Germany and the Origins of the First World War (original) (raw)

Abstract

Historians have variously condemned British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey for contributing to the escalation of the July Crisis of 1914, and praised him as an heroic advocate of peace. Addressing this conundrum, this article first assesses historiographical debates around the significance of Grey's policy towards Germany in the events that led to the outbreak of the First World War. It then traces Grey's foreign policy vis-à-vis Germany on the one hand, and the Entente on the other. Finally, it provides an innovative analysis of Grey's policy from the vantage point of Berlin, arguing that in July 1914 decisions taken by the governments of other countries escalated the crisis and were taken regardless of Grey's position. The article concludes that current historiography overestimates British agency in July 1914 and that Grey was not as important to the outcome of the crisis as both his critics and his defenders have claimed. His actions could not change the minds of those on the continent who were bent on war. Introduction: the 'men of 1914' While there remains much dispute about the origins of the First World War, many historians agree that people, the so-called 'men of 1914' 2 , rather than structures or impersonal forces, unleashed this war. War came as a 'result of a series of deliberations by a handful of men.' 3 While not everyone agrees on the origins of the war, or even whether there is still a need to attribute 'war guilt' at all, it is undisputed that key decision-makers (indeed all of them men) took the fateful decisions of 1914. As Gordon Martel notes: It was the choices that men made during those fateful days that plunged the world into a war. […] The choices they made were rational, carefully calculated, premised on the assumptions and attitudes, ideas and experiences that they had accumulated over the years. Real people, actual flesh-and-blood human beings, were responsible for the tragedy of 1914 […]. 4 Even those who emphasise the crucial role played by contingency attribute agency and significance to key individuals, arguing that '[i]f any one of these leaders had acted differently […], he might well have interrupted the slide into war'. 5 This view is not new;

Key takeaways

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  1. Grey's influence on the July Crisis is overstated; decisions made in Berlin overshadowed British agency.
  2. Historiographical debates reveal a shift from blaming Grey to recognizing the inevitability of war.
  3. Grey's sincere attempts at mediation did not alter Germany's aggressive stance or intentions in 1914.
  4. British foreign policy under Grey was marked by an anti-German bias and fear of Russian power.
  5. The article evaluates Grey's role as peripheral, emphasizing the real threat posed by Germany to Europe.

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References (139)

  1. I would like to thank the organisers of the 2014 conference 'Sir Edward Grey and the Origins of the First World War', in particular David Stevenson, Heather Jones, and Richard Smith for their kind invitation to present at the conference and to contribute to this special issue. Further thanks are due to the two anonymous peer reviewers, to Daniel Anders for sharing his knowledge of Grey with me, and to T.G. Otte for rescuing me from some errors of detail that occur when a historian of Germany attempts to write about British history.
  2. The phase first coined by James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, London 1984, p.205: 'In order to understand the men of 1914 we must understand the values of 1914'.
  3. Zara Steiner and Keith Neilson, Britain and the Origins of the First World War, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke 2003, p.276.
  4. Gordon Martel, The Month that Changed the World, OUP, Oxford 2014, pp. 420-21.
  5. Samuel R. Williamson and Russel van Wyk (eds), July 1914. Soldiers, Statesmen, and the Coming of the Great War, Bedford St Martin's, Boston, New York, 2003, p.259.
  6. David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Odhams Press, London, 1933, I, (1938), p.55.
  7. Martel, The Month, p.45.
  8. Ibid, pp.420-21.
  9. David S. Muzzey, Review of Edward Grey, Twenty-Five Years, in Political Science Quarterly, vol.41, 2, 1926, pp.287-91, p.288. For a recent account of the radicals' opposition to Grey, see Andreas Rose, Zwischen Empire und Kontinent. Britische Außenpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg, Munich 2011. For a shorter English version, see Andreas Rose, 'From "illusion" and "Angellism" to détente -British radicals and the Balkan Wars', in Dominik Geppert, William Mulligan and Andreas Rose (eds), The Wars before the Great War. Conflict and International Politics before the Outbreak of the First World War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp.320-342.
