Political Crossfire Forums

Benvolio · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 22

what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

LostSoul3412 · Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 7657

Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

I'd recommend a history book. Your question is too general for any kind of answer.

Melcar

LostSoul3412 wrote: Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

I'd recommend a history book. Your question is too general for any kind of answer.

Yes, a history book will do. You can even check Wikipedia for a quick answer.

Felix · Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 301 Location: The End of Time

LostSoul3412 wrote: Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

I'd recommend a history book. Your question is too general for any kind of answer.

Yeah, specify your question please.

ChuckBerry · Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 2184 Location: Lafayette, LA

I'd like to pose a question...

WTF?

Can someone answer please?

MG1962 · Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 9515 Location: Sydney

Quote: WTF?

Fan club of reigning NRL premiers the West Tigers - Is an abbreviation of West Tigers Fanatics.

Unlike my beloved Greenbay - these guys do actually win occasionally[/code]

melchizedek22 · Joined: 27 Apr 2006 Posts: 370 Location: Holy Toledo

The Great War was fought over nothing but built up tentions in Europe
set off by a assaination!Biggest waste of a generation in history!

Benvolio · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 22

im glad you all were so helpful

Melcar · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:23 am Post subject:

Benvolio wrote: im glad you all were so helpful

It' not that were are all being ****. The question is just to general to answer; it would take a whole page of writing (at least) just to summurize the main points, something that not everyone is willing to do. I can tell you that WW1 was started by the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand, or as said earlier caused by build up tensions in Europe. While it may seem at first glance that it was just "homies backing up homies", all of the countries involved had other motives to engage into the conflict. Imperialism, economic and military rivalries, old grudges, you name it.

ubikk · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 2091

Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

They dug a bunch of trenches and filled them up with dead people.

antonio62 · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:53 am Post subject:

Everyone wanted war and the assignation of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand just gave them an excuse. That's a very brief summary of why WW1 happened.

melchizedek22 · Joined: 27 Apr 2006 Posts: 370 Location: Holy Toledo

The reason no one can give clear reason why the war was fought because there was no good reason,not like the Civil War or WW2.
IT was fought for no good reason,once it started no one knew how to stop it! Biggest waste of time money and life in recorded history!

The Comrade · Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 11421 Location: Zagreb

Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

cause: alliances, assassination, germanys position in europe. pride, nationalism, militarism.

war time: giant mess of new technology that lead to stagnant warfare and total destruction of battle fields.

end: germany got shafted in the ass.

i just covered the entire war for you, enjoy.

LostSoul3412 · Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 7657

Benvolio wrote: what happened there, it seems that nobody can give a clear answer about the WW1. All i've heard is some crap about a prince and Europe, can anyone shed some light on the current situation?

I also wouldn't call WWI current...

Benvolio · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 22

none of you were being ***holes but four replies were about getting a textbook. But apparently WWI didnt really have a reason just a bunch of trigger happpy countries that wanted to try their new weapons and didnt know what war was

The Comrade · Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 11421 Location: Zagreb

Benvolio wrote: none of you were being ***holes but four replies were about getting a textbook. But apparently WWI didnt really have a reason just a bunch of trigger happpy countries that wanted to try their new weapons and didnt know what war was

yes, that's exactly it.

thundertaker · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:27 pm Post subject:

Benvolio wrote: none of you were being ***holes but four replies were about getting a textbook. But apparently WWI didnt really have a reason just a bunch of trigger happpy countries that wanted to try their new weapons and didnt know what war was

I'm not sure it was a case of everybody being desperate to go to war, more a case of events forcing everybody into it.
When the Black Hand murdered the Archduke, the Hapsberg government rightly or wrongly believed the Serbian government of being responsible for sponsoring the assasination. The Serbs had been responsible for for stirring up nationalist sentiment in the multi-ethnic Hapsberg Empire for many years, and this gave the Austro-Hungarian Empire a casus belli for removing a thorn that had been in their side for a while. The Germans supported their allies in this.
However, Russia was pledged to defend their brother Slavs, and began to mobilise it's huge army to defend Serbia. However, The Russians were in an alliance with France, Germany's old enemy, and mobiling the largest army in Europe was perceived as a threat to the security of the Kaisereich, which meant that Germany in turn declared war on Russia and began to mobilise it's army in turn.
France, which as has been previously mentioned, was an old enemy of Germany. This dated back the formation of the Kaisereich in 1871, when France was humiliated in the Franco-Prussian war and had the provinces of Alscace and Lorraine taken from them as part of the peace treaty, and Germany feared (perhaps rightly) that France was just waiting for a chance to be able to take them back.
Consequently, Germany had already made a contingency plan, called the Schliefflen Plan (after the army officer who created it) for such an eventuality at the turn of the century, which envisaged knocking France out quickly before the Russians could finnish mobilising, so that the Germans would not have to face fighting a war on two fronts.
However, this plan envisaged invading France via Belgium in order to flank France's defences on the Alsation border, Britain had signed a treaty with Belgium in 1839 which, guranteed Beglian neutrality, and was obliged under it's terms to defend Belgium from the German aggressors.
For Britain, the treaty merely provided a casus belli for them to go to war to prevent Germany from becoming the dominant power on the continent. Germany had surpassed Britain as an economic power in the 1890s, and was begining to catch up with Britain as a Naval power.

