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10 November 2013
Remembrance Day Lecture by Margaret MacMillan
- Commemorating the end of World War I -
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The Great War; the end of the peace and making peace again.
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am most grateful to the mayor for that very generous introduction and I would like also to give
thanks to the Flemish Peace Institute, Ypres, the City of Peace, and the In Flanders Fields
Museum for making this lecture possible.
The 100th anniversary of the Great War is approaching and in 2019 we shall have another
anniversary, that of the Peace Conference which tried to put a shattered world back together
again. It is a good time therefore to reflect on those years and the world that followed them.
Let us hope that we can do so in a truly international way, not searching for blame but trying to
understand how this great continent could have so damaged itself and the world in the 20th
century. And what lessons can we draw from that for the 21st century?
You may well ask how can an historian help in this process. While I believe firmly that history
can be a great help to us in dealing with the present, I do not believe that the past can offer
clear lessons or blueprints. Events never repeat themselves exactly: the times and the players
are different. Moreover you can find any lesson you like in the past and people frequently do in
order to justify what they are doing in the present. Having said that, I think that history and
historians can be useful in a number of ways.
To begin with history can provide greater understanding, of the issues that face us, of others,
and of ourselves. It is impossible, it seems to me, to understand such conflicts as the ones
between Palestinians and Israelis without knowing how each people has been shaped by its past
experiences and memories. Where Israelis remember the founding of the state of Israel in 1948
as a moment of hope after the horrors of the Holocaust, Palestinians remember it as the nakba,
the catastrophe. The past casts a long shadow over the present and if we fail to take that into
account we are depriving ourselves of tools for understanding.
History can also help challenging dangerous myths and arguments for example that nations
such as Germany and France are doomed to fight each other as was widely believed in both
countries before 1914. It can also make us look more carefully at ourselves. Canadians, and I
am one, like to think of ourselves as kindly, gentle, tolerant and peace-making people. I ask
how many of you have ever seen a Canadian ice-hockey game. There you will see quite another
side of us.
History also aids us in formulating questions about the present by bringing to our attention
similar situations, trends, assumptions or events. We need good questions if we are to have any
hope of analysing complex issues in the present and finding solutions. More, history can
provide warnings that if we behave in certain ways we should expect certain consequences.
Think of it as being like the signs on roads that warn drivers of floods ahead or of dangerous
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curves. If the British and American coalition that went into Iraq in 2003 had studied the history
of that country they would have known that Iraqis, of whatever ethnicity or religion, have good
historical reasons to distrust foreigners who want to meddle in their affairs and to suspect that
what outsiders really want is to get their hands on Iraq’s oil. It was only after the uprisings
started that British and American commanders started to study the example of the British who
had run into similar problems in the 1920s. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, that classic on the
Middle East by T.E. Lawrence, suddenly became required reading. Nor would the political
leaders in London and Washington have been so confident in their ability to build a functioning
democracy in Iraq if they had grasped how Saddam Hussein had destroyed so many of its
institutions of civil society.
Let me call your attention to another warning the past can give us. War and peace are not polar
opposites but they reflect their societies and deeply influence them; tensions always exist
between the forces tending to war and those pushing for peace. War can creep up on us by
accident. We can mistakenly think that we can successfully bluff or bully others. We assume,
often wrongly, that we know how others will react or think. Robert McNamara, the American
Secretary of Defence in the early stages of the Vietnam War, who spent his life after he left
office trying to understand where he, the administration and the United States had gone wrong,
once said: ‘Our misjudgements of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the
history, culture, and politics of the people in the area and the personalities and habits of their
leaders.’ We can allow crises to develop until it is too late to stop a catastrophic sequence of
events.
That brings me to the outbreak of the First World War. This is an endless subject of debate; it
has been estimated that there are some 30,000 works on it in English alone. This year several
new studies have come out including one of my own. Why I am dealing with such a wellexplored subject again? It is partly because historians have still not been able to reach a
consensus on the war’s causes and I suspect that they never will. It remains a great historical
puzzle. One of the reasons for that is that there are so many possible causes from national
rivalries to the arms race to human error. Yet we must not therefore think that it was bound to
happen. I do not believe that we should ever assume that things in human affairs are inevitable.
That is a counsel of despair.
