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The origins of war and of wars

These are the tasks which a consideration of the origins of the war (or rather, wars) must face. But what is meant by ‘origins’ in this context? It is possible to seek the origins of the war in the events of diplomatic rela-tions – the alliances and alignments of states, the activities of ambassadors and foreign ministers, conferences between statesmen. It may be, however, that such matters were merely superficial, eddies on the surface of a deep-running stream whose course was determined by more profound forces.

If so, what were these forces? Obvious possibilities may be found in the movement of ideas and the clash of ideologies; in economic pressures and opportunities; and in changes in military technology and strategic thought.

If we accept the importance of such developments, what were the links between them and the decisions of individual statesmen and the sentiments of peoples?

Tolstoy, in War and Peace, wrote that historians had produced various diplomatic explanations of the war of 1812 – ‘the wrongs inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the non-observance of the Continental System . . . the ambitions of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomats, and so on’. If this were so, then more care on the part of the diplomats, different phrasing in a note, a minor concession on the part of Napoleon – and there would have been no war. Tolstoy rejected such explanations. For Napoleon and Alexander to be able to act as they did, he believed, ‘a combination of innumerable circumstances was essential. . . . It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands the real power lay – the soldiers who fired the guns or transported provisions and cannon – should consent to carry out the will of those weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes.’6Substitute Hitler and Chamberlain for Napoleon and Alexander, and Tolstoy’s assertion is easily transposed from the war of 1812 to the Second World War. But were Hitler and Chamberlain merely weak indi-viduals, controlled by circumstances and waiting on the consent of the millions who seemed to be their puppets, but in whose hands the real power lay? How can we decide?

Different approaches to the problem produce different explanations.

It is possible to start by trying to explain, not one single war, but the phenomenon of war in general; and much effort has been put into this search. The causes of war have long been sought, so that, once identified, they might be eliminated. In the eighteenth century it was argued that war was produced by the ambitions (or even the mere whims) of monarchs and

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their courtiers; but this view foundered in the French Revolutionary Wars, fought by a republic and a people’s army. In the nineteenth century, Richard Cobden and the Manchester school of liberalism held that universal peace would come through the railway, the steamship, the penny post, and free trade: when all had enough of this world’s goods, none would wish to waste them in warfare, nor would there be any point in fighting to obtain a larger share. But events belied these hopes. In 1914 the postal services carried mobilisation notices, and the railways transported armies to battle.

The twentieth century proceeded to provide at least its fair ration of wars, and perhaps more – one observer listed thirty between 1900 and 1964.7

Among these conflicts, it was particularly the First World War of 1914–

18 that stimulated the search for the causes of war into even greater act-ivity. Shocked by the catastrophe and determined to avoid its repetition, people scanned the period before 1914 in search of the causes of war. They found them in plenty; and for each cause of war there was a remedy. Wars – and particularly that of 1914 – were caused by armaments and arms races. The remedy, therefore, was disarmament. Wars were caused by alliances and secret diplomacy, which bound states together without the knowledge of their peoples, and turned a small quarrel into a European war. The solutions here were to avoid alliances, and to practise open diplomacy, so that peoples could restrain their governments from danger-ous commitments and warlike acts. Wars were caused by the very exist-ence of sovereign states, free (and indeed accustomed) to fight one another from time to time. Here, the answers were to create some international organisation to restrict the right to go to war, and to develop the role of international law. For socialists, wars were caused by capitalism, and by imperialism, which was the latest form of capitalism; so that capitalist states, under the influence of bankers and great industrialists, fought for markets, raw materials, and fields for investment. In the long run, the answer was to do away with capitalism, for in a socialist world there would be no war; in the short run, means might be found to share markets, investment opportunities, and resources. There were widespread theories about ‘scapegoat wars’ – wars to relieve conflicts within a country by turn-ing upon an external enemy. Here the answer seemed to be that after 1914–18 anyone could see that the remedy was worse than the disease – if Russia or Germany had gone to war in 1914 as a way out of internal conflicts, they had instead landed themselves in defeat and revolution.

There were theories of war by accident – that in 1914, and doubtless on other occasions, the powers blundered into a war which none of them really wanted. For this the remedy was to improve the mechanism of

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international relations, so that time and opportunity were given to avoid accidents and allow good sense to prevail.

There are many difficulties with such general explanations of war.

