And it was really a pleasure to do and its a very, like i said, its a really happy story. Great. Thank you for your time. Up next on booktv, Margaret MacmillanCome International history professor at Oxford University examines the lead up to world war i. This is just over one hour. Welcome everybody to todays council on Foreign Relations meeting. I look back at the build up to the great war with Margaret Macmillan and Robert Massie. Im david amblin, editor of world policy journal and i would like to welcome our National Members participating in this meeting through the live screen. You know, i was sitting at lunch i have a little surprise for our two guests, because i checked 100 years ago today out of curiosity come november 4, 1913, the United States was preparing to muster 500,000 troops and gear up for war against a major power. President wilson had just given an ultimatum to that nations head of state but we didnt go to war. At least not them. That major power was on this side of the atlantic your it was mexico. The great menace of that moment. So i found this on the front page, where else, the new york times. The next 17 pages of that days paper there was not a single mention of europe. Wheres our two featured office today have chronicled very currently, the seeds of the real world war i already germinating. Europe was building towards a far broader and more deadly confrontation. Su27 alldistrict is my great pleasure to welcome margaret, her new book, the war that ended peace, as she was describing the world the most in pairs. And on the far side, robert, [inaudible] is masterful i must say. It of course showed how the great war truly proved the way to integrate current that were already building in your. And, of course, its been a great passion of mine, especially much of my life since college, especially my last book, coming out a new edition just in time for the ones anniversary of the actual start to the war next summer. Speaking of which there are many ways to approach the great turning point. Fundamentally come down to personalities and historical imperative. Margaret, in your new book i want to quote something on how you start off. Of code of few words. A few generals, crowned heads, diplomats or politicians have the power and authority to say either yes or no to mobilizing the armies compromiscompromis e to carry out the plans already drawn up by the military. The big question was, was it in fact im controllable forces that were inevitably or was it in the end individual . I dont think there were forces moving the world inevitably towards war. I am very reluctant in history to talk about inevitability. That means theres nothing we can do. I think there are choices and they think what you had before 1940 were forces pushing towards work, heightened nationalism, rivalries and arms race and so on. But you also get the same time strong forces for peace. Yet a lot of people in europe e thought we were so progressive, advanced that we will ever have a war again. You had a big middleclass peace movement, the workingclass and socialist movement which have said repeatedly they wouldnt take part in the capitalist war. So seems to me europe was poised between these different sorts of forces but i would myself use the word inevitable. Robert, so many of the works before and since but in dread not you point out the naval strength. We think of the great wars with the last great ground warfare. Was at the dreadnoughts are was at the people who are, in fact, pretty dreadful . [laughter] the dreadnoughts were created by the people. William the second was victorious oldest child. He spent his summers in england. He desired he was have english and he desired to be accepted by his english family and by the british people as that. And his mother was victoria soto oldest child victorious oldest child, et cetera, et cetera. Is also the heir to the german throne and he was subject to the imperial aptitudes and swagger and so forth of this marks germany. Germany became in that generation from the time that williams grandfather became emperor after the collapse of france, became the greatest industrial and military power on the continent with a great army. But i wholly agree, she said it better than i could, that all these factors, and osha, military and so forth, were at the disposition, not playthings but the apparatus which individuals were operating. And, therefore, it was very important who these individuals were, whether antecedents have been, dynastic we, genealogically, politically. Wilhelm was the emperor of germany. He was a physically afflicted and psychologically, i think, afflicted man. He had great power for i wont call it evil, but for destruction. And he was constantly shifting back and forth between a sort of paula desire to do good, to be recognized in europe as a factor for good, but im launched from what she said. I would say the dreadnoughts race was because wilhelm wanted a great navy, a high seas fleet. Britain and france had already gobbled up all the colonies but no one knew quite what the german navy was for. Certainly, the british didnt. They asked themselves, hes got the most powerful army in europe. Why does he need a great navy . Who i isnt supposed to be building against . At races and interesting point, market, it seems to me one of the seminal events of the lead up to the war and the war itself was really the end of a host of empires that were led by these great leaders. Its really a conflict that brought probably more empires to an end in one fell swoop than any other conflict probably in history. Youre the historian of course more than i. But did these empires, by 1913, had these empires and the people who ran than simply became untenable and this is one of the motive forces that got us into the conflict . I dont think they had become untenable. They thought they were still tenable. And nationalist movements which are going to tear them apart to pieces were very much the to do by the First World War when people in africa and asia saw with the europeans could do. They no longer believed in the myth these people are somehow better suited to ruled them than they were themselves. I think what happened in 1913 is so much