Rough Draft 2/8/00
ACCIDENTAL WAR IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
Scott D. Sagan
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2044
415-725-2715
DRAFT:
DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION
1
ACCIDENTAL WAR IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
Has There Ever Been an Accidental War?
In the large literature on the causes of war, there is a stark
contrast in the ways in which political scientists and historians
view the concept of "accidental war" or "inadvertent war."
The
possibility that a war might occur "by accident" -- produced by the
inadvertent dynamics of military organizations or systems, rather
than by incompatible political intentions -- has played a central
role in the way political scientists think about the causes of war
in general and especially the risks of nuclear war.1
In the major
works by historians on the causes of war, however, the whole idea
of
accidental
war
is
either
conspicuous
by
its
absence
or
Works on the "accidental" or "inadvertent war" in political
science include: Alexander L. George (ed.) Avoiding War: Problems
of Crisis Management (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991); Richard
Ned Lebow, Nuclear Crisis Management: A Dangerous Illusion (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1987); Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of
Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution,
1993); Barry R. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1991); Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety:
Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1993); and Thomas C. Schelling and
Morton H. Halperin, Strategy and Arms Control (New York: The
Twentieth Century Fund, 1961).
1
1
explicitly dismissed as conceptually confused and historically
irrelevant.
Indeed, among historians there appears to be a consensus that
there has never been an "accidental war."
Geoffrey Blainey's The
Causes of War, for example, reaches the conclusion that "no wars
are unintended or `accidental':"
The idea of `unintentional war' and `accidental war'
seems misleading.
the
nuclear
age
The sudden vogue for these concepts in
reflects
not
only
a
justifiable
nervousness about war but also the backward state of
knowledge about the causes of war.2
Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press,
1973), p. 249 and p. 144.
2
2
Blainey's position reflects a wide-spread opinion among modern
military and diplomatic historians.
Michael Howard states that
"however inchoate or disreputable the motives for war may be, its
initiation is almost by definition a deliberate and carefully
considered act...if history shows any record of `accidental' wars,
I have yet to find them."3
Bernard
Brodie
similarly
"I know of no war in modern times,"
wrote,
"that
one
could
truly
call
accidental in the sense that it came about despite both sides
having a strong aversion to it, through not seeing where their
diplomatic moves were taking them."4
causes
of
wars
from
1300
to
1985
Evan Luard's review of the
similarly
concludes
that
"throughout the whole period of history we have been surveying it
is impossible to identify a single case in which it can be said
that a war started accidently: in which it was not, at the time
when war broke out, the deliberate intention of at least one party
that war should take place."5
Michael Howard, The Causes
University Press, 1983), p. 12.
3
of
War,
(Cambridge:
Harvard
Bernard Brodie, "How Much is Enough? Guns versus Butter
Revisited," California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy,
Lecture Series No. 56, August 1975, originally cited in Marc
Trachtenberg, "The Past and Future of Arms Control," Daedalus,
vol.120. no.1, (Winter 1991), p. 208. Trachtenberg adds that "my
own sympathies are with Brodie's side of the argument.
As a
general rule, great wars do not break out because of forces
generated from within the military sphere." Ibid.
4
Evan Luard, War in International Society (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1987), p. 232.
5
3
In short, war is conceived by these historians in pure
Clausewitzian terms.
It is a rational tool controlled and used by
statesmen to achieve important political objectives.
Wars do not
begin by accident.
Has there ever been an accidental war?
One purpose of this
essay is to answer "yes" to that specific question: this is an
effort, an "existence proof" if you will, to provide the logic and
evidence that cuts against the historian's consensus.
A broader
purpose of the piece, however, is to provide a better analytic
framework for understanding the phenomenon of accidental war in
general.
What does it mean to say that a war was accidental or
inadvertent?
How should one assess such claims?
The essay has three basic parts.
First, I will define the
concept of accidental war and provide, through use of an analogy
between accidental war and automobile accidents, a typology of
scenarios that could be realistically produce an accidental war.
Second, I will present in some detail an historical example of each
of these types of an accidental war.
Finally, I will discuss the
significance of this concept for our theories about the causes of
war in the past and, unfortunately, in the future as well.
Definitions and Analogies
4
The terms "accidental war" and "inadvertent war" could have
many different meanings.6
Sometimes the terms have been used
rather promiscuously to refer to any war in which such common
factors as misperceptions of an adversary's intent, overconfidence
in crises, imperfect decision-making processes, or miscalculation
of the consequences of war played some role in the conflict.
This
is not helpful: by this loose definition, most wars in history
could be seen as accidental.
More commonly, however, the terms are
used in the literature to refer to the idea that war could break
out, at least in theory, not because it served the basic political
interests of states or statesmen, but rather because of some
unintended consequence of the structure or operations of military
organizations.
The theory of accidental war is therefore based on
the insight that military organizations are, like other complex
organizations and machines, inherently imperfect and therefore
subject to break-downs and accidents.
In this light, professional
military organizations are seen as tools of national security, but
tools that take on a life of their own and are very difficult to
statesmen to control when implementing the state's security policy
Alexander George defines "accidental" war as one that starts
because of unauthorized activities by individuals below the
leadership level in the chain of command, and "inadvertent" war as
one that was authorized during a crisis, even though leaders did
not want or expect a war at the onset of the crisis. Of the three
accidental war scenarios described below, according to this
definition, wars caused by false warnings or loss of control
incidents would be "inadvertent" wars and only unauthorized attacks
would be "accidental." See George, Avoiding War, pp. 8-9.
6
5
in
an
international
crisis.
Could
these
difficulties
in
organizational control be so intense that they could produce a war
even when statesmen on both sides believe that there is "no
fundamental basis for an attack" (to use Thomas Schelling's term7)?
Decisions, Counterfactuals, and Accidents
It is this more narrow conception of accidental war which has
produced the large conceptual gap between political scientists and
modern historians.
As Marc Trachtenberg nicely summarizes the
historian's central perspective:
The professional diplomatic historians as a rule never
paid much attention to the military side of the story.
While military power as such was always seen as very
important, the coming of war was never viewed as the
product of a dynamic that was largely military in nature.
We all took if for granted that war was essentially the
outcome of political conflict.8
But what does it mean to say that a war was "essentially the
outcome of political conflict" and not an accident caused by a
"dynamic that was largely military" in character?
Certainly the
"test" used by the historians cited above to asses the "political
Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 207.
