He extended [his control] over them by means of regulation

These statements assume a Sinocentric world in which theSon of Heaven at the apex treats the rulers of peripheral peoples with anoverwhelming benevolence (Jen) and thereby ensures their allegiance andsubordination.

hey had not become dependencies or vassals(fan), yet they had been generally pacified, and the Ch'ing dynasty stillruled. From "outer barbarians" they had become "inside barbarians,"fitting into certain traditional institutions to a considerable degree. Aftermaking raids on the coastal frontier, they had been induced to ceasehostilities.

This point could not impress culture-bound " realists" who saw the growingwealth and power of the West and thought only how to foster the wealthand power of China.

hus the early treaties in themselves did not remake the Chinese view ofthe world. To China they represented the supremacy of Western power,but this did not convey the Western idea of the supremacy of law.

Bythese material interests they would be motivated, it was hoped, to keep thepeace

By this the materialistic foreigners were granted certain benefits and privi-leges that would grow into vested interests, for which they would dependupon the emperor and by which he might therefore control them

The traditional model of tribute-and-trade was already con-siderably distorted.

The treaty system emerged from a long transitional order in Sino-Western relations which may be called the Canton system

The result was that the treaty system, which gleamed so new in the eyesof British consuls, was actually from the Chinese point of view little morethan a refurbishing of the traditional tribute system,

Yet this conventional picture of Ch'ing passivity and collapse in theface of Western vigor and expansion fits the end of the century better thanits middle decades.

The Westernpowers, coming from outside the tradition, intent on their own aims, didnot realize how closely the treaty system was built within the frameworkof Chinese tradition

early treaty period down to the1880's was seen as only the latest phase in this tradition of "management"{ch'ou-pan) of barbarian affairs

Thus the treaty system in its early decades from the 1840's to the 1880'swas not merely a Western device for bringing China into the Westernworld; it may equally well be viewed as a Ch'ing device for accommodatingthe West and giving it a place within the Chinese world

another twenty yearsbefore the Chinese Empire entered the Europocentric family of nationsdiplomatically1 and began to show symptoms of modern nationalism.

And so the Opium War and the first treaties, in Peking today and aroundthe world, are viewed as the dawn of the New. This essay, per contra,suggests that they only began the twilight of the Old.

However, the extent of diversity that can result from divergent nationalpolitical developments may well prove to be limited in practice by abidingvalues, elite accommodations, or practical realities such as those inherent inthe nature of world problems or the structures of government and society

Unless some new strait-jacket arises to replace the role of social cleavages in limiting the diversity ofpolitical structures, it is not unreasonable to expect the particularization ofvoting choice at the individual level to be echoed at the national level byincreasing divergence in party systems.

he particularization of issue concernsprovides a plethora of possibilities from which to pick and choose whenputting together a policy agenda.

These new associations further contribute to theirrelevance of former social cleavages.

may be seen by many as more salient than the problems of socialjustice that were the bread and butter of socialist party platforms in earlieryears

‘The establishmentof regular channels for the expression of conflicting interests ... helped tostabilize the structure of a great number of nation-states.’

universalpart involves the presence o f ‘classic’ democratic rights such as freedom ofspeech, freedom of association, and freedom of the press, all of which help toguarantee the free expression of interests.

What we are suggesting is that declining cleavage politics can be regardedas a consequence of the successful resolution by political systems of deep-seated conflicts of social interests

evelopments will have resulted in growing numbers of persons who cannotunequivocally be located in terms of the simple schemata which arecommonly used to describe social structure and its cleavage

In the process, previous linkagesbetween occupation and political and social identification will have losttheir simplicity to the point where the distinction between capital andlabour may have retained little relevance for distinguishing people’s politicalorientations.

Formerly dominantcleavages cease to be relevant in a different kind of society and cannot butlose some of their determining power on individual behaviour.

