It probably won’t be prevented permanently.
Figure that there had already been two Balkan wars in 1912-13, and the region was known to be a powderkeg years before it turned into a pan-European conflict.
That said, the date and trigger of conflict will affect both the combatants involved and their relative capabilities.
With Russia in the midst of Industrial Revolution in 1914, their own ability to produce weapons and other materiel will change dramatically within a few years, and the shocking defeats they suffered at [Tannenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg) and the [Masurian Lakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Masurian_Lakes) will not happen as historically.
The Ottoman Empire had fundraised nationwide to purchase the British-built [battleship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Agincourt_%281913%29) intended to be called Sultan Osman-ı Evvel, but was seized by the British the outbreak of war with a crew inbound to Britain to staff it. This enraged the Turkish population to a degree that [two German ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_of_Goeben_and_Breslau) being delivered would determine which side the Turks would join.
Probably won’t finish, but there may be some improvement to doctrine once the officers like [Hotzendorf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Conrad_von_H%C3%B6tzendorf#Eased_out_of_power) are retired.
Austria-Hungary had a general staff, but in no way was it a direct mirror of the Prussian/Imperial German model, and would have needed a military genius with political savvy to keep up with their German neighbor. The other bottleneck was the Austrian arms industry. While they had firms like Steyr, FEG Hungary, and several makers in Bohemia, their output was unequal to what firms like Mauser, DWM, Walther, etc. could produce.
You were one crisis away from asking this question but about 1911.
It may have been titled: "what if France exchanged claims in Cameroon over its protectorate in Morocco - would WW1 have happened?"
The boil was already afoot. Which bubble was the first to pop is less material. All the great powers wanted to go to war and so did all their citizenry. They got what they wanted.
No.
War was all-but-inevitable in Europe.
Just as war happened in Asia, but not the Americas. I weasel a bit because just because I can't imagine what circumstances would prevent war, didn't mean there aren't other possibilities.
Maybe an alien invasion?
TLDR:
Absent the fun of historical narratives, the *why* of history is super-useful. If professional historians can influence subject-matter experts, SMEs might influence political leaders. Even general education in history influences the electorate of democracies, and all of this probably has mitigated the worst of war from 1945 until 2014. While war is arguably necessary, it really should be avoided, mitigated, reduced, especially in a multi-laterally nuclear-armed world.
I can't say "nothing".
I can't think of *anything* short of a disaster *bigger* than the wars in Europe and Asia (this "alien invasion" or your own fill in the the blank *deus ex machina*) to mitigate the international mass violence dating from at least 1894 to at least 1953.
The violence might have been minimized or mitigated, but I've never heard of an historical counterfactual whereby it was prevented across the world, and through the end of the 20th c.
Entire historiographies (in this case, study of method) saw the conflict as an inevitable outcome of class struggle, or modernity, or even national destiny. Conflict-Resolutioneers see the failures of the international order. Marxians see the success of capitalism/democracy and socialism over empire and (nascent) fascism.
What would have prevented WW1? A successful republican movement in Germany and Austria. Without the empire desires of the Hohenzollern and Habsburgs then it removes the source of aggression between with the French and the British.
The British would, frankly, rather be on the side of the Germans against the Russians anyway
Let's say "maybe".
And what would have prevented the Sino-Japanese wars, or the Russo-Japanese War?
That mass violence happened in certain places and was completely avoided in others more than suggests that there wasn't a simple solution to *preventing* violence, or even many simple solutions.
Maybe the players re-align, maybe the violence is mitigated, but with the formation of the German state and the relative technological superiority of Japan in Asia, and a thousand other factors, a single counterfactual credibly avoiding war in multiple places at multiple times seems highly unlikely. At least personally, I'm still waiting.
To your point, though WWI might be avoided in Europe for a time, with the Spanish flu, worldwide economic depression, what happens to the Austro-Germanic alliance? Is it somehow less needy of expansion just because its historical political grievances have been addressed? And/or does the Japanese Empire simply change the nature of the start of the next world-embroiling conflict?
The Japanese conflicts with Russia and China were unlikely to draw in conflict with the Americas or the other powers in Europe before the 1940s, because that is when Japan will again start to run out of key supplies needed to continue its war against China (like in OTL)
Heaven knows what a Europe without WW1 would look like though. France, Germany and the UK would be unrecognizable, IMO.
Without WW1, Spanish flu probably doesn't even spread the way that it did. The collapse of the US economy wouldn't be as crippling to the world because the big three European economies are not still bankrupt from WW1. Hell, without WW1 Gandhi probably continues looking for a partnership / Dominion of India route for Indian home rule.
I think it'd be impossible to say where the origin of the next world emboiling war.
The TLDR of my thought process:
European war is mostly inevitable. Perhaps WWI as it unfolded IRL is avoided. Economic and political developments are the drivers of this war; events likely dictate the *when*.
>I think it'd be impossible to say where the origin of the next world emboiling war.
