“Who thought that the assassination of a relatively minor Hapsburg would start a major world war?”
yes, that’s always the thing, isn’t it?
I’ve never made a serious study of WWI, but I’ve read enough about it to conclude that it is unlikely I’ll ever understand it.
And it was the end, the very end of the world as it had been (with minor erruptions like the American and French revolutions) for hundreds if not thousands of years.
In a way we may still be living in its upheaval.
So, yes, while I don’t think it’s likely that what’s happening in Ukraine will affect us, I wouldn’t rule it out.
They guessed wrong on almost every single detail.No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy.
It’s World War One; there’s thirteen million killed; it was all because the militaries of both alliances believed they were so highly attuned to one another’s movements and dispositions, they could predict one another’s intentions, but all their theories were based on the last war. And the world and technology had changed, and those lessons were no longer valid, but it was all they knew, so the orders went out, couldn’t be rescinded. And your man in the field, his family at home, they couldn’t even tell you the reasons why their lives were being destroyed.