There is another reason why we find the outbreak of the war so fascinating. If we don’t
understand how it happened, could we also get into a war without meaning to, perhaps even by
accident? The situation in the world today is not unlike that before 1914. We too are seeing
shifts in the international order with some powers rising and others declining. The United
States may be in the position the British Empire was then—as a hegemonic power which has
dominated the world and much of its trade feeling challenges from new and often brash
powers. In its time Britain faced competition from Germany, Russia and the United States as
well as Japan in Asia much as the United States does today from China, India or Brazil. Now as
then the world has its trouble spots where local tensions or rivalries have the potential to drag
in larger powers. In 1914 the Balkans were dangerous; today it is Syria or the South China sea.
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We are living as well in a great age of globalization which is drawing the world together in a
number of ways including trade and investment, rapid and efficient communications and mass
movements of peoples. We tend to assume that this can only have beneficial effects, that the
closer we become, the greater the harmony and understanding. Yet that other great period of
globalisation in modern history—the decades before 1914—should give us second thoughts.
Before the First World War the reaction to globalization helped to heighten nationalism and
spurred and imperial rivalries .
Take the example of Germany and Great Britain. They were each other’s greatest trading
partners. There were many family ties starting with the royal families. The two peoples shared
values; in both countries a majority were Protestant for example and in those days religion was
still a powerful force in European societies. They admired each others’ learning; in 1914 four
British cabinet ministers had been educated in Germany and German Rhodes scholars and
others came to Oxford and the other British universities. Yet a naval race, fuelled by growing
nationalism in both countries, produced a gulf between them. Britain ended by drawing closer
to its old enemies of France and Russia and Europe was increasingly divided up into two armed
camps.
Globalization can also produce another sort of reaction as peoples take refuge from it in by
clinging to strongly rooted identities whether national, ethnic, or religious. Movements of
peoples can also foster hostility to outsiders. Before 1914, Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe
were regarded with suspicion in Western European countries and there was a marked growth in
anti-Semitism even towards Jews who were thoroughly integrated into their own societies;
today we see similar fears growing across Europe today whether of Muslims, or in the case of
Britain where I am now living, of migrants from Bulgaria or Rumania.
We look back on that lost Europe of the late 19th and early 20th century as a time of great
progress, peace and prosperity, but we should also remember the fears which swept through
societies. Fears of hostile neighbours or fears of enemies within, whether minorities or the
working classes who were growing in numbers and often in militancy. In a parallel with our own
worries about international Islamic fundamentalism and Islamist terrorists, many in Europe,
especially in the ruling classes, feared terrorism and violent revolution.
In such circles a dangerous attitude towards war took root. It was seen as a useful instrument
for furthering the nation’s interests abroad but also as a way of dealing with social dilemmas
and tensions at home. A war could bring divided nations together in patriotic unity; it might
also provide a good excuse to suppress parliaments or unions. The growing acceptance of the
possibility of war, even a general war involving most or all of the great powers in Europe, was
fuelled by the related forces of militarism and social Darwinism. The former elevated the
military and their values to a privileged position within society, while the latter promulgated the
belief that war was a natural part of human society and that nations which failed to struggle to
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survive deserved to disappear. If there is another useful warning from history here it is that we
should never underestimate the power of ideas.
We should remember though that there were other sorts of ideas going around Europe at the
time. I would like to suggest now that we ask another sort of question. Why did the peace fail
when so many Europeans wanted it to last? Europe after all had enjoyed an extraordinary
century of peace after 1815. True there were wars—in the Crimea, in Europe between AustriaHungary and Prussia or between Prussia and France, as well as colonial wars in the Far East or
Africa but most Europeans in that century did not experience war first-hand. And the wars were
generally short and decisive. For many Europeans by 1914 war was improbable if not
unthinkable. Economists and bankers argued that a major war was impossible because
Europe’s economy would rapidly collapse.
What is more a new international order with new international norms and an international
public opinion was emerging. The Concert of Europe, made up of the Great Powers, was
conservative in its goals and acted to dampen political change but it did also function as a
mechanism for controlling disputes among nations and brokering solutions. In spite of
conservatives democracy and constitutional government was spreading, even to autocracies
such as Russia and liberals hoped that this, along with freer trade, would bring greater
international harmony. The growth of literacy, cheap books and mass newspapers along with
rapid communications such as the telegraph now made it possible to mobilize opinion against
abuses such as slavery or the atrocities being committed in the Belgian Congo. International
organizations such as the Interparliamentary Union founded in 1889 worked to build bridges
among nations while bodies such as the International Red Cross tried to mitigate the
consequences of conflict.
