Abstract
So much of European history is taken up with wars that we tend to concentrate on the destructive aspects of human life. Indeed, Professor Geoffrey Barraclough tells us that we should stop talking about the causes of wars and revolutions altogether and turn to their effects. Perhaps future historians, Barraclough maintains, will regard the two world wars as negative phenomena, which provided the peoples of Africa and Asia with an opportunity of asserting their own emerging culture and national identity. Barraclough is certainly right in maintaining that we should judge the negative aspects of human life in terms of the positive, and it has not evaded his notice that the effect of one conflict is frequently the cause of a second.1 The conclusion to be drawn is that World War I may have been European in its theatre of action, world-wide in its effects; World War II was world-wide in both respects.
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Notes
M. Toscano, The History of Treaties and International Politics (Baltimore, 1966) pp. 134–5.
S. B. Fay, Origins of the World War (New York, 1928);
B. E. Schmitt, The Coming of the War (New York, 1930).
According to Professor W. N. Medlicott, the ideas of L. Albertini in The Origins of the War of 1914 (London, 1952) are more in line with Schmitt’s than Fay’s: see Contemporary England (London, 1967) p. 239, n. 7.
See H. Butterfield, ‘Grey in July 1914’, Historical Studies (Proceedings of the Irish Historical Conferences) 5 (1965.
Imanuel Geiss, July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War — Selected Documents (London, 1967).
See J. A Moses, The War Aims of Imperial Germany: Professor Fritz Fischer and his Critics (Brisbane, 1968). See also ‘1914’, Journal of Contemporary History. 3 (1966).
G. K. A. Bell, Archbishop Davidson (London, 1935) pp. 733 ff.
The question of war guilt is discussed extensively in F. A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1948) esp. p. 382;
and in R. C. D. Jasper, George Bell, Bishop of Chichester (London, 1967) ch. vi.
The efforts of Archbishop Söderblom of Uppsala to bring about an Anglo-German reconciliation, because of the war guilt problem, have until recently been almost totally neglected: see B. Sundkler, Nathaniel Söderblom: His Life and Work (London, 1968) chs VI and VII.
See R. Pares, The Historian’s Business (London, 1961) ch. II.
Peacemaking (London, 1934), and F. M. Powicke, Modern Historians and the Study of History (London, 1955) pp. 114–15.
S. Adler, The Isolationist Impulse: Its Twentieth-Century Reaction (London, 1957)
and M. Jonas, Isolationism in America 1935–1941 (Ithaca. N.Y. 1966).
G. M. Thompson, The Twelve Days (London, 1964) p. 63.
G. Hilger and A. G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir History of German–Soviet Relations 1918–1941 (New York. 1953) pp. 94 ff.
For an excellent short account, see G. A. Craig, ‘Totalitarian Approaches to Diplomatic Negotiation’, in A. O. Sarkissian (ed.), Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in Honour of G. P. Gooch (London, 1961).
See David Astor, ‘Why the Revolt against Hitler was Ignored’, Encounter, XXXII (June 1969).
E.g., K. Robbins, Munich 1938 (London, 1968)
A. Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War (London, 1968).
D. C. Watt, Personalities and Policies: Studies in the Formulation of British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (London, 1965) p. 214.
R. J. O’Neill, The German Army and the Nazi Party 1933–1939 (London, 1966) p. 127. O’Neill has made extensive use of General von Weich’s papers.
Toscano, Treaties and International Politics, pp. 164–8 and pp. 335–6. See also E. Davidson, The Trial of the Germans (New York, 1966).
‘Machtergreifung or due process of History: Historiography of Hitler’s rise to power’, Historical Journal, 3 (1965), and K. F. Werner, Das nationalsozialistische Geschichtsbild und ie deutsche Wissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1967);
reviewed by F. Graus, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1 (1969).
Thilo Vogelsang, ‘Hitlers Brief an Reichenau vom 4. Dezember 1933’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeshichte, 4 (1959).
Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik 1933–1939 (Frankfurt, 1969), reviewed by Miss Elizabeth Wiskemann in History Today (April 1969).
W. Foerster, General Oberst Ludwig Beck, sein Kampf gegen den Krieg: aus nachgelassenen Papieren des Generalstabschefs (Munich. 1953) pp. 88–90.
For a discussion of German naval armaments in 1938–9 see D. C. Watt, ‘Anglo-German Naval Negotiations on the Eve of the Second World War’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (May–Aug 1958).
W. Treue, ‘Hitlers Rede vor der deutschen Presse, 10. November 1938’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. VI (1958).
D. Irving, Breach of Security: The German Intelligence File on Events Leading to the Second World War, with an introduction by D. C. Watt (London, 1968).
U. von Hassall, Diaries (London, 1948) entry for 20 Dec 1938.
Ibid., VII, no. 192 and app. I, extracts from the Note Book of Colonel General F. Halder. See also W. Baumgart, ‘Zur Ansprache Hitlers vor den Führern der Wehrmacht am 22. August 1939’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 2 (1968).
See quotation from Jodl’s diary in E. M. Robertson’s Hitler’s Pre-War Policy and Military Plans (London, 1963) pp. 181–2.
Barradough, An Introduction to Contemporary History, p. 28, and R. Greenfield, Ethiopia (London, 1965) p. 188.
George W. Baer, The Coming of the Italian-Ethopian War (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).
Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (London, 1968). Unfortunately neither of these authors have used Documents diplomatiques francais, 1st series, II, no. 180, which contains interesting material on the Rome Agreements. See also ibid., 2nd series, I, no. 99, a letter from Laval to Mussolini. 23 Jan 1936.
J. B. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, National Security and Foreign Policy (New Haven, 1963).
Cf. G. R. Storry, The Double Patriots: A Study of Japanese Nationalism (London, 1957).
See also Akira Iriye, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East (Cambridge. Mass. 1965).
F. S. Northedge in The Troubled Giant (London, 1969) ch. XII gives a full account of the effect of the crisis on British and American policy.
Theo Sommer, Deutschland und Japan zwichen den Mäehten (Tubingen. 1962) pp. 21 ff.
I. S. O. Playfair, History of the Second World War; The Mediterranean and the Middle East (U.K. series. London, 1965), 1. ch. 1.
C. Thorne, The Approach of War, 1938–1939 (London, 1967) P. 87 and pp. 130–4.
Ibid., nos 122 and 158. See also C. Hull, Memoirs (London, 1948) pp. 626–30
and R. J. Butow, Tojo and the Coming of War (Princeton. 1961) pp. 188 ff.
See also Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific (New York, 1967) pp. 200 ff.
R. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford. 1962).
L. Villari, Italian Foreign Policy under Mussolini (New York, 1956)
and D. L. Hoggan, Der erzwungene Krieg. Die Ursachen und Urheber (Tübingen, 1963).
H. Graml, Hoggan und die Dokumente (1963), has systematically refuted Hoggan. For the change from an anti-Axis to an anti-Soviet policy in the U.S.A., see Toscano, Treaties and International Politics, pp. 224–5.
H. Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor (Princeton, 1950);
F. C. Jones, Japan’s New Order in East Asia (London, 1954);
P. Schroeder, The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations (Ithaca, N.Y., 1958); Storry, Double Patriots, and Butow, Tojo and the Coming of War.
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Robertson, E.M. (1971). Introduction: World War II: The Historians and their Materials. In: Robertson, E.M. (eds) The Origins of the Second World War. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15416-6_1
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