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Controversy: The Media's Responsibility for Crises and Conflicts in the Age of Imperialism

By Peter Geiss
The article discusses the role of the media in the complex international process leading to the First World War with a focus on the press of the great powers. Recent research has shown that the decision of going to war cannot be explained by short-term effects of media pressure. The media impact on foreign policy and military action is rather to be seen in long-term effects described by some historians within the epistemological and methodological framework of media theory.

Introduction

In the era of mass communication the media have often been regarded as central players in foreign politics including processes of decision-making leading to military conflict.1 But are they to blame for the outbreak of World War I? Is it really appropriate to consider them “warmongers” as Bernhard Rosenberger did in his study on the role of the German press before and in 1914?2 Readers of Christopher Clark’s bestseller The Sleepwalkers – How Europe went to War in 1914 might get a different impression: the author dedicated only a relatively short chapter of this impressive book on the origins of World War I to “The Press and Public Opinion”.3 Nevertheless, Clark suggests that the press played an important role in the creation of “a deep and widespread readiness to accept war” and he mentions it in various contexts of diplomatic history.4 The responsibility of the (mass) media in the way that led to the First World War has often been discussed in a perspective limited to one or only a few powers. An early effort towards a comparative synthesis is an article published by Sidney Bradshaw Fay (1876-1967) in 1932. Even if it was not based on a systematic analysis of high quantities of press material, its general conclusions do not seem to have been seriously challenged by subsequent research.5 This is especially true for the rather “indirect” nature of the media impact on the decisions of July and August 1914.6 In his most influential book 1914 – Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre (“1914 – How the French entered the war”) Jean-Jacques Becker analysed among other sources the French press, underlining that “enthusiasm” for war existed, but that it was by far not the only (and before the actual departure of the soldiers in August 1914 not even the predominant) feeling displayed in French provincial newspapers.7 This impression has been confirmed by Thomas Raithel in a comparative study dedicated to the making of the French Union sacrée and the German Burgfrieden.8 For the almost two decades between the Kruger Telegram Crisis (1896) and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), Dominik Geppert’s study on British-German “press wars” gives detailed insights into the complex interactions between media and politics.9 Long-term media effects of the First Moroccan Crisis have been analysed in a tri-national perspective by Martin Mayer,10 and the role of public opinion during the Second Moroccan Crisis is the subject of a book published by Thomas Meyer.11 Despite the light these and other studies12 have shed on the subject, the role of the press in the process leading to the Great War has never been assessed in a detailed comparative study covering all great powers.13

Agenda Setting and Framing

Recent research has underlined the relevance of media theory and quantitative empirical research for a better understanding of the interaction between the media and foreign policy in the age of imperialism: John Maxwell Hamilton and his co-authors used “agenda setting” and the “framing theory” to analyse press effects during the Spanish-American War,14 whereas Bernhard Rosenberger had earlier applied these approaches to the German press before 1914.15 Hamilton and his co-authors see the advantage of these theories in the empirical evidence of the underlying assumptions which have been confirmed by various studies.16 Agenda setting is a phenomenon described on an empirical basis for the first time in the 1960s: according to one of the pioneers of the agenda-setting approach, Bernhard Cohen, the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about”.17 Framing theory goes one step further, assuming that the media can also present an issue in a particular perspective by highlighting one of its possible dimensions.18 Both approaches – agenda setting and framing theory – seem to be compatible with recent trends in media history. On the one hand, they refrain from perceiving the media as a mere “mirror” of “public opinion”,19 but on the other hand they admit a media impact on political thinking and behaviour in a given society that is strong enough to justify their inclusion in the study of international politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.20

Cinema and International Politics before 1914

What does the word “media” mean before August 1914? In the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War, the (mass) media were not limited to the press. Films were already an important element of popular culture.21 In 1913, the producers of the newsreel Animated Pathé Gazette claimed that its three weekly issues were “seen by more than 20 million people”.22 Even if cinema originally focused on “attraction”, its impact on the political agenda setting of the pre-war years must have been relevant: when millions of people get used to seeing monarchs visiting their troops or launching warships on the screen, they might come to believe that armies and fleets are rather a source of national glory than a waste of money.23 In his cultural analysis of the “Great Naval Game” before 1914, Jan Rüger has emphasised the importance of cinema not only as a media of entertainment, but also as a sign “of the political entitlement of ‘the masses’”. 24 According to the American magazine Moving Picture World published in December 1913, a European film on the Balkan Wars – The Secret of Adrianople – was what nowadays one would call a “blockbuster”.25 Cinema was without doubt one of the most important channels of global communication.26 But what could have been the political impact of scenes such as “British trawlers shelled by Russians” after the Dogger Bank Incident in 1905 or “The formidable American fleet” showing a huge battleship in an impressive bird’s eye’s view in 1914?27 As long as detailed studies about the interaction between foreign policy and moving pictures before the Great War do not exist, it seems impossible to discuss this and similar questions in the present article. This is why the focus is once again on the press, but one has to keep in mind that field is not complete.28

“Press Wars” between Britain and Germany: Kruger Telegram Affair (1896), South African War and Naval Race

In January 1896, a telegram to Paul Kruger (1825-1904), president of the Transvaal Republic from Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) triggered what Dominik Geppert has called the “first German-British press war”.29 One day after the publication of the text, the readers of The Times found the following comment in the newspaper:

The German Emperor has taken a very grave step which must be regarded as distinctly unfriendly to this country. He has telegraphed to the President of the South African Republic congratulating him on the fact that “without appealing to the help of friendly Powers, he and his people have succeeded in repelling with their own forces the armed bands which had broken into their country, and in maintaining the independence of their country against foreign aggression”.30

The author of this leader found it particularly shocking that Wilhelm’s telegram seemed to admit the possibility of a German military intervention in favour of the Boers of the South African Republic which he located “distinctly within the sphere of British influence in regard to its foreign relations”.31 The “bands” mentioned in Wilhelm’s telegram were none other than the British troops who had participated in the so called “Jameson Raid”, a semi-private enterprise aiming to protect the rights of British immigrants in the Republic.32

Did the highly aggressive press, echoed on both sides of the British Channel,33 cause a real danger of war? On 8 January Le Temps, an important French newspaper comparable to The Times, mentioned a “warlike noise” dominating the British and German presses and qualified the situation as “serious”.34 Despite this contemporary alarmism it seems more probable that the importance of the Kruger Telegram Affair as analysed by Dominik Geppert lies in its long-term effects and in the negative images of the other it created in both countries.35

German press criticism of British policy in South Africa accompanied the whole South African War fought by the British army against the guerrilla forces of the Boers culminating in the internment of thousands of civilians, women and children in concentration camps, where many of them died from starvation and illness.36 These facts gave rise to anti-British comments not only in German newspapers, but also in other countries: on 17 September 1901 the French republican left-wing paper La Lanterne described the intolerable conditions in the British camps, mentioning the shocking case of a mother who was not allowed to see her ill child dying alone in a hospital.37