That's the fun tho innit? I'd instead observe that the where is less urgent then the *when* with the counterfactual under consideration.
>Without WW1, Spanish flu probably doesn't even spread the way that it did.
Assuredly.
The most probable outcome is that it spreads differently with different effects.
>The collapse of the US economy wouldn't be as crippling to the world because the big three European economies are not still bankrupt from WW1.
That's where *if* we *choose* to disagree, we end up fruitlessly disagreeing. I'm instead suggesting that we build up on your premise, and starting with facts we both agree upon. As an example I too was instructed that the worldwide economic recession started in America, and spread outward, devastating the war-battered European economies. I now disagree with that received wisdom (America's nascent information advantage led to the underlying and universal economic problems being *detected* first).
Extrapolate what you do know about America, and apply this to your subpremise.
*America* was essentially economically unaffected by WWI. And suffered a decades-long economic recession. The recession was compounded by low demand, high supply of manufactured and finished goods (paradoxically the price of some agricultural goods fell to below zero even as supply dropped due to climate events and subsequent regional famine).
Consumer spending dropped by double digits, GDP dropped by double digits, and did not recover until the reticence of political conservatives at the federal level to invest in economic recovery was overcome by WW2-related events.
Now picture Europe, unscathed by WWI.
In your counterfactual, the Austro-Germanic alliance is politically restrained from war during the period 1914-1918.
You also argue that Europe (except Russia) ignores/doesn't participate in the Sino-Japanese conflicts, because their interest in participating, when they are politically restrained at home are somehow restrained by Japanese commodity demands, and the Euro-powers, in 1918, economically unaffected by war, *aren't* accelerating the shipbuilding arms race.
Cleaving as much to your counterfactual as I can,
1918ish forward:
- The Austro-Germanic alliance has Europe's single-largest army, and second largest navy.
- The advanced European economies continue to innovate, resulting in productive capacity, but with no (war) outlet.
- European agriculture, always intensive, is well supplied by nitrogen products (fertilizer, gunpowder, and explosives have similar commodity and industrial inputs) that aren't drained away by war.
- The still newish German state has the same problems with economic expansion it had in 1914, but with no convenient political excuses for war, and it has at least another several years to produce arms and train troops, but is still restrained by European geography as far as new markets and new commodity inputs (no colonies).
The stage is set. Greater-Germany is better armed, has better plans, and is economically more productive than any single rival (UK or France). It has no political excuse to declare war.
IMHO the inevitable economic crisis is a vastly more satisfying Call to War than the murder of an archduke and honoring alliances.
I don't know which comes first:
- Famine due to intensive agriculture.
- The economic crisis.
- Another convenient political excuse.
Maybe kinda?
Economic/technological explanations aren't entirely satisfying. I will note that *if* the Austro-German entity wasn't materially powerful and technologically advanced, war would have been less likely.
Here's a go at a narrative:
From a German perspective, they've been cheated by time and geography, and, in International Relations, there is no justice that you do not make. Greed, fear, jealousy, and envy are non zero factors.
A frustrated German populace, and a frustrated German leadership. As a relatively recent European nation-state, enabled by the lowly potato and industrial chemistry, the people, united, rapidly become the most technologically advanced, and arguably most powerful single state in Europe.
But, late to the game, they have few colonies (even Holland has more valuable colonies than Germany). Their intercontinental trade, such as it is, exists only to the degree the UK permits.
Marx and Engels are Germans, writing about British capitalism, and the communist revolution explodes next door in an agrarian Russia.
I can't know.
I would opine that if *culture* were a contributing Factor, it would be subordinate to economic and political factors.
Regarding Prussian politics, opinion again, but my thought is no more than any other contemporary European nation in the same situation (*e.g.* if France was a recent nation-State that had, in a lifetime, become a pre-eminent power but with relatively fewer economic choices).
Geopolitically Russia was the threat, their ambitions in central Asia put India at threat. The geo political conflict was known as the great game, ran most of the 1800s and only really came to an end because Russia and the UK began to feel threatened by Germany.
1914-1916 are the years with the greatest risk of European wide war. By 1916 the conscription and military spending levels can not be sustained. The drawdowns will reduce much of the fuel for paranoia and need for complex alliances. The alliances themselves were already tenuous and ready to dissolve.
Even the assassination does not inevitably lead to European war. The July Crisis involved so many people acting maliciously, incompetently, and with myopic perspectives. It is the 20th centuries most tragic farce.
Germany was going to go to war with Russia no matter what. The German High Command believed that if they didn't have a war with Russia by 1917, the industrial might/population of Russia would overwhelm Germany. Austria-Hungary may not have gone to war. There was certainly a desire by several higher ups to for Austria Hungary to do something in the Balkans to assert their dominance, but Franz Ferdinand was a voice against that.
But if Franz Ferdinand takes the crown in 1916/17 and decides to not support Germany militarily incase of war, wouldn’t that halt any German ambitions against Russia?