  10. According to Egerton, 'Lloyd George hinged his indictment of the British military elite on the case he builds against Haig, in much the same way that he had made Grey the sacrificial lamb for the sins of Asquithian Liberalism.' George W. Egerton, 'The Lloyd George "War Memoirs": A Study in the Politics of Memory', The Journal of Modern History, vol.60, No. 1, March 1988, pp.55-94, p. 79.
  11. Dominick Geppert et al, Die Welt, 4 January 2014 http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article123516387/Warum-Deutschland-nicht-allein-schuld-ist.html. Jörn Leonhard counters this idea by pointing out that the war was already no longer just a European war when at 8 o'clock in the morning on 4 August German troops began their advance into Belgium. Moreover, when on 2 August the British cabinet was still undecided and met twice to resolve the existing stalemate German troops had already occupied neutral Luxembourg (Jörn Leonhard, Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs, Beck, Munich 2014, p.109). For an overview of the latest state of the debate see e.g. Annika Mombauer, 'Guilt or Responsibility? The Hundred-Year Debate on the Origins of World War 1', Central European History, 48, 2015, pp.1-24.
  12. Herbert Butterfield, 'Sir Edward Grey in July 1914', Historical Studies, 1965, 2, pp.1-25, p.14. 13 On the counter-factual speculation that Britain could, and should, have kept out of the war, see Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War, Penguin, London 1999 and John Charmley, Splendid Isolation?, Sceptre, London 1999. Historians who highlight the imperial dimension to British foreign policy concerns include Keith M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente. Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904-1914;
  13. Keith Neilson, '"My beloved Russians": Sir Arthur Nicolson and Russia, 1906-1916, International History Review, 11, 4, 1987, pp.521-554; idem, Britain and the last Tsar. British Policy and Russia, 1894-1917, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995; Rose, Zwischen Empire und Kontinent.
  14. Die Deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch 1914 (DD), Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, Berlin 1922, No.596, 2 August 2014.
  15. For much of what follows on Grey's British critics I have relied on Keith M. Wilson's excellent and detailed analysis in which much archival evidence is cited, some for the first time. Wilson, 'Britain', in idem (ed.), Decisions for War, 1914, London, UCL Press 1995, pp.175-208.
  16. Henry Wilson's diary cited in ibid, p. 200.
  17. Crowe's minutes on Buchanan to Grey, 24 July 1914, G.P. Gooch and H. Temperley (eds), British Documents on the Origins of the War (BD), London 1926, vol. XI, No.101.
  18. Butterfield, 'Grey', p.13.
  19. Lansdowne's comments cited in Wilson, 'Britain', p. 201. 20 Cited in ibid.
  20. Lord Loreburn, How the War came, Methuen & Co, London 1919, p.5.
  21. Ibid, p.183.
  22. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, I, p.59.
  23. Ibid, p.57.
  24. Ibid.
  25. Egerton, 'The Lloyd George "War Memoirs"', p.75.
  26. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, I, pp.57-8.
  27. Ibid, p.58. Lloyd George did not take into account the fact that Germany could not change its deployment plan, as there was by the summer of 1914 no alternative to the sp-called 'Schlieffen Plan'.
  28. For this argument, see Egerton, 'The Lloyd George "War Memoirs"', p.89.
  29. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, I, p.32.
  30. For details of the interwar historiographical debates on the origins of the war see e.g. Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War. Controversies and Consensus, Longman, London 2002.
  31. Arthur Murray, 'Lord Grey of Fallodon', The Quarterly Review, No.519, January 1934, pp.1-19, p.9.
  32. Cited in ibid, p.9, who also quotes Le Temps: 'If Lord Grey did not succeed in preventing the catastrophe, nobody could have prevented it.'
