Why is WWI seen so negatively compared with WWII?

[jluetjen]

But even in WWI Germany and Austria were certainly very different than the Allies, they were correctly labeled as autocratic regimes run by a pre-modern aristocratic elite. They certainly weren't as extreme as the fascists later were but they pretty much thought exactly the same way as the fascists did. For example the Kaiser was largely supportive of Hitler and vice versa. Nazi Germany was also relatively mild prior to WWII compared to Soviet Russia.

Imperial Germany had an expansionist colonial program, I understand this is downplayed on the grounds that other countries were doing the same thing. Yet Nazi Germany's expansionist program has always been treated as proof of a desire for world conquest despite there being absolutely no evidence. Again, why the double standard?

I'm not sure if the numbers support your conclusions. First off -- your comment about the Kaiser and Hitler is out of place since they took place after the end of WWI. In 1913 nobody could even have conceived of the impact that Hitler (and Stalin, Tojo, etc) would have on the world. You claim that Imperial Germany was expansionist -- compared to what? The only valid comparison is to Imperial Germany's contemporaries -- Great Britain, France and even "little" Belgium -- all had vast colonial empires. Germany came very lately to the colonial game and only managed to acquire 4 colonies in Africa starting in 1884, and a few more small territories in Asia.

If you compare the militaries of the 5 major combatants in 1914 as they stood in 1913, the picture is also not a clear cut as many would have you believe.

1913.pdf

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Neither Germany's Army nor Navy is the largest of the major countries that would go to war in 1914. That honor rested with Russia and Great Britain respectively. The total of man under arms (combined Army, Navy and wartime reserves) as a percentage of the total population was also less than both France, Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1913. In hindsight it's common to dismiss Russia's military might as being a shadow of what the numbers suggest, but in 1913 the future weaknesses were not yet known. But even if you took Russia's army out of the numbers, and Great Britain's navy likewise out of the numbers, you still have the Entente's military power being greater than the combined Germany and Austria-Hungary.

So while the Allied propaganda portrayed Germany as the bulked up military dominated bully in 1914, the numbers don't actually support that view.

[Attrition]

I think you put that rather well, there is always the sound of a very large dog not barking in discussions like this. What was the death toll inflicted by the west European and transatlantic "democracies" (actually military dictatorships) from say 1900-1945? Extrapolate backwards to the empire-building rather than maintaining era in the C20th and the C20th empire-builders like Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt and Mao look like amateur Johnny-come-latelys.

[South]

Good morning Jluetjen,

Re: [Russia] "future weaknesses were not yet known";

Fair enough and I understand your context and syntex. Yet, here for the "historical view", do want to mention that these weaknesses were discussed and studied, especially in the US. The big event was the Ru-Japanese War of 1904-05. Since the conflict was close to US territory (the Phillippines), it was an "I&W", an Indicator and Warning.

The Ru-Ja War of 1904-05, coupled to the "Sailors' Revolt" of 1905, allowed for US planners to prepare thick reports for the US political establishment.

Note that it was General Douglas MacArthur's dad, General Arthur MacArthur, who was the US observer at the Ru-Ja conflict.

This conflict was given much study especially when compared to the Balkans' skirmishs and Morocco events.

Warm regards,

Bob

[South]

Good morning Attrition,

May I ask you to clarify the empire-builders from the empire-maintainers. Not sure how you're cataloging and comparing this.

Re Russia; A favorite reference of mine is "Journey to the End of the Russian Empire" by Chekhov.

FDR continued the 19th century US acquisitions (We Americans hate colonies and favor insular possessions plus other arrangements.)

Mao was working on irredentist issues: their "Unequal Treaties". The rest would be semantics.

Warm regards,

Bob

[wm]

Marx considered British rule in India in his day a progressive force, not for any especially high-minded reason but simply because it was better than the petty, incompetent despotisms it replaced.
l once had a lesson from Jawaharlal Nehru on the flexible, matter-of-fact fashion in which this subject should be regarded.
l asked him what, in his view, would have been the optimal date for the British to have departed India.
He responded with a convincing show of indignation by asking what business they ever had being there in the first place. I reminded him that P. C. Mahalanobis, the noted statistician and a scholar whose credentials as an Indian nationalist were not in doubt, had said that for at least a hundred years the British in Bengal were regarded as Iiberators.
Nehru relaxed, smiled, and said that they should have left after the First World War.

