Viewpoint 1
Historian Sir Max Hastings and several other eminent historians place the blame for starting WWI squarely on the government of Imperial Germany (IG). Their reasoning is that IG gave the Austrian-Hungarian government a “blanque check” of support in the developing controversy between A-H and Serbia over the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This emboldened A-H to punish Serbia even though this action might involve Russia in a war.
Viewpoint 2
Many other historians believe that the blame for starting WWI should be shared by several nations. Decision making and miscalculations by leaders, ministers, ambassadors, etc. of several European countries led to the conflict. Max Hastings and his like minded ilk scoff at this interpretation.
I am interested to know which of these two viewpoints the Historum posters favor.
Post #27 here contains my answer. That said, though, I'd argue that, looking even further back, Germany and Russia bear the largest amount of blame for causing WWI. Specifically, those two countries should have allied with each other rather than against each other. With a German-Russian alliance, A-H would have had to join in if it would have wanted to avoid getting dismembered by the Russo-Germans and the recreation of the Triple Alliance would have ensured that France would not have been able to find a lackey--let alone a
strong lackey--who would have allied with it in the hope of eventually waging a joint war against Germany in order for France to recover Alsace-Lorraine.
It's a bit ironic that France allowed itself to be provoked into starting the Franco-Prussian War only to subsequently lose Alsace-Lorraine, whine about it for several decades, and set the alliance system in place for WWI. Ultimately France got Alsace-Lorraine back, but this was only compensation for France's losses during WWI. As in, France lost so many men in WWI that getting back Alsace-Lorraine simply restored its population to its pre-WWI level.