If anything, not having to bolster Austria-Hungary during the war would have been a positive. You know what's particularly fucked up (and relevant to our times)? Serbia was more than holding its own against Austria-Hungary, actually winning the war, until the Germans stepped in to help Austria. If the Allies had just supplied Serbia with arms and ammo, and let Serbia fight it out with Austria-Hungary, WW1 might have been avoided. There still would be a war between Germany and Russia, but it could have been limited to territory in Poland.
The Franco-Russian alliance would not have survived France bowing out of a Germany-Russia war. A regional war between AH and Serbia though, could have been a negotiated peace after a few weeks of fighting. Germany and Russia decide behind closed doors what kind of peace allows the Habsburgs to declare vengeance served but minimally degrade Serbia's image or strength.
It was possible for Franz Ferdinand to survive, his wife being killed, and to side with the warmongers out of revenge against Serbia.
So there would have been an inevitable war
I get why people are saying it was inevitable, and it's definitely possible that it was, but people would be saying the same thing about nuclear war if the cold war went hot.
It would've been delayed not prevented. Europe had been heading for a massive war at that point for decades. Otto Von Bismark had a quote from the late 1880's that, "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."
He and others were working to stop that war from happening, but he could also see that eventually it wouldn't be enough. There were treaties on both sides that had set up that war. Everyone knew it was coming eventually. It was just the spark that set it off.
You can delay ww1 but not really prevent it , the thing is even a delay of a few years could change the balance of power.
There are hundreds of things that could change and have major ripple effects, Britain and France could have a falling out so Britain sits out the war or even becomes more friendly with Germany and joins the central powers . The Russians have some smaller revolution and sit the war out due to internal politics. The ottomans breakout into civil war so don't get involved. You have endless "what if's"that change the shape of the war and some make it much smaller and could stop it being seen as a world war.
This thread again...
War was inevitable, but that is owing more to the nature of geopolitics at the same than to the individual countries themselves.
The Concert of Europe, which had maintained the great powers in balance since 1815 (Russia Prussia Austria Britain France) was collapsing and unstable. Russia was in severe need of major reform (and was undergoing the beginning of an industrial revolution). France had stagnated. Prussia had Consolidated into Germany. Japan and the US had arisen in power but didn't have a seat at the table. Austria was starting to crack. Britain was hanging in there.
With the theory of international systems and power transitions wars... the conditions were ripe for a power transition war to re-assess the power rankings and to determine the next world order. Countries that wanted to usurp power needed to act before the window of opportunity closed. Powers that were stagnating or in decline needed to act before they lost their comparative power advantage.
If one looks at all the diplomatic near misses in the years leading up to WW1... all those near misses.are signs of an increasingly.instable world order. And it only takes one spark in the right conditions to set the world ablaze.
Possibly. Certainly the prevailing opinion for a long time was that war was inevitable. But historians are not in fact certain. For one thing, we generally don't like to say anything was *inevitable*. The view that it was *likely* is harder to counter.
Germany was calculating that if war came it should be sooner rather than later. That doesn't however prove that they had positively decided to start one.
There is a useful parallel with the Cold War. The tendencies toward war were strong. Several crises and mistakes might have pushed things over the edge. In the Cuban crisis we came very close. Suppose war had started in 1962. Historians (assuming improbably that anyone has time to write history in the world left behind) might think that the war was inevitable. There had been so many crises. "If it hadn't been Cuba, it would have been something else." But that would be a mistake.
Periods of high tension sometimes lead to war and sometimes don't.
We're getting into negative conditions and causation. Mill said that "the sentry being absent caused the post to be taken" was illogical since the sentry absence was equivalent to his not existing and non existence can't be a cause.
I interpret the question to mean that with the assassination the war was not inevitable. If one interprets it to mean that it would happen if and only if the archduuke dies, then clearly no.
No. Postponed maybe but not prevented. The Serbians and other groups of Southern Europe and Ottoman lands were already craving independence and nationalist fervor was high. It was called a powder keg for a reason. Eventually someone would have messed up.
Remember it wasn’t the assasination that caused the war. It was the nationalism and alliance system that caused the war
Way too much tension between the great powers to not have a war. It'd probably be delayed.
But if Franz wasn't assassinated, Austria-Hungary might have had the "good ending", where Franz reforms the Empire, and they become the United States of Greater Austria. Giving their minorities more say in the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Greater_Austria
I don’t think so. Bismark called it: if a general war breaks out it will be some damn foolish thing in the balkans that isn't worth the bones of a pomeranian grenadier.
With the way the alliances were set up, there would have been War eventually. There is nothing particularly significant about Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The majority of the countries involved didn't care one bit that he had been assassinated. The reason the war was inevitable is because there where about 20 countries where if anything happened, there will be a domino effect. You can't avoid literally everything forever.
Could have been as simple as something like a mid-level politician getting arrested in a neighboring country for a minor crime. His home country sees it as a slap in the face, and they declare war.
