But how hard is it to create a European army, exactly? The debate usually focuses on the flashy bits of defence policy, like aeroplanes and tanks. This is understandable, but it’s a fundamentally misleading exercise: it’s like trying to build a skyscraper by focusing on its interior design first.

More specifically, a piece of equipment is rarely better or worse than another in absolute terms – it’s just suited to different roles. Therefore, before any equipment can be built for common European armed forces, the political leadership will have to decide what their job is going to be. And that brings us to the first step of our easy to-do list.

1) Create A European General Staff

Equipment, procurement, and logistics are the three founding blocks of any common European defense project. But in order to to work on any of these, we first need a European general staff, i.e. a group of high-ranking generals, planners and thinkers whose job is to plan for the future.

Starting from the political vision behind the project, the General Staff will have to develop a new doctrine that reflects the job Europeans expect their armed forces to perform. This can range from something as simple as defending Europe’s territorial integrity and patrolling the Mediterranean, to something as complex as projecting naval power into the Arctic, or building expeditionary capabilities in support of NATO and U.N. missions abroad.

While this doctrine is developed, European Member States will keep taking care of defence. Due to the enormity of the undertaking, it is unlikely that these militaries will ever be fully incorporated into a single European army. It is far likelier that they would continue to serve as a sort of equivalent to the U.S. National Guard. They would certainly still shoulder core responsibilities while a common EU defence is in its infancy.

Naturally, the general staff will not work in isolation, and the final word on what they produce will ultimately lie with elected representatives and governments.

2) Harmonise Infrastructure

So you have a general staff and a plan? Good! For our next step, we’re going to need a European-wide military-industrial complex with common standards to follow for equipment, shipping, logistics, etc. This will also require sustained investment in the road and rail network all over the continent, as that is critical to the swift deployment of forces.

European countries currently depend on the United States for logistics and supplies, especially when it comes to mounting expeditions abroad. This, however, also applies to research and development, production of spare parts, ammunition and so on. Not all EU countries are reliant on the USA to the same degree, but the bottom line is that European militaries cannot resupply themselves, and plugging this gap is going to prove both time-consuming and expensive.

The EU is also likely going to need an equivalent of DARPA in the United States – that is, an agency that is responsible for oversight over research and development, as well as investment in innovation. While this will primarily impact a European army, it will also be responsible to develop dual-use (civilian and military) technology.

3) Start Developing Equipment

Once doctrine has been defined and the underpinning infrastructure is in place, it’s finally time to begin producing equipment that is optimised for the EU’s specific operational needs. If you’re thinking of long rows of tanks coming out of assembly lines, you’re only partially correct – a significant part of the effort would go towards building ammunition according to the specifications developed before.

Nevertheless, platforms would be an important component of the production effort. A platform is a basic piece of equipment that can be adapted to fulfill different operational roles. As an example, a fighter jet is a platform: most fighters can be flown in radically different configurations and with specialised equipment, allowing them to carry out different tasks.

Since the first two steps alone are likely to take several years, it is premature to discuss today what kind of platforms the future EU armed forces might use. Should the Union have a defensive fleet, based on frigates and submarines, or an offensive one based on carriers, destroyers, and amphibious assault ships? Are Main Battle Tanks still relevant, or should the armed forces favour more specialised designs?

There are no clear-cut answers to these questions, much less answers that will remain valid twenty or thirty years into the future. The picture is complicated by the differences of opinions within Member States, with some (like France) having worldwide interests and commitments, while others (like Germany) preferring to focus on core internal tasks.
Ultimately, these questions will be settled once production for a European army is actually ready to begin.

4) Train And Develop

As equipment becomes available, it will be possible to train larger numbers of servicemen, until reaching the numbers necessary to complete the European army. Training serves a dual purpose, as it allows for large-scale equipment tests and provides substantial quantities of feedback to work with. This will allow an ongoing process of correcting issues, and refining the equipment itself.

With these four steps completed, the European Armed Forces can now become a reality! As should be apparent, this is a long-term undertaking that will likely require at least twenty, maybe thirty years of steady work in peacetime. As such, it deservedly ranks among the most difficult, ambitious, and forward-looking projects of European integration that could be pursued in the future.

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One hundred years ago, on the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns went silent. The Great War was over, leaving an estimated sixteen million people dead. Ethnic cleansing, revolutions and the spread of a deadly strain of influenza added to the body count, scarring a generation. The damage done by the war to European society and politics was extensive. In the following years, brutal dictators rose to power and paved the way for a second global cataclysm.

