NationStates Jolt Archive

I had forgotten this, but the folks who killed the King which started WWI had made an attempt which failed, then one of the plotters went out to by a sandwich; the King is being driven back to the hospital makes a wrong turn and goes right by the plotter.The plotter sees the King and fires two shots killing the King and his wife. Is this coincidence, or the hand of God?

If you belief this is Hand of God then for what purpose?

I watching History Channel and saw this. I have read a small amount of WWI stuff and this jogged my memory. Interesting stuff.

No, its just the serbian nationalists getting away with murder. Now they should have been severly punished and blamed for causing WWI, not the Germans.

You must be watching that History Channel documentary as we speak. I believe it's called "Days that Shook the World." It is kind of random that so many things came together to kill the Archduke though.

Is this coincidence, or the hand of God?
Or maybe we can just say that it was chance, and that no matter what WWI was inevitable, and the assassiation was merely the spark that ignited the kep of powder.

Edit:
Evidence that relgious fundamentalists shouldn't philosophise! :p

You must be watching that History Channel documentary as we speak. I believe it's called "Days that Shook the World." It is kind of random that so many things came together to kill the Archduke though.

Yep, sure was.

The alliance systems during that time were so conducive to war that any little incident could have caused a world war. France had held a mortal grudge against Germany ever since they lost the Franco-Prussian War, and the paranoid German High Command believed that war with France was inevitable and even desirable... they wished to beat France again in order to cement the German claim on Alsace-Lorraine. The German Schlieffen Plan for a two front war against France and Russia was formulated decades before WWI, proving that such a war was constantly on the minds of the German High Command. The French and British constantly maneuvered against Germany through diplomacy, such as securing favors from Italy and securing an alliance with Russia. The nations of Europe were very uptight... any excuse would set the Triple Alliance in war against the Triple Entente or vice versa even if Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not killed.

inveditable or not it was bad

Or maybe we can just say that it was chance, and that no matter what WWI was inevitable, and the assassiation was merely the spark that ignited the kep of powder.

Edit:
Evidence that relgious fundamentalists shouldn't philosophise! :p

I hope you don't think that I am a religious fundamentalist. I am religious but there really are no divisions of fundamentalist, liberal, etc in the Baha'i Faith. There are a few small groups of those who break away from the Baha'i Faith and call themselves different names, but they never last beyond one generation.

inveditable or not it was bad

Bad it certainly was, but it did make several other trends, options in world history such as the League of Nations, the European Union, the eventual end of the most obvious colonialism possible.

Im doing history on this. There are many, many things that contributed to WW1.

1. There was tension in the balkans. Austria-Hungary was made up of many different nationalities, including serbs. Serbia, another country in the area wanted to have the Serbs of Austria hungary in its nation. But, A-H was worried that if it gave the serbs their nation, all the other nationalities would want one too. A serb nationalist group called the black hand was set up by serbian officers in the army (IIRC, not sure about this). They wanted to kill the A-H king/emporer but he was too heavily protected. The prince franz ferdinand, the heir wasnt though. So when he did a state visit to a city where there were many serbs on national serbian day (i think) the black hand saw their chance.

There were several assasins in different places, most did nothing but were still caught later. At one part in the parade one threw a bomb at the princes car, he threw it out and it blew up someone elses car. On the way to the hospital to see the people injured, the driver took a wrong turn past an assasin. He pulled out a pistol and shot both the prince and his wife.

2. So, how did this start a war? Well, there is the alliance system. The idea is that if people are allied to other people then this wouldnt start war, because if you attacked a country then another 4 or 5 would attack you. There were two big power bases - the entente cordial - France, Britian, Russia and the triple alliance - Geramany, A-H and Italy. Russia was also allied to the serbs, because they had the same religion.

Though the alliance system did mean that people did not want to jump into war, it did mean that if there was a war everyone would be dragged in. A-H was angry at Serbia and gave it an impossible ultimatum. Serbia accepted all but one, and this was the excuse that A-H wanted. It happened something like this.

A. A-H declaers war on Serbia
B. Russia declears war on A-H
C. Germany declears war on Russia
D. All other countries are drawn in.

3. Germany had basically said that it would help A-H whatever, and was obliged to do so, and did not neccasarily want war. But when it was in war it had a plan to attack first. Germany had France to the west and Russia to the east, and was in danger of having a war on two fronts. So the scliffen plan was thought up.

A. France is more likely to mobilze quicker so
B. Defeat france quickly, leaving a small defensive force against russia, and then rush back to defeat Russia
C. BUT, France who had defeated in a previous war against Germany had built a massive series of fortifications along the German-France boundry.
D. So, attack through Belgium, and attack into France through that unprotected front.

