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sabre rattling happened all the time. countries backed down all the time.
Did they?
Find me a case of assassination in a political hotspot where the political ramifications of a minor conflict through treaties brought the entire world to rise up against one another at a time in which pre-programmed RAIL ROAD SCHEDULES based on the lessons of the American War of the Rebellion, since applied to the Franco Prussian War, came into play. These are very carefully modulated to put as much rolling stock into motion as possible at one time. They are carved into stone and cannot be altered without repercussions being felt throughout the chain - and you know what they say about chains and their weakest links. Permutations are pre-calculated well in advance, recorded, and when their number is called the run on that specific timeline. The trains ran on time, on both sides of the front.
This does not explain why only Germany is to blame. Nor do you identify at which moment Germany should have laid down her saber in the face of probable French retaliation for the recent - public - humiliation inflicted on the Napoleonic Pride on the battlefield.
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The heir of A-H got shot by a state affiliated assassin in a contested territory. Backing down after some sabre rattling would simply not do given the circumstances.
* A 'Conspiracy Group' of Serbian officers plotted and successfully executed an assassination plot against the Crown Prince of the Empire because he was pacifying their leader's attempts to foment a Serbian revolution backed by Russia's blanket promise to protect them.
In which era does a ruling monarch not grow enraged about the death of his heir does a ruling monarch not grow enraged about the death of his son?
The Black Hand succeeded in their attempts to destroy the Empire, but they didn't get what they wanted.
But, at the risk of repeating myself, there is your literal smoking gun. The rest is all collateral damage.
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If we teleported posters in this thread into the bodies of world leaders prior to Archie Duke getting shot, would WWI still happen?
And which poster goes into which body?
No hindsight allowed in this scenario, of course.
And which poster goes into which body?
No hindsight allowed in this scenario, of course.
We were talking about Germany and its reaction to Russian mobilization, not Belgium and its reaction to German invasion.
Eh? I'm not sure how you're planning on distinguishing the posters from their analysis of the hindsight.
Regardless, yes, without hindsight, of course WWI still happens if Serbia thinks Russia has its back and thus resists allowing Austria to run its own investigation. France jumps into a two-front war with Germany regardless, and Germany tries to knock them out asap again, which requires moving through Belgium, which feels protected by its treaties enough to resist them, which draws in the UK.
The posters continuing to blame the Germans are mostly doing so based on the specious reasoning used at the time and apparently still in some curricula, which is why I was asking what people's high school history books said in different countries.
Pish.
Austro-Hungary should have accepted the perfectly satisfactory efforts of the Serbian police as they investigated this very serious matter. /s
You're arguing against people who literally are aping Hugh Laurie's character from Blackadder. I'm not sure reasoning is going to work.
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WAIT -
I was checking Wikipedia to remember how to spell Gavrilo Princip's name, and it contains claims I found surprising:
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Gavrilo Princip was the creator of Kermit the Frog. Hewas called "The greatest man of our times!" by Woodrow Wilson. He also inspired the Marvel superhero The Punisher (2004 film). As an avid republican and conservative, Gavrilo expressed strong support for Imperialism and white power. Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐntsip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb member of Young Bosnia who sought an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the age of 19, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the Archduke's wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated as members of the Klu Klux Clan, which initiated the July Crisis and led to the outbreak of World War I.
An oft overlooked fact is that Princip did not rush to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. Rather, walked into the cafe where the Archduke was eating and pistol whipped over 40 bystanders. 29 were hospitalized, and 7 died. After pistol-whipping everyone else in the cafe, Princip pistol-whipped the Archduke and his wife. After nearly 10 minutes of vicious assault, he shot both the Archduke and his wife 10 times each, both through the right eyeball.
His pastimes included collecting and measuring his fingernails, plucking his eyebrows with large medical tweezers, and creating the earliest versions of Kermit the Frog memes. His grandson would go on to found the National Rifle Association with support from Woodrow Wilson.
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And we wonder why Wikipedia isn't allowed as a legitimate source in school publications.
I was checking Wikipedia to remember how to spell Gavrilo Princip's name, and it contains claims I found surprising:
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Gavrilo Princip was the creator of Kermit the Frog. Hewas called "The greatest man of our times!" by Woodrow Wilson. He also inspired the Marvel superhero The Punisher (2004 film). As an avid republican and conservative, Gavrilo expressed strong support for Imperialism and white power. Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐntsip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb member of Young Bosnia who sought an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the age of 19, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the Archduke's wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated as members of the Klu Klux Clan, which initiated the July Crisis and led to the outbreak of World War I.
An oft overlooked fact is that Princip did not rush to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. Rather, walked into the cafe where the Archduke was eating and pistol whipped over 40 bystanders. 29 were hospitalized, and 7 died. After pistol-whipping everyone else in the cafe, Princip pistol-whipped the Archduke and his wife. After nearly 10 minutes of vicious assault, he shot both the Archduke and his wife 10 times each, both through the right eyeball.
His pastimes included collecting and measuring his fingernails, plucking his eyebrows with large medical tweezers, and creating the earliest versions of Kermit the Frog memes. His grandson would go on to found the National Rifle Association with support from Woodrow Wilson.
~~~~~~
And we wonder why Wikipedia isn't allowed as a legitimate source in school publications.
