97 years ago, Europe and the world were grappling with business as usual: worker strikes, angry disputes between Left and Right, and the usual run of sex scandals. No one anticipated war (except, perhaps, civil war in Ireland). Indeed, most people thought that a European war, even if one did erupt, could not last more than a few months. Norman Angell’s bestseller, The Great Illusion, had proved that, and all the Very Serious People of Europe agreed. Yet only four years later, 20 million people who had been alive and well that summer were dead. Tens of millions more were shattered in mind or body, mourning loved ones, homeless, destitute, desperate. What went wrong in 1914 is a cautionary tale for this humid summer of 2011.
No one in 1914 actually planned to start a European war, let alone the sort of cataclysm that actually occurred. The Serbs hoped that by supporting terrorism against Austria-Hungary the inevitable breakup of that feeble empire would be hastened, and with it, the creation of a new Slavic state. The Austro-Hungarians, aware that their empire was crumbling, snatched at the feeble hope that punishing Serbia might buy them a few more years. The Russians had been diplomatically humiliated by the Austrians a few years earlier, and they felt an ethnic kinship with the slavs of Serbia. Surely, they believed, a show of toughness would cause the Austrians to drop their bluff. The Germans, aware that Austria-Hungary was their only real ally, and a decaying one, were determined to prop her up. Surely a show of toughness would call the Russian bluff. The British and French paid little attention to the gathering storm, believing that it would all blow over.
Then the Austrians sent an ultimatum to Serbia and the Russians mobilized their army as a signal of their firmness. Suddenly the diplomats of Europe were pulled toward the brink. They struggled, but events began to control men rather than the other way around. No one could back down without seeming weak, even dishonorable. No one wanted to go forward, but the timetables of military organization relentlessly pushed them forward. As Joachim Remak, a brilliant diplomatic historian, put it, “Everyone was right. And everyone was wrong. World War I was a modern diplomatic crisis gone wrong, the one gamble, or rather series of gambles, that did not work out, the one deterrent that did not deter. It happens.”
“It happens.”
That despairing sentence sends a chill through me whenever I read it. For we may be drifting toward catastrophe once more. I do not refer to climate change, a catastrophe that, like the Great War, may become obvious only when it is too late to stop. My fears this summer concern the possibility of a U.S. default. The Republicans, especially the teabaggers, have seemingly decided that they are quite willing to have the U.S. default if only they can kill Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security in the process. The Democrats, having repeatedly given in to Republican blackmail, now feel—rightly in my view—that they must stand firm, whatever the consequences. Perhaps the Republicans are bluffing. Perhaps the Democratic leadership will cave once again. Perhaps a miracle will happen and a compromise will be found that everyone is happy with. Perhaps.
But if default comes? Some, on both Right and Left, seem to think that nothing serious would happen. Perhaps they are right. But I keep thinking of how P.M. Asquith told Parliament that despite the war it was “business as usual”. I remember that Russians made plans for gala banquets in Berlin after the war, and only wondered whether the reservations should be for October or November. My own fear is that a U.S. default will be followed by a total collapse of the dollar and international trade (conducted in dollars, the international currency of trade) with it. I fear that oil prices, no longer pegged to an imploding dollar, will reach such heights that only domestic oil will be available. I fear a disruption of credit markets and the broader world economy on a scale that dwarfs 1929-1933. I fear…..well, I may be overreacting. I don’t know. I don’t know. Nor do I have any solutions to offer. Events may already be controlling us though we mistakenly think ourselves free to choose among options. I don’t know.