Revisionists, anti-revisionists, and the world war of documents

Due to the contentious issue of war-guilt, which became divisive and passionately debated as soon as war had broken out, documents have always been crucial to the way in which governments and historians have attempted to fight their corner in the acrimonious debates on the origins of the war. In fact, documents were central to the question of the origins of the war long before historians became engaged in controversies about the war's origins. Even before the weapons of war had fallen silent, and indeed even before the World War had begun in earnest, governments published some of their secret diplomatic documents in so-called colored books (usually named after the color of their bindings). In this way, they tried to show they had nothing to hide, and to convince their own people, and the rest of the world, of their own innocence with regard to the war's outbreak. 1 Germany's White Book was presented to the Reichstag on 4 August 1914, while Britain's first White Paper was presented to the House of Commons on 6 August. Additional White Papers were published in the following weeks and all three were combined and published as the first British Blue Book.2  Russia's Orange Book was published on 7 August, while France waited until 1 December before publishing its own documents in the French Yellow Book.3 Serbia's Blue Book was published in November, and Austria-Hungary's Red Book in February 1915. Each was designed to blame the enemy for the outbreak of war by publishing carefully selected official documents. In addition to offering only a highly selective number of documents, the volumes were also on occasion marred by omissions (not always marked) or additions to the text of the documents themselves, as well as careful re-arranging of the chronology in which they were dispatched, designed to advance a particular point of view. At times the text was rendered in paraphrase, sometimes with the intention of making it impossible for anyone to discover the codes used when the text was initially put into cipher. 4  Not surprisingly, suspicion of falsification of the colored books was rife (and in some cases justified) during and after the war.5

For the purposes of historical research based on published documents it is important to realize that the colored books were not edited by historians but by diplomats eager to advance a particular version of events. As Winfried Baumgart observes:

A Government will only publish those documents which appear to it to be useful in rebuffing attacks. In view of a choice having been made in this way one can therefore conclude straight away that pieces that appeared unsuitable would have been deliberately excluded 6

In compiling their Colored Books, the editors did not apply the criteria we would today look for in a scholarly edition of documents. Nonetheless, in the absence of other official publications, as for example in the case of Belgium, historians still rely on the, Belgian Grey Books on the origins of the war.7  However, official document collections, published after the war, are generally a more reliable source for historians, although of course here, too, caution must be exercised when using them.

Following Germany's defeat, the debate on the war's origins began in earnest.8 In fact there were a number of fairly distinct phases when the outbreak of war was interpreted in different ways. During the war, each combatant power was motivated by the need to justify its own involvement in the war as essentially defensive, and maintain its innocence as regards its outbreak, in order to ensure an enthusiastic support of the war effort. As we have seen, the Colored Books were one way in which this aim was pursued.

After the war, the efforts on Germany's side were much intensified following the Versailles Peace Settlement, which attributed sole war guilt to Germany and her Allies (Article 231). 'Revisionists' (chiefly, but not exclusively, in Germany) who objected to the war guilt allegation of the victors and wanted to revise it clashed with their opponents ('anti-revisionists') over their interpretations of the events that had led to war. Governments saw themselves involved in a 'battle by means of archive documents', 9 even, in the words of the German historian Bernhard Schwertfeger, engaged in 'a world war of documents'.10 As a result, an enormous number of previously secret documents were made available for public scrutiny. The period following the war was characterized by an unprecedented opening of the archives, even if not all the official document editions that resulted from this can be classed as scholarly.11

In Russia, the new Soviet Government led the way, eager to highlight the shortcomings of the previous Tsarist regime and of imperialism in general, which it saw as the cause of the war.12 Lenin announced two days after the beginning of the October Revolution that the new Government would immediately proceed to publish all secret treaties, and as a result the world learned for the first time, for example, about the secret London Treaty of 26 April 1915 in which the Entente Powers promised Italy territorial gains in return for her entry into the war.13  Their motivation provides an explanation about the nature of the editions they produced in which 'objectivity' was no selection criterion. As Sacha Zala observes:

It goes without saying that neither the desire for scholarly engagement with the past nor love for historical detail, but only immediate political interests and deficiencies of legitimization motivated the new rulers effectively to unmask the unscrupulous imperialist power policy of the preceding dynasties.14

The Russian historian M.N.Pokrovsky suggested as early as 1918 that Russian historical documents should be centralized in an archive, and in 1921 he was appointed head of the new central archive, and became the editor of the journal Krasnyi Arkhiv, a major publication whose aim it was to 'expose the secrets of imperialist policy and diplomacy'.15 Its first volume contained a large number of previously unpublished documents, and the journal continued to publish documents, albeit in a rather ad hoc fashion. Eventually, in reaction to publications of official document collections in Germany and Britain (more on this below) a more systematic collection was deemed necessary.

The first five volumes of Russian documents, covering the first seven months of 1914 and entitled International Relations in the Age of Imperialism. Documents from the Archives of the Tsarist and Provisional Governments, were published between 1931 and 1934 by Pokrovsky, and a simultaneous German-language edition appeared in Berlin, translated by the historian Otto Hoetsch, who had collaborated with Pokrovsky.16 The collection contained over 2,000 documents, but was regarded as disappointing by some in Germany 'because it contains [ ... ] not one really new or weighty document which could convince our enemies and the neutrals of the error of their opinions'.17 While disappointing for German revisionists at the time of its publication, the collection is certainly very useful for scholars today. As Derek Spring observes, the documents in this edition (and subsequent Soviet series of document collections) 'were selected and edited to such a high standard [ ... ] that they still remain as the essential starting point for [an] examination of the Russian role in the origins of the war’.18 They enable us to highlight and unravel the complex decision-making of military and political leaders in St Petersburg, their relationship with their French ally and the contentious decision for mobilization in 1914.