  33. Egerton, 'The Lloyd George "War Memoirs"', p.74. For example, Grey's own memoirs, and Trevelyan's more positive assessment of Grey, 'would attempt to place Grey firmly in the national pantheon'. 35 Gwynne and Hobhouse cited in Wilson, Entente, pp.144-5.
  34. 36 Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, 3 vols, Engl. tr. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1952, 2 nd edn, Enigma Books, New York 2005, vol. 3, p.385.
  35. Ibid, pp.389-90.
  36. Albertini, Origins, vol. 3, p.479.
  37. Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht, Droste, Düsseldorf 1961 and Krieg der Illusionen, Droste, Düsseldorf 1969.
  38. Fischer, Griff, p.33.
  39. Steiner and Neilson, Britain, p.265.
  40. An example of a more favourable assessment of Grey is Zara Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898-1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1969.
  41. Steiner and Neilson, Britain, pp. 263, 274.
  42. Samuel R. Williamson Jr. and Ernest R. May, 'An Identity of Opinion. Historians and July 1914', The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 79, No. 2 (June 2007), pp. 335-387, p.379.
  43. On Lichnowsky's role and his subsequent reputation, see John Röhl (ed.), 1914: Delusion or Design? The Testimony of Two German Diplomats, Elek, London 1973.
  44. T.G. Otte, July Crisis. The World's Descent into war, Summer 1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, p.521. Other examples of more favourable portrayals of Grey include Steiner, The Foreign Office; Keith Neilson, '"Control of the Whirlwind": Sir Edward Grey as Foreign Secretary, 1906-1916, in T.G. Otte (ed.), Makers of British Foreign Policy. From Pitt to Thatcher, Basingstoke 2002; T.G. Otte, '"Almost a Law of Nature?": Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Office, and the Balance of Power in Europe, 1905-1912, in Erik Goldstein and B.J.C. Kercher (eds), Britain and the Problem of Europe, 1900-1970: Diplomacy, Finance and Strategy, Westport, Conn, 2002. A recent biography of Grey portrays the Foreign Secretary in a more sympathetic light than his many critics, but fails to engage with the disputed issues around his pre-war diplomacy: Michael Waterhouse, Edwardian Requiem. A Life of Sir Edward Grey, Biteback, London 2013.
  45. Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers. How Europe went to War in 1914, Allen Lane, London 2012. The book was much more controversial in Germany than in Britain when it was published in German translation in September 2013. For details of its reception in Germany, see Mombauer, 'Guilt or Responsibility?', passim.
  46. Ibid, p.559. A similar view about Grey's indifference to Austria-Hungary is made by Andreas Rose: 'The continuation of the Dual Monarchy as well as the status quo on the Balkans played a minor role for Grey in comparison with the Russian friendship.' Empire, p.589. Some commentators have even referred to Grey's 'charade of mediation'. Gerry Docherty and Jim MacGregor, Hidden History. The Secret Origins of the First World War, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburg, London 2013, chapter 24.
  47. Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp.165-66.
  48. Wilson, Entente, p.143.
  49. Ibid, p.101, and chapter 6: 'The Invention of Germany', passim..
  50. 'The real purpose of the Entente [ ...] was war with Germany.' More startlingly still: 'The difference between Sir Edward Grey and the kaiser was that only one of them [i.e. Grey] was plotting war.' Docherty and MacGregor, Hidden History, p.257. This position is unusual in the recent historiography, though it echoes war- time and post-war assessments, particularly by German apologists. For example, Edmund von Mach's address to the German University League in the US in April 2015 accused Grey of pushing Germany and Austria-Hungary 'slowly but surely' into the war, and was in 'no doubt that the present war is the result of a gigantic conspiracy against Germany'. 'Sir Edward Grey's Evidence. An Address delivered before the German University League', 24 April 1915, p.20.
