Peace Ending World War I: Theory of Intra-Coalition Politics and War Termination

• In Event: New Analytic Perspectives on the First World War

Abstract

The First World War ended on the Western Front in an armistice whose granting was quite at variance with Allied rhetoric about the need for a “knockout blow” and an “end to militarism.” Indeed, most theories of preventive war envision the commitment problems at their heart as encouraging total military outcomes. Yet the First World War ended with German territory unconquered and tentative nods to democratization (neither of which the Allies viewed as a great solution to the commitment problem). Why? I develop a game-theoretic model of multilateral negotiations that sheds light on both why Germany asked for an armistice and why its enemies granted it. At the heart of the story is shifting power inside the putative winning coalition; American power was on the rise, and rather than let it dominate the ultimate peace negotiations to the detriment of French and British interests, the Entente accepted a limited war outcome in a war that was otherwise total. Thus, negotiations between coalition partners can be just as important as negotiations between enemies for shaping the duration of wars, the nature of their outcomes, and the terms on which peace is restored.

Author

• Scott Wolford, University of Texas