Looking around the world these days, it’s easy to agree with those who say this is our 1938 moment. By then Japan and China were already at war. Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 while most European powers did precious little to oppose that aggression. Consequently, Hitler asserted claims over the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia that was predominantly populated with ethnic Germans.
In short order, both the United Kingdom and France engaged in a policy of appeasement. Indeed, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain conceded to Hitler’s territorial demands in the Munich Agreement—against Czechoslovakian wishes—in exchange for Hitler’s promise that he wouldn’t have further territorial demands. Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed the Trans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia. Respect for any semblance of territorial sovereignty collapsed.
By March 1939, Germany engulfed the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Five months later, Germany conquered Poland. Then both Britain and France entered the war, and the world was facing a global conflict.
Sounds similar to current events. War in Ukraine by an aggressive Russian dictator and conflict in the Middle East that is a tinderbox for regional war. Moreover, the US seems as incompetent as I’ve ever witnessed in my life when it comes to being an influential power able to deter conflict and avoid war. We seem to be doing half of that, avoiding war. But when it comes to deterrence, we have never been more feckless.
Yet I wonder if this is our 1938 moment or our 1914 one. In 1906 Britain built the HMS Dreadnaught making all other battleships obsolete. Germany followed suit along with building a huge army. France would also enlarge its army. The arms race was on.
Moreover, in 1914 Germany, envious of Britain’s imperial dominance, hoped to be a Weltmacht in its own right and war was its path forward. At the time, Europe was the economic powerhouse of the world relying on much coal, oil, and hydroelectricity to grow its economies. But it was Germany’s economy that was the behemoth, surpassing Britain, France, and Russia in steel production.
It was also a time of globalization with ocean-going luxury liners and fast merchant vessels carrying people and goods to every corner of the earth. That spawned nationalistic rivalries, further sowing the seeds of conflict and corresponding armament production.
In the prewar years, both sides of the Atlantic saw unprecedented economic growth. There was an emerging middle class in the US and Europe that benefitted from the transatlantic economic boom. Yet among the working class, increasing numbers migrated from farms to urban areas to secure factory work. But the wages were low, and the living conditions were crowded and often deplorable. It was an ideal breeding ground for socialism and communism. Social unrest signaled revolution in some quarters.
Meanwhile, European leaders relied on compulsory military service to bind people together nationally, thinking there was security in large-standing armies to quell social unrest. Nationalism, it was thought, would bridge the gaps among Catholics, Protestants, socialists, liberals, and conservatives thereby promoting unity. However, in Eastern Europe, ethnic minorities struggled for their own national identity, particularly in Austria-Hungary where ethnic tension was on the rise.
The match was struck on 28 June 1914 when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by a Bosnian Serb student, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo.
In August 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and France. Meanwhile Russia sided with the Serbs in Austria-Hungary, and Great Britain would honor its commitment to Belgium and France. WWI would begin, and for five years, war would rage in Europe, eventually involving the US in 1917 until the conflict ended on 11 November 1918 resulting in 17 million lives lost.
I don’t claim to be a historian, but I am an observer of things. And what I see today including terrorism, Russian and Chinese aggression, and the rise of socialism—even in America—gives me pause. The class warfare, weapons production, and the threat of nuclear proliferation seems to me more in line with the events leading up to WWI than WWII. That war was about naked aggression. But in WWI, the intersection of imperialism, nationalism, ethnic strife, socialism, the prosperity gap between classes of people, economic competition between nations, and the arms race came together to produce a violent outcome.
Aren’t we seeing this deadly convergence today? And where are the leaders to stem the tide?
If peace is war held in check, then the former will soon be checkmated by events leading to a certain war. It doesn’t have to be. But it will be if we choose leaders who are unworthy or incapable of facing the challenges of today. Indeed, the ghosts of 1914 are beckoning.
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