  51. Sean McMeekin, July 1914. Countdown to War, Icon Books, London 2013, p.402.
  52. Ibid, p. 403.
  53. Carl von Weizsäcker's notes, 23 March 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.76.
  54. Wilson, 'Britain', p.183
  55. Riezler's diary, 7 July 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.135.
  56. Wilson, 'Britain', p.183.
  57. See Leonhard, Die Büchse der Pandora, p.118.
  58. Ibid, p.118.
  59. Gerd Krumeich, Juli 1914. Eine Bilanz, Schöningh, Paderborn et al, 2014, p.135.
  60. Ibid.
  61. Ibid.
  62. See ibid, p.158. In the margins of the telegram Wilhelm raged: 'the famous 'encirclement' of Germany has finally become a complete fact, despite every effort of our politicians and diplomats to prevent it. The net has been suddenly thrown over our head, and England sneeringly reaps the most brilliant success of her persistently prosecuted purely anti-German Weltpolitik.' Pourtalès to Jagow, 30 July 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.322. 65 Cited in Wilson, 'Britain', p.189.
  63. Quoted in Margaret MacMillan, The War that Ended Peace. How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War, London, Profile Books 2014, p.568.
  64. Cited in Wilson, 'Britain' p.189,
  65. Except, it must be added, briefly during the infamous 'misunderstanding of 1 August' when Grey seemed to be offering British neutrality if Germany did not attack France. This turned out to be based on Lichnowsky's misreading of a conversation with Grey, but it did lead to a momentary alteration to the German deployment plan. For details of these events, see e.g. Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, pp.216-226;
  66. K.M. Wilson, 'Understanding the "Misunderstanding" of 1 August, Historical Journal, 37, 4, 1994, pp.885-889.
  67. 'The Two European Camps', The Nation, 16 January1909, p.597, cited in Rose, Empire, p.562. See also Rose, 'From "illusion" and "Angellism" to détente'.
  68. Rose, Empire, p.568.
  69. Ibid, p.569.
  70. Ibid.
  71. Otte, July Crisis, pp.455-6.
  72. Ibid, p.520.
  73. Williamson and May, 'An Identity of Opinion'.
  74. Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.160. For further evidence of the 'predominance of the anti-German party', see Butterfield, 'Grey', p.4.
  75. R.T.B. Langhorne, 'Great Britain and Germany, 1911-1914', in F.H. Hinsley (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, Cambridge, CUP 1977, pp.288-314, p.288.
  76. Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp.160-61.
  77. Cited in Butterfield, 'Grey', p.3.
  78. Wilson, Entente, p.100
  79. Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.161.
  80. Wilson, Entente, p.101.
  81. Steiner and Neilson, Britain, pp.264, 276.
  82. Cited in D.W. Sweet, 'Great Britain and Germany, 1905-1911', in Hinsley, Foreign Policy, pp. 216-235, p.216. 85 See also Steiner and Neilson, Britain, p.43.
  83. John Röhl, Wilhelm II. Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900-1941, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, pp.408-9.
  84. Ibid, pp.491-2.
  85. Sweet, 'Great Britain and Germany', p.219.
  86. Ibid. 95 Ibid.
  87. Ibid, p.220.
  88. Minute by Grey on Rodd to Grey, No.47, 10 February 1909, FO 371/599, cited in ibid, p.226.
  89. Wilson, 'Notes on the Non-Interventionists, 1911-1914' in idem, Directions of Travel, The Isis Press, Istanbul 2014, p.94.
  90. Nicolson to Hardinge, 2 March 1911, BD, vi, No.440, cited in ibid, p.95.
  91. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p.793.
  92. Ibid, p.792.
  93. Ibid, p.836.
  94. Ibid, p.808.
  95. Ibid, p.836.
  96. Ibid, p.841.
  97. Cited in Otte, Foreign Office Mind, p.364.
  98. Grey to Goschen, 15 March 1912, BD, vi, 539, cited in Langhorne, 'Great Britain and Germany', p.298. 108 Cited in Röhl, Wilhelm II, p.864.
