Session 13: What Goes Around Comes Around

"The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War" by Stephen Van Evera offers an exciting and a unique perspective on the onset of the First World War. This article focuses not only on the days before the war started but also offers an insight on the mentality of the involved leaderships and some of the technological advances that took place in the years leading up to the war. The invention of automatic sub-machine guns, its effect on strategies of war and the build up of "preemptive action mentality" as the primary method to subdue a plausible aggressor are all taken into account by Evera whilst discussing the causes of the First World War.   

Evera argues that the Great War was, simply put, a result of the manifestation of aggressive mentality. In his article he quotes many military and civil leaders, alike, supporting the need for proactive actions to ensure the survival and expansion of states' boundaries. Giving the example of  the German leadership, Evera argues that a growing aggressive and offensive war making strategy seemed to be the best option for the Germans. He also cites statements from the leaderships of the Central Powers and the mobilization of militaries by the Russians and the French in favor of the increasing and unflinching perception, developing in Europe, that "hit first and hit hard" was the best way to deal with a crisis. Evera calls this perception "The Cult of the Offensive". For the author, all other reasons put aside, this set of beliefs was the foundation stone upon which basis of the First Great war were set.       

Keeping Evera's arguments in context and analyzing the events that actually led to troops on either side of the war engaging on battle fronts, the connection between mentality and actions becomes very clear. The growing sentiment among the German population to ensure Germany's "survival by expansion" and the mobilization and deployment of forces on their borders with Germany by the French and Russians  were all the result of this offensive view. Had the German leaders not instigated their people to believe that Germany will perish if it does not extend its borders and the bordering nations not deploying troops to counter this sentiment, the war could have been prevented all together. However, the German's, it seems fell prey to their own mentality. It was their aggressive and preemptive behavior that led to the counter by the Allies later on in the war. Ironic as it may seem, Germany ended up losing a large part of the territories they managed to capture in the war and they were more or less the same in the post-war period as they were before it.