until the primary errors are exposed. One must tackle, challenge and demolish five great
myths about the Great War:
- Allegedly, the war occurred because governments lost control of their military
instrument. Once begun, the process of competitive mobilization could not be
arrested. Famously, A. J. P. Taylor popularized the theory of ‘war by timetable’. He
argued that once the first steps towards war had been taken, Europe was driven to
general war by its railway timetables (Taylor, 1969). - Allegedly, the war was futile. After all, the fundamental justification for the resort to
war is that it should solve a vital problem when nothing else can. Since what some
regard as this European civil war required a second round in 1939–45, the strategic
job needed to be repeated. Plainly, the effort and costs of 1914–1 8 were suffered in
vain. - Allegedly, the war was waged by all belligerents with an all but incredible military
incompetence. Illustrative of this long-standing opinion is the charge that most
of Britain’s generals were ‘butchers and bunglers’ (Laffin, 19 88 ) or, at the least,
‘donkeys’ leading sacrificial lions (Clark, 1961). - Allegedly, the military and strategic implications of modern firepower were not
absorbed by military professionals. The lessons of the greater conflicts from the
18 60s until the 1910s were either ignored or misassessed. - Allegedly, political and military leaders shared in the illusion that the next great war
would be of short duration.
Even today, despite the recent appearance of a large amount of corrective scholarship,
these myths live on and dominate received wisdom on the war. Each is either false or so
flawed as to be seriously misleading. They will be dealt with in turn.
First, the historical record tells us unambiguously that the governments of the
great powers did not lose control of their armies and navies as everybody mobilized. It
is true that the Kaiser ‘wobbled’ once or twice, as had his predecessor in 1 8 70, but
everybody understood what their mobilization meant, as well as what its probable or even
certain consequences would be. Just because countries were convulsed by the precise
administrative mechanics of railway-dependent mobilization, it does not follow that the
politicians had surrendered control to the generals. It would be absurd to try to explain
the rush to war in late July and early August 1914 with reference to the inflexible
demands of military logistics. Of course, mobilization involved rigidities – how could it
not? – but the issue of most significance is not whether the war plans and their enabling
steps of mobilization were sufficiently flexible and adaptable to cope with a variety of
strategic demands. Rather, it concerns the political reasons why country after country
chose to send its armies and navies to war.
The war was not aboutthe potency of Europe’s railway timetables; nor was it abouta
breakdown in civilian control of the military instrument. The war of 1914–1 8 was about
the prevention of German domination of Europe. However, that controversial overall
judgement needs to be disaggregated with reference to the decisions taken in 1914.
Austria-Hungary was spoiling for a fight with Serbia. It had been humiliated diplo-
matically as a bystander to the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. Its status as the greatest power
in the Balkans, one able to cope well enough with its domestic ethnic troubles, was
78 War, peace and international relations