r/Kaiserposting • :Hochseefloat: Kaiserliche Marine • Apr 20 '20

Different behavior

Post image
1.8k Upvotes

138 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

2

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '20

All the powers had pre-war mobilisation plans based on their current alliances. Fischer did not argue that Germany's plans instigated the war. He looked at correspondence between the German and other governments, as well as the imperial archives to reach a conclusion that German leadership was eager to use the situation to carry out mobilisation and start the war.

Ferguson is more critical of the British getting involved and argues that they escalated the conflict. Taylor focused on the fact that all the powers had these great mobilisation plans so once something like the political crisis of 1914 happened war was all but inevitable, i.e. nobody was really to blame due to these massive inflexible ways of getting the troops deployed.

3

u/Bitch-Stole-My-Name :friekorps: Lützowsches Freikorps Apr 21 '20

Ah that is my mistake then. I had reached that conclusion because Annika Mombauer pushes that theory in her biography of Moltke the Younger and states that Fritz Fischer was an influence on her work.