4. There was also a naval arms race, and an arms race in general. There were various other conflicts before the war. And Turkey, who had been the power in the balkans was weak and there was a sort of land grab in that area.



So, there are many different reasons. The assisnation was the spark that ignited the keg of powder. even if the spark had not gone off it probably would still have happened. You also cant blame it on the serbs. A-H gave a really unfair ultimatum to the Serbian government who wasnt even involved!

Germany very nearly won in both the first and second world wars. In a way, i feel sorry for the Germans. They were so close, but yet they still failed against the odds. Maybe there is a god? ;)


BTW this is all from memory. and i always get WWI and WWI so sorry for any mistakes.

I have to say World War I was pretty much inevitable, or at least some sort of major European war. As others have pointed out France and Germany had been hostile to each other since 1870. Likewise Russia and Austria had conflicts over the Balkans due to the power vacuum caused by the fading of the Ottoman Empire.

So I would say at the least an Austro-Russian war and a Franco-German war were inevitable, and the alliance systems would keep either of these conflicts from remaining matters between just the two starting nations.

The role of the British Empire and other European states on the other hand is much less well-defined. Britain did offer Germany an alliance at one point, but the Kaiser rejected the offer as he felt the alliance set Germany as a junior partner to Britain. Also Britain had the Fashoda incident that could have lead to war with France, and an incident where Russian ships on the way to the Pacific for the war against Japan sank some British fishing boats that also raised tensions between the two.

Then with the potential roles taken by all the other states of Europe and the world I would have to say that though a major war was inevitable, the World War I as we know it hardly was.

Im doing history on this. There are many, many things that contributed to WW1.

1. There was tension in the balkans. Austria-Hungary was made up of many different nationalities, including serbs. Serbia, another country in the area wanted to have the Serbs of Austria hungary in its nation. But, A-H was worried that if it gave the serbs their nation, all the other nationalities would want one too. A serb nationalist group called the black hand was set up by serbian officers in the army (IIRC, not sure about this). They wanted to kill the A-H king/emporer but he was too heavily protected. The prince franz ferdinand, the heir wasnt though. So when he did a state visit to a city where there were many serbs on national serbian day (i think) the black hand saw their chance.

There were several assasins in different places, most did nothing but were still caught later. At one part in the parade one threw a bomb at the princes car, he threw it out and it blew up someone elses car. On the way to the hospital to see the people injured, the driver took a wrong turn past an assasin. He pulled out a pistol and shot both the prince and his wife.

"He" was Gavrio Prinzip, a Serbian. He was imprisoned and later died of tuberculosis.

Francis Ferdinand was an Archduke, not a prince.



2. So, how did this start a war? Well, there is the alliance system. The idea is that if people are allied to other people then this wouldnt start war, because if you attacked a country then another 4 or 5 would attack you. There were two big power bases - the entente cordial - France, Britian, Russia and the triple alliance - Geramany, A-H and Italy. Russia was also allied to the serbs, because they had the same religion.

Though the alliance system did mean that people did not want to jump into war, it did mean that if there was a war everyone would be dragged in. A-H was angry at Serbia and gave it an impossible ultimatum. Serbia accepted all but one, and this was the excuse that A-H wanted. It happened something like this.

A. A-H declaers war on Serbia
B. Russia declears war on A-H
C. Germany declears war on Russia
D. All other countries are drawn in.

Not quite.

A-H declared war on Serbia July 28th.
Russia started mobilizing troops(on its border with A-H), July 31. Russia had NOT declared war on Austria-Hungary or Germany.
Germany demanded Russia stop mobilizing, Russia refused. Germany declared war on Russia, Aug 1, 1914.

3. Germany had basically said that it would help A-H whatever, and was obliged to do so, and did not neccasarily want war. But when it was in war it had a plan to attack first. Germany had France to the west and Russia to the east, and was in danger of having a war on two fronts. So the scliffen plan was thought up.

Why be stupid enough to declare war on two countries that your country sits between? There was NO reason for Germany to declare war on Russia!

I think all of this shows that the Brits and the Americans were fighting for the wrong side. Do we really want to support the aspirations of a bunch of revolutionary murderous lunatics? I would have thought not, and if I had been in charge in either of those countries, Serbia (or at least Gavrilo and his weird friends) would have been toasted. We made the same mistake later in the 1990s when we were fighting to protect Kosovo. Again, some upstart revolutionaries start killing people in the Balkans, and we just have to jump in on the side of the drug dealing, destabilizing, revolutionaries. Can't we intervene on the side of stability and peace once?

