HISTORY - EUROPEAN HISTORY - 20TH CENTURY
AJP TAYLOR'S RAILROAD TIMETABLE THEORY (as the starting point of the WW1)
A small look at the infos of
#history people will reveal that one of the major reasons for their interest in history is
the light that it casts on the future. Most probably, many writers of history are of the
same kind. And being a believer of history's importance on future, it's quite common for a
historian to try to understand the causes of an unfortunate event - for humanity, not to
fall into that trap in the future again.
Undoubtedly World War 1, or the
Great War as it was known for some time until a greater one appeared, is one of the
darkest pages in the history. It is also the war, the causes of which had always been a
popular topic of debate among historians and history enthusiasts.
Living in a country whose general education
programme gives very little importance to European history, I have been taught the
following about the cause of World War 1 : "The First World War started after the
Archduke of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo" -
and hardly anything more. For me, this remark about the start of the WW1 is only a detail
and it gives no insight about the events of the time. But luckily, in my studies, I have
ran into a historian who had a style which gave little detail but lots of insight. The
name of this gentleman is Alan John Percivale
Taylor.
AJP Taylor not only argues that
the circumstances were already set for a general war, (he may state in the opening pages
of his First World War that Europe of the early 1910s was a peaceful looking place,
nevertheless he knew about the figures of industrial production, colonial expansion, and
territorial demands of the era) he also names the specific flaw in the war plans of the
Great Powers (especially Germany) that, when ignited, would make the war unavoidable.
At this point, I have to mention
that The Railroad Theory may or may not be put forth first by Taylor. A detailed query I
made on the internet revealed no prior mention of railroad timetables as the cause of the
war. Needles to say, I have, up to this time, read quite a small proportion of the
material written on the subject (causes of WW1). So, I hereby warn that this nomenclature
is prone to error.
I have also noticed some of the flaws
(or so they appeared to me) in the theory, like the fact that the rescheduling of the
timetables taking 6 months (a figure which looks quite pessimistic), or the reason why
Germans (who proved to be the masters of improvisation in the Second World War) could not
alter their mobilization plans. Nevertheless, the following excerpt gives a very good
depiction of the technical difficulties that the statesmen of the era faced; difficulties,
which did put a great burden on their foreign policy; and the foreign policy which
has
always been criticized for not being a little bit more conciliatory.
The following script is from AJP Taylor's 1977 book "How Wars Begin" (ISBN 0-241-10017-8) ( D299 .T37 1979)
The Austrian
declaration of war on Serbia was pure theory; no action followed it. Now this gives the
essential factor in the outbreak of the first world war. All the great powers, of whom
there were five, or six counting Italy, had vast conscript armies. These armies of course
were not maintained in peace time. They were brought together by mobilization. This factor
had already counted before in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, but this time there was a
further complication.
All mobilization plans depended on railways. At
that time the automobile was hardly used, certainly not as an instrument of mass
transport, and railways demand time tables.
All the mobilization plans had been timed to
the minute, months or even years before and they could not be changed. Modification in one
direction would ruin them in every other direction. Any attempt for instance by the
Austrians to mobilize against Serbia would mean that they could not then mobilize against
Russian because two lots of trains would be running against each other. The same problem
was to arise later for the Russians and in the end for the Germans who, having a plan to
mobilize against France, could not switch round and mobilize again against Russia. Any
alteration in the mobilization plan meant not a delay for 24 hours but for at least six
months before the next lot of timetables were ready.
The Austrians could not mobilize against Serbia
because this would mean that they were defenseless against Russia so they did not mobilize
at all.
The Russians then thought they ought to stake
out some claim to prove that they were going to support Serbia so the tsar and his
advisers contemplated mobilization by only against Austria and this was actually ordered.
Then the Russian generals who knew about the timetables pointed out that if they began to
mobilize against Austria, they would then be totally defenseless against Germany because
they could not then mobilize against Germany. Partial mobilization was scrapped. The next
day the Russian generals said 'But this is terrible. We have done nothing.. Right, we will
have general mobilization.' They were still hesitating and the chief of the general staff
himself said that this was rather pushing things beyond what they wanted. They had no idea
of a war against Germany or even against Austria. They wanted a threat, not a real
preparation for war. Mobilization was a mere gesture.
