The Great Folly of World War I

American Thinker.com ^ | November 18, 2017 | Mike Konrad

[Kaslin]

World War I was the greatest folly by far to befall Western civilization. The second greatest folly was America entering the catastrophe. The totalitarian rebounds that followed were consequences that could have been avoided.

I am not excusing German militarism, which indeed played a major part. The kaiser was arguably mentally ill, with dreams of martial glory and building an empire.

He had ignored the advice of Bismarck, who, though militarist himself, had enough sense to limit his territorial ambitions. Bismarck knew that Germany was surrounded on all sides and that it is not good to provoke rivals. So the kaiser pressured Bismarck to resign. The kaiser wanted Germany to have her "Place in the Sun."

The problem was that the sun was already owned by the British, and it never set on their empire.

Now, to be sure, British complaints about German militarism rang hollow when Britain sought a navy as big as her next two competitors combined, and when the British Empire owned a quarter of the planet, against the wishes of most of its inhabitants. The French Empire was similarly culpable, though not quite as large. Nor can the French be excused of the charge of militarism. After her defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France went on an arms-building binge. Her policy toward Germany was "revanchism" – revenge.

[wardaddy]

Atrocious waste of white Christian life

[niteowl77]

The native troops fought under von Lettow to the end. They had started thinking of themselves as citizens of the German Reich, and took pride in it. The British viewed von Lettows arming of black troops to fight white men as an abomination.

I read where the standard post-WWI German "test" to see if an askari had really been in Imperial German military service was for a civil servant to bellow a couple of crisp drill-ground commands, watching how quickly and correctly they obeyed.

[Reily]

And this was still done up until sometime in the 1960s to early 1970s. Done at the German consulate in Namibia to see if some old African codger was indeed a German askari. This was the test to get his WWI pension.

[chimera]

They endured three years' worth of indescribable horror, of things never seen before in warfare. Trenches, gas, rapid-fire machine guns. Seeing those cemeteries and crosses in Flanders is enough to make grown men cry. No wonder Remembrance Sunday is such a sacred holiday in the UK.

I've always thought that Brits and Aussies make the best allies. Here is an anecdote from my Dad, one of the few times he would describe things to me as a youngster. He went ashore on D-Day at Utah Beach and after a couple of days they made their way inland and began encountering a lot of the gliders that went in prior to the troop landings. A lot were wrecked with no survivors, but a patrol from my father's company encountered one where a single survivor was found, broken arm, still hanging from his safety straps, which he could not release because of his arm. He'd been like that for going on three days. It was a British crew and they brought the wounded man back to American lines and after receiving first aid the only thing the guy wanted to do was rejoin his buddies and give the Germans hell. The American medics sent him back with instructions not to let him back into combat until the arm was fully healed. That story made it into the army newspapers and the headline was: "Limeys Are Tough!" I'd have to agree.

[Paal Gulli]

In Europe it was often called “the cousin’s war,” basically a family squabble on a global scale. The Kings of England, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Norway and Romania (or their spouses) all were related by blood. George V, Wilhelm II and Alexander II all were grandsons of Queen Victoria (AKA the grandmother to Europe).

(Globalist and messianic progressive) Woodrow Wilson’s chief interest in getting the US involved was so we could win a seat at the head of the world table, which would give him leverage to coerce countries to join his League of Nations. This was why he ordered Pershing never to let American soldiers/Marines fight under a European commander, and why all news reports were censored to redact the names of individual soldiers. WW wanted all the glory going to the “Big A” army rather than the men who fought to earn it. He wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t the American fighting men who decided the outcome of the war, it was the American military.

[Honorary Serb]

Actually, only one was a muslim.

But the whole lot of them were Yugoslav nationalists, not Serbian nationalists. Yugoslavia proved to be a bad bargain for the Serbian people, including those in Montenegro (Crna Gora) and Bosnia!!!!

[Peter Libra]

I was very interested in your account. Also of your Dad at Utah Beach on D-Day. I know that somebody had the idea of gliders with troops in them. They were to land well ahead of the beach head troops, behind the enemy. The idea was to confuse the enemy, who would not know where the attacks were coming from. I understand it was a disaster for them. At least that is what I read somewhere.

My Dad got the Distinguished Conduct Medal in May 1940 at the Dendre Canal in Belgium. He was Platoon Sgt. Major with 15 men. Tried to hamper a small group of Rommel's Panzers and the following German infantry. Got off at Dunkirk ok. Two grandfathers in WW1 in France. One an infantryman, the other a medic. Both survived.

[redgolum]

I read that also.

They not only could do the drills, but when an aging von Lettow came for a visit, many of his old soldiers praised with him.

I have come to admire von Lettow. An honorable man. When asked by Hitler to be a diplomat, he told der furher to go f himself. Lost both of his sons at the Eastern Front

[x]

Thank you, Bob Dole.

But we have had a few wars since then that Democrats didn't get us into.

[x]

There would have been no rise of fascism in the West. No rise of bolshevism in the East. Any German gains would have been soon smothered under a rising wave of East European nationalism that the Germans could not have controlled.

If the allies lost WWI, there would almost certainly have been something like fascism or communism or military dictatorship in Italy, and probably in France.

