A user asked me, on youtube, if I believe that Germany is to be considered responsible for the beginning of the First World War, and if, therefore, as a historian, I believe in the official version that came out of Versailles, which, remember, officially recognized Germany as solely responsible for the start of the Great War.
The answer to this question is a trivial one, it is necessary to distinguish the political reasons (of the time) , it was necessary to indicate a political responsible for that dramatic war, and the historical facts.
Politically speaking, the winners of the conflict, as most of the time happens, unloaded the blame and the responsibilities of the affair on the defeated, and, in this case specific, they had a very powerful weapon in their hands, that is, the fact that Germany in practical terms was the first to wage war, in short, that Germany had materially started the conflict, transforming what was a regional crisis linked to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in a first European and then global conflict.
Does this mean that Germany is actually responsible for the Great War, as the postwar peace treaties established? In reality, the transition is not so simple and straightforward.
Let's say that, in a sense, it was just a coincidence that the world war started at the hands of Germany and not at the hands of French, British, Russian, Ottoman, or italica. it was just a case that is intertwined with an extremely complicated and tangled historical context in which, quite simply, everyone wanted war, but no one was willing to start it.
Someone, rightly, might ask why everyone wanted the war. war, and I'd be here to make the list of reasons for hours and days, but let's say that there is no need to dwell on it, every nation had its own reasons, those who wanted to take control of rich border mining regions, those who wanted to remove the border from mining regions, those who wanted to carve out a corner of the Mediterranean, those who wanted to snatch territories that they considered culturally part of their state, from their allies, those who wanted to extend their power and influence in Europe and in the Balkan area, and those who wanted simply shoot because he felt ready to demonstrate his strength to the world and to glue all these reasons, there were pure and simple economic interests, to because in war you need weapons, you need supplies, you need a lot of stuff, and those who produce these things see wars as an important business (and at the time there was still no post-war reconstruction card that makes even more money) . .
In short, everyone had a reason, some economic, some political, some animalistic, who didn't know what to do, and everyone was waiting, like a gun fight in the old west, between the sheriff and the leader of the bandits , which, for the record, the old west was anything but old at the time.
And the climate was just that, they were there, bandits, sheriffs and railroad men, good, ugly and bad, looking at each other with suspicion, looking at each other, still, motionless, waiting for anyone, any one, to make his move , or that someone in the rear made a noise or moved suspiciously, to give someone, any one, the right excuse to shoot, and in the end, someone fired before the others, or rather, someone grabbed the gun to shoot first than the others, but the cowboy in front of him was faster, probably because he had a sniper stationed on the roof of the saloon, an armed man who was there almost by chance, who was involved in the fight because someone had fired on his own caravan, ignoring that that caravan was loaded with explosives and weapons, and so the story ends. The old west, not so old, had come to Europe, and the man on the ground, who was in charge of the bandits, was accused of every crime, including the abuses of power by the sheriff's men and the bullying of the railroad men.
In conclusion, Germany started the Great War, but her responsibility in the beginning of the conflict is no greater than that of France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, etc. etc. etc.
If you liked the analogy with the old west and above all it helped you in some way to understand the dynamics of the beginning of the great war, I kindly ask you to share this post, thank you.