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Could someone explain how World War 1 got started to me?


Terabith
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I mean, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand seems like a disaster of a group project and like it's the stupidest of coincidences that it even succeeded.  But nobody seemed to really want to go to war, and yet it kicked off the deadliest century of human history.  How did it get going when nobody seemed to want to go to war?

And why would anyone (except maybe the Mongols) ever invade Russia?  It never goes well.  

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Just now, Terabith said:

I mean, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand seems like a disaster of a group project and like it's the stupidest of coincidences that it even succeeded.  But nobody seemed to really want to go to war, and yet it kicked off the deadliest century of human history.  How did it get going when nobody seemed to want to go to war?

And why would anyone (except maybe the Mongols) ever invade Russia?  It never goes well.  

Is this part of the "might there be a war in our future?" thought pattern? Just curious. 

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Just now, Not_a_Number said:

Is this part of the "might there be a war in our future?" thought pattern? Just curious. 

No.  My kid is studying the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and I'm realizing I never really have and also holy hell, this is the stupidest war ever.  

I mean, there's a lot of stupid wars.  But this seems utterly ridiculous.  

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2 minutes ago, Terabith said:

No.  My kid is studying the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and I'm realizing I never really have and also holy hell, this is the stupidest war ever.  

I mean, there's a lot of stupid wars.  But this seems utterly ridiculous.  

I did study this at school, and I can't say I ever understood it. But I think collective action problems are just weird. People in aggregate can do really bizarre stuff. 

But then I'm not super educated about this. 

Edited by Not_a_Number
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It just seems so utterly evil that the deadliest century of human history was kicked off by something so STUPID and completely incompetent.  

Like, would WW2 have ever happened if WW1, which nobody seemed to want, had not happened?  Why the heck did this happen?  

I need to get SOTW 4.  

Edited by Terabith
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WWI.....there's a lot of controversy still over weighing relative causes of the war, but it was a multifaceted thing.

The balance of power was shifting in Europe. The Ottoman empire was in decline. The Hapsburg empire was in decline.  The British empire was in decline. (Germany, with its military industrial complex was gaining economic and political power relative to those.) With the decline in imperial power, there was a rise in nationalism and the desire for self-determination.  Serbia (in the Balkans) wanted to be independent of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg empire. The Bosnian crisis (1908) had already destabilized that area, and the area we call Turkey now was in similar agitation.

Germany and their Austro-Hungarian (Hapsburg empire) ally were shifting their relationship.  When Bismarck left power in Germany, things kinda went a bit off kilter in that relationship, and Italy got pulled into a weird triad with them...which later became known as the Triple Alliance. (Italy wanting security as their neighbors in the Austro-Hungarian and Balkan regions were all agitating and Italy itself was undergoing a nationalist movement.)  Geographically, it was as if someone colored the middle of Europe with a bright sharpie as one allied group, which makes everyone at the edges nervous. Russia had always pledged to Germany and the Hapsburgs that it would be neutral if France declared war against Germany, but when they kinda were distanced by Germany, Russia decided instead to buddy up with France.  When Britain joined the France (one channel away, right)/Russia alliance they became the Triple Entente. 

I'm not describing this well. It's been a couple of decades since I read Tuchman and was really into this era of history.....but let's just say everyone was already very unsettled by the time one minor insignificant Hapsburg was assassinated.

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IMO, it was never a stupid, unintentional war. I don't think the war was inevitable, but it was very much about a rebalancing of powers on the Continent. A naval arms race, some heightened colonial rivalries/proxy tension, and a number of other events in the decades previous all led to this. 

Ironically, IMO, it was the harsh sanctions of Germany post WWI that led to WWII. (Had Germany "instigated" some tension---yes---but the punishment was disproportionate and I think it is tied in part to Britain refusing to believe it was a declining hegemon and France likewise wanting to kick Germany back a few decades because France was likewise in decline--and arguably had been since Napoleon's defeat/end of that empire.) 

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5 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

WWI.....there's a lot of controversy still over weighing relative causes of the war, but it was a multifaceted thing.