7
Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1991), p. viii.
8
6
conflict theory" and criticize the "accidental war theory" is
inadequate.
In each of their works, the historians have an
exceedingly narrow definition of accident in mind.
For them, the
simple fact that a choice or a decision to use military force was
made implies that some degree of intent existed and that the war
was therefore not accidental.
One should note the language of soft
rational choice at play here.
Blainey, for example, argues that
"there can be no war unless at least two nations prefer war to
peace."9
Howard refers to "a deliberate and carefully considered
act;" Brodie finds statesmen seeing where the diplomatic "moves"
are taking them; and Luard states that war has always been "the
deliberate intention" of one party "at the time when war broke out"
in the discussions quoted above.
This definition of a "non-accidental" war -- that someone
"decided" to initiate the use of force -- is highly misleading.
Indeed,
both
accidental
acts
involved some sort of decision.
and
deliberate
actions
usually
The point can perhaps best be made
through the use of an analogy.
We all recognize that there are such things as automobile
accidents.
Yet,
very
few
car
crashes
would
be
automobile
"accidents" by the historians' logic since individuals "decide" or
"choose" to steer their cars into other objects.
to
9
veer
to
the
left,
instead
of
the
right.
Drivers "prefer"
They
Blainey, The Causes of War, p. 245 (emphasis added).
7
make
a
"deliberate" decision to switch lanes when a car is next to them.
They "see" that they have "moved" into incoming traffic.
They
"intend" to enter the expressway, not knowing that it is a one-way
ramp going in the opposite direction.
Individuals may still make decisions, and may still have
their hands on the steering wheel, but they are involved in
automobile accidents nonetheless.
To continue the analogy, three
pathways to an accidental war can be usefully compared to a kind of
an automobile accidents: accidents can be caused by false warnings
or information, by unauthorized activities, or by loss of control.
In the body of this essay, each of these accident "scenarios" will
be examined in some detail.
What does it mean, from a social science perspective, to call
a war accidental?
For a conflict to be considered an accidental
war, there would have to be some activity or incident inside the
military machine, without which war would not have occurred.
It is
not enough therefore to show that some military accident occurred
and that it was the proximate cause of the outbreak of war; one
must also argue that the war would not have occurred anyway.
This
obviously places the scholar squarely into the problematic world of
counterfactuals, but there is little alternative to such thought
experiments if we seek to understand whether a particular factor
8
played "a very marginal role" or an essential role in causing any
specific historical event.10
To make reasonable judgements in such matters it is essential,
in my view, to avoid the common "fallacy of overdetermination."
Looking backwards at historical events, it is always tempting to
underestimate the importance of the immediate causes of a war and
argue that the likelihood of conflict was so high that the war
would have broken out sooner or later even without the specific
incident that set it off.
If taken too far, however, this tendency
eliminates the role of contingency in history and diminishes our
ability to perceive the alternative pathways that were present to
historical actors.
James D. Fearon, "Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in
Political Science," World Politics vol. 43, no. 2 (January 1991)
and Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin (eds.) Counterfactual
Thought Experiments in World Politics (forthcoming). Also see the
discussion in Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba,
Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1994), pp. 10-11 and pp. 77-78.
10
9
The point is perhaps best made through a counterfactual about
the Cold War.
During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a bizarre
false warning incident in the U.S. radar systems facing Cuba led
officers at the North American Air Defense Command to believe that
the U.S. was under attack and that a nuclear weapon was about to go
off in Florida.11
Now imagine the counterfactual event that this
false warning was reported and believed by U.S. leaders and
resulted in a U.S. nuclear "retaliation" against the Russians.
How
would future historians have seen the causes of World War III?
One
can easily imagine arguments stressing that the war between the
U.S. and the USSR was inevitable.
the
deep
political
hostility
War was overdetermined: given
of
the
two
superpowers,
the
conflicting ideology, the escalating arms race, nuclear war would
have occurred eventually.
If not during that specific crisis over
Cuba, then over the next one in Berlin, or the Middle East, or
Korea.
From
that
perspective,
focusing
on
this
particular
accidental event as a cause of war would be seen as misleading.
Yet, we all now know, of course that a nuclear war was neither
inevitable nor overdetermined during the Cold War.
Has there ever been an accidental war?
In each brief case
study offered below, I will first discuss the type of "accident"
that occurred.
I will then
assess the likelihood that war would
For the details of this false warning incident and other
"near accidents" during the Cuban crisis, see Sagan, The Limits of
Safety, pp. 130-131.
11
10
not have occurred had not that specific military incident taken
place.
Scenario #1:
False Warnings or Faulty Information
The political authorities who decide whether or not to go to
war, must make the choices based upon warnings and information
provided to them by others.
Sometimes this information is false.
If the county road crew placed the wrong signs on the expressway
ramp, leading drivers to enter the road in the wrong direction, an
accident would occur despite the driver having the "intent" to
drive as he did.
Similarly, a statesman who made a calculated
decision to "retaliate" or "initiate" a conflict after having
received inaccurate information that an adversary had already
started or was about to start combat operations, would be launching
an accidental war based on a false warning.
At a tactical level, it is clear that false warnings can
precipitate accidental attacks and individual skirmishes, through a
mistaken belief that the other side has fired or is about to fire
first.
The 1987 Vincennes Incident is a prominent example of an
accidental attack and the Battle of Wounded Knee is a famous case
of a false warning producing an accidental skirmish.12
But such
On the Vincennes Incident see Scott D. Sagan, "Rules of
Engagement," Security Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1991). On the
Battle of Wounded Knee, see Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of
12
11
incidents, however tragic, are not wars.
Has there ever been a war
that was caused by a such false warning events?
The Seven Years War in North America
the American West 1846-1890 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New
Mexico Press, 1984), p. 256-8 and Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul,
and John E. Carter, Eyewitness at Wounded Knee (Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 1991).
12
Perhaps the best example of a major war caused by false
warning incidents is the Seven Years War in North America, commonly
(but inaccurately) known in the United States as "the French and
Indian War."13
Many historians have traditionally viewed the French
and Indian War of 1755 as the inevitable result of British and
French imperial rivalries on the North American continent, with the
immediate political issue at stake being the ownership of the Ohio
Valley.
More recent historical research, however, has shown that
the British and French governments did not place sufficient value
on the Ohio Valley so as to intend to fight a major war over the
territory.