This is just one example demonstrating that indignation about Britain’s war in South Africa was not confined to Germany,38 but the German government tried to use the anti-British feelings in a particularly aggressive way for the legitimation of their naval policy.39 On the British side, the very popular construction of a powerful German fleet led to “navy scares” orchestrated by politicians, experts and journalists in the British press especially in 1905 and 1909.40 As Domink Geppert and Andreas Rose have demonstrated, British military experts and the Admiralty did not really fear German sea power, but they used the aggrandisement of the German fleet and the anxieties it caused as an argument for an accelerated construction of British warships.41 As a member of the liberal government, Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1870-1949) even accused navy propagandists and journalists nourishing the “naval scare” of unpatriotic behaviour, whereas the cabinet had endorsed the much more reasonable formula “safety without superfluity”.42 The mechanism of “navy scares” and the political abuse of public fear were already criticised by the Economist in 1910, which stated after the sudden end of “those terrible alarms” that “though the scare is over, the sufferings of the taxpayer are only beginning.”43

In spite of the aggressive tendencies in a lot of British and German newspapers, there were also attempts to “disarm” the press including organised visits of German journalists to Great Britain and of some of their British colleagues to Germany in 1906 and 1907.44 In 1913, the governments of Germany and France even cooperated in their efforts to avoid “press wars” and the German Foreign Office tried to check chauvinist propaganda that could have been occasioned by the centenary of the Battle of Leipzig.45

The American “Yellow Press” and the Spanish-American War (1898)

Whereas “press wars” between Germany and Britain have never led to military conflict, the American intervention in Cuba (1898) has been considered a “newspaper-made war”.46 In the years 1895-1898 Spain tried to suppress an uprising against her colonial rule in Cuba.47 William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951)New York Journal even claimed that it had “brought on” this war because it was near to the “masses” and “believe[d] that on large questions of right or wrong, on issues of national policy, their judgment is always likely to be sounder than that of the objecting few.”48

The American “yellow press” criticised the methods used by the Spanish army as inhumane and barbarian and demanded an intervention of the United States on humanitarian grounds.49 The highly emotional character of the Anti-Spanish campaign can be illustrated by an issue of the[Los Angeles] Herald: before the outbreak of the war the paper published a cartoon showing women and a child murdered by a Spaniard armed with a bloody sword and a torch. Uncle Sam is pointing a gun at the murderer in order to stop the atrocities committed on Cuban civilians.50 On the next page, the paper presents horrible images referring to “Fearful Cases of Starvation in Cuba”: allegedly the drawings were based on photos taken in Spanish “reconcentrado camps”.51

Pictures like these might have contributed to convince the American public that the intervention decided after the explosion of the US warship Maine attributed to Spanish forces and other incidents was a moral duty for the United States.52 Hamilton and his co-authors have conducted a quantitative survey of American newspapers on the eve of the war. After analysing agenda setting and framing effects on the basis of 789 newspaper articles, the authors conclude that the press did not “start the war”, but that that they “shaped public opinion to create an environment for declaring war”.53 Even if this result seems to be disappointing, as it does not really exceed the results obtainable within a qualitative design, the value of the survey lies in the answer the authors give to the generalisation problem that qualitative research is almost unable to resolve on its own.54

The Bosnian Crisis (1908)

Compared to the Spanish-American War, the crisis triggered ten years later by Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina involved a far more traditional style of power politics. On 6 October 1908, Austria-Hungary officially annexed the part of the Ottoman Empire which had already been under her control since 1878.55 As the territories inhabited by an important Serbian population were also an object of Serbia’s territorial ambitions, conflict with Belgrade was inevitable.56 In a secret deal, the foreign ministers of the Dual Monarchy and Russia, Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854-1912) and Count Alexander Izvolsky (1856-1919) respectively, had agreed that St. Petersburg would tolerate the annexation. In return Vienna would endorse Russian demands for an opening of the Straits.57 Public opinion and the media came fully into play when the annexation was actually accomplished: it provoked not only an “Austrian-Serbian press war”,58 but also political pressure on Izvolsky and a public outcry in Russia, Serbia’s orthodox protector.59 Russian press comments cited in the French paper Le Figaro give an impression of the nationalist emotion this event triggered in Russia: the newspaper Novoe vremia wanted the Russian Foreign Minister to claim compensation for the annexation, especially the opening of the Straits, and it rejected the idea that Russia could be appeased by “little gifts”. For another newspaper, Sviet, the annexation meant the end of “Slavic effort” and a “triumph of Germanism” in the Balkans; if Russia was not “exhausted” by her defeat in the Russian-Japanese War of 1905 she would mobilise.60 On 10 October 1908, the liberal imperialist Grigorij Trubeckoj wrote in Golos Moskwu:

The blow delivered to Slavdom in a part of Europe, is above all a blow delivered to the reputation of Russia as a Slavic Great Power. This is not about some territories alien to ourselves, this is about the historic, sacred interests of Russia, which have always found a vigorous echo not only in the hearts of educated people, but also in the masses.61

According to Caspar Ferenczi the attitude of the moderate right-wing papers following Novoe vremia was particularly influential during the Bosnian crisis.62 For this newspaper the annexation was an attack on the “Slavic Idea”: an act “perceived as intolerable for Russian society, because the Slavic Idea was only the accomplishment of a Russian idea […]”.63 Ferenczi underlines that – despite its aggressive tone – the Russian Right did not want the tsarist Empire to go to war on the Bosnian issue, but at the same time, it was opposed to concessions which could draw the attention of the St. Petersburg’s foreign policy away from the interests of the Balkan Slavs.64 The rejection of compensation is in contrast to the extract from Novoe vremia published in Le Figaro on 9 October,65 which may have been chosen by the French journalists because France was not interested in backing Russia’s policy in the Balkans in 1908.66 In December, Le Figaro even accused Izvolsky of trying to humiliate Vienna by demanding autonomy for Bosnia-Herzegovina.67 After what Christopher Clark has called the “balkanisation of the French-Russian alliance” in 1912 the situation would be quite different.68

On the Austrian side, the Neue Freie Presse accused Serbia of war-mongering and warned it that the “indulgence” of the Dual Monarchy would not be endless and that violations of international law would entail “misfortune” and even the “suicide” of a country led to catastrophe by an irresponsible dynasty whose access to the throne had been preluded by murder.69 The way this newspaper presents the Serbian monarchy is an impressive example of its anti-Serbian spirit.70 But even in Vienna the acceptance of the annexation was not unanimous: the socialist Arbeiter-Zeitung perceived it as a dangerous precedent for further territorial change in the Balkans and especially as a bad example for the smaller states: “Can we complain when we see the flames flaring up at our walls?”71 Furthermore the paper condemned Aehrenthal’s action as a serious blow against the salutary “regeneration of Turkey” initiated by the Young Turks.72

The crisis ended when Russia was forced to tolerate the annexation under pressure from Germany and Austria-Hungary: both powers had threatened St. Petersburg to reveal Izvolsky’s earlier acceptance of Aehrenthal’s plans.73 But the diplomatic victory achieved by blackmail led to deep resentment in the Russian press: right-wing papers deplored “national shame” and the “humiliation” of Russia becoming a “quantité négligeable”.74 Even if war had been avoided in 1908/9, this “frame” would play an important role again in July 1914, when the Balkans would be once more – as in 1912 and in 1913 – on the top of the European agenda: in the Russian Council of Ministers of 24 June 1914, Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov (1860-1927) said that Russia “could not remain a passive spectator while a Slavonic people was being deliberately trampled down”.75 “If Russia failed to fulfil her historic mission”, he added, “she would be considered a decadent state and would henceforth take a second place among the powers.”76