Signs of the devastation between 1914 and 1918 are still present. Along the Western Front in Belgium and northern France, war cemeteries, monuments and museums began popping up already during the interwar years. For those interested, these and other attractions are easily available. Every major battlefield has several tourist attractions, in particular the Douaumont Ossuary in Verdun, containing the skeletal remains of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers.

But other, more sinister remains are also present. To this day in France, a special department conducts demining operations, defusing the many unexploded shells, mines and bombs left over from the world wars. It is estimated that millions of grenades lie in the ground surrounding Verdun alone. Throughout the years, several hundred minesweepers have been killed or wounded in their work, and in 1991, thirty-six farmers died when their equipment hit blinds that exploded.

The Great War has also left us with more than just material legacies. Due to its sheer magnitude and the number of people it affected, the war marked a turning point in contemporary history. Political culture, self-perception and strategic debate in Europe would never be the same again.

The same can be said of the balance of power and international relations. The seeds of the world as we know it today were in the intricate network of negotiations and political moves that involved all players in the interwar years, as well as in the birth of the League of Nations. And while it would take a second, even more destructive world war to truly clear the way for a project of European integration, it was at the end of the Great War that European powers first had to contend with the limitations of their material means, the rise of new global competitors, and the harsh legacy of a fratricidal war.

Ideals of European Unity before the Great War

To understand the vacuum left by four years of cataclysmic war, it’s important to look at the world it shattered, and do so through the lens of contemporaries. European integration might have only begun after 1945, but ideals of European unity had been around well before 1914 – indeed, its first conception can be dated as far back as the Middle Ages, as a result of the influence of Christendom. To many at the turn of the century, a realisation of these goals finally seemed within reach.

The forty-three years that separate German unification from the deflagration of the Great War are typically seen as an era of hyper-nationalism and intensified great power competition, and with good reason. Nevertheless, the subsequent military upheavals have somewhat blinded us to the way contemporaries perceived what was going on around them. When seen from a different perspective, the years between 1871 and 1914 are noteworthy for a vigorous development of internationalisation.

These changes were not confined to Europe: they were, in many ways, tied to the advent of modernity. The revolution in shipping technologies had seemingly banished the threat of famine from industrial metropoles forever. At the same time, the complex economic life of industrialised countries was dependent on international credit. To conventional wisdom at the turn of the century, a general war seemed impossible: mutual dependence would inevitably deter its deflagration.

The immense growth in the volume of trade, banking and finance was not the only underpinning of the new international order. The railways, postage, telegraphic communication – all required some kind of standard in order to function across borders. A string of organisations arose to ensure the smooth functioning of travel and communication, as well as the economy, in the new era. The International Telegraph Union (1865) was followed by a Universal Postal Union (1875) and by an International Conference for Promoting Technical Uniformity in Railways (1882).

And even this is just skimming the surface: from intellectual property rights to customs and tariffs, from the study of weather patterns to statistical analysis – the industrialised nations of the time sought to benefit from the practical advantages of multilateral cooperation. Maritime law and its general anti-piracy provisions, the chambers of commerce, the standardisation of weights and measures: these all date back from the turn of the century and are with us to this day.

Western and European governments in particular also displayed a motivation to act collectively, and this was motivated by new common sensibilities as much as it was by competition. Collective interventions in the Ottoman Empire were prompted several times during the 19th Century by the Porte’s treatment of ethnic and religious minorities. This is not to say, of course, that hard power did not occupy a prominent place in the minds of European statesmen. Even there, however, cooperation and confrontation were equally common. Great powers openly planned for war, but they also conducted joint interventions to preserve their collective interests.

The most famous of these was the military expedition in China during the so-called Boxer Rebellion: when the government in Beijing turned a blind eye to the siege of the European legation embassies, the major powers mounted an international expedition that became known as the Eight Nation Alliance. This included the German Reich, the United Kingdom, France, the Kingdom of Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the United States of America and the Empire of Japan. This multinational expeditionary force secured the embassies in a swift operation that was hailed as a complete multilateral success.

In Europe in particular, internationalisation was enhanced by a growing feeling of common cultural and artistic kinship. Appreciation of European paintings and music from all corners of the continent, as well as the intensifying cooperation between centers of learning in the selection of philosophical and scientific curricula, as well as in archeological, medical and physical research, led to the formation of an embryonic European culture among the tiny minority that frequented universities.

The cultural convergence, however, transcended the upper classes. In the wake of the prosperity brought by the Second Industrial Revolution, the European middle classes discovered the pleasures of cultural tourism. In previous decades, only sailors, soldiers and herdsmen ever saw much of what was outside their home town. This changed forever when the middle class spent its recently-acquired wealth to visit great European capitals, ruins from Antiquity, spa resorts and beach towns. Travel guides soon multiplied across Europe, informing its population of the historical significance, cultural character and beauty of an ever growing number of destinations.