of the world have been divided up into was a much left. There was china but i think there was a general feeling if we tried to do that we but really in the award, and there was the ottoman empire. But i think whats more important was this id you couldnt be this goes back to what Robert Massie was saying you could be a great without having any by. We dont think like that. That fashions in International Relations as much as there are in any other aspect of human activity. There was this belief are because britain was the comment our intellect to 14, that the empire was what made it dominant, that you can be a great power and that meant having entity. Certainly wilhelm is a huge part in this but you have to put not find exactly but the influence of captain alfred mohan, the American Naval thinker, is huge. He expressed the idea that great powers of empires. They have navies to you cant get rid of without having a navy to protect trade and your empire. I think wilhelm read that book, the influence of sea power upon history, and said im entranced. Ive never read anything so wonderful. He ordered the copies be put in the cabinet of every german get. I read somewhere that he said sermon should be given in german churches about those ideas which make for very odd sermons. This is true. [laughter] he always went overboard on things. Spent thats a very narrow slice slice into time. So really theres a very narrow slice of time that this sort of thing would becomes a critical and that the were individuals who headed up governments and so on who would be willing to back down in the face of that, right . The trouble with the wilhelm was both his personality, very erratic person who have this lovehate relationship with britain. He wanted to emulate them but he also feared them. Very coveted. He was in charge of a very powerful nation and it wouldnt have mattered if he didnt the british king because the british king had no power under the british constitution. Wouldnt have mattered if youre thinking about then you. It wouldve mattered for the albanians but not for the rest of your. But he was in charge of this are a powerful country at the heart of your. German reunification, you suddenly had this huge power and getting more powerful. I did have this very powerful army. When wilhelm of germany, he had a great deal of power under the german constitution. I think thats what made him so dangerous. This sort of imperial presidency doesnt seem to work very much anymore. Winston churchill, as you know very well, was able to dictate so many Different Things during the Second World War. Nowadays, cameron gave even get parliament to bow to his least well. The imperial presidency seems to be changing in some ways, or the imperial leader. Do you have that since . Well, certainly barack obama is an example of the president who struggling to enact this legislation his legislation and has struggled with decisions. I have always thought im a lifelong democrat, and i remember at allied adlai stevenson, the first count i voted for. But ive come to believe that in that period of the 50s, im in retrospect glad that Dwight Eisenhower was the president. He had the experience, maybe not the articulation, but the experience and the presence and reputation to stand up to khrushchev, and he had military superiority. But i think that well, personality matters. Im getting back to that. I think that the buildup of the german navy, which the kaiser hankered after for the reasons that market has eloquently expressed, was not intended as a real challenge to britain. It was intended as an add on to military power. Were going to be a great world power. And the british, who depended only the british army was expert, but tiny, relatively. They only had the navy. It gave them come it provided them with a pacs britannica. They police the seas for, among others, german commercial trade. But any evidence of another Power Building the building, grading the ability to invade, just cross the channel and bring the army into britain was unthinkable. And thats why liberal government came in in 1906. They had all kinds of social plans, education, old age and so forth. They spent every pound on battleships. Market, every historian sees major events like this through their own prism. Ajp taylor saw the approximate cost of the war as railway timetables giving with troop movements. The question is, and robert sees a lot of the prism is the dreadnought. What is your prism for this period, crucial period leading up to world war i . Probably a very refracted prism, more like a kaleidoscope. I have trouble in figure one main cause of the war and i dont think there is one. Its the congress of causes and its also timing. In particular sequence, it makes a difference. What you had by 1914 were certainly pressures building up that were tending towards war. You also had a growing acceptance of the possibility of war, which is very dangerous. What struck me more and more whenever there was a crisis, people didnt say if theres a war. They said when there is a war. There were real expectations they would be at some point a general european war. One of the images that was often used at the time was a thunderstorm. Its very oppressive, heavy. It was a relief to get it over with and then well all feel better and will have a quick, short war and have peace. What you also had was a very dangerous since by 1914 that we can get through these crises because they had been a series of crises, if you look at them even closer and closer together, then a series of crises in the balkans between 1911 and right up until 1914, it was this dangerous sense of complacency that weve got through all of these, well get to them again. In the summer of 1914, people didnt take it socially. The british were preoccupied with the possibility of civil war over ireland. If you look at british newspapers for most of july 1914, the headlines are about island, not about whats happening in the balkans. I think you get accommodation not enough people in positions of authority prepared to accept work to be used as an instrument of policy and without terrible expense even though they should have known better. And also an expectation that on the other