• The Great War Discussion
    80 replies, posted
It was 100 years ago, on this very day, that the greatest conflict man had, until that time, ever known. Soldiers from all 6 inhabited continents fought and died in what would become one of the bloodiest wars in history. The First World War shaped much of the world we know of. From the conflicts in the Middle East to the Cold War stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union, nearly everything can be traced back to the First World War. So to commemorate this unfathomably large, important, and often overshadowed conflict, I made this thread. I can't imagine that a thread will appease the spirits of the restless dead or whatever, but it may be able to spur some interesting discussion on the Great War. So, for those who are uneducated, here is a very quick, small synopsis: [QUOTE=]In the year of 1914, Europe was poised for war. The Great Powers were at each other's throats, each one vying to take or maintain the status of most powerful empire on Earth. Through the many centuries leading up to the Great War, there emerged two sides: the Central Powers and the Triple Entente. Each was founded on aged alliances, but the truth is that they were all allied to promote the goals of each alliance country. The Central Powers included the Germany Empire, ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Austro-Hungarian Empire (also known as the Hapsburg Empire) led by Franz Joseph, and later the Ottoman Empire, led by Enver Pasha. The Entente included France, which was notably a democracy at this time despite flip-flopping for many years after the end of Napoleon's reign, led by Georges Clemenceau, the British Empire, "ruled" by King George V, and the Russian Empire, led by Tsar Nicholas II. It is worth noting Italy, led by Victor Emmanuel III, started as part of the Central Powers but switched sides halfway through the war and joined the Entente. Now we get to the important part; why the hell did these guys go to war? The big reasons were ambition and greed. Let us start with Germany, who have been wrongly accused of "starting" the war. Germany formed in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian war. Prior to this, Germany was a collection of city-states and petty duchies/kingdoms. Prussia, which was comprised of modern day Poland and the former state of Brandenburg, led the helm at unification. Most of this was caused by Napoleon's invasions fostering nationalism across Europe, as people began to resent French hegemony. In 1871, Prussia led the city-states in a final war against France and annihilated them. It humiliated France and allowed Germany, with the aid of the brilliant Otto von Bismarck, to unify. Near the turn of the century, Kaiser Wilhelm II became the ruler of Germany. He had grand ideas about making Germany great through conquest and colonization, instead of maintaining their current spot of continental power. This was one of many disagreements that led him to remove Bismarck as chancellor. Now, for Germany to become the dominant power, they would have to supplant the British Empire, which currently controlled a vast portion of the world and was easily the wealthiest nation. They did this through their amazing navy. Kaiser Wilhelm II started building a navy to rival the British, prompting a pre-war arms race of sorts. He also went about training and equipping the German military which, at the time, was the strongest and best trained army on Earth. His ally, the Austro-Hungarians, were one of the oldest empires in Europe, but because of the aforementioned nationalism that spread from Napoleon's conquests and a lack of faith in the Austrian government -among numerous other issues- were causing them to collapse from internal pressure. Obviously, war would be good to help direct the public's anger away from the central government, right? Well, sadly for them, the Austro-Hungarian military was unprepared and run by incompetent generals. The Ottomans -who were the oldest of all the empires in the war- faced similar problems of internal revolt from groups like Armenians that had long been oppressed by the central government. That, and the Ottoman Empire had gradually been decentralizing, with many local rulers gaining more power than their own government. The Ottomans were also very unprepared for a war, with stretched supply lines and little in the way of a manufacturing sector to cover the weight of providing arms and ammo for their troops. Now, about the Entente. Contrary to what movies and most Anglosphere history books will tell you, the war was not between the British and the Germans. It was more or less a war between the French and the Germans. France had hated Germany since their unification. They saw them as a massive threat, they were angered over their humiliation in the Franco-Prussian war, but most of all they were in anguish over having lost the position of continental power. The French new