Why was Germany not to blame for WW1?

 The first world war or properly the Great War 1914 to 1945 as the armistice was just a necessary pause in hostilities, has been poorly served by historians even to this day.  You must understand that the convulsion itself was a powerful reaction against the developing economic dispensation that in itself was inevitable.

The first four years served to wash away centuries of inherited privilege for England, Germany, Austria, and Russia.  It also put paid to French imperial dreams as well and started the British Empire on its last generation.

The losers were forced to accept American help and by extension American ascendance over further international dispensations to which the USA had been hopelessly irrelevant in 1914 when a quarter of the USA economy was owned by British interests.

All that led to the rise of the American century itself.

Anyway the first war was caused by Russian ambitions in particular and Serbian recklessness.  This forced an enthusiastic France into the pending conflict.  It was never caused by Germany who had all they wanted in terms of borders and who fully understood they had zip to gain and much to lose.

The ultimate inexcusable folly was the participation of the British Empire. They had exactly one strategic interest in Europe which the Germans were willing to freely cede to them as noted below.  Had they stood back the Western war would have truly ended quickly enough considering it would have been limited to the south German front and would have been a deliberate short advance.  No Von Molkte rushing out into the open country. 

A history continuing to be dominated by the British empire with a strong central European hegemony would only have slowed the emergence of the USA.  Yet a lot of critical what ifs also do not happen.  Several of those were huge including the reeducation of China into modernity and the non emergence of an Japanese oriental empire based on an aggressive expansionist philosophy that was not going to end well... .
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Why was Germany not to blame for WW1?

Jeffery Bailey, former Unit Historian (1991-2008)

Upvoted by Chris Harz



https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Germany-not-to-blame-for-WW1

Simply because Germany tried everything, at every turn, to stop the spread of the war. For instance, Germany tried desperately to dissuade Russia from mobilizing. We now know that Russia was the first power to mobilize, even before the Austrian deadline to Serbia had expired. Russia wanted this war to achieve Pan-Slavism, which is more accurately described as Pan-Russianism, and, implicitly, the Russian domination of Europe. The Russians did not give a darn about Serbia. But Russia did want Austria’s territory. Despite Germany’s best efforts, Russia expanded the war.

Now, turn to England. Germany offered England Belgian neutrality, in return for English neutrality. The British Foreign Minister, Lord Grey, refused to consider the offer. Germany then offered to guarantee the integrity of French territory, colonial possessions, and to forgo reparations from the French, just to keep England neutral. For a second time, Grey refused.

Finally, England was given the true blank check in WWI, and asked by the German Ambassador Lichnowski to name their price for remaining neutral in the coming war. Lord Grey, for a third time, dismissed the offer. Grey then lied to Parliament and denied that these offers had ever been made, Within a week England was at war with Germany to “Protect” Belgium, which truly could have been protected with a head nod by Grey.


AUSTRIA HUNGARY & THE START OF WW1



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SERBIA'S INSTIGATION OF THE WAR

AUSTRIA AND THE ALLIES

http://www.kukww1.com/serbias-instigation-of-the-war.php

 

The Franz Ferdinand that many historians don't want you to see: Smiling, laughing, and getting along famously with Romanian farm families in the Carpathian Mountains, 1912


As we are well into the centennial of the First World War, a clear, unbiased view of how the war started is vital, not only to our understanding of our history, but, hopefully, to help avoid a similar future calamity.
Unfortunately, historians have neglected the opportunity to review the facts from a fresh perspective, relying on secondary or tertiary sources, to parrot Allied propaganda. They are guilty of the most reprehensible sin an academician can commit - "The Unquestioned Premise".

Instead of seeking the truth, a new generation of scholars have trudged in the hopelessly befuddled footsteps of A J P Taylor and Barbara Tuchman, and pointed a dubious finger of blame for starting the war at Austria-Hungary. Of course, this is a extraordinarily convenient argument for these historians, since Austria-Hungary is the only major European power, that did not survive the war as a nation-state. As the British humorist Saki put it, they are "Falling in with that excellent rule of life, that the absent are always to blame.

This website is dedicated to challenging this complacency. Its very purpose is to question the unquestionable, and sacrosanct premise.
 