I think all of this shows that the Brits and the Americans were fighting for the wrong side. Do we really want to support the aspirations of a bunch of revolutionary murderous lunatics? I would have thought not, and if I had been in charge in either of those countries, Serbia (or at least Gavrilo and his weird friends) would have been toasted. We made the same mistake later in the 1990s when we were fighting to protect Kosovo. Again, some upstart revolutionaries start killing people in the Balkans, and we just have to jump in on the side of the drug dealing, destabilizing, revolutionaries. Can't we intervene on the side of stability and peace once?


IF Germany hadn't decided on unrestricted submarine warfare. The US wouldn't have gotten involved.

Ever hear of the 'Lusitania'??

Why be stupid enough to declare war on two countries that your country sits between? There was NO reason for Germany to declare war on Russia!

1) Please do not call Germany or its High Commanders stupid.
2) Germany only declared war on Russia because they were mobilizing against Germany's ally, the Austo-Hungarian Empire. As Trilateral Commission points out, the alliance system had the entire continent entagled, meaning that any little disturbance involving any of the countries probably would have started the war.
Between Gyroscope and Trilateral Commission, I think you can get a pretty good idea of how the war started and what caused it.

A special thanks to those who are posting accurate information.

It wasn't just the alliance systems, either--the social climate of the time, percolating into political and military systems, helped. Nationalism was at its peak in Europe: every country was quite convinced that it was the best, and that it deserved to be a great power. This feeling of Volksgeist, coupled with the militarism and arms races, eventually ended up with massive armies facing each other across no-man's land... Ten million deaths in the end.

Yet I'm not sure we can make judgements as to who or what was bad or stupid. I'll be the first to cry out against the horrors and atrocities of war: in fact, I believe that there is no war, no matter how necessary or justified, that is not essentially a crime. However, think of what a different world we'd be living in if it hadn't been for WWI. Its repercussions were long-lasting and varied, some positive, some negative.

In short, it's over: now is the time to learn about it, not simply to condemn it. If we remember the past, we'll no longer be doomed to repeat it.

I think that as terrible as WWI was it did force the world to begin to see the need to start thinking in terms of close cooperation amoung nations, to consider unbridled nationalism as unproductive to the general happiness and welfare of the humanity. It wasn't untill after WWI that the need for international rules and laws became discussed among nations. Was this the Hand of God moving us toward the inevitable brotherhood of man?

Hear, hear. Much as I disagree with attributing it to the hand of God, that's a good point.

1) Please do not call Germany or its High Commanders stupid.



Woah! We got an NPD party member here!

Is WW1 inevitable?
Yes. It will happen, and we can't stop it!
Nothing we do will avert the course of fate!
Mwahaha.
:D

IF Germany hadn't decided on unrestricted submarine warfare. The US wouldn't have gotten involved.

Ever hear of the 'Lusitania'??


It's not certain that she was sunk by a german U-Boat, there are reasons to believe that she was sunk by the British and not by the Germans.

As for the Hitler Jugend:

Please do not call Germany or its High Commanders stupid.

But they were stupid. If they had carried out the Von Schlieffenplan as it was meant to be they would have overrun france. But because they didn't want to invade the Netherlands as well and breach their neutrality, and because they kept to many forces in the Lotharingen-Elzas region, the right wing that swept through Belgium was too weak and too compact, that's why it's advance was to slow and France and Belgium had the time to build op their defences. And that's why those commanders were stupid, they screwed up a perfect plan.

1) Please do not call Germany or its High Commanders stupid.

Are you saying it's intelligent to declare war on Russia Aug 1, then turn around and declare war on France Aug 4? Then exacerbate the matter by blatantly ignoring Belgian neutrality and drag Britain into the war?



2) Germany only declared war on Russia because they were mobilizing against Germany's ally, the Austo-Hungarian Empire. As Trilateral Commission points out, the alliance system had the entire continent entagled, meaning that any little disturbance involving any of the countries probably would have started the war.
Between Gyroscope and Trilateral Commission, I think you can get a pretty good idea of how the war started and what caused it.

The fact is, Germany didn't have to do anything. According to the Triple Alliance, Germany, A-H, and Italy were to support each other in a defensive war, since Germany and A-H had both declared war(thus engaging in an offensive war), Italy was not bound to support them.
"History of the World War", by Francis Halsey, Vol 1, p181.

IF Germany hadn't been in such a hurry to "jump the gun", the conflict between A-H and Serbia might have been contained. Declaring war on Russia simply dragged in the French, then declaring war on Belgium dragged in the Brits, etc, etc. A "domino effect".

