Kaiser Wilhelm II Autocrat Or Pacifist In World War I?
Was World War I inevitable? If so, when did it become so, and why? Contrary to general belief, the war could have been averted or prevented altogether had two of the crowned heads involved had more rather than less power over their own governments: the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, both of whom were intent on avoiding war.
Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicolas II (German Federal Archives / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Cause and effect are the lifeblood of history, but there is still no consensus on the cause or causes of World War I. The verdict of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was that “ The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war…” This may be labelled the accidental theory. Inevitability is another popular explanation---or non-explanation. In Decisions for War 1914 (1995) Martin Wright put it like this: “ War is inevitable, though particular wars can be avoided.” Professor Sir Harry Hinsley, for example, opined that “ the First World War is far from being unique among the wars of modern history” since 1494. The 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury opined that “ Europe would avoid another great war only if it became a federation.” For someone who had lived through the bloody American Civil War of 1861-65 this is a remarkably obtuse prediction. Why, after all, should a federal Europe be any more immune from war than a federal United States?
The Despotism Of Germany
Harry Hinsley in Decisions for War 1914 (1995) fastened on “ willfulness amounting to paranoia on the part of the men who governed Germany.” A similar view was expressed on November 6, 1917, while the war was still raging, by former United States President Theodore Roosevelt, who placed the blame on the “ diplomacy of despots”, and, more particularly, on “ the despotism of Germany,” adding: “ This war was made by the militaristic and capitalistic autocracy of Germany…”
This view, shared by many other commentators, both then and now, draws no distinction between the German Government and the Kaiser, who is cast as the arch-villain. “ We shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak” was a popular election cry in the British General Election of December 1918. But Prime Minister David Lloyd George had a more personal slant: “ Hang the Kaiser.” Article 227 of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 called for the Kaiser to be tried by a special tribunal of five judges, one from each of the victorious Allies, “ for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties.”
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Dr Michael Arnheim is a practising London Barrister and Sometime Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. He has written 23 published books to date, including Why Rome Fell: Decline and Fall, or Drift and Change?
Top Image: World War one trenches (staoist520/ Public Domain)
Comments
ALL WARS ARE BANKERS WARS period...
Particularly since the American civil war. Where we have the evidence media is complicit with the banksters in fabrication of inflamed narrative. It takes lots of money to make war. It always must be borrowed, and repaid to banksters who financed it. Only the lenders win, and every time. Kings, presidents, dictators, and prime ministers all only serve at the behest of international banksters. Who like even today plan and execute conflict for profit. Putin figured this out long ago as a student. And has beaten Soros and Kissinger at their own games. The New World Order of 1871, will be replaced by a new Red World Order this century. It's not just the fall of empires, but the fall of a global financial empire. Probably not much different in the end, except who.
ALL WARS ARE BANKERS WARS