They tend to fall uneasily between determinism and free will. If wars were really caused by capitalism, and arose from its very nature, then how could they be avoided by creating a League of (mainly capitalist) Nations, or by merely adjusting the mechanism of the international system? Some soci-alists, indeed, argued with strict logic that they could not be so avoided;

but most acted as though they could, partly because that was what they wanted to believe, and partly because all but the most rigid determinists recognised some scope for choice and action. Again, some theories, wide enough to explain everything, ended by explaining nothing – the argument that wars were the result of the existence of sovereign states fell into this difficulty. It was like saying that car accidents are the result of the existence of cars – which is true, but unhelpful. As an approach to the problem of the origins of the Second World War, such theories are too general to be very useful; though they should not be entirely disregarded, if only because in the 1920s and 1930s they were often taken very seriously, and so form part of the fabric of the period we are examining.

Historians have tended to deal more in particular than in general expla-nations; with the causes of individual wars rather than with the causes of war. But even within this pragmatic approach, there is usually to be found a pattern. Historians seek long-term causes (often called origins), identify-ing conditions in which war is likely or probable – long-standidentify-ing territorial disputes, conflicts of interest, psychological tensions between peoples. To these they add short-term causes – specific events which bring these dis-putes and tensions to a head; and finally occasions of war – events which are not in themselves of decisive significance, but in particular circum-stances tip the balance, or perhaps just provide an excuse for going to war.

In making such analyses, historians make repeated use of analogies: the accumulation of inflammable materials, finally lit by a single spark; or a dam subjected to an increasing weight of water, and finally broken by some comparatively minor crack in the concrete; or explosive forces built up over a period of time and then touched off by the mere movement of a trigger. Behind the analogies lies a standard pattern of explanation, though with varying emphasis being placed on long-term and short-term causes. It is possible to find, for example, discussions of the coming of the First World War which deal mainly with the long term (the growth of internal tensions in Germany, or imperial rivalry between the powers, or national-ist aspirations in the Balkans); and others which deal almost exclusively

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with the short term, examining exhaustively the events of July 1914. There is frequently room for dispute as to whether a particular event was a genuine cause of conflict, or merely the occasion: again looking at 1914, was the German invasion of Belgium the cause of British entry into the European conflict, or only the occasion for a step that was bound to be taken anyway?

General theories of the causes of war, and the patterns of causation woven by historians, may be very logical and intellectually coherent. But participants in events have a different perspective. Those in positions of authority or influence are profoundly conscious that they must take deci-sions. At specific moments they must declare war – or not; issue an order to attack another country – or not; order resistance to an attack – or not.

Even those who are firmly convinced of a determinist view of life find in practice that they must choose; and do not appear to think that they are in the grip of forces outside their control. Lenin, whose theoretical works demonstrated that war was a function of capitalism and imperialism, had to choose early in 1918 whether his new Bolshevik state should launch a revolutionary war against the Germans (which was what some of his colleagues wanted) or make peace, at great cost in territory and resources.

He chose peace, not on any grounds of historical determinism, but because he knew that Russia did not have the means to resist the German Army.

Obviously he did not abandon his view of life and of history; and he believed he was acting to save the Revolution; but the actual decision was based on a calculation about power, and an estimate of the long-term interests of the Bolshevik cause.8

Most such decisions, indeed, involve important elements of calculation:

about the balance of power; about the security and material interests of the state and its people; about prestige (which is often not just pretence or vainglory, but involves the crucial question of whether other states believe that you mean what you say); and not least about power to achieve the object in view. A vital element in choices about war and peace is usually the calculation, or at least the hope, that victory is possible. Only in the most dire of circumstances do states go to war in the face of certain defeat;

and examples are hard to find. It is more usual, in hopeless circumstances, to bow to the inevitable.

Statesmen make their choices out of calculation. War is an instrument of policy. It will be used, in the crudest terms, if it seems likely to pay, in terms of material interest, profit, power, or prestige. In the 1920s and 1930s, it appeared to most statesmen in Britain and France that war was highly unlikely to pay. They had come to regard the last war, of

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1914–18, as a calamity, involving human, material, and financial losses which should not again be incurred short of the utmost necessity. They were satisfied powers, anxious to preserve the status quo; but they also wanted peace and quiet. They would eventually fight in self-defence and to prevent the status quo being completely overthrown; but their optimism about the outcome of war was at a low ebb, and their belief in war as an instrument of policy was weak. The rulers of Germany and Italy, on the other hand, represented dissatisfied powers; they wanted to disrupt the status quo; and they were perfectly prepared to use war to achieve that end. Moreover, the Germans believed that war would pay in the simplest sense, by securing economic gains – raw materials, foodstuffs, cheap labour, favourable terms of trade and rates of exchange; and in some parts of their conquests, they were not mistaken. Their optimism about the outcome of war was high; and their belief in war as an instrument of policy strong.

