The two most over analyzed events in Western history are the Fall of Rome and the beginning of the First World War. They are over analyzed because there is no plausibly simple answer as to why either happened. We can neatly blame Hitler for World War Two, and perhaps also the Guilty Men for not doing more to stop it. We can blame the Soviets for the Cold War. Muslim fanatics for much of the strife of the modern world. Going further back we can neatly align most big events into categories of heroes and villains, geniuses and fools and visionary and reactionaries. Professional historians hate this sort of reductive thinking, but they are hardly immune from it. No matter how far ahead we get in history we are still human beings. Because of this we are obsessed by that which is both menacing and inexplicable.
The Third Reich is spine chilling not simply because it was a fountain evil. There is no shortage of evil in history. What terrifies us about 1933 to 1945 is not what was done but who did it. That a nation so civilized, so intelligent and so advanced as Germany would descend into a barbarism unknown by the most primitive of tribes is inexplicable. We can console ourselves and say that Hitler mesmerized a nation. That tells us little. That the nation that gave the world Goethe, Gauss and Bach was tricked by a failed painter is not, on second thought, a very reassuring explanation. The Anglo-Saxon reminds himself at this point that it can't happen here. No really it can't. The English mind abhors such things, we say to ourselves. One hopes forever.
The inexplicable nature of World War One is compounded by its accidental triggering. The Nazis marched headlong into hades. The incomparable more decent and civilized men who lead the major powers of 1914 stumbled into disaster. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the Kennedy brothers are supposed to have used Barbara Tuchman's classic work The Guns of August as bedtime reading. The parallels between what did happen in 1914 and did not happen in 1962 give us some hope that leaders do learn from history. It also reminds us that complexity can be just as threatening to civilization as active evil.
For those unfamiliar with the long train of events that lead from Waterloo to Sarajevo I can suggest going to Quotulatiousness where Nicholas has a five part (so far) history of the lead up to 1914 (1,2,3,4,5). It's about as succinct as you can get with this period of European history. Flow charting these events isn't easy. The take away from all this isn't the details, it's how finely balanced global politics was a hundred years ago. By contrast the Cold War, for all its implied terror, was remarkably static. At least if you were a North American or European. The Soviet Bloc gave a tremendous illusion of permanence that fooled so many otherwise intelligent and educated people. The bi-polar nature of global politics between 1945 and 1990 made the rules fairly clear for everyone involved. In 1914 nothing was especially clear and so much could have turned out differently had one leader, one diplomat, made a different decision at a crucial moment. Here are some of the terrible ifs:
If a statesman of the skill and stature of Bismarck had been at the helm of Germany, would there have been a war?
If Britain had made a firm commitment to France, backed by a sizable army, would Germany have taken the risk of expanding the war westward?
If Russia's railways had been anywhere near as efficient as those of Germany, would the German General Staff have been so confident in the von Schlieffen plan?
If Austria-Hungary had been a more stable polity would it have acted so aggressively against Serbia?
If there had been no Austria-Hungary would Eastern Europe have been such a tripwire?
What the hell was Bethmann-Hollweg thinking when he issued the blank cheque?
Unlike in the sciences there is no control group in history. What if is a traditional parlour game for both professional and amateur historians. It cannot be answered definitely because there is no way to re-run events. Even if time travel were possible we're still confronted with the problem of complexity. In changing one variable all the others are changed, to more degree or another, at the same time. That applies to the life of nations as much as of individuals and small groups. One small mistake at just the right moment and everything changes forever.
The greatest casualty of 1914 was not the ten million combatants who perished in the subsequent four years. Nor the 55 million who died in that war's grimmer sequel. Perhaps not even the hundred million who died at the hands of communist rule. It was our civilizational confidence. From the Renaissance until 1914 the West seemed to be on a permanent upward motion, both relative to the other major civilizations but also toward some new level of human understanding. For many educated people a century ago utopia, in whatever form they preferred, seemed just only so far away. The scientists, the engineers and the statesmen would figure it out soon enough. To have that all snatched away and replaced with death and evil on an unprecedented scale was a irreversible psychological scar.
What we are left with are the words of Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
This was not true in 1914. It has been true ever since. The second part of that poem offer us hope. It's a hope that has yet to be redeemed.
Recent Comments