Posted on 06/28/2018 5:40:35 AM PDT by harpygoddess
June 28 is the anniversary of two days that might be said to mark the beginning and end of the First World War. It's the anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife - heirs to the Austrian throne - by Serbian radical Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, the proximate cause of the beginning of the war. If you're interested in further information on the subject there are hundreds of books and films - the best books I know of (and I'm no expert) are Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August (this won a Pulitzer back when they meant something) and John Keegan's The First World War.
On the same date in 1919, five years later, the peace treaty that ended the war was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. In the interim, ten million died, twice that number were wounded, and Europe's late-19th-century faith in the inevitability of progress and human betterment was destroyed. On hearing the terms of the Versailles Treaty, Germany's much-maligned Kaiser Wilhelm II noted from exile that,
"The war to end war has resulted in a peace to end peace,"
and France's Marshall Ferdinand Foch observed,
"This is not peace; it is an armistice for twenty years."
They were right.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
~ Mary, Queen-Consort of England's George V
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
~ Barbara Tuchman (The Guns of August, "Afterward")
As far as I am concerned, it will always be “The War of the Royals”, millions died for them, for what, Empires? Who really won because of it? No one. All it did was plant a seed for the next big one. We didn’t need WW I, it wasn’t our war, we got suckered into it. We had no Royals here, we were not part of anyone’s empire nor were we allied with any of them. The only reason to go was $$$$$.
The "Royals" had no power to speak of after the reforms of the late nineteenth century. France was a parliamentary democracy, and all the others except Russia were "constitutional monarchies" i.e. the crown wielded no real power at all. After the "Glorious Revolution" and the Act of Settlement, all the British crown (arguably the most powerful remaining) had was, in Bagehot's famous words, "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."
Look rather to the chancellors of the various European governments (most particularly France and Germany, which had a long-standing squabble over Alsace and Lorraine).
Archduke Franz Ferdinand signed the exit papers for both sets of my maternal grandparents.
I don’t know what life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire offered them, but mining coal in Colorado looked like a step up!
Barbara Tuchman’s book IS the book on the first months of the war.
Her description of Joffre sitting on the swings deciding what to do is extremely moving and powerful.
Considering what happened to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in subsequent decades, this was, indeed, a wise move.
Yeah.
The archduke was more lenient in his beliefs toward Serbia than the rest of the empire’s leaders.
Ten million plus died in the Russian Civil Wars that resulted from WW1. The Poles at Warsaw in 1920 stopped the Bolsheviks from infesting Germany with Bolshevism.
Guns of August a fine read. For anyone truly interested in the First World War I highly recommend Jeff Shaara’s “To the Last Man.”
“...We didn’t need WW I, it wasn’t our war, we got suckered into it...” [Bringbackthedraft, post 2]
The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir wasn’t the cause. It was the excuse.
Misperceives the international situation of the period, and misidentifies America’s role in all of it.
We Americans seem of two mindsets, which don’t meet up anywhere. Are we the “city on a hill”? Or are we a trading nation, pursuing commerce wherever it can be found, near and far? The evidence points to the latter. Claiming we are the former is pretty presumptive.
The United States did not get “suckered.” The Allies had been pushed to the edge of the cliff. If America had not intervened, the Central Powers would have had the victory, Russia would have become a vassal agrarian state of the Germans or the Austrians, and we’d all be speaking German or some dialect of Turkic.
The economic impact of France and Britain capitulating would have made the 1929-1941 Depression look like a slow sales day on Main Street. The Allies were dependent on USA for materiel and foodstuffs; they were deeply indebted to US banks. Going to war to rescue bankers may not fit the neat little fantasies that more-moral-than-thou isolationists are so in love with, but doing so amounted to less of a disaster than refusing to act. To assert otherwise is to indulge in hubris.
And it is less than honest to blame the “royals.” The pop-culture stereotype of them as heedless lotus-eating sybarites, partying hearty while their lowly troops suffered and perished in the muddy hell of the trenches, is nonsense.
Kaiser William II favored war at first, then reversed course after German officials had conned and tricked the Austrians into backing the Serbians into a corner. He engaged in “personal diplomacy” by writing an exchange of telegrams with Czar Nicholas II, aimed at heading off the clash. At the very last moment, he made telephone calls direct to his commanders on the Western Front, ordering them not to invade France. Senior army officers and other German officials balked; to them, it was unthinkable that invasion plans be interrupted, once given the go-ahead. Troop movements and railway timetables uber alles.
The British did attempt to stay clear, but when the Germans insisted on invading Belgium in their march against France, the British government honored its treaty obligations and did intervene (France and Germany were co-signers, so many of the first principles of diplomacy were being undermined).
It’s pointless to quote historians, authors, and other public intellectuals who have voiced cute little objections along the lines of, “This was so awful, someone should have foreseen!” Many sovereigns did say to their armies, “You’ll be home before the leaves fall!” What of it? Those rousing words have been speechified to massed military forces at the outset of campaigns beyond number. Rarely have conflicts gone so perfectly as to make them come true. Pretending moralistic outrage that the prediction proved wrong in 1914 is just silly.
Today is also the 240th. anniversary of The Battle Of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, also known as The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse in what is now Monmouth County , New Jersey. The battlefield is located at the western edge of Monmouth County near the present day town of Freehold. It’s the county seat for Monmouth County. At the time it was the largest battle ever to occur on the North American Continent. British and German troops under the command of British General Henry Clinton clashed with American Continental Army troops under the command of General ‘’Lighthorse’’ Harry Lee. As persnickety, obstinate, incompetent and all around pain in the butt of a man ever to hold command of American troops. Lee thought The Almighty had achieved the sum of perfection when HE created Lee. Others who knew him had different opinions.The battle was notable because it was the debut of America’s first professionally trained and equipped army. Having sheltered and survived the bitter winter at Valley Forge and under the tutelage of Prussian aristocrat Von Stueben the American Army acquitted itself well on the field that day. The battle itself was a draw, owning much to the fact that Lee had never before commanded such a large force and gave a series of conflicting orders. Alternately ordering some troops to advance and others to withdraw. At one point during the day long battle General Washington arrived to find troops moving to the rear. Dismayed he asked one young solider who ordered him to retreat. ‘’General Lee sir’’ the young man replied. Washington , a man known for a calm demeanor exclaimed “Damn him!’’ and rode forth to rally the troops. What was also of note was the intense heat and humidity that day. By noon the temperature was well over one hundred degrees. There were more men felled by heat exhaustion then musket balls. General Hugh Mercer, Washington’s aide de camp said of the heat that ‘’It was as the fires of a thousand Hades’’. The Battlefeild site is about forty minutes west of where I live. God bless those patriots.
Sometimes when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
My mother in law is from right around the corner, in Holmdel. We used to go to Freehold quite a bit when visiting her family.
Thank you the correction.
I live in Bricktown. I was birn and raised further north, in Keanry.
“All good points.
Sometimes when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” [AnAMericanMother, post 13]
Thanks for the courteous reply
Just because pop-culture notions about World War One differ from some of the facts, it doesn’t mean historians have reached a consensus on causes of the war.
On the last page of his one-volume history of the war, the late Sir John Keegan remarked that the causes remain shrouded in mystery.
Well, if the causes were acknowledged, then a lot of history professors would be out of a job . . . (I was a history major, with a specialty in military history. Thesis on the WBTS.)
I was only there for four years, going to school. Husband worked for Schering in Bloomfield.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.