This is not the whole story. Statesmen make calculations of interest, advantage, and power; but they respond also to emotions, to prejudices, to the assumptions which they have absorbed from their upbringing, their way of life, and their friends. They are human, not calculating machines;

and this means that sometimes they respond as much by instinct as from calculation. The Belgian Crown Council, meeting all night on 2/3 August 1914 to decide how to reply to the German ultimatum demanding passage through their country to attack France, debated Belgian interests, which gave no absolutely clear guide to action, but then seem to have reached their final unanimous decision to reject the ultimatum mainly out of anger at being bullied, a sense of the country’s self-respect, and (on the part of the strong pro-German group) resentment at being let down by one’s friends.

Again, in 1940, Churchill’s resolve to continue the war against Germany despite the fall of France arose primarily from patriotic fighting instincts, which were supported by rather shaky calculations about Britain’s capa-city to survive and win.

When politicians take the path to war they must then assume that the people whom they claim to lead, the millions who must fire the guns and sustain the war effort, will accept their decision. What then moves the people whose role is in the long run vital for the conduct and continuance of war?

There are those who return a very simple answer to this question: the people respond to a mixture of propaganda and coercion on the part of governments, and have little choice or free will in the matter. This is in most cases too simple to correspond to reality. It is perfectly possible for a country to be taken into war against the wishes of the majority of its

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people: this was the case when Italy entered the Second World War in 1940; and the results were observable in the lack of enthusiasm and deter-mination in the Italian campaigns and war effort from 1940 to 1943, when the whole process culminated in Italy first dropping out of the conflict, and then joining in again on the opposite side. At the other end of the scale, it was also possible for large numbers of the Polish people to continue by clandestine means a struggle against Germany which their armies had decisively lost, at a time when their government was in exile and had no powers of coercion whatsoever, and very little means of propaganda.

There are many cases which fall between these two extremes; but by and large governments are conscious that in war they need at least the consent, and preferably the active support, of their peoples; and this support has often been given willingly, and sometimes enthusiastically.

What motivation, then, lies behind such willingness to accept war?

How have Tolstoy’s all-important millions seen the question of war and its origins? If we turn to 1914 for guidance, we find in Oxford the young Llewellyn Woodward (later an eminent historian of the war) volunteering at once for the army. He did not enjoy his military training, and he was less than certain of the British case for entering the war; but he persisted because he was convinced by the argument of Socrates, that having accepted the benefit of his country’s laws he had a duty to do what the state asked of him. Reflecting after fifty years, he saw no reason to have done otherwise. On the other side of Europe, far removed from the refinements of Oxford and the influence of a classical education, we find the inhabit-ants of a village in Montenegro, men and women alike, pouring from their houses to resist the invading Austrians, not when they crossed the new-fangled boundary which had only been there since some recent Balkan war, but when they reached a bridge which had marked Montenegrin territory for centuries – the simple defence of long-held territory by a people with a strong sense of identity. Between these two responses, the one intellectual and rarefied, the other instinctive and primitive, there lay the reactions of the millions in Europe who answered their mobilisation notices, sometimes with resignation, sometimes enthusiastically, but in any case with a degree of unanimity that surprised the military authorities, who had expected widespread opposition or evasion.

When we turn from the First World War to the Second, one point stands out clearly. There was a widespread expectation that the reactions of 1914 would not be repeated. With the sombre memorials to the dead of 1914–18 all over Europe, ‘never again’ was the natural and deep-seated response. ‘I will not have another war. I will not’ was not the remark of a

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left-wing pacifist but of King George V, trained as a sailor and deeply imbued with the military virtues.9It was true that in the belligerent capitals in 1939 there was little enthusiasm, no cheering crowds in the main squares, no flowers for the troops at railway stations. But, however reluct-antly, the peoples of Europe went to war again. They endured, quietly but with immense determination and tenacity, a war which was in many ways more terrible than that of 1914–18. To explain, even in part, why they did so must be one of the tasks of an explanation of the origins of the war;

because if the instinct of ‘never again’ had prevailed in any large section of the European population, either there would have been no Second World War, or at least it would have been a different kind of war, probably at a different time.

At the end of this review of explanations of war and wars, it is interest-ing to see what professionals in the craft of foreign policy made of the question about half-way through what we now know to have been the period between the wars. In 1919, Lloyd George’s Cabinet in Britain decided that defence expenditure should be governed by the assumption that the country would not be involved in any major war for ten years.

When this ‘ten-year rule’ was begun, and for most of its life until it was

When this ‘ten-year rule’ was begun, and for most of its life until it was