Van Evera: The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War

Van Evera, S., 1984. The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War. International Security, 9(1), 58-107.

“This article will argue that the cult of the offensive was a principal cause of the First World war, creating or magnifying many of the dangers which historians blame for causing the July crisis and rendering it uncontrollable. The following section will first outline the growth of the cult of the offensive in Europe in the years before the war, and then sketch the consequences which international relations theory suggests should follow from it. The second section will outline consequences which the cult produced in 1914 and the final section will suggest conclusions and implications for current American policy” (58).

When offensive is prioritized in military strategy, this can be problematic it does not conform to events on the ground. In the advent to WWI, the prevailing thinking was that offensive fighting would win the day, and that any battle would be over quickly as the invention of more and more brutal means of killing people had created an irrational exuberance about their deployment. This proved to be catastrophic, as long, trench-based battles emerged. The predicted short slot turned quickly into a muddy quagmire.

The remainder of the article supports the notion that the “cult of the offensive” was a clear driver of the brutal nature of WWI, which is in line with Jervis’ formulation concerning offensively minded worlds being more dangerous.