(Indeed, in the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the
French and British had not cared enough about the Ohio territory to
even mention it.14) Instead, the war was the result of a set of
false warnings to the government in London that the French had
encroached upon British colonial territory and thereby threatened
the security of the colonial communities.
Patrice Higonnet's important 1968 study provided the first
sustained argument that the conflict was an accidental war:
As Ian Steele has stressed, the English colonialists
utilized Indian allies as often and with as much effectiveness as
did the French. See Ian K. Steele, Warpaths: Invasions of North
America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
13
Patrice Louis-Rene Higonnet, "The Origins of the Seven
Years' War," Journal of Modern History, vol. 40, no. 1 (March 1968)
p. 60.
14
13
No one wanted to fight this war.
It would never have
occurred if, in their sincere efforts to resolve it, the
French and the British governments had not inadvertently
magnified its insignificant original cause into a wider
conflict.
The coming of the Seven Years' War owes more
to diplomatic misconception efficiently achieved than to
`the course of history.'15
15
Ibid, p. 58.
14
Three
First,
specific
starting
in
false
warning
1753,
Virginia
incidents
sparked
Governor
Robert
the
war.
Dinwiddie
repeatedly sent reports to London and to other British colonial
governors that the French had encroached directly onto British
claimed land and appeared to be planning an attack on Virginia.
In
June 1753, he wrote an official letter to the British Board of
Trade (the body that oversaw the colonial governments at the time)
falsely claiming that ongoing French excursions into the Ohio
valley were part of "an impending French invasion" of the British
colonies.16
Second, the fears produced by this warning were
compounded by the claims of the Earl of Halifax, head of the Board
of Trade, when he reported on Dinwiddie's letter to the cabinet in
London in August 1753.
Halifax claimed that the French had moved
into territory "not more that 200 to 250 miles from the Sea Coast,"
including area inside Pennsylvania territory, which had resulted in
"Your Majesty's subjects having abandoned their settlements in a
great Panick."17
(In reality, no English settlements had been
abandoned
indeed,
and,
Virginian
colonialists
were
so
unenthusiastic about the prospects of fighting the French over
In January 1954, Dinwiddie similarly informed the other
governors that the French in the Ohio were "Invaders of British
Property." Ibid, p. 63.
16
Ibid, p. 64. Also, see, however, see T. R. Clayton, "The
Duke of Newcastle, The Earl Of Halifax, and the American Origins of
the Seven Years War," The Historical Journal, vol. 24, no. 3
(1981), pp. 571-603.
17
15
minor forts on lands far from their settlements that Dinwiddie
later had severe difficulties recruiting colonial soldiers for
military operations there.18)
Given this information, the London
cabinet authorized Dinwiddie to "repel Force by Force" within "the
undoubted limits of His Majesty's Dominions," which Dinwiddie
interpreted to mean anywhere in the Ohio Valley, eventually sending
a small detachment of troops under the command of George Washington
who initiated a skirmish with a small French and Indian force and
retreated to his new base camp, Fort Necessity.19
See James Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics
and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (Columbia, SC: University of
South Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 47-48 and pp. 59-61.
18
Clayton, "The American Origins of the Seven Years' War," p. 584
and Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune (New York: W.W. Norton,
1988), pp. 46-70.
19
16
Fort Necessity was attacked and captured by the French on July
4, 1754.
in
In the mean time, a third false warning incident occurred
Massachusetts
territory,
which
appeared
to
be
independent
confirmation of French intent to invade the British colonies.
In
April 1754, Massachusetts Governor William Shirley reported to
London that the French had made a fort or a settlement on the
Kennebec
River,
territory.
which
was
clearly
inside
British
colonial
This too was painted as a direct threat to the security
of the colonies: if the French are permitted to stay, Shirley
wrote, "there may be a Danger of their soon becoming Masters of the
whole River Kennebeck; which Event would prove destructive to His
Majesty's Subjects within this Province, and greatly Affect the
Security of his Territories within the other Colonies of New
England."20
Although this report turned out to be completely
inaccurate, as the Massachusetts' soldiers found out when they
eventually reached the site of the non-existent French settlement,
the British cabinet and the Duke of Newcastle resolved upon
receiving Shirley's letter and the report of the fall of Fort
Necessity, to take immediate military actions against all French
forces in North America.
British regulars were
therefore
William Shirley to the Earl of Holderness, April 19, 1754, in
Correspondence of William Shirley (New York: Macmillan, 1912), p.
53. Shirley also stressed other potential British interests in the
region, beyond protecting the security of the New England colonies,
noting that along the river there was "a sufficient Quantity of
white Pines to Supply the Royal Navy for more than fifty years."
Ibid, p. 60.
20
17
dispatched to the American colonies in September 1754; the French
and Indian War had begun.
In the final analysis, what was the causal effect of these
false
warning
incidents?
Given
their
conflicts
of
interest
concerning the balance of power in Europe at the time, it is
certainly possible that a war between the French and British would
have occurred anyway in the 1750s, without these events in North
America.
It is also possible, however, that even in the event of a
military conflict between the two powers in Europe, war in North
America could have been avoided altogether or severely limited
between the colonial territories.
What appears clear is that in
1753 neither London nor Paris sought to take complete control over
the Ohio Valley.
Without these false warning incidents, leading to
the major war in 1754, the eventual division of the North America
continent between France and Great Britain would have been settled
by a significantly different set of negotiations and conflicts.
Scenario #2:
Unauthorized Acts
Military forces are large and complex organizations, in which
a significant degree of decentralized decision-making is inevitably
involved.
Decisions by subordinate individuals, if not authorized,
can produce accidents from the perspective of the higher authority.
If one is driving down a crowded highway and one's five year old
18
son grabs the wheel to watch the car bump the pretty yellow bus on
the outside lane, the resulting crash would be an accident from the
driver's perspective even though the child "intended" to turn the
wheel.
Similarly, if an unauthorized action by a subordinate
military commander caused a war, it would be an accidental war from
the perspective of the central authorities.
In the fog of war, many individual battles are started by
unauthorized acts.
This is inevitable given the decentralized
nature of military combat. But have their been wars caused by such
acts?
The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
The 1931 Manchurian Incident, in which Japanese Kwantung Army
units attacked Chinese forces in Mukden and then conquered all of
Manchuria is perhaps the most clear-cut historical example of
unauthorized activities by military officers causing a war which
was unintended and therefore "accidental" from the perspective of
the central political authorities.
