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title="Permalink to Ideology Of World War One">Ideology Of World War One</a></h2>
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<time class="published" datetime="2021-12-25T00:00:00-08:00">
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Sat 25 December 2021
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By <a class="url fn" href="https://blog.trentpalmer.org/author/trent-palmer.html">Trent Palmer</a>
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Category: <a href="https://blog.trentpalmer.org/category/war.html">War</a>
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Tags:
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<a href="https://blog.trentpalmer.org/tag/wwi.html">WWI</a>
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<a href="https://blog.trentpalmer.org/tag/communism.html">Communism</a>
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<div class="entry-content">
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<p>How did ideology contribute to World War One? It did not.</p>
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<p>None of the extant ideological movements of the time were a factor in
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causing World War One. Even <em>ethnicity</em>, which is the opposite of ideology, played only a
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very small role.</p>
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<p>This blog post is a response to the Podcast
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<a href="https://www.wdfpodcast.com/" target="_blank">When Diplomacy Fails</a>,
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which asserts that ideology was a contributing factor, but I disagree.</p>
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<h3>Communism</h3>
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<p>None of the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belligerent" target="_blank">belligerents</a>
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were pro-communist. Even if one were to speculate that any of the belligerents,
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might have been capable of being motivated by the desire to prevent the
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spread of communism, there was nothing to prevent.</p>
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<p>While it is true that the outbreak of communism in Russia was tangent, that
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only lead to Russia withdrawing from the war.</p>
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<h3>Democracy</h3>
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<p>Democracy is interesting because it had been a huge motivation in the past.
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Because the French Revolution gifted France the capability to raise
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huge armies,
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_First_Coalition" target="_blank">The First Coalition</a>
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rose up against it.</p>
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<p>And Democracy certainly has been a huge factor in other wars. For instance Democracy
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gave Athens the spirit to win at
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon" target="_blank">Marathon</a>.
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And Democracy enabled the allies to execute more effectively and win
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World War Two.</p>
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<p>But despite being the most democratic belligerent in WWI, France did not even have the most
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powerful army at the time, Germany did. And there is no indication that France wanted
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to spread Democracy to Germany. In a vacuum the only motivation France would have had to
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go to war with Germany would have been to recapture
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace%E2%80%93Lorraine" target="_blank">Alace-Loraine</a>,
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which it lost in the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War" target="_blank">Franco-Prussion War</a>,
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or to possibly exchange colonial assets.</p>
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<h3>Imperialism</h3>
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<p>The only exception here is that Serbia's stance was in opposition to the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary" target="_blank">Austro-Hungarian Empire</a>.
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But in the final analysis, Serbia was merely a pawn.</p>
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<p>Russia, France, Italy, Austria, Britain, Ottomans, and Germany were all empires, and thus
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unopposed to Imperialism as an idea. Even the King of Belgium possessed colonies.</p>
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<h3>Monarchy</h3>
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<p>While it is true that Austria wanted to protect the Monarchy as in institution, the fact that
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria" target="_blank">Archduke Franz Ferdinand</a>
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was heir to the Austrian Throne was only relevant in the local context of
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the assassination in Sarajevo. Indeed, Serbia also had a King.</p>
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<h3>Ethnicity</h3>
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<p>The problem here is that identity is not an ideology. Identity is the opposite
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of ideology. Western Elitists may very well hold the ideology that identity is
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an ideology, but the ideology of identity being an ideology, is not that same
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thing as identity being an ideology. This merely shows how out-of-touch Elitists are.</p>
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<p>But even if we stipulate that identity is an ideology, this only applied to
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Russia coming to Serbia's defense because the Serbs are Slavs. And while it is
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true that the war would not have happened if Russia had not stood up for Serbia,
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in the final analysis Serbia was only a pawn. And furthermore, Russia was equally
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motivated by <em>sphere-of-influence</em> considerations in the Balkans.</p>
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<p>And while it is true that Austria was motivated to contain Serb influence
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in its empire, Serbianism is not an ethnicity. A Serb is no more or less a
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Slav than is a Czech, Bosnian, or Croat, all of whom were already established
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within the empire.</p>
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<p>Were the Ottoman Turks Racist? Either way that is immaterial as they
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were only able to fight effectively in defense.</p>
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<p>Nor did Germany invade France for ethnic reasons. Germany attacked France
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because the strategy of the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan" target="_blank">Schlieffen</a>
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plan was to defeat France quickly
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on the assumption that Russia would be slow to mobilize, thus avoiding
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having to fight both at the same time. The fact that Germany entered the
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war because of Russian mobilization,
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and because Russia was deceptive and duplicitous about that,
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is a separate issue from the strategy
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of the Schlieffen plan.</p>
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<p>Nor did America enter the war for 'anti-German' reasons. America
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entered the war because she had lent vast amounts of money to the belligerents
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and needed to protect her investment. It would be as disingenuous to
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cast, as racist, alarm about the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram" target="_blank">Zimmerman Telegram</a>,
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as it is to cast Trump's Border Wall as racist.</p>
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<h3>War as an Ideology</h3>
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<p>The Statesmen who pushed over the dominoes, may well have
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embraced the Glory or War, but that was an evolution; an effect but not a cause.
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As of June 28,
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no one thought that the destruction of Europe would be therapeutic.</p>
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<h3>Conclusion</h3>
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<p>World War One was caused not by ideology, but by Nationalism and Fear.
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Nationalism and Fear are not ideas, they are feelings.</p>
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<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_led_by_donkeys" target="_blank">Donkeys</a>
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were not thinking men anymore than
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q" target="_blank">Democrats are</a>.</p>
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<p>Ironically, World War Two <strong>was</strong> caused by Idealism. From
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points" target="_blank">Wilson's 14 Points</a>,
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to the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles" target="_blank">Versaille Treaty</a>, to the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations" target="_blank">League of Nations</a>,
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to the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic" target="_blank">Weimar Republic</a>:
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the Elites tried
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to remake Society and the World according to their high-minded ideals, but then in
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typical fashion shielded themselves from the negative consequences of
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their idealism while being unwilling and incapable of enforcing them.
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Until
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton" target="_blank">Patton</a> came along.</p>
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