And, wait a minute, there was already Bolshevism in Russia by 1917, would it have gone away like it never happened?

Rising East European nationalism was largely a result of Wilson's pushing for new countries in the region.

That wouldn't have happened had Germany won, and in any case, the rising wave of Eastern European nationalism after WWI in our own timeline did nothing to weaken Germany's grasp on the region.

If we hadn't interfered, Germany would have quite a grip on Europe and somebody like Mike Konrad would be writing a very similar article attacking Wilson for standing by and doing nothing.

I'm not saying intervention was the right choice, but you can never know whether or not the other choice would have been worse or as bad -- and even if it the other way couldn't possibly have been as bad as what happened in our own history, nobody living in that alternative universe would know that.

[DiogenesLamp]

Ping. Here is someone making the same point I have attempted to make with you. US entry into the war triggered massive bloodshed that would have been avoided had we stayed out of it.

[DiogenesLamp]

The US had to choose between entering the war or allowing a probable German victory. Did the US make the correct choice? We will never know, because we will never know what would have happened otherwise.

So our choices were, all the hundred million plus who died as a result of the history we have now, with a European Union effectively dominated by Germany.

Or Germany winning World War I, none of the subsequent hundred plus million dead, and a Europe effectively dominated by Germany.

It could have hardly turned out worse than it did had the Germans won WWI.

[DiogenesLamp]

To deny that the Civil War was about slavery is naked sophistry.

You have that completely backwards. To assert that it was about slavery is naked sophistry. I have proof to back up that statement in the form of Lincoln's 1rst inaugural address in which he offers support for the "Corwin Amendment."

If Lincoln was going to offer slavery as a permanent and inviolable institution, then what possible reason would the South have to leave if there only concern was over slavery?

Beyond that, i've done the math. The 11 confederate states, if they voted against it, no amendment to ban slavery would have been possible till we had a Union of 44 states, which would not have happened until 1896. If the other five Union slave states voted against it, it would require a Union with 64 states to override them.

In a non broken Union, it would have been impossible to eradicate slavery.

Beyond that, When the Union invaded the South, not a single order said anything about freeing slaves. In fact Lincoln said on more than one occasion that he did not have the legal power to do such a thing.

So yeah. Saying the war was about slaves, is utter horse crap. The war was over whether or not the South would be independent of Washington DC and the New York power brokers who currently run the country today.

They started claiming the war was to free the slaves about midway through it. The Washington DC/New York cartel won, and their official propaganda was to ever after describe the war as having been fought over slavery.

But no, the War was fought over Washington losing control of all that money produced in the South. Had the North won quickly, the slave labor production would have resumed just as it was before.

[DiogenesLamp]

But you are correct in the rest of your analysis. I’ve already pointed out elsewhere that had the South won, both the Spanish American war, and America’s entry into World War I would have been very likely avoided. It was as you said, a self righteous pursuit of glory. This was also true of some regarding the civil war.

[DiogenesLamp]

Why do you consider the possibility of Germany winning the war to be a bad thing? Perhaps it could have turned out worse than the hundred millions plus murdered in our timeline, but it is hard to see how the world could have done worse than what did happen.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

My 15-year old 6-foot tall grandfather lied about his age to join the Army. His mother had to go down to South Carolina to get him out and bring him home.

[chimera]

Like I said, who knows? I was simply commenting that it would be a mistake to discount the entry of the US on the side of the Allies as insignificant.

Other than that, all I can say is that the whole episode was utterly horrific and indescribably bloody. Prior wars had killed their tens of thousands, but this one killed over ten million. It was mechanized slaughter on a scale never seen before, with an average daily death count of over seven thousand, all for a stalemate of essentially four years. I can't imagine enduring such a thing.

[HandyDandy]

DiogenesLamp “I have proof to back up that statement in the form of Lincoln's 1rst inaugural address in which he offers support for the "Corwin Amendment." If Lincoln was going to offer slavery as a permanent and inviolable institution, then what possible reason would the South have to leave if there only concern was over slavery?”

Hey, come on, man. Stop spreading your horse-shit. You are disrespecting History, Lincoln, and your fellow Freepers. Those of us that have open minds well know that the Corwin Ammendment, which Lincoln fully supported, did not in any way shape or form “offer slavery as a permanent and inviolable institution”. What the Corwin Ammendment proposed, very plainly and simply, was to take the matter of Slavery out of Federal hands and make it thenceforth and forever a States rights issue. Get it straight, ace, before you continue to misrepresent it in public. Read again Lincoln’s words related to the Corwin Amendment from his first Innaugural Address. Slowly, carefully and with an open mind. Be honest with yourself and you can be honest with others. You are twisting the meaning of the Corwin Amendment. And don’t forget that Lincoln sent out letters to every State Governor to make sure each and every one of them was fully aware of the proposed Amendment. Seems that you and your ilk are the last to understand its meaning.

[Bringbackthedraft]

What was Zyklon-B? .....................it was originally meant as an insecticide used on crops?

[iowamark]

In 1917, nobody could have predicted the Depression, the rise of Hitler, and WWII. A German military victory in 1917-18 seemed like a terrible thing, and it would have been.