Explaining the Outbreak of the First World War - Closing Conference Genève Histoire et Cité 2015

foreign associated conference College Oxford prayers [Music] Mercy [Music] [Music] [Applause] well thank you so much director for that very kind introduction it is a great pleasure to be here and thank you for arranging such a beautiful day as well by comparison with them yesterday to try and explain the outbreak of the first World War I should tell you is probably impossible it has been estimated that in English alone there are some 30 000 works on the origins of the war it is an argument and a discussion which started almost as soon as the guns started firing in 1914 as governments on the different sides rummaged through their files and tried to show that they were not responsible for what was becoming apparent was a complete catastrophe for European society and that the other side was and those debates some of them sponsored by governments many of them among the private citizens many of them of course among historians have gone on ever since with the anniversary of the war in 1940 in 2014 and in the years that are now following the books continue to come out and mine was only one among many that came out and there is no consensus Among Us I've been on a number of panels with historians whom I respect a great deal and I could not find that we are going to agree on anything there are those who would blame France those who blame Russia those who blame Germany those who blame individuals such as Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany or Admiral terpitz of Germany or the chief of the general staff of Austria-Hungary General Conrad Von hotsendorf about the only country so far that hasn't been blamed is my own country Canada but I'm working on this I think Canada ought to have a role in this great debate more than it actually does I think it is so difficult to try and explain the origins of the first world war because we're looking at many possible causes I think we're also looking at an event that was so momentous in its impact and consequences for European society and indeed for the world as a whole that we want to find an explanation I think we're driven keep on trying to understand the causes of the first world war both by the complexity of the possible causes but also by the failing a feeling which I think has been with us for a hundred years now that something so Dreadful must have an explanation that we can't live in a world in which something like the first world war cannot be explained but when you try and find the causes of the exponent the causes of the first World War I think you're looking at everything from individuals and I think individual decisions in fact do at various points make a difference but you're also looking at the world in which those decisions were made you're looking at the values of that world you're looking at the assumptions of that world you're looking at the tensions in that world and so you look at you have to take into account such things as National rivalries economic rivalries competition for colonies you have to I think look at the arms race which was becoming increasingly expensive and increasingly important in Europe in the Years just before 1914 you have to look at the military plans and I sometimes feel as if what you're doing when you're trying to understand the first world war is trying to understand a chess game which is played on three different boards at least all of them connected so that moving a pawn or a queen or a castle on one board affects something on the other two boards the best explanation I've come up with which is not as you will see a very satisfactory one is that what happened in 1914 was very much like a perfect storm that a number of things came together in a particular sequence which made What Might Have Been yet another crisis in the Balkans because there had been several crises in the Balkans before 1914 but a number of things came together to make what happened in 1914 uncontrollable and once Europe had got into the war it became very very difficult to stop it the war turned out to be much longer than most people who had been making decisions and most people have been watching those decisions could ever have expected there had been some warnings that a future major European War would in fact very likely turn into a stalemate there was a massive book written by very important Russian financier and industrialist called Yvonne block six volume history on the future of war and he devoted in fact the rest of his life after he'd written the book to lecturing on it writing short articles on it trying with I think an increasing sense of desperation to awaken the Europeans to the potential catastrophe that was looming and what Ivan block argued and of course he wasn't right on anything but I think he got it right in essence what he argued was that European industry was now so successful that its very success would make it possible for the Europeans to keep very large armies in the field that the old limits on the size of armies the difficulties of moving them before Railways before modern Transportation the impossibility of feeding them after a certain length of time I mean in in the Napoleonic Wars armies were like locusts they basically ate out everything in their surroundings and then they usually had to move on simply because it was impossible to keep resupplying them what the great success of European industry in the European economic strengths generally meant was that it was possible now to put very large armies on the battlefields and keep them there indefinitely keep them resupplied keep on bringing up the equipment they needed because Europe's factories were now capable of doing this in Europe's transportation system was capable of doing this and keep on supplying them with the men with the Manpower that they needed what he also pointed out was that the two sides as they were emerging before 1914 and these were not I think tight Alliance systems but you could see the outlines of the the protagonists on the one side Germany Austria-Hungary and then in the end the Ottoman Empire and smaller allies like Bulgaria and on and Italy was was always a question mark in the end didn't come in on the side of Germany and austro-hungary and then on the other side France and Russia who did have a defensive military Alliance and Britain which had chosen to at least align itself with them although there was no tight alliance between Britain and either France or Russia and so these two great groupings he argued was so evenly balanced in terms of population in terms of resources that once they got into a conflict it was very likely that neither would be strong enough to win but both would be strong enough to Stave off defeat and he also pointed out what had happened to military technology that just partly simply by by share accident which is what happens so often in history the power to defend by the decade before 1914 was much stronger than the power to attack it was easier to get a well-defended position easier to man that to fit to position because of the nature of the Weaponry it was now much much more difficult to attack because you were attacking across a much greater Field of Fire whereas in the Napoleonic Wars you had to worry about someone shooting you from 100 yards away by the time of the first world war you had to worry about someone shooting you with accuracy with much more deadly weapons from at least a thousand yards away say at least 100 meters away and so it was becoming increasingly difficult to attack and the losses of those who were attacking were mounting he pointed all this out and he tended to be dismissed he was dismissed by the military planners who thought that they could still win Wars it I think was the nature of their training that they were there to solve problems not to throw up their hands and say nothing could be done and he was dismissed because he was a banker in a civilian and what did he know about war and so all these things have to be taken into account that there were warnings there were those who foresaw what it might be like but there were the sorts of tensions and the sorts of decisions that were going to lead Europe into war having said that I think what we always need to keep in mind is that it was not inevitable it was not for ordained at least in my view that Europe was going to have a catastrophic war in 1914 it could have had one in 1912 it could have had one in 1911 it could have had one in 1913 all those occasions there was talk of a general European war and it didn't happen if Europe had managed somehow to survive through until 1915 the international scene might have looked very different the British were very concerned about their relations with Russia they were not at all sure that they would be able to keep on friendly terms with them there was real tension along the borders between central Asia and Russia and the British were very very concerned about Russia moving down into the north of what was then called Persia which is today Iran and it is quite possible that Britain and Russia would have fallen out it was also always possible that Britain and Germany would have mended fences there were those in both countries and indeed those who who observed from outside who said really the natural Alliance in Europe or one of the most natural alliances was between Britain and Germany Germany had