In Germany, Kurt Eisner's revolutionary government in Munich took their cue from the Soviet publication, and published the Bavarian documents about the origins of the war. This decision was also motivated by a wish to influence world opinion against the old regime by highlighting its responsibility for war, and it preceded the Treaty of Versailles.19 This is the only means with which to achieve that the peace negotiations can be conducted on the spirit of mutual trust', Eisner wrote on 21 November 1918.20 Soon, the Socialist government in Berlin decided that in order to influence the peace negotiations at Versailles, it would be advantageous to underline the complete rupture of the new German state with the old, and to lay bare the decisions that had led to the outbreak of war and thus perhaps bring about a more lenient peace agreement.21 Their call for an international committee of experts to assess the origins of the war had been rejected and they decided to publish their own documents. Karl Kautsky was initially charged with this task. Despite his declared intention to approach the task in 'Rankean fashion' (i.e., striving for objectivity and attempting to portray events 'as they had really been'), he was in fact convinced of Germany's war guilt and this influenced his selection criteria.22 His work was greeted by a heated controversy and objection from historians and politicians, and his selection was only published after two editors of more patriotic persuasion, Max Montgelas and Walter Schucking, had taken over from him. Four volumes of German Documents (Die Deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, or DD), sometimes referred to as the 'Kautsky-Documents', were published in December 1919.23 Too late to influence the Allies' decision at Versailles as had been the original intention, it is in any case difficult to see how what was contained within them could have led to a more lenient ruling by the victorious allies in any case. The volumes are still a useful collection for historians, and those who have researched the First World War like myself. Usefully, they include  many incendiary marginal notes penned by Kaiser Wilhelm II at crucial junctures.

Proving Germany's innocence had become much more pressing following the Versailles war-guilt clause which burdened a defiant Germany with sole responsibility for starting the war that most Germans felt they had not caused.24 In the summer of 1919 the German Government decided to commission a more extensive edition of documents spanning the years 1871-1914, and the first volumes of what would eventually be a 40-volume collection were published in 1922.25 The intention was still to prove the victors wrong regarding the origins of the war. As the German Chancellor Wilhelm Marx wrote to the British Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald in 1924, with reference to this official German document collection Die Grosse Politik (GP), the German Government fully intended to use the documents contained in these volumes to force the victors of 1918 to convene an international court of arbitration to re-examine the war-guilt question.26  Germany's inter-war governments regarded the publication of these documents as an 'act of self-defense' 27  and as part of the large-scale 'innocence propaganda' which dominated publications of this period.28  By publishing documents relating to international relations in the pre-war period, the editors sought to highlight the foreign policy pursuits of other governments in the years before the war. Their early release of official documents on such a large scale certainly ensured that almost all studies of the origins of the war had to use the voluminous German document collection as their starting points.29

Despite the criticism leveled at the edition for its 'legitimizing character', the selectivity employed by its editors and the confusing manner in which the documents were organized thematically rather than chronologically, historians have concluded that the edition was scholarly enough that 'the value of any single source remains unaffected by these criticisms',30 and the volumes constitute 'an indispensable source for the study of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history.31

The post-war government in the new Austrian Republic also published a three-volume edition of documents in 1919, Die osterreichisch-ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch.32 They were explicitly conceived as an addition to and extension of- the Austrian Red Book published during the war, and it seems as if Otto Bauer, the Austrian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, wanted to copy attempts by Kurt Eisner in Bavaria to influence the proceedings at Saint-Germain by appearing trustworthy and to some extent remorseful (albeit by publishing documents which pointed to the guilt of governments which were no longer in existence).

In response to the official publications of both former allies and enemies, a large-scale publication of documents eventually got under way and the resulting Austro-Hungarian document collection was published by Ludwig Bittner et al. as Osterreich-Ungarns ussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise bis zum Kriegsausbruch 1914, 33 in nine volumes which were published simultaneously in 1930. Due to financial restrictions and time pressure, the volumes only covered the period 1908 to 1914 and focused exclusively on Austria-Hungary's Balkan policy. However, they contained 11,000 documents for this period, while Germany's GP contained 15,000 documents, covering 44 years and a much larger geographical range.34 The nature of this collection is thus different from that of those published by the other Great Powers, which offered a more comprehensive account of foreign policy in a longer time-frame before the war. This makes the Austrian collection 'of a unique nature, something less than a true general collection and something more than a monographic one'. 35 

Other governments felt the pressure to publish their secret documents, these 'sharpest of weapons', 36  largely in response to the early document collections already published in the Soviet Union, Austria and particularly Germany whose attempt to refute the allied war-guilt ruling was showing promise in the light of published evidence which fore grounded shared responsibility rather than sole German war guilt. The publication of  Die Grosse Politik forced Britain and France to consider adopting similar measures, as contemporaries had predicted,37 and Britain was the first to respond with an official document publication. 'Rather late', as Max Montgelas criticized, the British Documents on the Origins of the War (BD) were published between 1926 and 1938.38  (The British Government's intention to publish an official document collection was announced in 1924 (when Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald decided, in G.P. Gooch's words, 'to break the seals'), although James W Headlam-Morley had already previously been appointed to edit a collection similar to Kautsky's Deutsche Dohumente.39 Now two established and well-known historians were charged with the task in an attempt to suggest 'historical accuracy & impartiality' to the outside world, an important departure from the previous attempts by governments to direct and influence the publication of official documents by excluding historians from this task.40  In practice, however, the editors had to contend with historian and civil servant James Headlam-Morley whose previously compiled collection on the July Crisis became the last of the eleven-volume publication of British Documents on the Origins of the First World War (BD), but the first to be published.41  His introduction, stressing the need to consider the feelings of other governments over the necessity for historical accuracy and completeness, laid the volumes open to-criticism from other historians and resulted in 'serious tensions' between the editors and Headlam-Morley.42 In subsequent forewords the editors made clear their desire for complete objectivity on their part as regards the selection process, stressing that they would have felt 'compelled to resign if any attempt were made to insist on the omission of any document which is in their view vital or essential’.43

