An Identity of Opinion: Historians and July 1914

Abstract

In the first issue of the Journal of Modern History, published in 1929, managing editor Bernadotte E. Schmitt contributed an article on “The Origins of the War.” In it he reviewed four books, including one by Sidney B. Fay and one by Pierre Renouvin. At the end, Schmitt observed, “The failure of four fair-minded men, using the same materials, to reach a reasonable harmony of views or even a consistent statement of facts, is somewhat melancholy, though perhaps hardly surprising. But the fact is eloquent testimony to the complexity of the problem, and only through discussions by men of many nations will it ever be possible to arrive at anything approaching an identity of opinion.”1 A year later Schmitt’s own, often-overlooked book appeared. It blamed Germany for the war, and the German Foreign Ministry tried to discredit it.2 For the next three decades Schmitt and the Journal published lengthy reviews of books on the origins of the Great War. In 1944, despairing of a second edition of his own work, Schmitt published a summary of his own revised views.3 In the years since, the Journal has printed numerous articles, book reviews, and review essays on aspects of the July crisis. This extended review article continues the Journal’s tradition of periodically analyzing the continuing debate about the origins of the First World War. Like Schmitt, we focus on the summer of 1914, asking what has become consensus, what remains contentious, and what remains problematic. Necessarily, we refer frequently to landmark works such as those of Fay, Schmitt, Luigi Albertini, and