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Voice of the Poor: Essays in Economic and Political Persuasion

[Attrition]

Good morning Attrition,

May I ask you to clarify the empire-builders from the empire-maintainers. Not sure how you're cataloging and comparing this.

Re Russia; A favorite reference of mine is "Journey to the End of the Russian Empire" by Chekhov.

FDR continued the 19th century US acquisitions (We Americans hate colonies and favor insular possessions plus other arrangements.)

Mao was working on irredentist issues: their "Unequal Treaties". The rest would be semantics.

Warm regards,

Bob

Greetings

The respectable westenders built their slave empires from the mid-C15th, the French, English/British and British/Americans from the C18th, so to compare their crimes with the C20th empire builders, means looking at them during equivalent periods of empire-forming. The costs to colonial subjects of their subjection to France, Britain and the US in the C20th were substantial but a matter of demographic attrition more often than the sheer bloody murder of the building periods. The Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists and American liberals only really got started in the C20th so we shouldn't damn them for their crimes without damning the respectables for the same crimes just because they were in the past.

Clearly there were some differences for the Tsarists/Stalinists and the American constitutionalists, because their colonies were contiguous to the metropole, rather than being across the Irish Sea or the Indian Ocean, until the C20th but the intentions and methods weren't. The more I study these things the more generic states seem, whatever their overt ideology; it's why I became an anarchist.

Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld by James Belich

and

First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation by Avner Offer

are rather interesting on overseas empires and the fighting power of western states but not so good on the effects on the colonial untermenschen (sic).

[Attrition]

Marx considered British rule in India in his day a progressive force, not for any especially high-minded reason but simply because it was better than the petty, incompetent despotisms it replaced.
l once had a lesson from Jawaharlal Nehru on the flexible, matter-of-fact fashion in which this subject should be regarded.
l asked him what, in his view, would have been the optimal date for the British to have departed India.
He responded with a convincing show of indignation by asking what business they ever had being there in the first place. I reminded him that P. C. Mahalanobis, the noted statistician and a scholar whose credentials as an Indian nationalist were not in doubt, had said that for at least a hundred years the British in Bengal were regarded as Iiberators.
Nehru relaxed, smiled, and said that they should have left after the First World War.

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Voice of the Poor: Essays in Economic and Political Persuasion

Of course, Nehru was a member of the boss class, he wasn't too vulnerable to being one of the average of 1 million Indians who died of famine each year in the late C19th, under enlightened British rule. Did Galbraith ask any working-class or peasant Indians what they thought or only the heirs of the petty incompetent despots? On that point, they can't have been that petty or incompetent, because it took the Asiento and the Navigation Acts to smash Indian manufacturing industries in the C17-18th and to deprive Spanish and Portuguese slavers of their monopoly to protect those nice progressive, civilised English slavers and mill-owners.

[wm]

They weren't that bad, the incompetent despotisms they replaced wouldn't do this:

The British government wrote the first modern codification of responses to famine during its occupation of India. The highly detailed Indian Famine Code of 1883 classified situations of food scarcity according to a scale of intensity, and it laid out a series of steps that governments were obligated to take in the event of a famine. The code continues to influence contemporary policies, such as food-for-work programs and what the code called “gratuitous relief” for those unable to work.

Despite the development of many detailed antifamine programs, famines have persisted. One reason for this is that until the 1980s the underlying causes of most famines were poorly understood. Despite some awareness to the contrary through the ages, there has been an overwhelming tendency to think that famines are primarily caused by a decline in food production. The result has been that famines that are not accompanied by such shortages are usually not recognized as famines until well after they have occurred. The Bengal famine of 1943, for example, was greatly worsened by the government’s failure to declare a famine and thereby secure the official responses that would have been dictated by the Indian Famine Code.
Famine

Anyway as I understand it, the main killer there was/is the caste system, and it was a local invention.

[South]

Good afternoon Attrition,

Understand your perspective; appreciate clarification.