Serious disagreements between
senior military officers and leading civilian official over policy
in Manchuria existed in the late 1920s, as Japanese officers often
expressed the desire to take direct military control over the
territory and Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi consistently opposed
such action.
unauthorized
The willingness of the military to act in an
manner
was
heightened,
19
however,
by
the
Imperial
cabinet's approval of the London Naval Treaty in April 1930,
against the strong opposition of the Navy and Army General Staffs.21
In early 1931, senior officers in the Kwantung Army feared that
the Tokyo government might reach a negotiated settlement concerning
rights in Manchuria with the Chinese Government and decided to take
matters into their own hands, "even if it means flouting the mother
country."22
Secret contingency plans for a military conquest of
Manchuria were drafted: Because the Kwantung Army was outnumbered
by Chinese forces in the territory, the plans called for an
overnight take-over of key areas of the south, after a manufactured
bomb incident on the Mukden railroad provided an excuse for such
aggression, to be followed by rapid offensive operations in the
north.23
In the summer of 1931, government officials in Tokyo got wind
of the plan.
The imperial court and elder statesmen urged caution
and the Army General Staff sent a senior officer to Manchuria to
warn the Kwantung officers their against taking such actions.
On
the night he arrived, however, the Japanese Kwangtung Army took
W. G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism: 1894-1945 (Oxford, UK:
Clarendon Press, 1987), p. 190.
21
The quote is from the January 1931 speech of Sada Kojiro to the
Kwantung Army in Port Arthur, as quoted in Seki Hiroharu, "The
Manchurian Incident," in James W. Morley (ed.) Japan Erupts: The
London Naval Conference and the Manchurian Incident, 1928-1932 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 165.
22
23
Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, pp. 191-192.
20
over the city of Mukden, ostensibly to protect the railroad
facilities after an explosion there, and took advantage of the
resulting fighting to attack Chinese military units through out
Manchuria.
There is a virtual consensus in the historical literature that
neither the initial Mukden incident nor the rapid expansion of the
conflict were authorized by the senior members of the Tokyo
government, who repeatedly sought to bring an end to the campaign
in Manchuria against the Chinese forces.24
According to Akira
Iriye, Kwantung "staff officers frequently fabricated crises,
accumulated faits accomplis without obtaining prior endorsement
from Tokyo, and privately complained of the supreme command's
attitude."25
Indeed,
defiance
of
Tokyo's
wishes
went
beyond
ordering unauthorized infantry assaults and bombing attacks; senior
Kwantung Army officers were even rumored at the time to have
boasted that they would declare an independent Manchuria and use it
as a base for a coup-d'etat against the Tokyo government, if their
efforts to conquer the territory were stymied by the central
authorities.26
The best source on the escalation of the conflict is Shimade
Toshihiko, "The Extension of Hostilities," in Morley (ed.) Japan
Erupts, pp. 241-335.
24
25
Akira Iriye, "Introduction," in Japan Erupts, p. 237.
Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's Confrontation with
the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 128,
citing Sadako Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria: The Making of Japanese
26
21
Foreign Policy, 1931-1932 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1964, p. 94.
22
In short, while the war in Manchuria was "intentional" from
the perspective of the senior officers of the Kwangtung Army, it
was clearly "inadvertent or accidental" from the perspective of the
Japanese government in Tokyo.27
Without the unauthorized actions of
the Kwangtung Army, it is likely, though by no means certain, that
the war would have been avoided.
The central government in Tokyo
had no intent to initiate direct military conflict with China at
that time, had strong incentives to avoid the resulting political
conflict with the international community over Manchuria, and had
entered serious negotiations over control of Manchuria.
The fact
that the leaders of the Kwantung Army started the Mukden incident
precisely because they feared that these negotiations would produce
a peaceful compromise over Manchuria is the best evidence that the
war could have been avoided.
Scenario #3:
Loss of Control
Many automobile accidents, and by analogy many concerns about
accidental war, fall under a third general category: the "loss of
Blainey states that this conflict in Manchuria should not be seen
as being an accidental war, since "the war, while not intended by
the Japanese government, was fully intended by the Japanese
Kwangtung army; and the army by its defiance had become in effect
the Japanese government in Manchuria." Blainey, The Causes of War,
p. 144.
This is, however, a tautological argument.
If any
individual or group who orders an attack is "in effect" the
government of the state, then the possibility of an unauthorized
war is eliminated by definition.
27
23
control"
scenario
in
which
individuals
take
a
risky
action,
threatening, but not intending, to produce collision, but that is
what occurs when the individual "loses control" of the automobile.
Imagine two drivers arriving at an intersection at the same time.
Both have an interest in crossing as quickly as possible and both
therefore try to signal the other that they are going first by
immediately
moving
into
the
intersection.
Both
drivers
are
jockeying for position: although neither intends for there to be an
accident, both consciously raise the risks of a crash by continuing
to move forward in an attempt to convince the other driver that he
or she should slow down and stop first.
Once this process begins,
however, it is certainly possible that one or both of them will not
stop in time.
Perhaps one driver's foot slips off the steering
wheel, or there is failure in the brake peddle, or both step on the
accelerator at the same time.
Neither driver intended to cause an
accident, although both accepted, indeed deliberately created, some
risk of a crash when they entered the intersection.
Although variants of this "loss of control" scenario are often
seen in the theoretical and emperical literature concerning "games
of chicken " or "brinkmanship" in international crises, assessing
whether any war that results from such a process should be labeled
as an accidental war is a complex matter.
Just as there can be
numerous reasons why drivers may fail to stop busy intersections,
there may be many reasons why statesmen fail to avoid a war in a
24
crisis.
Different cases can therefore differ significantly in the
degree to which even an unintended "collision" should be considered
accidental in nature.
U.S. tort law takes this into account by
requiring that an assessment be made concerning whether the driver
was
driving
responsibility
recklessly
for
or
reasonably
"unintended
when
accidents."
courts
The
assign
degree
of
negligence, not original intent of the actor, is the issue at
stake: a driver, for example, who had an unanticipated epileptic
seizure or whose brake pads unexpectedly blew out while in the
intersection, is not held responsible for a resulting accident;
while, in contrast, the driver who did not care whether he or she
hit another car, or was drunk, or knowingly drove a car with no
brakes into the intersection would be responsible for the crash.28
The classic discussion is William L. Prosser, Handbook of the Law
of Torts (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1971, fourth ed.) pp. 139187.
