- Position‹4 of 4
- Everyone shares responsibility
- Argument1 of 2›
Conflicts over alliances dragged all powers in, creating a global conflict
A great majority of world leaders at the time were related, and more notably, their nations were all intertwined through a system of tight treaties and agreements in which actors would fearlessly support those they had agreed to flank in conflict.
The argument
The majority of European powers began forming tight-knit alliances, forming into distinct sides. Essentially, it was the Triple Alliance including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy against the Triple Entente, including Britain, France, and Russia. An arrangement of that shape changes what a local quarrel can become: with the major powers sorted into two blocs in advance, any dispute involving one member became a dispute potentially involving all of them, before anyone had decided that it should. Additionally, powers in these alliances also had agreements with smaller actors like Serbia and Belgium. These commitments are the mechanism by which the blocs were actually triggered, since the smaller states were where the friction lay. Germany and Austria-Hungary inciting conflicts in these less influential territories threw the rest of the alliances into the mix. The consequences ran in several directions at once. Britain had sworn to help maintain Belgium's independence, so they rushed towards their defense — a great power brought into a continental war by a guarantee given to a small neighbour. Russia, an ally to Serbia, was furious when Austria Hungary took over Bosnia (a province containing many Serbs), adding flame to the fire. In each case the responding power was honouring an obligation rather than pursuing a quarrel of its own. That is what makes the responsibility shared on this account. No single government chose a general European war; each took a step that was defensible in isolation, within a system that converted those steps into one. The interconnectedness of the European theater, like a flailing octopus with many tentacles, resulted in the confusing mess that became World War 1 — and a catastrophe produced by the structure every power had helped to build is one for which everyone shares responsibility.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Although many nations had allyships, the German and Austrian Dual Alliance is most responsible for the war because Germany had many enemies and only a single Ally. The Dual Alliance caused the initial conflict/incitement of violence with Serbia and Russia, which resulted in other powers getting involved.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The alliance map is broadly right but the premise overstates its rigidity. Italy belonged to the Triple Alliance and did not fight alongside it, entering the war against Austria-Hungary in 1915; Britain's understanding with France was not a binding mutual-defence treaty; and the Belgian guarantee was a separate obligation dating from 1839. Alliances that can be opted out of are not mechanisms that operate automatically. [Rejecting P2] This is the strongest form of the "alliances made it inevitable" account, and it proves too much for the position it supports: if the system dragged everyone in regardless of choice, that distributes causation rather than responsibility, and shared responsibility is what the position requires. The argument also treats as automatic what were decisions — the blank cheque, the ultimatum to Serbia, the Russian mobilisation, the German invasion of Belgium — and the counter-argument's point about the Dual Alliance's particular role goes unaddressed.