that the Germans had a better military, so the French started looking for allies. They swooped up Prussia's former friend Russia after the Germans failed to reproach the Russians. They also signed a treaty with their once immortal enemy, Britain, although the alliance was tenuous at best and relations between the two countries were still strained. Britain was also keeping its eye on Germany. Long had Britain reigned as the dominant power on Earth, but they were afraid with that the growing Germany could easily take that prize from them. The Brits would also much rather have had France as the dominant power of mainland Europe. France was easier to subdue and was less open with its competition with Britain. Russia was, like the Hapsburgs, crumbling under revolt. Years of oppressive feudal rule and a terrible leap and subsequent faceplant into the industrial age had left a massive population of landless, jobless poor in Russia. Those who did find industrial work found it even worse than farming, and for little and less pay. They suffered the same growing pains of other industrial nations, but Russia was so late to the party that their people simply got fed up. It wasn't helped by the absurd failure of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, which caused many to lose faith in the Tsar's ability to protect his country and people. Italy, a new state like Germany, was caught between desperately wanting to be a world power, and desperately wanting to be a continental one. They had been in a war with the Ottomans just prior to the Great War, and the Austrians had played a major role in attempting to stop their unification. They also sought the Austrian province of Trent, as well as other Austrian-held provinces in what is now Croatia. It should be no surprise, then, that they joined the Entente. So, with many reasons for war, most of which stretching back longer than some of the countries involved, it was obvious to everyone that Europe would be at war. However, nobody would have guessed just how massive and destructive such a war would be. The commonly held belief at the start of the war in 1914 was that war was a good thing; it made boys into men, brought honor and wealth to a nation, and it was glorious. World War One would tear down all of these ideas over time. So it was that 100 years ago, on this day, the First World War began in Sarajevo. Sarajevo was part of Austrian-held Bosnia. The Balkan nation of Serbia badly wanted to reclaim Bosnia, and they were heavily reliant on Slavic nationalism in Bosnia to drive unrest. However, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, supported the ideas of closer ties with the Slavs in the empire. The Serbs were afraid that Ferdinand's policies, should he come to power, would make the Bosnians complacent and accepting of Austro-Hungarian rule. So a group called the [i]Black Hand[/i] conspired to assassinate him when he was visiting in Sarajevo. The first attempt failed, but by chance one of the nationalists, Gavrilo Princip, happened to be eating lunch by where Ferdinand's motorcade was passing. He ran out, fire several shots into the car, and killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia. This sparked a national crisis as Franz Jospeh sent an ultimatum to Serbia, who were given responsibility for the group's actions, hoping they would refuse and thus bring war and annexation. The Serbs conceded to 8 of the 10 demands of the ultimatum, thus sparking war. The Austro-Hungarians asked for German support, which they gave. Germany also called on Italy, but the Italians made it clear that their alliance was a defensive one, and the Austro-Hungarians were clearly on the offense, so they declined. Meanwhile, the Serbs called their ally Russia, who called [I]their[/I] ally France. Germany declared war on Russia and asked France to stop mobilizing its troops, but France kept mobilizing. Germany declared war on France. The German war plan was the Schlieffen Plan. Germany would invade France by way of Belgium, take Paris, and turn around the fight the much bigger fish: Russia. It was a gamble, but it was the best shot the Germans had. They asked Belgium if they would let their soldiers pass through peacefully, but King Albert told them "I own a country, not a road" and they promptly went to war. The Germans made short work of the Belgians, who had a very small military outside of their garrison troops, but it gave France some time to prepare. Still, the Germans advanced well into France. Meanwhile, Germany's violation of Belgian sovereignty resulted in Britain joining the war. This escalated the conflict into a true world war, as it would later see Britain's allies of Canada, Brazil, British Raj (India), Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and others participate in the conflict. Not to trivialize the conduct of the war, but I will keep this next part short. I always say the "why" is more important than the "how". The British Expeditionary Force arrived in France and helped stop the German advance just outside Paris at the First Battle of the Marne. The situation evolved into the well-known trench warfare that the war is infamous for. Meanwhile, after some setbacks, the Germans performed better than expected against Russia.As I mentioned, Japan had entered the war. They gave a demand to Germany to give up all of their Pacific Colonies. The Germans obviously declined, so Japan seized them by force. America stayed neutral, but it was obvious who they were rooting for, as they sent supplies and weapons to Britain. Fighting in Africa also erupted. Most German colonies were siezed quite early, but German East Afrika held out thanks to the brilliant General von Lettow Vorbeck. German and British navies clashed all around the world. The war saw such bloody and chaotic battles as [I]Verdun,[/I] [I]The Somme[/I], [I]Tannenberg,[/I] and [I]Gallipoli[/I]. New weapons of war caused massive casualties, such as machine guns combined with trenches, tanks, mustard gas, fighter planes, and bombers, combined with old tactics to make some absurdly bloody battles. In the end, Germany was all that was left. Austria-Hungary had effectively been defeated by the Russians and internal revolt, and it was the same for the battered Ottomans. However, in 1917, Germany shipped Lenin, who was then in exile in Switzerland, back to his home to stir up an equally bloody and horrific war: the Russian Civil War. Meanwhile, the sinking of [I]Lusitania[/I] and the Zimmerman Telegram motivated the US to call for war. With American soldiers coming from overseas, Germany took all its troops from the Eastern Front and pushed West in one last attempt to end the conflict in their favor. Considering it was them against the world, it should be no surprise that they failed. With the Allies pushing them back, a humongous economic crisis, and food shortages, the people revolted, the Kaiser abdicated and fled to the Netherlands, and the German Republic was born. They quickly ended the war at the Treaty of Versailles.[/QUOTE] World War One had a profound impact on how we see war. By its end, 12 million lives (the overwhelming majority being civilians) were lost, numerous old empires had crumbled, and the world as we know it was never the same. Commonwealth states began to split from Britain, having shed their own blood for an empire half a world away. France was in just as bad a shape as Germany, with many of its young men dead, missing, or permanently disfigured. Germans were left with a bitter cocktail of defeat and humiliation, and we all know where that went. The Soviet Union was born and the US was launched onto the World Stage as a major power. It was a different world coming out of the war, and there is no way I can do it justice. So discuss. If you would like to read more, here are a few places I recommend you start: [URL="http://www.firstworldwar.com/"]First World War.com[/URL] A website I used a lot when researching the war. It has lots of interesting facts and tidbits, and most importantly it examines the cultural and civilian side of the war. [URL="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/WorldWarI?from=Main.WorldWarOne"]TV Tropes.com[/URL] A nice synopsis of the war. Kind of a shameless plug because I helped write it. (Also, if you have any other historical event or war, look it up on TvTropes. They do a good job of putting it in a "digestible", user-friendly format) And of course, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I"]trusty old Wikipedia.[/URL]
shit was bad [editline]29th July 2014[/editline] and sad too
People tend to overlook the massive significance of WWI to history as WWII gets all the limelight. Not to undermine WWII, but it bugs me a bit how people fail to recognise just how important 'The Great War' was due to it not being done to death in hollywood. That's probably because there's not much glamour or chivalric appeal about sitting in a trench for weeks and then charging the enemy and dying as you are peppered with maxim rounds.
It was a tragically important event for humanity. Without it, the international society would not have been shaped the way it was. The world could have continued being dominated by empires; the US might have kept to themselves forever, as they planned prior to both world wars; the Russian revolution might never have happened. In a perhaps twisted way, we can thank this war for pushing the entirety of humanity to work with each other. We have worked together to go into space, worked for world peace, have collaborated on some of the greatest medical breakthroughs in our times. All it took were millions of lives to see that.
My great grandfather fell ill to Smallpox literally the week before he was supposed to go to training. By the time he recovered, the war was close to over, and he wasn't eligible to join. I wonder what would have happened to him if he went there.