The other countries joined in later when they thought it was in their percieved interests to do so. Italy joined the war on the allied side in 1915 in order to gain territory from Austria-Hungary, Portugal, which joined the allies in 1916, was traditionally friendly towards the British, and hoped to expand it's imperial holdings at Germany's expense, America joined the war in 1917 due in part to the machinations of the Anglophilic american establishment (especially President Woodrow Wilson, who was himself half English), and by the German's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on it's ships, and so on.

That's how the the world got plunged into the first world war in a nutshell. I wouldn't say they were especially eager to go to war, but perhaps they would have tried harder with diplomacy if they had any inkling at how awful the war would be due to technological developments since the last European war.....

ubikk · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 2091

Benvolio wrote: none of you were being ***holes but four replies were about getting a textbook. But apparently WWI didnt really have a reason just a bunch of trigger happpy countries that wanted to try their new weapons and didnt know what war was

Europe was about the most warlike culture in the world for millenia. All they did was fight each other all the time and invade other countries. They slaughtered and enslaved native populations and took their gold. They finally stopped fighting when someone invented the A-bomb and they got scared. They've only been at relative peace for about 60 years if you don't count Kosovo and various incursions by the Soviets into Eastern Europe. Americans are decendants of this culture, and we're still blowing people up to show how tough we are. Now we're after oil instead of gold.

thundertaker · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject:

ubikk wrote:

Europe was about the most warlike culture in the world for millenia. All they did was fight each other all the time and invade other countries. They slaughtered and enslaved native populations and took their gold. They finally stopped fighting when someone invented the A-bomb and they got scared. They've only been at relative peace for about 60 years if you don't count Kosovo and various incursions by the Soviets into Eastern Europe. Americans are decendants of this culture, and we're still blowing people up to show how tough we are. Now we're after oil instead of gold.

That's an incredibly simplistic view of history. Europeans weren't the only warlike people, or even the most warlike.
Read up about Shaka, King of the Zulus or Ghengis Khan. Non-Europeans who were infamous for their brutality and wars of conquest which exceeded that of any European with the possible exception of Adolf Hitler........

ubikk · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 2091

Quote: That's an incredibly simplistic view of history. Europeans weren't the only warlike people, or even the most warlike.
Read up about Shaka, King of the Zulus or Ghengis Khan. Non-Europeans who were infamous for their brutality and wars of conquest which exceeded that of any European with the possible exception of Adolf Hitler........

Shaka Zulu and Ghengis Khan only lived 1 lifetime. Europeans fought each other for almost 2000 years:

Ever hear of the 100 years war? How about Hastings? Crecy? Calais? Agincourt? Castillon? The battle of Kosovo Field (1300s)? War of the Roses? The Italian Wars (14-1500s)? The English Civil Wars (17th Century), Russo-Turkish Wars (1700 - 1850)? The Thirty Years War? The Crimean War? The War of Austrian Secession? The 1st and 2nd Silesian Wars? The Seven Years War? How about the Ten Years War? The French Revolutionary Wars? The Spanish Civil War? The Napoleonic Wars? The Greek-Ottoman War? The Austro-Prussian War? Then we have the Franco-Prussian War, The Romanian-Turkish War, The First Balkan Wars which eventually led to WWI. After that there was the Russian Civil War, The Irish Civil War, The Finnish-Russian War and WWII. The Armenian Genocide, the Soviet Purgings where millions died, Then there were a few wars where the Soviets invaded Eastern European countries, like Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Then there was the last Serbo-Croation war in Kosovo.

And that's not evan all of them... Ah, I forgot the Crusades! all 3 of them as the French, British and Hessians sacked Constantinople (a Christian city, mind you) on the way to Jeruselem....

That doesn't even BEGIN to cover the wars that Europeans raged on countries outside of Europe. Wars like the Boer War, the French and Indian Wars, the Opium wars, The Boxer rebellion, the Sikh wars.... I could go on and on. Almost every time they colonized someplace there was a war.

Just Hitler, eh? :wink:

I dunno about that...