Germany coerced their ally, Austria-Hungary, to begin conflict

The argument

The case that Germany alone bears responsibility for the First World War turns on what was offered to Austria-Hungary in the weeks after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, essentially handed Austria-Hungary a blank cheque: an assurance that if Austria-Hungary chose a path of conflict over the crisis, Germany would support it and supply limitless resources to do so. The assurance was given before any decision had been taken and without conditions attached to how far the conflict might extend. What that guarantee altered was Austria-Hungary's calculation rather than its intentions. A state weighing war against a neighbour must weigh the possibility of losing it, and of being drawn into a wider conflict it cannot sustain. An unconditional promise of German backing removed both considerations at once, holding out instead the prospect of winning comfortably and of securing political triumph through fighting over the Balkans. Austria-Hungary was not ordered to act, but the alternative to acting had been made considerably less attractive than it was before Germany intervened. The second half of the argument concerns what Germany gained by doing this. By providing complete and absolute support for its ally, Germany could advocate for itself through Austria-Hungary's crisis rather than on its own account. It could insert its own interests into what began as a smaller regional dispute, and then expand that dispute into a mass conflict of greater stakes — one offering opportunity to both powers, but initiated at Austria-Hungary's hand rather than Germany's own. Because Germany coerced its ally into beginning a conflict it then enlarged for its own ends, this argument concludes, Germany alone is responsible for the start of the First World War.

Premises

Counter-arguments

It can be argued that Germany persuaded Austria, but this does not change the role of Austria in the war and the state of affairs between Austria and Serbia. Without the Austrian/Serbian conflict, the War would not have incited and employed as many world powers as it had. Therefore, Germany can not be named the sole responsible actor.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Assurance of support is not coercion. The premise names the "blank cheque" and then reads it as compulsion, when Vienna had already resolved on action against Serbia and sought backing for a course it wanted. [Rejecting P2] What the signal encouraged was a local war, and Berlin's expectation of a contained Balkan conflict is well attested — so the inference to a design for general war does not follow from the encouragement described. [Rejecting P3] Even granting German ambition, "alone" is what the conclusion needs and the premise cannot supply it: Austria-Hungary issued the ultimatum and declared war, Russia mobilised, and the alliance obligations and mobilisation timetables of several powers turned a regional crisis into a European one — which is what the rival positions in this debate identify.