28
25
A similar kind of assessment is necessary when determining the
degree to which a war, which was preceded by a statesman's "loss of
control" over his military machine in a crisis, should be conceived
of as an "accidental" war.
This point has not been adequately
recognized in the political science literature on "inadvertent
escalation" and "inadvertent war."
Alexander George, for example,
defines an inadvertent war as "a war that is authorized during the
course of a crisis, even though at the onset of the crisis central
decision makers did not want or expect a war."29
This definition
would therefore include both "deliberate war" cases in which
decision makers changed their positions and actively sought war in
a crisis, as well as more "accidental" cases in which statesmen
felt forced to accept war reluctantly due to their inability to
control events.
Loss of control scenarios are, therefore, best
conceived of as existing along a continuum; some unwanted or
unexpected wars are not accidental or inadvertent in nature, others
are much more so.
At one extreme is the least accidental or
inadvertent case in which the statesmen who instigated the crisis
neither wanted nor expected war, but was perfectly willing to go to
war
if
war
was
deemed
necessary
to
achieve
his
political
George, Avoiding War, p. 8. In contrast, Lebow argues that "when
loss of control leads to war...it does so because of the actions of
subordinates which leaders are unaware or unable to prevent."
Lebow, Nuclear Crisis Management, p. 75. Also see Barry R. Posen,
Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991).
29
26
objectives.
In the middle of the continuum would be a crisis in
which a statesman began to achieve a limited objective short of
war, but unexpectedly accepted war as an alternative outcome after
his actions inadvertantly produced changes the strategic situation
during
the
crisis
itself.
At
the
other
extreme,
the
most
accidental case would be a crisis in which a statesman tried to
back down when confronted with a strong possibility of war, but was
not able to do so successfully because of loss of control over his
state's
actions.
(See
Figure
1-1.)
This
argument
is
best
illustrated by contrasting three international conflicts that range
across this continuum of "loss of control" scenarios: Hitler's war
against Poland in August 1939; the June 1967 Six-Day War in the
Middle East; and the First World War in 1914.
Non-Accidental Accidents: A.J.P. Taylor and WWII
To be added.
Nasser and the June 1967 War
Many studies of the origins of the June 1967 war in the Middle
East focus on the logic of the Israeli decision to launch a
preemptive first strike.
For many years preceding the crisis,
Israel had publicly declared that any closure of the Straits of
Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a causus belli and after a
27
series of provocative actions -- Egypt's military mobilization and
deployment
of
forces
to
the
Sinai
peninsula
on
May
14,
the
expulsion of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the
peninsula on May 18, and finally, the closing of the Straits of
Tiran on May 23 -- decision makers in Tel Aviv became convinced
that an Arab attack was ultimately unavoidable, that military
action
must
be
taken
to
restore
the
credibility
of
Israeli
deterrent threats, and that a preemptive air strike offered the
best chance of military success.30
decision,
however,
fails
to
answer
Focusing on Israel's final
the
more
intriguing
and
important question: why did Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser
take these extremely provocative actions which led to the Israeli
preemptive attack?
Three basic interpretations of Nasser's actions exist: they
can be seen as 1) part of a premeditated plan to precipitate war
with Israel; 2) as a failure of rational deterrence due to the lack
of credibility and strength in Israeli retaliatory threats; or 3)
as the result of crisis actions that spun out of control due to
See, for example, Nadav Safran, From War to War (New York:
Pegasus, 1969); and Janice Gross Stein and Raymond Tanter Rational
Decision Making: Israel's Security Choices, 1967 (Columbus, OH:
Ohio State University Press, 1980).
A useful analysis of
preemptive wars, including the June 1967 war, is Dan Reiter,
"Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never
Happen," International Security, vol. 20. no. 2 (Fall 1995), pp. 534.
30
28
Nasser's inability to manage military and diplomatic operations.
Each interpretation will be examined in turn.31
Maybe add something on why it is impossible to know for sure
which interpretation is correct. Nasser never explained why and he
said different thing to different people.
31
29
First, it is at least theoretically possible that Nasser
deliberately planned for a major war with Israel from the start of
1967: he took these provocative steps believing that they would
likely lead to war and he deliberately goaded Israel into striking
first in order to minimize the risk that the U.S. would intervene
in the resulting conflict.
There is, however, scant evidence to
support such a premeditated war theory.
Nasser's own testimony on
the subject -- he claimed in the May 22nd speech that closed the
Straits of Tiran, for example, that "we had no plan [for war]
before May 13 because we believed that Israel would not dare attack
any Arab country"
-- is supported by all the accounts of other
participants and is widely held by scholars to be an accurate
reflection of his orginal intentions.32
Additional evidence against
the premeditated war theory is the fact that the Egyptian military
budget was significantly reduced in 1966 and 1967, and that onethird
of
the
Egyptian
army
was
stationed
overseas
in
the
intervention force in Yemen at the time, highly unlikely acts if
Nasser's speech is quoted and analyzed in in Safran, From War to
War, p. 272. A detailed discussion of this subject is L. Carl
Brown, "Nasser and the June 1967 War: Plan or Improvisation?" in S.
Seikaly, R. Baalbaki, and P. Dodd (eds.) Quest for Understanding
(Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1991), pp. 119-137. Also
see Richard B. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle
East (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1993), pp. 4144; Dan Schueftan, "Nasser's 1967 Policy Reconsidered," The
Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 3, (Spring 1977), pp. 124-144; and Richard
B. Parker (ed.) The Six-Day War: a Retrospective (Gainsville, FL:
University Press of Florida, 1996).
32
30
Nasser had been planning for a war with Israel in June 1967.33
The second interpretation envisions the June 1967 war as a
classic
failure
of
rational
deterrence
due
to
Nasser's
underestimation of Israeli resolve to follow its threats to attack
if the Straits of Tiran were closed.
Nadav Safran's major study
concludes, for example, that "the most fundamental reason for
Nasser's
decision
to
proclaim
the
blockade
was
the
weakness
manifested by Israel in response to his previous moves."
Prime
Minister Levi Eshkol's efforts during the crisis to reassure Nasser
that Israel was not planning to attack either Syria or Egypt
projected an "appeasement mood," Safran argues, and "encouraged
Nasser to believe that Israel under its current leadership might
not fight."
