World War One was the first instance of conflict that synthesised most all of the greatest world powers. This wasn’t centralised to one region as previously, hence the “world” war. However, debate has continued ever since 1914 as to whether it was inevitable. Unfortunately, primary and secondary sources from the time are often plagued with bias and patriotism due to national perspectives’ influence. To reach a conclusion, we have to synthesise all of the consistent and/or supported evidence. At the most basic level, history is made of sources and historians. However, both of these factors may contain bias or misrepresentation and selectiveness. As humans, we are naturally inclined to make those we align with look better. To determine whether World War One was inevitable, we must ask; How can we gauge the extent to which history is told from a national perspective and what indicators are present?
Most modern historians believe there is no one sole cause for World War One, but rather a timeline of events causing a level of tension mostly in Europe. In the late 19th century we saw the creation of the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) (Schmitt, 1924). This caused a level of “rivalry,” both feeling intimidated by the other. Around this time, military weapons were rapidly advancing, causing an arms-race – a competition of sorts (Brose, 1924). Additionally, we saw the growth of developing regions into world powers – notably Germany and Austria-Hungary (Gunther 2016; BBC Bitesize, 2019). Finally, thanks to globalisation Britain had now furthered its economic advancement and believed this would make Germany more vulnerable. Due to Britain’s further increasing power, Germany considered war a viable option to close this gap as proven by documents released at the time (Stevenson, 2014).
Source Overview
One of the most notable thesis’s on World War One was Fritz Fischer’s “Germany’s Aims in the First World War.” In the first chapter, he immediately cites his own country’s government (Germany) as the sole cause for the war. After being “attacked by his colleagues,” he published a sequel – War of Illusions. He only stood to further his claims, stating that Germany had planned the war for decades previously in a lunge to become a world power. The assertions he made have been criticised as being outlandish and controversial. However, his so-called “downfall” came in his contrarian inclination, often leading to disproven and/or impossible conclusions. This is most evident in the fact that he claimed Germany’s constant involvement in both World War I and World War II was carefully planned – from Franz Ferdinand’s assassination to Hitler, he believed they were all connected. In British Historian William Gatzke’s more recent analysis, Germany and the United States, he criticizes the evidence – or lack thereof - to prove Fischer’s claims (Gatzke, 1980).
Prior to this, Sidney Bradshaw Fay (an American historian) had published The Origins of the World War. He stated, “American public opinion began to denounce Germany as being guilty of causing World War 1.” To paraphrase, he blamed most participants an even amount rather criticizing terms of the Treaty of Versailles. As with most revisionist historians, he often victimised Germany in favour of calling the Allies aggressors (Lipstat, 1994). Given Fay’s nation of origin, his assertions may be less biased due to an outsider perspective. However, it must be noted that his book may have been created under the influence of the German government. They paid “special attention” to his writings, providing hundreds of copies to hand out at embassies and consulates (Herwig, 1997). This implies an amount of bribery involved. Additionally, few German citizens would have read Fischer’s thesis as novels criticising Germany were not permitted to be published (Herwig, 1997).
We can gauge how much national perspective affected these two books’ assertions by comparing them to known facts – facts of which have evidence and are agreed upon by modern historians. We can also observe whether the books align with perspectives of the nations at which the authors come from. By this evaluation, Fischer’s book contains little national bias. His assertions are entirely controversial contrasted the German Conservative perspective. His book was not permitted to be published in German at the time due to the criticism thrown against solely Germany (Herwig, 1997).
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