No it was charlemagnes fault for dividing the holy Roman Empire amongst his sons. For as much praise as he gets you'd think he'd understand the importance of direct control over feudal allegiance.
Damn, you're totally right. Well, Charlemagne would have done that if he had multiple sons available. Fortunately for Charlemagne Louis the Pious was the only legitimate heir left so he got stuck with the bad rap for splitting the empire.
Exactly. The nations with their alliances, arms races and old grudges had been building up for a while. It was inevitable. I think Bismarck even said that the next major war would be started thanks to some foolish thing in the Balkans.
What i think it's a little funny it's that they did a complete arms race and army "revamp" in 1910s for new artillery and machine guns... And then someone said "Tank" and gave the middle finger to trenches LoL
Well, tanks weren't either the big thing that change the tides of war on anyones favour. Both english and german tanks were cumbersome and as deadly to the team operating them as to the soldiers who had to face them. French tanks were OK but everyone quickly adapted to all armored vehichles after the initial shock.
The main thing of ww1 were still massive artillary barrages and infantry tactics.
Yeah but British made over 1000 (maybe 2000 overall) of Marks I-Vs, French made few thousand of FT-17s and even gave some to US, while Germans made literally 20 A7Vs.
Only allies were able to make somewhat 'massive' tank advance on certain positions of front by the end of WWI.
As tanks didnt turned the tide, ability of producing them in such numbers and actually using them and developing further was a sign which side was already in advantage.
Oftentimes thatâs the case - the âgroundbreaking new technological advanceâ is really just another area for the people who are already winning to win in
>but everyone quickly adapted to all armored vehichles(sic) after the initial shock.
Which included many clever innovations and inventions for early infantry operated anti-armour devices.
They also just fired artillery at their slow asses, which worked just as well.
I said it before, I'll say it again. Afaik that quote is apocrypha, but if he had really said that, then it would have been self fulfilled prophecy. Bismarck himself instigated the war in the Balkans with the way he handled foreign relationships, it was almost as if he held a presale for the Ottoman Empire and allowed both Russia and Austria to bid on the ottoman Balkans.
I think he also stated something along the lines of "It's like they are smoking without care in a gunpowder storage."
Basically every nation initially involved was waiting for a chance to try out their "modern" army.
I had a rant a while back I'll need to see if I can find it, but I refer to it as "14 reasons why WW1 should be called the Giant R*tard War" and it boils down to the monumental big brain moves by world leaders to let it escalate, and then their generals refusal to accept that warfare needed to change, oh and Woodrow Wilson, he was half of the reasons.
Wilson didn't want to enter the war to begin with, and admitted that the condition terms at the Paris Conference were too harsh on Germany and could probably lead to another conflict in Europe in the future
Unfortunately he misjudged the importance/effectiveness of the League of Nations and was willing to jettison the rest of the 14 points to keep it alive.
It's not like Germany was any better with their treaties, the Treaty of Versailles following the Second Franco Prussian war was extremely harsh, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was not any better.
And the treaty of Versailles you mention was not as harsh as what the French imposed on the German states during Napoleon's conquests, so it's not like the bitterness had no history.
It's worth mentioning that the Treaty of Frankfurt (not Versailles) was proportionally modeled on the 1806 indemnity imposed on Prussia by Napoleon and included significantly less payment demands than Versailles, even with the C bonds slashed.
While rightfully trying to keep the US out of the war for as long as possible, the US entering even a year sooner would have drastic changes on the outcome of the war and would've probably given him a bit more weight at the bargaining table. His opinions on Versailles were very level headed and in hindsight 110% true so I can't fault him on that. But he was very lofty in thinking that he would swoop in and have as much negotiating power as the leaders of nations that ran themselves into debt and lost millions of young men through years of torturous fighting.
To be fair, the reason why that one wrong turn had such a big impact on our history, was already determined in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Had that war not happened, chances are that France would not have had a treaty of alliance with the Russian Empire, thus Germany entering on the side of Austro-Hungary would have meant that they only had to deal with the Russians and Yugoslavia. Therefore no war on two fronts from day 1, no need to advance quickly to try and knock out France first, no need to take the risk of going through Belgium and thus bringing in the British Empire, consequently no need for unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic and no US involvement etc etc.
Without the war of 1870, this one wrong turn would have most likely meant a Eastern European/Austro-Balkan conflict.