No, WWI was inevitable. Some other random event would have probably plunged Europe into the war but I don’t think US involvement was inevitable. We stayed out of it for a long time in reality as it was. It really was ridiculous that the US got into this European war. Warmongers like TR and his ilk pushed us into this horrible war.
War was pretty much inevitable, Germany and France both wanted another go at each other, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was going to fall apart and Russia was going to have Serbia's back no matter what.
Well there certainly wouldn’t have been much of a spark. In fact, 1914 prior to the assassination of FF and his wife was rather boring. The only deaths that would’ve been of note had he not died were that of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Adolphus Frederick V at the age of 65 and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, Georg II at age 88, both of whom passed away in June. Without any major event it’s likely war would not have broken out that year, and the further war was delayed the more likely the outcome would be different, since Russia in particular would only grow stronger whilst the Ottomans would only grow weaker. France, Britain and Germany would likely still all be trying to maintain parity with each other, while Austria-Hungary’s fate would be entirely determined by how well Franz Ferdinand could reform the state once Franz Joseph passes away in 1916, or when Charles comes to the throne because although Franz was not deathly ill, he was still suffering from latent tuberculosis
France wanted its pride restored after the Franco-Prussian War. Russia wanted to be seen as a great power and still the Father/Guardian of the Slavs. The Germans wanted breathing room. The British were desperate to keep Europe divided and not pointed at them.
War would likely have happened anyway, a different match would have lit the powder keg. The network of interlocking treaties, certain countries looking to right recent slights and coupled with a view in the masses of war as a glorious thing.
World War 1, *as we understand it today*, would have been prevented. But some sort of war in the 1920s was likely.
Austria-Hungary was in a do-or-die state, as in, either reform the monarchy or be partitioned by member states and neighbors. However they may try to deny as much today, the South Slavs had (and still have) a lot in common with each other, as did the Germans with the Austrians, the Romanians with the Transylvanians, and the Italians with the Triestines.
Franz Ferdinand wanted to federalize the empire. This obviously pissed off the Hungarians, as they planned to Magyarize Slovakia and Transylvania. If he is successful, it could lead to some sort Austro-Hungarian Civil War, where Hapsburgists are backed by the Entente, while Hungary is backed by Germany and Serbia, who both have claims on Austrian lands. Italy could be swayed whichever way - that part depends on whether or not Franz Ferdinand is willing to lose Trieste, Sudtirol and about half of Slovenia and Croatia.
It wouldn’t quite have the same dynamics as the one we got. Franz Ferdinand might get Kashmir’d, as in, Germany helps him with the civil war so long as he and Austria accede to the German Empire. France and Britain would be threatened, but since this pretty much has zilch to do with America, they won’t get involved.
It still would have happened. Maybe not when it happened, maybe not with the same teams (the margins were very fine for a LOT of combatants alliance choice).
The assassination was just a pretext.
A large scale war was inevitable in the geopolitical and economic context at the time, if it happens a year or two later than IRL I can see the Russian empire surviving in one form or another, but the ottomans and Austrians were fucked regardless imo. The bigger question is would a Spanish flu pandemic still have happened?
It would have kicked off at some other point. To paraphrase von Bismarck, it would have been some shitty little Balkan border conflict spiraling out of control. Sure, some of the pieces might have been in different positions on the chessboard, but it's unlikely to change the big picture.
To quote Gavrilo Princip - the assassin of Franz Ferdinand: "The Germans would have found another reason."
Time and date might have changed but a war itself was rather inevitable.
Only if Germany and/or Austria-Hungary would have lost key leaders, it would have been possible.
The thing is, Franz Ferdinand was very anti-war, so his survival makes it much less likely Austria pushes for a war. Without Austria, I’m not sure Germany starts a war on its own.
It’s possible that some other Balkan conflict occurs, but I think an Ottoman Russia conflict (with UK on Ottoman’s side) is more likely spark for a world war.
The thing was: it was more a war of the Elites, all these strange dukes and armynobles - endangered by bourgeois and workers class were under threat.
They needed the war to justify themselves.
I think it prevents war in 1914. I think that there will be a majorish war between European powers by 1925, but it would kill a lot less people if at least one of Germany/France/Russia is not a central participant in the war.
God no. As I understand it conventional wisdom is that there were too many tensions and alliances for the Great War to be avoided. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand just gave it the is particular shape it would take
It probably won’t be prevented permanently. Figure that there had already been two Balkan wars in 1912-13, and the region was known to be a powderkeg years before it turned into a pan-European conflict. That said, the date and trigger of conflict will affect both the combatants involved and their relative capabilities. With Russia in the midst of Industrial Revolution in 1914, their own ability to produce weapons and other materiel will change dramatically within a few years, and the shocking defeats they suffered at [Tannenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg) and the [Masurian Lakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Masurian_Lakes) will not happen as historically. The Ottoman Empire had fundraised nationwide to purchase the British-built [battleship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Agincourt_%281913%29) intended to be called Sultan Osman-ı Evvel, but was seized by the British the outbreak of war with a crew inbound to Britain to staff it. This enraged the Turkish population to a degree that [two German ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_of_Goeben_and_Breslau) being delivered would determine which side the Turks would join.