the biggest land Army in Europe Britain had the biggest Navy in the world both shared values both were predominantly Protestant countries linked by family you know that right from the royal families on downwards there were many family links between Britain Germany when the British cabinet was sitting in the summer of 1914 trying to decide whether or not to go to war against Germany four members of that cabinet had been educated at German universities and that was not unusual a number of Germans had been educated in British universities there were very tight links they also were each other's largest trading partners and so economically it made sense for them not to go to war with each other but far from it it made economic sense for them to continue to be friends with each other and there had been talks right up until 1914 between British and German Representatives about how they might overcome their past differences and come to some new sort of understanding and the British were prepared to go a long way to concede what was one of Germany's major demands and that was that Germany should have an Empire the British with the ruthlessness which great Powers usually display were quite prepared to hand over to Germany the African colonies of their oldest Ally Portugal and the British were quite prepared to hand over Angola and Mozambique to Germany and the Portuguese of course were not consulted on this and so it is quite possible that by 1915 the international scene might have looked very different quite possible that some of the tensions that were affecting that International scene might have been replaced by relative peace they could always of course have been replaced by other tensions but I think important to remember that what we tend to think of as fixed alliances before the first world war were nothing of the sort they were much more loose much more porous much more capable of change and if you want only one example of that of course it's the example of Italy which I mentioned earlier Italy was linked in what was called The Triple Alliance with with Russia and I start with with Austria-Hungary and with Germany but these were defensive alliances and the countries involved were only bound to get involved if the their Alliance partner was attacked by a third party and you know it's always possible to get out of alliances you can always almost find a loophole and if you don't live up to the terms of your alliance what is the sanction what is the international body that is going to find you and punish you in some way it doesn't exist and so Italy when the war broke out found reason not to get involved in that war it argued that Austria-Hungary had not been attacked Germany had not been attacked that they had attacked first it may have been semantic I think the Germans certainly felt it but I think it shows that the alliance systems were much looser than we might imagine so what I think is important then and I want to stress this is that we look back and the danger of looking back is we see all the things that produce the result we know happened we look back before 1914 and we can see step by step we think very clearly as if these stacks of steps are very firmly linked Europe marching towards War but what I think is important to remember is Europeans themselves didn't feel it they did think they had choices they did many of them think that peace was something that was going to continue and I think we need to look at that and try and understand why Europeans might have felt like this and I think we try and need to tell ourselves that war needn't have been inevitable there were choices there were very strong forces it must be admitted tending towards war in Europe but there were very strong forces as well tending towards peace and we tend to forget those because it's not peace that came it's war that came but let me just say something very briefly about those forces which were tending for peace partly Europe had reached a point where it was now so economically linked linked by trade linked by Communications linked by investment linked also by movements of peoples and peoples were moving across Europe working in different countries trade and investment was linking European countries together shortly before the first world war broke out one of the largest German industrialists had just bought a large amount of land in England where he was planning to build a very large Factory and this was not unusual so for a lot of Europeans the very linking of Europe particularly I think in the economic sense meant that war was not something that made any rational sense and a very popular book written by a journalist Norman Angel a British journalist before 1914 had enormous success saying exactly this the book was called the great illusion and he said it is a great illusion that these days in the modern world given the nature of modern economies in the way in which we're all linked together it is a great illusion that war can pay it doesn't it's not like the Middle Ages where you could March over your borders into the territory of your neighbor and you could ransack his castle and take away his gold and silver plate and possibly his wife and you would actually gain something from it it's not going to be like that anymore and one of the examples he gave I think is very interesting he said look if Germany wants the benefits of the Belgian economy if Germany wants all the things that those productive Belgian farms and productive Belgian factories can produce it's much better off buying them and encouraging the belgians to produce more because if Germany invades Belgium it will have the expense of occupying it it will have to deal with a resentful population which will not want to produce for Germany it will in fact find that it has hurt itself economically by trying to invade another country and take over its economy Germany and this was true of All European nations are much further ahead said Angel when they trade with each other and you also had those who argued that war would become impossible in the modern world after about six weeks because all International financing would dry up and since so much of what was happening in Europe depended on loans from other countries it was assumed that they would simply be unable to afford to pay for the war when they could no longer borrow on the international market and so I think a lot of Europeans were very struck by these arguments and Angel's book went through many editions was wildly popular students at University even in some cases studied something called angelism which was not the theological thing you might think that was studying the work of Norman angel and so for a lot of Europeans the idea really had begun to sink in that war was not something that was profitable or sensible more than that I think for a lot of Europeans War had become something that was just so unlikely they hadn't most of them experienced it directly it was a memory it was a memory of their grandparents but for most Europeans War had not been something they encountered directly and I think Europeans can be forgiven they may have been blind but they can be forgiven for assuming the that war was something that they just didn't do any longer that war was something that happened elsewhere that war was something that people in Asia or Africa or the Middle East or someone like uncivilized like the United States might do but war was not something that you did in an increasingly civilized and prosperous and interconnected Europe and I think that is important it doesn't mean they were working actively for peace but what it does mean is is they were beginning to assume that there were other ways of dealing with international issues other ways of dealing with disputes among nations than going to war when Europeans look back at their own Century the 19th century they could they could see this for themselves I mean there had been Wars it has to be admitted in Europe but they had for the most part been between only two protagonists only two people only two countries and for the most part they had been very short most of the major European Wars between 1815 when the Napoleonic Wars ended and 1914 were over in six weeks and they were decisive in 191870 the German Confederation defeated France at the Battle of Sudan it was a decisive Victory it took a bit longer to make peace but Europeans looked back at that war and they said well it settled something France didn't get much out of it it lost two provinces but it did leave some clear conclusion and so I think a lot of Europeans simply thought the whole pattern was demonstrating that war wasn't likely to happen anytime soon and I do think that's something important to remember more than that I think a lot of Europeans thought that they had become more civilized than War there was a great faith among a lot of people in the 19th century and there was always questioned of course but there was a great faith that Europe was making progress that Europe wasn't making progress not just economically and that is something people could see in their own lifetimes between 1815 and 1914 and even more after 1848 Europe's Economic Development was extraordinary by any standards Europeans were living longer they were eating better they had access to more consumer goods medicine was much better cities were cleaner than Europeans could see around them evidence that progress was taking