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Historically Speaking
Library of Congress
World War I at 100
A
ugust 1 marks the 100th anniversary
By Brig. Gen. John S. Brown
Some thought gigantic wars could no
U.S. Army retired
of Imperial Germany’s declaration of
longer happen because the economies and
war on Czarist Russia. One thing led to
cultures of the great powers were interwoanother, and within a week, most of Europe and much of ven and interdependent. A generation of Europeans was
the world was at war, and history’s most titanic battles to well into middle age without having seen the horrors of
date were underway. Thus ended the Belle Époque, a re- war. Unfortunately, national rivalries, military anxieties,
markable era of peace, prosperity, global integration and sci- lethal technologies, Balkan crises and out-of-control nonentific advance.
state actors combined, creating a potential for catastrophe.
Statesmen had already put out a number of sparks before
they could set off the European powder keg, but their luck
ran out in August 1914.
Trouble Brewing
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France and Germany had been at odds since the French
defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. With Paris besieged and starving, and relief efforts by increasingly raw
French conscripts defeated, France capitulated. Peace terms
included the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, a 5 billion franc indemnity, and a newly emergent Second Reich. The course of
the war and nature of the peace embittered the French. Germany was concerned that France might seek vengeance and
solicit Russian help to achieve it. In 1882, Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy negotiated the Triple Alliance, a secret
agreement that promised they would provide each other
military support in the event of war. Russia had conflicting
Above: German soldiers fire a cannon while others on horseback move a wagon during World War I. Right: U.S. soldiers
leave the protection of their trench following the call to charge.
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interests with Austria-Hungary in the Balkans and proved
amenable to a military alliance with France in 1892.
Thinking beyond Europe, the German Reichstag passed
the five Naval Laws for the purpose of building a worldclass navy. The British suspected German naval expansion
was directed at them, and the resulting arms race rendered
Germany and Great Britain rivals. The British abandoned
their earlier “Splendid Isolation” policy to seek allies on the
European continent. In 1904, the Entente Cordiale agreement resolved their lingering imperial issues with France,
and in 1907, the Anglo-Russian Entente similarly resolved
their concerns with Russia. Collaterally, Great Britain had
been committed since 1839 to preserving the neutrality and
independence of Belgium—a logical German invasion route
in the case of a war with France. The Triple Entente now
stood as a counterweight to the Triple Alliance, and Europe
had become two armed camps.
In the several wars that culminated in the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans provided stunning tutorials about the
role of a highly professional General Staff, rapid mobilization of a trained conscript army, artful exploitation of well-
A 1916 poster solicits help for soldiers and civilians who fled to Albania after Serbia’s defeat by the Austro-German army in winter 1915.
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designed railroad and telegraph networks, and modern
breech-loading rifled artillery. Their ideas caught on, most
notably in France and Russia. Nations great and small
trained mass conscript armies and designed meticulous war
plans to speed them into battle over more capable railroad
systems. The most famous of the plans were the German
Schlieffen Plan (envisioning a lightning right hook through
Belgium into France) and the French Plan XVII (envisioning
a lightning right hook through Alsace-Lorraine into Germany). Each of the potential combatants developed schemes
requiring rapid action and sustained momentum. This rendered them sensitive to the knowledge that their opponents
had such plans as well. Accepted military wisdom held that
an army could not afford to wait once others mobilized. War
plans became so time-constrained that mobilizations were
likely to lead to war rather than any given nations risking
the forfeit of an advantage.
Burning Bridges
As advanced as the technologies supporting war seemed
at the time, the lethalities of the Franco-Prussian War were a
quantum removed from those of 1914. Machine guns had
proliferated and leaped ahead in sophistication. Rifles and
artillery had evolved through several generations of modernization, and the lines distinguishing ubiquitous (yet
small) field guns and rare (yet mammoth) siege guns had
blurred. Recognizably modern battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines had made their debut, and not-quite-somodern airplanes and armored vehicles were on the verge
of making their presence felt. Toxic chemicals were a known
extension of contemporary industrial processes, capable of
being weaponized by those who would choose to do so. Soldiers were more numerous, and the means to support them
were more capable than ever.