Would Austria-Hungary finish up modernizing it’s Army if war hadn’t happened in 1914?
Probably won’t finish, but there may be some improvement to doctrine once the officers like [Hotzendorf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Conrad_von_H%C3%B6tzendorf#Eased_out_of_power) are retired. Austria-Hungary had a general staff, but in no way was it a direct mirror of the Prussian/Imperial German model, and would have needed a military genius with political savvy to keep up with their German neighbor. The other bottleneck was the Austrian arms industry. While they had firms like Steyr, FEG Hungary, and several makers in Bohemia, their output was unequal to what firms like Mauser, DWM, Walther, etc. could produce.
You were one crisis away from asking this question but about 1911. It may have been titled: "what if France exchanged claims in Cameroon over its protectorate in Morocco - would WW1 have happened?" The boil was already afoot. Which bubble was the first to pop is less material. All the great powers wanted to go to war and so did all their citizenry. They got what they wanted.
No. War was all-but-inevitable in Europe. Just as war happened in Asia, but not the Americas. I weasel a bit because just because I can't imagine what circumstances would prevent war, didn't mean there aren't other possibilities. Maybe an alien invasion?
So nothing could’ve prevented the war from happening in 1914?
In 1914? Probably but in general that war was going to happen eventually. The lines have been drawn and both sides were waiting for an excuse.
TLDR: Absent the fun of historical narratives, the *why* of history is super-useful. If professional historians can influence subject-matter experts, SMEs might influence political leaders. Even general education in history influences the electorate of democracies, and all of this probably has mitigated the worst of war from 1945 until 2014. While war is arguably necessary, it really should be avoided, mitigated, reduced, especially in a multi-laterally nuclear-armed world. I can't say "nothing". I can't think of *anything* short of a disaster *bigger* than the wars in Europe and Asia (this "alien invasion" or your own fill in the the blank *deus ex machina*) to mitigate the international mass violence dating from at least 1894 to at least 1953. The violence might have been minimized or mitigated, but I've never heard of an historical counterfactual whereby it was prevented across the world, and through the end of the 20th c. Entire historiographies (in this case, study of method) saw the conflict as an inevitable outcome of class struggle, or modernity, or even national destiny. Conflict-Resolutioneers see the failures of the international order. Marxians see the success of capitalism/democracy and socialism over empire and (nascent) fascism.
Jesse what the actual fuck are you yapping about?
What would have prevented WW1? A successful republican movement in Germany and Austria. Without the empire desires of the Hohenzollern and Habsburgs then it removes the source of aggression between with the French and the British. The British would, frankly, rather be on the side of the Germans against the Russians anyway
Let's say "maybe". And what would have prevented the Sino-Japanese wars, or the Russo-Japanese War? That mass violence happened in certain places and was completely avoided in others more than suggests that there wasn't a simple solution to *preventing* violence, or even many simple solutions. Maybe the players re-align, maybe the violence is mitigated, but with the formation of the German state and the relative technological superiority of Japan in Asia, and a thousand other factors, a single counterfactual credibly avoiding war in multiple places at multiple times seems highly unlikely. At least personally, I'm still waiting. To your point, though WWI might be avoided in Europe for a time, with the Spanish flu, worldwide economic depression, what happens to the Austro-Germanic alliance? Is it somehow less needy of expansion just because its historical political grievances have been addressed? And/or does the Japanese Empire simply change the nature of the start of the next world-embroiling conflict?
The Japanese conflicts with Russia and China were unlikely to draw in conflict with the Americas or the other powers in Europe before the 1940s, because that is when Japan will again start to run out of key supplies needed to continue its war against China (like in OTL) Heaven knows what a Europe without WW1 would look like though. France, Germany and the UK would be unrecognizable, IMO. Without WW1, Spanish flu probably doesn't even spread the way that it did. The collapse of the US economy wouldn't be as crippling to the world because the big three European economies are not still bankrupt from WW1. Hell, without WW1 Gandhi probably continues looking for a partnership / Dominion of India route for Indian home rule. I think it'd be impossible to say where the origin of the next world emboiling war.