place and what they tended to assume was that this was not just economic progress not just social progress but it was political progress as well more and more people were getting the vote even in countries like Russia which was always seen as the most backward of the great Powers the Russians are had been forced to concede a constitution after the after the russo-japanese war of 1904-1905 and at the local level Russians were getting used to a modest amount of self-government beginning to get experience in how to run their own Affairs literacy was increasing which meant people were more able to take part in the great debates that were affecting their societies in 1914 the biggest single newspaper in Moscow had a circulation a daily circulation of 800 000 which gives you some sense of the ways in which Europe was changing in some sense of the ways in which you were getting a much better educated public which was now more willing and able to participate in the political life of its own country and so Europeans felt the progress was not just something that could be measured economically it was something that could be measured civilizationally that European civilization was now Advanced and was continuing to Advanced I mean there was there were always those who said we should be careful but I think there was generally a face that things were going to get better as they looked into the 20th century they thought this is going to be a very good Sanctuary for Europe even better than the 19th century some of you may have read the great Austrian writer Stefan zweig who wrote a book called the world of yesteryear he wrote it in 1941 when he was in Exile from Hitler's Germany and he wrote back with of course the Nostalgia you might expect about his own childhood before 1914 which he described as the Golden Age of security he said he grew up in a prosperous Jewish middle-class family in Vienna at a time when Jews were becoming fully integrated into European Society he felt none of the Discrimination or stigmatization that might have affected his grandparents he felt completely integrated into Austrian Society he said his parents assumed that their property would remain safe they assumed that the austro-hungarian monarchy would continue for another Thousand Years just as it already had continued all of that of course disappeared he finished his Memoirs and he and his young wife committed suicide he could no longer bear to see what had happened to that world at which he had once thought so so secure and so safe but a lot of your Europeans I think in 1914 did think this did think that the 21st 20th century would be a good century and they looked also at the ways in which it's the whole whole new international order seem to be emerging ways of settling disputes which were moving beyond War ways of establishing International Norms increasingly you had International organizations dedicated to trying to find new ways on dealing with international issues and settling international disputes and so there were International organizations of jurists for example International organizations of liberal Democratic liberal politicians increasingly you've got people arguing that there must be mechanisms for settling disputes and one of the mechanisms that a lot of people put a lot of faith in was arbitration the idea that disputes between nations can be settled when both priorities agree to submit their grievance the differences to a third party and crucially agree to be banned by the decision of that third party now there were some 300 international arbitrations held between 1794 and 1914 at more than half of those 300 arbitrations were held after 1890 and so I think Europeans again and others in the world can be forgiven for thinking they see a pattern developing here that they really are moving beyond War as a means of settling disputes finally I think on the side of Peace you had very active peace organizations not just middle-class organizations although they were important you had very powerful and rich men contributing a great money to the great deal of money to the cause of peace Andrew Carnegie the American Scottish American billionaire built the peace powers in The Hague which you can still see dedicated to the cause of Peace Alfred Nobel the Scandinavian explosives manufacturer felt a certain guilt about what it was he'd developed explosives of course for mining but also very useful for war and so contributed a very large part of his considerable Fortune to the cause of Peace including of course setting up the Nobel Peace Prize but in addition to the middle class peace movements and in addition to the individuals often very rich individuals who were prepared to contribute to the cause of Peace there was of course the extremely well at least potentially extremely important organization of the second International the second International was the organization which brought together the left-wing and socialist parties of the world and it was something that they themselves took very seriously and so did the ruling Elites I mean a number of people in different countries were very concerned about the second International because it appeared to be a potentially very powerful force and one that was likely to grow in power as the number of people belonging to unions in the world and as a number of people belonging and to socialist parties and voting for those socialist priorities in 1912 in the German elections for the German reichstag the federal parliament of Germany which was elected by Universal manhood suffrage every male in Germany over a certain age had the right to vote in reichstag elections the Socialists became the largest party in the reichstag a third of all Germans were voting for the German Socialist Party and so the second International representing as it did socialist and left-wing parties from across Europe and from around the world appeared to be a body that was could only grow was growing and could only grow more in power it had an international Bureau in Brussels it had International congresses every two to three years and a good deal of what they discussed of course was working conditions how to improve conditions of the working classes how to give them a greater say in politics and policies but what they also discussed was how to stop war and they discussed ways in which they might collectively prevent a general European war from breaking out and they had in their hands they thought a very potent weapon what they could do many of them argued in the French were particularly forceful in this jean-chophez the great French socialist was very eloquent on this they said what we can do is call a general strike if a major European War breaks out we the workers have nothing to gain from it we're going to be filling up the big armies that are going to be assembled to March after the Frontiers it's going to be us who get killed we're going to be working in the factories to produce the equipment for war but we're not going to be drawing on the profits of those factories it's going to be the capitalist bosses who benefit we will die in those Wars we will work for those Wars but it will not benefit us and so we shouldn't have any part of it what we should do is call a general strike now imagine what would have happened in 1914 if as Juarez was hoping the second International had called for a general strike those massive European armies which relied on people coming back from the reserves and these these were armies which took young men of military age trained them and then sent them into the reserves which meant they were still liable to come back if those armies had not been capable of being mobilized if the young men out in the reserves and middle-aged men out in the reserves had said no we're not coming it would have meant those massive armies that went off and got themselves killed in such large numbers would not have been able to assemble the French military authorities were in fact so worried about this that they assumed and they made plans for something like 20 percent of all the reserves in France not coming when they were called for which is a very large proportion indeed more than that if there'd been a general strike the trains wouldn't have run so how would those massive armies have got up to the Frontiers the factories would have stopped working the coal mines would have stopped working and so the primary fuel on which Europe need depended would not have been there and so there were I think very real and serious talk about there was very real and serious talk about how peace might be maintained and I think a general willingness certainly among the Socialist movement I think also in society at large to believe that war was something that was not going to happen in Europe that of course in a way was dangerous because what it meant was when the crises came a lot of people thought it can't happen happen and perhaps they took it too much for granted that peace was something well having said that I do think we need to look at the forces for peace of course what we also have to do is look at those forces which helped to produce the War of 1914 and helped I think to produce it both in material terms I think we have to take into account the arms race for example but I think we also have to take into account the psychological preparation there were forces within European society and ways of thinking within European society