World War One guilt

Are the Germans really to blame for World War One? Also, do you guys think it should have turned out like it did?

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Here's the timeline of the outbreak
Make up your own opinion with it

It was the Russians to be honest.

Their decision to mobilize was the point of no return for Europe.

Feel bad for the people of Germany but their gov just wanted to prove themselves as an important strong country through war.

>Their decision to mobilize was the point of no return for Europe.

Germany's decision to meddle in Austro-Russian conflicts was

Germans were created by god to punish Euros for being to proud and decedent

>fuck over other countries for a century
>turn weapons on each other
>get fucked over just as hard

>Germany's decision to meddle in Austro-Russian conflicts was

Russia was forewarned that their decision to mobilize would set off Germany's own mobilization which depended on precise time-tabled that could no longer be arrested. The security of their country was threatened the moment that Russia mobilized.

It's not as if Germany goaded Russia into mobilizing. The Kaiser himself was in tears begging Tsar Nicolas to not mobilize to prevent the kind of escalation that would mean a general European War.

>The Kaiser himself
>implying that the Kaiser was actually running the government

The German general staff had already decided there was going to be a war, and everyone with half a brain knew it. If the Russians hadn't mobilised then they would have been leaving themselves completely open to the inevitable German invasion.

No one forced the Germans to declare war on Russia. Russia hadn't even declared war on Austro-Hungary at that point. No one forced the Germans to invade France - the French had even gone as far as moving their troops back a few miles from the border to avoid a potential incident. And certainly no one forced the Germans to invade Belgium and Luxembourg.

The main reason anyone still pretends that the first world war wasn't entirely Germany's fault is that historians don't get paid to tell people things that they already know - revisionism will always be popular.

The second reason is that in the aftermath of the war those of the generation who had fought in it who entered the literary world responded with bitter cynicism to all the narratives given to them by the older generation - including the assertion that Germany was solely responsible for the war. Given the jingoism and patriotic-chest beating in all of Europe in the lead up to the war, it's easy to see how a man who might have been just a twenty year old student at the time could have judged, from his limited perspective, that the enthusiasm with which his nation's people entered the war indicated that his nation had wanted the war, and must have somehow caused it. But no one with the benefit of a century of hindsight on the matter should be able to pretend that the war was anything other than Germany's fault.

>If the Russians hadn't mobilised then they would have been leaving themselves completely open to the inevitable German invasion.
This is baseless speculation that doesn't have a shred of evidence behind it. There were German generals quoted as saying a war "sooner than later" would be preferable, but those were musings of staff officers whose job it was to imagine every scenario, not a statement of government policy.

>No one forced the Germans to declare war on Russia.
Due to the prevailing strategic thinking of the German high command, mobilization by Russia meant the same as a declaration of war. The delicate logistical plans drawn up for this very scenario required instant mobilization and consequently war to counter the difficulties of being surrounded on two sides by hostile nations.

I'm somewhat baffled to how you can casually excuse the decision for Russia to mobilize against a country which posed no threat whatsoever to its security while heaping all the consequences of that decision solely onto Germany.

>mobilization by Russia meant the same as a declaration of war
the reasoning of men looking for an excuse. What you actually mean by that is that Germany wouldn't have been able to launch their unprovoked attack on France if Russia had already been mobilised, since their war plans involved knocking France out before Russia could get involved. It wasn't Germany's defence that was in danger, it was their ability to launch a war of aggression.

>I'm somewhat baffled to how you can casually excuse the decision for Russia to mobilize against a country which posed no threat whatsoever to its security
>no threat to its security
you're kidding, right? Germany's aggressive stance in the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's assassination, and the well know German plans for war against Russia and France, were more than enough reason for Russia to take perfectly reasonable defensive measures.

Meanwhile, there is zero evidence that Russia or France were intending to attack Germany. If Germany hadn't launched their completely unprovoked invasion of France it's perfectly reasonable to think that France and Russia, neither of whom wanted war, would have refrained from attacking and the whole situation would have calmed down.

"musings of staff-officers" - bullshit. It was the general attitude within the upper echelons of the German military and government that if Germany was going to claim its 'rightful place' in Europe, the war needed to happen as soon as possible.

