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Frequently, the reasons have been referred to the climate of nationalist fervor that was experienced in that summer of 1914, an enveloping and penetrating environmental pressure, intimidating and seductive. The chauvinist virus would have infected them by also trapping them with their internationalist defenses low. In this regard, testimonies of nationalist fervor in the Social Democratic leaders abound, sometimes expressed in a crude state, generally refined with the argument of defending the homeland against a prior external attack. affirmed on August 2, Louis Dubreuilh.
Defensive arguments quickly evolved towards a commitment to deterrent offensives. Over time, the principle India Email List national defense served to justify the responsibility that the nation itself could have had in the unleashing of the tragedy. "Even if the German government had been responsible for the catastrophe (...), we would be obliged to defend our country and save everything worth saving," Wolfgang Heine, spokesman for the conservative wing of the SPD, went on to say.
The dignity of what is salvageable referred to the political systems of the respective countries, all the more defensible in contrast to the political systems of the enemy countries. British Labor and French Socialists appealed to the value of their respective parliamentary systems against the authoritarianism of the Central Powers. The problem is that the German social democrats used the same argument against tsarist despotism and autocracy. "Our people and their future freedom have much, if not everything, to lose from a victory of Russian despotism," Hugo Haase had pointed out, when after voting for the first time against war credits he gave in to the imposed voting discipline. by the SPD.
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