Free Republic

One hundred years ago this month, all hell broke loose in France. On March 21, 1918, the German army on the Western Front unleashed a series of massive attacks on the exhausted British and French armies. German General Erich Ludendorff thought he could win World War I with one final blow. He planned to punch holes between the French and British armies. Then he would drive through their trenches to the English Channel, isolating and destroying the British army. The Germans thought they had no choice but to gamble. The British naval blockade of Germany after three years had reduced...

What caused the terrible world war that began 100 years ago this month? The answer is complicated. Economic trends and social oozes certainly had a big role. Man-centered pride rather than God-centered humility ran rampant among both leaders and followers, with some church hierarchs looking to “progress” rather than Christ for salvation. But many of us were struck in the late 1990s by the irresponsibility of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in putting their personal urges ahead of the national interest, and a parallel problem emerged a century ago. Yes, early versions of Monica Lewinsky occupied the minds of many...

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes, quipped Mark Twain. As with most of Twain’s homilies, it’s funny because it’s true. So as the world commemorates the Guns of August—that is, the start of World War I-- history is not repeating itself. But the world today does seem to have a certain poetic, unrhymed iambic pentameter in common with the Great War. “With a dimming of the lights and ceremonies across this country and in Belgium, monarchs, princes, presidents and citizens prepared on Monday to mark the day 100 years ago when Britain entered World War I at the start...

On July 28, 1914, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II returned to Berlin after a long sailing holiday in the North Sea and off Norway. While vacationing, Wilhelm had tried to follow the events of July 1914 -- a tumult spawned by the June 28 murder of Austro-Hungarian Empire Archduke Ferdinand. Radical Serbian nationalists assassinated Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia, to send the world a message. Serb extremists would never accept Vienna's 1908 unilateral annexation of Bosnia. Wilhelm promised Vienna German support in obtaining restitution. Serbia might resist the Habsburgs' rickety empire, but German power gave Vienna the diplomatic heft to pursue tough,...