The Moroccan Crises in the French Press

In a study published in 1931, Eber Malcolm Carroll analysed the role of the French press in the two Moroccan Crises (1905 and 1911).77 In this context, the basic mechanisms of media interaction seem to be quite similar to those of British-German “press wars”.78 At the beginning of the First Moroccan Crisis, important sections of the French press did not want a confrontation with Germany and they even refrained from backing the French Foreign minister Théophile Delcassé (1852-1923) whose policy of “pénétration pacifique” had triggered the dangerous tensions between the two countries.79 After Delcassé’s resignation it became clear, however, that the German government wanted more than the removal of this colonial antagonist and that their real aim was to destroy the Entente cordiale between France and Great Britain.80 On 14 June 1905, the German Professor Theodor Schiemann (1847-1921) stated in the newspaper the Kreuzzeitung that a war with Great Britain would automatically lead to war with France.81 In an interview with a correspondent of the French newspaper Le Temps, he repeated this threatening prevision.82 The interview seems to be a typical case of semi-official communication between great powers.83 Even if Schiemann emphasised the strictly private character of his opinions, the author of the article insinuated that he had an enormous influence on German foreign policy, a fact underlined by the false modesty the professor used to describe his relationship with Wilhelm II.84 At the end of the interview, the French correspondent remarked that Schiemann’s “personal views” were very close to the ideas he had already in the “most authorised circles involved to the highest extent in the direction of the Empire’s foreign affairs”.85 According to the Journal des débats, the interview demonstrates Germany’s transition from “Bismarckian policy” to a policy “that could be qualified as Napoleonic”.86 On 10 July the same paper quoted a speech the socialist leader Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) had not been allowed to give in Berlin: Jaurès complained that Germany would use France as a “scapegoat in case of Anglo-German conflict” and that she treated her like a “satellite” (“nation vassal”). This, he concluded, “had profoundly wounded the conscience of every Frenchman without exception”.87 In the eyes of the German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow (1849-1929), the “arrogant language of the semi-official French press” (“wegen der unerhörten Sprache der offiziösen Pariser Presse”) and French “threats” aimed at the “intimidation” of Germany could lead to war between the two countries.88

Martin Mayer has demonstrated that the agenda-setting effects accompanying the first Moroccan Crisis were not symmetrical in France and Germany: whereas French public opinion was deeply concerned about the Schiemann interviews in July, the feeling of a direct risk of war reached Germany almost five months later.89 In October 1905, Le Matin published an article threatening the German coast with a British invasion in the event of a French-German conflict.90 According to its editor, the former Foreign Minister Delcassé had informed the cabinet about a military guarantee allegedly given by Great Britain in the very session that led to his fall.91 Lauzanne’s evident intention was to discredit the French government chaired by Maurice Rouvier (1842-1911) because of their “cowardice” towards Germany; in this perspective, Delcassé’s resignation was interpreted as the result of massive German intrigue and pressure on a cabinet desirous to avoid war with the Reich even at the expense of the nation’s interests and honour.92 The veracity of the revelation about British military guarantees and of the belated denial issued by Reuters was discussed in the German press.93 What the Berliner Tageblatt called “the Delcassé affair” seemed to have an impact on the arms race: The German Chancellor von Bülow was convinced that the Matin articles would endorse the construction of more warships.94

The Second Moroccan Crisis brought Europe even closer to the abyss of war.95 According to Gerd Krumeich, the German act of sending a warship to Agadir in 1911 (the famous “jump of the Panther”) gave French public opinion the impression that Germany was ready to use military methods in a colonial conflict between great powers.96 A French intervention against insurgents in Morocco gave the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter (1852-1912), the opportunity to demand colonial compensations: in return, Germany would accept a French protectorate over the North African monarchy.97 Kiderlen-Wächter tried to use “public opinion” – and for pre-war politicians that meant essentially the press – as a kind of diplomatic weapon.98 Friedrich Kiessling described the arrival of the warship Panther as a typical “media event” the German government had staged in order to emphasise their claims.99 Of course, this turned out to be a dangerous game as public opinion was not a thing politicians could “switch on and off”.100 Martin Mayer suggested that the first Moroccan Crisis had created “warlike […] and undemocratic behaviours” in the concerned societies, including intolerance towards diverging opinions – especially towards those suspected of being “unpatriotic”.101 Returning to the concept of the “Spiral of Silence” (Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann) Rosenberger has demonstrated in a similar perspective how the long-term effects of this social mechanism can almost eliminate moderate positions aiming at peaceful solutions and how it can contribute to lead societies into wars they perceive as an inevitable fate.102 In 1911, the French Socialist newspaper L’Humanité described the impact of the crisis between France, Britain and Germany in a way that came quite close to this observation:

At this moment, the newspapers make France speak: France will do this; France will do that; proud and impassive, she will follow her way right to the end, etc., etc.
Actually, nobody knows what France will do, because she is silent, she is dumb, ignoring all the diplomatic talk between her leaders and the German leaders.103

The internationalist left-wing paper depicts a political atmosphere in which the press and provincial elites assembled in the councils of the French departments claimed the right to represent a patriotic public opinion and in which expressions of pacifist attitudes were punished by social isolation and even repression. The Humanité mentions the case of a teacher denounced in Le Temps for singing Lamartine’s famous Marseillaise de la paix with his class.104

The July Crisis 1914

In comparison with the two Moroccan Crises, media events do not seem to have influenced diplomatic action during the July Crisis of 1914 in a decisive manner: the shots of Sarajevo admittedly dominated the press agenda for some days, but generally they were not “framed” in a way that made people expect the imminence of a European war – maybe with the exception of the Austrian press which underlined the responsibility of the Serbian government and the necessity of determined action immediately after the crime.105 The anti-Serbian campaigns in the press of Austria-Hungary and the lesser-known Russian coverage of the crisis were highly emotional and aggressive.106

Nevertheless, Gerd Krumeich is right in stating that “social objectives or objectives of internal politics” had no immediate impact on the decision-making in July and August 1914, even if he admits that politicians were surrounded by the “waves of public opinion”.107 In France, the trial of Madame Henriette Caillaux (1874-1943) was without doubt the most important press story before the Austrian-Hungarian ultimatum and sometimes even after that diplomatic moment.108 Even without quantitative research, the study of important French dailies gives the impression that the agenda setting was far from leading the country into a European confrontation; the main triggers of the escalation were not press campaigns against Austria-Hungary or Germany, but real diplomatic events, especially the ultimatum of 23 July 1914.109 It is true that the press “framed” these facts in a particular way – emphasising for example the menace of the German declaration and belittling the complete mobilisation of the Russian forces published the same day.110 But all in all it would be incorrect to consider the newspapers the most important “warmongers”111 in the short-term perspective of the last weeks of peace: the socialist Humanité even favoured a strong veto to war as long as possible, like its Austrian equivalent, the Arbeiter-Zeitung,112 and the British press analysed by Martin Schramm were in no way responsible for the diplomatic escalation – perhaps with the exception of the Northcliffe papers.113 As in France, the agenda setting highlighted other events – the trial of Madame Caillaux and the serious troubles in Ireland.114 Even the Austrian-Hungarian ultimatum condemned by the French newspapers was welcomed by important sections of the British press, and liberal journalists joined the interventionist line imposed on the cabinet by Edward Grey (1862-1933) after a period of hesitation.115

