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6 Cards in this Set
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Exercise 2.1 p. 57 |
Austria's (since 1867 Austria-Hungary's) history in the 19th century had been one of successive defeats and loss of prestige. From 1903 onwards, Serbia began to threaten Austria-Hungary's international standing by refusing to accept the subordinate position it had been allocated in the international system. Regional tensions increased following the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, a territory that Serbia had also coveted on account of the region's large Serbian population. Serbian terrorist organisations made it their aim to expel Austrians from all Serbian lands. During the Balkan wars 1912-13, victorious Serbia increased its power and territory, while the great powers saw themselves on the brink of war, avoiding an international conflict by recourse to the 'Concert of Europe' (essentially, mediation of the crisis in an international congress). In October 1913, it nearly came to war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia ocer the latter's occupation of Albania, but Serbia was not supported by any of the great powers and was forced to step down in the face of an Austrian heir to the imperial throne travelled to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, on an official visit and was murdered by Bosnian-Serb terrorists. As a result, Austria-Hungary wanted revenge and, as Fischer puts it, 'war fever swept the Ballhausplat' |
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Read the text of the September Programme (Source 2.1), and make some notes on what the document tells us about Bethmann Hollweg’s vision of the future of Europe, and of Germany’s role in particular. You will also find some of Fischer’s analysis reproduced there. |
In this document Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg summarises Germany’s war aims. The ‘general aim of the war’ was ‘security for the German Reich in west and east for all imaginable time’. Bethmann Hollweg wanted to weaken France, annex the ore-fields of Briey, make it economically dependent on Germany and impose a war indemnity (i.e. reparations) so high that France would be unable to rearm in the foreseeable future. He also wanted to drive Russia further to the east. Belgium would be reduced to a vassal state, and parts of its territory annexed, while Luxembourg would become a German federal state. Regarding Germany’s position within Europe, he anticipated creating ‘a central European economic association through common customs treaties’ which would ‘in practice … be under German leadership and must stabilise Germany’s economic dominance over Mitteleuropa’. Holland, which was neutral during the war, was to be persuaded to enter into a ‘closer relationship with the German Empire’. Bethmann Hollweg postponed a consideration of the question of colonies, as well as the question of war aims vis-à-vis Russia. |
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Wayne C. Thompson’s article ‘The September Program: reflections on the evidence’, in the journal Central European History (vol. 11, no. 4, December 1978, pp. 348–54). 1. What does Thompson make of the timing of the document and the expectation that victory was imminent? |
Thompson does not think that the Germans were expecting an imminent victory in September 1914. Rather, the chancellor and his aide expected ‘a long siege’ (p. 352). There was, according to Thompson, ‘no expectation of a sudden victory’ (p. 353). (This, however, does not detract from the nature of these expansionist war aims.) |
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Wayne C. Thompson’s article ‘The September Program: reflections on the evidence’, in the journal Central European History (vol. 11, no. 4, December 1978, pp. 348–54). 2. What else does he criticise in Fischer’s interpretation? |
He contends that Fischer did not investigate what he calls a ‘fall-back position’ (p. 353) – what would Germany’s aims have been if these far-reaching expectations proved impossible to meet? |
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Wayne C. Thompson’s article ‘The September Program: reflections on the evidence’, in the journal Central European History (vol. 11, no. 4, December 1978, pp. 348–54). 3. How does he evaluate the document as a whole? |
He considers the September Programme ‘a provisional catalog of possible war aims’ (p. 353), which were not really referred to later, and which were not considered binding by the chancellor (p. 354). |
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12 December 1917, entitled ‘The Russian “secret documents”’. What were some of the war aims stipulated by the Entente Powers? |
The secret agreements between Russia, France and Britain included territorial gains, such as the return of Alsace and part of Lorraine to France, the redrawing of the border between France and Germany, and the annexation of the coal district of the Saar valley. Britain and France were to be allowed ‘complete liberty in delimiting the western frontiers of Germany’. The documents also reveal that in 1916 the French and Russian governments had agreed that Russia would gain control over the strategically important city of Constantinople and the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles) which, some historians would argue, had been their long-term foreign policy aim (this argument is made by McMeekin, 2011). |
