Sidney Bradshaw Fay and Fritz Fischer both wrote about the origin of World War One in a time of German historiography controversy. Both of these men took the same event and analyzed it to come to different conclusions. Both men, though very similar in their amount of research and thought process, looked through different lenses at the same problem.
Fritz Fischer was a native German, but he believed World War One was completely caused by Imperial Germany. By his thinking, because of their expansionistic goals, wish for imperialistic dominance, and desire to create a German dominated central Europe, Germany possessed many of the main reasons World War One began. Throughout this article Frederick Hale describes Fischer’s thought process and …show more content…
Fay writes his article almost as a story with many characters and plots. He uses lots of resources such as other scholars, letters from dignitaries, and quotes from ambassadors. Fay’s main targets for the start of World War One are Leopold Berchtold and all countries involved in the July crisis. One of the defenses of Germany that he gives is that Germany was more hesitant and simply acts on the defensive when faced with conflict. Fay stresses the importance of other countries’ alliances and military advancements forcing Germany into reaching out to their neighbors and build up their own military. Specific blame is pinned on Serbia and Russia. Serbia hosts some of the blame because they hold the origin of violence beginning with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Russia has partial blame because, of their alliances, with Serbia, which forced Germany’s hand in giving the “blank check” to Austria-Hungary. Although Fay releases more blame on Germany than most scholars they are not scotch free. Their foreign minister Leopold Berchtold, holds much of the fault. Fay says Berchtold was all too eager to be free of Germany’s control. Without waiting to hear a reply from the treaty sent to Serbia, Berchtold declared war. Fay describes this as one …show more content…
One believes it was solely Germany’s fault, while the other believes there are a multitude of parties are held responsible. These two arguments are important, because as students we need to know not everything is always as it seems. Not everything is in black and white. In Middle School and High School we are always taught the start of the First World War was cause by the Serbian’s murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. After that fact, we were taught Germany was to blame. Even in the treaty of Versailles Germany was given the brunt of the post war reparations and even the war guilt clause. But looking at these two articles, and seeing the same event based off of similar resources, but through different perspectives can open our eyes. We can find out the same event can be seen in different ways. This article is also important from a historical and cultural standpoint. In Germany, it is highly doubtful that anyone would claim Germany was the cause of World War One. And in America, not many schools teach the possibility of Germany not being solely responsible for the cause of the Great War. We must understand the differences in culture and the possible differences in the perspective of history. If we wish to continue to learn, we must be open to different interpretations of the same incident. We don’t have to change our opinion, but must be open to listening
Fritz Fischer was a native German, but he believed World War One was completely caused by Imperial Germany. By his thinking, because of their expansionistic goals, wish for imperialistic dominance, and desire to create a German dominated central Europe, Germany possessed many of the main reasons World War One began. Throughout this article Frederick Hale describes Fischer’s thought process and …show more content…
Fay writes his article almost as a story with many characters and plots. He uses lots of resources such as other scholars, letters from dignitaries, and quotes from ambassadors. Fay’s main targets for the start of World War One are Leopold Berchtold and all countries involved in the July crisis. One of the defenses of Germany that he gives is that Germany was more hesitant and simply acts on the defensive when faced with conflict. Fay stresses the importance of other countries’ alliances and military advancements forcing Germany into reaching out to their neighbors and build up their own military. Specific blame is pinned on Serbia and Russia. Serbia hosts some of the blame because they hold the origin of violence beginning with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Russia has partial blame because, of their alliances, with Serbia, which forced Germany’s hand in giving the “blank check” to Austria-Hungary. Although Fay releases more blame on Germany than most scholars they are not scotch free. Their foreign minister Leopold Berchtold, holds much of the fault. Fay says Berchtold was all too eager to be free of Germany’s control. Without waiting to hear a reply from the treaty sent to Serbia, Berchtold declared war. Fay describes this as one …show more content…
One believes it was solely Germany’s fault, while the other believes there are a multitude of parties are held responsible. These two arguments are important, because as students we need to know not everything is always as it seems. Not everything is in black and white. In Middle School and High School we are always taught the start of the First World War was cause by the Serbian’s murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. After that fact, we were taught Germany was to blame. Even in the treaty of Versailles Germany was given the brunt of the post war reparations and even the war guilt clause. But looking at these two articles, and seeing the same event based off of similar resources, but through different perspectives can open our eyes. We can find out the same event can be seen in different ways. This article is also important from a historical and cultural standpoint. In Germany, it is highly doubtful that anyone would claim Germany was the cause of World War One. And in America, not many schools teach the possibility of Germany not being solely responsible for the cause of the Great War. We must understand the differences in culture and the possible differences in the perspective of history. If we wish to continue to learn, we must be open to different interpretations of the same incident. We don’t have to change our opinion, but must be open to listening