Political Science Quarterly
Volume 114 No. 3 (Fall 1999)

 

The Pity of War
By Niall Ferguson. New York, Basic Books, 1999
Reviewed by Robert Jervis

 

Niall Ferguson’ s set of essays on the origins, course, and aftermath of World War I has received a great deal of publicity, in large part because of its important claims. Unfortunately, some of these are familiar, others are not well supported by evidence, and still others are underanalyzed. Readers who persevere, however, will be rewarded by a wealth of interesting reports and analyses of economic data.

Overclaiming and insufficient evidence come up at many points. Ferguson denies that World War I was inevitable but never seriously considers exactly what this means. His related claim that militarism did not dominate European decision making is more interesting and is supported by evidence others have slighted, but his treatment is not balanced and he pays little attention to the excellent analysis in David Herrmann’ s The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War and David Stevenson’ s Armaments and the Coming War: Europe 1904-1914. His argument that Germany sought war in 1914 largely out of fear and a sense of weakness is not new and does not preclude the possibility that Germany also sought European dominance. Ferguson denies the latter claim and here is on more controversial ground. The dispute on German aims and intentions, although beyond definitive settlement, is central to any general analysis of pre-war diplomacy, especially one that focuses on Britain’ s role. Ferguson’ s discussion is framed by the interesting if familiar argument that Britain appeased the powers that most menaced her, France and, especially, Russia. But on whether Germany would have gained a position from which it could readily menace British vital interests had the UK remained nonaligned, he adds little to what others have said either analytically or in terms of close study of the historical record.

Turning to the conduct of the war itself, there is similarly less than meets the eye to two of Ferguson’ s major claims. He argues that Germany came to terms in 1918 not because it was suffering more casualties than it inflicted on the enemy, but because German soldiers started surrendering in large numbers. Since he explains this fact by the damage to German morale inflicted by defeats on the battlefield, he merely reasserts the conventional view without deeply exploring the reasons why German resolve collapsed at all levels. More startling is his claim that to a significant extent soldiers fought because they enjoyed the comradeship, excitement, and even pleasure in killing. The problem here is one that parallels his treatment of militarism: he moves from finding that his characterization fits at least a few people to asking the reader to believe that the attitudes were widespread.

Even weaker is the counterfactual claim that has earned The Pity of War much of its publicity: if World War I had not been fought, or if Britain had not joined in the fray, many of the ills of the twentieth century could have been avoided. If Germany had won the war, Ferguson claims, “the victorious Germans might have created a version of the European Union, eight decades ahead of schedule” (p. 458; also see pp. 172, 460). This is a benign reading of German aims and neglects the fact that today’ s Germany is very different from the earlier regime. Furthermore, Ferguson argues, without a prolonged war ending in German defeat, the world would have been spared both Lenin and Hitler. But using counterfactuals in this way is like playing tennis without a net—there are so few constraints that almost any claim has as much or as little plausibility as any other.

The most dramatic arguments in the book are clever in the British sense, with more dazzle than depth. Fortunately, other parts of the book are clever in the American sense. Drawing on his strength in economic history, Ferguson shows how changes in the bond market and differences between interest rates of bonds of various countries can be used to shed light on contemporary expectations about the major powers’ prospects. With the aid of comparisons with the Allies’ experience, he also rebuts the view that Germany was less efficient than its adversaries in utilizing its economic resources during the war. Examining basic economic statistics indicates that the Entente powers had such great material advantage that only German efficiency can explain why the Central Powers were not defeated much sooner. Ferguson’ s analysis of German postwar economic policies is also thorough and insightful. Although his conclusion that Germany could have paid reparations is not new, his picture is full of important details and his analysis of the effect of the inflationary policy and the possible alternatives is well-balanced and thoughtful. Furthermore, his central critique of Britain’ s pre-war policy—that it was foolish to seek great influence over European politics without a large army—is valid, underappreciated, and relevant to today’ s world.

Although Ferguson’ s most striking claims are not substantiated, the chapters dealing with the less glamorous topics of political economy are excellent. Readers who are not distracted by the verbal fireworks and who believe that economic strength, organization, and policies are crucial to world politics can learn much from this book.