Ifa small number of cognitive and evaluative dimensions is of great importancefor most voters, if parties are sufficiently homogeneous, if the party systemoffers sufficient diversity to express the different viewpoints along dimensionswhich are the important ones in the minds of the electorate, and if thosedimensions are relatively stable over time, what this will amount to is asystem of ideological or value alignments which will effectively anchorvoters and parties, and which will constrain the net amount of volatilityfrom election to election.

Few parties,and particularly the limiting case of only two parties, tend to restrict therange of policy positions from which voters can choose

To attain (or maintain) such ideological or value coherence, it matterswhether political parties and other relevant elites offer to media and votersa ‘model’ of political coherence

Does the developmental process of particularization, leading to erosion oftraditional group loyalties, imply that voters and party systems are losingtheir moorings and will drift in whatever direction they are propelled byunpredictable events

A quite different kind of ‘new’ cleavage relates to the emergence of asupposed distinction between persons with materialist and those with postmaterialist values

Certainly, there has been an enormous increase in issue diversification inpolitical life, with the emergence of ‘new politics’ issues such as feminism,ecology, nuclear disarmament, and rights for ethnic and sexual minorities,as well as right-wing concerns such as those of the survivalists, antiabortionists, libertarians, and others that were not on the political agenda oftraditional cleavage politics

This is in contrast to earlier decades, whenvarious aspects of a person’s social identity were more homogeneous in termsof their implications for political preferences.

n modern societies peoplederive many identities from their social position, from each of which politicalorientations may arise, not all pointing in the same directio

individual’s attachment to larger social groups is in the process of breakingdown

in which individual citizens relate themselvesincreasingly to small and specialized networks of more direct concern totheir own individual interests and needs rather than to groups defined byphysical proximity

society is in the process of disappearing

The major thrust of Toffler’s thesis is that, even as we move into an era ofworld politics and growing economic and political interdependence betweendifferent countries, the specifics of political concerns are becoming lessglobal.

Even though the linkages they posited havedeclined almost everywhere, the record of past linkages is clear to read.

breakdown of traditional linkages involves nothing less than the disintegration of cleavage politics, which, in turn, makes it possible for otherfactors to play an increasing role in influencing voter choice

the politicalemancipation of individual citizens who can now choose, rather than bepredestined by social position

the most frequently found cleavages concerned social differencesin terms of class and religion, whose impact on party choice was both strongand enduring.

linkages ensuredthat deeply rooted social distinctions existing at this formative period weremirrored in the divisions between parties.

that the interests and preferencesof core party constituencies predispose Left governmentsto pursue relatively expansive policies intended to raisegrowth and lower unemployment and Right governmentsto pursue relatively restrictive policies designed to containinflation

partisan effects on macroeconomicvariables are commonplace, whereas election calendareffects are sporadic

ess concernedwith measuring power precisely than with understanding howstrategic disadvantage is perpetuated, but might neverthelessbe overcome.

By treating inequality as a centralproblem, Bachrach and Baratz asked not only “who getswhat and how” but also “who gets left out and how”

Bachrach and Baratz treat politics as a dramain which no foregone conclusion is played out and a richmixture of elements is manipulated by the players

Actors not only expend energy promot-ing and opposing discrete policy decisions (the first face ofpower) but also invest resources in arrangements throughwhich strategic advantages are secured (the second face ofpower).

heyurge scholars to step back and assess the flow of the deci-sion process in order to fathom the constraints within whichdecisions are made.

international attitudes in general still did notregard war as an absolute evil

Bethmann Hollweg remained set in his habitual pessimism and held suddenlyto a single idea: to do everything to convince the Social Democrats and thenation that Germany was in a defensive situation

‘There had been no “loss ofcontrol”, only an abdication of control.’

nce he had been informed of theRussian decision to proceed to general mobilisation, Bethmann Hollweg hadno further cards to play, and that he was completely resigned to the situation.

It was thatGermany depended entirely on such an inflexible military plan and had givenpriority to strictly military considerations

uccess of the Schlieffen Plan, as is known, dependedon Russian tardiness in mobilisation, which explains very well the anxiety ofthe German generals.

