Diplomatic history of World War I
The diplomatic history of World War I covers the non-military interactions among the major players during World War I. For the domestic histories of participants see home front during World War I. For a longer-term perspective see international relations (1814–1919) and causes of World War I. For the following (post-war) era see international relations (1919–1939). The major "Allies" grouping included Great Britain and its empire, France, Russia (until 1917), Italy (from 1915) and the United States (from 1917). Opposing the Allies, the major Central Powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman  Empire (Turkey) and Bulgaria. Other countries (Belgium and Japan, for example) also joined the Allies. For a detailed chronology see timeline of World War I. Non-military diplomatic and propaganda interactions among the belligerents aimed to build support for one's cause or to undermine support for one's enemies. Wartime diplomacy focused on five issues: War aims. Years later a myth grew up that the crowds and all the belligerent nations cheered and welcomed the war. That was not true – everywhere there was a deep sense of foreboding. In wartime Britain, and in neutral United States, reports of German  atrocities and killing thousands of civilians, rounding up hostages, and destroying historic buildings and libraries caused a change of heart to an antiwar population. For example, suffragists took up the cause of the war, as did intellectuals. Very few expected a short happy war – the slogan "over by Christmas" was coined three years after the war began. Historians find that, "The evidence for mass enthusiasm at the time is surprisingly weak." Allied war goals. In 1914 the war was so unexpected that no one had formulated long-term goals. An ad-hoc meeting of the French and British ambassadors with  the Russian Foreign Minister in early September led to a statement of war aims that was not official, but did represent ideas circulating among diplomats in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London, as well as the secondary allies of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro. Its provisions included: No official statement of Allied war aims was issued. The secret treaties remained secret until the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in November 1917 and began publishing them. Socialists had always alleged that capitalists were behind the war in order to line their own pockets, and the evidence of promised new territories invigorated left -wing movements around the world. President Woodrow Wilson regained some of the initiative in January 1918 when he proclaimed his Fourteen Points, the first of which demanded, "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view." Historian Hew Strachan argues that war aims focused on territorial gains were not of central importance anyway. They did not cause the war nor shape its course of action. Rather, he says: German war goals. The Germans never finalized a set of war  aims. However, in September 1914, Kurt Riezler, a senior staff aide to German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg sketched out some possible ideas—dubbed by historians the "September Program." It emphasized economic gains, turning all of Central and Western Europe into a common market controlled by and for the benefit of Germany. Belgium would become a vassal state, there would be a series of naval bases threatening England, and Germany would seize much of Eastern Europe from Russia – as in fact it did in early 1918. There would be a crippling financial indemnity on France making it economically dependent on  Germany. The Netherlands would become a dependent satellite, and British commerce would be excluded. Germany would rebuild a colonial empire in Africa. The ideas sketched by Riezler were not fully formulated, were not endorsed by Bethmann-Hollweg, and were not presented to or approved by any official body. The ideas were formulated on the run after the war began, and did not mean these ideas had been reflected a prewar plan, as historian Fritz Fischer fallaciously assumed. However they do indicate that if Germany had won it would have taken a very aggressive dominant position in Europe. Indeed, it took  a very harsh position on occupied Belgian and France starting in 1914, and in the Treaty of Brest Litovsk imposed on Russia in 1917, which liberated many of the subject peoples of Russia from Finland to Ukraine. The stalemate by the end of 1914 forced serious consideration of long-term goals. Britain, France, Russia and Germany all separately concluded this was not a traditional war with limited goals. Britain, France and Russia became committed to the destruction of German military power, and Germany to the dominance of German military power in Europe. One month into the war, Britain, France and  Russia agreed not to make a separate peace with Germany, and discussions began about enticing other countries to join in return for territorial gains. However, as Barbara Jelavich observes, "Throughout the war Russian actions were carried out without real coordination or joint planning with the Western powers." There was no serious three-way