The Jervis Forum
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum
Review 148
Paul Schroeder. Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins ofthe First World War Reconsidered Verso, 2025. ISBN: 9781804295793.
12 November 2025 | PDF: https://issforum.org/to/R-148 | Website:rjissf.org
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Thomas Parker, George Washington University
The late Paul Schroeder, who died in 2020, was perhaps his generation’s greatest historian of nineteenth century European diplomacy. His books, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848, Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith 1820–1823, and Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert, covered the period in great breadth and depth.[1] He also wrote numerous articles on the juncture of history and political science theory in such publications as International Security.[2] He could do it all and then some.[3] For the first time, his essays on the origins of the First World War have been brought together in a single volume. The result, Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered, is a gem that calls into question some of the standard interpretations of the war’s origins and its outbreak.
Schroeder shares the historical consensus that the war was caused by some combination of “imperialism, mass politics, fervent nationalism, all-out arms races, and Social Darwinism” (89).[4] He stresses that the impact of all these forces gradually undercut the period of prudent diplomacy that followed the Napoleonic Wars, which is known as the “Concert of Europe”:
Europe had remained generally peaceful throughout the nineteenth century not by the natural workings of the balance of power, but by restraints on it—a system of rules, norms, and practices enabling actors, especially the great powers, to act on the assumption that rivalry and competition, though inescapable, would not destroy them (89-90).
During the Concert, self-restraint paid off, even if the individual parties might have foregone unilateral advantage periodically. Thus, Concert members sometimes passed up the prospect of tempting gains. Russia did not go to war with the Ottoman Turks in 1821–1823, France restrained itself in 1830–1831 when Belgium declared its independence, and France chose not to go to war in 1840 during the crisis with Egyptian ruler Mehmet Ali. International conferences solved these confrontations in a peaceful manner (321). Schroeder’s emphasis on the importance of norms and practices, not just military power, is an important contribution to this period’s historiography.[5]
Schroeder argues that the system was also characterized by a relatively benign hegemony. Britain was most powerful nation in Western Europe, as was Russia in Eastern Europe. Yet both were distant hegemons that allowed other powers their lesser spheres of influence (37-43).
Schroeder writes regretfully about how the Concert began its decline when these distant hegemons fought against each other in the Crimean War (1853–1856). London wanted to push back the Russian short-term threat to the Ottoman Empire and the longer-term Russian challenge to the British empire in the Middle East and Asia. For its part, Russia aimed to force Turkey into acknowledging Russian preeminence at Constantinople. The Crimean War also inadvertently weakened Austria by alienating it from all the involved parties. The Concert suffered additional blows when Prussia defeated Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and France in 1870–1871, thereby making France and a united Germany permanent adversaries and Austria a satellite of Berlin. Schroeder criticizes the major European powers for not having attempted to promote settlements in any of these conflicts that might have left the defeated powers with fewer grievances, the victors with less hubris, and the entire diplomatic system more fluid and less rigid (43-53).
With the effective end of the Concert, European leadership passed to German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, about whom Schroeder writes admiringly. Bismarck created a complicated, yet fragile, web of alliances. Until Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II removed him from power in 1890, he succeeded in his main aim of avoiding war, particularly among Berlin, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. Schroeder wonders, however, if even Bismarck could have managed the increasingly vulnerable European system much longer. Bismarck was replaced not by bellicose men, but by ordinary ones. If one of the tests of a stable system is that it can function under mediocre leaders, then an increasingly unstable Europe needed gifted men to keep it together. These were in short supply (62-67).
Schroeder shares the consensus view that European imperialism contributed to European instability by sharpening the continent’s rivalries (xi).[6] Yet again, he goes a step further by arguing that while these imperialist rivalries abroad did not directly cause World War I, they were characterized by a ruthless, zero-sum diplomacy that seeped back into Europe. Their destructive impact was exacerbated by the growing belief that any genuine major power had to be a world power in order to control the resources necessary for a modern economy: “World policy (Weltpolitik), [which is] often discussed as if it only or especially concerned Germany, was in fact almost universal” (70). Countries became increasingly willing to take risks to advance their perceived high-stakes agendas at the risk of war. (67-80, 160-170, 208-211)
Schroeder breaks with the majority of historians who believe that Germany’s restless, aggressive policy was perhaps the most important cause of World War I. They argue that while all the European major powers bore some responsibility for the war’s outbreak, Germany, and to a lesser extent, Austro-Hungary, deserve most of the blame.[7]
Schroeder argues that while the Kaiser liked to strut about on the world stage, for several reasons Germany carried out a relatively cautious foreign policy right until 1914. First, while Berlin sought world power as much as any of the other major powers, it was largely excluded from colonial competition by the empires of Russia, Britain, and France, and even the United States. It was left with only the scraps from the Imperialist race, a Pacific island here, an African colony there. Schroeder chose the Spanish proverb “some men steal horses to great applause, while others are hanged for looking over the fence” for the title of an article. It is an appropriate frame for this collection. That is, while the entente powers could “steal” territory pretty much at will throughout the world, Germany was bottled up inside Europe. The proverb implies that life can be unfair; Schroeder understood that international politics are no different (159-160).