For this reason, our militarysituation can be seen day by day in a less advantageous light, which couldhave harmful consequences if our potential enemies are in a position to maketheir preparations in tranquillity.

If Germany mobilised,however, Russia would mobilise completely, alleging its own defence, whichwould bring in French support.

ussia had chosen ‘to take the part of this criminalnation’, which had disturbed the situation in Europe

theTsar then cancelled the order – and reconfirmed it on 30 July. At this point,Headquarters acted to cut communications, to avoid any possible furtherchange.

The leaders of these armies were warriors by trade, forthis was still the period when making war was in the natural order of things,and from the moment when they felt it was their turn to speak, they leaned onthe civilian governments as heavily as possible.

not to be left behind by any potential adver-sary.

‘Again and again, in the crisis of July 1914, we are confronted bymen who suddenly felt themselves caught in a trap and from it called for adestiny that they were incapable of controlling.’4

this did not apply to German opinion: in taking the initiative,Germany felt, it was simply acting in self-defence, and indeed young Germansoldiers set off for the war with the conviction that they were defending theircountry.

the idea of the inevitable war developed in Germany’

There would have beengeneral stupefaction if the Belgians had been told that they would soon bedrawn into a European war, and the same applies to the British

no statesmen energetic or capable enough to find the means toblock or delay the mechanism which led to the war, not least because theorigin of the crisis seemed marginal.

Great War had no Hitler figure; virtually none of theEuropean leaders, monarchs or civil governments wished to go to war

after 28 July the behaviour of the British government was less equivocal: on29 July it refused to accept Bethmann Hollweg’s demand that Britain shouldremain neutral in the case of war if Germany promised not to touch Frenchpossessions

firmer attitude from Britain could have led Germany towards negotiation

In reality it was not,properly speaking, for Belgium that Britain was to go to war, but because aGerman victory in Western Europe implied a disturbance in the Europeanequilibrium which would be unacceptable to the British, and because such avictory would put Germany in control of the Channel ports

general mobilisation in France began at approximately the same timeas in Germany; the German ‘aggression’ had left France no option

n 2 August, German troops crossedthe frontier into Luxembourg, while Belgium was summoned to allow themfree passage. On 3 August, Germany declared war on France.

t has by nomeans been shown that Germany would indeed have mobilised if Russia hadnot made the first move, if only because Bethmann Hollweg was convinced ofthe importance of national consensus for ‘national defence’.

for general mobilisation to take place immediatelyin Austria-Hungary – a move which would force the German government tofollow suit.3

Undoubtedly at this moment Moltke wished to impose the military pointof view. On 30 July he demanded urgently to proceed to mobilisation, whileBethmann Hollweg wanted at any price to wait for the Russian generalmobilisation.

Wilhelm II and the civil powers, still hesitant, were insistently driven by thegenerals who had hitherto remained reserved. The generals considered –rightly – that in order to carry out the Schlieffen Plan, this very bold planwhich was designed to finish with France before turning to deal with Russia,every day counted.

Didthe Russian general mobilisation render war inevitable? Certainly, yes.’3

t was of course known that in the case of war the German plans were basedon the Russian army mobilising slowly, and that Germany could not acceptbeing caught out by speed of action.

what would have been felt as a new national humiliation would be unaccept-able to the army leaders and public opinion alike (urban opinion at least – thevast mass of peasants remained indifferent to all of this)

The effects of the defeat againstJapan and the events of 1905 were fading, and Raymond Poincaré, France’sPrésident du Conseil at the time of the Balkan wars and now President of theRepublic, had held back from restraining Russia’s action out of fear of losingthe alliance.

localisation was a test of whatRussia and its allies wanted. The conviction of Russian aggressive intent, andthe prospect of its military superiority within a few years was such thatthis fear had overwhelmed calmer and more balanced political reasoning.

deliberately high-risk ‘all or nothing’ scheme – but with the genuine riskof plunging into major catastrophe.