A quest for European unity was also driven by practical considerations of great power competition. The fear of the emergence of the United States, Russia and Japan – referred to as the flanking powers – convinced diplomats and industrialists that Europe had to come together, if not into a federation, then at the very least into a customs union. This growing camp included figures such as Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Goluchowski, French diplomat de Constant and German industrialist Rathenau. While these men, and many more, had their own reasons for pursuing these goals – often with their own country’s aggrandisement in mind – they all saw the writing on the wall: European powers alone were at serious risk of being eclipsed by the rise of new superpowers. They would soon learn how right they were in their foreboding predictions.

The Road to the Armistice

The situation of the Central Powers in early 1918 was difficult, but not impossible. Military action in 1917 had led to a considerable reduction in the number of theaters, with Russia and Romania out of the war, and Italy teetering on the brink of defeat. Nevertheless, it was clear that the odds were stacked hugely against Germany and its allies. The disparity in economic might and industrial capacity between the two sides was glaring enough; the manpower differential was significantly altered with the arrival of American troops; but crucially, the British blockade negated the continental alliance access to the food and feed that were needed to sustain the heavily urbanised population of central Europe. The actions undertaken in response to this dilemma were to have great influence on the peace to come.

It was clear, then, that Germany had fundamentally miscalculated its strategic situation. The senior German military leadership was divided on how to act. The two main army group commanders, Crown Prince Wilhelm von Hohenzollern and Crown Prince Rupprecht von Wittelsbach, were unconvinced that Germany could win a military victory. The best field chiefs of staff, such as Hoffmann and Lossberg, agreed. Their proposal was for a series of consecutive offensives, centered on Flanders, where the British position was vulnerable. Their military objective would be limited at sapping the strength of one of the enemy combatants. A diplomatic offensive was to follow, to try and achieve a negotiated peace.

The chief of the general staff, Ludendorff, had other ideas. Under the strain of the war, Ludendorff’s despise of the civilian government and authoritarian tendencies reached a fever pitch. Through the cynical fomenting of anti-semitic campaigns, he undermined those who questioned his decisions. More importantly, his influence in dictating harsh terms to Russia had convinced the Allies that a negotiated peace with Berlin was impossible.

Whereas the Flanders plan resembled the series of consecutive offensives launched by the Allies in 1918, which proved incredibly effective, Ludendorff’s plan was a single massive thrust against the French, Schlieffen-esque in style. When this uninspired plan backfired, it triggered a general collapse of morale. Soldiers began to surrender in larger numbers, while domestic uprisings overthrew the governments at home. Ludendorff’s decision to spin these events as a “stab in the back” served not only to cover his own failure, but to legitimise his increasingly rabid anti-semitism. This would have dire consequences for German politics.

The inter-Allied fighting in the subsequent talks also fundamentally altered the nature of the Treaty. Wilson’s idealism could hardly be reconciled with the annexationist impulses of Great Britain and above all France. This political divide turned into a chasm after the failure of Allied communication: Wilson released his famous Fourteen Points without informing London or Paris first.

Conversely, France and Britain had not warned Wilson of the large territorial gains they had promised Italy, which were incompatible with the Wilsonian principle of self-determination for the Balkans; nor did they share their correspondence on what they planned for the Ottoman Empire and Germany. At the same time, France tried, where possible,to sabotage British designs in the Middle East, as Paris also had ambitions in the area but lacked the strength to pursue them. Finally, all three powers were profoundly mistrustful of their Japanese ally, with racism colouring their perceptions to an extent.

The result of this infighting was that the Versailles Treaty ended up being harsher than anticipated: inter-Allied negotiations were so contentious that diplomats had largely exhausted their willingness to compromise, by the time the peace was presented to the Central Powers. The plan that was supposed to be the starting offer of a negotiated peace thus ended up becoming a take it or leave it proposition. This, combined with the compromise between largely different political aims, undermined the legitimacy of the peace treaty. Political movements with dark designs would make good use of this weakness in the years to come.

A Peace To End All Peace

The League of Nations, the brainchild of US President Woodrow Wilson, gave hope to a devastated world.  Institutionally, it was set up with similar aims to the United Nations after World War Two: to provide peace and security to its members, empower transparent diplomacy, and create systems of collective security. The League made its promising debut by mediating the dispute on the Åland islands between Sweden and newly independent Finland. It was decided that the islands belonged to Finland, but Sweden was guaranteed a demilitarization of the islands and autonomy of the mostly Swedish-speaking population.

