Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Fay Sidney Bradshaw
Title : Before Sarajevo The Origins of the World War Volume 1
Year : 1928

Link download : Fay_Sidney_Bradshaw_-_Before_Sarajevo_The_Origins_of_the_World_War_Volume_1.zip

TODAY, looking back on more than half a century of study, I am more than ever impressed by the tremendous impact the World War of 1914-18 has had upon world developments of the next fifty years. The war ushered in a period of international political and social change unequaled in history. At the same time enormous innovations in electronic and genetic sciences occurred and the speed of transportation was enormously increased with the use of the automobile and the airplane. The World War also opened a new age of violence that contrasted greatly with the era of comparative peace that had preceded it. In this earlier period, from 1815 to 1914, peace generally prevailed in Europe except for some “local” wars that were fought with traditional weapons, were comparatively shortlived, and wreaked small destruction. Most of Asia and of Africa were still tolerably quiescent under the colonialism imposed by European imperialist powers. Diplomatic relations were strictly secret and were conducted unhurriedly by trained officials who kept in touch with their home governments by means of couriers and coded letters rather than by telegraph. After 1914, however, the “little” wars exploded into global conflicts that raged for several years and were fought with new weapons like submarines, tanks and air missiles that caused terrific losses of life and property. At the same time, in Asia and Africa, the yellow and dark-skinned populations, no longer quiescent, began a struggle to end all European colonial domination and to establish their own independence and power. In the conduct of international relations the wisdom and caution of experienced ambassadors was often undermined by special envoys who lacked sufficient international knowledge and by the increasing tendency of top authorities to make statements by radio to the whole world, thereby disturbing the secrecy of diplomatic negotiations. During the turbulent half-century that began in 1914, the causes of the war and the responsibility for its outbreak have remained problems of high historical interest and of deep political importance. The subject has given rise to a great mass of controversial literature, which may be said to fall into three periods in each of which the scope and value of the work was more or less dependent on the evidence available to the writers. In the first period, 1914-19, persons writing on the immediate causes of the war were largely dependent on apologiae made by men who had held responsible political positions at the outbreak of war, and on the so-called “color books,” small and highly selective collections of diplomatic documents, that were issued by each of the principal governments involved. These writings were intended to prove the wisdom and honesty of the conduct of each and throw on others the blame for starting the war. Much of this literature of the first period was also badly warped by wartime hatred, prejudice, and political propaganda. The assertions put forth by writers on the side of the ultimate victors were summed up by the Versailles Treaty, which implied that the war was caused solely by the aggression of Germany and her allies. The second period, 1920-30, was notable for the publication of astonishingly full and reliable collections of diplomatic documents relating both to the crisis of July 1914 and to the events of the preceding forty years. The unprecedented and extensive public revelation of secrets from the archives was begun by the German Republic. Other governments soon followed her example. The German and French collections each eventually comprised some forty volumes and dealt with international relations as far back as the Franco-Prussian War. After long and careful study of as much of this valuable material as had already appeared in print, I published in 1928 the present two-volume work, The Origins of the World War. The first volume is devoted to the underlying causes of the war during several decades, and the second volume to the hectic diplomatic crisis which precipitated its outbreak in 1914. I tried to maintain as fairminded and scholarly attitude of mind as possible, leaving aside earlier controversial literature and basing my account entirely on the new documentary evidence. The result was highly gratifying. Reviewers generally praised it as an important and interesting historical survey of the much-disputed question of responsibility for the war. It consequently had a large sale and was published in German, French, and Russian translations. A noted Soviet historian (V. Chvostov in Istorik Marksist, Vol. 18-19, 209-216, 1930) castigated me as a decadent bourgeois historian, probably paid by Wall Street, who completely failed to understand that the true cause of the war was “finance capitalism.” To prove his point he quoted parallel passages from Lenin’s writings and from my book, but he concluded his long review more favorably, saying that it was the best book in any language, that it ought to be used in all Russian schools and universities. The Soviet government printed an edition of 50,000 copies. I published a revised two-volume-in-one edition of my book in 1930. This edition took note of the documentary and other material that had appeared since the first edition two years earlier. During the third period, since 1930, the French and the British have completed their invaluable documentary collections, the Russians have extended theirs, the Austrians have published nine volumes of diplomatic material for the years 1908 to 1914, and the Italians have issued the first volume of a series. The total amount of this new evidence revealed since 1930 is perhaps equal to that of the preceding period, but its fresh importance to the historian is much less. That is to say, it has added relatively little to the account which I gave in my revised edition of 1930 or which Professor Bernadotte E. Schmitz gave in his valuable two-volume work, The Coming of the War, 1914 also published in 1930. His work is more severe in its judgment of Germany than mine, and it deals mainly with the outbreak of the war in 1914, rather than with the earlier underlying causes. But the general picture that emerges from both books is not likely to be much modified by later archival revelations, biographies or monographs, though some minute details may be added to the picture and obscure points may be clarified. The intense scholarly and popular interest in the causes of war in 1914 naturally abated somewhat as attention became absorbed in the second war. But during the past decade it appears to have revived, judging from the increased sales of my book and the publication of many new ones on the subject. Two of these are notable. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914 (London, 1952-57 translated from the Italian, deals mainly with the immediate origins and is the most detailed and probably the most authoritative account so far written, but its three large volumes, averaging nearly 700 pages each, are somewhat repetitious and sometimes prejudiced. Fritz Fisher, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Hamburg, 1961), deals severely with, Germany and tends to assume that Germany’s undoubted annexationist policies after war broke out are evidence of her policies prior to the war. It had been my intention eventually to completely rework my revised edition of 1930. This would have enabled me to cut out passages in which I had expatiated at length to establish certain views that have been generally accepted by historians and no longer need such explanation. Such, for instance, is the chapter on the Potsdam Council in which I definitely demolished the widely accepted myth that the Kaiser had deliberately plotted the war at a meeting with his top officials at Potsdam. The space thus saved I hoped to use for a fuller discussion of such causes as economic factors, the influence of the press, the psychology of certain officials, and, of course, the inclusion of the results of new documentary revelations and the researches of other historical scholars. But the press of other work caused me to postpone this intended revision until declining eyesight made it impossible. Therefore, when The Free Press proposed reprinting the 1930 edition as a paperback, I readily assented. The edition is fairly broad in outlook, surveying mounting international frictions many years before the war, and describes in detail the fatal diplomatic crisis of 1914. Yet it is so condensed that the whole account is not unduly long. It is based on strictly contemporary evidence, is as rigidly objective as possible, and avoids polemics and lengthy disputes about “guilt” and responsibility for the war. On the basis of such new light as has appeared since 1930, historians no doubt will long continue to differ as to the exact effect of this or that action and as to the precise responsibility of each nation in causing the war. My book, I hope, will prove a convenient spring-board for a deeper plunge into the controversies. SIDNEY B. FAY Cambridge, Mass. 1966. ...