However, it is easy to imagine that the reader, at this point, is dismissing this website and its historically heretical thesis as so much balderdash. So the presumptuous author offers you, the historically inclined reader, a challenge. Pictured below, is the very first weapon used in World War One. If you can identify it, by nomenclature and country of origin, you are almost certainly extremely well read and informed on the start of the First World War, and may depart for EBay, YouTube, and places unknown. If you cannot identify it, however, perhaps you can spare a few minutes, read further, and learn the truth about the start of the First World War.

Well, to alleviate the reader's suspense, the innocent looking olive drab, oblong, oil can shaped object is a grenade - The model M-12 (for 1912) Vasic/Kragujevac Grenade, manufactured by and exclusively for the Royal Serbian Army. Notice the Vasic's peculiar, asymmetrical shape. It was obviously designed for concealability over over explosive effectiveness on the battlefield. Yet, the M-12, or the almost identical 1903 Vasic grenade, figured prominently in almost all the violence in the Balkans in the decade preceding the start of the First World War. Serbian backed terrorists were armed with Vasic grenades when they tried to overthrow the King of Montenegro, in 1907. Serbian guerillas, or Comitadji, used them with cowardly and bloodthirsty effect against Turkish and Bulgarian troops and civilians in the two Balkan Wars of 1912 & 1913. This anonymous explosive is becoming interesting, isn't it?


What is really interesting is that in the attack on Franz Ferdinand, on 28 June 1914, the seven Serbian assassins were equipped with 6 of these Royal Serbian Army issued hand grenades, among other weapons. Nedeljko Cabrinovic actually threw one of these Vasic grenades at Franz Ferdinand in the first, but unsuccessful, assassination attempt that morning. Since the assassination of the Austrian Archduke was the catalyst which started World War One, this was unarguably the first weapon used in that war. So, you would think that you would have been taught about this, in school, shown it in museums, et cetera.
 
But, what is really really, really interesting is that every English speaking historian writing about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, or the start of World War One, universally call this weapon a "bomb" - never a hand grenade - but always a "bomb". Historians know, or reasonably should know, or are manifestly incompetent and malfeasant if they don't know about the Vasic grenade. It is clearly identified in the annex of the Austrian Demarche of July 23rd, 1914. But they insist upon calling it a "bomb". Hmmmmm - very interesting indeed.
 

Illustrative of the aggressively belligerent mind-set of the Allies, is this British cartoon from 1914. 

The English and French mistakenly believed that all they need do is hold the Central Powers at bay until the Russian steamroller crushed their enemies. Not exactly pacific in nature, is it? Worse, it didn't work out that way for the Allies. {Bad Show, Old Chap}

Having established that the Austrian-Hungarian Empire had an undeniably perfect right, under international law, to declare war on the regime in Serbia, it remains only to examine the Allied interference in that war, which changed a minor regional conflict into the catastrophe that was the First World War.

On the eve of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Serbian Prime Minister Pasic, lamented, "All our allies and friends of Serbia, if they knew what our officers and sergeants are doing, would not only abandon us, they would stand on the side of Austria-Hungary and allow her to punish her restless and disloyal neighbor”. As it turned out, Pasic, needn't have worried. The Allies, in the end, did not care what the Serbians did, so long as it gave them an excuse for the war that the Allies wanted.

RUSSIA

With regards to Russia, Serbia was not a noble cause, a little Slavic brother which needed to be protected at all hazard, but a sad excuse to feed Russian desire for conquest. In the decade before the war, Russia repeatedly disregarded Serbian vital interests. Just as an example, in 1908, out of the blue, the Russian foreign minister promised to support Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia, to gain Austrian support for Russian access to the Mediterranean. The Serbs were hoping, at the very least, for a partition of the province, to gain ethnic Bosnian Serbs for their kingdom. But were Serbian interests and ambitions of the slightest concern to St. Petersburg? Heck, No!Three years later, In 1911, the Russians were again bartering away Serbian interests for their own benefit. They offered the Ottoman Turks a protective alliance against Serbia and the other Balkan states, again, in return for opening the Bosporus to the Russian. The Turks turned them down, wisely, but regrettably. The sight of the Russian troops fighting Orthodox Serbs, to defend the Muslim Ottomans, would have been, in the words of the credit card company, "priceless".

What the Russians were “protecting”, when they declared war on Austria-Hungary, was their 40-year-old dream of Pan-Slavism. This philosophy, which is more aptly called Pan-Russianism, envisaged all of the Slavs in Europe living together, under a single government with one language, one religion, one Tsar, et cetera. Coincidentally, the benevolent and selfless Russians were eagerly desirous of imposing, ...er, supplying their absolute monarch, their language and their religion to their poor, deprived Slavic brethren to the west, whether these recipients desired this beneficence or not. And to get what they wanted, the Russians needed a war, and, more to the point, an excuse to start a war. Enter the Austrian-Serbian conflict.