Because of the rigidity of the system of alliances, and purely through theiroperation, the risk would exist in the continuing situation of being led into aEuropean war.

Overall, the German rulers were convinced that rapid action would preventthe other powers from intervening in the conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary.

if war comes, it will be the consequenceof a Russian mobilisation undertaken in the heat of the moment, that is, aheadof any preliminary negotiations. In that case negotiations would hardly bepossible, because we would have to attack immediately

Russia’s military strength was growingrapidly; Austria was increasingly weakened by pressures from north andsouth, and would be incapable of following Germany into a war.

Before July 1914 Bethmann Hollweg wasincreasingly convinced that the encirclement so much feared by the Germanssince the Franco-British treaty of 1904, the Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911, theexchange of letters of support between Grey (the British Minister for ForeignAffairs) and Paul Cambon (French ambassador in the United Kingdom) at theend of 1912, had now become reality.2

maintaining European peace, he consid-ered that it would be useful, and possible, to ‘localise’ the conflict – to preventit from spreading beyond the single point at issue between Austria-Hungaryand Serbia

Austria-Hungary would be supported by Germany in whatever actionthey decided on; but he also repeated the advice to take action quicklyagainst Serbia.

demanded a response from thedouble monarchy, to achieve a decisive break in the threads which theadversaries were in the course of ‘weaving into a web around them’

nterest of the two powers to strike down agitations ‘system-atically conceived and nourished by Russia’.

What is striking about the“blank cheque” is not that it was issued but that it was indeed blank.’16Certainly what happened at this moment was an unexpected ‘extraordinaryabdication of responsibility’17 on the part of the German government.

If Austria-Hungry were to remain an important ally it must not be weakened.

the opportunity offered by the assassination attack must beused to tame Serbia – the affair must also remain the work of the doublemonarchy alone and, if the Austro-Hungarian action were to fail, Germanymust not be held responsible for this fresh setback suffered by its Austrianallies.

Austria-Hungary must finish with Serbia, and finish soon

The eventual outcome of events therefore depended on Germany

Austria-Hungary would have liked to take further advant-age of these circumstances to eliminate the Serb danger once and for all, butGermany had restrained them from acting to do so.

success of a purely diplomatic naturewould be without value, even if it led to dazzling humiliation for Serbia. Itwould thus be necessary to bring Serbia face to face with claims so consid-erable that rejection could be expected and a radical military intervention canbe undertaken.

eize the occasion to settle thequestion of Serbia once and for all.

incident must be put to gooduse to tame Serbia, whose aggressive behaviour, and indeed its very existence,were a danger to the stability of the ‘multi-national’ Empire.

thevery different attitude taken by other members of the government wasechoed in the press, which represented the nationalist and pan-Serb oppo-sition. It exulted whole-heartedly and congratulated Princip and his com-panions, who were raised to hero status, even martyrs, in the ‘Yugoslav’cause

was above all a means ofapplying pressure to the Prime Minister, Nikola Pašic ́; having personifiedthe Serb nationalist current, Pašic ́ was now accused of passivity and com-plaisancy towards Austria-Hungary

Russia, protector of the Slavs, was unable to respond to this situation: ithad been weakened by the combination of its defeat against Japan in 1905and the revolutionary movements of 1905

Hadnot Conrad demanded, at least three times since December 1912, that thisdisturbing neighbour be disposed of by means of a preventive war?

Using all the documentation known at that time, he accused theGerman government of having intended and prepared for this war since 1912 as aconflict from which Germany was to emerge as a world power – in other words,a power of world supremacy.

when historians of thedifferent nationalities agreed that none of the Great Powers could be consid-ered entirely free from some degree of responsibility.

need to justify to public opinion thedeaths of the 10 million soldiers who were killed in the war.

From the very beginning of a European war such as had not been seen fornearly a century, it was impossible to compare it to any other conflict: byreason of the general mobilisations at its outbreak, and the call for massvolunteers in Britain, this time millions of men would be involved in thewar.