Unfortunately, this escalating potential for mayhem had
not been particularly absorbed by military doctrine or popular culture. Doctrine, less perhaps that of the British—beneficiaries of hard lessons at the hands of the Boers—was inclined to the Napoleonic. Popular culture clung to a romantic
image of war that approached militarism. The consequences
would be horrific.
Otto von Bismarck had cautioned against “some damned
foolish thing in the Balkans,” and his premonition proved
correct. As the Ottoman Empire weakened in the late 19th
century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire asserted rights to
occupy and administer the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Much of their population was Serbian, and the
newly independent Kingdom of Serbia also aspired to rule
them. Meanwhile, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia organized a Balkan League of Christian States committed to driving the Turks from the Balkans and apportioning
Ottoman lands among themselves. In the First Balkan War
(1912–13), the Balkan League drove the Turks to the outskirts of Constantinople but soon fell out over the apportionment of the spoils. In the Second Balkan War (1913), the
Bulgarians attacked the Serbs and Greeks but in turn were
attacked by the Romanians and Ottomans when decisively
Library of Congress
In a New York Evening Post cartoon circa 1915, President Woodrow Wilson gestures to a woman seated under
a sign that reads “Humanity” and says, “Let her be heard.”
engaged. The net result of the two Balkan Wars was that
Bulgaria and Romania grew modestly, Greece and Montenegro grew appreciably, and Serbia almost doubled in
size. Albania became independent, albeit on lands Greece,
Montenegro and Serbia coveted. No one was satisfied.
From Sparks to Full-Blown Holocaust
The ferment in the Balkans lent itself to the proliferation of
nonstate actors alongside the nascent national regimes.
Agendas varied, but an addiction to violence was rife. Serbians aspired to acquire Bosnia-Herzegovina as a component
of Greater Serbia, and secret societies committed to subversion and force sought to advance that purpose. The ArchBrig. Gen. John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history at the U.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998 to October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion,
66th Armor, in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait as commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1995. Author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, he has a doctorate in
history from Indiana University
duke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was on an official visit to Sarajevo, capital of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on June 28, 1914. Ferdinand favored a program of
national federalism within Austria-Hungary, which potentially might have eroded support for Serbian irredentism. An
inchoate cell of seven young revolutionaries resolved to assassinate him. One, Gavrilo Princip, actually did. A dramatic
diplomatic crisis ensued but initially seemed containable.
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, but
even this conflict could have been brief and local.
Russia mobilized, as it feared its ally Serbia would be
overrun if it did not intervene. Unfortunately, Russian general mobilization plans posed as much of a threat to Germany as to Austria-Hungary. Germany demanded that the
Russians cease mobilizations proximate to her frontier. This
did not happen. Austria-Hungary declared a general mobilization on July 31. France and Germany mobilized within
five minutes of each other on August 1, and Germany declared war on Russia a few hours later. Although their professed provocation was Russia, the Schlieffen Plan called
upon the Germans to invade France in the expectation that
France could be knocked out before Russia could effectively
intervene. Germany declared war on France and Belgium
and subsequently invaded both. Great Britain declared war
on Germany. Within the next few days, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Russia, Serbia on Germany, and France and
Great Britain on Austria-Hungary. On July 23, Japan honored a treaty with Great Britain and declared war on Germany, and a few days later on Austria-Hungary. Only the
Americas thought themselves immune from the worldwide
conflagration, and they would be proven wrong.
No matter how belle an époque seems to be, it can carry
within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Prolonged peace
creates the illusion that peace is a perpetual state. Prosperity,
scientific advance, education and economic interdependence
encourage stability, but they do not guarantee it. National (or
other) rivalries, military anxieties, destabilizing technologies,
international crises and disruptive nonstate actors can combine to create catastrophe. Able and well-intentioned statesmanship can contain such risks; inept or malevolent statesmanship can aggravate them. Miscalculation can bring
disaster. Statesmen should be ever mindful of the responsibilities they bear for the peaceful resolution of disputes, and
soldiers should be ever mindful that statesmen may fail. ✭
Additional Reading
Coffman, Edward M., The War to End All Wars: The
American Military Experience in World War I (Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 1998)
Meyer, G.J., A World Undone: The Story of the Great War,
1914 to 1918 (New York: Delacourte Press, 2007)
Tuchman, Barbara, The Guns of August (New York:
Macmillan, 1962)
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