A special thanks to those who are posting accurate information.

Are you saying I'm not posting accurate information?

It's not certain that she was sunk by a german U-Boat, there are reasons to believe that she was sunk by the British and not by the Germans.

So the Arabic was sunk by the Brits as well??


"Two months before this(Feb 1917) Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, had recieved his passports in consequence of the resumption by Germany of unrestricted and intensified submarine warfare regardless of neutral right."

"History of the World War", Vol 1, pp217

The Schlieffen plan wasn't perfect, it was made years before the war. It didnt take into account the new weapons that had been made, or Russia mobilising in quicker than 6 weeks.

I'm not saying that the Arabic was sunk by the Brits, I'm only talking about the Lusitania.

The Schlieffen plan wasn't perfect, it was made years before the war. It didnt take into account the new weapons that had been made, or Russia mobilising in quicker than 6 weeks.

The Schlieffen plan had nothing to do with Russia it was a plan to invade France. And the Germans were more than capable in holding the Russians back. Russia did not pose a problem for the German High Command. The Schlieffen plan didn't need to take in account the new weapons that were made, if executed correctly it wouldn't have mattered, France and Belgium would have been overrun in a couple of days. Look at world war two, the blitz was a more evolved Schlieffen plan and it worked marvelous.

Then exacerbate the matter by blatantly ignoring Belgian neutrality and drag Britain into the war?

Let's not ignore the fact that blatantly ignoring Belgian neutrality was part of the plan's genius, France did not expect an attack on that side and as a consequence didn't build strong defences. The problem was, for the right wing to be strong enough, they also should have violated the Dutch neutrality, which they didn't.

It was inevitable. The whole European system was unsustainable.

I had forgotten this, but the folks who killed the King which started WWI had made an attempt which failed, then one of the plotters went out to by a sandwich; the King is being driven back to the hospital makes a wrong turn and goes right by the plotter.The plotter sees the King and fires two shots killing the King and his wife. Is this coincidence, or the hand of God?

If you belief this is Hand of God then for what purpose?

I watching History Channel and saw this. I have read a small amount of WWI stuff and this jogged my memory. Interesting stuff.

the historian, Barbara Tuchman (who won a Pulitzer Price for her work) in the books "Guns of August" and "March of Folly" makes an excellent case for none of the above... not accident or god, but the folly of men.

At any point the march toward war could have been stopped if the leaders had looked beyond the immediate situation and at the long range risks. Even the Kaiser, too late, realized that the situation was spinning out of control and ordered his Generals to stop the mobilization. The Generals said it would be a disaster if they did and so the Germans went to war.

The entire situation from the murder of Archduke (and even before as remember, it was Serbian back Serbian terrorists who killed the Archduke and his wife) could have been prevented from spinning out of control.

The Schlieffen plan had nothing to do with Russia it was a plan to invade France. And the Germans were more than capable in holding the Russians back. Russia did not pose a problem for the German High Command. The Schlieffen plan didn't need to take in account the new weapons that were made, if executed correctly it wouldn't have mattered, France and Belgium would have been overrun in a couple of days. Look at world war two, the blitz was a more evolved Schlieffen plan and it worked marvelous.

Let's not ignore the fact that blatantly ignoring Belgian neutrality was part of the plan's genius, France did not expect an attack on that side and as a consequence didn't build strong defences. The problem was, for the right wing to be strong enough, they also should have violated the Dutch neutrality, which they didn't.

A lot of modern historians, including John Keegan and SLA Marshall are pretty sure that the plan could not succeed as originally written, modified in 1914 and carried out.. it simply put too much demand on the feet of the German soldier, no resistance from the Belgians and complete inertia from the French.

The 1940 Manstein Plan was a replacement for the plan that the Germans had going until a plane crash in the Netherlands forced the Germans to take a second look (as a German officer with the current warplan fell into Dutch hands...oops).

I have gamed out the Schleiffen Plan with several different commercial wargames over the last 25 years and have yet to see the Germans pull it off... they can come close, but just can't get to Paris.

A good point to make would be that if the Germans hadn't banked everything on the perfect plan, then they wouldn't have had to declare war on France, or invade Belgium and the Great War would have been Russia vs Germany and Austria without the West getting involved, or possibily no war at all as the Serbs were ready to agree to the nasty Austrian terms and the Austrians invaded them anyway. A better Austrian government would have prevented the entire mess.

The 1940 Manstein Plan was a replacement for the plan that the Germans had going until a plane crash in the Netherlands forced the Germans to take a second look (as a German officer with the current warplan fell into Dutch hands...oops).