The project, however, was hobbled from the start by the refusal of America to join, which was compounded by the unwillingness of Britain and France to enforce rulings. This weakness, as well as the future walk-outs staged by powers such as Germany and Japan, made it impossible for the League to match the lofty expectations placed on it. Nevertheless, it should not be underestimated as an experiment in multilateralism: nothing quite like the League of Nations had ever been tried before. International law, and the concept of an international community of states, would be different because of it.

In stark contrast to the League of Nations, which many looked at with hopeful eyes and interest, the Treaty of Versailles is and was widely considered a disaster. The terms were harsher than expected: Austria ended up a rump state with a mere 6,5 million inhabitants and was expressly forbidden from joining Germany. Many of the provisions in the Treaty – such as the attempt at creating ethno-states in the Balkans and central Europe, or the partitioning of the Middle East between France and Great Britain, were to cause ripples that remain to this day.

More pressingly, within months of its implementation, the Treaty started to come apart at the seams. In Europe, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires gave rise to a new Polish state as well as the creation of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Baltic states. But any hope that this settlement would be permanent was immediately shattered, as border skirmishes and outright wars broke out between Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. Additionally, fighting continued in the Balkans between Hungary and both Yugoslavia and Romania. In a few cases, plebiscites were held to determine borders such as in Carinthia and Upper Silesia. Even these were not peaceful, with fighting between Poles and Czechs, as well as Poles and Germans in both Silesia and East Prussia.

In the Middle East, the Ottoman empire was carved up with little regard for ethnicity or religion. Officially, the occupied territories were mandates, a supposed intermediate status with the end goal of establishing functional independent states. In practice they were effectively colonies: under no pretense could Italian control of Anatolia, or French control of Syria, be justified under national self-determination. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), Turkey was to inflict the peace treaty its greatest reversal, by defeating the occupying powers and establishing an independent Turkey within borders that persist to this day.

Britain’s handling of the Middle East was also to establish the foundation of the conflicts that still plague the region. London was trying to reconcile a number of incompatible plans: the Balfour declaration, expressing favour for the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine; the Hussein-McMahon correspondences, promising the Arabs independence; and the Sykes-Picot correspondences, agreeing to a partition of the area with France.

The Arabs had fought against the Ottomans precisely to achieve independence. The perceived betrayal was to drive a wedge between them and the West. Their hostile reaction to the migration of Jews to British-controlled Palestine escalated tensions, and the arbitrariness of colonial borders made sure that the region’s problems would remain unsolvable.

The Legacy of the War

The First World War altered the balance of global power in profound ways. European dominance pre-1914 was due in no small part to the high birth rate of the Continent, but these numbers plummeted during and after the war and it took years for European industry to even reach pre-war numbers. Under their new limitations, the colonial powers found it increasingly hard to finance their expensive empires, much less provide the extravagant military expenses required to defend them.

The new reality of the power balance is best illustrated by the issue of debt. Germany was burdened with reparations – but contrary to the mythology surrounding the peace treaty, these were technically payable. It was the political fallout of the increasingly bitter struggle between German political factions that turned this into a serious problem. By trying to wiggle out of reparations, Germany precipitated crises such as the French occupation of the Ruhr and the hyperinflation of 1923. Britain and France themselves had borrowed heavily from the U.S. during the war, and resented both the necessity for repayment and the political leverage now in the hands of the United States. It was due to British indebtment, for instance, that the United States could force London to rescind the Anglo-Japanese alliance in the Pacific.

Under the inspired leadership of Gustav Stresemann, Germany exploited the internal divisions of the Allies and created a sort of bizarre Transatlantic triangle: the United States would grant low-interest loans and investment to Germany, which would in turn pay reparations to France and Britain, which would then service their debt to America. This reliance on American finance granted Berlin with the reduction, and eventually the extinction of reparations, but it left Germany acutely vulnerable to U.S. financial instability. For the second time since the turn of the century, the United States had played a stabilising role from outside in European politics; the collapse of the world economy in 1929, with the consequent American retreat, was to provide the crucial ingredient in Europe’s descent into a new period of chaos and conflict.

A hundred years on, and in spite of a second world war in between, the world is still largely following the trajectory that was set at the end of the Great War. External challenges to European relevance, the role of the Transatlantic partnership and Europe’s capacity to maintain internal stability and cohesion are the defining factors of European political prospects, much like they were in the interwar years. It is in that spirit that the words ring true, now as they did a century ago: never again a war between brothers.

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Some already created a Wikipedia page complete with the history of this country, while a flag has been drawn and the Foreign Minister promised on Twitter “stew, honey, bread and lard” to those who will surrender to the might of Veyshnoria.

You can read more about this funny story here.

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