“Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I”, by Alexander Watson

832 pages, Basic Books, ISBN-13: 978-0465094882

World War I is considered by many to be the catastrophe that spawned all other catastrophes that plagued the benighted 20^th Century, but when studying it, there’s generally only a few perspectives represented: the voices of the Entente powers dominate the narrative and those representing the Central Powers tend to get overshadowed or lost in the mix.  Yet, it’s these Central and Eastern European voices that can be some of the most compelling, as Alexander Watson shows in Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I.  Even more than on the Western Front, the war in the East set the stage for the even worse carnage to take place during World War II, for in his analysis it was the mobilization and radicalization of Germany and Austria-Hungary between 1914 and 1918 that created the context for Europe’s descent into the “bloodlands” of the 1930s and 1940s; “The great material and emotional investment” of the Central Powers” he contends “ensured that defeat, when it came, would have a catastrophic impact on their societies”. Three themes underpin the book, all concerning “the people” (rather than the elites or even the military): First is consent for the war, how it was obtained, how it functioned and how it ebbed away; Second is the escalating violence throughout the war and its effects, both on war aims and general mentality; Third is the social fragmentation caused by the war. The focus is on the lived experience of the war – by the soldiers, the civilians, the officials – though the main frontline battles are also covered in some depth.

Watson sifts carefully through the thinking and actions of the main Central Powers – the Habsburgs and the Germans – from the first decision to go to war after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to provoking a European conflagration against enemies of superior numbers and military might (the Russians, British and French), all the way to the peace signed in Versailles in June 1919. Punishing Serbia for the assassinations meant bringing in its powerful ally Russia, but Watson argues that the sprawling multiethnic Austria-Hungary had largely lost control of its nationalist pockets and feared a “domino effect” if this insurgency was not violently crushed (indeed, Watson argues, the dangerously paranoid statesmen who ran the Habsburg state(s) promoted war out of “a profound sense of weakness, fear and even despair”). Germany was also operating from a place of deep insecurity regarding France, Russia and Britain, and Watson shows how Chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger), was rather more “defensive and reactive” than saber-rattling. Thus, the Central Powers were able to sell the war to the people as a defensive action, surrounded as they were by hostile enemies, or “a ring of steel.” The “pervasive sense of threat” to the community translated initially into a patriotic spur to mobilization, but it morphed into suspicion and vigilantism as refugees from the eastern war zones of Galicia flooded into the interior and provoked ethnic hostilities and anti-Semitism. The German atrocities in Belgium and Russians’ in Galicia, the Ottomans’ treatment of the Armenians and the ultimate claim that “security” was the German Reich’s ultimate goal…all of this paved the way for Nazi genocide.

Fear, both physical and psychological, play a large role in eliciting some of the changes Watson described.  Societies that had been accustomed to secure lifestyles now had to face the reality of famine and widespread death and destruction not seen in Europe since the previous major continental war 100 years before.  The British and French also faced similar challenges, but they were alleviated somewhat by aid from their allies in the Americas and colonial possessions; Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary had no such lifeline, and their societies responded to these crises with fortitude, but also increasing levels of antisemitism and recrimination against their Russian invaders. There is so much more to this book, but I found this change the most compelling theme throughout.  How does some of the most celebrated societies in Europe turn from relatively tolerant, prosperous people to something as horrific as the fascism that arose in postwar Europe?  Watson only periodically touches on the subject explicitly, and the theme can sometimes get lost in the detailed narrative, but I think this book does a good job of addressing this.  If you can read between the lines, there are satisfying, if depressing, answers to this question to be had.