Russia might have been an exception. According to Jörg Baberowski, the fragile tsarist regime “used patriotism as a means of pacifying internally a divided society”, responding to nationalist emotions and expectations promoted by large sections of the press including liberal papers.116 This seems to fit in with the results of Ferenczi’s study dedicated to the difficult period after the Russian-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905. The trembling autocracy had to gain the support of what he called the “relevant public opinion” – that means the elite represented by the press – and the greatness of a Russian Empire protecting the Slavs was an issue on which consensus could be based.117 If the Russian media as the presumed representatives of the “relevant public opinion” really played the role of a driving force in the escalation of July 1914, this does not imply that Russia was intrinsically more “aggressive” than other powers;118 if one accepts the relevance of Ferenczi’s study for 1914, this phenomenon could rather be explained by the social and political instability and a crisis of legitimacy resulting from a complex process of modernisation in the aftermath of military defeat and Revolution.119

Maybe a parallel can be seen with the Ottoman Empire: it had also suffered a period of defeat and internal transformation when it entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914.120 According to Sabine Mangold-Will, the ideas of “regeneration” and “revenge” for the loss of territories in the First Balkan War played an important role in the mental preparation of the Empire’s intervention.121 In August 1914 the non-delivery of two British dreadnoughts purchased by Constantinople led to an anti-British press campaign.122 It seems doubtful, however, that newspapers largely controlled by the Young Turks and limited by their political paradigms can be considered an independent factor influencing the foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire.123 There is much more reason for this assumption in the case of another country entering the war after August 1914: the United States. Charlotte Lerg shows that the American press contributed to a reinterpretation of the Monroe doctrine in the years between 1914 and 1917, transforming it from an argument against intervention into a programme for the worldwide defence and even expansion of democracy.124

In the immediate context of the short period between Sarajevo and the outbreak of the conflict it would be difficult to maintain that the political and military elites were driven into war by the press.125 In this respect the global conflict beginning in August 1914 was certainly not a “newspaper-made war”.126 Nevertheless, recent research has shown that the media played an important role in a long-term perspective by creating a mental, intellectual and discursive setting in which aggressive and risky conduct could be justified as a legitimate means of defending national interest and prestige.127 In this respect, they contributed to the making of what Hamilton and his co-authors have called an “enabling environment”,128 in which the stubborn and aggressive action of the great powers obsessed by the idea of weakness and decline became acceptable, plausible and even “unavoidable”.129 As Rosenberger has demonstrated on a quantitative basis for the German press, this media effect was not necessarily linked with articles “favouring” military solutions, but resulted in the increasing “familiarity” of war as the necessary outcome of a world characterised by interminable conflicts with powers perceived as increasingly hostile to the German readers’ country.130 Returning to a concept used by J. A. Hobson, Martin Mayer and Dominik Geppert have established that the press was a crucial element in the “militarisation of public life” that began at the end of the 19th century.131 Moreover, it is important to understand that the press was not an element alien to government politics that could influence it from “outside”; Ferenczi underlined that it was an “integral part of the informal communication system of European pre-war diplomacy”.132

Conclusion

For the period considered in the present article, there seems to be an overwhelming consensus in the assumption that the media did not “trigger” wars in a short-term perspective. However, this in no way implies that they are irrelevant to the comprehension of international politics, crisis and eventually the outbreak of the First World War. On the contrary, the existing studies demonstrate that the long-term impact of the media on power politics and its perception by millions of people was of the utmost importance.