The chief of the general staff rashly said in
the tsar's presence 'It is very hard to decide.' The tsar who was one of the most
weak-willed men there had ever been, was roused by this and said 'I will decide: general
mobilization.' He then, according to his diary , having made this decision, went out,
found a pleasant warm day and went for a bathe in the sea. His diary does not mention
mobilization.
Now with Russia mobilizing, the problem moved
to Germany and here again this was entirely a matter of timetables. It was said afterwards
that mobilization meant war. Technically for most countries this was not true; it was
merely a step towards war. Mobilization after all took place within the country. The Royal
Navy had mobilized as late as 1911. Russia mobilized 1913. There were occasions when other
powers had mobilized and because war did not take place the armies could be dispersed.
With one country, however, this did not apply. The Germany general staff ever since the
creation of a united Germany in 1871 under Bismarck had contemplated the possibility of
war on two fronts: France on the one side, Russia on the other.
It is the function of general staffs to plan
for wars. Germany had two great neighbors, France on the one side, Russia on the other.
Moreover in 1894, France and Russia made an alliance which was technically defensive in
nature, that each would help the other if attacked. Thus Germany might have a two-front
war. Successive German chiefs of general staff, Moltke, Schlieffen, the younger Moltke,
all laid down 'Germany cannot fight two great wars at the same time.'
As often happens with chiefs of the general
staff, they were quite wrong. In 1914 Germany fought a two-front war and continued to
fight it successfully until 1918. This was a false alarm but it was an alarm which
absolutely dictated their policy.
If you are faced with war on two fronts and
have not got the resources to conduct both wars, what should you do? By definition you
cannot eliminate one of the dangers by diplomacy because if you did there would not be a
two-front war, in fact there would not be a war at all. You must assume that diplomacy has
failed.
The German answer was to get in one blow first
and so decisively that they would have eliminated one enemy. At first they thought of
doing it against Russia, then decided that that was too difficult. Russia was too big; the
German army would go rambling into far remote places. The other answer therefore was to
eliminated France. Ever since they began planning this the idea had been 'We must beat
France first.' But France had a strongly fortified frontier. After about 1890 the Germans
decided they could not rush this frontier in the way that they had rushed it in 1870. A
way round must be found and it must be through Belgium. The Germans arrived at this
conclusion as early as 1893 although it took a long time before the full plan was
developed. Its most detailed form was laid down in 1905.
One essential part of this plan was to go
through Belgium. The other essential part which was equally important was that there could
be no delay between mobilization and war because if there were delay then Russia would
catch up and the Germans would get the two-front war after all. So the moment that the
Germans decided on mobilization, they decided for war, or rather the war followed of
itself. The railway timetables which in other countries brought men to their mobilizing
centers, in the Schlieffen Plan continued and brought the troops not to the their
barracks, but into Belgium and Northern France. The German mobilization plan actually laid
down the first 40 days of the Germans invasion of France and none of it could be altered
because if it did all the timetables would go wrong. Thus the decision for mobilization
which the German general staff made and which Bethmann endorsed on 29 July was a decision
for a general European war.
There was no deeper consideration in the
background. Nothing was weighed except the technical point: if Russia mobilizes we must go
to war. Serbia and Austria-Hungary were forgotten. The Germans declared war on Russia
simply because Russia had mobilized.
The Germans were very stuck over France; they
had no conceivable grievance against France. They demanded that France should promise
neutrality, to which the French prime minister merely replied 'France will consult her own
interests.' The Germans then invented an allegation that Nuremberg had been bombed by
French plane. This was untrue. Whether there had ever been bombing I am not clear. It may
be that a German plane had dropped bombs, but who did what did not matter; the thing was
to get the war going. Thus the war came about mainly because of railway timetables.
There was one further and in the long run
perhaps the most dramatic and decisive consequence. The continental powers were at war;
Great Britain was not. The whole trend of British policy or certainly the desire of the
British people had been to stay out or war.
