One hundred years ago, today, the course of history was badly disrupted:
“It is not to be supposed,” wrote a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian analysing the significance of the assassination 100 years ago on Saturday, “that the death of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand will have any immediate or salient effect on the politics of Europe.”
Thirty-seven days later, Britain declared war on Germany and Europe was plunged into a worldwide conflict in which more than 16 million people died in four years.
When England declared war on Germany a little more than a month later, all debate came to an end:
The Guardian opposed British intervention right up to the declaration of war. “We care as little for Belgrade as Belgrade for Manchester,” it told its readers on 30 July. On 1 August, CP Scott argued that intervention would “violate dozens of promises made to our own people, promises to seek peace, to protect the poor, to husband the resources of the country, to promote peaceful progress”.
Four days later, after Britain declared war on Germany, the Guardian said: “All controversy therefore is now at an end. Our front is united.”
But, the newspaper added: “A little more knowledge, a little more time on this side, more patience, and a sounder political principle on the other side would have saved us from the greatest calamity that anyone living has known.
“It will be a war in which we risk almost everything of which we are proud, and in which we stand to gain nothing.”
We paid an unspeakable cost for ignoring the Guardian’s advice, but at least we learned something. And then we began to forget what we had learned.
England was signatory to the 1839 Treaty of London which guaranteed Belgian neutrality. When the forces of the Kaiser invaded Belgium on their way to invade France the balloon went up.
As a bit of a history buff, in my view one of the lamest clichés the you hear over and over is that “we cannot forget the past lest we make the same mistakes in the future”. If I have learned anything from my reading it is that we do make the same mistakes over and over and seem proud of them at the time. Each generation however has improved the efficiency of the machines of war to the point that when we make the next big mistake, it is likely to mark the end of mankind. By the way if one is interested in the buildup to war in July of 1914, “July 1914 Countdown to War” by Sean McMeekin is a very good read.
Also “Sleepwalkers” is an excellent read.
Colonel Roosevelt gives an interesting perspective on the war. This is Theodore Roosevelt at his John McCainiest, spending the first couple of years of the war thundering at Wilson’s spinelessness because he didn’t immediately seize the opportunity to go to war.
So this is Theodore Roosevelt at his worst, but you can kind of see how Wilson cleaned up in the end by ignoring his advice. He kept us out of the war long enough for all the European powers to destroy each other, but got in in enough time to be able to take credit for saving the day. And even if he didn’t deserve credit, he hadn’t just squandered all his country’s resources, so what were they going to do?
“Man the weapon maker” It’s what we do best. From the hand axe to the stealth bomber. Throughout prehistory we see species that improve there signature feature until it becomes their undoing, like the antlers of the Irish Elk, and the fangs of the sabertooth cat. Man with his weapons? I’m not the first to make the correlation.
That Guardian issue in the wake of Ferdinand’s assassination: Worst Political Analysis Ever.
Let’s play a game:
“Pacifist movement in U.S. expected to gain power in wake of 9/11 attacks”
“On election eve, McGovern in great position to take Presidency from Nixon”
“Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee ready to take advantage of Union vulnerability after Atlanta burning”
Disagree. The alliances of the European and UK monarchies of the time wouldn’t have suggested any great interest on the part of England for a war in response to the Archduke’s assassination. Much less one that pitted them against their German cousin. (Not that George and Nicky much liked their cousin Wilhelm.)
Disagree in part. Germany had been realized to be Britain’s enemy a decade before. Secret of the sands and all that, but it was violation of Belgium that turned Britain from reluctant to on fire to stop Germany.
Not sure why The Guardian would have been expected to get it right when a hundred years on it continues to perplex most.
It did end a few monarchies. Not that that seemed to be an original objective of the principal actors.
We shouldn’t forget that without the Yanks, Germany might have been the winner. And US banksters would have had to eat the losses of their loans to France.
Listening to reports from the Middle East yesterday I was recalling that in so many ways WWI is still not over.
WWII settled some loose ends in Europe, the Cold War others, but the borders in the ME set to supposedly end conflict there after WWI are still an open sore.
That’s because the borders were set to end conflict between the major European powers, not the locals, who were, after all, considered “wogs”.
Today, the Bosnian Serbs unveiled a statue celebrating the assassination. The statue is of Gavrilo Princip, the assassin. Serbs consider him, even today, a hero. They are not willing to accept blame for the war. In honest assessment, the assassination was the spark, but it took a lot more to get the whole thing to blow up. Serb culpability cannot be denied, but it was the joint actions of the 6 principles which led to the full explosion.
http://goo.gl/EORvVm
I wanted to be there today. But we changed to a trip in October. My grandfather, Johan Brausch, was there 100 years ago today, to see the Heir. He was 19, at some point in his apprenticeship to be a master bricklayer. He later served in the A-H Army (he was a citizen of A-H, in the Voyvodinhja area of S Hungary (then)-N Serbia now, near the city of Novi Sad). After the war, he was sent to prison for a period (my mom does not know why), and emigrated to the US in 1921.
This Dan Carlin podcast – Blueprint for Armageddon I – has about the most context rich explanation of the forces that led to WWI that I have ever heard or read. http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive/Show-50—Blueprint-for-Armageddon-I/First%20World%20Wa
r-World%20War%20One-Great%20War