Close but no cigar, the plane crashed in Belgium and as a result the plans fell into the hands of the Belgian officials who described the plans as "too simple to be true".

It's not certain that she was sunk by a german U-Boat, there are reasons to believe that she was sunk by the British and not by the Germans.

the overwhelming body of evidence is this:

The Lusitania was a legal target as she was carrying munitions (only one torpedo hit, and that apparently set off a secondary explosion that gutted the ship and caused her to go down so quickly)

That the Germans had warned travellers in New York newspapers that they were targeting liners.

and that it was a horrifically bad idea in hindsight to sink a liner with Americans on board, not to mention a lot of British women and children.

Other problems were that she wasn't escorted (not itself a big problem if she had kept her speed up), that she had dropped her speed and stopped zig zagging just before she was hit, and that this was due to overconfidence.

A new book at (can be found at the usual book stores) talks about the entire incident in detail, and there have been excellent books around for years.

The bottom line was that the German politicians thought unrestricted submarine warfare was a horribly bad idea bound to bring the Americans in, and that the German generals, who by this point were essentially running Germany, ignored their advice.

An excellent reason to have civilian control of the military. (by the way, no military dictatorship won a war in the 20th Century, even the Communists had the Party in charge, not the Army).

ok, so WWI was gonna happen no matter what.
europeans had been fighting since before the Romans, and obviously as the more complicated the relations became between countries, the more the tension would increase between them.
so lets say, hypothetically, that the archduke was never murdered... Germany would probably have declared war on france anyway......and there would have been war sooner or later.

besides, it was a horrible war, and it is long over.
God only hopes nothing like it ever happens again... like its repeat starting in 1939.

Close but no cigar, the plane crashed in Belgium and as a result the plans fell into the hands of the Belgian officials who described the plans as "too simple to be true".

I stand corrected, however, since it was exactly what the Allies expected (see the Dyle Plan) the plane crash didn't do the Allies any favors when the Germans did something different.

Sorry from all of my mistkes in the first post :D . This is what i was/am being taught.

1. Germany did not want to go to war at the time, but had given unconditional support to A-H.

2. When war broke out they were worried that they would be trapped between Russia and France.

3. So they made the Scliffen plan - they would attack first and hopefully noy have to fight on two fronts.



Also, though i have not heard of the lusitania being sink by the british, i have heard that they knew about pearl harbour but kept quiet about it :eek: .

The seeds of World War 1 were planted at the end of the Napoleonic Wars (which in my and many other other historians opinions was the actual 'First' World War). The facts are remarkably similar to the way World War 1 ended too.

After the Napoleonic Wars, all of the great powers agreed to maintain the Concert of Europe, a peaceful way of maintaining the balance of power within the continent. Summits and conferences would be held to discuss major foreign policy changes. Alas most of the system was ignored from 1815 to 1914 and so there was little communication between the powers. Compare this to the League of Nations and we may indeed see that history repeats itself.

Several crises occured during this time which eventually began the build up. There were the frequent Balkan crisis where a crumbling Ottoman Empire (only propped up by France and Britain) was losing control of the Balkans to Russian and Austrian expansionism. This resulted in several explosions: the Crimiea War (France, Britain and Ottomans versus Russia), the Bulgarian massacres, the Berlin Conference of 1878 and the Balkan Wars (1890s onwards between the semi independent states). Britain, Austria, Russia and Turkey had inherent interest in that area and maintaining those interests would be the reason Russia and Austria went to war.

The next factor was the German unification and its implications. One thing Napoleon did do was unify the Germanic peoples in spirit. After fighting the French invader off their land, they felt untied culturally if not by nationality (at that point Germany was divided into many small states, the biggest being Prussia). This feeling of national unity would eventually lead to the creation of the united German state and the creation of the position of Kaiser. With that unification came the lust to be a world power and so Germany began to look outwards. A Franco - German war occured and France was humilated. The Germans began to take active part in the 'race for Africa' as it was known, taking large chunks for their Empire. Finally came the naval and military expansion. The naval proliferation in particular was a threat to Britain and her interests - evidently Germany one day hoped to challenge Britain on the high seas (remember until the late 1920s, Britain had the largest navy in the world). France was threatened by German military expansion. So ultimately that is why Britain and France entered the war.

The singular fact is that where such massive imperial powers were concerned, there was bound to be collision. No one side could hope to maintain the concert of the Europe because each side was too powerful. All sides believed that in the event of a war they would triumph. And that is indeed what happened: the sides were so well matched in both strengths and weaknesses that the conflict turned into 4 years of deadlock.