The balance of power was shifting in Europe. The Ottoman empire was in decline. The Hapsburg empire was in decline.  The British empire was in decline. (Germany, with its military industrial complex was gaining economic and political power relative to those.) With the decline in imperial power, there was a rise in nationalism and the desire for self-determination.  Serbia (in the Balkans) wanted to be independent of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg empire. The Bosnian crisis (1908) had already destabilized that area, and the area we call Turkey now was in similar agitation.

Germany and their Austro-Hungarian (Hapsburg empire) ally were shifting their relationship.  When Bismarck left power in Germany, things kinda went a bit off kilter in that relationship, and Italy got pulled into a weird triad with them...which later became known as the Triple Alliance. (Italy wanting security as their neighbors in the Austro-Hungarian and Balkan regions were all agitating and Italy itself was undergoing a nationalist movement.)  Geographically, it was as if someone colored the middle of Europe with a bright sharpie as one allied group, which makes everyone at the edges nervous. Russia had always pledged to Germany and the Hapsburgs that it would be neutral if France declared war against Germany, but when they kinda were distanced by Germany, Russia decided instead to buddy up with France.  When Britain joined the France (one channel away, right)/Russia alliance they became the Triple Entente. 

I'm not describing this well. It's been a couple of decades since I read Tuchman and was really into this era of history.....but let's just say everyone was already very unsettled by the time one minor insignificant Hapsburg was assassinated.

Thanks.  That is actually really helpful.  I can understand war occurring because of rebalancing of powers and such.  It does seem like it was a time of major instability and change.  

I genuinely appreciate this!  

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If you want an exceptionally long read (and perhaps during a covid winter, you do), I'd point you to the classic Pulitzer winner: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Outbreak/dp/0345476093

 

This is a bit more reader friendly.  I think Meyer holds to the "unintentional war" line more than I do.  I do think that Europe was more stable at the time of the assassination than it had been previously---but the assassination raised all of the tension immediately and there wasn't a lot of desire to pull back on the reins. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553382403/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=0553382403&pd_rd_w=WXhob&pf_rd_p=7d37a48b-2b1a-4373-8c1a-bdcc5da66be9&pd_rd_wg=lFY6P&pf_rd_r=C2WAH2WCGD3QZNBQAK1N&pd_rd_r=e337097a-a197-4463-afff-b9e5c6a355c6&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMktLTDg4R1JXSkdWJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwOTQ0ODk4Mlk2QkU5QUhUUlRPNyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjk0ODkzWE05QVpTUzVXOElJJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfZGV0YWlsJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

If you were to only read one, I'd point you to Tuchman.

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I think everyone else's answers about power rebalancing are really good...

35 minutes ago, Terabith said:

And why would anyone (except maybe the Mongols) ever invade Russia?  It never goes well.  

But WWI was one war without a Russia invasion - Napoleon and Hitler tried that and failed, but in WWI, Russia mostly sat out the "Great" War because it was too busy having a revolution.  The Tsar entered the war, but then was overthrown and killed, and when Lenin took over he signed a peace treaty with Germany just about a year into things.

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2 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I totally hear you on invading Russia....and I'd raise you one Afghanistan.  Some things just don't ever end well. 

Seriously.  At age six, my youngest said, "So, to sum up world history, people invade Russia; Russia doesn't care if millions of people die because they've got lots of people, and Russia basically just waits for winter to kill off invaders?"

Which seems to about sum it up, except for the Mongols, who were like, "Shotgun!  Winter freezes these rivers so we can just walk right into Moscow and conquer it easily!"  

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Just now, Matryoshka said:

I think everyone else's answers about power rebalancing are really good...

But WWI was one war without a Russia invasion - Napoleon and Hitler tried that and failed, but in WWI, Russia mostly sat out the "Great" War because it was too busy having a revolution.  The Tsar entered the war, but then was overthrown and killed, and when Lenin took over he signed a peace treaty with Germany just about a year into things.

Yeah, that was kind of an unrelated comment.  I need to sit down and at least read youngest's textbook, because it sure seems like it's covering a LOT of material for one chapter.  

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1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Seriously.  At age six, my youngest said, "So, to sum up world history, people invade Russia; Russia doesn't care if millions of people die because they've got lots of people, and Russia basically just waits for winter to kill off invaders?"

Which seems to about sum it up, except for the Mongols, who were like, "Shotgun!  Winter freezes these rivers so we can just walk right into Moscow and conquer it easily!"  

LOL.  The Mongols also had the advantage in that they were even tougher than the Russians, used to the cold winters and sleeping outside in yurts and living off the land and their horses, didn't do crazy things like haul heavy artillery through blizzards, and also invaded from the East.

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1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

LOL.  The Mongols also had the advantage in that they were even tougher than the Russians, used to the cold winters and sleeping outside in yurts and living off the land and their horses, didn't do crazy things like haul heavy artillery through blizzards, and also invaded from the East.

Yeah, the fact that if Ogedai had not had a heart attack when he did, the Mongols would almost certainly have conquered all of Europe is one of the hinges of history that I'd love to see some cool historical fiction about.  

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When I was in school, we were told to remember the MAIN points of the war - militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism.

1. All these countries were building up their militaries in a sort of arms race, because even if there wasn't a Great War looming they'd be sure to need them sooner or later (especially with imperialism, but we'll get to that)

2. Everybody was enmeshed in all sorts of conflicting alliances, some of which were *secret*, meaning that any small upset could create a domino effect if nations started cashing in the favors they were owed.

3. Although we tend to think of imperialism as something Europe did to the rest of the world (and that's not incorrect), it's also something Europe did... to Europe. A lot of people were living in empires that they felt didn't adequately benefit their own population. There was a lot of simmering unrest in places like the Balkans, which of course seems to have required armies to put down, but that doesn't help.... (I feel like the fact that the assassination happened in summer probably also had an influence. Everybody is a lot more calm in wintertime, when it's cold out. If those military maneuvers had been carried out in December, probably the assassins would've stayed home with their families instead of going out in the slush to shoot him. This isn't a historical opinion, this is just based on the observation that violent crime rates peak in the summer, and if that applies for muggings and rapes, why not for assassinations and declarations of war?)

4. Anyway, while the world was increasingly ruled by empires, all the little subsumed nations were increasingly unhappy with this situation... and the nations ruling the empires also were increasingly putting themselves first, so, you know, that doesn't help.

The Balkans were a powderkeg, decades of resentment and anger and frustration looking for an outlet. But... the rest of the world wasn't far behind.

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I am no WWI expert, but I remember being shocked by how intertwined the royal families were by birth. Sure, I knew that royal families intermarried, but I hadn't really know that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had tried to create stability through the marriages of their kids and grandkids. 

 

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1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I mean, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand seems like a disaster of a group project and like it's the stupidest of coincidences that it even succeeded.  But nobody seemed to really want to go to war, and yet it kicked off the deadliest century of human history.  How did it get going when nobody seemed to want to go to war?

And why would anyone (except maybe the Mongols) ever invade Russia?  It never goes well.  

My understanding was it was all about the A has a treaty with B and C has a treaty with D, and A shot at C, so B and D had to shoot at each other too.

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15 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I am no WWI expert, but I remember being shocked by how intertwined the royal families were by birth. Sure, I knew that royal families intermarried, but I hadn't really know that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had tried to create stability through the marriages of their kids and grandkids. 

Yeah, the whole thing is indeed even more bizarre when you realize almost all the leaders in that war were first cousins. Family feud.

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This is an interesting book about the marriages, but it also shows some of what led up to the war: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/queen-victorias-matchmaking-deborah-cadbury/1126400701

Once upon a time, I saw a film called The Lost Prince or something like that, and it was about Prince John(?) that had epilepsy and likely autism. Throughout the movie, the family connections in Europe and the stressors of the war are part of the background of the story. 

I think this is the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Prince

Total aside since it's not about the cause of the war, but we just watched Anzac Girls on Prime. It was excellent. 

