[OQ5]∎ Libro July Crisis The World Descent into War Summer 1914 T G Otte 9781107064904 Books

July Crisis The World Descent into War Summer 1914 T G Otte 9781107064904 Books

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July Crisis The World Descent into War Summer 1914 T G Otte 9781107064904 Books

A very, very good approach to the outbreak of war. This is classic diplomatic history. That is to say, Otte writes about what the diplomats were communicating to other and, to the extent it can be determined, what they were thinking, and how they were dealing with their supposed political masters. Otte is lucid, obviously very learned in this field, and writes tolerably well. If you want to have a bookshelf of volumes on the causes/outbreak of WWI, this should be there.
Since there will never be a definitive "answer" to the question of the "cause(s)" of WWI, let me just say what I think Otte brings to the table that differs from some of the other works I have read (and sometimes reviewed here) during the last couple of years. First, he does have a judgment of war guilt, if you will -- and the guilty party is…..Austria (one might think one would say "Austria-Hungary", but Hungary's premier Tisza was of course anti-war). Germany is sort of guilty by negligence. Second, he has no truck with two of the more common memes in some recent works, (a)that the UK could have perhaps prevented Germany from being reckless by being clearer about its intentions (and he sees Sir Edward Grey as highly engaged and dynamic, not the out-of-touch bird-watcher he is often portrayed to be), or (b) that the decision-makers were "sleepwalkers" who knew not what they risked. Instead, he is quite clear what happened -- certain key individuals within the Austrian government decided Austria must win a military victory over Serbia, Russia could not permit this to happen, and Germany could not bring itself to restrain Austria.
I must say this makes a lot of good sense.
Finally, perhaps what is most interesting about this volume is its relatively narrow focus on a limited group of decisionmakers. Otte does not believe the Kaiser of the Tsar were very important in the process. He focusses on the heads of government, foreign ministers, war ministers and especially the professional diplomats within each nation's chancery. One of Otte's most interesting suggestions is that
certain players -- Tschirschky, Hoyos and von Jagow in particular -- had their own goals that differed from those of the higher-ups they supposedly served.
Why four stars, not five? Largely because of the fact that the first 20% of the book consists of a detailed account of the assassination of Franz F., which while interesting, simply comes from a different place than the diplomatic history that follows. Sarajevo should have been the donnee with which Otte could have started the book -- as it was, I barely got past the re-telling of the Apis/Princip story -- but I was very glad I did.


Tags : July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914 [T. G. Otte] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This is a magisterial new account of Europe's tragic descent into a largely inadvertent war in the summer of 1914. Thomas Otte reveals why a century-old system of Great Power politics collapsed so disastrously in the weeks from the 'shot heard around the world' on June 28th to Germany's declaration of war on Russia on August 1st. He shows definitively that the key to understanding how and why Europe descended into world war is to be found in the near-collective failure of statecraft by the rulers of Europe and not in abstract concepts such as the 'balance of power' or the 'alliance system'. In this unprecedented panorama of Europe on the brink,T. G. Otte,July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914,Cambridge University Press,1107064902,Europe - General,Military - World War I,Europe - History - July Crisis, 1914,Europe;History;July Crisis, 1914.,HISTORY Europe General,World War, 1914-1918 - Causes,World War, 1914-1918;Causes.,20th century,20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000,Causes,Europe - History,European history,First World War,HISTORY Europe General.,HISTORY Military World War I,History,History - Military War,HistoryEurope - General,History: World,Modern period, c 1500 onwards,World War I,World War, 1914-1918,bisacsh

July Crisis The World Descent into War Summer 1914 T G Otte 9781107064904 Books Reviews

