(cont.) See also Rudolf Steiner, “Memoranda 1917,” in Social and Political Science, pp.67-68, where Steiner writes that
To the extent that Austria-Hungary must be considered as the cause of the war—and thus Germany, too, because it could not abandon Austria-Hungary without having to fear that in a few years it would face the Entente without Austria as an ally—to this extent it must be recognized that the Slav question contains the reason which provoked the war.
What that means is made clearer when Steiner refers on the pages just cited and on p.71 to how “generous alternative action” and “other action” by Austro-Hungarian statesmen vis-à-vis the Slavs of Austria-Hungary could have prevented the war. Steiner explains that by “alternative action” and “other action” he means liberation of the Slavs through federalizing and making autonomous the life of Austria-Hungary—in particular establishing for the individual the right to cultural, educational, and religious freedom. On pp.102-103 of Social and Political Science, Steiner explains that “the war arose through the unfortunate reciprocal interference of these three areas of life [political life, economic life, and cultural life] in the intercourse between nations.” In other words, Austro-Hungarian statesmen failed to recognize the individual's right to cultural freedom—in particular the Slav individual's right—and instead let culture remain under restrictions set by the political and economic systems.
None of this is meant to deny that Steiner in these memoranda forcefully blamed England and other nations for their part in bringing about the First World War. Indeed, in the memoranda he blamed them more forcefully than he did the Central Powers. But the forcefulness of his charges in the memoranda must be seen in context. He wrote the memoranda for Central European statesmen struggling at that moment with a massive war that threatened their and their nations’ existence. Apart from those quite special circumstances, he did not, in talking about the start of the war, apportion responsibility more to others than to Central Europe. In fact he was generally more likely to criticize the incompetence of Germans and Austro-Hungarians as bringing about conditions that led them to fall into the war. If in the memoranda to German and Austro-Hungarian statesmen he had not leaned a little toward his own society and homelands and had instead taken a stance completely indifferent or neutral to Central (cont.)
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