Peter Geiss, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Section Editor: David Welch
  1. See for example Geppert, Dominik: Pressekriege. Öffentlichkeit und Diplomatie in den deutsch-britischen Beziehungen (1896-1912), Munich 2007, p. 7, online: http://goo.gl/byBFWT (retrieved: 22 September 2015); Rose, Andreas: Der politische Raum Londons und die öffentlichen Beziehungen zwischen England und Deutschland vor 1914, in Bösch, Frank/Hoeres, Peter (eds.): Außenpolitik im Medienzeitalter. Vom späten 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Göttingen 2013, p.102; On criticism of “secret diplomacy” before the First World War see Steller, Verena: Diplomatie von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Diplomatische Handlungsformen in den deutsch-französischen Beziehungen, Paderborn 2011, pp. 362-363. I am grateful to Dominik Geppert for his helpful comment on the draft version of the present article. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jennifer Laing for linguistic corrections in the manuscript, as well as Sandra Müller and Pascal Lamy for their help in the procurement of literature. The editorial staff of 1914-1918-online was so kind to add biographical data on the persons mentionned in this article.↑
  2. Rosenberger, Bernhard: Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? Die Rolle der Presse im Vorfeld des Ersten Weltkrieges, Cologne et al. 1998, p. 323. The question was also discussed with an international focus on July 1914, in Eckert, Georg/Karsten, Arne/Geiss, Peter: Krisenzeitungen nach Sarajevo: Wechselwirkungen zwischen Presse und Politik, in: Eckert/Karsten/Geiss (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 1914. Die internationale Berichterstattung und der Weg in den Ersten Weltkrieg, Münster 2014, pp. 7-19.↑
  3. Clark, Christopher: The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914, London 2012, pp. 226-239.↑
  4. Ibid., pp. 207 and 239 (role of the press in the Second Moroccan Crisis).↑
  5. Fay, Sidney Bradshaw: Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse in Europa, in: Berliner Monatshefte 10 (1932), pp. 411-445 (with a focus on Great Britain, Germany, France and Russia); relevance underlined by Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 310.↑
  6. See Fay, Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse 1932, p. 444; confirmed by Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 327.↑
  7. Becker, Jean-Jacques: 1914: Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre, Paris 1977, especially pp. 324-328, 575 and 580; see also the subtle review of this book by Köhler, Henning, in: Francia 9 (1981/82), pp. 831-835, online: http://francia.digitale-sammlungen.de/Blatt_bsb00016284,00847.html (retrieved: 12 September 2015).↑
  8. Raithel, Thomas: Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit. Studien zur deutschen und französischen Öffentlichkeit bei Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges, Bonn 1996, Monographien und Kolloquiumsakten des Deutschen Historischen Instituts Paris, online: [www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/phs/raithel_wunder/documentviewer/++widget++form.widgets.IPSJAddRetro.psj_file/@@download/raithel_wunder.pdf] (retrieved: 4 October 2015).↑
  9. Geppert, Pressekriege 2007.↑
  10. Mayer, Martin: Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung. Die Parlamente in Frankreich, Deutschland und Großbritannien und die erste Marokkokrise 1904-1906, Düsseldorf 2002, p. 133.↑
  11. Meyer, Thomas: “Endlich eine Tat, eine befreiende Tat”. Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächters “Panthersprung nach Agadir”, Husum 1996.↑
  12. Even if its main focus is not on the media, the following comparative work discusses media effects in many contexts of diplomatic history: Dülffer, Jost/Kröger, Martin/Wippich, Wolf-Harald (eds.): Vermiedene Kriege. Deeskalation von Konflikten der Großmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865-1914, Munich 1997, pp. 441-455.↑
  13. On the immediate context of the war entries some elements can be found in the articles in the following book, but there remains a lot of work to be done: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, with case studies on Austria-Hungary (Alma Hannig), Germany (Arne Karsten), Russia (Jörg Baberowski), France (Peter Geiss), Great Britain (Georg Eckert), the Ottoman Empire (Sabine Mangold-Will), the United States (Charlotte Lerg) and Switzerland (Volker Reinhardt); see also the reflections on a comparative approach in Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 310-321.↑
  14. Hamilton, John Maxwell/Coleman, Renita/Grable, Bettye/ Cole, Jaci: An Enabling Environment. A reconsideration of the press and the Spanish-American War, in: Journalism Studies 7/1 (2006), p. 79, online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700500450368 (retrieved: 25 August 2015). The authors adopted an approach suggested by Caudill, Edward: An Agenda-Setting Perspective on Historical Public Opinion, in: McCombs, Maxwell/Shaw, Donald L./Weaver, David (eds.): Communication and Democracy. Exploring the Intellectual Frontiers of Agenda Setting, Mahwah 1997, pp. 169-182; on the term “Age of Imperialism” already used by Heinrich Friedjung in 1919, see Schöllgen, Gregor/Kiessling, Friedrich: Das Zeitalter des Imperialismus, Munich 2009, p. 1.↑
  15. See Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 100-101.↑
  16. See Hamilton et al., The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 79.↑
  17. As cited in Jäckel, Michael: Medienwirkungen. Ein Studienbuch zur Einführung, Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 171; for an overview on the approach, its history and results, see Ibid., pp. 169-185; see also Hamilton et al. The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 79; and Caudill, An Agenda Setting Perspective 1997, p. 177.↑
  18. See Hamilton et al., The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 79; Bonfadelli, Heinz/Friemel, Thomas N.: Medienwirkungsforschung, Konstanz 2011, p. 196; Caudill, An Agenda Setting Perspective 1997, p. 177.↑
  19. Point of view criticised by Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 59; see also Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 435; Hamilton et al., The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 89.↑
  20. The advantage of this methodological approach has already been underlined by Caudill, An Agenda Setting Approach 1997, p. 173; and Hoeres, Peter: Außenpolitik, Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung. Deutsche Streitfälle in den “langen 1960er Jahren”, in: Historische Zeitschrift 291 (2010), p. 717, online: [www.degruyter.com/view/j/hzhz.2010.291.issue-3/hzhz.2010.0057/hzhz.2010.0057.xml?format=INT] (retrieved: 4 October 2015).↑
  21. On the pre-war cinema see: Bösch, Frank: Mediengeschichte. Vom asiatischen Buchdruck zum Fernsehen, Frankfurt et al. 2011, pp. 143-152; on popular culture and the socially emancipatory dimension of cinema in Germany see Maase, Kaspar: Was macht Populärkultur politisch? Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 79 and 99-100, online: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-531-92600-1 (retrieved: 3 October 2015).↑
  22. See the opening title of the digital version of a complete newsreel issue (1913), British Pathé, Film ID: 3212.01, online: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/pathes-animated-gazette-1st-edition-227/query/wildcard (retrieved: 23 September 2015); on this early newsreel series, see Norman, Philip: The newsreel boys, in: McKernan, Luke: Yesterday’s News. The British Cinema Newsreel Reader, London 2002, pp. 1-11, p. 3; figures on pre-war cinema capacities in Rüger, Jan: The Great Naval Game. Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire, Cambridge 2006, p. 52. ↑
  23. See in the cited newsreel issue (note 22) the films about the King and Queen amongst the troops or the German Emperor Wilhelm II’s arrival in Kiel “in view of the launching of the iron-clad warship ‘Kaiser’”; on this film see Rüger, The Great Naval Game 2006, p. 67; on the “cinema of attraction”, see Bösch, Mediengeschichte 2011, p. 146.↑
  24. Rüger, The Great Naval Game 2006, p. 55.↑
  25. See Notes of Trade, in: Moving Picture World, 18/13 (27 December 1913), p. 1561; and Digital Collection Google Americana (Media History), online: https://archive.org/stream/movingpicturewor18newy#page/1560/mode/2up (retrieved: 23 September 2015).↑
  26. See Bösch, Mediengeschichte 2011, pp. 145-146.↑
  27. These were perhaps not the original titles of the film material, see British Pathé, FILM-ID:1938.05, online: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/british-trawlers-shelled-by-russians/query/wildcard, and Film ID: 1660.41, online: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/americas-formidable-fleet/query/formidable+american+fleet (retrieved: 23 September 2015); on the Dogger Bank Incident, see Peeling, Siobhan: Russian-Japanese-War, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1546333/ie1418.10050.↑