But, as the cartoon above indicates, Russia's interests went far beyond just conquering more Slavic lands. Russia would have done anything to get access to the Mediterranean. {They still will do anything to get that access, as events in Turkey, over the next few years, will show.} You have just read about the deals Russia tried to make, at the expense of Serbia, to get that precious nautical access. And so, when the opportunity presented itself in 1914, Russia secretly mobilized its troops against Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire and began offensive operations against all three countries. The telling point about the Ottoman Empire is that it didn't even border Serbia in 1914, and thus, could be no menace to the Serbs. They weren't, at that moment, even allied with Austria-Hungary. Therefore, it is extraordinarily difficult to suggest that the Serbs were the object of Russian interests, as the Tsar's ministers essentially started World War One, by attacking three nations. Serbian interests were only a means to an end.

So forget about saving Serbia. Russian self interest was, is, and always will be, the sum total of Russian interests and the only purpose of Russia's actions.

FRANCE

FRANCE

Going back to Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia, the whole affair was a disaster for the Russians. In early 1909, Austria and Serbia were on the brink of war over the Bosnian annexation, with the Serbs expecting the Russians to support them. Desperate to hide their betrayal of Serbian interests, the Russians turned to their main ally, France, for assistance. In response, the French government, point blank, told the Tsar that Russia's vital national interests were not involved in the matter. The Russians were not amused by this rare display of Gallic common sense, and immediately set about purchasing influence in the French Government. Rubles flowed through the Champs de Elyse like so much burgundy wine. French parliament members and newspaper editors were thus "convinced" to manifest a hard-line against Vienna and Berlin. Most importantly, the election of the radical warmonger, Raymond Poincare was achieved with these Russian Rubles. Of course, Poincare did not personally need to be bought of, himself. As France's most rabid advocate of war and "Revanche" against the Germans, he seized the opportunity presented by the Austrian Serbian conflict to expand it into war with Germany, without any financial enticement.

When Russia mobilized against both Austria and Germany, in late July 1914, President Poincare knew very well that France had no obligation to mobilize in support of Russia. The 1892 Entente agreement, as parodied above, required France to aid Russia only if the Austrians or Germans initiated a general mobilization against Russia, first. In this case, the Russians clearly had mobilized first, and the French clearly knew this. As for Serbia, France had no obligation at all, treaty or otherwise.

If Poincare, under these circumstances, had referred the question of war to the French parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, he quite possibly might have lost the vote, outright. He certainly would have lost the initiative against the Germans. However, Poincare, under his own authority, circumvented the French constitution and bypassed the Chamber of Deputies, to get the war which he wanted.

Note, that the French did not send an expeditionary force to aid their little ally, the Serbs , the alleged object of their concern. {That came much later, and only to keep Serbia in the war to serve allied political and military purposes.} No, the French immediately attacked into Alsace-Lorraine, which, for them, was their only real objective in the war. It was also the only objective they envisaged when they entered the alliance with Russia in 1892. Thus, other than a plausible excuse, Serbia was of no consequence to France.

So, to save Serbia from the Austrians, France attacked Germany to retake the obviously "French" cities of Metz und Strassbourg. Certainement!

ENGLAND

The Benevolent British Empire at its Best

The worst offender, the greatest villain, the vilest transgressor of the peace, however, was England. 

They were, at that time, the most powerful, and certainly, the richest nation on earth. One third of the planet was oppressively ruled in their pan-global empire. The gold and diamonds of South Africa, the rubber and oil of Burma, cotton from India and Egypt, all fed England's industries, bloated her coffers, and purchased her huge navy. If England wanted peace, there would be peace. If England wanted war, there would be war.

Don't believe me? Well, on August 1, 1914, the German ambassador to England, Prince Lichnowski, presented England's Foreign Minister, Lord Grey every possible opportunity to stay out of the war. 

