The Great War changed everything

In the past we have seen that any occasion may be taken to start a war, be it an assassination or some dispute about grounds (territory), or just greed to have more power over a wider area.

Often people are thinking they are involved in a defensive struggle for just aims or think they are doing good to go for their country, defending it or defending their goals.

Like for the Great War it was proven many years later that often it was not the one thought to be the beginner of the war (Germany in 1914) who really started the battle, though sometimes the victim became accused to be the agitator.

Germany’s and Austria-Hungary’s roles are deemphasised, and it is stressed that there were decision-makers in all the major capital cities who considered a general European war in August 1914 to be a risk worth taking. After 100 years of debate, every conceivable interpretation seems to have been advanced. In some of the most recent publications, even seeking to attribute responsibility, as had so confidently been done at Versailles, is now eschewed.

Often we also see that when certain countries were created artificially in the end it did not work and got them fighting again to restore older borders.

Award-winning journalist who covers military history and national security issues for daily newspapers and online publications, Paul Richard Huard, looks at the trigger of what cause the 9 million soldiers and 8 million civilians dying in a war like no others.

I disagree with him that war

is an elemental human experience.{saying on his about page}

He also finds that history doesn’t repeat itself, but I do think it does and it does much more than echoing it. But we can see that it is because many do not know their history that such repetitions can take place. It is the preferred deafness and blindness which takes the people making the same faults again and again.

Some of those echoes — resurgent nationalism, xenophobia, militarism, economic turmoil, and tin-eared elites deaf to the concerns of ordinary individuals on the ragged end of globalism — could presage similar events

Today many people should better look into the mirror both World War I/The Great War , the Balkan wars and World War II give us. What happened 100 years ago may have shaped the contemporary world every day but still many have not learned the lessons yet. War changes the world.

Let’s hope that drastic change isn’t around the corner.

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Preceding articles

1. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting… George Orwell
2. Parade’s End and Saint Flora Castle
3. 1914 – 2014 preparations
4. 11 November, a day to remember #1 Until Industrialisation
5. 11 November, a day to remember #2 From the Industrialisation
6. Mons 2014 remembering the Great War
7. Liège 2014 remembering the Great War
8. August 4, 1914 to be remembered
9. Honouring hundreds of thousands of victims of the brutal Somme battle
10. Ulster Tower ceremony for the Irish at the Somme battle
11. Aftermath
12. Juncker warns for possible new war

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Additional reading

1. A world with or without religion
2. July 4, 1916 – Battle of the Somme greeted with ‘the greatest enthusiasm’
3. Reflections on the Great War #1 100 years on
4. Reflections on the Great War #2
5. Too Young To Fight?
6. Remembrance isn’t only about those who fought, but also those who refused
7. In Flanders Fields II – a new poem in response to the original
8. Lessons of the Somme

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Further reading

1. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins
2. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg – Day 2
3. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg – Day 3
4. Fall Of Empire: And Then Came Chilcot
5. The Fifth Nation in the Four Nations Approach?
6. The Scene at Scott’s Mill by Tom Sheehan
7. City of Thieves by David Benioff
8. Savage, Arts Theatre
9. Bangladesh ‘in denial’ over militant attacks: Analysts
10. Globalization and the international war on terrorism
11. Ep. 11 Unite the Salish! The Battle of Maple Bay
12. The Millionth Yank
13. Camp Cotton, Texas 7/4/1916
14. The Daily Retro: Clear The Way
15. America…
16. 3rd Mass Attack in as Many Days – After Obama & Kerry say ISIS ‘on the ropes’
17. The Almost Laughably Impotent Benghazi Report
18. …in opposition to all military history.
19. House of Cards
20. A Little Chaos: Historical Landscaping in the Ancien Regime
21. La vie à Versailles
22. Gossip meets history at Versailles
23. On Brexit, the lessons of history, and a shamefully unbalanced argument
24. Nega-centennials, Nega-nations
25. A True Suprise – Mostar
26. -Dreams-
27. Card Dump: War Tactics
28. Happy July 4th… And…
29. Apple Sued in China Over Showing of Propaganda War Film From 1990s
30. Dear Jingo-Patriots of Amerika, I Will Not Be Joining You Today
31. Fortress & Last day of war
32. Shiloh ( 2016 )
33. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
34. The beginning
35. War
36. Truth
37. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Sun Tzu
38. Wishful Thinking

The Pen and The Sword

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the assassination in 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia, the duchess of Hohenburg, by a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. It is common to state that the murder of the two Austro-Hungarian nobles precipitated World War I — better known as The Great War outside of the United States.

There’s no denying the effect of the murders. Austria-Hungary and its ally Imperial Germany rallied to the cause of war and one month later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The declaration drew Germany, Russia, France, Belgium, Montenegro and Great Britain shortly after. The worst war in human history up to that time was underway. Eventually, more than 9 million soldiers and 8 million civilians would die in the war. Millions more were maimed and wounded by killing that occurred on an industrial scale. Empires were wiped from the map, new nations emerged, and the…

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