Professor Otte will impress those who adore pure research in an academic vacuum but too often, while you may be overly impressed by his form, the substance of Otte's analysis is absent any real examination of motivations and ambitions on the part of any of the other major participants, other than Germany and Austria Hungary. (It should also be noted that Hungary's leader, Tisza, was NOT against war, but required more convincing. In the end he went along; otherwise the Empire would never have attacked.) Otte, a Brit, find Britain to be without fault. Amazing conclusion. He looks too closely and seems to be applying modern speeds and substance and connectedness, that is a hallmark of today's communications technology but NOT one hundred years ago. The notes were criss crossing and no one was sure what anyone thought at a given moment. Too many officials free lanced and told other governments their personal views, representing them as their government's views. This was likely to occur when their version of modern communication attempted to untangle a growing, semi modern rush to war. It wasn't up to that and yes, Otte is right about miscommunications. His mistake is picking sides and assigning blame. He is analyzing too closely, categorizing each leaf/telegram and always ignoring the very unlovable motivations behind the acts of calculating Great Britain, scheming bitter vengeful France and grasping, greedy Russia. He ignores longer term animosities. Germany and Austria Hungary are not innocents but if you examine other interpretations and not allow yourself to be intellectually overly impressed because Otte read so many old telegrams, you may discover that his myopic conclusions are not quite so impressive as what amounts to his photocopied review of telegrams alone in a clinical, academic setting absent the history, and the animosity (sadly enough he deliberately downplays these motivating factors) of reality. IF you believe that history needs be studied at the tree and most importantly of all, the forest level, you may wish to consider another book you can acquire here on . I highly recommend The Great War, by Peter Hart, also a recent publication. The first chapter alone will illuminate my contention that, when viewed as a forest, the beginning days of World War 1 contain far more greedy and vengeful motivations on the three powers that Otte finds so very less offensive and motivated by such grubby intentions. In fact, Otte, to shape his thesis, seems to deliberately ignore these offenses and declares that it is all about bad diplomacy and only Germany and Austria Hungary are guilty. This is not research anymore; it is deliberate manipulation. Read Peter Hart, "The Great War". Acquire it here on . Learn how perspective and/or intent on the part of the writer can reshape a view. Do not get too impressed by how many telegrams Professor Otte read. He means well and he's not completely wrong at all but he seems to have gone out of his way to view the initial stages of the conflict in too narrow a way. He accuses the two Germanic nations with tunnel vision and yet fails to see that in his limited study from too close, HE is also exercising a kind of tunnel vision/narrowed thinking. There are far more reasons underlying the outbreak of World War One than one assassination and botched diplomacy. The tension, the greed and the reality of one side winning and writing the history does not justify ignoring 3 of the 5 participants in the first years of the war, and their equally wicked motivations for contributing to a war that we still suffer from, today. Otte is white washing Britain. Take into consideration Britain's very real challenge with Russia in Asia. Take into consideration France's bitter, grasping obsession with re-acquiring territory it legitimately LOST in the Franco Prussian War (You fought it, you lost it, shut up. It's not yours anymore. Deal with it.) Take into consideration Russia's paranoid psychosis of acquiring control of Turkey in order to sail it's grains unimpeded into the Mediterranean. Otte skips over all this. He skips over the fact that, like him or not, Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austria throne was MURDERED by Serb radicals and possibly with the Serb government's support, when Austria and Serbia are already at knife edge over twin, past wars. Otte is but one source who adds additional factors but in order to do this, he incorrectly seems to have to deliberately ignore all the other real causes, in order to sell his point. It is a little like trying to sell a car in bright lime green to someone who wants a red one, and claiming they only come in lime. It's a lie of omission and when you read merely the first chapter of Hart, you will be ashamed with yourself for over crediting Professor Otte. His is a valid add on factor. His premise is hardly THE factor and it is a sad sign of our own intellectual callowness to presume the quantity of his research necessarily or automatically adds to the quality of his conclusions. If he'd said "what I've concluded is one more factor" I would have agreed at least that far. When however, based on quantitatively impressive research alone, he condemns only two of the participants, and those with greater justification, and claims that this is the end all and be all of conclusive proofs regarding who is to blame for that war, it is seen to be either flawed/laughable research or deliberately sinister or just plain wrong headed concluding by our hero. Consider Otte, to be sure. Don't let the number of telegrams read and analyzed overly impress you and buy and READ the first chapter or so of "The Great War" by Peter Hart. Incidentally, I have no more idea of who Hart is than Otte is, except his more distanced view of the war allows us to see things in the OVERALL a lot better than Otte. Sorry guys, he's only a three star read but the actual binding and quality of the printed volume IS impressive and I highly recommend this tome to anyone who loves a quality printing.
A very, very good approach to the outbreak of war. This is classic diplomatic history. That is to say, Otte writes about what the diplomats were communicating to other and, to the extent it can be determined, what they were thinking, and how they were dealing with their supposed political masters. Otte is lucid, obviously very learned in this field, and writes tolerably well. If you want to have a bookshelf of volumes on the causes/outbreak of WWI, this should be there.
Since there will never be a definitive "answer" to the question of the "cause(s)" of WWI, let me just say what I think Otte brings to the table that differs from some of the other works I have read (and sometimes reviewed here) during the last couple of years. First, he does have a judgment of war guilt, if you will -- and the guilty party is…..Austria (one might think one would say "Austria-Hungary", but Hungary's premier Tisza was of course anti-war). Germany is sort of guilty by negligence. Second, he has no truck with two of the more common memes in some recent works, (a)that the UK could have perhaps prevented Germany from being reckless by being clearer about its intentions (and he sees Sir Edward Grey as highly engaged and dynamic, not the out-of-touch bird-watcher he is often portrayed to be), or (b) that the decision-makers were "sleepwalkers" who knew not what they risked. Instead, he is quite clear what happened -- certain key individuals within the Austrian government decided Austria must win a military victory over Serbia, Russia could not permit this to happen, and Germany could not bring itself to restrain Austria.
I must say this makes a lot of good sense.
Finally, perhaps what is most interesting about this volume is its relatively narrow focus on a limited group of decisionmakers. Otte does not believe the Kaiser of the Tsar were very important in the process. He focusses on the heads of government, foreign ministers, war ministers and especially the professional diplomats within each nation's chancery. One of Otte's most interesting suggestions is that
certain players -- Tschirschky, Hoyos and von Jagow in particular -- had their own goals that differed from those of the higher-ups they supposedly served.
Why four stars, not five? Largely because of the fact that the first 20% of the book consists of a detailed account of the assassination of Franz F., which while interesting, simply comes from a different place than the diplomatic history that follows. Sarajevo should have been the donnee with which Otte could have started the book -- as it was, I barely got past the re-telling of the Apis/Princip story -- but I was very glad I did.