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| ISBN-13: | 9780750969710 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 11/07/2016 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Andrew Ferguson is a patron of the Imperial War Museum. His first book Scots Who Enlightened the World, received excellent reviews and he regularly speaks at literary and arts festivals.
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Ghosts of War
A History of World War I in Poetry and Prose
By Andrew Ferguson
The History Press
Copyright © 2016 Andrew FergusonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6971-0
CHAPTER 1
SETTING THE SCENE
We still have no consensus on how the First World War happened and I suspect that we never will. The possible factors are so many and the questions of how to give each one weight so intractable.
Margaret MacMillan, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 2016.
THE THREE COUSINS
At the outbreak of the war five of the six principal protagonists were still monarchies, a relic of Europe's past in a modernising world. The exception was France, which was a republic. Of the monarchs, three – King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II – were closely related; the first two were grandsons of Queen Victoria and the third, Tsar Nicholas, had married one of Victoria's granddaughters, Princess Alix, who took the name Alexandra on her marriage and, fatally, carried the haemophilia gene. This relationship was more than coincidence. Queen Victoria was called, with some justification, the 'grandmother of Europe', as her consort, Prince Albert, had deliberately set out to ensure peace in Europe through intermarriage of the royal families in the mistaken belief that families don't quarrel.
King George V was the second son of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. He had therefore not been expected to accede to the throne and had entered service in the Royal Navy. With the unexpected death of his brother from pneumonia in 1892 he moved up in the succession stakes, also acquiring his brother's bride-to-be. On the death of his father in 1910 he was crowned king accompanied by his wife, the formidable Queen Mary. He was a severe man with a strong sense of duty who ruled as a constitutional monarch, recognising that the power of decision-making rested with the government, democratically elected, albeit on a restricted franchise. He kept closely in touch with world events and was in regular contact with Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey.
Tsar Nicholas II was a shy and autocratic ruler who was closely involved in government and foreign affairs, which he often conducted in opposition to the policies of his government, for whom he had scant respect. Inevitably, this dichotomy often sent a confused and contradictory message to the outside world. Under his direction, Russia had been badly defeated by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, with the destruction of two of Russia's three naval fleets – first the Pacific Fleet and then the Baltic Fleet, which had made its way around the Cape of Good Hope (the British had forbidden passage through the Suez Canal) only to be destroyed by the Japanese Fleet which had been lying in wait. This defeat caused a considerable loss to the authority of the tsar, and his desire to recapture lost military prestige would influence his decisions in the weeks and months leading up to the war.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was the son of Prince Frederick of Prussia and Princess Victoria, and was Queen Victoria's first grandchild. Interestingly, his mother, Princess Victoria, was Queen Victoria's first-born and had she not been overtaken in the succession stakes by Edward, who came through on the rails as the eldest son, Wilhelm would have inherited the British crown.
Wilhelm had suffered a traumatic breech birth which left him with a withered arm, carefully disguised in early portraits. His mother believed that as heir to the throne he should acquire the appropriate martial abilities and, despite his infirmity and the pain it caused, insisted on his having riding lessons. His physical handicap and his harsh upbringing left him with an inferiority complex, only satisfied in later years by the presence of obsequious courtiers who fanned his vanity. The Kaiser believed, somewhat presumptuously, that he embodied the spirit of his country, writing in a letter to the future King Edward VII, 'I am the sole master of German policy and my country must follow me wherever I go' (letter to the Prince of Wales, quoted in Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, p.178). He was a wilful, tactless, bombastic, vacillating and impulsive man who would communicate directly with other heads of state without consultation with his ministers and would threaten military action in a multitude of diverse situations, only to back down in panic if his bluff was called.
These were the three royal cousins. They met occasionally at state funerals and on formal visits but without shared warmth. It has been argued that the First World War was an unnecessary war, driven by the inability of the three cousins, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II and King George V, to resolve their differences or even to meaningfully communicate, although there would be a desperate exchange of telegrams in the last few hectic days of peace. There is merit in this argument, but it overstates their respective powers materially to influence events and ignores the growing appetite for war amongst the principal participants, especially Russia, France, Germany and Austria–Hungary.
GROWING TENSION
From Britain's point of view the increasing economic power of Germany and its militaristic expansion under the Kaiser were seen as direct threats to the empire. Britain relied on the Royal Navy for her protection and in 1906, in order to reinforce her pre-eminence, had launched HMS Dreadnought, the first of a new class of battleship which was faster and had heavier armour plating than any other battleship then afloat (100mm against 75mm). It was, however, not just her speed or her strength which made Dreadnought such a formidable fighting force, but her awesome weaponry. She had ten 12in guns which could destroy an enemy ship more than 20 miles away from outside the range of the guns of existing battleships, which could be blown out of the water before they could approach close enough to fire their own guns. The Liberal manifesto had promised cuts in the defence budget and, at the time, this was supported by Lloyd George, who proposed a reduction in the building programme for Dreadnought battleships from six to four. The proposed cuts were overruled following a well-orchestrated public campaign, covertly supported by Jackie Fisher, First Lord of the Admiralty, adopting the slogan 'we want eight and we won't wait'. The consequent increase in the Dreadnought building programme was fundamental to the Royal Navy's pre-eminence at the outbreak of the war.