Germany wanted the war. Germany pushed Austro-Hungary towards war. Germany attacked first. And yet because Russia wasn't naive enough to buy Wilhem's reassurances and took the most basic of steps to prepare for their defence, they're somehow to blame? As I said, the only people who could even try to make that argument are historians with way too much time on their hands.

>the French had even gone as far as moving their troops back a few miles from the border to avoid a potential incident.

The Germans still managed to create an incident despite that
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirmish_at_Joncherey

But heh, they're just poor innocent dindus who only wanted peace, right?

>It wasn't Germany's defence that was in danger
Their security was very much at stake.

>German plans for war against Russia and France
All countries had plans of attack against each other. France had Plan XVII which called for an attack on Germany through their shared border. A PLAN is not the same thing as intended government policy. Drawing up plans is what staff officers do.

>Russia to take perfectly reasonable defensive measures
It was Russia who initiated mobilization among the great powers. Austria had mobilized against Serbia and Germany wasn't mobilized at all UNTIL Russia mobilized which caused the cascading effect across the rest of the continent. Germany mobilization was reactionary & dependent on Russia's own. It seems rather queer to claim they were defending themselves against a country who hadn't even mobilized yet, and whose mobilization depended on their own.

>the war needed to happen as soon as possible.
You're taking the quote of a staff officer, not responsible at all for foreign policy, and attributing it to the policy entire German government. The only way you dismiss the earnest efforts of Wilhelm II to arrest the forces that were drawing Europe into war in his pleas to Nicolas which we have recorded today are by speculating he was lying and it was all a ruse. It's rather queer that we have proof of the most powerful man in the German government working against the outbreak of war, but apparently the entire government wanted it to happen.

Lastly, to characterize Russia's mobilization as entirely "defensive" in nature is facile. Russia moved to support Serbia for the purpose of their own geopolitical goals in the Balkans. Not against any immediate or forthcoming threat to their own security which at the time did no such threat existed.

>Kaiser Wilhelm was running the German government.
okay, now you're clearly just trolling.

>Germany mobilization was reactionary & dependent on Russia's own.
Okay, Russia mobilises in response to Austria, so why isn't it Austria's fault?

Either way, so all the great powers mobilised one after another, and then everyone was mobilised. So what? It was still Germany that actually went and invaded France, Belgium and Luxembourg (incidentally, what threat did Belgium or Luxembourg pose to them?).

And why is it that Russia is expected to take Germany's statements of good-intent at face value, yet Germany can take Russia's mobilisation - despite Russia's strong assertions that it was a purely defensive measure - as a causus belli?

>okay, now you're clearly just trolling.
Here's what I said "[Kaiser Wilhelm was] the most powerful man in the German government". Which is true.

>Okay, Russia mobilises in response to Austria, so why isn't it Austria's fault?
Because it was Russia's mobilization that turned the spat from a regional conflict between Austria & Serbia into a Great Power conflict that involved all of Europe.

>It was still Germany that actually went and invaded France, Belgium and Luxembourg (incidentally, what threat did Belgium or Luxembourg pose to them?).
A consequence of their rigid war plan that once set into motion and could no longer be arrested. Which is why the Kaiser lobbied so hard to prevent Russia from mobilizing in the first place: mobilization would invariably lead to war. Don't mistake me for trying to absolve Germany of all wrongdoing, because that's not what I'm trying to imply. Germany was of course complicit in starting the war, but it wasn't a war they tried to manufacture nor do they bear a preponderance of blame in starting.

To heap all of the blame on Germany is a historically parochial view, motivated more likely by personal animus than a desire for objective accuracy.

>Russia is expected to take Germany's statements of good-intent at face value
Because exactly what the Kaiser said would happen DID happen is Russia mobilized. He didn't lie. He laid out plainly that mobilization from Russia would cause panic in the German capital and spur their own mobilization which would lead to war, and it did. You seem to be convinced from that start that everything Germany did was done with the purpose of bringing about the war

>a historically parochial view, motivated more likely by personal animus than a desire for objective accuracy.
which is pretty much always the justification of the revisionist historian.

>You seem to be convinced from that start that everything Germany did was done with the purpose of bringing about the war
because that's what the historical evidence supports, from their first correspondence with Austria right up until the moment they launched the invasion of France.

Do you honestly think that if Russia hadn't mobilised, germany would not have attacked the allies? Do you honestly think that Russia or France would have attacked Germany without prior German aggression? Because if you do you're just digging your head into the sand because you don't want to admit that the parochial, old-fashioned view is the one supported by actual evidence.