On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. On 30 July, Russiaordered general mobilisation. During the night of 30–31 July, Austria-Hungarydecided to mobilise, followed on 1 August by Germany and France atapproximately the same time. Also on 1 August, Germany declared waron Russia, and on France on 3 August. On 4 August the United Kingdomdeclared war on Germany, and on 6 August Austria-Hungary declared waron Russia

these shares will be secondary in comparison to the aggressivediplomacy and armament policies that the German monarchy, with Viennaincreasingly in its wake, pursued from the turn of the century, and that forthe reasons examined here, culminated in the idea of the Central Powerslaunching a preventive war in 1914.

Only when it became absolutely clear that the main thrust ofthe German invasion was head on through Belgium and not further southagainst France, was he able to sway his Cabinet colleagues. Like London,Paris similarly took a more ‘attentiste’ position and not the proactive one ofthe decision-makers in Berlin and Vienna

it seems that for their own profession’s sakethey wanted to make great wars fightable and winnable again. Hence theyadopted Schlieffen’s idea of annihilation and added to it the notion of alightning war.

Pondering in his years of retirement the lessons of the Franco-Prussian Warin which he had led Prussia to victory against Napoleon III, he came to theconclusion that a future war could no longer be fought among the GreatPowers of Europe. Such a war, he was convinced, would be a Volkskrieg, apeople’s war, that no belligerent could hope to win. Everything shouldtherefore be done to avoid a major European war.3

Brilliant mood. The government has succeeded very well inmaking us appear as the attacked.’

These demonstrations made Reich Chancellor Theobald von BethmannHollweg realise that Germany could not possibly join an Austro-Hungarianwar, unless the population could be convinced that they were being calledup to defend the fatherland against the autocratic tsarist juggernau

The prospects of the future seriously worried him [Moltke]. Russia will havecompleted her armaments in 2 to 3 years. The military superiority of ourenemies would be so great then that he did not know how we might copewith them.

oltke was by now firmly convinced that ‘to waitany longer meant a diminishing of our chances; as far as manpower wasconcerned, one cannot enter into a competition with Russia

Having summarised his worries, in particular about the size of the Russianarmament programme

e inclined to hit before it was too late and while victory stillseemed possible.

he country’s enemies ‘were arming more rapidly than we do, aswe were short of money’.

Moltke also took the view that a warwas inevitable. The sooner it took place the better it would be.

To the Kaiser the life-or-deathquestion had been raised for his realm:28 ‘The eventual struggle for existencewhich the Germans (Austria, Germany) will have to fight in Europe againstthe Slavs (Russia) supported by the Romans (Gauls) will find the Anglo-Saxonson the side of the Slavs.’

the pressure was rising, also from Vienna,to launch an early war against Serbia in an effort to strengthen the position ofAustria-Hungary against Slav nationalism

They promptly intro-duced army bills themselves so that the abandoned Anglo-German naval armsrace was now being replaced by an even more dangerous military competitionon land.

more alarmed about the future of its own position in the Balkans. In 1908 theHabsburgs had tried to bolster their territorial position by annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, this move backfired because it angered the Russianswho now saw themselves more than ever as the protectors of the Slavs in theBalkans.

Anystate that is involved in a struggle for its survival must use, with utmostenergy, all its forces and resources if it wants to live up to its highestduties.’23 The number of Germany’s enemies, he added, had now become‘so great that it could become our inescapable duty’ to use ‘in certain cases’and from the first moment every available soldier. Thenceforth everythingdepended ‘on our winning the first battles’

the spectre of ‘encirclement’ tookroot in the thinking of the German general staff and of the Kaiser.

In 1907 Britain and Russia had settled their longstanding differences inAfghanistan, which had facilitated the formation of the Triple Entente ofFrance, Britain and Russia

f course, Ballin was alsoopposed to a continuation of the Anglo-German naval arms race because hefeared a further escalation of tensions that the building of battleships hadalready produced.

