rather than years. Such a war was expected by most people to conclude with a decisive
military victory for one side. However, there is irrefutable evidence showing that the
most senior soldiers in Germany, France and Britain did not expect a future great war to
be ‘over by Christmas’ (Strachan, 2001: 1005–14). Indeed, it was precisely the Germans’
fear of all but inevitable defeat in a long war against the Franco-Russian Alliance that
drove them, virtually in desperation, to gamble on achieving an improbable short-war
victory by means of the super-envelopment envisaged in the Schlieffen–Moltke Plan.
Germany knew that it had to win a short war, because it would be impossibly outweighed
in human and material resources in a long one. Should Britain fight with France and
Russia, a probability with deadly negative implications for German access to vital raw
materials from overseas, then the prospect of defeat in a long war would be more certain
still. It may seem strange – certainly it was strategically irresponsible in the extreme –
for Germany to choose to go to war at all in 1914, given its pessimism over the balance
of forces. But in explanation of Germany’s decision to fight, one must note that its
estimate of its poor competitive position in 1914 was superior to that anticipated for later
years. The German Army persuaded itself that that which was necessary, swift victory
against France, would somehow, as a consequence, mysteriously prove militarily feasible.
Military professionals in 1914 knew that war between great powers that could mobilize
conscript armies in the millions was not at all likely to be concluded with a single battle
or campaign. But the Germans felt compelled to try. Strategic history demonstrated that
pre-war professional estimates of the duration of war as lasting perhaps three years, Field
Marshal Lord Kitchener’s best guess, were fairly accurate, if still unduly optimistic.
There is an old saying which advises that ‘there is a great deal of ruin in a nation’. That
claim goes far towards explaining key features of World War I. Modern, or modernizing,
states blessed with a robust industrial base and a large population of tolerably patriotic
citizen-subjects would not accept most military setbacks, even defeats, as being decisive.
In theory, there could be a military catastrophe of such proportions that recovery would
be impossible. This was especially a possibility for France, given the restricted geography
of warfare in Western Europe. But, barring victory by some super-manoeuvre, such as
that planned by Schlieffen, it was obvious that the great powers had the depth of means
to sustain loss and damage, if not indefinitely, then certainly through several campaigns.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the professional soldiers of 1914 appreciated very
well that ‘the soul of an army’, to quote British general Sir Ian Hamilton, was its spirit,
its morale (Hamilton, 1921). Men and material may be abundant, once mobilized, but
how resilient would the urbanized masses in uniform prove to be to the stresses of
modern combat? Also, no less important, would the increasingly urbanized societies of
1914 remain politically stable in a long war? Modern Europe was substantially literate,
its working class was imbued with socialist ideas, and its patriotism might not withstand
the hardships, tragedies and disappointments of a long war.
Conclusion
If the Great War is notorious for anything, it is for its casualties. This is not a myth.
The casualty toll was awesome. However, the strategic history of the whole of the first
half of the twentieth century demonstrates that the casualty lists for 1914–1 8 were the
inevitable consequence of the contexts of the war. There was nothing extraordinary about
82 War, peace and international relations