  99. Otte, July Crisis, p.95.
  100. Ibid.
  101. Pease Diary, 29 March 1912, cited in Wilson, 'Notes on the Non-Interventionists', p.100. 112 Cited in Martel, The Month, p.368.
  102. Butterfield, 'Grey', p.18.
  103. Ibid, p.21.
  104. Buchanan to Grey, 18 March 1914, BD, X, II, No.528.
  105. George Clerk's memorandum of 23 July 1914, cited in T.G. Otte, 'Entente diplomacy v. détente, 1911-1914', in Geppert et al, The Wars before the Great War, pp.264-282, p.278.
  106. Loreburn to Runciman, 2 April 1912, Runciman MSS, cited in Wilson, 'Notes on the Non-Interventionists', p.101.
  107. Grey, Twenty-five years, 1892-1916, Frederick A. Stokes, London 1925, vol. I, 334-42.
  108. For this point, see Keith Robbins, Sir Edward Grey, Cassell, London 1971, p.289.
  109. Riezler's diary, 8 July 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.138.
  110. Cited in Otte, July Crisis, p.142.
  111. Wilson, 'Notes on the Non-Interventionists', p.93.
  112. Ibid, p.392.
  113. Goschen to Nicolson, 15 May 1914, BD, X, II, No. 508
  114. Nicolson to Goschen, 18 May 1914, BD, X, II, No.510.
  115. Otte, July Crisis, p.451. For details of the negotiations, see Stephen Schröder, Die englisch-russische Marinekonvention. Das Deutsche Reich und die Flottenverhandlungen der Tripelentente am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs, Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007.
  116. Nicolson and Buchanan's fears as cited in Rose, 'From "illusion" and "Angellism" to détente', p.341. 131 Riezler diary, 7 July 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.135.
  117. Otte, July Crisis, p.520.
  118. Mombauer, Documents, No.73.
  119. Wilson, Entente, p.115. 135 Lichnowsky to Bethmann Hollweg, 9 July 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.143. 136 Jagow to Lichnowsky, 18 July 1914, DD, 1, No. 72.
  120. Michael Brock and Eleanor Brock (eds), Margot Asquith's Great War Diary, Oxford, OUP, 2014, p.7, n.5.
  121. See Wilson, Entente, p.109
  122. Otte, July Crisis, 142.
  123. Martel, The Month, p.150
  124. Steiner and Neilson, Britain, p.263.
  125. Otte, July Crisis, p.485.
  126. Grey's 3 August speech, in Hansard, House of Commons Debates, vol.65, cc1809-32.
  127. Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.559.
  128. Otte, July Crisis, p.456.
  129. Heinrich von Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, 30 June 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No.108; Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf's diary entry of 29 June 1914, in ibid, No.105.
  130. Pease Diary, 29 March 1912, cited in Wilson, 'Notes on the Non-Interventionists', p.100.
  131. Butterfield, 'Grey', p.18.
  132. For Tirpitz's 'very out of place' statement, see Admiral von Müller's diary entry, 1 August 1914, in Mombauer, Documents, No. 373.
  133. Riezler's diary entries for 20 July and 7 July, cited in Mombauer, Documents, No. 181 and No. 135. 153 Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916, Hodder & Stoughton, London, vol.1, p.267.
  134. Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.166.
  135. For a similar argument, see Otte, Foreign Office Mind, p.406.
  136. Wilson, Entente, p.101.
  137. Otte, Foreign Office Mind, p.382, citing Rodd to Grey Mss, 6 January 1913.
  138. Jonathan Steinberg, 'The German background to Anglo-German relations, 1905-1914, in Hinsley, Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, pp.193-215, p.215.
  139. Quoted in Loreburn, How the War came, p.18.