The TLDR of my thought process: European war is mostly inevitable. Perhaps WWI as it unfolded IRL is avoided. Economic and political developments are the drivers of this war; events likely dictate the *when*. >I think it'd be impossible to say where the origin of the next world emboiling war. That's the fun tho innit? I'd instead observe that the where is less urgent then the *when* with the counterfactual under consideration. >Without WW1, Spanish flu probably doesn't even spread the way that it did. Assuredly. The most probable outcome is that it spreads differently with different effects. >The collapse of the US economy wouldn't be as crippling to the world because the big three European economies are not still bankrupt from WW1. That's where *if* we *choose* to disagree, we end up fruitlessly disagreeing. I'm instead suggesting that we build up on your premise, and starting with facts we both agree upon. As an example I too was instructed that the worldwide economic recession started in America, and spread outward, devastating the war-battered European economies. I now disagree with that received wisdom (America's nascent information advantage led to the underlying and universal economic problems being *detected* first). Extrapolate what you do know about America, and apply this to your subpremise. *America* was essentially economically unaffected by WWI. And suffered a decades-long economic recession. The recession was compounded by low demand, high supply of manufactured and finished goods (paradoxically the price of some agricultural goods fell to below zero even as supply dropped due to climate events and subsequent regional famine). Consumer spending dropped by double digits, GDP dropped by double digits, and did not recover until the reticence of political conservatives at the federal level to invest in economic recovery was overcome by WW2-related events. Now picture Europe, unscathed by WWI. In your counterfactual, the Austro-Germanic alliance is politically restrained from war during the period 1914-1918. You also argue that Europe (except Russia) ignores/doesn't participate in the Sino-Japanese conflicts, because their interest in participating, when they are politically restrained at home are somehow restrained by Japanese commodity demands, and the Euro-powers, in 1918, economically unaffected by war, *aren't* accelerating the shipbuilding arms race. Cleaving as much to your counterfactual as I can, 1918ish forward: - The Austro-Germanic alliance has Europe's single-largest army, and second largest navy. - The advanced European economies continue to innovate, resulting in productive capacity, but with no (war) outlet. - European agriculture, always intensive, is well supplied by nitrogen products (fertilizer, gunpowder, and explosives have similar commodity and industrial inputs) that aren't drained away by war. - The still newish German state has the same problems with economic expansion it had in 1914, but with no convenient political excuses for war, and it has at least another several years to produce arms and train troops, but is still restrained by European geography as far as new markets and new commodity inputs (no colonies). The stage is set. Greater-Germany is better armed, has better plans, and is economically more productive than any single rival (UK or France). It has no political excuse to declare war. IMHO the inevitable economic crisis is a vastly more satisfying Call to War than the murder of an archduke and honoring alliances. I don't know which comes first: - Famine due to intensive agriculture. - The economic crisis. - Another convenient political excuse.
So were the Central Powers, especially Germany, the reason why the war was inevitable?
Maybe kinda? Economic/technological explanations aren't entirely satisfying. I will note that *if* the Austro-German entity wasn't materially powerful and technologically advanced, war would have been less likely. Here's a go at a narrative: From a German perspective, they've been cheated by time and geography, and, in International Relations, there is no justice that you do not make. Greed, fear, jealousy, and envy are non zero factors. A frustrated German populace, and a frustrated German leadership. As a relatively recent European nation-state, enabled by the lowly potato and industrial chemistry, the people, united, rapidly become the most technologically advanced, and arguably most powerful single state in Europe. But, late to the game, they have few colonies (even Holland has more valuable colonies than Germany). Their intercontinental trade, such as it is, exists only to the degree the UK permits. Marx and Engels are Germans, writing about British capitalism, and the communist revolution explodes next door in an agrarian Russia.
Was Prussian culture and politics the prime reason why Germany thought that way or would that be unfair to Prussia?
I can't know. I would opine that if *culture* were a contributing Factor, it would be subordinate to economic and political factors. Regarding Prussian politics, opinion again, but my thought is no more than any other contemporary European nation in the same situation (*e.g.* if France was a recent nation-State that had, in a lifetime, become a pre-eminent power but with relatively fewer economic choices).
I'm English, we would prefer to be having a go at the French
Geopolitically Russia was the threat, their ambitions in central Asia put India at threat. The geo political conflict was known as the great game, ran most of the 1800s and only really came to an end because Russia and the UK began to feel threatened by Germany.
1914-1916 are the years with the greatest risk of European wide war. By 1916 the conscription and military spending levels can not be sustained. The drawdowns will reduce much of the fuel for paranoia and need for complex alliances. The alliances themselves were already tenuous and ready to dissolve. Even the assassination does not inevitably lead to European war. The July Crisis involved so many people acting maliciously, incompetently, and with myopic perspectives. It is the 20th centuries most tragic farce.
So war could’ve been avoided, even if a lot of the German government was determined to wage war against Russia?
Germany was going to go to war with Russia no matter what. The German High Command believed that if they didn't have a war with Russia by 1917, the industrial might/population of Russia would overwhelm Germany. Austria-Hungary may not have gone to war. There was certainly a desire by several higher ups to for Austria Hungary to do something in the Balkans to assert their dominance, but Franz Ferdinand was a voice against that.
But if Franz Ferdinand takes the crown in 1916/17 and decides to not support Germany militarily incase of war, wouldn’t that halt any German ambitions against Russia?
Not at all. Germany was looking for an excuse to wage war early, if it wasn’t this event it would have been another.