Gooch's and Temperley's task was more difficult, compared with that of their German, Austrian and Russian colleagues, because in London there had been no regime change and certain continuities (of  personnel or policy, for example) might have affected their editorial work. Some critics have therefore considered the British Documents to be even more flawed than their German equivalent.44 However, it has also been noted that 'on more than one occasion the editors demonstrated a remarkable broadmindedness in their choices. 45 The inclusion of the minutes added to many documents by diplomats in Whitehall attests further to the collection's 'scientific value'. The minutes, written in the belief that they would not be published, allow a unique insight into the 'internal formative process of British foreign policy'. 46 The documents contained within the official British collection can be used with confidence by historians working on the topic today.47

In France, the 'Commission de Publication des Documents relatifs aux Origines de la Guerre de 1914-1918' was constituted in 1928 and charged with editing official government documents which would result in France's official publication Les Documents diplomatiques Francais 1871-1914 (DDF).48 ( The decision to publish French documents (in addition to the three volumes of Yellow Books published between 1918 and 1921) was announced by the Poincare government in 1927, partly motivated by the fact that revisionist historians were basing their apologetic accounts of Germany's role in the outbreak of the war on Germany's official document collection.49 Pierre de Margerie, who had been Political Director in the French Foreign Office in July 1914, noted in 1926: 'There can be no doubt that under the influence of the enormous quantity of documents that the Wilhelmstrasse has thrown on to the historical market, world opinion has begun to change to our disadvantage.50 The first volume was published in 1929, leading to sarcastic remarks about the delay of the French publication. Bernhard Schwertfeger considered it 'perhaps the most important success of the German document edition [GP] that France has also decided to publish [her] pre-war documents [ ... ] France has been the last [ ... ] to follow the German example'.51  The last of the 42 volumes was not published until 1959, with the 3rd series, focusing on the July Crisis/having been completed in 1936.52 The French official document collection Documents diplomatiques Francais was modelled on the German example in terms of its timespan (1870-1914) and its focus on the diplomatic causes of the war, although it adopted a chronological approach.53

Although the edition could be regarded as the most scholarly of the official document collections, it should not be overlooked that among the 54 members of the commission there were only 19 historians, the rest being recruited mainly among diplomats, including - controversially - some of the former ambassadors who had been in office during the July Crisis (Maurice Paleologue, Jules Cambon and Camille Barrere, for examplel.54 However, the French official collection also contains many documents which were not in France's favor in the war-guilt controversy. 55  For historians working on this topic, the official French document collection is still an essential first port of call, and a number of its documents can be found in this collection.

Italy was the only one of the Great Powers not to publish any official diplomatic documents in the inter-war years.56 There was no immediate political reason for such an edition, considering that the war-guilt question did not affect Italy which had remained neutral in 1914. Moreover, Mussolini's Government was not inclined towards a large document edition which aimed at revealing the 'historical truth'. 57  It was only after the Second World War that a commission was charged with the publication of Italian diplomatic documents. The lateness of this project meant that the time frame of the edition was extended to include the years 1861 to 1943. Five series were being worked on simultaneously and publication is still not complete. The last volumes are expected to be completed about 80-100 years after the publication of the first ones in 1954.58 The multi-volume series I documenti diplomatici italiani deals with the origins of the war in Series 4 and 5.59.

Clearly, the Serbian documents are of great significance, but the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to publish Serbian documents after the war. In the absence of any official government publication (to this day), historians have had to rely on a collection published by the former Serbian Minister in Berlin, Milos Boghicevic, which is available in German rranslation.60 This is not an official document collection, but rather the private collection of a former diplomat with a strong bias against the policies of the pre-war Serbian government.61 Due to the collection's 'polemical character', the material might as best 'be considered adequate as an outline of the general scheme of Serbian policy, it is very nearly impossible to use in determining the roles played by individuals and in delegating responsibility'. 62 Historians working on Serbia's policy prior to 1914 can, however, benefit from a scholarly edition containing documents in Serbo-Croat, French, German and Russian. Vladimir Dedijer and Zivota Anic's Dokumenti o spolnoj politici Kraljevine Srbije 1903--1914 (Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Serbian Kingdom, 1903-1914) covers the years 1903 to 1914 in seven volumes.63 

 

The Fischer controversy and the renewed quest for archival sources

In the interwar years, a variety of views were advocated as to why war had broken out in 1914. Most pronounced was the effort to blame the Dual Alliance Powers, and Germany in particular, as had been the case in the Treaty of Versailles. But other arguments were advanced, for example blaming primarily France and Russia (H.E. Barnes), or arguing that no single country was ultimately responsible for the escalation of the July Crisis into war (S.B. Fay). 64 By the 1930s, a new war-guilt consensus had been established, and the efforts of revisionist historians, often backed up by the official document collections, were becoming the new orthodoxy. It now became widely accepted that Europe had 'slithered into war' as a result of blunders and accidents as David Lloyd George had maintained in his War Memoirs.65

After the Second World War, revisionist views continued to be widely held and the perception of European nations accidentally stumbling into war in 1914 was still predominant. Even the former enemies France and Germany were able to agree on a conciliatory interpretation which effectively negated German sole war guilt. This point of view was challenged by a number of scholars, including the Italian Luigi Albertini, but none had more impact than Fritz Fischer's interpretation of the origins of the war, advanced in the early 1960s.66

Based on new documentary evidence he and his followers exploded this comfortable orthodox view and argued that Germany had plotted with Austria-Hungary to start a war against Serbia, and that Germany's decision-makers had deliberately accepted the risk of an escalation of a localized into a European war because they had pursued aggressive foreign-policy aims.67

The ensuing debate divided historians into pro- and anti-Fischer camps in a controversy that was passionately fought for nearly two decades. Eventually a consensus was reached which largely acknowledged that Germany bore a significant amount of responsibility for the outbreak of war, that her leaders did conspire to provoke a war and that they had been willing to risk an international conflagration. In recent years historians have again come to question, albeit more dispassionately than Fischer's contemporary critics, his focus on Germany, and some would consider a Fischerite interpretation to be outdated and somewhat limited, particularly in the light of international evidence which has come to light since his theses were first advanced. That is not necessarily to say that what he alleged about German intentions was not true, but rather that the intentions of the other key players also deserve our attention. As a consequence, more emphasis has been put on analyzing the actions of the other great powers, and in particular on Austria-Hungary's decision-makers, whose important role in the crisis had been somewhat overshadowed during the Fischer controversy. As has been shown also by other documents, it was in Vienna that the first decisions for a confrontation with Serbia were taken, and it was of course Austria-Hungary which issued the first declaration of war. Clearly, the actions of her decision-makers deserve some close scrutiny.