which made too many people including alas many of those who are making the decisions made too many people think that war was in fact something that was going to happen whether they thought so in a spirit of resignation or whether they thought so as many of them did in the spirit of thinking that war actually might be a good thing that meant that when the crisis came in 1914 there were those who were prepared to contemplate War as something they could fight that they could win which would actually bring benefits and I think there are a number of things that contribute to this and I'm sure you can all think of them yourselves but let me just mention a few one of the things I think that contributed to a sense among society that war at least among certain people in European society that war might be a good thing was a somehow an apprehension that Europe's very success was is not good for European society and this was a time of tremendous change of tremendous technological and scientific innovation and I think a lot of people found it was all going too fast I mean some of the worries are not unlike the ones I think we're facing today where we worry about what's happening to human beings well what does the computer revolution mean I mean are we all going to become part robot in the next 50 years what's going to happen to us genetically is genetic modification going to tamper with what it means to be human are we going to get new forms of hybrid creatures emerging I mean these I think our worries that we're hearing increasingly and I think you have something similar in Europe um and certainly in other parts of the world but Europe because it was so much the dominant and and leading part of the world in 1914 these These fews are expressed quite often there fears that Society is moving too fast there's a lot of talk about a disease called neurothenia where nerves get tangled and people can't can't calm down they're always moving too fast and when the Paris Metro was opened and the two big concerns about the Metro was that it wouldn't do people good to be whisked underground too quickly the second fear and which was the one that actually still is with us that there might be too many Temptations for pickpockets [Music] there was that there was also a sense that the very success of European medicine was keeping people alive too long and perhaps keeping people alive who shouldn't be kept alive and that such people reproducing themselves this was the period in which you get a lot of talk about Eugenics the idea that you can somehow manipulate and breed the human species as you would manipulation breed animals or plants in order to produce a better type of cow and which produces more milk or better type of tomato which doesn't spoil when you pack it and so you were beginning to get talk about how the human race maybe needed to be looked after a bit more carefully that some people were living who shouldn't have lived who in the old days might have died they were then passing on their unhealthy characteristics to others Eugenics Congress was held in London in 1912 and this was not just some crackpot Fringe organization it took over the biggest Concert Hall in London the Royal Albert Hall in the heart of London and its honorary patrons included Winston Churchill who was the first Lord of the admiralty in the cabinet in charge of the British Navy the president of Harvard University and Alexander Graham Bell I had to get a Canadian in here somewhere who was the inventor of the telephone among many other things I mean this was this was um distressingly mainstream as we look back at it there was also concern that people were not living in conditions that were likely to make them strong and robust and healthy and it was in this period you've got a lot of worry about what cities were doing to people and you've got people saying you're much more healthy to live in the countryside in England there was a whole move to set up something called Garden suburbs where people would live in what was felt to be more healthy environments there was a lot of worry that cities were making people weedy and nervous and not capable of fighting this is this is when it really gets important not capable of fighting and dying for their countries and you get in a number of European societies very specific measures being taken to try and counteract what is seen as the degeneration of the particular human species that they were worried about and it wasn't just Eugenics you get organizations being set up to try and give young people healthy outdoor lives the Boy Scouts in England is set up with this very much in mind so are the fud finders in German which were modeled on the Boy Scouts in France they went in rather more for gymnastics with very Natty uniforms which people used to design for themselves but the idea behind this was was to make people physically more healthy but more than that it was to make them capable of fighting for their country and being prepared to sacrifice for their country and so you get an unease in Europe which I think reflects the very success that Europe has been experiencing a feeling that it's it's somehow not good in the long run for Europe what you also got of course is among the ruling Elites and particularly among the military is a worry that they're not going to be able to get the right sort of men to be soldiers and this is a concern and you get a lot of alarmist things being written by the military saying we can't get good soldiers anymore there's something badly wrong with Society now Allied to this fear is of course a very potent emotion and that's the emotion of nationalism this is a period before 1914 of heightened and intense nationalism where peoples increasingly Define themselves in National terms this is a very new phenomenon in for most of European Society people before the 19th century tended rather to Define themselves in terms of who ruled over them in terms of their Village in terms of the local community in terms perhaps of their religion but not so much in terms of this much larger abstraction called the nation but thanks in part to Modern Communications and the spread of literacy and the spread of mass education people increasingly are conceiving of themselves in the terms that Benedict Anderson as imagine communities of Nations they're seeing themselves as part of this much larger unit more than that there is an increasing propensity to describe the nation as something that is somehow Eternal that the nation isn't something we've just all decided we rather like to be a part of the nation is something that has existed for centuries we haven't perhaps recognized that we're truly part of it but it is something that is much bigger than us that has preceded us that will succeed us it is a sort of entity that marches on down through time and drawing its members along with it and what that sort of nationalism does of course is begin to divide people up people begin to see themselves as possessing certain characteristics usually of course very good and admirable characteristics they begin to take pride in their own folk Traditions they begin if you're a composer you begin to look for folk music and begin to see if you can work this in to the music that you're composing as in some way reflecting the soul of your people you begin to look if you're a historian at the history of your name nation and historians play a huge and I think largely regrettable role in this because they begin to create the national histories they not only look for them they create them and they begin to portray this idea of the essential nation which exists somewhere the origins Are Always Somewhere in the midst of antiquity which is a very convenient place to be if you don't want to prove anything the origins are so far back we can't really prove it but we know it was there and they create these National very powerful histories which which are based on clearly identified facts which which incorporates things that actually happen but which are a large part of Mythology as well and so you get the great Von trichka Professor Von trouchka in Germany arguing that the German nation has always been the most energetic and forceful nation in its part of the world he argues that they were the only ones capable of standing up to the Romans and what he assumes is nothing much has changed yes the Germans are wearing slightly different clothes these days but basically in their Essence they're the same now what that does is is bring you together but of course it brings a process of exclusion who doesn't belong who is not part of our nation and we see what that has meant in the 20th century what it does in addition is begin to posit that urination you probably have a natural enemy you probably have a nation on the other side of the border which in some way is your opposite and so you get the French and the Germans and it's an easy example to take because it was a great deal of writing in both France and Germany in this period about how the other is different and so you get the French saying you know the Germans are just not like us they have no imagination they're adore dull people and the prussians in particular who the the French had a particular dislike for they said have got something very wrong with them morally they live in a very flat landscape and they don't see Hills and they don't see valleys and so they have no capacity to distinguish