Myths of the Great War
There are persistent myths about every aspect of the Great War of 1914–1918: how it began, how it was won, how it was lost, and how the peace was made. I consider and reject the arguments that the war broke out inadvertently, that the Western front saw ne
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Abstract There are persistent myths about every aspect of the Great War of 1914– 1918: how it began, how it was won, how it was lost, and how the peace was made. I consider and reject the arguments that the war broke out inadvertently, that the Western front saw needless slaughter, that Germany was starved out of the war by the food weapon, and that the peace treaty that ended the war was the cause of another war. Keywords Blockade • Mobilization • Great War • Hyperinflation • Interdependence • Rational calculation • Strategic interaction • Reparations • War of attrition
Introduction One hundred years later, perceptions of the Great War continue to resonate in today’s world of international politics and policy.1 Most obviously, does China’s rise show a parallel with Germany’s a century ago? Will China’s rise, unlike Germany’s, remain peaceful? The Financial Times journalist Gideon Rachman wrote: The analogy [of China today] with Germany before the First World War is striking : : : It is, at least, encouraging that the Chinese leadership has made an intense study of the rise of
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This paper was presented as keynote lectures to the Economic History Society annual conference at the University of Warwick, 28 March 2014, and the Ninth Appalachian Spring Conference in World History and Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, 12 April 2014; and to meetings of the Lancaster University Economics Society on 25 November 2014 and the Defence Economics Seminar at the Ministry of Defence, London, on 25 March 2015. I thank the organizers and participants for comments and questions; and Karen Brandon, Dan Bernhardt, Nick Crafts, Ian Gazeley, Vlad Kontorovich, Will O’Neill, Avner Offer, Carlo Ristuccia, and Stephen Schuker for advice and discussion. M. Harrison () Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Editors 2016 J. Eloranta et al. (eds.), Economic History of Warfare and State Formation, Studies in Economic History, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1605-9_6
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great powers over the ages—and is determined to avoid the mistakes of both Germany and Japan.”2
The idea that China’s leaders wish to avoid Germany’s mistakes sounds encouraging, certainly. But what are the “mistakes,” exactly, that they will now seek to avoid? It is not encouraging if social scientists and historians remain uncertain what mistakes were made and even whether they were mistakes in the first place. While attention has been focused on China’s parallel with the rise of Germany, Russia’s present decline in some ways resembles that of Austria–Hungary and has no less disturbing implications: a multi-national empire struggling to manage a fall from past greatness in the face of rising ethnic tensions and powerful rivals competing for influence in bordering states. The myths of the Great War challenge the skills of both historians and economists. Historians face the challenge of preserving and extending the record and contesting its interpretation—especially
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