Historians have also increasingly focused their attention on the crises of the pre-war years which, in the Fischer interpretation, seem largely to have been the result of German posturing, and which seem - at least with hindsight - almost inevitably to have led to war. This view of an unavoidable trajectory towards a European war has recently been questioned. Instead, it has been argued that the 'concert of Europe' actually worked quite efficiently before 1914, as international crises were solved by negotiation, rather than a war involving the Great Powers. The First World War was thus preceded by a period of 'avoided wars', and the question that needs answering is why it was not avoided once more in 1914.68

Historians today largely argue for an internationalization in attempting to unravel the origins of the war, by acknowledging more fully the role of all the Great Powers in the pre-war years and months. A hundred years after the outbreak of the war, the new direction in the historiography of the war's origins appears on the face of it to hark back to some extent to the comfortable consensus of the interwar years which emphasized shared war guilt. However, whereas in the 1930s the alliance system was blamed and the outbreak of war was considered an accident, today human agency is foregrounded - this suggests that there was no inevitability about the war's outbreak, but that it resulted from either mistakes, deliberate decisions or both. Moreover, even those who still see in Germany's actions the main cause of the war will acknowledge that she did not act in isolation, and that it was actually Austria-Hungary which took the first steps on the road to war. Others point towards Russia and France and argue that the two partners were not just victims of an Alliance plot, but that they pursued their own foreign-policy goals in and before July 1914 which ultimately did not rule out the possibility of war and that they even welcomed it when it came.

Such an extensive and productive historiographical controversy which has produced countless accounts of why the First World War broke out has also resulted in an unprecedented wealth of primary evidence, as historians scoured the archives in order to arm themselves with primary sources to support their arguments. Fischer and his assistants found much of his more incendiary evidence in unpublished and previously inaccessible archival sources, many in the archives of East Germany. His publications and the ensuing controversy resulted in a quest by the so-called 'Fischer-school' and by their critics to locate further primary evidence and publish it in scholarly editions. 69 So heated was this debate, and so important were documents in proving the point for one side or the other, that arguments even ensued over the authenticity of primary sources, and the reliability of published editions of documents. In this sense, primary sources continued to be used as weapons by historians. Prominent examples include the published diaries of Alfred von Waldersee, Georg Alexander von Muller and Kurt Riezler.70

Indeed, it has been a characteristic of the debate that historians were unable to agree on the interpretation of certain key documents, such as Admiral von Muller's diary entry detailing the events of the so-called War Council meeting of December 1912. Did his account of the meeting suggest that something momentous had been decided (a definite decision to unleash war, postponed for exactly 18 months until July 1914), or was Muller's own conclusion that this meeting had really amounted to 'almost 0' correct, as Walter Garlitz's truncated rendering of the text had suggested?71  Similarly, Bethmann Hollweg's attitude in the weeks before the outbreak of war, revealed in the diary of his personal assistant Kurt Riezler, could be interpreted either as evidence of the Chancellor's pessimism and fear in 1914, or of his policy of 'bluff' or calculated risk during the July Crisis.

Some documents were so contested that they were the cause of their own controversy, and the Riezler diary, published by Karl-Dietrich Erdmann, is a case in point.72  Prior to their publication, Erdmann had claimed that the diaries - which so far only he had seen - proved Fischer wrong, particularly regarding Bethmann Hollweg's role during the July Crisis. Both sides (i.e., Fischer and his supporters on the one hand, and his critics on the other) therefore awaited the publication of the diaries with great anticipation. Riezler had been a close confidant of the Chancellor and as such in almost daily contact with him during July 1914 - his observations would surely allow us to judge Bethmann Hollweg's intentions. When the long-awaited edition appeared in 1972, doubts were soon raised about the authenticity of parts of the documents and about the fact that they did not contain the explosive evidence that one had been led to expect.73 However, a real controversy did not begin until the early 1980s, when the principal attack against Erdmann's edition was launched by Bernd Sosemann who criticized the volume primarily on technical grounds.74  The suspicion was raised that some incriminating material had been removed, either by Riezler himself, or by someone else after his death. As far as critics of the edition were concerned, the reliability of the diary has to be seriously called into question.75 The importance attached to contemporary evidence as a way of laying bare the decision-making of July 1914 added to the heated nature of the Riezler diary controversy. In the end, the diary failed to confirm the views of one or other side in the debate, while the controversy surrounding its authenticity only added to the mistrust between the different factions. Read in conjunction with other documents, Riezler's diary illuminates Bethmann Hollweg's anxieties in 1914, and due to the importance of its author, and of the controversy it caused, it should not be missing from a serious investigation in the origins of the war, despite the doubts that have been raised about the edition as a whole.

