It's an interesting speculation to go back in time to the coffee-house where Gavrilo Princip waited, and bring him forward 80 years to 1994, just to show him the ultimate consequences of his actions. He may then have decided that pulling the trigger on the couple was not worth the trouble it would cause. None of the people involved in the plot realised that their actions were likely to start a World War. I think (if I remember rightly) that ironically, every one of the assasination-group survived the war-- I saw a photo of them all sitting together in the 1920's. On the other hand, if G. P. hadn't done the deed, someone else would have, no doubt.
This assasination reeked of premeditation on behalf of the German intelligence service . The fact that some 2 hours earlier a bomb was thrown at his car failing to kill the Archduke they still carried on with the tour . Gavrilo Princip missed an earlier opportunity to assasinate the target and retired to a cafe . Incredibly they actually drive to the cafe where Gavrilo Princip was sitting , and supposedly seeing his opportunity he shot the Archduke ! He was driven deliberately to his assasin .
There is an important difference. If Berchtold had made an accusation of responsibility against Pasic's government, he would have been wrong. But by sticking to the charge of complicity, they ensured that their declaration of war was on solid legal ground.
Were you hinting, ever so subtly, that we should get back to discussing the cause(s) of WWII? I think that would be a really good idea; it's an interesting topic
Actually River, I was hinting for them to get off the topic of "what if" the big bang thing was me having to go to extreme measures.
Eh. I'll take a stab at it. What the poster appears to be actually asking is what, if anything contributed to the outbreak of the war, over and beyond the ambitions of Adolf Hitler? In that spirit I'll answer, but with the provision that, "Hitler caused World War Two" is an absolute truth. How do we know for certain that this is the case? Because Germany started the war by attacking a natural German ally - Poland. Chamberlain can be charged with many stupidities in these matters, but exploiting this unbelievable mistake on Hitler's part was not one of them. If, for a moment, as fancy, remove the lunatic dictator from Berlin in October 1938 and substitute a more palatable character (let's say a Gandi) as the German leader, the question remains; could the newfangled goodie-goodie Germany then have avoided World War Two? If the answer is "yes" then Hitler is hung because it's irrefutable that he started things. But if the answer is instead "no", then the question of ultimate causation is shown not to have been dependent upon Hitler's rantic actions; Hitler can be condemned for bringing things to a head more quickly than otherwise, but cannot be guilty of causing that which was inevitable. I'd ask the question as follows: Given Germany's utter lack of allies, and therefore lack of security in Central Europe, what's the "reasonable" formula that assured Germany would not be attacked by a reconstituted Triple Entente, or Dual Alliance? If the above cannot be answered for "Gandi's" Germany in a fashion we'd find acceptable in meeting some minimum standards for our own security, then the origins of the war may center on the fact that Europe was bereft of a security platform for its strongest state.
It is a very dangerous thing to claim an absolute truth in History. Why claim that the war started at this point (the invasion of Poland)? Presumably, you make this claim because France and Britain declared war at this time. But the invasion of Poland was a joint invasion by Germany and the Soviet Union. So why claim that Hitler rather than Stalin started the war? Simply because German troops crossed the frontier first in what was clearly a pre-planned joint attack? Perhaps France and England started WWII by declaring war? Can we be sure that a European war was inevitable at this stage (if they had not done so)? And if so, can we be sure it would become a World War? Unless you can substantiate the claim that German troops crossing the Polish border led inevitably to a World War, can you hold Hitler responsible for that war? Remember, Hitler did not want a World War. He desperately did not want a war against the British Empire.
As a rule of thumb in past conflicts, the powers which initiates military action is usually considered the aggressor, unless it can be shown that their actions were taken under duress (i.e., Israel, 1967) or a reasonable response to another form of aggression (i.e., Austria-Hungary, 1914). In the parlors of Europe, for centuries before Hitler ever came to power, it had been understood quite clearly that invasions (and most particularly, annexations) were automatically a casus beli for any power that chose to intervene. This is why the Great Powers went to Great Pains to consult and negotiate with one another; to avoid the odium of upsetting the applecart. Whether Hitler “didn’t want” a war with England doesn’t matter. In 1939 it is well nigh irrefutable that Germany, not Poland instigated the crisis beginning in January. I think your point of contributory Soviet instigation has merit, but it is also true they were reacting to Hitler’s lead. Unless it can be shown that Germany’s hand was forced by some overarching European instability that made a showdown inevitable, then Hitler gets tagged with the blame. It is true that Germany was framed, victimized and humiliated in the First World War by three aggressor powers (Great Britain, France, Russia), but this does not translate into a “free hand” in Europe for a violent and racist regime decades later.