hand, its another crisis, will probably get through it again. I think you didnt get them and i would say this is true of the british, who didnt people taking crisis is enough until it was almost too late. Im fascinated also by tinderboxes. I spent three years living in belgrade so the balkans are one of my prisms. My wife and i just traveled through albania earlier this year. Im fascinated as to the role you think that the tinderbox and that Tipping Point played in all of this. It seems to have been very crucial to the priorities of so many of the powers involved in this. Could this war have occurred i mean, it might have eventually have occurred that could have occurred without of some of a lot of the tensions in the balkans leading up to all the . I think it could have occurred because your great power rivalries. Britain and france went to war in 1898. Britain and russia would, came close to war in 1906. There were other causes. The balkans were particularly dangers because of where they were. There were a number of interest met. Rather like the middle east today oppressed the south china seas today, not just local interest. In the balkans unite us as a very active local nationalisms, and these were becoming more vociferous rather than less. What you also had were great power interest. You have the russians, i think what sort of sentimental stuff mostly the pants law stuff. And a warm water port which is much more important. And the straits going to the black sea into the mediterranean were hugely important for russia. Over half its grain exports went that way. It was vital, a vital sort of passageway for the russians. Vignette austriahungary seeing served as an existential threat which had to be destroyed before helped to destroy austriahungary. You are germany and italy. They had a sort of combination of very dangerous local rivalries with outside powers being dragged him. Robert, id be interested, because you have a perspective, a little bit longer perspective in terms of research over the last quarter century. Do you have any sense that anything weve learned since then through the archives, and market, since youve recently been archived you could probably respond to this as well, whether our thinking about this era has changed anyway since you first wrote dreadnought nearly a quartercentury ago. I mean, still very relevant. David, ive got five or six books to read that i know of, beginning with margaret, to learn what later, fresher research has taught us. Ive never felt ive never been asked this kind of a conference or panel on the subject, so ive not thought about it much. Ive been going back to russia. But i will be very interested to read what you and max hastings and the fellow who thinks the russians started the war robert meakin. Yeah. And others but i mean, the war began 10 months ago. Weve got five books now. Probably thats enough, but. [laughter] i dont think publishers or authors as, i dont know, would agree with me. So we can read and i am going, beginning with your book, to see what you say i need to think rethink your i would just say that, talking about the balkans, ive always thought that the hops were government hapsburg government indiana was very worried about disturbing influence, sort of magnetic pole on the serbs, on the slavs within the empire. They have been looking for an excuse to do something about it, if necessarily militarily, and increasingly military. And the pretext was perfect. The black hand, or a young man under the influence, assassinated the heir to the throne. And everybody in europe, nobody approved of a regicide, i dont know what you call it, an heiricide. [laughter] but will then when serbia gave its ultimatum, austria gave its ultimatum to serbia, along with a lot of other things, the final thing the serbs can accept was that austrians must be part of the judicial or panel, which was going to interrogate and trace back the connections that this assassination had to serbia and so forth. And the kaiser was aware, and the german generals staff was aware, that austria was germanys only ally in europe, that austria was crumbling in its adhesion to the Imperial Administration indiana, and theyd really needed to do something. And they decided were going to make this ultimatum, as they did. And they bombarded no great. Occupied and so forth. The emperors tried various ways to stop the progression to war. Willynicky letters and so forth. I have always seen that not is just a pretext, but i think what mark was saying, a culmination of this very dangerous opens situation, and then Everybody Knows the german generals staff had planned for war against france, when and if it happened, as a part of a war against russia. They were going to strike friends down first, six week wes the pairs, and it didnt turn out that way. Before we turn to our members, and since the council is not did you want speed im just agreeing with him. Good, excellent the we like agreement, and disagreement. Since the council is no force great thinking about todays world, id like to reflect on some lessons we might try we might draw on. Our world is facing similar challenges, some revolution in ideological, such as the rise of militant religious or social protest movements, others coming from the streets between rising and declining nations, such as china and the United States. I leave open the question of which is which. You continue, during previous crises, europes leaders and large parts of the people had supported them, have chosen to work matters out and to preserve the peace. This clearly failed. What lessons can we draw from this kind of a dynamic today, if there is any . Not very helpful ones, perhaps but i think certain precepts. I dont think history ever offers is very clear lessons but i think there is always i think this dangerous moment in International Relations were hit nations such as germany which are rising in power and as yet uncertain of how to express that power. They are often not very tactful. They are often wanting to place in the sun. You of nations which have been the hegemonic powers which perhaps dont always do enough to come at a these rising powers. I think it needs tax and management on both sides. I hope tha