In response, Germany had developed her own 'super battleships', with the declared intention of creating a navy to challenge the supremacy of the Royal Navy and threaten Britain's trade routes with the empire – the source of both her wealth and essential supplies of food, oil and raw materials.
The growth in Germany's military capabilities was coupled with increasing economic power, and the German economy had expanded rapidly after the formation of the new German Empire in January 1871. When Bismarck had taken office in Prussia in 1862, the combined industrial production of the German states represented a meagre 4.9 per cent of world production, putting them in fifth place; Britain, with 19.9 per cent, comfortably led the world. By 1913, however, Britain had dropped to third place and the United States now headed the list, with Germany in second place. World trade showed a similar picture. In 1880 Britain had 22.4 per cent of world trade compared with Germany's 10.3 per cent, but by 1913 Germany had closed the gap with 12.3 per cent against Britain's 14.2 per cent (Clark, Sleepwalkers, pp.164–5).
CHOOSING YOUR PARTNER
In 1894, France, still smarting from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the loss of Alsace–Lorraine, and fearing further German aggression, signed the Franco-Russian Alliance. Through this mutual defence pact both parties immediately guaranteed to mobilise against Germany should the other be attacked, thus ensuring that any German aggression would instantly result in Germany having to fight on both her western and eastern borders. Germany watched as both France and Russia significantly increased the size of their military forces in the years leading up to the war. To drive home the lesson, France made substantial loans to Russia to finance major improvements to the Russian railway system to allow Russian troops to be mobilised and transported more rapidly to the German border if war were to break out. Germany responded by rearming, arguing with some justification that their rearmament was merely a defensive response to the Franco-Russian Alliance.
The strategic planners saw mobility and manpower as the source of victory in future conflict and not the reliance upon substantial static fortified positions as in the past. This resulted in a peculiar form of arms race intended to maximise the size of one's army and of the reserves available on mobilisation. France had introduced two-year conscription in 1905, stimulating Germany to respond by substantially increasing the size of its peacetime army, only to be trumped by the French who in 1913 extended conscription to three years.
Russia, too, was rapidly expanding the size of its army, and its economy was growing fast. Germany was understandably fearful of this Russian expansion, significantly overestimating both Russia's rate of economic growth and the effectiveness of its military muscle; was there an argument for a German pre-emptive strike before Russia became overbearingly powerful?
But neither the threat implicit in Germany's rearmament nor the challenge from Germany's rapid industrial growth were the principal reasons why Britain signed the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904, following the popular and influential visit of King Edward VII to Paris in 1903, nor indeed why Britain signed the Convention with Russia in 1907 after Russia's disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. Although these were obviously factors, Britain's primary objective in joining the Triple Entente was to reduce the pressure from the French and the Russians on the outermost extremities of its empire. During the months and years before the outbreak of war, the British followed this policy by maintaining, as far as possible, a friendly relationship with Russia and, accordingly – and perhaps fatally – not responding to approaches from Germany. Britain's worst fear was that there would be a rapprochement between Russia and Germany, which would have left it isolated.
The balance of power had now polarised into two power blocks: the Triple Alliance, linking Germany, Austria and an increasingly reluctant Italy, and the Triple Entente, linking Britain, France and Russia. All of these countries had developed, to a greater or lesser extent, strategic plans for implementation in the event of a European war, and as the political situation worsened these plans would trigger automatic reactions as the dominos fell.
THE SIMMERING BREW
Tensions were also developing within the British political system. At the outbreak of war there were 17 million manual workers working long hours for poor pay and living in crowded, often unsanitary conditions. Voting rights for men were restricted to those owning property, meaning that many men lacked the right to vote. Women had no voting rights at all and the government was facing increasingly violent demonstrations from the suffragettes demanding the right to vote, although the greatest threat to the political system came not from the suffragettes but from the demand for Irish Home Rule.
In the face of these domestic problems, little attention was given to the burgeoning threat of a European war, leading Arthur Nicholson to write in May 1914, 'Since I have been at the Foreign Office I have not seen such calm waters' (quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.314). The British Foreign Office may have been unconcerned, but the temperature was steadily rising.