  28. See Smither, Roger: Film/Cinema, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2015-08-20. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1546333/ie1418.10705.↑
  29. Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 94.↑
  30. The Times, 4 January 1896, p. 9, The Times Digital Archive, online: http://find.galegroup.com (retrieved: 4 October 2015); on the German publication of the telegram: Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 95.↑
  31. The German Emperor has taken a very grave step […], in: The Times, 4 January 1896, p. 9. According to the author, this expression had been used by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Sydney Charles Buxton, 1st Earl Buxton (1853-1934).↑
  32. See Ibid.; on the background see Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 93, 95, and 101-103 (article in The Times); and Wippich, Wolf-Harald: Die Buren, der Kaiser und die deutsch-britischen Beziehungen in der Transvaaalfrage, in: Dülffer/Kröger/Wippich (eds.), Vermiedene Kriege 1997, pp. 447-450; Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, pp. 145-146.↑
  33. Examples cited and analysed in Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 110, 106-108; and in Wippich, Die Buren, in: Dülffer/Kröger/Wippich (eds.), Vermiedene Kriege 1997, p. 454.↑
  34. Le Temps, 8 January 1896, p. 1, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica (hereafter cited “Gallica”), online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2347283.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 27 August 2015); comparison with The Times see Albert, Pierre: La presse française de 1871 à 1940, in: Bellanger, Claude/Godechot, Jacques/Guiral, Pierre/Terrou, Fernand (eds.): Histoire générale de la presse française, III: De 1871 à 1940, Paris 1972, p. 356; see also the alarmed reaction of the State Secretary of the German Foreign Office cited in Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 109 and 123.↑
  35. See Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 123.↑
  36. Ibid., p. 124; Bender, Steffen: Der Burenkrieg und die deutschsprachige Presse. Wahrnehmung und Deutung zwischen Bureneuphorie und Anglophobie 1899-1902, Paderborn et al. 2009.↑
  37. Au Transvaal, in: La Lanterne, 17 September 1901, p. 2, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k75108650/f2.zoom (retrieved: 2 September 2015). La Lanterne refers to an article allegedly published in the British periodical “New Age”. Another example of bitter criticism can be found in Huret, Jules: Le voyage des Boers et l’opinion anglaise, in: Le Figaro, 12 October 1902, p. 3, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k286022d/f3.zoom.r=camps%20de%20concentration.langDE (retrieved: 2 September 2015); on the tendency of La Lanterne and Le Figaro, see Albert, La presse française 1972, pp. 350 and 364-365; examples for German press reactions cited in Bender, Der Burenkrieg 2009, pp. 106-117 and Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 132-141 with a shocking cartoon published in the German satirical review Simplicissimus, Ibid., p. 140. See also the cover of Simplicissimus, 6/35 (1901), Klassik Stiftung Weimar et al., online: http://www.simplicissimus.info/uploads/tx_lombkswjournaldb/pdf/1/06/06_35.pdf (retrieved: 3 September 2015).↑
  38. See Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 126 and 421.↑
  39. See Ibid., pp. 126, 151 and 153.↑
  40. See Ibid., p. 233; and contemporary commentary in Germany’s Navy Scares Britain, in: New York Tribune, 17 March 1909, p. 1, online: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1909-03-17/ed-1/seq-1.pdf (retrieved: 3 September 2015).↑
  41. See Geppert, Dominik/Rose, Andreas: Machtpolitik und Flottenbau vor 1914: Zur Neuinterpretation britischer Außenpolitik im Zeitalter des Hochimperialismus, in: Historische Zeitschrift 293 (2011), pp. 408-409 and 431-432, online: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/hzhz.2011.293.issue-2/hzhz.2011.0048/hzhz.2011.0048.xml?format=INT (retrieved: 4 October 2015); and Rose, Der politische Raum Londons 2013, pp. 111-114.↑
  42. Naval Armaments, in: the Financial Times, 27 March 1909, p. 8, Gale, online: http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/f7sr8 (retrieved: 3 September 2015).↑
  43. The Navy Scare, in: The Economist, 18 June 1910, p. 1360, Gale, online: http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/f7bb7 (retrieved: 3 September 2015).↑
  44. Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 358 and 364-365.↑
  45. See Kiessling, Friedrich: Das Paradox der Geheimdiplomatie. Offizielle Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit vor 1914, in: Bösch/Hoeres (eds), Außenpolitik im Medienzeitalter 2013, pp. 81-82.↑
  46. Newspaper headline as cited in Campbell, W. Joseph: The Spanish-American War: American Wars and the Media in Primary Documents, Westport 2005, p. 3, online: http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/spanish.html (retrieved: 4 September 2015). For the introduction, other parts of the book only cited from the paper version.↑
  47. See Ibid., p. 6.↑
  48. Editorial of the New York Journal, 6 May 1898, as cited in Campbell, The Spanish-American War 2005, p. 71.↑
  49. Campbell, The Spanish-American War 2005, pp. 8-9; and Hamilton et al., The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 78; for the characteristics of the “Yellow Press”, Ibid., pp. 82-83.↑
  50. Cartoon “Peace – but quit that”, in: the Herald (Los Angeles), 20 March 1898, p. 1, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, online: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042461/1898-03-20/ed-1/seq-1/ (retrieved: 4 September 2015).↑
  51. Ibid. p. 2, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, online: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042461/1898-03-20/ed-1/seq-2/ (retrieved: 4 September 2015); on the “reconcentración”, see Hamilton et al., Spanish American War 2006, p. 81.↑
  52. Hamilton et al., Spanish American War, 2006, pp. 80-81; and Campbell, The Spanish-American War 2005, pp. 7-9.↑
  53. Hamilton et al., Spanish American War 2006, p. 78; on the sample and the chosen newspaper categories, see Ibid, pp. 82-83 and 86.↑
  54. The authors are right in claiming that their approach allows for “generalizing with greater confidence”, see Ibid., p. 90; on agenda-setting theory and “sound generalizations”, see Caudill, An Agenda-Setting Perspective 1997, pp. 169 and 170; on the risk of disappointing results in quantitative research and the necessity of combining it with qualitative approaches see Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 107-108.↑
  55. See Kröger, Martin/Broicher, Franz: Ein gerade noch berechenbares Risiko. Die bosnische Annexionskrise 1908/9, in: Dülffer/Kröger/Wippich (eds.), Vermiedene Kriege 1997, p. 603; see also Williamson, Jr., Samuel R.: The Way to War, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1546333/ie1418.10152. The imperial decision was published on 6 October 1906, see Neue Freie Presse, 7 October 1908, pp. 1-3, online: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nfp&datum=19081007&seite=1&zoom=64 (retrieved: 4 October 2015).↑
  56. See Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 82.↑
  57. Kröger/Broicher, Die bosnische Annexionskrise 1997, p. 607; and Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, pp. 78-87.↑
  58. Ehrenpreis, Petronilla: Die “reichsweite” Presse in der Habsburgermonarchie, in: Rumpler, Helmut/Urbanitsch, Peter (eds): Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, Bd. VIII: Politische Öffentlichkeit und Zivilgesellschaft, 2. Teilband: Die Presse als Faktor der politischen Mobilisierung, Vienna 2006, p. 1753.↑
  59. Kröger/Broicher, Bosnische Annexionskrise 1997, 605; see also Fay, Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse 1932, pp. 411-415 (with an interesting telegram of Wilhelm II on press effects).↑
  60. Novoe vremia and Sviet as cited in En Russie, in: Le Figaro, 9 October 1908, p. 2, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2882386/f2.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 7 September 2015). The English quotations are secondary translations from the French extracts. The transcription of Russian newspaper titles is based on McReynolds, Louise: The News under Russia’s Old Regime, Princeton, New Jersey 1991, index.↑
  61. This English extract is a secondary translation from Caspar Ferenczi’s German translation in Ferenczi, Caspar: Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1906-1912, Husum 1982, p. 187; on Trubeckoji’s political orientation, see Ibid., p. 82.↑
  62. See Ibid.↑
  63. Editorial by Pilenko, in Novoe vremia, 25 September 1908, as cited in Ferenczi, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1982, p. 188 (secondary translation from Ferenczi’s German translation).↑
  64. See Ibid.↑
  65. Novoe vremia and Sviet as cited in En Russie, in: Le Figaro, 9 October 1908, p. 2, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2882386/f2.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 7 September 2015).↑
