On the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day... 2008

Its the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War One. The peace process would spin itself out into the summer of 1919, but November 11th became the day Europeans use to commemorate the end of the war. Americans used to celebrate Armistice day to, but in 1954 it became Veterans Day to honor all those who had served in the US military. In a sense, the American social memory of World War Two has eclipsed that of the Great War.

What is interesting is that the Europeans still choose to commemorate the First World War as a separate event. Arguably World War Two was a disaster of greater magnitude in terms of military and civilian casualties. Certainly, European social memory would be justified in reducing WWI to the status of a prologue or preview of WWII. But this is not the case. Instead, World War One has served to delineate the end of one era and the beginning of another. The 'long nineteenth century' begins in Paris in 1789 and ends on the Somme in 1914.

Due to World War One's status as a historical turning point, there are still scholarly debates about who started the war. It seems like the arguments boil down to the same propositions. One side suggests that a general European war was an accident sparked by nationalism in the Balkans facilitated by an interlocking system of alliances. In this explanation, a regional conflict between Serbia and Austria Hungary becomes exacerbated by a system of alliances that tied the diplomatic hands of the great powers. After 1918 some statesmen from both sides made this argument in their memoirs, perhaps because they were anxious to wash their hands of any responsibility for the preceding four years of indiscriminate slaughter. If you spread the guilt around nobody has to take too many lumps.

The other proposition is more straightforward and in a way its more emotionally satisfying in the Anglo-Saxon world: the Germans did it. This argument goes something like this: the Austrians would have never fought a preemptive war without the explicit backing of the German government. Kaiser Wilhelm II could have restrained Franz Joseph by refusing to declare war on Russia and her ally France. Instead the German government gave the Austrians a blank check. This version of history was written into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Again, this explanation avoids examining the culpability of allied statesmen like Lloyd George and Clemenceau while dumping the problem in the lap of the fledgling Weimar Republic.

This question of World War One war guilt was even more important after WWII. It shaped the allied response to a defeated Nazi Germany and its allies. For example, the Moscow Declaration of 1943 declared that Austria was the first free country to fall to Nazi aggression and voided the Anschluss of 1938. This partially exonerated Austria of its participation in the war. The idea was to encourage the Austrians to throw off the Nazi yoke by promising them different treatment after the war. Similarly the allies planned on treating Italy differently after Mussolini had been overthrown in a coup. The assumption here was that the Germans were the main aggressors and that their partners in crime could be peeled off if given the right incentives.

The 4 D's (Denazification, Decartelization, Demilitarization and Democratization) of the German Occupation also reflected the Versailles interpretation of World War One. These policies placed an emphasis on curing the Germans of their autocratic and militaristic habits. The allies saw a continuity between Nazi and Wilhelmine war aims. Later, in the 1960s, a German historian named Fritz Fischer would develop this tacit assumption into a fully articulated historiographic argument in his book, Germany's Aims in the First World War. Fischer's book was revolutionary and provided an important jumping off point for a reinvigorated and more rigorous reappraisal of the Kaiserreich era (1870-1918).

There is a pretty good recapitulation of the "Germany Did It" argument to be found in a November 8th Guardian article by the British military historian, Gary Sheffield. Personally, there is a lot I like about the Sheffield article and his interpretation. But as a historian of the Habsburg Monarchy, I can't help but think blame should be allocated elsewhere. I have some sympathy for the 'accident thesis.' The system of alliances and the general atmosphere of competition between the great powers provided ample tinder for a general European conflagration, but it was the choice of Franz Joseph, the Austrian General Staff and the political leaders of the Dual Monarchy to wage a preemptive war on Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm did not push the Austrians into war, they went there of their own accord. But frankly, that's another post for another day...

Pancetta

A few weeks ago, well back in October, I went over to my friend's Matt & Jeniffer's house to partake in bacon smoking and pancetta rolling. She has posted the results on her blog: Sew and Slow.

I got to take the bacon home that day, but the pancetta had to air cure for about four weeks, so the Sunday before the election, Jennifer stopped by and dropped off a hunk of the rolled porky goodness at the house. So far I have used it to make and omelet, pasta carbonara, and a BLT. The results were fantastic and rolling your own pancetta is pretty satisfying!

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Surprise! The World Didn't End, but ...

It looks like the better part of Eastern Europe is going into IMF receivership. On Monday Hungary put in a request for financing with the IMF, followed by the Ukraine, Serbia and possibly the Baltic states in the last few days.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Iceland made a request to the IMF board for help in the financial crisis, over the weekend. A week earlier Iceland said it would seek a loan from Russia, but perhaps the terms were not so favorable. (I can imagine Putin/Medvedev demanding the air base at Keflavik and an annual tribute of sacrificial virgins.)

So the financial meltdown won't be a dramatic apocalypse, but rather a long, drawn-out, slide into austerity for the US and Western Europe. Eastern Europe and the rest of the semi-periphery will take it in the shorts in the form of lower consumption, lower pay and the drive to produce more exports to pay off the latest round of loans. The social safety net will also take another beating in the interest of cutting government debt at the behest of the IMF.

And I promise that the next post will be about food. Honest.

Is Rome Burning?

Well, yesterday I received my TIAA-Creff quarterly report. I haven't opened it yet. I am not so sure I want to. Granted, I have twenty-five or thirty years before I need to retire, but still its really disappointing to see my retirement savings take such a merciless shellacking. Worse still I am not sure what this means for my parents and their financial future. How are they supposed to get along?

What is more disappointing, and even downright alarming is that the response by the Bush Administration and even the states of the European Union, has been so disjointed. Check out the Paul Krugman editorial for thursday if you can stomach it. I suspect that this is one of those moments in History when the events make the men.

For months now the mainstream media has told us two things. One, that Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson are really smart. They have the technical knowledge and professional expertise to fend off financial catastrophe. (Recall the countless stories about Bernanke's academic credentials and expertise on the History of the Great Depression). If there is a problem, we were told, these men will know what to do and when to do it.

The second trope was that the next intervention will solve the problem. Think back to the fed sponsored buyout of Bear Sterns, the nationalization of Freddy Mac and Salley Mae, or the Bush plan to help home owners refinance their subprime mortgages. These interventions were supposed to stop the slide into a global financial crisis. The interventions may have slowed or deflected the slide, but it looks like we are in a global financial crisis and probably a deep recession.

The failure of these earlier interventions suggests that expertise of Bernanke and Paulson are proving irrelevant to the course of events. Whatever is decided by 'the wise men' from North America and Europe this weekend in Washington DC, it might all be too little too late.