Page - 1015 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Afterword 1015 the victorious powers in the events leading up to the war, as well as the differing levels of responsibility among the states of the Central Powers within their alliance remained largely discounted. The respective clauses in the peace treaties were oriented solely to- wards the assessment of the commission employed by the peace conference and chaired by the American Secretary of State Robert Lansing, in which it was concluded at the end that : ‘The war was deliberately precipitated by the Central Powers together with their allies, Turkey and Bulgaria, and was the result of actions that were deliberately taken so as to render it impossible to prevent the war’. It is clear that a war that lasted for around four-and-a-half years, that cost around nine million soldiers their lives worldwide, and that wounded a further 20 million more, of whom some retained severe injuries, triggered a shock reaction. It is also clear that a war that had led to millions of civilian deaths and caused three million people to die of illness and disease, that had ravaged vast swathes of European territory in particular  – that such a cataclysmic event would lead to the question : who was to blame ? And as is so often the case, attempts were made to assign the blame only to the former enemy. Victors, even more so when they are able to dictate the terms of peace, tend to continue the view propounded by the war propaganda, which makes little room for differentiation. And it nearly always takes time until years, decades or centuries later  – and frequently not only with a more complete knowledge of the sources, but also arising out of a certain, perhaps political need  – the issue of guilt or innocence, of more or less responsibility or, to use a philosophical term, pure ‘throwness’ leads to answers that are different to those that would be given immediately after the war. Above all, however, the issue of who was responsible for taking a step that led to war is only one of many. First, steps were taken to adopt a broader view when researching the causes of the war. Further issues emerged from the course of events during the war and in connection with the fact that the question must be asked why it was not possible to end the war earlier, or at least to agree an armistice, on the basis of which a peace could then have been brought about. In this connection, too, the issue of blame, or at least of responsibility, also applied. 21 years after the First World War ended, the next great European war began, whose roots certainly also  – although not exclusively  – lay in the results of the First World War. Here, it is usually only Germany under National Socialism that is taken into account, but not the consequences of the collapse of Aus- tria-Hungary, nor the particular role played by Russia and one into which it was forced. It is now possible to agree with the hypothesis that it was only during the course of the Second World War that the previous war was fought to the end. Equally, it can be argued that this was a new war and, ultimately, every conflict, every war, has its roots in the past. The solutions found for Europe in 1945 and afterwards lasted for longer. However, ultimately, they too were not permanent enough. Older historical identities forcefully emerged and created new identities. And it was surely no coincidence that in