Only family member I have that participated in the war was a great-great-great uncle who fought for the Kaiser. According to one family member or another, he apparently got shot in the face twice but managed to live and put the bullets on his stein.
My great grandfather fought for the UK in France during the great war. He burned his uniform and became a socialist. My grandfather fought in Italy during the second war and became a staunch conservative who was proud of his military accomplishments. Its an interesting difference.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;45531346]My great grandfather fought for the UK in France during the great war. He burned his uniform and became a socialist. My grandfather fought in Italy during the second war and became a staunch conservative who was proud of his military accomplishments. Its an interesting difference.[/QUOTE] There's a reason one is "great."
What were they thinking calling it World War I like that? Surely that ensured WWII was going to happen! but seriously, what a fucked up situation. So many lives wasted over basically so little.
The assassination of the Archduke has to be the most overwhelmingly successful terrorist acts in history, since the ensuing conflict led to the creation of Yugoslavia.
What was the most deadly bullet in history? .380 ACP The bullet used to assassinate the Archduke
I might upload my great-granddad's war diary from 1915
My friend's Grandfather restored a WWI Ambulance, Ambulance 255. [url]http://www.ambulance255.org/[/url] Got to ride in it, it was a surreal moment for me since I'm a WWI Buff. It's currently touring Europe for the Centennial. What else, I had some family members who fought in WWI for the Americans.
Shit was nasty as fuck, my great grandfathers both survived the retreat through Albania, too bad my grandparents always ignored them and their stories of what they experienced there, i bet you could make a movie of what they told if it was written down or something
I always wondered what Gavrilo Princip felt like in his jail cell. The world was falling apart around him and it was all his fault
The First World War really was the most pointless war in history and that really is saying something. It's one of the few wars I can think of with no positive consequences what so ever, infact in my opinion it's one of the most if not the worst catastrophe mankind has ever suffered. The First World War led to the creation of the Soviet Union and Communist China and all the deaths and suffering those and the rest of the Communist countries caused, it caused the rise of the Nazis and the Second World War as well as the Holocaust which ultimately led to the Cold War and Nuclear weaponry and it caused all the problems we now face in the middle east. All of this happened because Franz Ferdinand's driver took a wrong turn giving Gavrillo Princip a 2nd chance to kill the Archduke. All the killing and death of the 20th century because of a simple mistake.
World War Two was World War One continued.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45532851]The assassination of the Archduke has to be the most overwhelmingly successful terrorist acts in history, since the ensuing conflict led to the creation of Yugoslavia.[/QUOTE] It's difficult to say that because it probably wouldn't have had any impact at all if it wasn't for multiple pre-existing conditions, such as the alliance system, the Schlieffen Plan and the 10 point Ultimatum.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45532851]The assassination of the Archduke has to be the most overwhelmingly successful terrorist acts in history, since the ensuing conflict led to the creation of Yugoslavia.[/QUOTE] Yet it was also quite a bumbling affair. Not only did the first attack fail, one of the assassins bit into his (defective) cyanide capsule and tried to drown himself in a 3 ft deep river. Princip just happened to get lucky when the Archduke told his driver to take a shortcut.
World War I was humanity's greatest mistake. The worst mistake since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. "For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free." ~ Anatole France
[QUOTE=The mouse;45544257]The First World War really was the most pointless war in history and that really is saying something. It's one of the few wars I can think of with no positive consequences what so ever, infact in my opinion it's one of the most if not the worst catastrophe mankind has ever suffered. The First World War led to the creation of the Soviet Union and Communist China and all the deaths and suffering those and the rest of the Communist countries caused, it caused the rise of the Nazis and the Second World War as well as the Holocaust which ultimately led to the Cold War and Nuclear weaponry and it caused all the problems we now face in the middle east. All of this happened because Franz Ferdinand's driver took a wrong turn giving Gavrillo Princip a 2nd chance to kill the Archduke. All the killing and death of the 20th century because of a simple mistake.[/QUOTE] That is overlooking the fact that this war as going to happen with or without Princip. It was only by luck that we avoided it two years earlier with the Moroccan crisis. In truth, had the Archduke's visit gone off without a hitch, the war still would have happened. The greed and ambition of the empires at hand would eventually culminate into something. Also, as a side note, it is sad how little anyone cares about the Great War anymore. I bet most people couldn't even tell you why it started, especially here in America since our involvement was tiny. We have so easily forgotten the lesson that took two wars and 72 million combined deaths; greed is bad. I don't think we should have to tell anybody this, but with what is happening in the Ukraine I think it is safe to say we will never fucking learn. The Concert of Europe yet plays its horrid song, a song of shouts and clashing fire, a ceaseless, unending song. The song shall never end as long as men will be men, so we must bear witness to its tune.