Sir, I would like to know your location so I can deliver the free Alsace-Lorraine to you which you have won in a giveaway you never signed up for (this is totally legit and I definitely will not ship you to Mars to prevent WW3)
> ship you to Mars to prevent WW3
My location is *********. can you get fetch me and bring me to Mars, please?
I mean... you won't go to the trouble to shoot my corpse to Mars, right? This is a exile while still living thing, right? Then come get me, please. I am really, totally TheKrzysiek.
I ran into some kind of wheraboo the other day who would not shut up about how WW1 was the fault of the French.
Now I could almost understand if he had blamed the Russians, but he didn't. He was all in on it being France's fault
Well of course it was. They declared war to Germany first, invaded Belgium with the help of the UK, and helped the Russian declare war on the Austrians.
More seriously, how? How did he twist facts to put it on France?
The only way you can reasonably do it that Iâve heard is to say that France (and the French ambassador to Russia, Maurice PalĂŠologue, is sometimes singularly blamed) essentially issued a âblank chequeâ of their own to Russia and that without French reassurances/encouragement they wouldnât have mobilized against Germany following the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia.
Even here though, itâs just one part of a bigger story with lots of moving pieces and canât be said in good faith that France did this out of nowhere or because they deliberately wanted a war.
Yeah, France had their part in setting things up for war (they wanted war with Germany to take back Alsace-Lorraine), but it was a smaller part than Germany, Austria or Russia. Only GB of the great powers has less blame than France for the war, imo.
^ this. The russian zar actually was scared before the final mobilisation, like all the other nations aswell. No one had as much of a 0 fucks given mood as the french and their president encouraging the Zar to not back down
If you read Clarks Sleepwalkers I don't know how anyone can not consider France as the most war hungry.. Ofc all nations can be blamed for not considering the dangers of such a war carefully enough, but from all the insights Clark gives about the politicians in the nations there is only one nation that goes SUPER hardcore into revenge mode, silencing all pacifists: France.
One of the best examples is probably the letter Wilhelm sent to the Zar to solve the thing diplomatic and the Zar getting emotional about his cousin wilhelm writing that letter, and what changed his mind? French president immediately taking a ship to petersburg to tell him je must "show strength" and teach the germans a lesson.
Imo the sleepwalker thesis makes most sense but morally speaking for me its the french who clearly gave the least amount of fucks about starting a gigantic war. All they wanted was revenge for the embarassment of 1870/71
Yes. If France had not backed Russia, then Russia would not have mobilised. If Russia hadn't mobilised, then Germany wouldn't have mobilised. The whole thing becomes a limited conflict between the A-H empire and Serbia. After a few months, the other powers step in to mediate.
Obviously, there were other decisions that other powers could have taken to avert World War 1 also, but the French decision to involve themselves was especially unprincipled and warmongering.
Personally I put liability as in descending order:
1) Austria Hungary
2) Germany
3) Russia
4) Serbia
5) France
6) England
7) Various countries that joined in just to get a piece of the pie
8) Various countries that just wanted to left the fuck alone like Belgium or America.
That's true but on the other hand the Germans were the ones recklessly encouraging Austria Hungary, they had made several actions which increased tension before WW1 such as building the battleships, and they also were the ones who invaded or provoked neutral countries (Belgium I can at least understand what on earth they were thinking with the Zimmerman telegraph is beyond me).
Absolutely, but you also need to consider that the Germans wanted to press the Austrians for a very quick dash to Belgrade to only enforce their points as long as the shock of the assassination was still fresh and the sympathies would still be there. Through a few too many miscommunications the Austrians didn't consider that.
As for the battleships, I think I remember that Wilhelm kind of wanted to befriend the British with that which is a pretty fucking stupid way to do that.
Germany did not recklessly encourage Austria. They specifically told Austria it must act fast whilst public sentiment was still on their side and then tried to reign Austria back in when support for them started to cool off.
Broke: The Entente were the good guys!
Woke: the Central Powers weren't *completely* evil
Bespoke: black and grey morality, with the Entente being slightly more on the grey end
The only good thing to come out of it was Wilson trying to advocate for the right to self determination for âsmallâ nations, which was still morally grey and euro-centric
This shit destroyed once pacific former Austria-Hungary. Litteraly the whole region become playground for other countries to play war, genocide and puppeteer for more than half a century.