To further raise the temperature of this simmering brew, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, who was a keen fisherman and naturalist – he had written a respected treatise on fly fishing – but a seemingly reluctant politician, added a cocktail of confused messages to the potion. Privately, in talks with the French (very probably in English, as he spoke no French), he confirmed that Britain would come to the support of France in the event of a European war. His public position was, however, very different – to counter the concerns of non-interventionists within the Cabinet Grey repeatedly denied that Britain had any such obligation and explained away combined Anglo-French military manoeuvres as merely contingency plans. As a result, the French were assured of Britain's support if war were to break out but, dangerously and conversely, the Germans were led to believe that Britain would not intervene in any such conflict. As Charles Hamilton Sorley wrote:
If only the English from [Sir Edward] Grey downwards would cease from rubbing in that, in the days that set all the fuel ablaze, they worked for peace honestly and with all their hearts! We know they did; but in the past their lack of openness and trust in their diplomatic relationships helped to pile the fuel to which Germany supplied the torch. (Letter to Mrs Sorley dated March 1915, quoted in Spear, Poems and Selected Letters, p.96)
The threat of war was developing a momentum which made conflict virtually inevitable and Britain, through the Entente Cordiale with France and the Convention with Russia, could not realistically stay aloof from the politics of Europe. Despite the desire of both the politicians and the people to avoid war, it had become inevitable that should Europe become engulfed by war then Britain would inexorably be drawn into the conflict to prevent a German military conquest of Europe. It is certainly arguable that if Britain had adopted the alternative of standing aside from the conflict and, as would have been probable, France had been defeated by Germany, then Britain would eventually have been forced into a subsequent war against a strengthened Germany in a German-controlled Europe.
CHAPTER 2THE OVERTURE
STIRRING THE ETHNIC SOUP
The Austro-Hungarian Empire had remained a powerful force despite the loss of Italy some fifty years earlier, but the structure was crumbling. Austria had pacified Hungarian nationalism, agreeing in 1866 to recognise Hungary's autonomy within the empire by creating the dual monarchy, but was increasingly threatened by the developing demands for autonomy both amongst its own diverse population and from the countries on its borders.
The empire comprised an ethnic soup. Austria was primarily Germanic, the Tyrol remained Italian while Hungary, although under the political control of the Magyars, had substantial numbers of Slovaks, Romanians and Croats. Within the empire there were also Czechs, Slovenes and Poles, but of all the races it was the Slavs who were seen as the greatest threat to the security of the empire.
Austria had stood aside from the First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, whereby Serbia had roughly doubled in size through the acquisition of Macedonia and Kosovo and increased its population from 2.9 million to 4.4 million (Hew Strachan, The First World War, p.6). The Austrians had, with some justification, become disillusioned in their dealings with the Serbs, in particular with their repeated perfidy, and had lost confidence that the threat from Serbia could be dealt with solely through diplomatic channels; perhaps force was the only argument to which the Serbs would listen?
Serbia, for its part, had long had a dream of creating a Greater Serbia by uniting all the Serbian people of the Balkan states, Bosnia–Herzegovina and Croatia – even Serbs in what is now Romania – in one Greater Serbian state. It was recognised that some of these states contained non-Serbian ethnic groups, such as the Croats, but they would soon get used to the idea of Serbian rule. In a foretaste of what would happen at the end of the twentieth century, the Serbians were ruthless in the exploitation of their new peoples. The British Vice Consul in Monastir reported, 'It is already abundantly evident that Moslems under Servian [sic] rule have nothing whatever to expect but periodical massacre, certain exploitation and final ruin' (quoted in Clark, Sleepwalkers, p.44).
The Serbs had a major obstacle to their dream: they were sandwiched between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the powerful, although declining, Ottoman Empire, which had formerly ruled the Balkan states. In 1908 Austria had flexed its muscles and formally annexed Bosnia, which had been under military occupation by Austria since 1878 and part of the Ottoman Empire prior to that, but this move had antagonised the Serbs, who saw it as a potential threat both to their independence and to their dream of a Slav state; Bosnia was key to the building of a Greater Serbia. More seriously for Austria, the Russians saw themselves as protectors of the Slavs and felt they had been duped by the Austrian move. The Bosnians, in turn, were no happier, deeply resenting their new and overbearing masters, a resentment exacerbated by the arrogance of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ghosts of War by Andrew Ferguson. Copyright © 2016 Andrew Ferguson. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Nicola Sturgeon,Acknowledgements,
Ghosts of War,
Maps,
Introduction,
The War Poets,
1 Setting the Scene,
2 The Overture,
3 The Curtain Rises,
4 Act One: The Opening of Hostilities,
5 Act Two: The War in 1915,
6 Act Three: Haig Takes Command,
7 Act Four: The War in 1917,
8 The Last Act,
9 The Curtain Falls,
Sources,