Historians have disagreed about the significance of German Imperial ambitions in the origins of the First World War. What is your view on the significance of German Imperial ambitions in the origins of the First World War? [40 marks] With reference to three chosen works:
· Analyse the ways in ...
History
Historians have disagreed about the significance of German Imperial ambitions
in the origins of the First World War. What is your view on the significance of
German Imperial ambitions in the origins of the First World War? [40 marks]
With reference to three chosen works:
· Analyse the ways in which interpretations of the question differ
· Explain the differences you have identified
· Evaluate the arguments, indicating which you found more persuasive and
explain your judgements Your answer can be sub-divided into different sections
or written as one continuous essay. It must not exceed 4,000 words. Footnotes
can be used but do not add to the word count.
Introduction
With the benefit of hindsight, it became obvious after World War Two that
much of the motivation for German aggression in that conflagration could be
traced to the punitive anti-German nature of Versailles. Even at the time, this
was seen as mistake, famously being described by a contemporary military
leader as an armistice for thirty years rather than a peace treaty.1
In order to stress the maniacal singularity of Nazi Germany and distinguish the
motivations for the two world wars from one another, it became a
commonplace historical narrative that World War One, unlike World War Two,
was the product of a kind of collective European madness and state
incompetence rather than German aggression. In the context of post war
peace building, this made sound political sense; the alternative risked
1 Elisa Litvin, "Peace and future cannon fodder: The armistice and the treaty of versailles."
Agora 53, no. 2 (2018): 16-21.
,Page 2 of 18
suggesting that there was something uniquely aggressive in the German
national character. This became the consensus historical view of World War
One. It remained so until it was challenged, from within Germany, by Franz
Fischer in 1961. He pointed out the impact of Germany’s imperial ambition on
foreign policy and its contribution to the outbreak of the conflict, essentially
arguing that the German ruling class sought to establish an empire in large
part to distract the German populace from their own autocratic rule. Other
German historians broadly agreed, with some caveats. By contrast, Sean
McMeekin stressed the responsibility of Russian imperial ambitions and
meddling for the conflict. Gordon Martel emphasised the culpability of the rise
of nationalism in general and Serbian nationalism in particular for the war,
against a backdrop of international crises. Whilst apparently arguing very
different theses, which will be considered below, it is possible to argue that the
different perspectives complement rather than contradict one another. The
First World War was a huge and complex event and it is simplistic to assume it
had one simple cause. Germany's Aims in the First World War by Fritz Fischer,
The Russian Origins of the First World War by Sean McMeekin and Origins of
the First World War by Gordon Martel will be the main texts considered in
examining this issue.
The German Empire 1871-1918 by Hans-Ulrich Wehler and The Origins of the
First World War by Annika Mombauer, which built on Fischer’s work, will also be
considered.
Context
Versailles was rightly viewed as one of the triggers for the rise of Fascism in
Germany. Indeed, popular opinion in Britain was generally approving of Hitler’s
initial actions to dismantle or challenge the constraints and punitive measures
prescribed by the treaty.2 Blaming Germany for starting two world wars
through aggressive expansionism was tantamount to declaring that there was
something inherently violent and untrustworthy in the German national
2 Stacie E. Goddard,"The rhetoric of appeasement: Hitler's legitimation and British foreign
policy, 1938–39." Security Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 95.
, Page 3 of 18
character. With the obscenity of the Holocaust fresh in the public imagination,
it was easy to characterise the Nazi regime as a historical aberration. 3
From this it flows logically that the First World War was a different kind of
conflict. As Versailles became seen as an historic wrong visited upon Germany,
a position which will bear scrutiny, this became conflated with the logical
assumption that Germany therefore bore no more blame than any other
participant for the outbreak of the First World War. The fact that it is possible
to be too severely punished for a crime one did actually commit was quietly
overlooked. In the very act of establishing the unique evil of Hitler’s regime, it
became politically expedient to retrospectively whitewash that of Wilhelm II.
This version of events became the accepted narrative. It is in this context that
Germany's Aims in the First World War by Fritz Fischer must be considered.
Fritz Fischer
In what became known as the Fischer Thesis, Fischer overtly challenged the
prevailing orthodoxy on the significance of German Imperial ambitions in the
origins of the First World War. Fischer contrasted the ingenious diplomacy of
the discarded Bismarck, largely conducted within a defensive posture and
mindset and explicitly dismissive of German imperial expansion, with the
incoherent belligerence of German foreign policy under the now less
constrained and considerably less skilful Wilhelm II.4 This, however, is hardly a
new insight, as it was well known and commented upon by Wilhelm’s
contemporaries.5 In doing so, Fischer removed a central plank of the argument
that Germany bore no responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War.
3 Geoffrey H. Hartman, The longest shadow: In the aftermath of the Holocaust (Bloomington,
Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996), 1.
4 Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German right: radical nationalism and political change after
Bismarck (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 1-2.
5 Munroe Smith, "Military Strategy Versus Diplomacy." Political Science Quarterly 30, no. 1
(1915): 50-52.
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