As evidence, Safran cites Nasser's post-war speech in
which he said (according to Safran) "that he estimated that the
chances of war as a result of the closure of the Gulf at 50 percent
- not more."34
Safran thus concludes that "given this low estimate
of the chances that Israel would respond with war, the closing of
the Gulf had great appeal to Nasser."35
33
The problem with this
See Brown, "Nasser and the June 1967 War," p. 121.
Safran, From War to War, p. 289.
The July 23 speech is
reproduced in Theodore Draper, Israel and World Politics (New York:
Viking, 1968), pp. 238-244. It is not clear from the text of the
speech, however, whether Nasser's statement about a 50% estimate of
war refers to his view of the likelihood of war before he closed
the straits or if he closed the straits.
34
Safran, From War to War, pp. 288-289.
Safran repeats the
argument in Nadav Safran, Israel: The Embattled Ally (Cambridge,
35
31
explanation is that significant evidence exists suggesting that, on
the contrary, Nasser believed that an Israeli attack was highly
likely if the Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran.
Although
participants in the crucial May 22 meeting in which Nasser ordered
the blockade differ on precisely what he said his estimates of war
were at the time, the majority state that Nasser argued that it was
highly likely that ISrael would follow its causis belli statements.
Hussein al-Shafi `i, for example, wrote that Nasser said the
blockade would "increase the expectation of military confrontation
form 80 percent to 100 percent."36
recalled
that
Nasser
told
Anwar Sadat's memoirs similarly
his
advisers:
"Now
with
our
concentrations in the Sinai, the chances of war are fifty-fifty.
But if we closed the Strait, war will be a one-hundred percent
certainty."37
In addition, Nasser himself told the Arab Trade Union
Council on May 26, 1967 that "taking over Sharm el-Sheikh meant
confrontation with Israel.
Taking such action also meant that we
were ready to enter a general war with Israel."
This evidence
MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 395-397. Also see Stein
and Tanter, Rational Decision-Making, pp. 159-160; and John Orme,
"Deterrence Failures: A Second Look," International Security vol.
11, no. 4 (Spring 1987), pp. 119-121.
36
As quoted in Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation, p. 72.
Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: Harper and Row,
1978), p. 172. Mohemmend Heikel, who apparently did not attend the
meeting, however, later wrote that Nasser said the risk of war rose
to 50 per cent if strait was closed. See Parker, The Politics of
Miscalculation, p. 72.
37
32
strongly suggests that Nasser did not believe that an Israeli
attack was unlikely after the Straits were closed; the central
problem was therefore not that the Israeli threat to retaliate
lacked credibility.
The third explanation emphasizes psychological theory, seeing
Nasser's
decisions
as
determined
by
motivated
biases:
he
miscalculated the likelihood of war, believing that it was low
because he had strong incentives to believe so.
This wishful
thinking argument is also problematic, however, given what we know
about Nasser's estimates.
Alternative views are that the believed
that Egypt would win because he needed to believe that.38 The
problem with the second interpretation, emphasizing psychological
distortions, is that it fails to explain why so many in Egypt had
similar assessments of the military situation.
accord
with
accounts
of
what
Nasser
said
It does, however,
both
publicly
and
privately, accepting the risk of war but also believing that it was
better to let Israel strike first, without the Us that to have
Egypt strike first and face the U.S. too.
But what we do not know
is
reflect
whether
such
confident
statements
Nasser;s
true
assessment (supporting Lebow) or his efforts to shore up the moral
of his soldiers (and himself) in a situation from which he felt he
could not safely extradite himself.
another kind of test:
38
Also note possibility of
If Nasser says the same thing (we will win
Lebow and Stein.
33
etc.) publicly and privately, and consistently, this suggests true
belief...if he is inconsistent, it may reflect efforts to shore up
the confidence of others.
This leads to a fourth interpretation: that the war as an
accident.
third explanation: Nasser sent troops into the Sinai to
deter Israel from attacking Syria and ordered a limited withdrawal
of the UNEF to enhance the credibility of his threat.
He did not
want the UNEF to pull out of Gaza or Shaim al Shieck.
Indeed, he
specifically tried to minimize that chance.
He did not know how
inflexible the UN machine would prove to be.
Once he put them there, however, he could not back down
without suffering great loss of prestige in the Arab world and
possible loss of power at home.
It was like the Game of Chicken:
tried to be careful (the UNEF case is clear and even tried to
accept the UN sponsored delay on the Straits confrontation ...see
Draper page 63)
Like teenager who enters intersection...in game of chicken.
could
not
back
down
once
unintentionally by U Thant).
his
bluff
was
called
He
(rather
The organizational component is 1)
the Egyptian failure to make clear that they were only asking for a
very
limited
redeployment,
which
might
have
led
to
a
more
compromising UN position and 2) a more flexible U Thant position
(Nasser misestimated his flexibility)
In short, this is an
accident the way James Dean has an accident in Rebel Without a
34
Cause.
Once he enters into the Game of Chicken his reputation is
at stake, which raises the costs of pulling back.
This is still an
accident,
and
but
only
in
this
limited
way,
one
whose
responsibility still falls on Nasser.
Give scenario: got into intersection to deter car; then had to
crash because bluff was called (could not back down to UN key...)
Accepted crash, did not want it.
audiences.
The comments were for domestic
etc/
The Mixed Case of World War I
The First World War is perhaps the most commonly-cited example
by political scientists of an "accidental war" in the pre-nuclear
era.
A large number of articles and books have analyzed the events
of the July 1914 crisis and a continuing debate has developed
concerning the degree to which German military operational plans,
especially
the
need
to
mobilize
and
strike
promptly,
caused
Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to lose control of the crisis, leading
35
to a war which he had hoped to avoid once it became clear that
Great Britain would enter the war on the side of France and Russia.
Any serious discussion of accidental war must take into
account Marc Trachtenberg's detailed critique of the "inadvertent
war" theory of the causes of the First World War. "The most
remarkable thing about all these claims that support the conclusion
about events moving `out of control' in 1914 is how little basis in
fact
they
actually
have,"
Trachtenberg
Trachtenberg is only half right.
concludes.39
Yet
One common argument made by
political scientists about World War I as an accidental war -- the
"failure
to
accurate.
turn
the
trains
around"
story
--
is
simply
not
The other argument, however -- that military pressures
prevented the "Halt in Belgrade" plan from succeeding -- is more
accurate.
Each will be discussed in turn.