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In addition to the great succinct reasons Tanaqui outlined, don't forget nationalism -- "our country is great and will kick everyone else's hinder", which is what pulled in all the naive young men to volunteer as soldiers.

Which also led to the Lost Generation after the war, when all those soldier survivors realized what impersonal hell the first full-out mechanized war really was, and lost their faith not only in the older generation's beliefs in "the glories of war" and "patriotism is ennobling". Read American authors Ernest Hemingway and F.S. Fitzgerald. Read German author Erich Remarque's All Quiet On the Western Front.

And of course, because at the end of WW1, Germany was forced by the Versailles Treaty to take on *all* the moral and financial responsibility for the War (when there was clearly enough blame to go around for everyone), that Germany was devastated economically and morale-wise, leading to a dreadful Depression and money devaluation throughout the 1920s, and so broken by the early 1930s, that a wacko who was mesmerizing in his speeches was able to get elected into the leadership by saying he was going to make Germany great again... which led to WW2.

Edited by Lori D.
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2 hours ago, Terabith said:

...And why would anyone (except maybe the Mongols) ever invade Russia?  It never goes well.  

Vizzini, to Westley, in The Princess Bride: 

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders... The most famous of which is '
never get involved in a land war in Asia' ... But only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"

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2 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

In addition to the great succinct reasons Tanaqui outlined, don't forget nationalism -- "our country is great and will everyone else's hinder", which is what pulled in all the naive young men to volunteer as soldiers.

Which also led to the Lost Generation after the war, when all those soldier survivors realized what impersonal hell the first full-out mechanized war really was, and lost their faith not only in the older generation's beliefs in "the glories of war" and "patriotism is ennobling". Read American authors Ernest Hemingway and F.S. Fitzgerald. Read German author Erich Remarque's All Quiet On the Western Front.

And of course, because at the end of WW1, Germany was forced by the Versailles Treaty to take on *all* the moral and financial responsibility for the War (when there was clearly enough blame to go around for everyone), that Germany was devastated economically and morale-wise, leading to a dreadful Depression and money devaluation throughout the 1920s, and so broken by the early 1930s, that a wacko who was mesmerizing in his speeches was able to get elected into the leadership by saying he was going to make Germany great again... which led to WW2.

Ah, yes, making Germany great again... 

And all Nazi ideas were very heavily rooted out and suppressed after the war, if I remember correctly. Which, as far as I can tell, was quite successful in terms of national consciousness. 

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7 hours ago, Lori D. said:

In addition to the great succinct reasons Tanaqui outlined, don't forget nationalism -- "our country is great and will kick everyone else's hinder", which is what pulled in all the naive young men to volunteer as soldiers.

 

My fourth point was nationalism, though with a different definition. You're right, though, that this sort of jingoistic patriotism, complete with an extra large serving of love-of-military, definitely had an effect on the trajectory. We shouldn't think, however, that everybody at that time bought into the warmongering.

We've all heard that you don't have the right to shout "fire" in a crowded building, but not everybody realizes that the Supreme Court case this was about was somebody tried for treason for doing nothing more than distributing anti-war pamphlets. The patriotic fervor this period is remembered for is due in no small part to suppression of the peace movement.

Edited by Tanaqui
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16 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Vizzini, to Westley, in The Princess Bride: 

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders... The most famous of which is '
never get involved in a land war in Asia' ... But only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"

 

That sort of thing is why Afghanistan, in particular, is known as "The Graveyard of Empires". Which I think pretty much anybody could've told America back in 2001. We had, after all, seen how the Taliban kicked out the Soviets with only a smiden of American dollars just a generation or two prior.

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1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

 

That sort of thing is why Afghanistan, in particular, is known as "The Graveyard of Empires". Which I think pretty much anybody could've told America back in 2001. We had, after all, seen how the Taliban kicked out the Soviets with only a smiden of American dollars just a generation or two prior.

It was a lot more than a smidgen of American dollars. We poured vast amounts of weapons into Afghanistan, heavily arming the mujahideen groups that morphed into the Taliban--including providing them the critically important Stinger surface-to-air missiles that allowed then to take out the Russian helicopter gunships. Without the attack helicopters the Russians were hamstrung.

