andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2014 andrew_gelman_stats-2014-2189 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: From Thomas Laqueur, the Helen Fawcett professor of history at the University of California, reviewing a book by Christopher Clark: [As of 6 July 1914, the German] army made no plans for a general war; the kaiser believed the war would be localized. . . . A last small chance at least to contain a war came with Germany’s decision to force an ultimatum on Belgium [on 2 Aug] to allow it passage through its territory instead of just marching in . . . Huh? Wait one second! It’s pretty funny there, the army invading a neutral country, if they had made no plans for a general war. Setting that aside, let’s review Laqueur’s options for Germany: 1. Force an ultimatum on Belgium (from a web search, I found the details where, among other things, the Germans charmingly offer “to purchase all necessaries for her troops against a cash payment, and to pay an indemnity for any damage that may have been caused by German troops”—but only on the condition that “Belgium adopts a friendly at
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1 From Thomas Laqueur, the Helen Fawcett professor of history at the University of California, reviewing a book by Christopher Clark: [As of 6 July 1914, the German] army made no plans for a general war; the kaiser believed the war would be localized. [sent-1, score-0.766]
2 A last small chance at least to contain a war came with Germany’s decision to force an ultimatum on Belgium [on 2 Aug] to allow it passage through its territory instead of just marching in . [sent-5, score-0.725]
3 It’s pretty funny there, the army invading a neutral country, if they had made no plans for a general war. [sent-10, score-0.725]
4 ” I guess if you offer to invade a neutral country and they say no, you have no obligation to pay etc. [sent-13, score-0.753]
5 Considering what happened to Germany during the succeeding years, I don’t think option 3 sounds so unreasonable! [sent-19, score-0.181]
6 The weird thing about Laqueur’s review is that it goes on for many many paragraphs about Serbia (“If not quite a terror state, Serbia had close links to terrorism . [sent-20, score-0.083]
7 The boundaries between official state policy, the army and clandestine terrorist cells were blurred at best . [sent-23, score-0.413]
8 ”, and four full paragraphs on the assassination in Sarajevo). [sent-26, score-0.152]
9 A neutral country bordering France, which was allied with Russia, which was allied with Serbia. [sent-31, score-0.697]
10 Let’s forget about war guilt and militarism and all the rest. [sent-33, score-0.28]
11 Just from a simple decision of national interest, invading Belgium was bad bad news for Germany. [sent-34, score-0.196]
12 Back in 1910 Norman Angell wrote a famous book on this called The Great Illusion. [sent-36, score-0.072]
13 And I understand that a scholar such as Christopher Clark has read lots of primary sources, and perhaps no one in the German army considered option 3. [sent-37, score-0.348]
14 I mean, if you think the only choices are (1) invade a neutral country (with ultimatum), or (2) invade a neutral country (without ultimatum), you’ve already lost. [sent-40, score-1.258]
15 I went to the trouble of checking Laqueur’s website and, although he is a professor of history, he does not seem to have published anything previously on World War 1 or German military policy or anything even close to these topics. [sent-43, score-0.113]
16 Which makes me wonder how he can be so sure that Clark’s book is “breathtakingly good . [sent-44, score-0.072]
17 Clark’s narrative sophistication, his philosophical awareness and his almost preternatural command of his sources makes The Sleepwalkers an exemplary instance of how to navigate this tricky terrain. [sent-47, score-0.269]
18 It is not only the best book on the origins of the First World War that I know but a brilliant and intellectually bracing model for the writing of history more generally. [sent-48, score-0.276]
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