At the same time as the Riezler diaries divided historians, Bernd Sosernann's own scholarly edition of the diaries of Theodor Wolff, the influential and well-connected editor of the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt, was published. It contains the testimony of several key witnesses who, in private conversation with Wolff, spoke of Germany's role in the events that led to war, including Bethmann Hollweg and the Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow. The evidence published by Sosernann suggested that among Germany's leading politicians and industrialists, it was believed that the Wilhelmstrasse had caused the war, albeit by miscalculation rather than design.76

Recent document editions were not, of course, limited to Germany, but the nature of the Fischer controversy of the 1960s made them particularly controversial. Elsewhere, document editions have not tended to cause quite such a stir. The important diary of the Austrian journalist Josef Redlich is another key source (its publication preceded the Fischer controversy), and contains soul-searching reflections by Austrian decision-makers on their responsibility for the outbreak of war. First edited by Fritz Fellner in 1953, an expanded and updated edition was published in 2011, and several interesting excerpts which illuminate Austro-Hungarian decision-making on the eve of the war have been included in this volume.77

In addition to such official and scholarly collections, countless autobiographical accounts, memoirs, diaries and letters were published, most in the inter-war years, as almost all those involved in the decision-making of the pre-war years sought to commit their memories to paper. A number of extracts from such sources have been included in this collection. Naturally, these accounts have to be approached cautiously, particularly given the contentious nature of the topic. To give an obvious example: one would not want to construct an account of the origins of the First World War based solely on the (notoriously unreliable) memoirs of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 78 or even on the memoirs of other German decision-makers. Clearly, their accounts will be biased in a particular way, as will be those written by their French, Russian and British counterparts. But bringing them all together allows us to compare in very instructive ways.

In other examples, the authenticity of memoirs is called into question by the fact that their authors were eager to clear their names of suspicion of personal wrong-doing, and to present their own (rather than just their governments') actions in a particularly favourable light. Maurice Paleologue's memoirs, for example, based on his diaries written while he was France's ambassador in St Petersburg, must be read with some caution, for he was writing them with a view to combating critics who blamed his forthright support of the Russian ally for the escalation of the crisis.79  His memoirs deserve to be read  not least because they add a different nuance and a personal perspective to the available diplomatic documents which highlight decision-making in St Petersburg, but the apologetic intentions behind them must not be overlooked.80

While Paleologue's memoirs are perhaps an extreme example, it goes without saying that all memoirs have to be approached with some caution, although this should not detract from their intrinsic value to historians. Such personal accounts offer a different perspective to that of official documents. At best, read alongside other, less biased sources, they add richness and detail to the events under scrutiny, although at worst, they are merely apologetic attempts to whitewash the actions of individuals or those of their government.81

1.The publication of so-called colored books (official document collections, usually published during or after international crises by governments intent on justifying their own positions in foreign-policy matters) was not particular to the situation in 1914, but the urgency with which all governments sought to prove their innocence in the events that led to war was unprecedented. For background about the British Blue Books, see e.g. H.WV. and Temperley L.M. Penson, A Century of Blue Books 1814-1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1938. For details of the history of coloured books and those relating specifically to the First World War, see Sacha Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere politischer Zensur. Amtliche Aktensammlungen im internationalen Vergleich, Olden bourg, Munich 2011, pp. 23-37; Mario Toscano, The History of Treaties and International Politics: The Documentary and Memoir Sources, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1966, pp. 88-103; John W Langdon, July 1914, The Long Debate 1918-1990, Berg, New York, Oxford 1991, p. 17.)

2. Great Britain and the European Crisis, London 1914. For details about the selection process, see for example Keith Hamilton, 'Falsifying the Record: Entente Diplomacy and the Preparation of the Blue and Yellow Books on the War Crisis of 1914', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 18,2007, pp. 89-108. See also Keith Hamilton, 'The Pursuit of "Enlightened Patriotism". The British Foreign Office and Historical Researchers During the Great War and its Aftermath', in Keith M. Wilson (ed.), Forging the Collective Memory. Government and International Historians through Two World Wars, Berghahn, Oxford 1996, pp. 192-229, p. 195.

3.This delay seemed suspicious in the eyes of some critics. See for example Hermann Kantorowitz, Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage (1927), ed. Imanuel Geiss, Frankfurt/M. 1967, p. 65. The volume did indeed include an apparently falsified document, namely the French Ambassador's telegram to Paris of 31 July, advising the French Government of Russia's mobilization which appeared in a longer form in the Yellow Book (349). Paleologue's short telegram from St Petersburg announcing Russia's mobilization was expanded to include a paragraph which justified this move with reference to alleged German and Austrian mobilization measures. (These were at that point an invention.) It is, however, possible that this document was falsified as early as 31 July, rather than just for inclusion in the Yellow Book. It is unclear whether the additional words were added at the Quai d'Orsay before the telegram was passed to Viviani on 31 July, as Conan Fischer argues, or whether they were added later for inclusion in the Yellow Book. Conan Fischer, Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship, 1900-1945, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2011, pp. 37-38. See also Frederick Schuman, War and Diplomacy in the French Republic, Whittlesey House, London 1931, p. 233 who considers the earlier falsification a 'possible hypothesis'. Further, see Hamilton, 'Falsifying the Record', p. 90. The Yellow Book was published by the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres as: Documents diplomatiques 1914: la Guerre europeenne, Imprimerie Nationale, Paris 1914). For a critical assessment, see Andrew Barros and Frederic Guelton, 'Les imprevus de l'histoire instrumentalisee: le livre jaune de 1914 et les Documents Francais sur les Origines de la Grande Guerre, 1914-1918', Revue d'histoire diplomatique, 1,2006, pp. 3-22.)

4. Winfried Baumgart, Quellenkunde zur deutschen Geschichte der Neuzeit von 1500 bis zur Gegenwart, Vol. 5: Das Zeitalter des lmperialismus und des ersten Weltkrieges (1871-1918), Part 1: Akten und Urkunden; Part 2: Personliche Quellen, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1977, 2nd edn 1991, Vol. 5, Part 1, p. 69.)

5. Zala, Geschichteunter der Schere, pp. 31-35. An example of the critique levelled at the Russian Orange Book is Gisbert Freiherr von Romberg (ed.), Die Fdlscbungen des russischen Orangebuches, Berlin, Leipzig 1922 (Eng. transl. The Falsification of the Russian Orange-Book, Allen &Unwin, London, New York 1923). A critical assessment of the French Yellow Book was undertaken by, among others, Bernadotte E. Schmitt, 'France and the Outbreak of the World War', in Foreign Affairs, 15, 1937, pp. 516-536. Examples of the falsifications contained in the British Blue Book can be found in Kantorowitz, Gutachten, pp. 68-80. For a discussion of the various coloured books, see also Baumgart, Quellenkunde, Vol. 5, Part 1, pp. 67ff.

