policy, the writing of German history moved centre-stage and Mombauer sets out to show how Clio was deceived in the years after 1918 and, for while, after 1945. In: Ehlert, Hans; Epkenhans, Michael and Gross, Gerhard P. eds. Der Schlieffenplan: Analyse und Dokumente (pp. 79-99) The German Reich was not “guilty” of World War I. Such a category did not exist then, for, according to the code of European state wars, sovereign states had the “ ius ad bellum” as long as they could claim a violation of their interests. In 1914, this right to war applied least to Great Britain because the United Kingdom could not claim an immediate interest of coalition obligation for an intervention in a local war (between Austria-Hungary and Serbia). Only the British entry into the war turned the original conflict into a global disaster. Footnote 114

The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We'reSo when we look at evidence of German culpability, the documents that stand out in particular which were first found by Fritz Fischer are those relating to the war council of December 1912 and then those relating to war aims – the famous September programme of 1914 – and I just wonder what your take is on these events and on these documents?

The First World War: Inevitable, Avoidable, Improbable Or Desirable? Recent Interpretations On War Guilt and the War’s Origins (2007-01) Why did the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 lead to the deaths of millions in a global war of unprecedented scale and ferocity? This question has been the subject of historical, political and public debate for more than 100 years. Der Moltke Plan. Modifikation des Schlieffenplans bei gleichen Zielen?’, in Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans and Gerhard P. Groß (eds), Der Schlieffenplan. Analyse und Dokumente, Paderborn, Schöningh 2006, pp.79-99 Until recently, most historians would have agreed that, in 1914, Britain had no foreign policy aims and ambitions on the continent, other than to preserve the balance of power, ensure the safety of the Empire, and remain on good terms with its Entente partners. Footnote 26 However, in his study of British foreign policy before the war, Andreas Rose casts doubt on Britain's alleged peaceful inclination and concludes that the German threat was largely an invention that suited Britain's decision-makers in their pursuit of a pro-Russian agenda. Footnote 27 While Germany was, “without question,” observed with mistrust from London, Rose argues that it was “in the main the fear of the seemingly unassailable Tsarist Empire that made Great Britain shy away from a neutral and conciliatory attitude in 1914.” Footnote 28 I published my book Die Julikrise in 2014 to present my research-based counter-argument to the centenary revisionist interpretations. I argued that all the major powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France and Russia) had some responsibility for the escalation of the July Crisis but that the German and Austro-Hungarian governments deliberately provoked this crisis without flinching at the possibility of unleashing a major war. Die Julikrise has sold more than 6,000 copies and is also available in Danish and Turkish. Crucially, the book, and other publications in history journals and public forums, have given me a platform to engage in public debate.

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She has published widely on German military planning in the years before the First World War, and has contributed to the historiographical debate on the nature of the Schlieffen Plan. She has edited primary sources on the origins of the First World War, and published a German language book on the July Crisis of 1914. She is currently working on a comparative history of the Battle of the Marne of 1914 to be published by Cambridge University Press. General and academic interest in the war peaked well before the actual centenary of its outbreak (the date of which differed, of course, depending on which country was commemorating it). Commemoration, as well as the way historians wrote about the war and the way their audiences received this new work differed, too, depending on the national context. In countries whose past has continued to be affected disproportionately by the events of 1914–1918, or where the war has featured largely in national memory (such as Germany and Serbia, for example), the nature of the debate showed clearly that World War I is not yet “history.” Julikrise und Kriegsschuldfrage – Thesen und Stand der Forschung', Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Spring 2014 Clark has greatly advanced our understanding of these crucial events by shifting our focus away from Central Europe to the Balkans, as well as from the immediate causes of the war in 1914 to 1903, thus moving the debate in new directions and highlighting how crucial these “Serbian Ghosts” are for understanding the Balkan origins of the war. Based on Clark's new approach, International Relations theorists have come to understand this brutal act of 1903 as the start of territorial or spatial rivalries between Austria-Hungary and Serbia (the two had maintained better relations before 1903 than they ever would again): “If one could find an initial origin of the war, separate from long-term structural forces, the 1903 murder was it,” political scientist John A. Vasquez argues. Footnote 34

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