Conclusion

The triple stalemate explains why the war continued for fifty-two months, and why the decisions of July-August 1914 were so momentous in their consequences. The men of 1914 must bear a heavy burden of responsibility, even if they could not foresee what would flow from their individual decisions, and even if at times their choices appeared to be predestined.

Debating the origins of the First World War

The debate about the outbreak of the First World War is divided between those who place the burden of responsibility on Germany and those who locate German policy within a much broader explanation for the breakdown of international relations. Of the first viewpoint, the case put forward by Fritz Fischer of Hamburg University in Germany's Aims in the First World War (London, 1967) is the most important.

Recommended reading

The best general introductions to European history in the period covered by this chapter are Felix Gilbert and David C. Large, The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present, 4th edn (New York, 1991), Christopher J. Bartlett, The Global Conflict: The International Rivalry of the Great Powers, 1880—1990 (London, 1994), Norman Stone, Europe Transformed, 1878—1919 (Oxford, 1999) and James Joll, Europe since 1870, 4th edn (London, 1990). Students without a background in the history of nineteenth-century diplomacy will find Christopher J. Bartlett, Peace, War and the European Powers, 1814—1914 (Basingstoke, 1996) and F. R. Bridge and Roger Bullen, The Great Powers and the European State System, 1815—1914, second edition (London, 2004) indispensable.

On the subject of the Great Powers and the states system, Bartlett, Bridge and Bullen (cited above) and A. J. P Taylor, Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848—1914 (Oxford, 1954) are superb texts. Matthew Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy (London, 1993) and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London, 1988) provide a broad perspective. Kennedy's thesis on the long-term patterns of Great Power ascendancy and decay has been criticized by David Reynolds, ‘Power and Wealth in the Modern World', Historical Journal(1989), vol.

For studies of international politics and the search for order, see F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit ofPeace (Cambridge, 1963) and Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London, 1977). On the nineteenth­century balance of power, see Paul W Schroeder, ‘Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?', American Historical Review (1992), vol. 97, pp. 683—706, and his ‘The 19th-Century International System: Changes in Structure', World Politics (1986), vol. 39, pp. 1—26.

On the Venezuela Blockade and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance negotiations, see N. Mitchell, ‘The Venezuela Blockade, 1902—3', Diplomatic History (1996), vol. 20, pp. 185—209, and Keith Wilson, ‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of August 1905 and Defending India: A Case of the Worst Scenario', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (1994), vol. 21, pp. 334—56.

For a survey of the breakdown of the nineteenth-century states system, see Richard Langhorne, The Collapse of the Concert of Europe: International Politics, 1890—1914 (London, 1981). The best general introduction to the origins of the war is James Joll, The Origins oftheFirst World War, 2nd edn (London, 1992). The essays in H. W Koch, The Origins ofthe First World War, 2nd edn (London, 1984) and Richard Evans and Harmut Pogge von Strandmann, The Coming of the First World War (Oxford, 1988) are also excellent. On the Balkan wars, see Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912—13: Prelude to the First World War (London, 2000). For two books which explore the intellectual and cultural background to 1914, see Daniel Pick, War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age (New Haven, CT, 1993) and Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (London, 1980).

On European alliances and alignments, see Paul W. Schroeder, ‘Alliances, 1815—1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management', in K.

David Stevenson has supplied the most cogent and up-to-date study of 1914 in The Outbreak of the First World War: 1914 in Perspective (London, 1997), including a survey of the debate in Chapter 5. For fascinating and detailed studies of individual capitals, see Keith Wilson's Decisions for War, 1914 (London, 1995). Works critical of ‘inadvertent war' are J. S. Levy, T. J. Christensen and M. Trachtenberg, ‘Mobilisation and Inadvertence in the July Crisis', International Security (1991), vol. 16, pp. 189-203 and Marc Trachtenberg, ‘The Coming of the First World War: A Reassessment', in his History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ, 1991).

For a revisionist account of the war's course, conduct and outcome, see Ferguson, The Pity of War and the first volume of Hew Strachan's The First World War: To Arms (Oxford, 2001). The account of why the war continued for as long as it did is based on David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford, 1991). The best single-volume treatment of the origins, conduct and consequences of the war is David Stevenson's 1914—18: The History of the First World War (London, 2004) (published in the United States under the title Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy).