For more information
Call 1-800-351-0222
Call 1-800-351-0222
CAUSES OF WORLD WAR I.
Term Paper ID:30314
Get This Paper Free! or
Essay Subject:
Discusses anti-democratic factors.... More...
6 Pages / 1350 Words
6 sources, 14 Citations,
MLA Format
$24.00
More Papers on This Topic
Paper Abstract:
Discusses anti-democratic factors. Democratic ethos. Issue of national self-determination. Fear of imperialist domination by the Central Powers. Policital process; lack of political participation. Impact of European anarchists. Impetus towards war of policy makers. Attack-based war strategy. Democratic sttes resistance to military action. Democratic nation-state equivocation. Power policitcs. Gamesmanship of Britain and Europe.
Paper Introduction:
One of the most easily made arguments in favor of the view that World War I could have been avoided if all belligerents were democracies is the historical record: It was not, and they were not, and those facts help explain why the war came about. This was a period in which democracy had not exactly won the war of ideas among Europe's rulers or the institutions of European governance. It has also been said that communism, the antidemocratic ideology that supplanted absolute monarchy in Europe where constitutional democracies did not and that survived the Great War for most of the 20th century, nevertheless itself eventually fell to "the superior strength of a rival body of ideas, free-market democracy, which was powerful enough to hold together the 16 countries of the West's alliance through all the alarm
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
For example, Trachtenberg (2 4) characterizes theforeign minister of Austria as being aware and in control of eventssurrounding the diplomatic situation, and more generally develops the viewthat the statesmen of Europe, not the generals, chose to escalate theirresponses to rival states' military and political actions. But just as it is possible, according to Sagan (125), to make too muchof Britain's equivocation about continental intervention during thediplomatic crisis preceding the war, it seems possible to make too much ofthe power of democracy to forestall war. Works CitedGoldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Van Evera, Sagan, andTrachtenberg do not bring much of the legislative apparatus of any of thekey countries into their analyses. Everything from decisions to mobilize tothe very structure of maneuvers happens at the level of diplomats,ministries, generals, and monarchs. The Guns of August. New York: Bantam, 1976.Van Evera, Stephen. The constitutional monarchy of Britain might be characterized as theclosest thing to a democracy in that period, compared to the states ofContinental Europe, and its defensive aid to France and Belgium could becharacterized as a bulwark against Austro-Hungarian and German imperialism.But the fact that Britain came into the war against the Austro-Hungarianempire, which undoubtedly pressed its imperial designs on neighboringEuropean states and statelets before and after 1914, must be set beside itsbeing tied to Serbia, site of the provocatively anarchic assassination ofAustro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand, and to Russia, an absolute monarchyand a massive empire in its own right (Tuchman 78-9; 91; 116). Similarly, he deplores theinaction of democratic states in Rwanda in the late 199 s. On the other hand, Sagan cites the failure of Britain tounequivocally state that it would come to France's aid if Germany attackedas a contributing (though not necessarily decisive) factor to continentalinstability in the wake of the assassination of Ferdinand (125). But Van Evera andTrachtenberg agree that political as well as military calculus wasimplicated in the mobilization arena, "suggesting that [politicians]believed the initiative was both attainable and worth attaining" (Van Evera79). They were part ofthe political process. But Trachtenberg's argument that political calculus and not anintractable mobilization system lay behind the progress toward war does notdispose of the issue of whether a democratic political system on thecontinent would have prevented war from occurring there. Ed. The fact thatthe nations comprising NATO would undoubtedly be accused of hypocrisy andimperialism, in Goldhagen's view, would be a small price to pay for thebenefit of fixing once and for all the morass that the Balkans have beensince--well, since World War I. Ed. A pragmatic right-of-conquest ethos appears to have governedinternational politics in Europe, as if economic and/or political hegemonyon the continent were felt as an entitlement to the stronger, with theobjective being to maximize a state's benefit while preventing diminishmentof its current position. Van Evera's view differs fromthat of Trachtenberg to the extent he argues that the progress toward warwas or became uncontrollable, saying that Europe "embraced" ideas thatmuddled the benefits of aggressive and defensive military positions in aSocial Darwinist fashion, in particular embracing the benefits of an attack-based war strategy and "belief in easy conquest [that] eventually pervadedpublic images of international politics" (Van Evera 63). But apparently notenough. This was a period in which democracy hadnot exactly won the war of ideas among Europe's rulers or the institutionsof European governance. The issue of national self-determination that in the modern period isassociated with a democratic ethos appears in 1914 to have been relevantonly to political entities seeking it (and as much else besides as theycould muster), not to those acquiescing in it. Goldhagenrejects out of hand the idea that this would amount to imperialism on thepart of the Allies but instead deplores what he sees as the absence of"moral fiber and political courage" by NATO to duplicate the Allied examplein crushing German and Japanese imperialism in World War II and then, byway of occupation, transforming the political structure of both Germany andJapan along constitutional democracy lines. Van Evera cites the behavior of"officials" or "the minds of the statesmen" (78, 8 , et passim) in England,Russia, and Germany, but the parliamentary bodies of these countries arevirtually absent from the stage. "The Meaning of Mobilization." Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. The conception of geopolitical power at the highest levels in Britainand Europe alike appears to have been one of uninterrogated power-politicsgamesmanship. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1991. Thus a nondemocratic government structure does not ipso factomean that there would be no justification for going to war. Van Evera's viewthat "the cult of the offensive was a principal cause of the First WorldWar, creating or magnifying many of the dangers which historians blame forcausing the July crisis and rendering it uncontrollable" (59) would seem tosuggest that the absence of democratic structures at least enabled, even ifit did not make inevitable, the Great War. But wouldthat have been a bad thing? The evidence of democratic nation-state equivocation in the face ofmounting military activity (and inhumane carnage) may be morallyreprehensible; indeed, in Western Europe the League of Nations that wasformed after World War I proved itself ineffectual in responding to Germanrearmament, to Europe's great cost. It is alsodifficult to ignore Britain's own antidemocratic status, though its overtimperial ambitions were outside Europe--India, Africa, Asia, and theCaribbean. "If You Rebuild It...A New Serbia." The New Republic 17 May 1999: 19.Sagan, Scott. Ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1991."The Nation-State Is Dead. "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War." Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. Steven Miller, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Stephen Van Evera. Psychological and strategic missteps described by Sagan, Trachtenberg,and Sagan could undoubtedly be duplicated by democratic states that engagein war. Connected to this--and relevant to the distinctionbetween democratic and other forms of governance--is what appears to havebeen a decidedly executive, not to say elitist, structure of policyimplementation at work throughout Europe. In Europe, these voices were more or less suppressedfrom political participation--which may help explain the resort to violenceon the part of European anarchists, who wreaked havoc on the crowned headsof various European states in the decade before the war. One of the most easily made arguments in favor of the view that WorldWar I could have been avoided if all belligerents were democracies is thehistorical record: It was not, and they were not, and those facts helpexplain why the war came about. But the moral foundation for war, whatever form of government might beinvolved, is a matter apart from the impetus toward war that appears tohave dominated policy in the weeks leading up to the Great War.Trachtenberg develops the argument that war came about not because of theinexorable forces of well-established contingent military plans that policymakers were powerless to overcome, but because of political decisions madeby those policy makers. Long Live the Nation-State." The Economist 23 December 1995: 15-17.Trachtenberg, Marc. This is so,argues Trachtenberg, despite the famous Schlieffen "mobilization system"(197) military plan, which as early as 19 6 (Tuchman 34-5) provided forGerman aggression against France and Belgium, in the event of continentalhostilities, to shore up Germany's western front quickly so that what washeld to be the more formidable eastern front, against Russia, could bepursued without distraction. It has also been said that communism, theantidemocratic ideology that supplanted absolute monarchy in Europe whereconstitutional democracies did not and that survived the Great War for mostof the 2 th century, nevertheless itself eventually fell to "the superiorstrength of a rival body of ideas, free-market democracy, which waspowerful enough to hold together the 16 countries of the West's alliancethrough all the alarms and rigours of the cold war" ("Nation-State" 15). Steven Miller, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Stephen Van Evera. One could add that the whole picture of politicaland/or military offensives and strategic advantage seeking failed toinclude a scenario that took full account of possible consequences ofmechanized warfare on a continental scale. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1991.Tuchman, Barbara W. Would World War I have happened if all belligerents were democracies?What, if anything, would be different in the decision making of the mainbelligerents during the July crisis, had they been democratic? And while the US, certainlyin 1914 the world's leading democracy, had acquired an empire of its own inthe Spanish-American war, there were in the US persistent voices of dissentand protest aimed at disempowering American imperialism. Sagan says that the German strategistsintended to knock out the low countries and France knowing that, at thesame time, Russian mobilization would be taking place, but also needing tomove so quickly that certain key targets, such as the railroad crossing atLiege, could be taken intact (125). Steven Miller, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Stephen Van Evera. However, given the evidence of theEuropean imperial project in 1914, it is possible to suggest that theEntente and the Central Powers could have benefited from more equivocationand less policy-level gamesmanship aimed at either obtaining advantage orguaranteeing (as the statesmen appear to have thought) protection forthemselves. If there is any single feature ofdemocracies that distinguishes them from other forms of government, it isthe prominence of their legislatures. Forexample, citing what he sees as the failure of NATO (comprising democraticnation-states) in the late 199 s to alter the murderous cycle in theBalkans, and acknowledging that doing so entails human and financial cost,Goldhagen (19) says that Serbia should simply be occupied by the Allies andits imperialistic-nationalist murder project crushed by force. For one thing, even if democracymight be a superior form of governance, it is not necessarily the only kindof government to be associated with a sense or a policy of national duty.According to Trachtenberg (199), (antidemocratic) Russia saw itself asSerbia's protector, particularly against Austrian imperialism, much asFrance, a republic, and England, a constitutional monarchy, saw themselvesas allies. Legislatures almost by definition arecharacterized by public discourse and debate, but there does not appear tohave been much debate in Europe in 1914 about whether a given policy wouldbe good for a country, except to the degree the statesmen and generalscalculated it would shore up a regime's geopolitical prestige and/or power.Had legislatures become part of the discourse and had the discourse andbehavior of the rulers been well publicized, they would doubtless havecaused internal dissension and delay in policy implementation. Van Evera argues that this mind-set, played out at the geopoliticallevel, at minimum aggravated the impulse toward war, including the"preemptive" mobilizations on the part of Germany, Russia, and France in1914, and obscured sufficient appreciation of "military and politicalobstacles to expansion" (68, 73-5). But there is a view that democratic states unwisely and wronglyresist or delay military action, causing more problems than necessary. This line of thought would be consistent, too, with Clausewitz'sfamous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means;there was little in the way of democracy to be associated with Clausewitzor his Prussian state. "1914 Revisited: Allies, Offense and Instability." Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. Indeed, Van Evera concludes that WorldWar I was a "'preventive' war, launched by the Central powers in the beliefthat they were saving themselves from a worse fate in later years" (85).That "worse fate" was the prospect of imperialist domination by rivalpowers.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
We can write a Custom Essay just for you.
Browse Essays by Subject