between good and evil which is yeah I know well it's a very good example if I may say never trust learned people who tell you things are so I mean these these these were series being promoted by people with the university posts you know these were these were not crackpots or they were crackpots but they were people of very serious stature whose ideas were taken very seriously and you've got the same sort of thing happening in Germany and this is again just take one example the German Professor who said you know the French had never invented anything and they're incapable of creativity or originality they've never really been able to rule themselves and he was to be fair he did get his critics who said well you know if you go to France there are great many beautiful cathedrals which the French seem to have built and they were extremely good at making forts and they did actually dominate Europe um in the reign of Louis XIV for example or during Napoleon how do you explain it and he said easy and he said it's because the people in France who actually did those things were actually German and you would spend his holidays on a bicycle and train going around France looking at portraits of French notables looking at statues of French notables looking at tomb figures of French notables picking out what he said was a Teutonic characteristics that Teutonic knows that Teutonic Joe he said it's quite clear that it's the Teutonic blood in France which has really made these things happen in France now this we find absurd but these were very powerful ideas and what you had at with this sort of nationalism you had an increasing public participation in it with the spread of mass communications and the spread of mass media campaigns mostly newspapers were the main form of media in these days you would get huge nationalist campaigns and nationalist feelings being worked up nationalist lobbies in Germany and Britain there were colonial lobbies Navy lobbies arguing for more navies for more colonies politicians and Statesmen often found this a phenomenon which they didn't much like which can strained them but they felt they had to somehow respond to it because increasingly of course they had to worry about the next election they could no longer afford to disregard public opinion and so there was a very unedifying quarrel between Britain and Germany over the Solomon Islands in the 1890s where German public opinion got absolutely obsessed with the idea that it must have a bit of one of these islands down in the South Pacific and as one German's very critical German said of his own country and he said if you you know they're demanding a bit of the Solomon Islands if you asked any person on the street whether Solomon Islands are they couldn't tell you they just know that it has become very important to Germany and so you have this which tends to mean that every crisis has the potential to become something where the public get engaged with Statesman making decisions feel that they're under pressure where they're reluctant to disappoint further of their own publics because it will count against them then and of course in the next election what I think is also feeding into this is the a set of ideas which is taken from which are taken from Darwin known as social Darwinism which misapplied darwinian theories to human societies and argue and it fits in very neatly in many ways with nationalism which argue that you can identify separate species within the human race so there is a German species a French species there's not a British species so much as an English species and an Irish species and a Scottish species or an Italian species and the idea that somehow that these are separable peoples that you can distinguish them clearly one from the other and what becomes a dangerous part of this is the idea that just as species animals say in the natural world have natural predators and have to struggle to survive so do species and so that every human species has a natural or hereditary enemy this this becomes so which I mean how many heroin is another matter and how many people actually read Herbert Spencer who transmutes many of these ideas into dealing with human societies is another matter but they become part of the general vocabulary what also becomes part of the general vocabulary is that somehow struggle is good that in fact a nation that doesn't struggle to survive really doesn't deserve to survive there's all there's an immoral compulsion here that you ought to struggle that you ought to be prepared to struggle and I've seen the unpublished Diaries of a young English lieutenant in the first world war whose Diaries were written partly for his family he sent them home to them and he describes as you would imagine conditions in the trenches how awful they were he said you know things are pretty Grim out here a lot of people are dying but he said what can we do that's the law of nature you have to struggle to survive and that seems to be an example of just how such Concepts can permeate thinking and make war seem something that is natural something that in fact is is a moral obligation and so we have a Europe which I think is very much a European play with those who think that peace is something which they want and which they think is the Natural State of Affairs which is the sensible State of Affairs and then you have those who for various reasons have come and use accustomed or perhaps never given up on the idea that war in fact is a natural part of human society that war is something that we ought to do that war is something that we shouldn't shrink from you even get people usually if I may be unkind men who are well beyond military age saying a good war is good for society we need a good healthy bloodletting every so often I mean they're safely sitting in their University offices so they're not preparing to sacrifice their own blood but I think you do get too many people thinking that war is something that actually is good for society what you also get by 1914 is a sense that we've been living with a series of crises we've got an arms race we've got these alliances which seem to be dividing up Europe maybe War would be like having a thunderstorm let's just get it over with and it's an image which you see again and again in the literature of the time that we're waiting for something to happen there's a sense that something awful might happen wouldn't it be better just to get it over with and of course if you're assuming that a war is going to be like the other Wars that you've seen more recently six weeks not that much longer making some sort of decision and peace afterwards you might actually say as people did let's just get it over with let's have a war let's not wait in this situation of tension things will look better later and I think that helps to make the catastrophe in the summer of 1914 the assumption is that if a war is going to come it's not going to last for very long the warnings of Eve unblock and others jean-jabbar has also worried about this and warned about this those warning things are discounted they're discounted by the military experts and I think they're discounted by a lot of society what the military are promising are victories their plans all of the European military plans of all major powers are offensive what they're saying to the government is we're going to March into the enemy territory we're going to surround the enemy armies destroy them they'll surrender and then we'll make peace they are not planning for a defensive war and nor I think are they capable of saying to their own governments we may not be able to guarantee you Victory that's not what the military do the military say you know we will give you victory in the war we'll be short and so when the crisis comes in the summer of 1914 those are the sorts of assumptions which they're working on and I think the final thing that contributes to the crisis in the summer of 1914 really are two things first of all the timing there have been a series of previous crises on each occasion there has been talk of a general War but it hasn't happened and so people assume too many people even those in positions of power in 1914 assume that this crisis that starts with the assassination of the Archduke and Sarajevo on the 28th of June 1914 will be like the one in 1913 like the one in 1912 like the one in 1911 like the one in 1908 there'll be a lot of talk about a general War there'll be some partial mobilization there'll be some threatening noises and then they'll all sit down around a table somewhere and talk and the war that the war crisis will be over and I think that was part of the complacency with which the assassination was greeted immediately but the second thing that has happened as a result of those crises is that certain people in certain countries have said this time we're not backing down because people draw their own lessons from the crises and so what you had in Saint Petersburg for example was people around the Tsar the Tsar himself was a weak man but I think he shared this view saying we cannot back down anymore we didn't back Serbia last time when Austria-Hungary threatened it we can't afford not to do it again where would we be as a great power where would our honor be if we didn't back Serbia this time we're not backing down even if it means we go to war with Austria-Hungary and possibly Germany and in Austria-Hungary you get very much the