>Germany warmongering for literally 20 fucking straight years, starting with threatening war over the fucking First Moroccan Crisis

>germany dindunuffin


As an Austrian I'm ashamed in my low land primitive brethren

>Do you honestly think that if Russia hadn't mobilised, germany would not have attacked the allies?

Seeing as how there is no documentation to support that they would and Germany didn't mobilize except IN RESPONSE to Russia's own mobilization, it seems terribly unlikely.

>old-fashioned view is the one supported by actual evidence
You arrive at your conclusion only by outright dismissing inconvenient facts (like Wilhelm's appeals) and by exaggerating and misconstruing the importance of others (Moltke's quotes on war)

We have this thread every week.

Don't forget how the Kaiser and German generals approached King Leopold and King Albert to align Belgium with Germany. The Germans should've known better than to invade Belgium. The Schlieffen Plan was expecting the ideal conditions for it to work which is damned near impossible.

Yes and we all know that it was Russia and France fault that ww1 happend

I honestly don't even think it's Germans making these threads. I think it's americans trying to seem sophisticated by challenging the "established narrative"

All this banter about Germany starting shit baka. France were the ones who edged Russia into mobilizing with the hope that Germany would then mobilize and focus on eastern front while France busts through to take the lost lands. For fucks sake France had been solely focused on an offensive war strategy against Germany ever since the bullshit of 1870. There are numerous people to blame for the outbreak of total war in 1914. Saying WW1 is Germany's fault is literally the most autistic thing a person of history could ever say...especially 100 years after the event itself..kaiser and Nicholas chilled with each other and like the other user said, the kaiser especially didn't want war yet was adamant that they would stand by the meme dual monarchy in its shit with serbia.

Look up Robert doughty's books if you think I'm lying about the French general staff and their plans.

What a load of horseshit

>France were the ones who edged Russia into mobilizing with the hope that Germany would then mobilize and focus on eastern front while France busts through to take the lost lands.

Meanwhile in reality, this happened
>Upon arriving back in France, the French Premier René Viviani sent a message to St. Petersburg asking that "in the precautionary measures and defensive measures to which Russia believes herself obliged to resort, she should not immediately proceed to any measure which might offer Germany the pretext for a total or partial mobilization of her forces."[180] French troops were ordered to pull back six miles (10 km) from the German frontier as a sign of France’s peaceful intentions.[180]


>For fucks sake France had been solely focused on an offensive war strategy against Germany ever since the bullshit of 1870. There are numerous people to blame for the outbreak of total war in 1914.

Revanchist movements in France actually died out in the 1890s
By the 1910s, France was mostly pacifist, and did all it could to avoid WW1 (including withdrawing their army from the border and not reacting when Germany attacked Russia and Luxembourg)

>The Kaiser and his generals/politicians were on the same page
The nobility were quite against World War One, but a generation of runaway nationalism and jingoistic ambitions fueled by the pursuit of weapons (Dreadnoughts) led to a state where hypothetical "just in case" military plans became policy, especially in respect to the tension between Britain and Germany just before the war.

Militarism caused the First World War, but the Germans were one of the more guilty parties in that, but not yet the bad guys.

The Germans became known as the bad guys due to their use of supervillian-tier weapons and tactics throughout the war. Europe at that time despite having industrialized warfare, saw a possible war in Europe through rose tinted glasses due to the Romantisation of warfare at the time.
So naturally German tactics such as
>Plowing through Belgium
>unrestricted sub warfare
>Use of submarines
>use of airships and later Gothas to bomb industrial targets
>German decision to bomb civilian targets since bombing runs of the time had no accuracy to speak of
>First use of poison gas in contemporary warfare

They had to use their superior technology in order to stand a chance inna 2 front war, but it violated all the rules in the book at the time.

Its the fucking cuck Austrians

Wow so unbelievably wrong.

Lmao I'm not talking about the stupid premier. Literally Google France and the July 1914 crisis and you can see for yourself there are documents that went between diplomats of France and Russia where France lied about germany's plans/mobilization efforts in regards to soliciting Russia to mobilize and therefore get the upper hand on germany. There are people who have spent a good portion of their lives (general doughty for example) trying to find these physical papers which were shipped to Russia years ago after the war. The six miles from the front was all for show. You need to start thinking like a person of power in the time of the great war my friend lol.