I could have expressed myself better. When I asked "can you hold Hitler responsible", I was meaning in terms of historic CAUSATION. (The word "responsible" tends to imply "morally responsible" which is not what I was concerned with.) See, what I am saying glenn239 is that I do not believe that a WORLD war necessarily had to follow from the partition of Poland. Hitler and Stalin may both have thought that there would ultimately be conflict between their two countries, but did either suppose at that time that there would be a WORLD war? Roosevelt after all was promising resolutely that the US would not get involved in a European war. Well, were they? The partition of Poland was undoubtedly agreed between the two powers ahead of the concocted incident that preceded German invasion. No one, I think, any longer supposes that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland was a "reaction" to the German invasion of Western Poland. The line of demarkation was agreed between Molotov and Ribbentrop in a secret annex to the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
All the Nazi-Soviet pact was a German attempt at buying time in attempt to appease Russia whilst they dealt with their Anglo-Franco adversaries in the West . The Russian's took advantage of the Pact too put as much space between them and their future attacker turned on them . The Russian attack on Finland was a Russian attempt to protect Leningrad from direct attack .
You might equally well say (as Kruschev did in his memoirs) that it was an attempt by the Soviets to buy time while rearming. It suited both sides at the time; that's why it happened. Just as Hitler wished to unite Germanic territories and to dominate the old Hapsburg lands, so the Soviet leaders wished to recapture the lands ruled by Imperial Russia. Both sides feared that a peaceful division into spheres of influence would not be accomplished. Much danger of war lay within that fear itself. It is perverse to think that an agreed partition of Poland that was accomplished without conflict between Nazis and Soviets was the cause of a World War.
This is a common interpretation, but it's also widely accepted as a theory that the Soviet Union exploited the confrontation between Germany and the west to further its own expansionist agenda. For example, the Soviet Union did not need to sign a Nazi-Soviet Pact to partition Poland in order to have secured a territorial buffer in the event of a war. But by doing so, they made war a certainty, whereas if they had abstained from cooperation, then Hitler may have backed down in August 1939. Being labelled the aggressor has incurred odium for precisely this reason. As Hitler was perfectly aware in 1939, attacking Poland would cause a period of violent instability in Europe, in which any series of consequences (some quite severe) could come to pass. He did it anyways. That a partition did not necessarily have to lead to a world war is true, but a matter extraneous to the issue of Hitler's guilt in taking action which would virtually ensure this eventuality came to pass.
But it didn't. It led to the "phoney war" -- though there was significant naval warfare during this period. Operations in Norway were effectively an offshoot of the naval conflict. It was the German invasion of France that led to brief but significant land battles on the European continent. But these did not make a world war inevitable. More than anything else, it was the victory of the War Party (Churchill and supporters) over the Peace Party (British Establishment) that ensured a World War. (This is not to dismiss the likelihood of a Nazi-Soviet European war.) Of course, if you think that it was worth a world war to be rid of Hitler, you do not blame Churchill and Roosevelt for engineering it. Or, there again, were Churchill and Roosevelt merely pawns of International Jewry?
Can you provide information that shows either Chamberlain or the French had opened discussions with Hitler on ending the war before Churchill came to power in May 1940?
After the declaration of war, British contact with the Germans was necessarily discrete and "deniable". Some of it may have been technically illegal and treasonable, even though it was pursued with patriotic motives. In the aftermath of Allied victory, and the depiction of Hitler as an inhuman monster, those who had been in favour of peace were inclined to keep their secrets. Moreover, Hitler's "double-crossing" of Chamberlain had made "appeasement" a bad word. However, a large part of the British Establishment was against the war with Germany. Many harboured great hostility towards Churchill. A fierce battle, largely hidden from the public, was fought out between (on the one hand) those who saw no advantage in continuing the conflict, who wished to conclude an as-far-as-possible-honourable peace, who saw economic ruin in the cost of a long war, and who viewed the Soviet Union as the greater enemy -- and (on the other hand) Churchill and his allies, controlling the secret service, the weapons of propaganda, and fomenting anti-German sentiment. One of the key events of this story, of course, is the extraordinary peace mission of Rudolf Hess. We do not know what secret contacts led up to Hess's mission. We do not know whose support he enjoyed within the British Establishment. Many of the records are to be kept secret for a hundred years. Hess was not a fool or a madman. The battle between the War Party and the Peace Party was delicately balanced, and its outcome was uncertain. Had the appeasers been successful, Britain might have avoided a long war, retained its Empire for a longer period, escaped the near-bankruptcy caused by Lend-Lease -- the United States might have remained neutral, and a second World War need not have happened. For much more detail: Double Standards, Picknett et al. Time-Warner, 2002 Friendly Fire, Picknett et al. Mainstream Publishing, 2004
This is interesting, but what does it have to do with Hitler's decision to trigger a war, and the responsibility that came with it?
The thread addresses the question: Why did WWII happen? It did not happen as a result of the partition of Poland. It did not happen as a result of the invasion of France. One may argue that it happened because Britain under Churchill chose the path of war rather than peace, and sought to make the conflict global by involving the US. One may argue that it was caused by the Japanese. But it happened DESPITE Hitler's efforts to avoid a World War by making peace with Britain and attempting to keep the US neutral. In no ordinary sense can Hitler be said to have CAUSED a WORLD war. Let me stress that I am not concerned with moral responsibility here. I am addressing the path of historic causation.