And we provided the mujahideen with satellite intelligence on Russian troop movements.

No small investment.

Then the groups we sponsored sheltered al Qaeda as they planned the 9/11 attacks.

It was a costly strategy.

Bill

 

 

 

 

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17 minutes ago, BakersDozen said:

I like how Horrible Histories sums up WWI, personally. It's one of my dc's favorites. 🙂

Oooohhh!  We might have this one, and honestly, that's really more at the level I'm mentally equipped to take on at the moment than The Guns of August sounds.

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5 hours ago, Terabith said:

Right.  But that just feels so stupid.

Yes, but really, the entire concept of war is dumb. I mean, two rich powerful leaders get in an argument where the winner is decided by who can kill off the most of the other's citizens first? That's ludicrous. 

4 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Vizzini, to Westley, in The Princess Bride: 

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders... The most famous of which is '
never get involved in a land war in Asia' ... But only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"

Ok, wasn't just me thinking it. 

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I think John Green summarizes it pretty well. He's done it for Crash Course FOUR times now (for World History, World History part 2, US History, and European History) and I like the recent European history version the best, in part because I think he does a succinct job covering some of the more recent thinking about the war and some of the things that are less discussed, as well as the basics that Tanaqui outlined pretty well. 

 

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My husband and I listed to hours and hours of the most detailed podcast about WW1.  I had to look it up - it is Dan Carlin's "Blueprint for Armageddon"  when we listened it was free on my itunes podcast app. He includes so much detail and really brings it to life - the bar fight brought to life.

I checked on podcast but it looks like it's not there anymore, for free... but you can buy at his website? well worth a listen if you are interested and have about 100 hours...  https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/

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14 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

If you want an exceptionally long read (and perhaps during a covid winter, you do), I'd point you to the classic Pulitzer winner: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Outbreak/dp/0345476093

 

This is a bit more reader friendly.  I think Meyer holds to the "unintentional war" line more than I do.  I do think that Europe was more stable at the time of the assassination than it had been previously---but the assassination raised all of the tension immediately and there wasn't a lot of desire to pull back on the reins. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553382403/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=0553382403&pd_rd_w=WXhob&pf_rd_p=7d37a48b-2b1a-4373-8c1a-bdcc5da66be9&pd_rd_wg=lFY6P&pf_rd_r=C2WAH2WCGD3QZNBQAK1N&pd_rd_r=e337097a-a197-4463-afff-b9e5c6a355c6&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMktLTDg4R1JXSkdWJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwOTQ0ODk4Mlk2QkU5QUhUUlRPNyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjk0ODkzWE05QVpTUzVXOElJJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfZGV0YWlsJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

If you were to only read one, I'd point you to Tuchman.

 

Tuchman's book is amazing, but a very long read.  I think I eventually switched to the audio version.  But, I loved that book.  I need to read it again, because that's what I do with history books - too much to absorb in one reading!

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14 hours ago, Lori D. said:

In addition to the great succinct reasons Tanaqui outlined, don't forget nationalism -- "our country is great and will kick everyone else's hinder", which is what pulled in all the naive young men to volunteer as soldiers.

Which also led to the Lost Generation after the war, when all those soldier survivors realized what impersonal hell the first full-out mechanized war really was, and lost their faith not only in the older generation's beliefs in "the glories of war" and "patriotism is ennobling". Read American authors Ernest Hemingway and F.S. Fitzgerald. Read German author Erich Remarque's All Quiet On the Western Front.

And of course, because at the end of WW1, Germany was forced by the Versailles Treaty to take on *all* the moral and financial responsibility for the War (when there was clearly enough blame to go around for everyone), that Germany was devastated economically and morale-wise, leading to a dreadful Depression and money devaluation throughout the 1920s, and so broken by the early 1930s, that a wacko who was mesmerizing in his speeches was able to get elected into the leadership by saying he was going to make Germany great again... which led to WW2.

Add Wilfred Owen to that list 

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