>Revanchist movements in France actually died out in the 1890s

Please tell me you're joking...your argument is almost based solely on socio-political events. The Republicans took the stance of blaming the defeat on leaders and promoted peace specifically to get into office. Most every french intellectual harbored revenge against germany. The military reforms of 72 and 73 followed by universal service, revamp of officer training revolved around offensive capabilites, and staying on par with Germany military/tech wise became the goal of french military leadership. Stop seeing things so black and white senpai

No the Serbs are.

No the common opinion of it here is that the Serbs started it

The whole 'Germans are bad' stemmed from the entente straight owning in the propoganda department in the first place. Did germany fuck their reputation up via Belgium, unrestricted sub warfare, gas, etc? Of fucking course but they weren't the only ones doing it! German propoganda focused on building up moral and nationalism while entente used events and brilliant propoganda to make the common German a 'hun' and smeared germany's name which resounded well after the war as well.

You tell me.

As the December 1912 War Council made clear, they wanted the war to break out in 18 months time, once the Kiel canal and the Heligoland u-boat harbour had been completed.

> "I consider a war inevitable—the sooner, the better. But we should do a better job of gaining popular support for a war against Russia, in line with the Kaiser's remarks." H.M. confirmed this and asked the secretary of state to use the press to work toward this end. T. called attention to the fact that the navy would gladly see a major war delayed by one and a half years."

-Gen. v. Moltke

central powers should have won desu...no communism...no holocaust shit...no cold war...

Everyone did their share of atrocities, but German autism and inability to understand that it wasn't the 19th century anymore and their heavy-handed approach to diplomacy gave them the reputation for wickedness.

I mean, shooting Belgian civilians (including women and children) because of German soldiers being skittish of imaginary guerrillas and destroying cultural landmarks Louvain doesn't make them look like the good guy. The German army was pissed that Belgium didn't just roll over and let them pass; hence why reprisals were nasty against Belgian civilians. They truly believed Belgians should not have defended their country from a foreign invader. Read the Guns of August and other books that contain POVs of the war in 1914 and you'll be amazed at their autism.

That's like bringing up Operation Unthinkable as proof that the allies wanted a war with the USSR. Or France's Plan XVII as "proof" that France was plotting against Germany.

Moltke, as a military analyst, made an accurate appraisal of Germany's strategic position, bordered on two sides by potentially hostile countries aligned with each other, but that appraisal does not carry the weight of official foreign policy which was outside his hands. It only goes to show that the forces which eventually coalesced to start WW1 were recognized by the actors before the first shots were fired.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all about the things Germans did in Belgium. But you generalize the reasons behind it. That 'autism' you speak of is nationalism which grows out of defensive thinking when you are a powerhouse that is basically land locked by other powerhouses hence the treaties and agreements that flooded the late 19th-early 20th centuries in europe. Both sides did bad shit cuz that's what war is (British shooting prisoners, etc). The Germans had to give everything they had in order to achieve victory against superior numbers and armaments as well as because of shit allies. Hence the gas at verdun, the sub warfare, the fear-killing in belgium, the outlandish goal of making germany one big military factory, and if you were a full-blooded German at the time you would have probably undoubtedly supported your nation's actions to secure victory for your country. Generalization is cancer just like ww2 sentiment as well. Not every German was a blood-letting stormtrooper just like how not every German was a nazi. And calling germanys diplomacy autistic is too simple because the same thing could be said about most everybody else. Wilhelm was a dude with a lot of problems but he wasn't the only one. In my opinion the great war was fucked up in all terms and the 'good guy bad guy' is immensely unjust in defining it. We can even see that the common soldier could figure that out too(Christmas armistice, massive amount of poetry about the war, etc)

Dude, I'm an avid reader of world history between 1865 and 1914. German foreign policy after Bismarck was pants-on retarded. It's how NOT to win friends.

Germany antagonized Britain, France, and even the US with their shenanigans. Building the High Seas Fleet was a clear threat to British security since they need sea commerce for survival. The Moroccan incidents that the Germans staged clearly indicated that their foreign office had ZERO idea of how to play off their rivals. And pissing off the US with their activities in Latin America and the Philippines was a clear sign that the historical friendship between Germans and the US wouldn't be around under a Prussia-dominated landscape.

