1914: From the War of Movement to the Trenches

The declarations of war unleashed massive public displays of patriotic enthusiasm in most belligerent countries, a phenomenon remembered as the "Spirit of August 1914," reflected in Germany's Burgfrieden ("civil truce") and France's union sacrée ("sacred union"). Even the socialist parties of the Second International, which had repeatedly pledged to oppose any European war, largely abandoned that stance: Germany's Social Democratic Party voted unanimously for war credits in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, just days after the assassination of the French antimilitarist leader Jean Jaurès on July 31 had removed the most influential voice of European socialist pacifism.