Stopping the Trains
A common view of the origins of World War I stresses that it
was an accidental war because of the rigidity of the Schlieffen
Plan, which prevented the German military from fighting against
Russia only.
story.
This view is based almost entirely upon the following
On August 1, after German mobilization had begun, the
Berlin government received a message from their ambassador in
London which suggested that Great Britain would remain neutral, and
39
Ibid, p. 99.
36
might
guarantee
French
neutrality,
if
Germany
refrained
from
attacking France and limited the war to an eastern campaign against
Russia.
Kaiser William was elated at the news, ordered champagne,
and told General von Moltke, according to Moltke's memoirs, that
Germany should "simply deploy in the east with the whole army" and
attack Russia:
I assured His Majesty that this was not possible.
The
deployment of an army of a million men was not a matter
of improvisation.
It was a product of a whole years work
and, once worked out, could not be changed.
If His
Majesty insisted on leading the whole army eastwards, he
would not have an army ready to strike, he would have a
confused
mass
of
disorderly
armed
men
without
commissariat.40
Moltke's memoirs as quoted in Albertini, Origins of the First
World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), vol. 3, p. 172.
40
37
According to the commonly repeated version of the story, the
Kaiser reluctantly had to back down when confronted with the
stunning rigidity of the German war plan.
Richard Ned Lebow's
version is typical: "Moltke, supported by the other members of the
general staff, held firm and the Kaiser relented."41
Many other
political scientists have argued that it was Moltke's unwillingness
to change the rigid German mobilization plans that produce an
inadvertent war, not sought by the Kaiser.42
Joseph Nye notes, for
example, that despite Moltke's claims, "after the war, General von
Staab of the railway division of the German army admitted that it
might have been possible after all to have altered the mobilization
schedules successfully."
Nye, therefore concludes, that "had the
Kaiser known that and insisted, there might have been a one-front
war."43
Henry Kissinger similarly argues that the Kaiser had built
"a military doomsday machine," insisting that the German army's
Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of
International Crises (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1981), p. 236.
41
To be fair to political scientists, one should note that serious
historians also have repeated the false ending to the incident.
James Joll, for example, argues that the Kaiser "was obliged to
learn the limits of his power (when) Moltke told him that this was
impossible." James Joll, The Origins of the First World War (New
York: Longman, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 25.
Also see Arden Bucholz
Moltke, Schlieffen, and Prussian War Planning (Providence, RI:
Berg, 1991), pp. 311-312 and Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the
Prussian Army: 1640-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955).
42
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Understanding International Conflicts (New
York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 68.
43
38
rigid plans caused the conflict because they prevented William
"from mobilizing only against Russia."44
Yet the story as told here is simply wrong in the final, and
most critical, detail.
It was Moltke who relented, not the Kaiser.
As Moltke's memoirs make clear, William gave direct orders that no
German troops attack across the borders in the west and permitted
the
planned
mobilization
there
to
continue
only
after
being
informed that the army, after full mobilization the west, could
wheel around and move east toward Russia if necessary.45
the whole episode was of little consequence.
Moreover,
Within hours, Kaiser
William received a telegram from King George stating that Grey's
message
had
somehow
reflected
"some
misunderstanding:"
Great
Britain could not guarantee French neutrality if war broke out
between Germany and Russia and would not, itself, likely remain
uninvolved if France was attacked.46
William therefore immediately
summoned Moltke, handed him King George's telegram, and said, "now
you can do as you will."47
Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1994), p. 216.
44
45
See Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, pp. 58-59.
46
Albertini, The Origins of the First World War, vol. 3, p. 176.
Ibid, p. 177 quoting Moltke's memoirs. The "misunderstanding,"
however, was rooted in a momentary panic on Grey's part. See Ibid,
pp. 380-386.
47
39
In short, the episode in no way shows that war was an
accident, in the sense of being caused by military plans forcing
the hands of the politicians.
Moltke and the Austrian Rejection of the Halt in Belgrade Plan
A second explanation for WWI as an accidental war, however, is
more complex and more accurate.
It focuses on the causes of the
failure of Bethmann-Hollweg on July 30th to get the Austrians to
stop their planned large-scale attack on Serbia and, instead,
accept a limited operation, attacking and taking Belgrade.
The
"Halt in Belgrade" plan was independently devised by both Sir
Edward Grey, and Kaiser William.
Again, Trachtenberg is the
strongest analysis, but on this point he is wrong.
Bethmann
originally did not support the idea, for example telling the
Austrians to agree to discuss it only to avoid impressions of
belligerence.
On July
, however, after Bethmann became
convinced that England was likely to enter the war, he strongly
urged the government in Vienna to accept the Halt in Belgrade plan
to avoid what now would clearly be a world war.
Thus, at 2:55am on
July 30th he informed the Austrians that because England would join
the
Triple
Entente,
it
was
imperative
that
Vienna
accept
settlement:
As a result we stand, in case Austria refuses all
mediation, before a conflagration in which England will
40
a
be against us; Italy and Roumania to all appearances will
not go with us, and we two shall be opposed to four Great
Powers.
On Germany, thanks to England's opposition, the
principal burden of the fight would fall.
Austria's
political prestige, the honour of her arms, as well as
her just claims against Serbia, could all be amply
satisfied by the occupation of Belgrade or of other
places.
Balkans
She would be strengthening her status in the
as
well
as
humiliation of Serbia.
in
relation
to
Russia
by
the
Under these circumstances we must
urgently and impressively suggest to the consideration of
the Vienna Cabinet the acceptance of mediation on the
above-mentioned
honourable
conditions.
The
responsibility for the consequences that would otherwise
follow would be an uncommonly heavy one both for Austria
and for us.48
Bethmann to Tschirschky, July 30, 1914, Document 395, Outbreak of
the World War: German Documents Collected by Karl Kautsky (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1924), p. 344.
48
41
A few minutes later Bethmann sent a second telegram to Vienna to
reenforce the message urging them to halt at Belgrade: "We are, of
course, ready to fulfil the obligations of our alliance, but we
must decline to be drawn wantonly into a world conflagration by
Vienna, without having any regard paid to our counsel.49
Throughout
the day, Bethmann continued to pressure the Austrians, finally
cabling Vienna at 9pm to "urgently advise that Austria accept the
Grey proposal, which preserves her status for her in every way."50
General von Moltke, however, opposed the Halt in Belgrade plan
and at 2pm on July 30th sent for the Austrian military attache and
undercut Bethmann's efforts.
