WWI+-+Aims+of+the+Belligerents

World War I is considered to be a total war for several reasons. One of them was that both sides of the war fought not for limited aims and simple goals but for total victory. The central powers had one set of aims that they wanted and the allied powers another set. It was not a fight that could be easily settled and peace could not be easily achieved within this kind of hostile demanding territory of government aims. Germany is known to have a specific set of aims, while others had in their alliance and the opposite alliance had aims that could satisfy more than one country. These aims and their inability to be satisfied in whole was a major reason to call WWI a total war.

In the September Memorandum of September 9, Bethmann Hollweg promised security for the German Reich in west and east for all imaginable time,” and this was to be done through a combination of territorial expansion and economic control. I n Africa for instance, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonies would be incorporated into a Central Africa economic region – Mittelafrika. In Europe through a customs union which would include Austria Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Poland. Parts of Belgium, France, and Luxemburg would be directly annexed and Russia would have to provide some level of self-determination to nationalities Such as the Poles (Poland had been part of Russia since the 18th century). Britain’s economic supremacy would be weakened by Germany’s naval command of key international routes, as well as by German’s economic domination of Africa and Europe. French power would be broken, Belgium reduced to vassal status, and a colonial empire carved out in Africa and elsewhere. Mitteleuropa, the economic system that Germany would create in Europe, would give Berlin economic superiority. As the war went on, Germany's appetite grew. Such comprehensive aims increased the determination of both sides to fight for total victory, and they made a compromise peace difficult to achieve.

France had many greedy aims as well. France's immediate aim was to expel German troops from its territory. In the longer term, many desired the return of the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, annexed by Germany after the war of 1870-71, and the crushing of German power in some form, thus enhancing French security for the future. France and Britain went to war because they both saw a German victory as a threat to their security. For centuries, Britain had fought to maintain the balance of power in Europe, to ensure that no state became overmighty. The Kaiser's Germany followed Napoleon's France, and preceded Hitler, as a threat to stability. In particular, Britain was highly sensitive about Belgium. In the hands of an enemy, Belgian ports offered a major threat to the British naval supremacy and hence the security of the British Isles. Britain had no real option but to go to war in 1914. If France had been defeated, Britain would have been faced with the nightmare that since the days of Elizabeth I it had fought to avoid: the continent dominated by a single, aggressive state.

Russia believed that the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were collapsing, and that there they would be the ones who would occupy their territory. On a whole note Russia believed that they had the strength to take over the empires. Many in the Russian court, in the ranks of the military officer class, in the central government, in the press and even among the educated, felt Russia should enter and win this clash. Russia was afraid that if they didn’t act in decisive support of the Slavs, as they had failed to do in the Balkan Wars, that Serbia would take the Slavic initiative and destabilise Russia. Russia had lusted over Constantinople and the Dardanelles for centuries, as half of Russia’s foreign trade travelled through this narrow region controlled by the Ottomans. War and victory would bring greater trade security.Tsar Nicholas II was cautious, and a section of political officials at court advised him against war; he believed the nation would implode and revolution would follow. But also the Tsar was being advised by people who believed that if Russia didn’t go to war, it would be a sign of weakness which would lead to a fatal undermining of the imperial government, leading to revolution or invasion.

In 1917 there were several calls for peace coming from various sources within the different countries. Pope Benedict XV called for a return to the territorial status quo of 1914 and a renunciation of all financial demands. Lenin also called for a peace with out annexations or financial demands. Lord Landsowne made the point that the war was costing more in terms of human and economic resources that could ever be regained, even by total victory. Since Germany's aims were fundamentally incompatible with those of the Allies, and almost to the end bot h sides believed that the war was winnable, it is not surprising that the struggle went on. Despite some sporadic attempts to find common ground, it was not until autumn 1918 that Germany, clearly defeated, agreed to make compromise for peace.

Peace could not be reached because of the outrageousness of each country’s demands and aims within this war. But also the economic and social devastations of the war made total victory virtually impossible. So in the end, it was considered a total war for exactly these two reasons.