Lichnowski offered a guarantee of Belgian neutrality in return for English neutrality, only to be rejected. {Please note, that this would be England's excuse for entering the war, later in the week}

Then Lichnowski sweetened the deal by stating that Germany would not annex any French territory, take any French colonies, or demand any reparations from France, if England would reciprocate with a pledge of neutrality. Lord Grey again rejected the offer. Finally, the German Ambassador did his William Shatner-Priceline impression and invited Lord Grey to name his own terms to secure British neutrality. Now, that is what a diplomatic "blank check" looks like! At that point, again, Grey refused to make any counter-offer, saying that he felt "obliged" to refuse to make any promises for England to remain neutral.

Facing all three allied nations in an unprovoked war, the Germans felt that they were left with no other option than the desperate gamble to try and knock France out of the war, before the allies could mount a coordinated attack on the German Empire from all sides. The necessities of geography and military science compelled Germany to attack into Belgium. This, in turn, permitted Lord Grey, Prime Minister Asquith, and their little minion, Winston Churchill, to plunge England into a world war, and kill a million British subjects in defense of Belgian neutrality, which Grey could have secured with a simple head nod.

 


AUSTRIA HUNGARY AND THE ALLIES

The final topic that needs to be addressed is Austria Hungary's relationship to the Allies. The day the Austrians declared war on Serbia, the foreign ministries in St. Petersburg, Paris and London had all received the solemn pledge from Vienna, that Serbia would remain an independent country, and that the Austrians would not take one square inch of Serbian territory. In 21st century parlance, Austria's war aim was simply regime change, nothing more. So the Allies can hardly be said to be saving Serbia, if Serbia was guaranteed its existence and its territorial integrity, by Austria, after the war between the Serbs and the Austrians came to an end!

Some historians have suggested that Austria never intended to keep that pledge. That is an utterly ridiculous contention. Let's not consider the great expense and internal political turmoil that the annexation of Serbia would cost Austria Hungary. If they violated this pledge, the Austrians would have committed one of Professor Oppenheim's international delinquencies. This would have given the Allies the perfect excuse to launch the world war that the pledge was intended to prevent. So you could bet your last Kronen and Heller {Austrian Hungarian equivalents to dollars and pennies) that the Austrians weren't about to annex one square inch of Serbian Territory.

Since each of the Allies had absolutely no reason to enter the war, and yet, did so anyway, all that remains to demonstrate is their "mens rea" -- their intention and knowledge of wrongdoing which manifested itself in their crime of waging an offensive war. In other words, what were the motives of the Allies in breaching the peace. Well, we have covered half of the motive, already. To recapitulate, the Russians wanted conquest: to rule, with an iron fist, every Slav from Dubrovnik to Danzig, from Bratislava to Vladivostok. Just as a tiny bonus, the Russians also wanted access to the Mediterranean. The French wanted "Revanche": revenge for their humiliating defeat in 1870 against the Prussians, in a war that, oh, by the way, the French started. They also wanted to steal back the German speaking provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, which France originally invaded and subjugated in the 1630's. Finally, England feared Germany as an industrial and colonial rival, so she wanted to destroy Germany by force, while she could, rather than peacefully compete against her rival.

The other part of the motive is simply that the Allies horribly, mistakenly, tragically miscalculated. They all firmly believed this was going to be a cakewalk, as you saw from the cartoon at the top of the page. They looked at the swift Austrian defeat by the Prussians in 1866, as being caused by fundamental political instability rather than the significant, transient technological advantage that Prussian breach loading rifles had over Austrian muzzle loaders. Further, the Allies misinterpreted the Austrian's previous refusals to resort to war in the Balkans, despite repeated provocations, as a sign of Austrian weakness. They believed their own propaganda that Austria Hungary was about to fall apart. The Allies were sure that the Austrians would fold up like a cheap zeltbahn {tent}. Austria would gone in 6-8 weeks,tops, and then the Germans would have to face the allied powers alone.

Can you say, "Oops"?

Two and one half years after the Allies started their war, the French Army was in full mutiny, and the Russian Army was disintegrating. Meanwhile, despite incompetence in their general staff and having to fight a four front war, the Austrian Hungarian Army was still in the field. Not only that, but the Austrians, with their German allies, were in Belgrade and Bucharest. Later, in 1917, they would push into Ukraine and Northern Italy. Not exactly what the Allies expected. In short, Austria Hungary outlasted Tsarist Russia, and if not for the misguided intervention of the United States, would have outlasted France and Italy, leaving England deservedly alone to face the Central Powers.

