We are going to have this thread eventually, who is to blame for WWI?

[La Toscana]

Hastings is quite literally the last person I would ever source for an accurate description of who was at fault for the first world war, I tried watching the documentary and had to stop due to the ridiculous pro-British bias and One nation Tory nonsense, I learnt more a more balanced view at school which is impressive considering how bad school teaching of history is.

 

[Headshotcatcher]

I've always looked at the Serbian conflict (A-H vs Serbia/possibly Russia) being inevitable after the assassination. An empire can't just let an assassination like the one of Franz Ferdinand go unpunished. It offered the casus belli they wanted or even needed. In this case, the conspirators of the assassination are mostly at fault (they can't have thought that it would remain peaceful).

The 'blank cheque' was what escalated the possible local conflict to the World War it ended up being. With this unconditional support, Germany was incentivising a harsh military intervention by Austria-Hungary. Raising the stakes of the war (instead of A-H vs Russia it would involve Germany as well) made it necessary for Russia to invoke the Triple Entente. I hold Germany responsible here. A world-wide war would be out of the question if Austria-Hungary would be on its own, but Germany's support made the war a matter of world-wide importance.

This is not to say the other powers are blameless, far from it actually, but when looking at it realistically the conspirators of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the German blank cheque following it were the main factors in shaping the war into the form that went into history.

 

[StephenT]

I've always looked at the Serbian conflict (A-H vs Serbia/possibly Russia) being inevitable after the assassination. An empire can't just let an assassination like the one of Franz Ferdinand go unpunished.

And the people who assassinated him were arrested, tried, convicted and given long prison sentences. The assassination was punished.

Deciding to punish the entire nation of Serbia as well, just because the assassins were Bosnian Serbs, was not a usual or proportional response to the killing. It would be like the USA declaring war on Italy because of Mafia activities in New York. Bear in mind that the Austrians had decided to attack Serbia even before the official police investigation produced evidence that the assassins had help from the Black Hand in Serbia.

For that matter, the assassins were fighting against the illegal Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia in the first place. I'm not sure exactly what Princip and his friends intended to happen, but I'd guess it would be more like "Austria decides the annexed provinces are ungovernable and withdraws from them" rather than "war with Serbia".

 

[Jazumir]

Or like, ehem, more recent events.

 

[SorelusImperion]

And the people who assassinated him were arrested, tried, convicted and given long prison sentences. The assassination was punished.

And the terrorists who crashed planes into the WTC died in the process yet the USA still invaded Afghanistan. Why ? To get the backers and instigators of course.

t would be like the USA declaring war on Italy because of Mafia activities in New York.

No it would be like the USA declaring invading Afghanistan because of Saudi terrorists flying into the WTC.

What lesson do we learn ? Don't use the USA as example when you want to point out that a nation should not invade another under false premises.

 

[DoomBunny]

Hastings is quite literally the last person I would ever source for an accurate description of who was at fault for the first world war, I tried watching the documentary and had to stop due to the ridiculous pro-British bias and One nation Tory nonsense, I learnt more a more balanced view at school which is impressive considering how bad school teaching of history is.

I think my favourite bit was when he watched Blackadder and tried to keep a condescending look of "You're wrong, you silly silly programme" on his face. Between that, the wig, and the audio description of "Max walks down some stairs", "Max gets on a subway", "The Brandenburg Gate... in Berlin", it was quite the comedy.

 

[StephenT]

And the terrorists who crashed planes into the WTC died in the process yet the USA still invaded Afghanistan. Why ? To get the backers and instigators of course.

No it would be like the USA declaring invading Afghanistan because of Saudi terrorists flying into the WTC.

What lesson do we learn ? Don't use the USA as example when you want to point out that a nation should not invade another under false premises.

I used Italy rather than Afghanistan as the example because Afghanistan was such a weak and friendless power, that nobody in the world was going to dare to stand up to the USA over the American aggression against them.

But Italy, while still not being a match for the US in military terms (as neither was Serbia versus Austria-Hungary) is still powerful enough for the war not to be a walkover -and Italy could presumably rely on help from the EU and the non-US parts of NATO, as Serbia could rely on Russia. So it's a better analogy.

Also, the Taliban in Afghanistan refused to do anything about the al-Quaeda members sheltering there, while Serbia was perfectly willing to arrest and extradite the specific Serbian citizens accused of involvement in the Sarajevo assassination. So your Afghanistan comparison doesn't work there either.

When you're the world's only superpower, you can get away with a lot of stuff that other countries would not.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

The only thing the assassins did wrong was killing the guy who actually wanted to help the Slavs.

 

[StephenT]

The only thing the assassins did wrong was killing the guy who actually wanted to help the Slavs.

Well, "help" them in the sense of "establish an authoritarian absolute monarchy through a policy of divide-and-conquer, by breaking up the existing power blocs that could resist Habsburg power and changing them into a much larger number of smaller and weaker groups". But at least the South Slavs would have had their own flag, so there's that.

 

[Kovax]

The only thing the assassins did wrong was killing the guy who actually wanted to help the Slavs.

On the contrary, when you're trying to paint another group as "the enemy", any one of them who is a moderate, or does stuff that makes them seem almost "nice", needs to be taken out as a priority. You can't claim "oppression" to create anarchy and take over the government (for whatever purpose you had in mind) when they're not actually oppressing you much. First rule of any "extremist" view is to destroy or discredit any moderates who might come up with some compromise and end your chances for a bloody takeover.