At thesame time, he continued to hope that increasing the social insurance benefitsthat Bismarck had first introduced in the 1880s would woo the industrialworkers away from the Social Democrats and the Social Democratic tradeunions.

Faced with the failure of the disarmament talks(largely because Germany refused to be part of any armament reduction)and with the need to fulfil election promises, the Liberal Cabinet decidedto finance both stepped-up naval armaments and social programmes

When Tirpitz, unwilling to concede that his ambitious plan was failing, alsobegan to build dreadnoughts, Fisher stepped up the building tempo

oroccan test proved to be a very bad miscalculation, and theinternational conference that followed left Germany without the gains she hadexpected

Britain began to wonder about the relentless building tempoacross the Channel, and concluded the Entente Cordiale with France,Germany’s arch-enemy on the continent. It was not quite as solid as theFranco-Russian alliance treaty of 1893 that would involve Germany in a night-marish war on two fronts. But the Entente of 1904 rattled the German ForeignOffice and caused it to test its firmness by challenging France in North Africa ayear later.

‘danger zone’, as he called it, that the ImperialNavy would be passing through. For, if London discovered the ultimate aims,it was likely that it would try to destroy the embryonic Imperial Navy in acoup reminiscent of the preventive strike Britain had launched against theDanish fleet in 1805 outside Copenhagen

the building tempo looked quite modest in its early stagesand was therefore unlikely to alarm the Royal Navy. In other words, atthe turn of the century Germany started a unilateral arms build-up againstBritain, and Germany’s long-term ambition of defeating the Royal Navyhad to be kept secret

By 1897, Tirpitz, by now the Kaiser’s naval secretary, had opted for thelatter strategy. He was convinced that the only way to gain sufficient power-political leverage against Britain, the first sea power, was to expand thehitherto modest Imperial Navy into a major tool that could be used towring territorial concessions from the British at the conference table whenanother ‘division of the world’ was being negotiate

During the late nineteenth century, the Great Powers on the Europeancontinent eyed the armament policies of their rivals with much suspicion.Perhaps one of them would achieve military superiority and then use thisadvantage to start a preventive war.

To him, major wars among Great Powers had become a loss for allparticipants, even for those who formally won, and the drain on resourceswould be so great that the region might never recover.

It containeddisturbingly accurate descriptions of what this war would be like, i.e., a massslaughter of the kind that occurred for real in the trenches of the First WorldWar. War between industrialised nations was for him tantamount to thedestruction of civil and civilised society.

However, for reasons to be examined below, from around 1910 the businesscommunities on both sides of the Atlantic became increasingly nervousabout the international diplomatic and military situation

Colonialism was dangerous and, indeed, self-defeating in the sense that itexacerbated economic tensions and rivalries that were inherent in theeconomic systems of an increasingly industrialised Europe

heviolence practised in this war became part of German military culture.8 Inother words, it became so deeply ingrained in the ethos of the officer corpsthat it came to see a future European war in the same terms of completeannihilation

imperialism was designed to draw all classes together in defence of the nationand empire and aimed to prove to the least well-to-do class that its interestswere inseparable from those of the nation. It aimed at undermining theargument of the socialists and demonstrating that, contrary to the Marxistallegation, the workers had more to lose than their chains.’

This expansion, he added, was necessary ‘to no small degree alsobecause the great patriotic task and the economic benefits to be derived fromit will offer a strong palliative against educated and uneducated SocialDemocrats’

The notion that imperialism was a useful tool not only to respond tocommercial pressures but also to divert and ease domestic tensions and topromise material gains for more than a few businessmen involved in interna-tional trade, had by the 1890s become popular among politicians and intellec-tuals all over Europe

There was yet another device by which – so politicians calculated – patrioticpride and support for the national state could be fostered: the lure of expan-sion into overseas territories and the quest for a colonial empire

A third method was to mobilise nationalist feelings and to win over citizensby appealing to the integrating force of patriotism.

theyall were faced with growing numbers of citizens living in the cities underconditions that were crying out for improvement. Perceiving a threat to theestablished order, politicians and bureaucrats relied on and refined severalmeans by which they tried to stabilise political conditions.