The foundations for a truly international law with its own courts and procedures were also
being laid in this period. Nation increasingly used impartial commission of inquiry to sort out
disputes or they went to arbitration. Of the 300 arbitrations between 1794 and 1914, more half
were between 1890 and 1914. There were also attempts at disarmament or at least arms
limitation. Two conferences took place in the Hague in 1899 and 1907. They produced only
limited agreements but they did lead to the setting up of the Permanent Court of Arbitration
which still exists today. Around the world idealists dreamed of an end to secret diplomacy,
secret treaties, and militarism.
What is striking is just how strong the forces for peace were in Europe and the wider world
before 1914. In many countries there was a big middle class peace movement supported by the
churches and in some cases by political parties. There were associations to promote peace,
peace crusades and peace marches. In 1891 an international peace bureau was established in
Berne and regular peace congresses were held to discuss ways of getting rid of war. Alfred
Nobel gave much of his great fortune to support the peace prize in his name. As well the
socialist Second International repeatedly said that its members—and they were growing
significantly in numbers, would oppose a major war.
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In the end as we know the forces for war triumphed but they need not have won in the summer
of 1914. Sadly Europe’s very success in maintaining its peace had led to a dangerous
complacency. There had been a series of crises before 1914—getting closer together in time—
which Europe had got through successfully. The old Concert of Europe had apparently worked
as the great powers worked together to avoid war. In 1914 many thought the crisis that came
in the Balkans with the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo by Bosnian terrorists
was bound to be settled peacefully after a certain amount of bluster and posturing. The
realization that this time war was coming dawned on European society only in those last few
days of July 1914. Stefan Zweig, the great Austrian writer, was on holiday in Ostend. People of
all nationalities were happily enjoying the sea side. ‘All of a sudden’, Zweig recalled, ‘a cold
wind of fear was blowing over the beach, sweeping it clean’. He packed up hastily and rushed
homewards by train. By the time he reached Vienna the Great War had started.
In those last fateful weeks Europe was also let down by its leaders who gave way to the
pressures from their own military to attack. The soldiers saw only the dangers in not getting
ready in time; they failed to see that their own preparations for war would trigger a
corresponding reaction in the enemy. In Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, the rulers, weak
men all in their different ways, accepted the military’s arguments and signed the orders which
led to war. It is instructive to think of what President John F. Kennedy did in the Cuban Missile
Crisis in 1962. He was under tremendous pressure from his military who said that the United
States ought to attack Cuba even at the risk of all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. He
chose to disregard their advice for which the world should forever be grateful. Perhaps it helped
him that he had just read Barbara Tuchman’s great book The Guns of August where she pointed
to the role of mistakes, rigid planning and false assumptions in setting off the First World War.
The war as we all know did not turn out the way most Europeans were expecting. Instead of
short campaigns with clear and decisive victories what they got was over four years of deadlock
which drained Europe’s resources from men to money; drew in much of the wider world (one of
my grandfathers came from Canada to the Western Front, the other from India to Gallipoli and
Iraq); and started the decline of what had been the most prosperous and powerful part of the
world. What is surprising is that there were so few serious attempts to stop the fighting. As the
sacrifices mounted, the war took on its own deadly momentum. And the leaders by and large
were not willing to say to their own peoples, ‘We made a mistake when we started this war. We
are not going to have a great victory with many spoils of war as compensation for all you have
suffered. We are going to see if we can persuade the other side to stop and we will have to pick
up the pieces as best we can and go on into an uncertain future.’ So the war went on and the
war aims and demands grew correspondingly to match the sacrifices that were being made.
The war finally ended with the collapse of the Central Powers and Germany’s defeat on the
battlefield.
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When the peacemakers, the leaders of all the nations on the winning side, met in Paris, they
had a hard task before them for they were dealing with a badly disturbed world and huge and
unrealistic expectations from their own publics. The Allied leaders have often been blamed for
making a deeply flawed peace which led inevitably to the Second World War. As I have said
already I think historians should use the word ‘inevitability’ with great care. There are almost
always choices, hard choices to be sure and often accompanied by great pressures. In the
summer of 1914 the government of Austria-Hungary did not have to choose to destroy Serbia;
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia did not have to sign the order to mobilize his troops against both
Austria-Hungary and Germany; and Wilhelm II of Germany did not have to sign the order which
set the German high command’s plan, known as the Schlieffen, in motion with its offensive
against Russia in the east and Belgium and France in the West.