And the Germans wouldn't even be encircled by enemies if their 19th century activities didn't cause bitterness. Taking Alsace-Lorraine was something that even Bismarck knew would be disastrous. Alienating Russia and not continuing the Dreikaiserbund. Even the Reinsurance Treaty was something that should've been upheld at the expense of Austria.

The Franco-Prussian War proved to the world that the Germans would prefer bullying their way with militarism than using peaceful means to unify or live amongst their neighbors. Bismarck should've engineered an extension of the Zollverein to slowly but surely integrate the southern German states with Prussia in a federation. It really agonizes me that Germany became the usher of catastrophe with their short-sighted politics and fumbling thanks to Bismarck not leaving proper successors, the Kaiser being a moron, and too much influence amongst the Junkers and military.

Dude I know. But you can't say the diplomatic shit that occurred after the unification makes Germany 'the bad guy.' Obviously Bismarck fucked up a lot with taking Paris and Wilhelm had a hard-on for a dream of a German navy that could take on the british. But even then, the kaiser and Nicholas were on good terms, and in regards to the US, there were Americans who wanted to fight for Germany even up thru ww2. Basing opinions over diplomacy is a bad mix because we could delve for hours into french and British diplomacy too. I'm not defending the acts of Wilhelm or any dumbass imperial nation but you can't just pick sides and say Germany were the bad guys especially from fucked up diplomacy. Overnight the German people became the biggest mofos in Europe and obviously the rough real-politik of the early nation was a two-edged sword that both progressed and fucked up things in germany. You can't justify good from bad in this war without having to go deep inside the elements of both sides and realizing in the end that princip was just the lucky motherfucker who got the ball rolling

No, it stemmed from them being bad.

Great intelligent response..

Both sides antagonized each other quite a bit. It's almost like watching a chain of dominoes fall when you read about it. It is English and French general's fault the war lasted as long as it did. By every measure the Germans were inferior, had less production power, and had inferior allies. They only seemed to excel in tactics.

The English seemed to think that ordering lads over the top of the trench was a valid strategy from 1914 to 1917. Most chargers gained no ground and resulted in massive casualties. With proper military strategy they could've made more headway.

The French seemed to lose 1.5 million of their lads and were generally hard fighters, but tactically they seemed to fail over and over again.

>It is English and French general's fault the war lasted as long as it did. By every measure the Germans were inferior, had less production power, and had inferior allies. They only seemed to excel in tactics.

You forgot that until late 1916, France was basically alone on the Western front, and outnumbered
The British didn't send a significant number of troops until the Somme, and the Germans were focusing on the West in hope to get done with France

Yes, but even with limited access to trade, navy, and less industrial production they did quite well. The germans really shouldn't have lasted as long as they did.

The whole conflict was a bit of a waste of human life.

You can't really call a direct cause of world war 1. It was years of alliances, greed, and lust for land that coalesced into war when the first chance arrived.

>The English seemed to think that ordering lads over the top of the trench was a valid strategy from 1914 to 1917

As opposed to....what exactly? From the sea all the way to neutral switzerland was an unbroken series of fortified earthworks multiple lines deep and over 400 miles long. Explain how you circumvent those defenses without large numbers of reliable tanks, portable radio or mechanized artillery.

>The English seemed to think that ordering lads over the top of the trench was a valid strategy from 1914 to 1917. Most chargers gained no ground and resulted in massive casualties
let me guess, you got all your historical knowledge about WW1 from watching blackadder.

The offensive tactics were completely unnecessary. The name of the game was artillery and attrition. The only reason the charges were done was because the higher ups were impatient. It was a genuine waist of brittish life.

>The offensive tactics were completely unnecessary
You're confusing tactics with strategy.

Anyway you'll have a hard time explaining to General Joffe, your Prime Minister and the public back home that while your Russian ally is teetering after several crushing defeats and the Boche is still firmly occupied in some of the most productive areas of your French ally, you're going to be sitting on your hands doing absolutely nothing.

It was inevitable, Russia was industrializing rapidly and would have become so powerful within a few decades that it would have effective hegemony over Europe and the Middle East. However if the Russia was destroyed before that happened, then Germany would have hegemony over Europe, something Britain would not alow, as it had been the main goal of British foreign policy to prevent any power having hegemony over Europe.