same thing that we have taken too much from Serbia austro-hungary sees Serbia this much smaller power down in the Balkans as a menace to its very existence what the serbs are doing or Serbian nationalists are doing a calling on South slaves to join in one larger social live entity which would mean the South slaves within Austria-Hungary would potentially leave which would mean probably the end of Austria Hungary if the southern part of Austria-Hungary peeled away not much would be left in the other nationalities within Austria-Hungary would probably want to leave as well and so for Austria-Hungary Serbia wasn't just a tiresome little neighbor it was a threat to its very existence and when the assassination happened in Sarajevo Austria-Hungary had the opportunity had been waiting for what more better excuse than the death of the earthy or Throne when you can prove a small detail which they never managed to do but when you think you can prove that the Soviet government was behind it the chief of the Austrian general staff Conrad Von hertzendor have heard about the assassination on a railway platform in Zagreb he was on a train that stopped someone came with the news that the assassination had taken place and his first thought it was usually his first thought but his first thought yet again was we can have a war now and this time he was going to get it and so the crisis is I think compounded by the previous series of crises and then in the end of course you get and I think it's it's almost like something narrowing down you have this huge vast complicated European Society but in those five weeks between June 28th and August the 4th 1914 when it becomes a general war that huge European Society is at the mercy of a very few people who now have to make the decisions and so you narrow down your focus I think just to those few people and they make in my view the wrong decisions Austria-Hungary decides to destroy Serbia or bring it to heal Germany decides to back Austria-Hungary knowing that there's a risk that Russia will come in Russia decides to back Serbia knowing that that means it goes to war both against Austria-Hungary and Russia and so the war becomes a general one we still worry about it we still try and understand it because of course its consequences were so huge Europe has never recovered from that war it changed the face of Europe forever it destroyed Empires it introduced bolshevism to the world with consequences which Ripple through into the 21st century it speeded up The Disappearance of the great European Empires and speed it up of course the rise of the United States to world power and it helped tragically to create the conditions in which a second world war became likely I think it's possible to say and argue and I would without the first world war we would not have had the conditions that made the Second World War take place and so that's why I think we still try and continue to understand it and I think somewhere Loki and there is a fear is if we don't understand it we might do something equally stupid again thank you thank you Uncle merci box said it is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign do not give comments please my name is Kirsten um you you do a number of parallels between the current our current political situation and the situation at the turn of the 20th century um do you have any ideas about perhaps the seeds of things that you see now that might cause people to do something as stupid or as I'm sorry I he closes yeah something equally as stupid um has happened then you can just speak okay I know you can speak okay our capacity to do stupid things is huge I think um you know I think that's that's a given um what worries me always is when you have um disputes which engage nationalist feelings because I think these can push governments in ways they may not want to go governments and sometimes themselves of course encourage such things and I think I'm thinking of the current tension in the South and East China Seas between China and its neighbors and how this is becoming a nationalist cause in Japan for example I was recently in Japan and and I talked to some Japanese international relations experts who were very concerned about the way ways in which they thought prime minister Abe was using and appealing to Japanese nationalism to mobilize opinion against China and the Chinese government doing something rather similar with Chinese nationalism and the trouble with those things is they can get out of control far too quickly and I think perhaps even more than in 1914 we expect governments to respond quickly you know if a government hasn't responded in two minutes people start getting impatient and so the temptation to do something stupid I mean you know should a Chinese let's hope not but should a Chinese and a Japanese Naval vessel have a Clash or should there be some incident in the air the danger then I think is that opinion on both sides gets inflamed and it becomes very difficult for governments to back down I think the same thing with what's happening around the borders of Russia particularly of course in Ukraine you know the potential there for things to get out of control on the plus side I think we do have stronger and more International institutions and I we also I think have a very sensible recognition that any major Ward and I would be so devastating that it would probably you know it would its consequence would be much worse than either the first or the second world wars but I I'm I'm not always confident about human nature um we as someone once said not me but we have a just we have a couple of design flaws there so I think it's something it's someone up there I think okay my name is a PhD student here at The Graduate Institute um thank you very much for this very interesting lecture and I really thought the angle you had on the psychological preparation was very um interesting and I wanted to ask whether if you're looking today at what happening we don't have a World War today but we have many many wars and these mini Wars across the world the most recent one being last week in Macedonia or maybe a hint of something happening potentially in the Balkans again um I was wondering what you thought about and you mentioned the arms race during and in preparation for the first world war and I was wondering what you think about the arms sale and um a lot of analysts talking about arms sale as being the interest and the reason for certain countries and not countries where Wars are happening but countries that are selling arms could you speak to that today and or and the words that are happening and do you think that the um promotion of the psychological need for war to promote democracy when after democracy is when after this war these wars in certain areas like the um the orange Revolution the the magrep ETC after that we see that democracies are not really happening well both interesting questions I'll try and answer them fairly briefly if I may um establishing democracy is a very complex business and I think we've all made a big mistake in thinking democracy is just about having elections and we've forgotten I think how long it took us in the west to establish our own democracies you know did we didn't establish them in two years two months it took centuries and it takes the growth of democratic institutions Democratic attitudes um these these are not things that can be easily established I think we also shouldn't give up too soon I mean I think something clearly has shifted in countries such as Egypt we may not see a fully fledged democracy developing there right away but I think there have been significant shifts on the whole question of arms races and arms sales I mean I think arms races are potentially always destabilizing and part of the destabilizing effect is that people are always afraid of being caught behind because the problem with an arms race is whatever you bought is going to to be obsolete or whatever you've developed is going to be obsolete in a given length of time and so the Temptation is while you have the edge to fight before the other side can catch up and so I do think there's a destabilizing Effect one of the arguments I don't know if you were referring to this but one of the arguments made about the first world war later on was that it was all fomented by what were called the merchants of death that the arms manufacturers really wanted a war my own view as arms manufacturers don't want a war what they want is a nice state of tension because in a nice state of tension they can sell to both sides in a war they can only sell to one side and they often have to deal with government controls and government limits of their profits I mean Crips the great arms manufacturer both helped to build the fortifications of the Belgian forts before 1914 and created the guns that knocked those forts down so that's from an Irish manufacturer's point of view the ideal situation so I'm Ingrid that I'm a professor of international law and I write about the law of War also at Oxford and I was just wondering if one should add in the causes of war or the development of war the very important issue of the media because someone once said or perhaps it was I that be peace is pretty boring but War makes rattling good breathing well this is an old old debate I mean did did William Randolph first create create the Spanish-American War um it's often said that he