In 1919, the peacemakers faced their own momentous choices and they too were under great
pressures from their own advisers and their own publics. They were also haunted by the war
itself. They knew well what the cost had been; indeed they could see evidence of it in Paris
itself, whether in the damage from German shells, the wounded veterans, or the civilians
wearing black arm bands for their lost dead. The peacemakers also were haunted by the fear
that war was the result of something deeply rooted and dangerous in European society—or
perhaps more specifically in particular European countries such as Germany.
We must also remember the wider context. The war had taken on European society: the huge
loss of lives; the physical and psychological damage to those who survived; the waste and
destruction so visible of course here in Ypres; the political and social upheavals which included
the appearance of Bolshevism in Russia which was then spreading around the world; the
collapse of empires such as Austria-Hungary or the Ottoman which, for all their faults, had
provided stability and a structure within which different ethnicities, cultures and religions could
coexist in relative peace; and the damage to European civilization and the faith that so many
Europeans had had before 1914 that their world was demonstrably better both materially and
morally than in earlier centuries. Europe in 1919 was a sadly troubled continent and new
powers, notably the United States and Japan, had grown in strength while in the great empires
nationalist movements were stirring.
The peacemakers in Paris had every reason too to fear that the disintegration of European
society would go on and that their own nations might not escape. On May 1, 1919 the whole
peace conference came to a standstill as the unions and their supporters marched through
Paris. The French government called out its troops in response and there were clashes all
around the centre. Rumour said that more than 2000 had been taken to hospital with serious
injuries. The pressure on the peacemakers to get the peace settlements done and start the
process of rebuilding was great. They also had profound divisions among themselves with the
result that getting agreed upon peace terms took much longer than they had anticipated. The
result was that they never sat down, as they had intended, with the defeated powers and had a
proper negotiation. This was something the Germans or more particularly those in Germany
who refused to accept the fact of German defeat never forgave and it became yet another
charge against the peace settlements which undermined their legitimacy.
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We should also remember that the peacemakers had to deal with the expectations of their own
publics who did not understand why Germany, which was relatively unscathed by the war
compared to countries such as Belgium and France which had suffered the devastation of war
on their territories, should not make good the damage. So there were demands both for
recompense and punishment. As well the search for blame which had started almost with the
start of the war itself went on and has never stopped since. The peace settlements themselves
have been much criticized for treating the defeated harshly and, worse, for not preventing a
Second World War. My own view is that the objective conditions for a lasting peace were not
good in 1919 given both the state of Europe and the fact that Germany remained a strong
power at the heart of Europe. I also think though that Germany and the other defeated nations
as well as Soviet Russia could have been brought back into the international community and
that in fact the 1920s were a time of considerable promise. What pushed Europe closer to war
was the Great Depression at the end of the decade which fed the rise of extremist political
movements on both the right and the left.
We should remember too that there was another side to the peace conference. Great disasters
can also bring recognition that changes must come and that was certainly true in 1919. The
American president, Woodrow Wilson, articulated for many war-weary Europeans their hopes
of a better, fairer and more peaceful world. In his scheme for a League of Nations to provide
collective security, a new diplomacy and self-determination of peoples, he drew on ideas which
had been well-discussed in Europe for decades. We tend to judge the League too harshly
because in the end it did not prevent another global war but we should remember what it did
achieve whether in settling disputes between nations, promoting disarmament or furthering
human well-being through its organizations such the International Labour Organization.
Perhaps more importantly still, the League introduced the idea that it was possible to develop
and manage an international order and that the world was not condemned to a state of anarchy
in which nations jostled for advantage over each other. That idea and that hope never went
away. Even during the Second World War Allied statesmen were drawing up plans for a
successor to the League and for new international economic institutions. This time, under the
wise leadership of President Franklin Roosevelt, the United States became the key player in
building the new order and itself joined the new institutions such the United Nations and the
World Bank. We are still trying to build a strong international order and keep as many states as
possible within international society and that endeavour must not end.
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Let us reflect on the way the peace failed in 1914. As well let us remember the attempts to build
it again after 1919. And let us remember the following:
Institutions matter.
Leadership matters.
Leaders must not just follow public opinion but must try to inform and guide it in positive
directions.
We matter. And we must hold our leaders to the highest standards.
Above all we must never despair but must always work for peace.
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Prof Margaret MacMillan
10 November 2013 – Het Perron, Ypres
The Remembrance Day Lecture is organised by the Flemish Peace Institute, Ypres City of Peace
and the In Flanders Fields Museum.
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