Posted on 09/01/2024 9:07:12 AM PDT by hardspunned
The assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in late June 1914 had one of the strongest ripple effects in modern history, setting off a series of war declarations across Europe and plunging the world into one of its deadliest conflicts.
World War I, however, didn’t officially begin until a month after Ferdinand’s assassination, and though tensions were high, the fight wasn’t inevitable, according to Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs.
George Washington Today sat down with Dr. Spector to discuss the assassination, the path to war and the new Europe it created.
Q: What was the mood in Europe in the summer of 1914, right around the time of the assassination? A: At the time, things actually seemed to be getting better. The Moroccan Crisis had been settled, the French and Germans had concluded an agreement about the Rhine River, and at the time of the assassination the German Navy was hosting the British Navy at Kiel Week, which is a huge bash with yacht and boat races. Of course, there were certain structural causes present, including the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, the alliance systems and the long-term arms race in naval and land weapons. But these things were in the background. It didn’t seem, in the summer of 1914, that there was much worry about a global war. The French and British newspapers, even for several weeks after the assassination, referred to it as “the Balkan crisis.” They didn’t think this would be a worldwide conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at gwtoday.gwu.edu ...
The French wanted Alsace-Lorraine back ever since its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871.
Ephesians 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
In one form or another we will be under constant attack, unless one surrenders to the rulers of the darkness of this world referenced in this verse.
Warfare takes many forms and is not limited to “wars” on a the battlefield.
If the US would have stayed at home, instead of reaching for the glory and power of EMPIRE, would it even have been called WW 1???
The starting point for our geopolitical analysis is the famous comment by Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century German chancellor at the time of the Congress of Berlin (1878), who dismissed the Balkans as "not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier".
> A century before, yes. If you visit the Arc d’Triomphe in Paris, inside it are stone plaques for each of Napoleon’s victories. <
It’s a bit of a side point, but I was always perplexed by Napoleon-worship. He scattered French bones from Spain to Egypt to Moscow.
It would be one thing if he ended his career as a successful general, like George Washington. But Napoleon ended his career as a miserable failure at Waterloo.
BUMPED to the top... I think that used to happen. You are spot on.
Yep. But if I recall correctly, the demands were crafted such that Serbia couldn’t accept them all.
Just as Hitler’s demands on Poland in 1939 wouldn’t have been accepted. Even if the Poles gave them Danzig, the Germans would have just asked for more, Hitler wanted the war to forge The Third Reich in Blood. He was denied that chance in 1938 in Munich, he wouldn’t let it happen again.
Bismarck was a wise man, sadly Wilhelm wasn’t.
The US Empire started with The Spanish-American War.
And a Socialist Revolution in Germany would have led to Revolution in Europe, and perhaps even here.
The Russians couldn’t have hoped to pull that off after their Revolution.
Again, spot on. You must be one of the first members of the FR. Your original join date is close to my original one. Alas, I don’t control my temper well, and pzz off the wrong people. Good to see some of the original thinkers are still on here.
Good analysis
It wasn’t driven by the government but by the Generals. There was a lot of opposition to the war in the German Government.
This must be incorrect thinking day. Your prose is “through the looking glass”.
My old books from the 19 teens and the twenties call it ‘The Great War’.
Back then Europeans liked their home countries. Now it seams Europeans and the American democrat party HATE their own countries. Our next world wars is one of culture. Commies versus Islam versus Hindus Versus China. Europe is dead, America is dead. Few white western Christian countries have a self interest in surviving. They imported their conquerors already.
This is the best series on WWI
The Great War - (With Indy Neidell)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FgaL0xIazk&list=PLB2vhKMBjSxO1lsrC98VOyOzfW0Gn8Tga
Q: Do you think we really know anything about how or why WW1 started?
Where I’m coming from is, it has been made quite clear that I cannot know what happened in Washington DC yesterday. No media can be trusted and it is dawning on me that to know what really happened, one would actually have had to been there.
And even then you wouldn’t know hardly anything (think about the Trump assassination attempt).
For all I know it was just a plan for routine population control and the assassination of the archduke was the planned excuse.
The next world war won’t be nation vs nation, it will be neighborhood vs neighborhood.
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