[QUOTE=The_J_Hat;45545655]Yet it was also quite a bumbling affair. Not only did the first attack fail, one of the assassins bit into his (defective) cyanide capsule and tried to drown himself in a 3 ft deep river. Princip just happened to get lucky when the Archduke told his driver to take a shortcut.[/QUOTE] The story of how it happened almost makes me believe in fate.
[QUOTE=scurr;45528895]People tend to overlook the massive significance of WWI to history as WWII gets all the limelight. Not to undermine WWII, but it bugs me a bit how people fail to recognise just how important 'The Great War' was due to it not being done to death in hollywood. That's probably because there's not much glamour or chivalric appeal about sitting in a trench for weeks and then charging the enemy and dying as you are peppered with maxim rounds.[/QUOTE] In Australia we don't overlook its significance, every April the 25th we stand together to remember the ANZACs who were sent to Gallipoli, which was a huge fuck up on the British Army because they essentially put them to an early grave. But I feel without it, we wouldn't be as close to New Zealand as we are today since the ANZACs made a tradition which we call the anzac spirit
[QUOTE=TheNerdPest14;45544815]World War Two was World War One continued.[/QUOTE] I disagree. WW1 was about nationalism and imperialism. WW2 had both of the above but was also strongly influenced by ideology. The rise of socialism, capitalism and facism.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;45561205]I disagree. WW1 was about nationalism and imperialism. WW2 had both of the above but was also strongly influenced by ideology. The rise of socialism, capitalism and facism.[/QUOTE] How is a belief in nationalism and imperialism not an ideology? Also, socialism and capitalism existed before and during WWI. Socialism just didn't have a country in the first round. Both wars are basically a Second Thirty Years War, with a 20 year break. You have to remember all the little things that happened between the actual conflicts, such as the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, etc. that could all be counted toward one whole conflict.
Well actually Socialism really caused the absence of a country so it did have a profound affect on the war in 1918, mainly allowing Germany to focus their troops on the Western Front.
My Great Grandfather was a deserter during the 1st World War, he and a friend of his made their way from the front line in France back to England unseen and uncaught. He then changed his name and hid in Wales for a short time before signing up again under his new name. He was then caught out some time later and was sent to serve with his original unit, he survived the war earned some medals and went on to do some equally silly things for the rest of his life.
[QUOTE=Chrisordie;45578943]My Great Grandfather was a deserter during the 1st World War, he and a friend of his made their way from the front line in France back to England unseen and uncaught. He then changed his name and hid in Wales for a short time before signing up again under his new name. He was then caught out some time later and was sent to serve with his original unit, he survived the war earned some medals and went on to do some equally silly things for the rest of his life.[/QUOTE] he ran away to rejoin. Why?
[QUOTE=Araknid;45579810]he ran away to rejoin. Why?[/QUOTE] I guess he must have felt guilty for doing a runner and then decided to rejoin or felt that they were less likely to shoot him if he made it look as though he was trying to make up for doing a runner.
The first world war was inevitable, it announced the end of imerperialism, Too many nations trying to conquer too much. It led to Capitalism, for better or for worse. Life was a lot simpler for most before the war.
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