coordination of strategy, nor was there much coordination between Britain and France before 1917. Approaches to diplomacy. Both sides employed secret treaties to entice neutral nations to join them in return for a promise of spoils when victory was achieved. They were kept secret until the Bolsheviks  came to power in Russia in 1917 and began publishing all the details on the Allied side. The Allies especially promised that after defeating the Ottoman Empire they would give large slices in return for immediate help in the war. Some territories were promised to several recipients, on the principle that conflicts could be sorted out after victory was achieved. Some promises, therefore, had to be broken, and that left permanent bitter legacies, especially in Italy. Secret treaties. Important secret treaties of this era include the secretly concluded treaty of Ottoman–German alliance signed on August 2, 1914. It provided  that Germany and Turkey would remain neutral in the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but if Russia intervened "with active military measures" the two countries would become military allies. Another important secret treaty was the Treaty of London, concluded on April 26, 1915, in which Italy was promised certain territorial concessions in exchange for joining the war on the Triple Entente (Allied) side. The Treaty of Bucharest was concluded between Romania and the Entente powers (Britain, France, Italy, and Russia) on August 17, 1916; under this treaty, Romania pledged to attack Austria-Hungary and not to seek a separate  peace in exchange for certain territorial gains. Article 16 of that treaty provided that "the present arrangement shall be held secret." Blaming the war in part on secret treaties, President Wilson called in his Fourteen Points for "open covenants, openly arrived at." Germany controlled by Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. The two sides had strikingly different approaches to diplomacy. The military leadership of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his deputy General Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled Germany and the other Central Powers. They worked around the Kaiser and largely ignored the politicians and diplomats; they focused on military supremacy. The most  dramatic example came when military command decided on unrestricted submarine warfare against Britain in early 1917, over the objections of Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and other civilian leaders. Historian Cathal Nolan says their strategy was, "Germans must win fast and win everything or lose everything in a war of exhaustion: knock out Russia in 1917, defeat France and starve Britain, all before the Americans arrived in sufficient numbers to make a real difference on the Western Front." A military approach meant that victory was to be achieved by winning great campaigns against the main enemy armies. Allies were useful for providing  hundreds of thousands of bayonets, and access to critical geographical points. Allies bargain over goals. The Allies had a more complex multi-dimensional approach that included critical roles for diplomacy, finance, propaganda and subversion. The Lansdowne Letter called for Britain to negotiate a peace with Germany, It was published by a London newspaper and written by Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, a former foreign secretary and war minister. Lansdowne came under withering criticism with few supporters and the government rejected the proposal. Further talk of a compromise solution was suppressed and the British and French war aim was  to permanently destroy German militarism. When the United States joined in, Woodrow Wilson likewise in his 14 points emphasized the need to destroy militarism. Austria and Turkey were not the main targets, and a separate peace with either or both of them was always an option. The Allies bargained with neutrals such as Italy by promising them when victory came, the Central Powers would be broken up and critical territories would be given to the winners. In the Treaty of London (1915) Italy was promised several large slices of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Russia was promised Constantinople in the Constantinople  Agreement of 1915. the Jews were promised a homeland in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, but the Arabs had already been promised a sovereign state in Turkish-controlled regions. Aspiring nationalities were promised their own homelands. France was promised Alsace-Lorraine, which had been ceded to Germany in 1871. Allied finance and soft power. In terms of finance, the British generously loaned money to Russia, France, Italy and smaller allies. When British money ran out, the United States replaced it in early 1917 with even larger loans. The Allies put a heavy emphasis on "soft power" including economic  aid and trade, and propaganda. For example, Britain cut off all shipments of cotton to Germany, but at the same time subsidized the American cotton industry by large purchases, to make sure that the rural South supported the war effort. Historians Richard D. Heffner and Alexander Heffner point to the "outstanding success of British