So, where is the evidence for all of this? Where is the proof? Where are the citations? They are in my paper, in the PDF document, attached below. Students, particularly, will find an exhaustive supply of facts and citations, herein, to irritate their doctrinaire, obdurate, and inflexible history professors.

This concludes your trip back to the Summer of 1914. Please keep your hands and arms inside the website, until it comes to a complete stop. For one last time, I do wish to thank you for the kindness of reading my webpages, and, possibly, my paper. Please consider, once more, tweeting, liking and sharing this website.



THE ASSASSINATION IN SARAJEVO, SERBIA, PRINCIP, AND WAR WITH AUSTRIA HUNGARY
HOMESERBIA'S INSTIGATION OF THE WARAUSTRIA AND THE ALLIES

The real question of the justice of Austria Hungaria's war against Serbian basically devolves to the old Watergate question - What did the Austrians know, and when did they know it? Well, as it turns out, they knew a great deal.

What you see, below, is the Browning Model 1910 semi automatic pistol manufactured by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. {Observe, the identifying, fancy FN on the top of the grip of the pistol.} The murderer, Princip, used an identical pistol, serial number 19074, to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.

This is far much more information than almost any PhD bearing historian, writing on the start of the First World War, could or would provide. Most of those over-paid, over-lettered, ding dongs call this a revolver. - Do you see anything that revolves on this firearm? It was, in actual fact, a state of the art,magazine fed, semi-automatic pistol.

OK, so the historians can't correctly identify the pistol used in the assassination. So what does that matter, in the great scheme of things? PLENTY!

Imagine your a police detective, working at your desk in Sarajevo, late Sunday morning, June 28th, 1914. Your work is interrupted as two Gendarmes, in full dress uniform, burst into the station house, dragging in the dirty, greasy, slimy little rodent of a man, which you see below. They shove him into the chair before you, and the senior officer slams down the most modern, most expensive pistol being made in Europe at the moment - the FN 1910. The Gendarmerie sergeant tells you that the prisoner just shot the Archduke with it. Over the next few days, five more conspirators are arrested, three more identical pistols are seized, and your evidence room starts to look like a Fabrique Nationale display table at a Paris firearms exposition. As a detective, you note that the serial numbers were almost sequential, 19074, 19075, 19120, and 19126, pointing the dullest person toward the conclusion of a batch purchase of arms by a single, well-funded source. One question, one singular contradiction, taunts you as a detective, like nothing else could.

Where in the devil did these dirty, shiftless indigent loafers get their hands on four IDENTICAL, EXPENSIVE, batch purchased, brand spanking new, coveted Browning semi-automatics?

Now, you begin to see the import of the pistols.

Gavrilo Princip - Playboy, Financier, Gun Collector and Man About Town {Sarcasm intended}

Fortunately, our friend, above, is the first successful hybrid of a bird and a mammal, being a cross between a rat and a stool pigeon. True to his avian nature, he started singing a very pretty little tune for the Austrians. Within four days of their arrest, Princip and the grenade thrower, Cabrinovic, had told the Austrians authorities all about their little friends in the Serbian Government.

Both admitted to getting the pistols and 150 Dinars in cash support, in Belgrade, from Major Tankosic of the Serbian Royal Army. They both said Tankosic introduced them to a Serbian bureaucrat named Milan Ciganovic, who trained them in shooting and who provided the grenades. Next, Tankosic, pictured below, sent them to another Serbian Army Major, named Popovic, who provided fake identity papers to permit the assassins to cross the border into Austria-Hungary. Finally, a Serbian border guard captain whose name Princip couldn't quite remember, actually smuggled the assassins across the border. (Who can blame Princip's faulty memory? This dizzy little affair has more Serbian government officials running around in it than the cast members of a Shakespearean tragedy.)

Major Vojislav Tankosić, Royal Serbian Army ( Dirty deeds done dirt cheap )

Now, we could discuss how Tankosic's boss, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, was the Chief of Military Intelligence for the Serbian Army, and was the man who actually approved the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. We could mention how Dimitrijevic was the leader of the Black Hand Terrorist organization, to which, all those nice little Serbian officials, listed above, belonged. We could also discuss how, in 1913, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described the Black Hand as an secret organ of the Serbian government, not an independent terrorist organization, committing atrocities for the benefit of the Serbian Army - in essence the black operations group of the Serbian government.

All this is true, but we are limiting ourselves to what the Austrians actually knew in July 1914. So far, we have the murderers with Serbian Dinar's in the pockets, Serbian grenades and Serbian provided pistols in their hands, and the names of complicit higher ranking Serbian officials on their lips. You'd think that would be enough........ But wait, we have more!!!!!