  66. French-German tensions concerning Morocco had led the Third Republic to improve her relationship with Austria-Hungary, which did not allow her to support Russia in this crisis. See Kröger/Broicher, Bosnische Annexionskrise 1997, p. 606.↑
  67. Lautier, Eugène: A l’étranger, in: Le Figaro, 26 December 1908, p. 1, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k288317f/f2.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 5 October 2015).↑
  68. Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 293; see also Krumeich, Gerd: Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik in Frankreich vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Die Einführung der dreijährigen Dienstpflicht, Wiesbaden 1980, p. 25.↑
  69. Wien, 8 October, in: Neue Freie Presse, 9 October 1908, p. 1; Österreichische Naionalbibliothek, ANNO, Historische österreichische Zeitungen und Zeitschriften (hereafter cited “ANNO”), online: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nfp&datum=19081009&seite=1&zoom=33 (8 September 2015); on the assassination of the preceding Obrenović dynasty see Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, pp. 3-13.↑
  70. See Ehrenpreis, Die “reichsweite” Presse 2006, p. 1752.↑
  71. Arbeiter-Zeitung, 9 October 1908, p. 1; on the critical attitude of the Arbeiter-Zeitung see Ehrenpreis, Die “reichsweite Presse” 2006, p. 1789.↑
  72. Neues Vaterland, in: Arbeiter-Zeitung, 7 September 1908, p. 1, as cited in Ehrenpreis, Die “reichsweite” Presse 2006, p. 1789; full text: ANNO, online: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=aze&datum=19081007&seite=1&zoom=43 (retrieved: 8 September 2015).↑
  73. Kröger/Broicher, Bosnische Annexionskrise 1997, pp. 609-610; Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 85.↑
  74. Ferenczi, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit 1982, pp. 219-220.↑
  75. Peter Bark Memoirs, as cited in McMeekin, Sean: July 1914. Countdown to War, New York 2013, p. 183.↑
  76. Ibid.; on the long-term effects of the “humiliation” of 1908 see also Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 87.↑
  77. Carroll, Eber Malcolm: French Public Opinion, 1893-1959, New York 1931, Hathi Trust Digital Library, online: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015069649799;view=1up;seq=15%20/%20http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015069649799 (retrieved: 9 September 2015).↑
  78. Geppert describes this type of conflict as a general phenomenon of the pre-war period. See Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 3.↑
  79. See Carroll, French Public Opinion 1931, pp. 209 and 211-213; on the history of the First Morrocan Crisis: Wippich, Rolf-Harald: Das Deutsche Reich auf europäischem Konfrontationskurs. Die Erste Marokkokrise 1905/06, in: Dülffer/Kröger/Wippich (eds.), Vermiedene Kriege 1997, pp. 557-578 and Delaunay, Jean-Marc: Moroccan Crises 1905-1911, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1546333/ie1418.10300.↑
  80. See Carroll, French Public Opinion 1931, p. 214.↑
  81. See Ibid.; and Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, pp. 208-209.↑
  82. Extract as cited in Carroll, French Public Opinion 1931, 214, full text of the interview: Une conversation avec le professeur Schiemann, in: Le Temps, 21 June 1905, pp. 1-2, cited p. 2, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2382846/f1.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 9 September 2015).↑
  83. Many other examples of this type of interaction can be found in Geppert, Pressekriege 2007.↑
  84. Une conversation avec le professeur Schiemann, in: Le Temps, 21 June 1905, p. 2; on Schiemann and his political role see Altrichter, Helmut: “Schiemann, Theodor Heinrich Christian Karl”, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 22 (2005), online: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118794981.html (retrieved: 4 October 2015).↑
  85. Une conversation avec le professeur Schiemann, in: Le Temps, 21 June 1905, p. 2.↑
  86. La note française, 24 June 1905, in: Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k4819787/f1.zoom.r=schiemann.langDE (retrieved: 9 September 2015).↑
  87. Discours rentré, in: Journal des débats, 10 July 1905, p. 1, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k481994d/f1.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 8 September 2015), last sentence as cited in the English translation by Carroll who also gives the details about the context of this speech. Caroll, French Public Opinion 1931, p. 215; Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 223.↑
  88. Chancellor von Bülow to the German Foreign Office, 19 August 1905, in: Lepsius, Johannes/Bartholdy, Albrecht Mendelssohn/Thimme, Friedrich (eds.): Die Grosse Politik der europäischen Kabinette (herafter cited “GP”), volume 20/2, number 6814, Berlin 1927, p. 574; Universitäts und Stadtbibliothek Köln: Bibliothek Herbert von Dirksen (hereafter cited “Bibliothek von Dirksen”), online: http://www.ub.uni-koeln.de/cdm/ref/collection/dirksen/id/147875 (retrieved: 9 September 2015).↑
  89. Mayer, Geheime Dilomatie und Öffentliche Meinung 2002, pp. 246-247.↑
  90. Lauzanne, Stéhane: La vérité sur l’affaire du Maroc, in: Le Matin, 7 October 1905, p. 1, note 1, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k567748z.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 12 September 2015), cited (with a different date) in: Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 238.↑
  91. See Lauzanne, La vérité 1905, p. 1.↑
  92. See especially the two articles published under the headline “La vérité sur l’affaire du Maroc”, in: Le Matin, 6 October 1905, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k567747k.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 16 September 2015) and Le Matin, 7 October 1905; contemporary interpretation in: Clemenceau über Delcassé, in: Berliner Tageblatt, 16 October 1905, p. 2, ZEFYS, online: http://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/dfg-viewer/?set%5Bimage%5D=2&set%5Bzoom%5D=max&set%5Bdebug%5D=0&set%5Bdouble%5D=0&set%5Bmets%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fzefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de%2Foai%2F%3Ftx_zefysoai_pi1%255Bidentifier%255D%3De631e5f2-a405-4019-8b04-547a78d7bb8a (retrieved: 15 September 2015); Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, pp. 238-239.↑
  93. See (with references to other articles in the French and German press): Clemenceau über Delcassé, in: Berliner Tageblatt, 16 October 1905, p. 2; on the belated British denial in The Times: Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 241; on the British-German dimension of the crisis see Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 222-227.↑
  94. Cited with other evidence in Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 245, full text of his telegram to the German Foreign Office (8 October 1905), in GP, 20/2, number 6872, p. 662, Bibliothek von Dirksen, online: http://www.ub.uni-koeln.de/cdm/pageflip/collection/dirksen/id/147875/type/compoundobject/show/147451/cpdtype/monograph/pftype/image#page/384/mode/2up (retrieved: 16 September 2015).↑
  95. See Carroll, French Public Opinion 1931, p. 246.↑
  96. Krumeich, Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik in Frankreich 1980, p. 17.↑
  97. See Wippich, Wolf-Harald: Kolonialerwerb als Niederlage. Die Zweite Marokkokrise, in: Dülffer/Kröger/Wippich (eds.), Vermiedene Kriege 1997, p. 621; Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 196.↑
  98. See Ibid., p. 619; Kiessling, Das Paradox der Geheimdiplomatie 2013, p. 82; on the common confusion of public opinion and media opinion, see Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 326; Fay, Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse 1932, p. 417 (the press an instrument of pressure in diplomatic negotiations). In Thomas Meyer’s perspective, Kiderlen-Wächter was rather exposed to the pressure of the press than using it. See Meyer, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächters “Panthersprung nach Agadir” 1996, pp. 179, 190 and 310.↑
  99. Kiessling, Das Paradox der Geheimdiplomatie 2013, p. 81; see also Clark, Sleepwalkers 2012, p. 207.↑
  100. Kiessling, Das Paradox der Geheimdiplomatie 2013, p. 81 (expression from Osterhammel); examples of aggressive newspaper articles in Wippich, Die Zweite Marokkokrise 2012, pp. 635-636.↑
  101. Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 326; see also Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 225.↑
  102. See Ibid., pp. 101, 323-325 and 327; Bonfadelli, Heinz/Friemel, Thomas N.: Medienwirkungsforschung, 4th edition, Stuttgart 2011, pp. 234-237; English summary of the major assumptions on the website “Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann – Her life and scientific work”, online: http://noelle-neumann.de/scientific-work/spiral-of-silence/ (retrieved: 25 September 2015); see also Eckert/Karsten/Geiss, Krisenzeitungen nach Sarajevo 2014, pp. 14-15 (with additional reference to Michel Foucault’s concept of “police discursive”).↑