6. Ibid., p. 69.      

7. Ibid. The five volumes of Belgian documents edited in Germany by Bernhard Schwertfeger are not an official Belgian document collection - rather, they were compiled in Germany with the aim of discrediting the Entente and Belgium. Schwertfeger (ed.), Amtliche Aktenstucke zur Geschichte der Europiiischen Politik 1885-1914. Die Belgischen Dokumente zur Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges 1885-1914. Vollstandige Ausgabe der vom Deutschen Ausuidrtigen Amt herausgegebenen Diplomatischen Urkunden aus den Belgischen Staatsarchiven, 5 vols, Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft fur Politik und Geschichte, Berlin 1919.

8. See James Joll and Gordon Martel, The Origins of the First World War, Longman, London, 3rd edn, 2007; Langdon, The Long Debate; Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War. Controversies and Consensus, Longman, Harlow 2002; William Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010; Dieter Hoffmann, Der Sprung ins Dunkle. Oder wie der 1. Weltkrieg entfesselt wurde, Militzke Verlag, Leipzig 2010.

9. Pokrovsky, cited in Derek Spring, 'Russian Documents on the Origins of the First World War', in Wilson (ed.), Forging, pp. 63-86, p. 71.

10. Bernhard Schwertfeger, Der Weltkrieg der Dokumente. Zehn Jahre Kriegsschuldforschung und ihr Ergebnis, Berlin 1929.

11. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 50.

12. For details of the history of publication of Russian documents, see the excellent account by Spring, 'Russian Documents', pp. 63-86.

13. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 48.

14. Ibid., p. 47.

15. Cited in Spring, 'Russian Documents', p. 67.

16. Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya v Epokhu Imparializma. Dokumenty iz arkhivov tsarskogo i vremennogo pravitel'stv, published also under the German title Die Internationalen Beziehungen im Zeitalter des Imperialismus (cited hereafter as Int. Bez. For more details on the background to this publication, see Spring, 'Russian Documents', pp. 74ff.

17. This was the complaint by the publisher. Cited in Spring, 'Russian Documents', p.77.

18. Ibid, p. 82.

19. For details, see for example Bernhard Grau, Kurt Eisner 1867-1919. Eine Biographie, Beck, Munich 2001, pp. 377-391.

20. P. Dirr (ed.), Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch und zum Versailler Schuldspruch, 3rd edn, Oldenbourg, Munich, Berlin 1925, Doc. No. 22.

21. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 50. 24 Ibid.

22.Ibid. 

23. Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch. voilstandige Sammlung der von Karl Kautsky zusammengestellten amtlichen Ahtenstiicke mit einigen Erganzungen, edited by Graf Max Montgelas and Walter Schiicking, 5 vols, Charlottenburg 1919 (cited hereafter as DD).

24. As Holger Herwig shows, the attempts to 'deceive Clio' with official document collections and accounts of the outbreak of war began in August 1914, when the German Government authorized publications aimed at showing that 'the ring of entente politics encircled us ever more tightly'. Holger H. Herwig, 'Clio Deceived. Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany after the Great War', in Wilson (ed.), Forging, pp. 87-127.)

25. The last volume was published in 1927. Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette, 1871-1914. Sammlung der Diplomatischen Aktenetache des Ausu/dr-tigen Amtes, edited (on behalf of the Auswaertiges Amt) by Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Friedrich Thimme, 40 vols, Berlin 1922-1927.

26. Wilson (ed.), Forging, p.11.

27. Ibid., p. 12. For a critique of the selectivity employed by the editors see e.g. Fritz Klein, 'Ober die Verfalschung der Historischen Wahrheit in der Aktenpublikation "Die Grosse Politik der Europaischen Kabinette 1871-1914"', in Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft, 7, 1959, pp. 318-330; and for an excellent summary of the genesis of the edition, and of the criticism levelled at it, see Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, pp. 62ff.

28. As Konrad Repgen points out, Weimar historians 'did not engage in controversies with each other [ ... ], the debates over the causes of the war of 1914 were waged as a fight, although not internally, but rather directed to the outside'. Konrad Repgen, 'Methoden - oder Richtungskarnpfe in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft seit 1945?', Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 30, 1979, pp. 591-610, p. 600, cited in Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 68.

29. Herwig, 'Clio Deceived', p. 96.

30. Matthias Peter and Hans-Jurgen Schroder, Einfuhrung in das Studium der Zeitgeschichte, Paderborn 1994, pp. 206f., cited in Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 76, n. 240.

31. Hamilton, 'Falsifying the record', p. 89.

32. Die osterreichisch-ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch. Diplomatische Aktenstucke zur Vorgeschichte des Krieges 1914. Ergaenzungen und Nachtraege zum osterreichisch-ungarischen Rotbuch, ed. by Staatsamt fur Ausseres, 3 vols, Vienna 1919. For details on Austria's document editions see Ulfried Burz, 'Austria and the Great War. Official Publications in the 1920s and 1930s', in Wilson (ed.), Forging, pp. 178-191; Rudolf Jerabek, 'Die osterrcichische Weltkriegsforschung' in Wolfgang Michalka (ed.), Der Erste Weltkrieg, Piper, Munich 1994, pp. 953-971.

33. Ludwig Bittner et al. (eds), Osterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise bis zum Kriegsausbruch 1914, 9 vols, Osterreichische Bundesanstalt fiir Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kultur, Vienna and Leipzig, 1930.

34. In an early enthusiastic review, William 1. Langer was impressed by the quality of the edition which he considered 'a Christmas surprise for the historian [ ... ] which he will not soon forget'. There was 'every guarantee of its complete honesty', he concluded. Langer, review of Osterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der bosnischen Krise bis zum Kriegsausbruch 1914, Foreign Affairs, April 1930.

