Posted on 02/28/2025 12:54:35 PM PST by 2manydegrees
When German and Russian defense sensitivities led Russia to mobilize and Germany to respond; and then Poland became a target for division between the two, all of Europe and then the U.S. became participants in a trench war that killed millions of young men.
When the health system of the time was totally unable to cope with the influenza that followed the war, millions more died.
I don't want to see that for my family, my country or my world.
As much as I dislike the Russian history of paranoid aggression, and as much as I admire Ukraine's determined resistance to the Russian military, I do not want to see my admiration turned into a perverse willingness to oppose Russia right down to the last American dollar and the last Ukrainian soldier.
We must stop before our generation crosses the same line that led all Europe and some of America into World War I and its consequences.
My position is: Stop shooting, scare Russia with the right mix of threats and reassurance, make a deal with Ukraine and try to make the next decade better.
Trump may be trying to do that. I hope so.
It take a lot for me to cry, but I did watching “They Shall Not Grow Old”.
Will NOT ever ramble to you again. You just pluck on through your life!
Good for him.
But I'm also interested in American prowess on the battlefield as in the heroics of Sergeant York. Does he cover that base pretty well?
Churchill's ideals seemed more American than British. Does that come across in the book as well?
If you wanted a even worse battle, the Battle of Verdun was started with the express purpose of nothing more than killing the French. Eventually the Germans lost as many or more men but the cost was staggering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
The commies should really sit this one out ... go pray for your pappy Francis
Talk is cheap, but just like your buttboy Zelensky, you’ll see that President Trump is not anyone’s bitch...
Bookmark
He does to some extent but the volumes are about his and GBs experiences. Still highly recommend reading the whole series.
Just my $.02.
There was no Poland at the beginning of World War I. The Russian empire bumped up into the German empire. Poland was created at Versailles.
I do not want any more of our troops to lose their lives in foreign wars. America has sacrificed more than enough for ungrateful “allies”.
Don’t forget various Constitutional Amendments we can blame Wilson for, *ahem*.
Poland gained independence in 1918, the Versailles Treaty was in 1919.
“All Quiet on the Western Front”.
As a retired veteran of nearly 21 years, that book changed me.
Everyone here supports that, pretty clearly! And that IS what is going to happen because of the feckless spineless Putin toadies in the White House.
Nationalism back then was different than it is now. It was a lot more potent — and indeed more dangerous. After the war, German nationalists were killing people they thought were insufficiently nationalist. That did not end well.
Huh?
I am sick of this country kowtowing to it's enemies like we've been the last 25 years. Putin supports Democrats exclusively. He is not the U.S.' friend.
Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
The First World War, John Keegan
I’ve read those two. Tuchman is the better writer.
My impression is that no one has a good explanation for that war. The triggering event is well known, but the decision to let it lead to a huge war that destroyed European civilization isn’t clear. It was a bigger bloodbath than most of us appreciate since we tend to focus more on WWII.
I see that Paul Fussell also has a WWI history, “The Great War and Modern Memory” which I think I’ll order.
The countries were handcuffed by treaty obligations to come to the aid of their allies in case of war. Russia was the only country who could have localized the war in the Balkans by not mobilizing in support of Serbia. Once Russia mobilized the war was on auto pilot. German war plans called for a quick campaign to defeat France like in 1870 before turning on the slower mobilizing Russia.
I listened to Christopher Clark’s “The Sleepwalkers” and Max Hastings’s “Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914” on audiobook and now I’m on Margaret MacMillan’s “The War That Ended Peace.” She’s a little repetitive, but certainly informative (Her grandfather was Lloyd George). All books about how the war started. Hastings gives the standard British version, Clark is a revisionist, and MacMillan is somewhere in between.
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