The message that von Moltke sent to
Vienna urged immediate mobilization and the rejection of the Halt
in Belgrade plan:
Moltke says he would regard the situation as critical
unless the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at once mobilizes
D.D. 396, in Ibid, p. 345 (emphasis added). The seriousness of
Bethmann's desire for the Halt in Belgrade is also seen in his
private conversations. As he confided to Kurt Riezler on July 28,
unless the Austrians made concessions, "(we) will be completely
dragged in by Vienna. This I do not want even at the risk of being
accused of cowardice." Reizler diary, August 15, 1914, as quoted in
Konrad H. Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and
the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1973). p. 170.
49
D.D. 200, as quoted in Geiss, July 1914, p. 305. Bethmann told
Goschen on July 31 "that he was pressing the button as hard as he
could and that he was not sure whether [the] length to which he had
gone in giving moderating advice to Vienna had not precipitated
matters rather than otherwise." Goschen to Grey, July 30, 1914. BD
no. 329, as quoted in Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 173.
50
42
against Russia.
Russian publication of the order to
mobilize creates necessity for counter-measures on part
of Austria-Hungary, this to be indicated in the public
proclamation.
Germany.
This would give the casus foederis for
Bring about honorable arrangement with Italy by
assurances of compensation to keep Italy in the war on
side of Triple Alliance, be sure to leave no troops on
the Italian frontier.
Reject renewed English demarche
for maintenance of peace.
Last means of preserving
Austria-Hungary is to fight out (durchhalten) a European
war.
Von
Germany with you unconditionally.51
Moltke
then
reenforced
this
message,
by
sending
another
directly to Conrad again urging rejection of the compromise plan:
Stand firm against (durchhalten) Russian mobilization.
Austria-Hungary must be preserved, mobilize at once
against Russia, Germany will mobilize.52
The Vienna government was thus getting strongly conflicting advice.
As Berchtold exclaimed when he read both messages on the morning
of July 31st, "Who actually rules in Berlin, Bethmann or Moltke?"53
The
Vienna
government,
thus
reenforced
against
the
51
Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 673 (emphasis added).
52
Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 673.
53
Joll, The Origins of the First World War, p. 18.
43
Halt
in
Belgrade, therefore rejected the compromise plan and opted for
total mobilization and war.
Trachtenberg emphatically rejects the idea that the incident
shows that war was inadvertent, making two arguments against it.
First, he insists that there is no good proof that "Moltke was
overstepping
his
own
authority,
since
the
authorized his messages to the Austrians."54
Kaiser
may
have
Second, he insists
that Moltke's action "could hardly be viewed as a cause of war:" it
had "no practical effect" since the messages were submitted to the
Austrian leaders on the morning of July 31 "after the Austrian
decision for general mobilization had been made."55
Trachtenberg is on shaky ground with both arguments.
First,
while there is no direct evidence, one way or the other, on whether
the Kaiser even knew of Moltke's actions, there is one very strong
indirect piece of evidence that suggests that he had not approved
Moltke's bellicose messages to Vienna.56
William himself sent a
message to Emperor Franz Joseph at 7:15pm on July 30th urging that
he accept the Halt in Belgrade proposal "to the effect that, after
occupying Belgrade or other places, Austria should make known her
54
Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 89.
55
Ibid, p. 89. Here Trachtenberg is following Ritter, p.
When directly asked, after the war, whether he had approved
Moltke's message's to Conrad, Kaiser William pointedly declined to
answer, presumably so as not to have to have to accuse Moltke of
direct insubordination. See Albertini, The Origins of the First
World War, vol. 3, pp. 12-13.
56
44
terms."57
The existence of this message, sent after Moltke's
messages urging the opposite, seriously undercuts the notion that
the Kaiser might have secretly authorized Moltke's efforts to get
Austria to reject the compromise plan.
Second, Trachtenberg is wrong to argue that the Austrian
government had already decided to reject the Halt in Belgrade plan
prior to Moltke's intervention.
What the leaders of the Vienna
government had done on the evening of July 30th was make a
tentative choice in favor of war, but they explicitly had to
revisit the decision the next morning -- once the Imperial War
Council including Count Stefan Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister,
could be gathered together -- before submitting the military
mobilization proclamation to the emperor for his final signature.
It was in this context that Moltke's intervention had its effect,
pushing the Austrians forward and encouraging them to ignore the
frantic, last-minute pleas of Bethmann.
Indeed, Berchtold referred
to the Moltke messages when he began the crucial meeting with
Conrad and Tisza on July 31:
57
DD 437, in German Documents, p. 371.
45
I have sent for you because I had the impression that
Germany was beating a retreat; but now I have the most
reassuring
pronouncement
from
responsible
military
quarters.58
It was only after this meeting in Vienna on the morning of July
31st that the final decision to reject Bethmann's Halt in Belgrade
efforts
was
made.
General
Moltke
had
Bethmann's diplomacy on the brink of war.
undercut
Chancellor
In this light, it is
hard to disagree with L. C. F. Turner's assessment that "Moltke's
intervention on the afternoon of 30 July constitutes one of the
most significant developments in the constitutional history of the
German
empire,
and
foreshadows
the
military
dictatorship
of
Hindenberg and Ludendorf in 1916-18."59
How should one assess this event?
analogy
would
contradictory
one
with
advice
by
a
student
two
Perhaps the best accident
driver
instructors.
being
From
given
very
Bethmann's
perspective, the failure to stop the Austrian mobilization was an
accident: he lost control of his military machine.
Does this mean that World War I was an accident.
The answer
depends on whether one believes that the growth in Russian military
power after 1914 would have eliminated the perceived possibility of
58
Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 674.
L. C. F. Turner, "The Role of the General Staffs in July 1914,"
The Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. XI, no. 3,
(December 1965), p. 316.
59
46
a successful German preventive war.
Ironically, to the more one
accepts the Fritz Fisher thesis that Germany sought to strike
before the Russian buildup was completed in 1916, the more one can
imagine a persistence of peace if war was avoided until that date.
Beyond the Nuclear Divide
NOTE TO READERS: MY DRAFT ENDS HERE.
In the final version, I plan to discuss how the nuclear revolution
and the end of the Cold War influence the likelihood of accidental
war.
Add
point
re
Airbags.
Key
variable:
offensive
plans
(military) unauthorized use (military); and loss of control (civilmilitary ) etc.
47