Conclusion

Rulers soon forgot their last-minute hesitations when in some capitals celebration erupted with the declaration of war. “A mighty wonder has taken place,” wrote a Viennese actor after watching the troops march off amid public enthusiasm. “We have become young.” Both sides exulted, as militant nationalism led many Europeans to favor war over peace. There were advantages to war: disturbances in private life and challenges to established truths would disappear, it was believed, in the crucible of war. A short conflict, people maintained, would resolve tensions ranging from the rise of the working class to political problems caused by global imperial competition. German military men saw war as an opportune moment to round up social democrats and reestablish the traditional power of an agrarian aristocracy. Liberal government based on rights and constitutions, some believed, had simply gone too far in allowing new groups full citizenship and political influence.

Modernity helped blaze the path to war. New technology, mass armies, and new techniques of persuasion supported the military buildup. With continuing violence in politics, chaos in the arts, and problems in the industrial order, there was a belief that war would save nations from the modern perils they faced and replace nervous pessimism with patriotism. “Like men longing for a thunderstorm to relieve them of the summer’s sultriness,” wrote an Austrian official, “so the generation of 1914 believed in the relief that war might bring.” Tragically, any hope of relief soon faded. Instead of bringing the refreshment of summer rain, war opened an era of political turmoil, widespread suffering, massive human slaughter, and even greater doses of modernity.