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The Imperial German war plan, the von Schliefen plan, had to do with the centuries long central European fear of fighting a two front war. The alliance between France and Russia which occurred after the departure of Bismarck, only made those fears in Germany more acute. The French bitterness over there humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and the loss of Alsace Lorraine led them to a very aggressive diplomatic posture respecting Germany. The Russian bear had always coveted a warm water port on the Black See and was ceaselessly intriguing in the Balkans. The Russian aggressiveness and intrusiveness into the Balkans was rightly regarded by the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerens as a threat.

Germany knew that it must avoid a prolonged two front war and its war plans were designed to quickly knock out France so it could turn its full might against Russia. That plan narrowly failed but the Germans were not alone in their hope, if not their belief, that a short war was to be expected. Every single major belligerent, France, Austria, and England, believed almost universally that a short war would ensue.

Indeed, there were very few who thought otherwise except a Pole civilian, a businessman, who wrote presciently about the extent and nature of the first world war but generally the heads of state, the diplomats, and for the most part, the generals all believed that the war would be short, won by a preponderance of force brought first to bear.

War guilt for the First World War cannot exclusively be placed on German hands. The Serbs condoned terrorism to achieve their ends of a greater separatist Serbia. The Austrians wanted a quick and brutal war to discipline the Serbs and preserve the Empire. The Germans wanted a place of primacy which their population and economy had earned and, if a war were to be fought with France and Russia, Germany wanted to fight it on its terms. France wanted to avenge 1871, regain Alsace Lorraine, and humiliate Germany. England entered the war ostensibly to rescue beleaguered Belgium but also because it had a centuries old policy of aligning itself against the greatest continental power to preserve a so-called balance of power. England's intervention into the war guaranteed its spread into a world war.

Vladimir Putin should be seen as a reversion to Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, and, yes, Ivan the Terrible. Ukraine was once part of Poland and even parts of it belonged to Prussia. These quarrels are ancient but the belligerence is now exclusively on one side, Russia. It is not fair to say that all of the guilt for The First World War is exclusively on the side of The Central Powers. I do not mean to intimate that you have placed blame exclusively on the Kaiser, I merely want to state my version.

Have you noticed all those Christians praying on TV in Kiev at the Euruomaidan Revolution? And there are so many Moslems praying here, in North America and in Europe in our schools and comomunity centers. Sort of a culture war and religious thing, no less.

The black hand serbs that shot the archdue ferdinand were pissed that ferdinand has sold them out to the turks. Ferdinand enjoyed lucrative business interests with the Turks and also used them as a counter balance to control the orthodox serbs.Always the same old story - sell out the Christians for $$$ from moslems. Everyone does it.

The Clintons bombed serbia and reduced the Christian serbs to serfs within their own country. You can bet that the millions of $$ received by the CLinton Foundation are from moslem interests. Corruption at the top has always gone against Christian interests in favor of the Moslems. No one teaches the religious underpinnigs of WW1. But facts are there for all to see.

To the contrary, post-Communist Russia NOT the Soviet Union. The Soviet Communists would have crushed this uprising with an appalling loss of human life and they would have kept Ukraine in the fold at all costs.

Putin is many things but he is not looking for a bloodbath. Instead, he has done everything he could do help a friendly government stay in power and push Ukraine to embrace closer political and economic ties with Russua.

This is now clearly off the table and at the moment there is no point to continued Russian economic aid to Ukraine. Ukraine is free to decide to join the EU if it wants. But its people should be under no illusions they can suckle the teats of two cows at the same time.

Russia will try to nudge the new government in Kiev back in a more responsible direction. But if it doesn’t, it has options to protect its interests - beginning with the Crimea. And Kiev has virtually no influence on what happens there. So things are a good deal more tolerant and civilized in Europe with the overthrow of brutal and oppressive Communism.

But that does not mean Russia is no longer a great power. The West had best remember that geopolitical fact of life for the future.

It is remarkable - not surprising to a conservative, but still remarkable - how the borders of the Old Empire are holding up, a century later.

Galicia was never Russian. The Donets Basin was never not Russian.

Wilson’s fantasies about the “prisonhouse of nations” has led to nothing but trouble, from the Sudetenland to Sarajevo, from Syria to Baghdad on to Mecca.

It all comes down, in my opinion, to “where is the border between Germany and Russia?”

Stalingrad is too far East. The Elbe is too far West. Kiev? Who can say?

Obviously, the Bundeswehr has burned all its maps showing the roads into Ukraine, for good reason. I hope the “brave, plucky rebels of the Ukrainian nation” are not expecting help that will never in a million years come.