helped to create the atmosphere I think such views tend to come from the Press themselves who like to think about how very powerful they are I mean Rupert Murdoch is always taking credit for whichever government gets elected in the UK um I do think that the media can pick up and reflect and in some cases encourage particular views but they're responsive I mean I'm thinking before the first world war with the media were largely mass circulation newspapers and magazines they were picking up on something that already existed I mean I don't believe it's just one way I don't think the public is in inert lump of dough which is moved this way and that way by the media I think the media are trying to sell newspapers and so they're trying to find things that will appeal to their publics now they will push certain things and you're right I mean War scares were good for business there was a very famous book called I'm trying to remember what it was about a putative invasion of Britain which came out in 1907 it was serialized uh no it wasn't rid of the sound thank you but it was something um it was it was earlier the invasion of 1910 thank you but the riddle of the Sands is very much but I was thinking of the invasion of 1910 because it was the Norse Cliff press serialized it and The Invasion route was going to come through a certain part of Southern England and northcliffe said could you please change it because I'll sell more newspapers if you move it slightly over so that you know I think that I think it's a complex relationship and I do think the media can play a part and they certain certainly can magnify um nationalists forever which they did before 1914 clearly so my name is ABBA kalindi and I'm a student at the International School of Geneva thank you very much for your for your lecture there's a very strong argument that the alliance system at the time of 1914 played a significant role in causing the first world war but you mentioned that the alliances were very loose at the time when you gave the example of Italy and my question was if as you say alliances are so easy to break and if for example the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary had broken would there have been a war nonetheless or would the circumstances have continued and would there have been a war anyway thank you yeah no it's a very good and interesting question I I the answer is I don't know um you know I think I mean countries hesitate to get out of alliances because of reputational damage and because they may not find another Alliance partner I mean the German attitude was very well expressed by Von Yago yeah Von yagov who was the foreign secretary who said why we ever Allied ourselves to that you know decaying Hulk on the Danube I don't know but what can we do where else can we go we don't have anyone else um and so I think that the danger I see in the alliance system is not so much that it leads people into war like a chain reaction but that it encourages sometimes Behavior which isn't isn't isn't likely to to to to lead to stability what I mean for example is that in Alliance system is one of the fears is losing your partner and the French will become very very worried about losing Russia for example as Russia became Russia Russia is in many ways the great development success story of the period before 1914 it's it's got a huge rate of growth it's developing modern Industries um population is is becoming more literate so on and I think what the french were very worried about was that as Russia became more powerful and as Russian industry grew it would no longer need French technology and no longer need French investment and so the French are worried about losing Russia which for them is a dreadful loss because Russian Manpower compensates for the demographic gap between France and Germany and so it is possible and some have argued this that the French encourage the Russians to be more belligerent and encourage them to do more anti-german as a way of trying to hang on to to Russia and so I think sometimes what you get in Alliance systems is the fear of losing the partner encouraging you to do things which aren't rational the other thing I think with Alliance systems um is when great Powers have small states that they are protecting those small states can sometimes get away with a lot because the small state like Serbia knows that Russia probably has to protect it because otherwise Russia will look idiotic and like it can't protect even a small state like Serbia and so it encourages a recklessness on the part of the smaller States and and means that the bigger State ends up supporting Behavior it doesn't necessarily approve of I mean I think a very parallel example today is the United States and Israel the United States finds itself supporting Israel even when it disapproves of its policies because the alternative would be to damage American Prestige but that in turn May encourage Israel to take steps in the knowledge that the United States will protected or North Korea and China same sort of thing um thank you very much my name is Samuel Segura I'm a PhD student also here at The Graduate Institute um and I was I was wondering I was very stimulated from what you previously said about um the the merchants of death and so on and these kind of issues and this state of perfect tension and then I was I was thinking and now that you spoke about small states uh I came I was thinking also about what about those small neutral States and the role that they played during World War because quite often the narratives about World War One involved also a lot of great power talk uh but more and these small neutral states are kind of deluded except perhaps of Belgium because everyone discusses about the herbal the horrible crimes that the Germans did to Belgium but what about for instance places like Scandinavia Denmark would you I would like to pick your brains on whether you had any particular insight as to the role of these countries in the world well you can be neutral depending on where you are Belgian couldn't be neutral because it was on the German invasion route into France the Netherlands could remain neutral because Germany had decided for a number of reasons not to invade the Netherlands on the way to France and so neutrality I think is is very much determined by by geography it also helps as in the case of Switzerland if you have both a geography and a determination to fight to defend it I mean is it worth the the cost to a larger power of trying to take it over but states that are in the wrong place um find that neutrality is almost impossible to maintain but I do think neutrality is a very important Concept in international relations and in international law and it was one of the things that the British felt very strongly about um they they I think they're thinking in 1914 was partly tempered by by concern for what was happening to Belgium but there was a more General concern but what would happen when big Powers felt they could violate the neutrality of any country and Britain had at various stages in its history chosen to be neutral and so the principle was very important for the British of neutrality so I do think um you know the trouble is you you can be say you know you can say as much as you like about neutrality but in certain senses there's not much you can do about it [Music] hmm hello my name is firen I'm a professional in Geneva thank you very much for a very interesting conference and subject and I would like to return to what you have said about a Revival of nationalism in many countries in many world powers like China and Russia and which lesson could we draw from the events leading to the first world war to avoid a general generalized conflict now because the the situation in Ukraine is quite alarming and the situation in the South China Sea is quite alarming too and in China we don't have a democracy so do you think that for example diplomats could have done more that international law could be used to to avoid a conflict for example for example in the South China Sea the international tribunal of the sea the unclose agreement and in uh in the conflict in Ukraine the European Europeans are very much involved what can the European Community do to avoid a conflict for example yeah well if I knew that um yes it's it's I know it's a very good question but it's it's very very difficult to answer I mean I think you know international law is we sometimes make I think mistakenly the analogy between international law and law in a particular country and and the difference is the enforcement mechanism and so far at international law we have only got the beginnings of of a way of enforcing it I mean in inside a country um when a law is broken there are means of dealing with that and means of enforcing a sanction or a penalty on those who break the law and we're only beginning I think to establish that in international law and so it's very difficult to see International laws as a way of of trying to keep the peace diplomacy I think is important and what worries me is the ways in which foreign Ministries seem to be at least in my own country moving away from Regional expertise to subject expertise which which is needed you need people who understand about arms negotiations and and disarmament negotiations or international trade negotiations but you also need people who understand areas very well and that's also happening