Some specific comments:

It's really "subjective" to call the empire building "crimes" - especially mid 15th century. The environment and current "culture" of the time allowed for this. My view would invoke example of the American duel.....probably inherited from UK.....as being a legal and socially acceptable event; not a crime like it is today. Ditto that Western Civilization story in Genesis re killing the first born. Prior to the story, it wasn't illegal.

Also not that sure to say UK in the Emerald Isle and the US in the Panama Canal Zone and Phillippines was predominently "demographic attrition".

Actually, I'd argue that the Czars had many island colonies, eg the Aleutian Islands .

Again, appreciate clarification.

Warm regards,

Bob

[jluetjen]

Good morning Jluetjen,

The Ru-Ja War of 1904-05, coupled to the "Sailors' Revolt" of 1905, allowed for US planners to prepare thick reports for the US political establishment.

Note that it was General Douglas MacArthur's dad, General Arthur MacArthur, who was the US observer at the Ru-Ja conflict.

This conflict was given much study especially when compared to the Balkans' skirmishs and Morocco events.

Good points. I agree that Russia was understood to not be as strong (or maybe a better phrase would be "militarily successful") as their numbers suggested. Professional solders from both sides in that era certainly studied each of the wars of the late 19th century to try to learn what the latest trends were. On the flip side, Russia was considered to be a bit of a "developing country" by the end of the 19th century. While it's institutions were certainly out of date and it was lagging France, Britain an Germany in instituting democratic reforms, they were taking steps in that direction. The economy was also growing, even though there continued to be a large class of "poor". In many respects not a whole lot different from China in the late 20th century.

Circling back to the starting question of the thread -- I think that WWI is viewed negatively exactly because of the vast ambiguity of the whole thing. In WWII, the Japanese/German/Italian regimes were clearly, and unredeemingly BAD. Roosevelt and Churchill were inspite of their faults clearly good -- and Stalin for a time could be whitewashed since he was on our side.

In WWI, The Germans and Austrians were not significantly worse cultures than the French, Belgian, British and Russian cultures -- even though propaganda had a remarkably effective impact on the perception. But at the end of the day -- they have kings, we have kings. They have colonies and we have colonies. Everything about WWI was more ambiguous -- from the start to the finish. That makes a lot of peoples' heads hurt, so they avoid it. For some of us, it makes the situation all the more interesting, but I suspect that we are in the minority.

That's my $0.02.

[Attrition]

~~~~~It's really "subjective" to call the empire building "crimes" - especially mid 15th century. The environment and current "culture" of the time allowed for this. My view would invoke example of the American duel.....probably inherited from UK.....as being a legal and socially acceptable event; not a crime like it is today. Ditto that Western Civilization story in Genesis re killing the first born. Prior to the story, it wasn't illegal.~~~~~

I'm not sure that this is enough to exculpate people. Even if you restrict moral judgements to those associated with the "Judaeo-Christian tradition", the moral bases of criticism of these crimes (sic) were established long before they were committed and were part of the reason why people condemned the perpetrators at the time and eventually abolished and/or criminalised the behaviour. Various popes condemned slavery long before the Mansfield Judgement for example.

~~~~~Circling back to the starting question of the thread -- I think that WWI is viewed negatively exactly because of the vast ambiguity of the whole thing. In WWII, the Japanese/German/Italian regimes were clearly, and unredeemingly BAD. Roosevelt and Churchill were inspite of their faults clearly good -- and Stalin for a time could be whitewashed since he was on our side.~~~~~

I think it's more to do with the return of Volkskrieg as described by Moltke the Elder after the French gig 1870-1871. All the boss classes made apocalyptic claims against their opponents and the fate of society if the war was lost and the new dawn of prosperity if it was won. The extent of Axis crimes against humanity weren't widely known until after the war and those of the westenders are still shrouded by ignorance (except among the victims).

[South]

Good morning Jluetjen,

Well received.

Yes, we're in the minority.

Warm regards,

~ Bob

[CJK1990]

Good morning Jluetjen,

The Ru-Ja War of 1904-05, coupled to the "Sailors' Revolt" of 1905, allowed for US planners to prepare thick reports for the US political establishment.

Note that it was General Douglas MacArthur's dad, General Arthur MacArthur, who was the US observer at the Ru-Ja conflict.

This conflict was given much study especially when compared to the Balkans' skirmishs and Morocco events.