Just days before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Serbian ambassador to Austria Hungary, Jovan Jovanovic, met with the Austrian Finance Minister, Count Leon Bilinski, in Vienna. Almost as an afterthought, Bilinski was also the civil governor of Bosnia. The Serb recommended that the Archduke not travel to Bosnia, because this might stir up unrest. Jovanovic suggested, purely as a hypothetical example, that a young Serb might try to shoot the archduke. If something like that occurred, the ambassador concluded, Serbia could not be held responsible for any resulting complications. Count Bilinski thanked the fussy Jovanovic for the honor of his visit, all the while secretly regretting the loss of his own time away from the imperial account books. Surely, the count must have reasoned, if the Serbians knew anything concrete, they would contact the the Austrian Foreign Minister, the Prime Minister, or even the Kaiser instead of throwing out a vague, misdirected hypotheticals. Naturally, after the assassination, this interview was viewed with a great deal of suspicion in Vienna.

Further, we now know that the highest officials in the Serbian government, including Prime Minister Pasic, knew of the assassination plan, and the involvement of Serbian officials, before it occurred. Now, you might very well suggest that the Austrians couldn't possibly have known what was being discussed in high government offices in Belgrade. That would be true, except for one problem. Leaving aside the apparently psychic Ambassador Jovanovic, and the reasonable Austrian skepticism thereof, you have big mouthed Serbian officials to deal with.

Yes, that's right. Serbian ambassadors in Russia and France were regaling St. Petersburg and gay Paree with the story of how their country had warned the Austrians of the impending assassination. Those heroic narratives raised valid questions, such as how can you warn someone of an attack, if you have no knowledge of it? And if the Serbian government had such knowledge, why didn't they communicate a clear warning to the appropriate officials in Vienna? -Hmmmm. The point of these embarrassing questions was not lost on Belgrade, and within days of the assassination, Prime Minister Pasic flatly denied of the existence of any warning or pre-knowledge of the crime - nice try, but just a bit too late for the critical thinker.

This point was not lost on Vienna. With evidence mounting and Serbian tongues wagging in foreign capitals, the Austrian Ambassador to Serbia, Baron Giesl, asked the Serbian Foreign Minister Slavko Gruic, for an investigation into the obvious Serbian origins of the crime. The Serbian reply was an official, abrupt and abject refusal to do so. The Austrians would repeatedly ask the Serbs to conduct an investigation into the Serbian origins of the assassination over the next ten days. All these requests were met with refusal and contempt.

So, here is a summary of what the Austrians knew, a week after the assassination.

1. Serb ambassadors in three capitals, {Vienna, Paris and St. Petersburg}, tacitly admitted pre-knowledge of the attack.2. All of the weapons came from Serbia, and most were manufactured in Serbia, for the exclusive use of the Serbian Government.3. The assassins implicated, by name, higher Serbian officials in the assassination plot.4. The Serbian Government absolutely refused to investigate the crime. Why is this significant? Because all this was known within one week after the assassination, July 5th, 1914. That is the day when the Germans gave the Austrians the now famous, aledgedly "blank check". I don't know about you, but that little old check looks very well filled in to me, completed, as it was, with Serbian acts of war and flagrant violations of international law. This will be detailed below.

A contemporary illustration of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Serbian agent Princip

If you have ever read, or, if, in future, you ever read, any "scholarly" book on the subject of Franz Ferdinand's assassination and the July 1914 crisis, you may absolutely rely upon a certain uniformity in these writings, at least in the English language. One, the Vasic hand grenades will be called bombs. Two, the Serbian Government provided pistols, courtesy of Major Tankosic, will be inaccurately described, most likely as revolvers. Three, the standards of international law will never be mentioned, at all, vis a vis Austria Hungary, the assassination, and Serbia. While I do not necessarily wish to impugn any individual's motives in the last omission, I cannot help but observe that It is much easier to justify cheating if no one is allowed to see the rule book.