  103. Allard, Maurice: L’opinion, in: L’Humanité, 24 August 1911, p. 1, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2528481/f1.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 16 September 2015); on the political orientation see Albert, La presse française 1972, p. 377.↑
  104. Debreuilh, Louis: Sale pacifiste, in: L’Humanité, 24 August 1911, p. 1, Gallica, online: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2528481/f1.zoom.langFR (retrieved: 16 September 2015).↑
  105. Most papers emphasised the human dimension of the event, see Schramm, Martin: Das Deutschlandbild in der britischen Presse 1912-1919, Berlin 2007, p. 216; Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit 1996, p.148; Eckert, Georg: Steife Oberlippe, hängende Unterlippe: Julikrise und Kriegsbeginn in der Londoner “Times”, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, p. 116; Geiss, Französische Zeitungen in der Julikrise, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, p. 89; on the very aggressive and early anti-Serb reactions in the press of the Dual Monarchy see Hannig, Alma: “Wer uns kränkt, den schlagen wir nieder”: Die Wiener Tagespresse in der Julikrise 1914, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, pp. 26-29.↑
  106. See Ibid., pp. 41-43, on the Russian press see the case study dedicated to Moskovskie Vedemosti, in: Baberowski, Jörg: Die russische Presse und der Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, pp. 61-82.↑
  107. Krumeich, Gerd: Juli 1914. Eine Bilanz, Paderborn et al. 2013, pp. 13-14, cited in Eckert/Geiss/Karsten, Krisenzeitungen nach Sarajevo 2014, p. 13; see also the discussion of press influence during the July Crisis, Ibid., pp. 8-13; Schmidt, Stefan: Frankreichs Außenpolitik in der Julikrise 1914, Munich 2009 p. 306 (no public pressure on Poincaré), Monographien und Kolloquiumsakten des Deutschen Historischen Instituts Paris, online: http://www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/phs/schmidt_aussenpolitik/documentviewer/++widget++form.widgets.IPSJAddRetro.psj_file/@@download/schmidt_aussenpolitik.pdf (retrieved: 4 October 2015).↑
  108. See Becker, 1914: Comment les Français 1977, pp. 131-135 (quantitative analysis of newspapers), critizised by Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit 1996, p. 174, note 188; Krumeich, Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik 1980, pp. 214-215; Geiss, Französische Zeitungen in der Julikrise, pp. 86-87.↑
  109. For the impact of these events see: Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit 1996, p. 176; Geiss, Französische Zeitungen in der Julikrise, pp. 95-96.↑
  110. See Ibid., p. 105; on the lack of French press criticism towards Russian measures see Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit 1996, p. 199.↑
  111. By using this concept, Rosenberger refers to the long-term effects of the media and only to a lesser extent to the immediate context of the July Crisis. Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 279-280 and 327.↑
  112. On the French case, see the detailed analysis in Kriegel, Annie/Becker, Jean Jacques: 1914: La Guerre et le movement ouvrier français, Paris 1964; Geiss, Französische Zeitungen in der Julikrise; for the Arbeiter-Zeitung: see Hannig, Die Wiener Tagespresse in der Julikrise, pp. 41-42.↑
  113. Schramm, Das Deutschlandbild 2007. For the particular case of Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe’s (1865-1922) papers, see Ibid., p. 268; for The Times belonging to this category, see Eckert, Julikrise und Kriegsbeginn in der Londoner “Times” 2014.↑
  114. See Schramm, Das Deutschlandbild 2007, pp. 205 and 209; Eckert, Julikrise und Kriegsbeginn in der Londoner “Times” 2014, p.117.↑
  115. See Schramm, Das Deutschlandbild 2007, pp. 231 and 256; on the French press reactions to the ultimatum see Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit 1996, p. 176; Geiss, Französische Zeitungen in der Julikrise, pp. 95-98.↑
  116. Baberowski, Die russische Presse und der Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges, p. 66.↑
  117. Ferenczi, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1982, pp. 13-14 and 23, for the idea of protection of the Slavs against “Germanism”, see an article in Moskovski Novosti (28 July 1914), translated in Baberowski, Die russische Presse und der Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges, pp. 71-72.↑
  118. The Russian responsibility has been emphasised by Sean McMeekin in a geopolitical perspective: McMeekin, July 1914, Countdown to War 2013, p. 388 (“Straits Window”); against McMeekin’s view, see Sanborn, Joshua A.: Russian Empire, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-11-30. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1546333/ie1418.10499.↑
  119. Ferenczi, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1982, p. 15 (“successful partial modernisation” of political communication); for the modernisation paradigm in the context of pre-war Russia see also Dietrich Geyer as cited in McReynolds, The News Under Russia’s Old Regime 1991, p. 169.↑
  120. See Mangold-Will, Sabine: Konstantinopels große Gelegenheit: Vom Lachen des unbeteiligten Dritten zum Kampf ums Überleben und gegen die Feinde des Islam, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, pp. 137-164.↑
  121. Ibid. pp. 163-164.↑
  122. See Ibid., pp. 148-149.↑
  123. See Ibid., pp. 139-140.↑
  124. Lerg, Charlotte: Washington: Die Welt sicher machen für die Demokratie, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, pp. 190-191.↑
  125. See Fay, Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse 1932, p. 444; Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, p. 379.↑
  126. Saturday Evening Post, 14 April 1904, p. 1, as cited in Campbell, The Spanish-American War 2005, p. 3.↑
  127. See Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 323-325; Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, pp. 329 and 31; and Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, pp. 123, 297 and passim. Fay saw an “indirect” influence of the press on the political leaders remembering earlier press criticism in the case of diplomatic concessions. Fay, Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse 1932, p. 444.↑
  128. Hamilton et al., The Spanish-American War 2006, p. 78.↑
  129. On the case of Germany see Krumeich, Gerd: Friedrich von Bernhardi – Théricien militaire marginal ou représentatif? Réflexions sur l’influence de “Deutschland und der nächste Krieg”, (1912), in: Francia 40 (2013), pp. 361-362.↑
  130. Rosenberger, Zeitungen als Kriegstreiber? 1998, pp. 281-294. An almost determinist view of Austria-Hungary’s and Germany’s options after Sarajevo has been demonstrated for the Vossische Zeitung in Arne Karsten, “Das Ultimatum ist hart, aber in dieser Härte unvermeidlich”: Die Julikrise im Spiegel deutscher Zeitungen, in: Eckert/Geiss/Karsten (eds.), Die Presse in der Julikrise 2014, pp. 51-52; on the Northcliffe press before the war, see Fay, Der Einfluss der Vorkriegspresse1932, p. 426.↑
  131. Geppert, Pressekriege 2007, p. 422; Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung 2002, p. 326; full text, see Hobson, J.A.: Imperialism. A Study, London 1902, p. 135, Google Americana, online: https://archive.org/stream/imperialismastu00goog#page/n148/mode/2up (retrieved: 4 September 2015).↑
  132. Ferenczi, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1982, p. 73; for the global dimension of the German press policy, see Wroblewski, Martin: “Moralische Eroberungen” als Instrumente der Diplomatie: Die Informations- und Pressepolitik des Auswärtigen Amts 1902 -1914, Bonn 2015 (unpublished thesis).↑
Peter Geiss: Controversy: The Media's Responsibility for Crises and Conflicts in the Age of Imperialism, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2016-01-20. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10811

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Metadata

Subjects
Author Keywords
press; media; public opinion; crisis; agenda setting
GND Subject Headings
Weltkrieg [1914-1918] ; Kriegsvorbereitung ; Berichterstattung
LC Subject Headings
World War, 1914-1918 ; Press coverage
Rameau Subject Headings
Guerre mondiale (1914-1918) ; Dans la presse
Key Person(s)
Kiderlen-Wächter, Alfred von; Hearst, William Randolph; Delcassé, Théophile; Izvolsky, Alexander; Rouvier, Maurice; Aehrenthal, Alois Lexa von; Fay, Sidney Bradshaw; Kruger, Paul; Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford; Schiemann, Theodor; Caillaux, Henriette; Wilhelm II, German Emperor; Bülow, Bernhard, Fürst von; Grey, Sir Edward; Sazonov, Sergeĭ Dmitrievich; Jaurès, Jean
Regional Section(s)
Thematic Section(s)
Title
Controversy: The Media's Responsibility for Crises and Conflicts in the Age of Imperialism
Author(s)
Peter Geiss
Articles That Link Here
Press/Journalism: Serbia (South East Europe) and Militarism
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