Ninety years ago, the great powers of Europe collided in World War I, in many ways shaping the modern world. For example, that war broke up the Ottoman Empire and created the states of the Middle East. World War II and even the Cold War seem more to have been continuations of what began in August 1914. The great question since 1914 has been why the war started, because it seemed to come out of an era of relative peace. The outbreak was so puzzling to many, that it was widely ascribed to sinister subterranean forces that could bubble up without warning. Forty years ago it was common wisdom that the European powers had locked themselves into alliances that made a war inevitable once any minor conflict had erupted; and moreover, that their war plans, particularly those of the Germans, were so designed that local conflict automatically escalated. The initial stage of war was sometimes called "war by timetable" on the theory that once troop movements by train had been set into motion, each country felt compelled to put its own mobilization plans into effect. The plans were so complex that any disruption would have left that country fatally vulnerable if the enemy continued to mobilize (this view omits standing forces and permanent fortifications). This mechanistic view had real consequences. Through the 1960s, American strategists evolved a doctrine of limited nuclear options, so that once war started, it might be possible to demonstrate resolve and to offer the other side an incentive not to escalate.
Another idea that came out of World War I was that the naval arms race between Britain and Germany had somehow caused the war. Certainly the German push toward naval power helped convince the British that Germany was hostile, but it is not clear that either side was pushed so hard that it would have fought merely to keep the other from continuing. By 1912, the Germans and the British could not afford much more, and both were moving tentatively toward some sort of limitation agreement. The German naval build-up did help convince the British to ally with the French and the Russians, but it now seems that the British entered the war because the Germans seized Belgium. The British decision is presented generally as the honorable choice to protect the Belgian neutrality guaranteed by a treaty they had signed; but the treaty reflected an older understanding that the Belgian coast was the ideal place from which to invade Britain. German seizure of that coast implied, to the British, a threat. Had there been no invasion of Belgium, the British might have remained neutral. Even the alliance with France and Russia can be seen as an extension of the classic British policy of maintaining the balance of European power rather than as a result of German naval construction. However, the idea that arms races lead to war remains alive.
It now looks as though the tension leading to war came out of the odd form that the German state had taken, a form that may now have a sinister parallel. In 1914, Germany had a parliament, but it was also an absolute monarchy. That is, the Kaiser alone had the power to make war, parliament having no veto. Parliament was responsible for finances, however. In effect, the Kaiser's power was supported by the army, whose officers, until shortly before the war, were taken from the Prussian nobility. Approximately 90% of the German budget went to the military, suggesting the extent to which the army ruled. Further complicating the situation was that Germany was an empire, not a unified country. The empire had no internal taxes covering the whole country. The main sources of income to support the large army and navy were customs duties-and loans. Some decades ago British historian A. J. P. Taylor pointed out that the German government of 1914 had no obvious way to recoup its debts other than to follow the precedent of the war against France in 1870, which was to solve its financial problem by demanding war reparations from the loser. It was Taylor's view that German finances would have collapsed in 1916 had Germany not gone to war in 1914, and thus postponed the problem by borrowing on a much larger scale.
In the years leading up to 1914, the German parliament was becoming increasingly assertive. It seems likely that the Kaiser and the army felt their system was less secure. In 1913, the chief of his general staff told the foreign minister that his main task was to foment a world war while Germany was still likely to win it. There is also evidence that the Kaiser and the army staff felt that the main obstacle to the desired war was that they could not bring the public to support it. The crisis of 1914, brought about by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand, provided the necessary rationale.
Writing in the 1940s, Taylor remarked that the central issue in modern German history was the attempt by the Junkers-the army officer class who had been the Kaiser's key supporters-to preserve their power. In the late 1920s, faced with economic problems, the Weimar government tried to withdraw certain special privileges the Junkers had retained from the earlier Imperial government. That attempt ended in what amounted to a dictatorship imposed over the head of the elected parliament. In effect, the German parliament found that the Kaiser's political system was still in place, albeit without the strong bias toward military power.
If all of this is correct, then the root cause of the disaster was the German sense of growing weakness. In objective terms, that sense seems ludicrous. In 1914, Germany had the strongest economy in Europe and by far the most powerful army; its navy was second most powerful. However, the Kaiser and his army were feeling insecure and parliament was becoming more secure. Something could be done to curb the Kaiser's army, but it took parliament time to learn what it could do, and it took time for German voters to decide to switch allegiance. Moreover, the German government had to be aware of the economic bomb it had created by years of borrowing against non-existent state income.
What about the present? Is there any government which retains its autocratic power despite the will of the population, and which may well fear that time is not on its side? Might Iran be the main case in point? Modern Iran holds elections, and it has a parliament. Yet above parliament there are the unelected Ayatollahs. Several elections have returned candidates demanding reform, which in effect means giving parliament full power. Each time the Ayatollahs have made it clear that their power is absolute. External pressure of any kind on Iran generally results in a shift of power toward the Ayatollahs, who advertise themselves as the sole guardians of the state. They create the sense of national threat, be it from the United States or from the "little Satan," Israel. Outside observers find it difficult to perceive any particular threats to Iran-as they found it difficult to perceive real threats to Germany before 1914.
History does not repeat, at least not exactly, and historical lessons are difficult to apply. However, the parallel between the current Iranian situation, in which voters can and have clearly expressed themselves, only to be frustrated, and the German situation of 1914 seems chilling. The current Iranian regime does seem to be preparing its population for war, just as, in the years leading up to 1914, the German regime worked up in its own population.
Worse, it is not clear how the 1914 bomb could have been defused, even had its existence been obvious to those around Germany. The Kaiser himself was a reluctant warrior, having drawn back from war on several occasions. No form of appeasement offered by other governments could have dealt with the core problem, that of the odd form of the German state. Nor was the threat so obvious that some kind of preventive war could have been justified by anyone. The choice seems to have been war, economic collapse, or revolution, with economic collapse making revolution almost inevitable. Perhaps some form of deterrence might have staved off war long enough for economic disaster to have overtaken Germany. Even that might not have been a happy ending for the rest of Europe. There is no reason to imagine that the Germans would have blamed themselves for the disaster; they might have decided it was their neighbors' fault. In that case, war would have come a bit later and probably would have been as destructive.
What does that mean for the present? In its present form, Iran presents enough of a parallel to pre-1914 Germany to be frightening, but hardly enough to justify any pre-emptive attack. It is possible that a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities will ignite a local war, but at present Iran lacks sufficient non-nuclear capability to overrun its neighbor, Iraq, let alone to reach the Israelis. On the other hand, the sizes of the country and the population make any assault on Iran impractical. The hope has to be that the instability inherent in its government boils over before the Ayatollahs create their equivalent of World War I. Our main hope in that direction is a combination of deterrence and measures to limit the efficacy of whatever weapons the Ayatollahs wield.
Is some sort of war inevitable for Iran? We cannot know. We do know that in a government, a sense that time is running out can have explosive consequences. On the other hand, a frustrated parliament can sometimes win-as in the English Civil War of the Seventeenth Century. In that case, one cause was the King's need for defense funds, which Parliament tried to use as leverage to gain power over him. One might, then, ask why the King felt unable to force Parliament's hand by showing that without extra funds the country was at risk. The answer may be that he knew that he was unlikely to win a foreign war, whatever he could extract from Parliament. If that is so, then it suggests that deterrence-the conviction that no foreign adventure will succeed-may work.
Of course, not all wars come out of internal dissension; but 90 years after the outbreak of World War I, the basis of much of our recent history, it seems sensible to ask about those which do.