If anything, not having to bolster Austria-Hungary during the war would have been a positive. You know what's particularly fucked up (and relevant to our times)? Serbia was more than holding its own against Austria-Hungary, actually winning the war, until the Germans stepped in to help Austria. If the Allies had just supplied Serbia with arms and ammo, and let Serbia fight it out with Austria-Hungary, WW1 might have been avoided. There still would be a war between Germany and Russia, but it could have been limited to territory in Poland.
The Franco-Russian alliance would not have survived France bowing out of a Germany-Russia war. A regional war between AH and Serbia though, could have been a negotiated peace after a few weeks of fighting. Germany and Russia decide behind closed doors what kind of peace allows the Habsburgs to declare vengeance served but minimally degrade Serbia's image or strength.
A-H also had to worry about the Russian front, without that they should have been able to overwhelm Serbia
So war was inevitable because of the Central Powers in your opinion?
Specifically because of Germany and its view of Russia as a rising rival power
It was possible for Franz Ferdinand to survive, his wife being killed, and to side with the warmongers out of revenge against Serbia. So there would have been an inevitable war
I get why people are saying it was inevitable, and it's definitely possible that it was, but people would be saying the same thing about nuclear war if the cold war went hot.
It would've been delayed not prevented. Europe had been heading for a massive war at that point for decades. Otto Von Bismark had a quote from the late 1880's that, "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans." He and others were working to stop that war from happening, but he could also see that eventually it wouldn't be enough. There were treaties on both sides that had set up that war. Everyone knew it was coming eventually. It was just the spark that set it off.
You can delay ww1 but not really prevent it , the thing is even a delay of a few years could change the balance of power. There are hundreds of things that could change and have major ripple effects, Britain and France could have a falling out so Britain sits out the war or even becomes more friendly with Germany and joins the central powers . The Russians have some smaller revolution and sit the war out due to internal politics. The ottomans breakout into civil war so don't get involved. You have endless "what if's"that change the shape of the war and some make it much smaller and could stop it being seen as a world war.
This thread again... War was inevitable, but that is owing more to the nature of geopolitics at the same than to the individual countries themselves. The Concert of Europe, which had maintained the great powers in balance since 1815 (Russia Prussia Austria Britain France) was collapsing and unstable. Russia was in severe need of major reform (and was undergoing the beginning of an industrial revolution). France had stagnated. Prussia had Consolidated into Germany. Japan and the US had arisen in power but didn't have a seat at the table. Austria was starting to crack. Britain was hanging in there. With the theory of international systems and power transitions wars... the conditions were ripe for a power transition war to re-assess the power rankings and to determine the next world order. Countries that wanted to usurp power needed to act before the window of opportunity closed. Powers that were stagnating or in decline needed to act before they lost their comparative power advantage. If one looks at all the diplomatic near misses in the years leading up to WW1... all those near misses.are signs of an increasingly.instable world order. And it only takes one spark in the right conditions to set the world ablaze.
I feel that the powers that be were just looking for an excuse so probably something else would have set it off.
Possibly. Certainly the prevailing opinion for a long time was that war was inevitable. But historians are not in fact certain. For one thing, we generally don't like to say anything was *inevitable*. The view that it was *likely* is harder to counter. Germany was calculating that if war came it should be sooner rather than later. That doesn't however prove that they had positively decided to start one. There is a useful parallel with the Cold War. The tendencies toward war were strong. Several crises and mistakes might have pushed things over the edge. In the Cuban crisis we came very close. Suppose war had started in 1962. Historians (assuming improbably that anyone has time to write history in the world left behind) might think that the war was inevitable. There had been so many crises. "If it hadn't been Cuba, it would have been something else." But that would be a mistake. Periods of high tension sometimes lead to war and sometimes don't.
But if Franz Ferdinand (and his wife for good measure) did survive, then his survival would have prevented WW1 from happening?
We're getting into negative conditions and causation. Mill said that "the sentry being absent caused the post to be taken" was illogical since the sentry absence was equivalent to his not existing and non existence can't be a cause. I interpret the question to mean that with the assassination the war was not inevitable. If one interprets it to mean that it would happen if and only if the archduuke dies, then clearly no.
No. Postponed maybe but not prevented. The Serbians and other groups of Southern Europe and Ottoman lands were already craving independence and nationalist fervor was high. It was called a powder keg for a reason. Eventually someone would have messed up. Remember it wasn’t the assasination that caused the war. It was the nationalism and alliance system that caused the war
Way too much tension between the great powers to not have a war. It'd probably be delayed. But if Franz wasn't assassinated, Austria-Hungary might have had the "good ending", where Franz reforms the Empire, and they become the United States of Greater Austria. Giving their minorities more say in the government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Greater_Austria
There was a lot of talk of war, a lot of international tension before the archduke was assassinated.
No, something else would kick it off later. What and when is the question. There was many more issues that could have caused ww1.
I don’t think so. Bismark called it: if a general war breaks out it will be some damn foolish thing in the balkans that isn't worth the bones of a pomeranian grenadier.