propaganda" in molding American opinion, while "Germany's feeble propaganda effort proved highly ineffective." Allied propaganda emphasised the triumph of liberal ideas, and a war to end all wars—themes with a broad international appeal. The Germans kept quiet about their war aims of dominating all  of Europe, for they realized it would not have a wide appeal. However, the German Foreign Ministry realized the value of subversion in a total war. It used money and propaganda to attempt to undermine morale of the allies, including Muslims in the British, Russian and Ottoman empires. They had even more success in subsidizing far left anti-war subversive elements, especially in Russia. Allied propaganda focused on identifying Germany with militarism and illustrating it with what it called the rape of Belgium as well as with the sinking of the Lusitania. The Allies were embarrassed by its large Russian  ally—it was a non-democratic autocracy that sponsored pogroms. The overthrow of the Tsarist regime in March 1917 by Russian liberals greatly facilitated American entry into the war as President Wilson could for the first time proclaim a crusade for idealistic goals. German war goals. Germany avoided internal discussions of its war aims, because debate threatened political unity at home and with allies. As late as May 1917 the Chancellor warned the Reichstag that a discussion of war aims would be unwise. In January 1917 Germany made a major strategic blunder that historian Hew Strachan speculates may have cost  it victory in the war. The German navy launched a full-scale blockade of Britain, using its U-boats to sink all merchant ships of whatever nationality without warning. This was in violation of international law and of its solemn promises to the United States. The military made the decision, rejecting civilian advice, knowing it meant war with the United States but it was Germany's last chance for a decisive victory before the Americans would be able to fully mobilize. By ignoring civilian advice the military failed to appreciate that Britain was financially bankrupt, and could no longer purchase  needed raw materials nor provide urgently needed financial aid to its friends. Strachan maintains the new German submarine strategy "saved Britain" because Berlin had lost sight of how close it was to success in ruining the critical financial component of British strategy. Color books justify action. Another avenue of diplomacy was publication. At the outbreak of war, the European powers began to publish selected, and sometimes misleading, compendia of diplomatic correspondence, seeking to establish justification for their own entry into the war, and cast blame on other actors for the outbreak of war. The First of these color books to  appear, was the German White Book which appeared on 4 August 1914, the same day as Britain's war declaration. Toward a League of Nations. In the course of the war both sides had to clarify their long-term war aims. By 1916 in Britain and in neutral United States, long-range thinkers had begun to design a unified international organization to prevent future wars. Historian Peter Yearwood argues that when the new coalition government of David Lloyd George took power in December 1916, there was widespread discussion among intellectuals and diplomats of the desirability of establishing such an organization , when Lloyd George was challenged by Wilson to state his position regarding the postwar, he endorsed such an organization. Wilson himself Included in his Fourteen Points in January 1918 a "league of nations to insure peace and justice." British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, argued that, as a condition of durable peace, "behind international law, and behind all treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities, some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor." Financing the war. The total direct cost of war, for all participants including those not listed here, was about $ 80 billion (in 1913 US dollars) Since $1 billion in $1913 = about $25 billion in 2017 US dollars the total cost comes to about $2 trillion in 2017 dollars. Direct cost is figured as actual expenditures during war minus normal prewar spending. It excludes postwar costs such as pensions, interest, and veteran hospitals. Loans to/from allies are not included in "direct cost." Repayment of loans after 1918 is not included. The national councils had already begun acting more or less as provisional governments of independent countries. With defeat in the war imminent, Czech politicians  peacefully took over command in Prague on 28 October (later celebrated as the birthday of Czechoslovakia) and followed up in other major cities in the next few days. On 30 October, the Slovaks followed in Martin. On the 29th of October, the Slavs in both portions of what remained of Austria-Hungary proclaimed the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. They also declared their ultimate intention was to unite with Serbia and Montenegro in a large South Slav state that in 1929 was renamed Yugoslavia. On the same day, the Czechs and Slovaks formally proclaimed the establishment of Czechoslovakia as  an independent state.