Schroeder notes that Germany also felt, for good reason, that it was surrounded by a stronger unfriendly alliance system in Europe itself: a large Russia, whose modernization kept moving forward, France, and probably Britain. In contrast, Germany was allied with the declining Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Schroeder writes that this induced a certain prudence in Germany:
The contrast between Germany’s uncomfortable situation, its dangerous potential, and its actual moderation in conduct shows up strikingly in Germany’s military establishment…Repeatedly, in times of crisis Germany’s military leaders showed caution, advising the government against exploiting relatively favorable chances for war in 1904–1905, 1908–1909, and 1911 and actually neglecting a badly needed expansion for the army until 1912–1913 (79).
Schroeder argues that the prudence ended when Berlin felt that its Austro-Hungarian ally had been pushed to the wall by Serbia in July 1914 and that waiting any longer would result in a Russian-French dominated Europe. But then again prudence eluded all the parties that summer (15-16, 20).
Schroeder also breaks with the majority of historians on how best to allot the responsibility for the outbreak of the war in the summer of 1914.[8] Instead of finding Germany to have been the main culprit, he finds that Serbia was the most reckless power at that critical time: “I consider Serbia the most reckless and irresponsible, the most defiant of elemental norms of international conduct, the most hostile to the very existence of the international system” (216).
Unlike other historians of the war, Schroeder argues that Russian leaders were more reckless than their German counterparts.[9] He notes that Russia goaded Serbia to challenge Austria, mobilized before Germany, and for decades had run rampant in the polarizing imperialist race. Schroeder readily acknowledges that Germany was also reckless in 1914, as was Austro-Hungary. But as Schroeder emphasizes forcefully, the question of which power started the war (Germany and Austria-Hungary declared war first) is not the same as who caused it (216-217). In fact, Schroeder also argues that France was reckless in backing Russia too forcefully in the showdown with Austria-Hungary in the Balkans (217).
Moreover, Schroeder defends Austro-Hungary’s willingness to confront Serbia as having been understandable since Vienna was the weakest of the continent’s five major powers. All the other major powers knew that the Austro-Hungarian empire’s days were likely numbered either because of its internal ethnic tensions or because of external attack from Russia and Serbia (22-23). Here Schroeder makes an original argument: “A real balance of power policy would have required from the Entente [Russia, France, and Britain] precisely such a policy of restraint for themselves and controlled support for Austria” (23). Schroeder suggests that Britain was the only major European power that could have helped Austria to avoid collapse from external threats by providing diplomatic—but not military—support. It had a freer hand, as Russia and Serbia were adversaries of Vienna, and France was dependent on Russian support against Germany (23).
Yet London remained indifferent, even though its Foreign Minister Edward Grey “feared rather what actually happened: a preventive war launched by Germany out of fear of Russia’s growing strength and Austria’s decline” (29). This is not to say there was a British anti-Austrian plot. As Schroeder writes: “The British did not think of Austria as their enemy: they tried not to think of her at all” (30). But they should have. Schroeder stressed that the Habsburg Monarchy played a key role in European peace. With the Monarchy holding down the Danube basin, it prevented Germany and Russia from establishing mastery over Europe. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire were broken up, Germany and Russia were bound to fight over the spoils, as happened in the 1940s (32-33).
Schroeder emphasizes that during the entire second half of the nineteenth century, the entire European international system became increasingly competitive and polarized, even cut-throat. All parties looked after their own interests exclusively as the largely peaceful days of the Concert of Europe receded into a distant past. There was little commitment to—or even understanding of—a common good. Diplomatic institutions and practices could no longer contain raw military power. He believed firmly that the decay of diplomatic institutions and practices over the second half of the nineteenth century made the First World War “highly likely, if not absolutely inevitable” (210). For Schroeder, the war’s outbreak was the coup de grace to a tottering system. Its origins, therefore, were even more important than the events of the summer of 1914.
Thomas Parker teaches security courses at the George Washington University. Over the course of thirty years, he worked in the Executive Office of the President, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, the intelligence community, and the US Congress. He is the author of American Presidents in Diplomacy and War (Notre Dame University Press, 2023).
[1] Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Clarendon Press, 1994); Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith 1820–1823 (University of Texas Press, 1962); and Schroeder, Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert (Cornell University Press, 1972).
[2] For example, Schroeder, “Historical Reality vs. Neo-Realist Theory,” International Security 19:1 (Summer 1004): 108-148.
[3] For a discussion of Schroeder’s place in the historiography of European history, see H-Diplo/RJISFF Forum, “The Importance of Paul Schroeder’s Scholarship to the Fields of International Relations and Diplomatic History,” 10 September 2021, https://issforum.org/forums/28.
[4] See Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, (Simon & Schuster, 1994) 194; Gordon Craig, Europe, 1815–1914, (The Dryden Press, 1972) 435-436.
[5] Jack Levy, “The Importance of Paul Schroeder’s Scholarship to the Fields of International Relations and Diplomatic History,” in H-Diplo|RJISFF Forum, “The Importance of Paul Schroeder’s Scholarship to the Fields of International Relations and Diplomatic History,” 10 September 2021, 27; https://issforum.org/forums/28. Levy, “The Theoretical Foundations of Paul W. Schroeder's International System,” The International History Review 16:4 (2010): 715-744, https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.1994.9640693.
[6] Craig, Europe, 1815–1914, 407.
[7] A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford University Press, 1971), 526-527; Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton University Press, 1991), 55-56; Craig, Europe, 1815–1914, 444-448.
[8] Craig, Europe, 1815–1914; Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918; Trachtenberg, History and Strategy.
[9] Craig, Europe, 1815–1914; Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918; Trachtenberg, History and Strategy.
