John E. Moser - Europe on the Brink, 1914

In Europe on the Brink, 1914, students portray political and military leaders of the European powers and must decide how they (and their governments) will respond to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. In that capacity they will decide within their factions whether the crisis can be settled peacefully; if not, whether to enter the war or remain on the sidelines; and whether, how, and against whom to mobilize their armed forces. If war breaks out, the decisions made by the participants will have a direct effect on the course of the war in its initial months.

Players decisions will be influenced by a number of important texts related to international relations, including works by Emer de Vattel, Richard Cobden, Heinrich von Treitschke, Giuseppe Mazzini, Nikolai Danilevskii, Norman Angell, and Friedrich von Bernhardi. Excerpts from all of these are included in this gamebook.

The main intellectual clash in the game is between balance of power and nationalism. The former had been championed by European statesmen since the eighteenth century and was regarded as the best means for maintaining a stable international system that protected the sovereign rights of each state. The latter emerged in the late eighteenth century and gained strength through the nineteenth. Nationalists regarded ethnicity as the most important source of group identification for individuals and claimed that each sovereign nation deserved a government of its own choosing. While early nationalists such as Giuseppe Mazzini remained focused on national unification, later ones such as Nikolai Danilevskii and Friedrich von Bernhardi embraced a far more expansive vision of national interest, one that justified aggressive wars aimed at asserting the greatness and power of the nation-state. For these later nationalists, concepts such as the balance of power or international law were nothing more than tools used by weaker states to hold back the strong.

Sunday, June 28, 1914

The Orient Express

As you deposit your luggage in your sleeping compartment, you feel the jolt as the train begins its departure from Pariss Gare de lEst. The train is crowded with people returning from weekend holidays, so you make your way to the saloon car for a drink, hoping to pick up some of the latest gossip.

You were in Paris as a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers, covering what everyone was calling lAffaire Caillauxthe crime of the century. In March, Henriette Caillaux, Parisian socialite and wife of Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux, visited the office of Gaston Calmette, editor of the venerable newspaper Le Figaro. Calmette, a critic of J. Caillaux, had obtained some of the finance ministers political correspondence and embarrassed him by publishing it. Henriette feared that Calmette might publish letters of an even more personal nature, showing that she and Joseph had been involved romantically with one another years before their marriagewhen in fact they were both married to other people. When she went to see Calmette on March 16, she did so with a concealed .32 Browning automatic pistol on her person. After a brief exchange of words, she drew the weapon and fired six rounds at the editor. Four of them found their mark, killing Calmette. Mme. Caillauxs trial is slated to begin next month; rumor has it that her lawyer will plead her innocence on the grounds that it was a crime passionnel. How utterly French.

You had just managed to secure a reasonably cheap apartment in Paris when you got wind of another potentially big story: the archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had been shot and killed along with his wife while on an official visit to Sarajevo. LAffaire Caillaux could wait. You bought a ticket to Vienna and set out that same day on the famed Orient Express.

Once inside the saloon car, you order a whiskey neat, and youre lucky enough to find a place to sit. Three gentlemen are seated nearby, engaged in a rather heated conversation in French. Fortunately, youre fluentfluent enough to pick up on the fact that one of them speaks with an English accent, and another with a German one. The third has a patois that you associate with Alsace, a province that was at one time French but that has been part of Germany since 1871. No wonder theyre arguingnobody hates Germans like Alsatian Frenchmen. The subject of the conversation is the assassination of the archduke. You listen in, hungry for details.

They say the killer is a Serbian terrorist, says the Germanlets call him Fritz. It is a well-known fact that the Serbian government has long been driven by hatred of Austria-Hungary. Can there be any doubt that Belgrade is behind this outrage?

The Frenchmanwell call him Pierremakes a face. Such a conclusion is not warranted. A government cant be responsible for every single thing that one of its citizens does.

Yes, agrees the Englishmen, whom well call Thomas. Ive been to that part of Europe, and I can tell you that nationalism runs deep there. Secret societies abound. And while I wont condone such a savage act as murder, one cant help but feel a bit of sympathy for the Serbsafter all, five million of their countrymen live in Austria-Hungary. Is there any doubt that theyd prefer to live under a Serbian ruler, rather than a German one?

Fritz snorts. Serbians are savages. It wasnt that long ago that they killed their own king and queen. Now theyve gone too far, and must be punished. The honor of Austria-Hungary is at stake. But lets not forget Russias role in all this.

Russias role? Pierre asks, cocking an eyebrow. Be careful, monsieur, that you do not insult an ally of the French Republic.

Do not be nave, the German quips. The Russians have been stirring up trouble in the Balkans for years. They were behind the formation of the Balkan League back in 1912. They want to cause as much trouble for Austria-Hungary as they can. They look forward to the day when the empire falls apart, so they can set up reliable satellite states among the Slavic populations of Central Europe.