WWI: The War That Changed Everything

[Chris]

Interesting to me because I don't know enough about WWI.


"Think of all the horrors of the 20th Century: The Holocaust. The Bolshevik Revolution. The Cold War. Were it not for the assassination of one Austro-Hungarian archduke in 1914, none of those events would have ever happened. Historian and author Andrew Roberts explains."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9lWdkCxXYg

[Lummy]

Um ... Russian Revolution came before WW1 ... well, concurrently, I guess. Never mind.

[Chris]

THought the Russian Revolution started in 1917.

[southwest88]

& what caused the Great War? It wasn't merely the shooting of an archduke - Europe had been @ peace for a long time, & the respective governments & especially the militaries had built elaborate mobilization plans, involving railroad schedules, surging troops & equipment, to meet up @ specified times & places. The Germans, enjoying compact interior lines of comms, figured to steal a march on everyone else by moving more people & gear faster & further than anyone else could.

But their mobilization plans weren't flexible - it was an all-or-nothing kind of throw of the dice. They didn't have any provisions for merely preparing to move, or sending out alert orders preparatory to a move. Once they mobilized, they were committed - & their diplomacy (all the principals', really) was all also do-or-die. The German military figured that they needed to move immediately & ahead of everyone else, in order to maintain their mobilization advantage - to get to their objectives with overwhelming force before the enemy could bring up reinforcements or dig in. Germany figured they could always return or negotiate territory, if they overran their initial objectives - or were, in other words, too successful.

The diplomacy, such as it was, consisted of the various parties consulting their treaties & figuring out who they were allied to. The diplomacy never caught up with the military mobilization - by the time anyone realized what mobilization entailed, they were within hours of the shooting war - & the mass carnage began.

[Captdon]

& what caused the Great War? It wasn't merely the shooting of an archduke - Europe had been @ peace for a long time, & the respective governments & especially the militaries had built elaborate mobilization plans, involving railroad schedules, surging troops & equipment, to meet up @ specified times & places. The Germans, enjoying compact interior lines of comms, figured to steal a march on everyone else by moving more people & gear faster & further than anyone else could.

But their mobilization plans weren't flexible - it was an all-or-nothing kind of throw of the dice. They didn't have any provisions for merely preparing to move, or sending out alert orders preparatory to a move. Once they mobilized, they were committed - & their diplomacy (all the principals', really) was all also do-or-die. The German military figured that they needed to move immediately & ahead of everyone else, in order to maintain their mobilization advantage - to get to their objectives with overwhelming force before the enemy could bring up reinforcements or dig in. Germany figured they could always return or negotiate territory, if they overran their initial objectives - or were, in other words, too successful.

The diplomacy, such as it was, consisted of the various parties consulting their treaties & figuring out who they were allied to. The diplomacy never caught up with the military mobilization - by the time anyone realized what mobilization entailed, they were within hours of the shooting war - & the mass carnage began.

There were also interlocking treaties.From the net:

The Triple Entente was formed by interlocking alliances between 1904 and 1907. The Triple Alliance (1882) was a defensive alliance. Italy did not join the war because Austria and Germany had attacked. The proximate cause of the outbreak of combat was the Austrian Declaration of War on Serbia.


Triple Entente. an informal understanding among Great Britain, France, and Russia based on a Franco-Russian military alliance (1894), an Anglo-French entente (1904), and an Anglo-Russian entente (1907).Russia, not Germany, mobilised first.


The resulting war, with France and Britain backing Serbia and Russia against two Central Powers, was Russia's desired outcome, not Germany's. Still, none of the powers can escape blame. All five Great Power belligerents, along with Serbia, unleashed Armageddon.

[southwest88]

There were also interlocking treaties.From the net:
…

Yes. See

The long shadow : the legacies of the Great War in the twentieth century / David Reynolds, 1952- , c2014, W. W. Norton & Company, 940.3 REYN 20014.

The world remade : America in World War I / G.J. Meyer, 1940- , c2016, Bantam Books, 940.373 MEYE.

The dark valley : a panorama of the 1930s / Piers Brendon, c2000, Alfred Knopf, 940.52 Bren.