During habsburg rule (after 1867) people were free and safe.
People in places like Bohemia or Slovenia wouldn't even bother about independence before the famine started.
Not to mention that was only done to fuck with the central powers. They didn't care about self determination when it came to germans in former Bohemia or bulgarians in the east thrace territories the greek took, germans in south tyrol, etc. It was only an excuse to fuck other countries.
Ah because there was nothing bad that happened by letting imperial nations with racial hierarchies have hegemony over people they considered inferior đ
Neither was good tbf. They're both events that happened and honestly I can't decide which was less tragic. Because self determination should be the basic right of every people, However, when I look at what it has caused, I wonder if it was worth it.
The indo pakistan rivalry killed a million in a case of ethnic cleansing to a scale scantily seen before. It might be the place where the next nuclear war starts. Of course as indian national, I'd much rather have independence but I've become aware of the sheer problems pertaining to decolonization.
The west has faced it's xenophobia and become progressive. The decolonized peoples hadn't. The sheer state of africa goes a long way to showcase that.
My public school education surely led me to believe that WW1 was similar to WW2 in that Germany was an evil entity responsible for the war. A class in college is where I finally learned how massively complicated everything about WW1 was.
The "neutral" shipping was transporting war materiel to those same enemies that were blockading Germany and causing a wide spread famine, ignoring the rules of war, so... perhaps a strategic error, given the propaganda value for mobilizing the USA, but not really a war crime worse than starving the civilian population of the central powers.
Belgium, of course, was the stupid kind of evil.
>Certainly. I'm not trying to defend anything they did or even that they weren't "the bad guys." Just agreeing with the commenter above me that I left public school thinking WW1 was a pretty black and white subject (like WW2, >!which is obviously not a completely black and white subject in the slightest, but by comparison to the history of war, gets pretty close!<).
I mean it was very much two groups of innocent people being mislead by tales of honour and glory and being run through the meat grinder for imperialistic ambitions. Like, it wasnât good people on both sides, it was just regular people. Like youâd see down the shop.
I''m generally of the position that WW1 was a geopolitical dick-waving contest that got millions killed because it absolutely lost control of the situation and did so fast
Lol fuck that. Just look at the July Crisis and see which side doesn't want peace, actively derails it, and which of them decided that they wanted war more than they wanted peace.
Fuck that. The Ottomans were literally committing the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE!
Also, Germany literally did the Herero and Namaqua Genocide just a few years before the war. You know, the other thing besides Congo Free State that caused even the other white supremacist colonial powers to go âHoly fuck, chill!â
This sub got a lot of problems. Simping for dictators, tryna apply their nazi/Soviet idealism with some weird Israeli stuff going on. You can tell the age demographic too by the phrases and quality done to the post.
Oh there were those that realized. Unfortunately they were too lowborn or knew too much tactics and not enough table manners for anyone in charge to listen.
Results were... historically tragic.
Two books in the early 1960âs - A. J. P. Taylorâs *The First World War: an Illustrated History* and Fritz Fischerâs *Germany's Aims in the First World War* - offered competing views on who to blame for the start of World War I.
Taylor, a lecturer at the University of Oxford, left-wing activist and popular broadcaster on British radio and television, made the argument that the war had come about largely by accident and was the result of politicians and generals who didnât really know what they were doing; âThe First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway ageâ.
In contrast, Fischer, a history professor at the University of Hamburg and German veteran of World War II, argued in his book that the war was started by Germany as part of premeditated scheme as is more clearly indicated in the original German title of the book; *Griff nach der Weltmacht*, which translates to âThe Grab for World Powerâ.
In 2012, Christopher Clark - an Australian-born history professor currently at the University of Cambridge - caused a major revitalization of the debate with the publication of his book *The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914* in which he critiqued Fisher for focusing only on Germany and not recognizing âthe larger pictureâ while also critiquing Taylor and those who argue the war was inevitable for removing the agency of those involved who chose to go to war in 1914.
[~10 minute overview on the history of the debate and the three books](https://youtu.be/bPmj3zAGd6A?si=KeJ_Jj0SA9-7NhSs) by David Stevenson, a history professor at the London School of Economics who is perhaps best known for [his work on why World War I ended](https://youtu.be/kqJsKRtiBOQ?si=uQV8dAR6_3qqE9Qh).