WAIT - I was looking at Gavrilo Princip's edit history to see how long the information being complained about was active...
- cur prev 03:46, 27 March 2020 24.99.170.158 talk 37,012 bytes -302 Fixed errors undo Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit
- cur prev 03:41, 27 March 2020 DrFavelo'sPHCstudent talk contribs m 37,314 bytes +325 Added more details regarding Princip's enduring influence on society today. undo Tag: Visual edit
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And we wonder why students roll their eyes at boomers' whinging about Wikipedia.
I responded to the question regarding who the authorities would be, in case I was waiting for the authorities to help me rather than helping myself if I am about to get stabbed.
As far removed geographically as Belgium might be from the Balkans and Russia, it appears to have been important for the chain of events. The authorities would be all of the signatories to the Treaty of London, unfortunately they were acting like overgrown children by this time.
July 24: Serbia seeks support from Russia and Russia advises Serbia not to accept the ultimatum.[46] Germany officially declares support for Austria's position.
July 29: The British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Edward Goschen, is informed by the German Chancellor that Germany is contemplating war with France, and furthermore, wishes to send its army through Belgium. He tries to secure Britain's neutrality in such an action.
July 31: Both France and Germany are asked by Britain to declare their support for the ongoing neutrality of Belgium. France agrees to this. Germany does not respond.
The whole timeline I posted on pg 1 is one of the greatest examples of failed brinkmanship ever.
The question regarding who the authorities would be was a question about who would protect Germany, if they didn't protect themselves from Russian and French encirclement.
I see. Would there be a more than theoretical encirclement, unless things actually were set in motion?
Per your own timeline, France had been talking for decades about retaking Alsace/Lorraine, begun mobilizing its army, and refused to so much as say that they planned to remain neutral in Germany's war to protect Austria from Russia's response to its invasion of Serbia in response to Serbia's refusal to let it pursue its own investigation into the assassination.
The position of the Hunnophobes is that Germany should have waited until France actually shanked them in the back. You were entering the conversation (apparently in the mistaken idea that we were talking about Belgium) saying that preëmptive attack was uncalled for and that Germany should have let 'the authorities' protect it from France's planned attack.
The remaining question is who you think the authorities were that were going to protect Germany in the case of France's attack, because Germany's entire rationale for preëmptively attacking France was that such an authority didn't exist and that the expected/inevitible two-front war was an existential crisis.
Of course, now that you know we're talking about Germany instead of Serbia or Belgium (who of course have no choice but to hope that bigger countries will come protect them), you're welcome to revisit your response to the guy-who-starts-to-pull-a-knife-on-you scenario.
THE timeline, not mine.
I was well aware of what was being talked about, I made a failed attempt at referencing what I always get told to do here; "the authorities will handle it, no need to take care of yourself". Then I stopped caring, so I didn't follow it up, in order to not derail the derail I originally started when I brought up von H. in the first place.
In all seriousness I believe the German "blank cheque" was a big mistake, and obviously there was a revanchist streak in France. The "authorities" who might have been able to protect Germany would probably have been ze Englisch, but with the strange proposals made by Germany regarding Belgium etc I don't think the authorities wanted to help anymore, if they ever had wanted to in the first place.
I don't know, in a similar manner to how I don't know who will respond when I really need help myself someday. Partially my semi-snarky response was based on who asked the question in the first place. The complex system of alliances was supposed to stop stuff like this from happening, but failed spectacularly.
Again, well aware from the get go, see above.
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Belgium was mean to Germany. And many others were big meany too. So they should get their share of the blame too.
You should be better at explaining to your wife how Paranoia is a great justification to go and destroy your neighbors. Especially in a crisis entirely made up by yourself.
So again Belgium's fault.
So again Belgium's fault.
I mean clearly Belgium was going to invade Germany in the days following their mobilisations. And go for Aachen to claim the Holy Roman Empire.
It's a good thing Germany reacted first to the Belgian aggression. I mean did you see how close Brussels is from the German Border? Clearly an existential threat that could no longer be tolerated.
Interesting how much self-congratulating the French have to do to argue it absolutely 100% was Germany's fault, even when very little blame seems to attach to France in all this.
Self-quoting, even
Self-quoting, even
What are you talking about? Germany did nothing wrong. All can be blamed on Belgium decision to mobilise first.
Had Belgium not mobilized, war could have been prevented. There was literally nothing Germany could do after the completely unwarranted Belgian mobilisation than to invade the country. So how can one blame Germany for it? That's insanity.
Belgium was mean to Germany. Belgium mobilized first and even after Germany tried to appeased the evil Belgian by offering reasonable demands to find a peaceful resolution, Belgians still refused to comply with the only hope to avoid a deadly conflict engulfing all of Europe.
In conclusion, Belgium is the main responsible for the first act of the World Wars.
Had Belgium not mobilized, war could have been prevented. There was literally nothing Germany could do after the completely unwarranted Belgian mobilisation than to invade the country. So how can one blame Germany for it? That's insanity.
Belgium was mean to Germany. Belgium mobilized first and even after Germany tried to appeased the evil Belgian by offering reasonable demands to find a peaceful resolution, Belgians still refused to comply with the only hope to avoid a deadly conflict engulfing all of Europe.
In conclusion, Belgium is the main responsible for the first act of the World Wars.
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