 

[StephenT]

Franz Ferdinand was neither moderate nor nice. His only good quality, in Serbian eyes, might be that he merely despised South Slavs as 'rabble', while he loathed Hungarians as 'revolutionaries and whores'.

 

[AzagalTheGreat]

All of Europe.

 

[Andrelvis]

Franz Ferdinand was neither moderate nor nice. His only good quality, in Serbian eyes, might be that he merely despised South Slavs as 'rabble', while he loathed Hungarians as 'revolutionaries and whores'.

Those seem timid adjectives compared to the ones used by British imperialists in regards to the peoples they ruled over.

 

[StephenT]

Those seem timid adjectives compared to the ones used by British imperialists in regards to the peoples they ruled over.

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat,
But there is neither East not West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!


I do not love my Empire's foes,
nor call 'em angels; still
What is the sense of hating those
Whom you are paid to kill?
So barring all that foreign lot,
Who only joined for spite,
Myself I'd just as soon as not
Respect the man I fight.

(Both from poems by that arch-imperialist Rudyard Kipling; one about Afghanistan, the other about the Boer War.)



Yes, I see what you mean. Franz Ferdinand was a positive angel by comparison to those evil racists in Britain.

 

[Andrelvis]

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat,
But there is neither East not West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!


I do not love my Empire's foes,
nor call 'em angels; still
What is the sense of hating those
Whom you are paid to kill?
So barring all that foreign lot,
Who only joined for spite,
Myself I'd just as soon as not
Respect the man I fight.

(Both from poems by that arch-imperialist Rudyard Kipling; one about Afghanistan, the other about the Boer War.)



Yes, I see what you mean. Franz Ferdinand was a positive angel by comparison to those evil racists in Britain.

Nice try. Let's see this quote by Cecil Rhodes:

I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.

...or this quote by Winston Churchill:

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

Are you really going to keep defending British imperialist discourse? Francis Ferdinand had his flaws, but the British were no better.

 

[yezhanquan]

On Winston, there can be no doubt. He did contribute to the Bengal Famine of '43. I recalled his response was to the effect of "If there is a famine, why hasn't Gandhi died yet?"

 

[StephenT]

Are you really going to keep defending British imperialist discourse? Francis Ferdinand had his flaws, but the British were no better.

I'm more interested to know why you derailed a conversation about what sort of person Franz Ferdinand was, to suddenly go off on a tangent about British imperialism instead.

I'm sure you could find people from every nation in the early 1900s who made racist remarks - yes, even including Gandhi, who had some harsh things to say about African 'savages'. They were individuals, just as Franz Ferdinand was an individual.

Are you worried that if you let a slight to the Archduke's memory pass unchallenged, it means that every modern-day inhabitant of Austria and Hungary etc is also tarred with the brush of racism and bigotry? And that the only way you can refute such a challenge is by looking for racist things other people said, so you can tar their modern-day compatriots with the same brush?

 

[L'Afrique]

Reading the interactions of the various powers it's pretty clear that the german government was the one instigating war.

 

[Jazumir]

You know, it find it sort of curious, that 100 years after the event, we are still trying to determine who was to blame... and still fall back on nation-calling. Seems like we all have not learned that much.

The underlying causes of the great war were present in all of the european states. Rabid capitalism, elitism, imperialism, and -uhem- nationalism. In all of them, it was easy for the ruling ´class´, or elite, to sway masses of suffering quasi-servitutes into becoming willing (at first) cannon-fodder. It´s amazing, how they managed to arm millions and have them shoot each other, instead of those who told them do so. It´s stunning to see warbond after warbond getting oversigned. Every one of the signataries is to blame for the war. Everyone who thought to profit from it. Everyone who was not willing to make a sacrifice to prevent or to stop it. It was a mass-failure of humanity on a continental scale and we should inquire, which conditions could make this possible, cause these are to blame - and not so much which nation was the worst governed at the time (it clearly was germany, well, although russia and austria and serbia... well...), so that its ruling class did manage to veil its ambitions with rightousness.

Edit: And i daresay, that our socities have not changed all that much since then. Sure, the world has. There wouldnt be another european war like that. Europe is economically way to interlocked these days. But on a global scale, i think the same pattern could very well repeat. It´s not like our newspapers or TVs were truely neutral, they constantly try to sway us. You know, like i really cared enough for gay people in russia to her about it every second day. Russia, Iran and China get their fair amount of bashing on a constant basis. Ay-wei-wei. Like I f* care for a chinese artist. Sorry. But i know, it´s not about him.

 

[PEP]

You bring up a lot of good points but I don't understand why you feel the need to make it seem like some shady organisation (the ruling class / Elite) pulled everybody's strings and arranged everything to profit from it. That's simply not true. WWI was a huge blunder caused mostly by ignorance and a dramatic lack of foresight on the part of the various European governments involved but it certainly wasn't the product of a conspiracy of the Elite (I mean what's the plan here, 1) Cause a world war; 2)??? ; 3) Profit!). The conditions that led to WW1 are pretty clear and I've come to notice that usually the ones who feel the need to dispute them are nationals of those countries that were defeated in 1918.