Which brings us to the standards of international law in 1914, and to the late, great professor Lawrence Oppenheim. Doctor of Jurisprudence, the Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge University, and, by naturalization, a subject of the British Realm. The second edition of his masterpiece, “International Law, A Treatise”, was published in 1912, and was the latest word in this field of study. (it still is highly regarded, and may be downloaded as a pdf from https://archive.org/details/internationallaw01oppeuoft )

Professor Oppenheim divided his work into small sections, each being a few paragraphs in length. So, I refer the reader to Sections 149 through 164, which is intensely applicable to the Austrian - Serbian Conflict. To begin with, in § 151, he provided the reader with a definition of an international delinquency, which is a grave injury committed by the government of one country, against another, through violation of an international legal duty.

Oppenheim, in § 155, stated that is impossible to list all the different intentional delinquencies, and then he provided a few examples, just to prove his point. A State, in this case, Austria Hungary, may be injured— by an unjustified intervention {in its internal affairs}, a violation of its frontier; or the disrespectful treatment of its leaders. Well, killing leaders of a neighboring nation would generally qualify as interfering in that country's internal affairs. Sneaking assassins across a boarder is undeniably a violation of the frontier. Allowing that shooting a man dead is disrespectful treatment, I think we have a trifecta of intentional delinquencies in the Sarajevo assassination.

Oppenheim then breaks down the responsibility that a nation state bears when an international delinquency occurs. This is based primarily upon the intent of the government of the country from whence the delinquency eminated. An original responsibility arises from the intentional action of a government and its agents, and is more serious. A vicarious responsibility comes from unauthorized injurious acts of a country's citizens or resident aliens.

To repair a vicarious responsibility, a country only has to fix the wrong done, as best as it can, and punish the wrongdoers. If a country does that, then the matter is generally considered resolved. However, if a country, like Serbia, refuses to find and punish the wrong doers, it commits an international delinquency, and its responsibility is upgraded from vicarious to original responsibility. In simpler terms, if a government refuses to investigate a crime, which originates in its territory and injures another state, it becomes a willful party to that crime, such as, oh, I don't know, maybe – THE ASSASSINATION OF ANOTHER COUNTRY'S LEADERS!

Finally, as if Professor Oppenheim was looking at Serbia, in 1914, through a crystal ball, in § 164 he wrote, “International Law imposes the duty upon every State to prevent as far as possible its own subjects, and such foreign subjects as live within its territory, from committing injurious acts against other States. A State which either intentionally and maliciously or through culpable negligence does not comply with this duty commits an international delinquency for which it has to bear original responsibility.” Simply put, Serbia willfully and intentionally violated its duties under international law, and, in the most generous description possible, became an accessory after the fact to the the assassination.

Professor Oppenheim, as you would expect, provided us with the consequences of the Serbian criminality, obstruction of justice and international delinquency in § 156 of his book. "The only rule which is unanimously recognized by theory and practice is that out of an international delinquency arises a right for the wronged State to request from the delinquent State the performance of such expiatory acts as are necessary for a reparation of the wrong done. What kind of acts these are depends upon the special case and the DISCRETION OF THE WRONGED STATE. When the delinquent State refuses reparation of the wrong done, the wronged State can exercise such means as are necessary to enforce an adequate reparation. In case of international delinquencies committed in time of peace, such means are reprisals (including embargo and pacific blockade) AND WAR as the case may require." (as you may well guess, the bold facing, italicizing and capitalizing of words are added for effect and are not from Oppenheim's original text.)

For an entire century, Allied apologists have sniveled that the Austrian terms, which brought the two countries to war, were unreasonable. This was the Allies flimsy excuse for intervention, in the Austrian Serbian war, which the allies escalated into World War One. I could spend three days explaining how all this is balderdash, and how mild the Austrian terms really were. But, as you have just read, the Austrians, as the injured party, did not have to meet other nations' definitions of reasonable terms. The terms were up to Austria Hungary's discretion - "the discretion of the wronged state". They had the right to name such terms, which would expiate the demonstrable, multitudinous wrongs committed by Serbia. When Serbia rejected its last opportunity to remedy the international delinquencies it had committed, on July 25, 1914, Austria had the absolute, sovereign right to seek remedy by force of arms.

On the next page I will deal with the reasons why the Allies interfered with the Austrian Serbian war. The take-away from this page, however, is that the Allies had no legal right, whatsoever, to interfere in that war. Austria Hungary's war against Serbia was legal, justified and nobody else's business.

Please click on one of the two links below to continue. You can go back to the home page or forward to the Allies role in starting World War One. I only wish to thank you, again, for taking the time to read this webpage. Please consider liking us, below, as well.

Austrian-Hungarian reservists defending their country - late1914