The Liberal government asserted that Great
Britain had given no pledges. In secret the British had already arranged a railway
timetable to take the British army to the left flank of the French army but this had been
concealed from the British public. Assertions were made constantly by the prime minister
and by the foreign secretary that no commitment had been made which would limit the
freedom of Parliament and the British people to decide.
Now this was very awkward because the French
had been told over and over again 'Yes, yes, we shall stand by you if you are threatened
by Germany' and the cabinet was divided. It looked as if the Liberal government would
break up, perhaps the Conservatives would take over, there would be even more controversy
than there had been during the Boer War, more than there had been during the revolutionary
wars against France. Then came the news that the Germans had demanded the right to through
Belgium.
It is often said that this had been known for a
long time beforehand. That the Germans had such military plans was indeed known, but the
diplomatic consequences were not realized. Indeed Bethmann Hollweg himself, the German
Chancellor, had no idea until 29 July that he would be setting his name to a demand that
the Germans should go through Belgium.
British Liberal ministers later on claimed that
they had hung back and said 'Don't worry' because they knew Belgium would solve the
problem. However it came as a complete surprise to most people and produced a tremendous
reaction. Great Britain it seemed went to war, not in order to play a part in the balance
of power, not in order to aid France or to destroy Germany as an imperial rival or to
destroy the German navy. Great Britain went to war, in the phrase used from the very
first, 'to fulfil her obligations to Belgium and in defense of the rights of small
nations'. This did the trick in the House of Commons. It did the trick with the British
public opinion. In a sense it has done the trick with people ever since.
Very few people looked at the Treaty of 1839
which established Belgium as a neutral country. The guarantor countries were given by this
treaty the right to intervene in order to defend the neutrality of Belgium. There was no
obligation laid on them to do so. I am not saying for a moment that there was no
obligation of a moral kind. Belgium was a small country and it was very wrongfully
invaded, just as for instance in 1916 France and Great Britain invaded Greece in exactly
the same way, though with less fighting than when the Germans invaded Belgium, but the
treaty obligation was something invented for the sake of public opinion.
The following script is from his "The First World War" (1963), ( D521 .T39 1966)
Here the second factor
of high strategy intervened to decisive and disastrous effect. All military authorities in
Europe believed that attack was the only effective means of modern war, essential even for
defense. They were quite wrong about this. They could have learnt from the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-1905, and from the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 (or even from the American Civil War
half a century earlier) that defense was getting stronger and attack more difficult. None
of them learnt this. Every chief of staff had offensive plans, and only offensive plans.
All hoped to win from the superior offensive spirit of their army. All except one. The
German general staff did not believe that they could conquer decisively if they had to
fight at full strength on two fronts, against both France and Russia at once. Therefore
they had long planned, ever since 1892, to put practically all their armed weight in the
west and to knock out France before the slow machine of Russian mobilization could lumber
into action. It was often said in 1914, and has been often repeated since:
"mobilization means war". This was not true. All the Powers except one could
mobilize and yet go on with diplomacy, keeping the armies within their frontiers.
Mobilization was a threat of high order, but still a threat. The Germans, however, had run
mobilization and war into one. In this since, Schlieffen, Chief of German General Staff
from 1892 to 1906, though dead, was the real maker of the First World War. 'Mobilization
means war' was his idea. In 1914 his dead hand automatically pulled the trigger.
For the Russian decision to mobilize threw out
the German timetable. If the Germans did nothing, they would lose the advantage of
superior speed. They would have to face war on two fronts, not on once; and this, they
imagined, they could not win. Either they had to stop Russia's mobilization at once by
threat of war, or they had to start the war, also at once. On 31 July Bethmann asked
Moltke: 'Is the Fatherland in danger?' Moltke answered: 'Yes'. This was the moment of
decision. Germany sent an ultimatum, demanding Russian demobilization within twelve hours.
The Russians refused. On 1 August Germany declared war on Russia; two days later, with
hardly an attempt at excuse, on France. The First World War had begun - imposed on the
statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age.
Click here for another text from AJP Taylor, accompanied by more info about him.