35. Toscano, Treaties, p. 153.

36. M.N. Pokrovsky, 28 November 1927, in an article in Pravda, cited in Spring, 'Russian Documents', p. 72. Klaus Hildebrand also refers to 'files as weapons'. Deutsche Auf5enpolitik 1871-1914, Munich 1989, p. 52.

37. E.g. Thimme and Schwertfeger had predicted a compulsion to publish among the former enemies. Cited in Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 77.

38.Montgelas cited in Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 78.

39. Mombauer, Controversies, pp. 57ff.

40. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 79.

41. BD, Vol. XI: The Outbreak of the War. Foreign Office Documents (28 June-4 August), London 1926.

42. In the words of historian Herbert Butterfield. For details see Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, pp. 80f.

43. Foreword to Vol. 3, cited in ibid, p. 82.

44. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 83, who cites the Soviet historian A.S. jerussalimski as an example of this critique.

45. Toscano points out the example of Goschen's report of 6 August, which related to the infamous 'scrap of paper' conversation on 4 August in which Germany's Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg had allegedly dismissed the treaty which guaranteed Belgian neutrality as a 'scrap of paper'. By including the document it was revealed that the phrase, of which so much was made by Allied propaganda against Germany, had 'no disparaging implication whatsoever'. The very fact that this document was included 'testifies to a high degree of objectivity'. Treaties, p. 141. It should, however, be noted that the document had previously been published, immediately after Goschen had presented his report to Parliament, as the Blue Book Miscellaneous No.6. T.G. Otte, 'A "German Paperchase": The "Scrap of Paper" Controversy and the Problem of Myth and Memory in International History', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 18, 1, 2007, pp. 53-87, pp. 57ff. See (419).

46. Toscano, Treaties, pp. 141-142.

47. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p.84.

48. For details see Keith Hamilton, 'The Historical Diplomacy of the Third Republic', in Wilson (ed.), Forging, pp. 29-62, p. 44; Mombauer, Controversies, pp. 65ff.

49. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 85.

50. Cited in Hamilton, 'Historical Diplomacy', p. 44.

51. Cited in Zala, Geschichte unter der Scbere, p. 84.

52. As Jean-Baptiste Duroselle points out, this was a full decade after the British documents for the same period had been published. La Grande Guerre des Francais: l'incomprehensible, Perrin, Paris, 1994, p. 26.

53. For details see Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 85; Baumgart, Quellenkunde, p. 127; Hamilton, 'Historical Diplomacy', pp. 43ff.

54. Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere, p. 87.

55. Toscano, Treaties, p. 152.

56. Wilson (ed.), Forging, p. 5.

57. Baumgart, Quellenkunde, 5, I, p. 38.

58. Ibid., p. 39

59. A. Torre/Ministero degli affari esteri. Commissione per la pubblicazione dei documenti diplomatici (eds), I documenti diplomatici Italiani, Series 1-9 (1861-1943), Rome, 1954ff.

60. Milos Boghitschewitsch (ed.), Die auswartige Politik Serbiens 1903-1914, 3 vols, Bruckenverlag, Berlin 1928-1931.

61. Toscano, Treaties, p. 156.

62. Ibid., p. 157.

63. Vladimir Dedijer and Zivota Anic (eds), Dokumenti 0 spolnoj politici Kraljevine Srbije, VII/2, Belgrade 1980.

64. See Holger Herwig and Richard Hamilton (eds), The Outbreak of World War I. Causes and Responsibilities, 5th revised edn, Lexington, MA, 1991, pp. 10-11.

65. David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. I, Odhams Press, London, 1938. For more details on the historiographical developments in the 1930s to 1950s, see Mombauer, Controversies, pp. 105ff.

66. Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschlands, 1914/18, first published 1961. Nachdruck der Sonderausgabe 1967, Dusseldorf 1984 (Eng. transl.: Germany's Aims in the First World War, London 1967); idem, Krieg der Illusionen. Die deutsche Politik von 1911-1914, paperpack reprint of 2nd edn 1970 (1st edn 1969), Droste, Dusseldorf 1987 (Eng. Transl.: War of Illusions. German Policies from 1911-1914, Norton, London 1975); idem,juli 1914: Wir sind nicht hineingeschlittert. Das Staatsgeheimnis um die Riezler Tagebucher; Rowohlt, Reinbek 1983.

67. Among Fischer's followers was his assistant Imanuel Geiss, whose ground-breaking document collection julikrise und Kriegsausbruch provided the documentary evidence which demonstrated design, rather than accident, in Berlin's and Vienna's decision-making.

68. See for example Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (eds), An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1914, Berghahn, New York 2007.

 69. Among them are Imanuel Geiss's two-volume document collection julikrise und Kriegsausbruch 1914 (of which an abridged German and an English edition were published in 1965 and 1967 respectively), John Rohl's publication of memoranda by Prince Karl Max von Lichnowsky and Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg, and his 3-volume edition of the Eulenburg papers, the diaries of Kurt Riezler, edited by Karl Dietrich Erdmann, and the diaries of the journalist Theodor Wolff, edited by Bernd Susemann, to name only a few. Geiss (ed.), julikrise und Kriegsausbruch; Geiss (ed.), juli 1914 (Eng. transl. july 1914); Rohl (ed.), Zwei deutsche Fursten zur Kriegsschuldfrage, English trans!.: 1914: Delusion or Design?; Rohl (ed.) Philipp Eulenburgs Politische Korrespondenz, 3 volumes, Boldt, Boppard/Rhein 1976-1983; Karl Dietrich Erdmann (ed.), Kurt Riezler. Tagebiicher, Aufsatze, Dokumente, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Gottingen 1972, republished, with an introduction by Holger Afflerbach, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Gottingen 2008; Bernd Sosernann (ed.), Theodor Wolff. Tagebiccher 1914-1918. Boppard/Rhein 1984. Other important more recent edited collection include the diaries of Albert Hopman, prominent member of the Reichsmarineamt (the German Naval Office), edited by Michael Epkenhans, Albert Hopman. Das ereignisreiche Leben eines 'Wilhelminers'. Tagebucher, Briefe, Aufzeichnungen 1901 bis 1920, Oldenbourg, Munich 2004. Holger Afflerbach edited letters by Generaloberst Moriz Freiherr von Lyncker, the chief of the military cabinet, and the wartime diaries of Generaloberst Hans Georg von Plessen, general adjutant and commander of the Imperial Headquar-ters in Kaiser Wilhelm II als oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militdrischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914-1918, Oldenbourg, Munich 2005.