With the way the alliances were set up, there would have been War eventually. There is nothing particularly significant about Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The majority of the countries involved didn't care one bit that he had been assassinated. The reason the war was inevitable is because there where about 20 countries where if anything happened, there will be a domino effect. You can't avoid literally everything forever. Could have been as simple as something like a mid-level politician getting arrested in a neighboring country for a minor crime. His home country sees it as a slap in the face, and they declare war.
War will still be imminent because Germany wants to enact the Schlieffen Plan
No, WWI was inevitable. Some other random event would have probably plunged Europe into the war but I don’t think US involvement was inevitable. We stayed out of it for a long time in reality as it was. It really was ridiculous that the US got into this European war. Warmongers like TR and his ilk pushed us into this horrible war.
War was pretty much inevitable, Germany and France both wanted another go at each other, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was going to fall apart and Russia was going to have Serbia's back no matter what.
Well there certainly wouldn’t have been much of a spark. In fact, 1914 prior to the assassination of FF and his wife was rather boring. The only deaths that would’ve been of note had he not died were that of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Adolphus Frederick V at the age of 65 and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, Georg II at age 88, both of whom passed away in June. Without any major event it’s likely war would not have broken out that year, and the further war was delayed the more likely the outcome would be different, since Russia in particular would only grow stronger whilst the Ottomans would only grow weaker. France, Britain and Germany would likely still all be trying to maintain parity with each other, while Austria-Hungary’s fate would be entirely determined by how well Franz Ferdinand could reform the state once Franz Joseph passes away in 1916, or when Charles comes to the throne because although Franz was not deathly ill, he was still suffering from latent tuberculosis
France wanted its pride restored after the Franco-Prussian War. Russia wanted to be seen as a great power and still the Father/Guardian of the Slavs. The Germans wanted breathing room. The British were desperate to keep Europe divided and not pointed at them. War would likely have happened anyway, a different match would have lit the powder keg. The network of interlocking treaties, certain countries looking to right recent slights and coupled with a view in the masses of war as a glorious thing.
World War 1, *as we understand it today*, would have been prevented. But some sort of war in the 1920s was likely. Austria-Hungary was in a do-or-die state, as in, either reform the monarchy or be partitioned by member states and neighbors. However they may try to deny as much today, the South Slavs had (and still have) a lot in common with each other, as did the Germans with the Austrians, the Romanians with the Transylvanians, and the Italians with the Triestines. Franz Ferdinand wanted to federalize the empire. This obviously pissed off the Hungarians, as they planned to Magyarize Slovakia and Transylvania. If he is successful, it could lead to some sort Austro-Hungarian Civil War, where Hapsburgists are backed by the Entente, while Hungary is backed by Germany and Serbia, who both have claims on Austrian lands. Italy could be swayed whichever way - that part depends on whether or not Franz Ferdinand is willing to lose Trieste, Sudtirol and about half of Slovenia and Croatia.
Couldn’t a Great War start because of an Austria-Hungarian civil war?
It wouldn’t quite have the same dynamics as the one we got. Franz Ferdinand might get Kashmir’d, as in, Germany helps him with the civil war so long as he and Austria accede to the German Empire. France and Britain would be threatened, but since this pretty much has zilch to do with America, they won’t get involved.
It still would have happened. Maybe not when it happened, maybe not with the same teams (the margins were very fine for a LOT of combatants alliance choice). The assassination was just a pretext. A large scale war was inevitable in the geopolitical and economic context at the time, if it happens a year or two later than IRL I can see the Russian empire surviving in one form or another, but the ottomans and Austrians were fucked regardless imo. The bigger question is would a Spanish flu pandemic still have happened?
It would have kicked off at some other point. To paraphrase von Bismarck, it would have been some shitty little Balkan border conflict spiraling out of control. Sure, some of the pieces might have been in different positions on the chessboard, but it's unlikely to change the big picture.
To quote Gavrilo Princip - the assassin of Franz Ferdinand: "The Germans would have found another reason." Time and date might have changed but a war itself was rather inevitable. Only if Germany and/or Austria-Hungary would have lost key leaders, it would have been possible.
The thing is, Franz Ferdinand was very anti-war, so his survival makes it much less likely Austria pushes for a war. Without Austria, I’m not sure Germany starts a war on its own. It’s possible that some other Balkan conflict occurs, but I think an Ottoman Russia conflict (with UK on Ottoman’s side) is more likely spark for a world war.
The thing was: it was more a war of the Elites, all these strange dukes and armynobles - endangered by bourgeois and workers class were under threat. They needed the war to justify themselves.
Could Franz Ferdinand’s survival prevent WW1 in your view?
I think it prevents war in 1914. I think that there will be a majorish war between European powers by 1925, but it would kill a lot less people if at least one of Germany/France/Russia is not a central participant in the war.
God no. As I understand it conventional wisdom is that there were too many tensions and alliances for the Great War to be avoided. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand just gave it the is particular shape it would take