Fritz Fischer is a Post-Revisionist and argued that Germany was largely responsible for starting the war. Germany was aware that their actions could lead to a war but thought it was worth the risk. They didn’t expect Russia and the French would get involved, but that it would cause their alliance to weaken. Germany overestimated their abilities and thought that they could overpower everybody else, and they underestimated the abilities of the rest of Europe. Fischer states that “Germany demanded that the ultimatum to Serbia should be drawn up in those sharp terms..” meaning that Germany pushed for a localized war with Austria-Hungary and Serbia. As events progressed and Russia, the French, and other nations decided to join the war Germany tired to pull out of the war because they realized that they couldn’t overpower the other nations.
I think Germany needed to take a stand in the conflict after the Sarajevo assasination, because they need to continue their alliance with Austria-Hungary, due to their geographic location. If they had tensions with Austria-Hungary then they would not have any support in Europe, and they would be isolated. I think they supported Austria-Hungary in making an example of Serbia, because if no then they'd look weak, and they did all they could to forge their alliane with Austira- Hungary, most of their involvement in World War l had to do with them backing up the alliance, and in the end they didn't have much to gain from the war.
ReplyDeleteThere were many other problems and events in other nations that contributed to the war also though. Think of France, Russia and Britain. Britain could have prevented the entire war. France added to the confusion and Russia wanted to protect Serbia. I think that it is definitely more than just Germany that deserves blame for WWI.
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