It did not take long for the otherparties and classes to see them as a threat

the lower classes, too, were able to articulate their hopes and expect-ations vis-à-vis their local and national governments

The gap between the wealthyand the poor was particularly visible in residential segregation, dress andshopping habits. Accordingly, the industrial societies of pre-1914 Europebecame more rigidly stratified in terms of socio-economic position and cul-tural habitus

To grasp the highly dynamic developments that the societies of Europeunderwent in the three or four decades before 1914, the impact of industri-alisation, demography and urbanisation must be considered as major back-ground factor

Yet at each level there was a willingness to riskor to accept war as a solution to a whole range of problems, political, social,international, to say nothing of war as apparently the only way of resisting adirect physical threat. It is these attitudes which made war possible; and it isstill in an investigation of the mentalities of the rulers of Europe and theirsubjects that the explanation of the causes of the war will ultimately lie

That meansbuilding into the military organization at various levels some sort of self-questioning, problem-solving facility in order to deal with the as yet unfore-seen difficulties which will arise

Public disenchantment at the political aspects of the war therefore interactedwith public unrest at social and economic deprivation, to topple govern-ments and to bring the war effort to a halt

but they could be more easily absorbed into the parliamentary democraticsystem than was the case in the military autocracies

With the strain ofthe war intensifying, and with the respective high commands calling for evergreater sacrifices from their populations without any evident sign of victory,it was predictable that cries would arise for a reform of the entire governingsystem, not to mention for social and economic compensations for theenhanced 'military participation ratio.'

n ever costlier arma-ments stalemate was interacting with an ever bloodier operational (andtherefore strategic) stalemate, so it was not surprising that generals grewbaffled, politicians grew desperate, and the public grew ever more resentfulas the arms output meant little; what was more critical was how long eacheconomy and society could meet these unprecedented demands when theprospects of outright victory for either side seemed to be fading away.

The term political as used in these essays hasactually referred to two separate if interrelated aspects, the first being theavailability of financial, industrial, technological, and manpower resourcesfor the pursuit of victory, and the second being the willingness of the nationat large, and their political representatives in particular, to keep on support-ing the war effort

reated an effective Staff systemto handle tactical and operational problems, to analyze empirical data, toexperiment with new methods, and - most important of all - to encourageopen discussion which would also include challenging received ideas abouthow best things were to be done.

The Continentalbalance was upheld (barely); imperial interests were preserved, in some areasconsiderably enhanced; and relations with all of the Allied Great Powers wereskillfully utilized to benefit Britain's complex strategic situatio

well bring another powerful nation into the enemy coalition.Convinced of its own military effectiveness, however, Berlin proved incapa-ble of coldly weighing the balance of short-term versus long-term risk whichwas at the core of a truly Clausewitzian grand strategy.

et whereas the French,for example, enhanced their strategic effectiveness by clever alliance diplo-macy, the German military mind preferred a quite different solution: escap-ing from their geopolitical bind by a bold offensive move which, whileprovocative to neutral Great Powers, would hopefully shatter their immedi-ate foe and thus achieve the desired swift victory.

ver-reaching itself to gain a victory in a specific campaign, it ran the risk ofensuring that it could never win the war as a whole

ts basic flaw,which it repeated even more spectacularly in 1941, was to opt for strategiccourses of action which, while having a certain military logic to them,undermined rather than secured the nation's larger political goals

redefine their strategic aim: instead of going for an unattainable break-through, they would aim instead at attrition, wearing down the enemy'sforces until the magic moments arrived when they buckled under

As the defending forces fell back, their linesshortened; and Allied reinforcements appeared

Even the more mobile and spectacular campaigns in the European theatereventually fizzled, or ended in disaster, because the technical and logisticalproblems proved insuperable