70. For example, the debate about the so-called war council meeting of December 1912 called into question the accuracy of Walter Gorlitz's edition of the Muller diaries. While some of the diary entries reflect accurately the original text, others were altered by the editor to present a more favourable version of events. Walter Gorlitz (ed.), Regierte der Kaiser? Kriegstagebucher, Aufzeichnungen und Briefe des Chefs des Marinekabinetts, Admiral Georg Alexander von Muller 1914-1918, Musterschmidt. Gottingen, Berlin, Frankfurt/Main Zrrd edn, 1959; Walter Gorlitz, Der Kaiser ... Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Marinekabinetts Admiral Georg Alexander von Muller iiber die Ara Wilhelms II., Musterschmidt, Gottingcn 1965. For a critique of the edition see John Rohl, 'Admiral von Muller and the Approach of War, 1911-1914', Historical journal, 12, 1969, pp. 651-673.

71. See for example Rohl, 'Admiral von Muller') and see docs (44), (46), (47)

72. The history of the publication, and of the controversy over the diaries, is detailed in Agnes Blansdorf, 'Der Weg der Riezler-Tagebucher. Zur Kontroverse iiber die Echtheit der Tagebucher Kurt Riezlers', Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 35,1984, pp. 651-684. For an account in English, see Langdon, The Long Debate, pp. 109ff. The diaries were published by Erdmann, Kurt Riezler. For a bibliography of the relevant newspaper articles and publications around the Riezler controversy, and a strong attack on Erdmann, see Bernd Felix Schulte, Die Verfiilschung der Riezler Tagebacher. Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der 50er und 60er Jahre, Peter Lang, Frankfurt/M., Bern and New York 1985. For the debate in the German press, see e.g. Karl-Heinz Janssen, 'August '14: Wahrheit auf Raten. Zwei Historiker streiten urn Tagebi.icher: Wurde die deutsche Kriegss¬chuld am Ersten Weltkrieg im nationalen Interesse verschleiert?', Die Zeit, No. 24, 10 June 1983; Karl Dietrich Erdmann, 'Die Tagebi.icher sind echt. Streit urn ein historisches Dokument, das ins Zwielicht geraten ist. Eine Antwort', Die Zeit, No. 28, 8 July 1983; and letters to the editor, Die Zeit, No. 33, 12 August 1983. The 'duel' between Erdmann and Bernd Siisemann was largely conducted in the pages of the Historische Zeitscbrift- The extracts of the diary which are included in this collection have been checked against the original archive copy which Bernd Soesemann kindly made available to me.

73. Fritz Fellner concluded: 'The Riezler diaries do not reveal anything and do not prove anything.' Review of Kurt Riezler. Tagebucher, Aufsaetze, Dokumente', in Mitteilungen des Osterreichischen Instituts fur Geschichte, 1973, pp. 490-495.

74 For example, Erdmann had not mentioned that the diaries contained substantial gaps, and that some of the original material, covering the crucial years 1907-1914, was missing. He also had not alerted his readers to the fact that for the most important times, July and August 1914, the diary was not kept in its usual format in small exercise books, but on loose pages, which differed in style from the rest of the diaries, suggesting that Riezler perhaps edited crucial sections of his writings, or that they had even been tampered with at a later date, perhaps even in the light of the Fischer controversy. See Bernd-Felix Schulte, Die Verfaelschung der Riezler Tagebucher, who suspected foul play on behalf of Fischer's critics.

75 Some have even concluded that they are 'unsuitable material for history-writing'. Luder Meyer-Arndt, Die fulikrise 1914. Wie Deutschland in den Ersten Weltkrieg stolperte, Bohlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2006, pp. 3/67. This is an exaggeration, although it is true that Riezler's diary needs to be used with caution.

76 Sosernann (ed.), Theodor Wolff, see e.g. Vol. I, No. 88, 357, 340. See also John Rohl, 'Germany', in Keith M. Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914, DCL Press, London 1995, pp. 27ff. Given that Wolff's diary contains records of conversations with many influential politicians in the years 1914-1919, and that the authenticity of this source is not in doubt, it is a very rewarding source for historians.

77. Fritz Fellner and Doris A. Corradini (eds), Schicksalsjahre Osterreichs. Die Erinnerungen und Tagebiicher [osef Redlichs, 1869-1936, 3 vols, Vol. 1: Erinnerungen und Tagebiicher 1869-1914, Bohlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2011.)

78. Emperor William II, My Memoirs, 1878-1818, Engl. transl., Cassell, London 1922.

79. For Paleologue during the July Crisis, see for example John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War, Macmillan, London, Basingstoke 1983, pp. 159ff. Schmidt, Frankreichs Aussenpolitik, p, 338 provides a discussion of the various critiques of Paleologue's role during the crisis.

80. Even before it was necessary to paint his role in July 1914 in a particular light, it seems that Paleologue was prone to certain embellishments in his writing. Louis de Robien, attache at the French Embassy in St Petersburg since early July 1914, recalled: 'Whenever he recounted an event or sought to retrace a conversation, he recreated them almost entirely in his imagination, endowing them with more vividness than truth.'

81. A useful summary of the most important personal accounts for the period can be found in Baumgart, Quellenkunde, Vol.5, Part 2. Other French memoirs included in this edition include those of Raymond Poincare,Joseph Joffre and Adolphe Messimy. In this collection, excerpts were also included from the memoirs of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Herrmann von Eckardstein and Helmuth von Moltke; from Vladimir Kokovtsov, Sergei Doborolski and Mikhail Rodzianko, from Conrad von Hotzendorf and from Giovanni Giolitti all of which were taken in account.

 

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