Good points. I agree that Russia was understood to not be as strong (or maybe a better phrase would be "militarily successful") as their numbers suggested. Professional solders from both sides in that era certainly studied each of the wars of the late 19th century to try to learn what the latest trends were. On the flip side, Russia was considered to be a bit of a "developing country" by the end of the 19th century. While it's institutions were certainly out of date and it was lagging France, Britain an Germany in instituting democratic reforms, they were taking steps in that direction. The economy was also growing, even though there continued to be a large class of "poor". In many respects not a whole lot different from China in the late 20th century.

Circling back to the starting question of the thread -- I think that WWI is viewed negatively exactly because of the vast ambiguity of the whole thing. In WWII, the Japanese/German/Italian regimes were clearly, and unredeemingly BAD. Roosevelt and Churchill were inspite of their faults clearly good -- and Stalin for a time could be whitewashed since he was on our side.

In WWI, The Germans and Austrians were not significantly worse cultures than the French, Belgian, British and Russian cultures -- even though propaganda had a remarkably effective impact on the perception. But at the end of the day -- they have kings, we have kings. They have colonies and we have colonies. Everything about WWI was more ambiguous -- from the start to the finish. That makes a lot of peoples' heads hurt, so they avoid it. For some of us, it makes the situation all the more interesting, but I suspect that we are in the minority.

That's my $0.02.

Is that really true though? Based on my own research, even before the war broke out people in the U.S. and U.K. had quite a negative opinion of Imperial Germany. Sometimes that's explained away by economic competition but it seems to me that there was really something about German culture that they really did not like.

[CJK1990]

Oh my god,

you realy want to say that Nazi Germany was objectively speaking not much different than Imperial Germany?

I think you have not much clue about german history!

Where and when had Imperial Germany an expansionist program other then GB, France, Italy, USA, Japan and Russia. Where was the Imperial Germany expansionist program at Europe, proved by primary sources, before September 1914?

Where were the racist campaigns and laws at Imperial Germany?
Where were the pursuits with real consequences for the political opposition at Imperial Germany?
Where were the ethnic pursuit at Imperial Germany?
Where were the concentration camps at Imperial Germany?
Where were the Nürnberger laws of 1935 at Imperial Germany?
Where was the euthanasia program at Imperial Germany?
Where was the proscription of political parties at Imperial Germany?
Where was something like the Röhm coup (1934) with something about 200 killied political opposition members at Imperial Germany?
Where was something like the Night of Broken Glass at Imperial Germany?
etc.

Do you heard about the general men election right for the Reichstag at Imperial Germany, which was a more democratic election then the elections at GB?

Atrocities? They were probably no different, but unlike imperial Germany Nazi Germany had to face various partisan movements which encouraged them to resort to atrocities more often.

This sentence is so rediculous, if you look at the atrocities of Nazi Germany at Poland and UdSSR, that it dispense every base!

OK but if they were really so different why did the main players in Imperial Germany, pretty much everyone from the Kaiser on down, enthusiastically support Hitler's regime?

Of course the Nazis were far more extreme. But the authoritarian mindset was really not that different. The Nazis just took it further.

Belated response, sorry.

[jluetjen]

Good morning Jluetjen, ...


Is that really true though? Based on my own research, even before the war broke out people in the U.S. and U.K. had quite a negative opinion of Imperial Germany. Sometimes that's explained away by economic competition but it seems to me that there was really something about German culture that they really did not like.

I'm curious on what you based that conclusion. Could you share some specifics?

I can't really speak to the situation in the UK. But at the turn of the 20th century Germans constituted the largest ethnic group in the US, largely due to a large (and ongoing) immigration into the US after the US Civil War. Like any large immigrant population, they were sometimes viewed with some negativity by those who were here before them because of their "unusual" traditions. You know - Beer Gardens, exercise clubs and things like that. But prior to 1914 I'm not aware of many negative stories about Germany appearing in New York Times or other newspapers. There was also a thriving trans-Atlantic trade on German shipping lines. Generally I've found Germany to be treated similarly in the pre-WW1 US press to the other European countries. Even after the war started, the arrival of the German commercial submarine "Deutschland" in New London and New York seems to have be warmly received.

None of these things support a conclusion of widespread dislike for Germans or Germany.