If one attempted to punch a holethrough the first line by prolonged bombardments, one surrendered theelement of surprise and allowed the enemy to reinforce the second and thirdlines of trenches. Any advance took the troops farther and farther away fromtheir logistical supplies and rear commanders; fatigue merely compoundedthe problem

ame quick-firing guns whose demand for shells dras-tically complicated logistics also made it impossible for infantry and cavalryto survive on top of the ground in the face of the vastly enhanced fire power,and before the internal-combustion engine solved that problem as well,through the development of tanks and armored personnel carriers.

convey those items forward

s in so many other instances, the acid test of military effective-ness was whether one could handle not the expected but the unexpectedelements thrown up in war.

o a very large degree, in other words, it was impossible for the powers toachieve military effectiveness in the First World War without first finding asolution to a small but vital number of tactical problems: how to close with,and then overwhelm, the enemy's battlefleet; how to counter the attacks ofthe U-boats; how to open up a new strategic flank through amphibiousoperations; and - by far the most important of all - how to break into, andthen out of, an enemy-held trench system.

For it seems worth claiming that it was at the tacticallevel in this war (much more than in the 1939-45 conflict) that the criticalproblems occurred

ad been no real winners; everyonehad lost. Versailles had been a 'Carthaginian peace,' ultimately as dissatisfy-ing to the victors as to the defeated.

The Wehrmacht was a superb tactical instrument.Yet it was frequently launched in strategic and operational directions thatnullified numerous battlefield successes.

Strengths and weaknesses refer to the range of weapons and humancharacteristics that affect combat power.

t is not uncommon for a tactical system to require greater support than amilitary organization can actually provide.

It is possible for a military organization to fail to train its personnel toperform the tasks prescribed by its tactical system

There are some tactical systems that require an especially high level of trustbetween officers and men if they are to function.

Italianofficers by and large ignored their men, refused to share front-line hardships,and generally led from the rear. The result was an almost complete lack oftrust

Though any tactical system requires a militaryorganization to pay attention to these issues, some systems require unusuallystrong and resilient bonds with military units

Although different from surprise, rapid exploitation requires similarcapabilities and attributes. Effectiveness in this category involves the utiliza-tion of a wide variety of opportunities created by the almost random fluidityof mechanized warfare

Although different from surprise, rapid exploitation requires similarcapabilities and attributes. Effectiveness in this category involves the utiliza-tion of a wide variety of opportunities created by the almost random fluidityof mechanized warfare

Historically, surprise has been a potent multiplier of combat power. It isdifficult to find a military that rejects surprise as an advantageous condition.

his measure of tactical effectiveness closely resembles that of its counterpartat the operational level. However, tactical effectiveness requires that theprinciple of integration and combined arms not be strictly weapons-cen-tered, but rather be applied to all the factors affecting combat power.

mmediate tactical problem of how to get throughthe killing zone of the enemy's firepower.

he dubious doctrine of the DuPicq-Grandmaison school constituted French operational doctrine. The tac-tical system was accordingly based on the infantryman's ability to moverapidly in close order across the artillery and machine gun killing zone toengage the enemy in close combat, preferably with the bayonet.

The adoption of particular tactical systems can hamper military organiza-tions in their pursuit of strategic objectives

The tactical level of military activity refers to the specific techniques used bycombat units to fight engagements in order to secure operational objectives.

The result was that Bomber Command did notplace its strengths against German weaknesses.

employment of military forces to achieve objectives for which they arelargely unsuited.

The most potent and ingenious operational capabilities are worthless unless anetwork of supporting activities buttresses them

At adeeper level, mobility and flexibility depend at least as much, if not more, onan appropriate command and control network and on staff elements thatpermit military units to remain cohesive, distinctive organizations while theymaneuver.

Operational effectiveness has a distinct human element. The professionaland personal relationships between officers of different branches within thesame service as well as between different services provide the institutionaland psychological underpinnings for integrated action.

aking full advantage of these military assetsincreases the likelihood that an armed force will fulfill its mission

Measures or indicators of operational effectiveness must reflect thisdoctrinal focus.