at universities I think area studies Regional studies where people get to know the part of a world extremely well is declining and it's happening with the news media mostly for economic reasons and we no longer have the bureaus abroad that the media used to have where you have people who lived in a country and really have got to understand that country and the less we understand of each other the more likely we are to draw false pictures of what the other is doing we tend to see things through our own eyes always but if we don't understand what the ways of thinking of the other side or the others we're dealing with is then we tend to project onto them our own sort of fears and concerns and we might interpret what they do in very bad ways so this is not a very satisfactory answer but I think clearly negotiation diplomacy attempts to build Bridges attempts to reassure are very very important I don't know how we should have dealt with Putin I'm not sure he is an easy person to deal with um how do you deal with someone like that but perhaps we could have dealt with Russia generally in a more effective way since the end of the Cold War I mean I think it's too late now to do anything about it but I think the West treated right Russia with a sort of contempt as if it was finished which was a mistake with a country that big and with such a strong sense of itself with such a big population and with such great resources so I'm not answering your question I think because it's very very difficult to know how we can keep the world on an even Keel but I do think that the more we know about each other the more links there are the more understanding there is and the more negotiation there is at all sorts of levels at least we have some hope of averting catastrophe Eva I have a question about the fragility of intelligent cells last year there was an exhibition at Saint Petersburg very astonishing uh avant-garde Russian avant-garde and the Outburst of the war and we could see at uh astonishing caricatures of the Germans of the German imperator by malevich poetry and drawings by mayorkovsky and this was hidden before of course during the Soviet regime so we had an ID but not a very neat idea of what it was like the Outburst of nationalism first week of the war among people who were members of the futurist extrema Vanguard intelligencia and who under the pressure of some kind of pressure of nationalism seemed to betray themselves and you couldn't uh [Music] find out who they were before and who they were after that this little thing about the fragility of intelligences before the idea of War at that time and today yeah it's a very good point and and a rather discouraging one actually because you tend to think perhaps wrongly we tend to think the intelligence here will think rationally and use their minds and use use use the the powers of reasoning but I think you know what surprised everyone in Europe and that's what really destroyed the second International was the great power of nationalism that people who hadn't thought they would behave like this were swept along with it I've just been reading the Diaries of count Harry Kessler who's this extraordinary figure who kept a diary for over 50 years and he he quite it's not quite literally because that would be telling a lie but he seems to have known almost everyone in the avant-garde in Europe who mattered plus all sorts of political figures I mean I opened his diary at random the other day and he had tea with weird and Barnard and had dinner with Renoir and he was at the first night of the rates of spring in 1913 and ended up in a taxi with diagolev and najinski going for a drink I mean he just knew everyone but when the war started he was an internationalist he was Cosmopolitan the war started he became oppression and he was talking about you know we have to really mail fists with these belgians how dare they oppose us here is this man who had loved Beauty all his life who was in the avant-garde had supported all sorts of artists suddenly turns into this impression a militarist now eventually he he calms down but it takes him four years um so I don't know what it is I mean I think nationalism is a tremendously powerful force I think there was also a sense among certainly um those on the left um those who had been at odds with their own Societies in some ways that suddenly what had been attention was gone the German socialist I was reading who said when the war broke out suddenly he said I felt so wonderful because the tension between being a socialist and being a German had disappeared you know it no longer mattered it was dissolved in being part of the people and you had the same thing with with people like Rickard Strauss you know people who you wouldn't have expected to behave like this and so I do think there is this sort of emotion I do also think and Isaac Bible is has really I think been very good on this there is a Fascination that a lot of intellectuals and the intelligence you have with people who aren't like them people who are very decisive I mean Bible wrote those amazing stories about writing with the Cossacks and this admiration he had for these people who don't reflect who don't do all the sort of things that the Intelligentsia do who just act and I do think this is a tendency for intellectuals to to be drawn Along by that and I'm not sure it's an answer but it is a fascinating phenomenon I think you're absolutely right down there journalism students you made many similitudes between our society today and the one before and uh he also talked about the rise of nationalism well we're living that right now with the extreme right raising up in France in Italy in Spain pretty much everywhere around Europe then you also talked about the light alliances that were created as we can see with the European Union our alliance is quite light as well nowadays so my question is uh how has our society evolved and what characteristics are we lacking for the creation of a third world war oh I hope not too many um I I think Europe has moved a long way between seeing War as something that settles anything not that there haven't been Wars but I think they have been generally deplored I think the wars and the Balkans in the 1990s were generally deployed by European society and what's been happening in Ukraine I think has been generally deplored I don't think you get the same sort of acceptance as War as a natural part of human Affairs or as something desirable that you had before 1914 but I do think societies can change I mean I think you know I always think of Sweden um in 19th century you would not have wanted to be anywhere that the swedes were coming um you know they were a belligerent thuggish power causing a great deal of trouble look at them now you know Sweden is one of the most peaceful countries in the world so I think countries do evolve and do change and societies change and I think Europe has has moved a long way what I think of course is worrying is that one of the great glues of the European Union was the memory of of the first and second world wars I mean those who founded the what the first the community and then the union were those who had lived through in many cases both Wars and were determined that this should not happen again and of course time has gone by and that memory has now faded because it's no longer in people's minds those people have disappeared from the scene and so the very reason why a European Community was needed is I think no longer as alive as it was in 1945 1946 throughout the 50s and 60s and and that I think um is a problem that your pastor faces as far as the growth of the right-wing anti-immigrant parties I I think they in some way reflect um or not reflect but that you can find parallels I mean the parallels are never exact but you can find parallels before 1914 in the right-wing anti-semitic parties um that you got say in in Vienna and partly I think it's a reaction to globalization um and a sense that the world is changing too quickly and people are clinging to smaller communities and they're trying to blame someone and who do you blame you blame those who are close at hand who don't talk the same language as you do who eat different sorts of food or listen to different sorts of Music globalization as we I think are increasingly realizing is is very mixed in its consequences and not everyone benefits and I think you know we've had this sort of story about globalization and that it's all wonderful and it's making the world everyone's more prosperous and we're all happier and everyone's linked together well we're now realizing that it's not quite as simple as that so I think part of what we're seeing is a reaction to to globalization or certain aspects of globalization thank you [Music] [Music] this Festival [Music] The Graduate Institute of Geneva to avoids the conference is foreign

Channel: Geneva Graduate Institute

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Keywords: geneva, current affairs, sociology, professors, law, master, careers, international law, history, international relations, graduate institute, multicultural, jobs, europe, international history, PhD, development studies, international economics, NGOs, political science, international, anthropology, economics, united nations, development, international affairs, switzerland

Id: uWDJfraJWf0

Length: 80min 12sec (4812 seconds)

Published: Tue May 19 2015