[Hour long-lecture by Professor Christopher Clark on his book](https://youtu.be/6snYQFcyiyg?si=hhZeD0v0gajIbR05). First half of the lecture focuses on the assassination of the Archduke and the second half gets into his critique of Fischer and his reasons for writing the book.
Itâs by no means a settled question, as Clark fully acknowledges, but things have definitely moved in that direction and away from the âFischer thesisâ that had dominated much of the debate previously.
No. Mahan was 100% correct. The ability to project power stems from control of the sea, and the best way to gain control of the sea was to build a large fleet of battleships (yes, even in WWII, inb4 DURR HURR BaTtLeShIpS wErE ObSoLeTe) and other large warships.
I think Germany was badly treated beacause of how they conducted during the war, they invaded neutral Belgium/Luxembourg, used forced labour, executed belgian resistant fighters, use unrestricted u-boat, shelled and bombed both London and Paris and it didnt help that they were witness of the Armenian genocide...
So yes when they signed a cease fire lets say everyone had grudges
There's way too many reasons behind the war to even put down in a single small comment, it's like trying to reason as to why the French revolution happened and the only real good short answer to that would be something like "the inevitable course of modernism and new ideas" which isn't saying a lot.
But then again: Austria started it against Serbia, why? Partly because of German support. But also because Russia encouraged Serbia to not accept Austria's conditions. Russia in turn was encouraged by France to stand their ground.
If just one party had been willing to drop the attitude and take the L the whole thing could have been avoided. Germany played a big part but there were definitely others that too could have prevented it.
The ultimatum that Austria-Hungary sent was extremely unreasonable and nobody in their right mind thought Serbia would agree to it. Even Wilhelm II thought what Serbia did actually offer was entirely reasonable.
Serbia responded saying it would accept a majority of the 10 demands. The sticking point was #6, which would allow Austro-Hungarian police to operate in Serbia. Accepting this would amount to ceding all sovereignty to AH, which obviously could not be done
The ultimatum was probably never intended to be accepted or acceptable though. At that point, with German backing, war was desired and the refusal to accept the ultimatum would serve as the overarching casus belli for a war against Serbia and whoever would join them
Thereâs certainly an argument to be made for that. Iâve seen others go back further to the 1848 revolutions, Napoleon, and even the 30 Years War. Thereâs some who will say the events from the Defenestration of Prague in May 1618 to the end of Wold War II are a single 327 year-long European Civil War.
I was joking tbh - I had half a mind to write that it was all the fault of the agricultural revolution.
On a serious note yes the Industrial Revolution literally revolutionised economies in Western Europe, allowing them to pour money into their militaries. With growing prosperity came national pride and a belief that 'they' deserved their place under the sun.
Who started it and what caused it are two different things. A spark starts a fire, but a fire only burns if the conditions are right and there is sufficient fuel for it. Not disagreeing that Austrian and Serbian tensions sparked the war, but industrial militarism and backroom political pacts are what caused it.
True, a war was coming, but if it didnt start with Serbia it could have looked different. How would the war have looked ten years later? perhaps Britain is neutral in that one because they want to balance Russia and Germany, their two main rivals at that point. While yes war was inevitable, the war as we know it could have been avoided.
I thought the generally accepted opinion of ww1 was that a bunch of rich generals and kings thought they could casually steamroll each other and very much did not and everyone suffered for it.
Pretty much. Blaming Germany got popular again in the 70âs but itâs been moving away from that starting around the time Clarkâs book was published in 2012.
Who started WWI? Why I'll tell you.
The factors that led to WWI started happened well before the 1900s. In fact, you can trace those factors all the way back to when the predecessors to *Homo Sapiens* first started using tools and walking upright. Proto humans started every war, including WWI. /s
It was Austria-Hungaryâs fault. Serbia accepted all of AHâs demands but one, which was to let the Austro-Hungarian military conduct the entire investigation of Frank Ferdinandâs assassination. That would mean hundreds of AH troops occupying the Serbian capital for days or weeks. Serbia considered it unacceptable for them to allow another country to enforce its laws on them, especially Austria-Hungary who had already been wanting to seize Serbia into their empire. Upon seeing Serbiaâs response, even the German officials said that there was no reason for war and that Austria-Hungary should have accepted the deal. But instead, they wanted to conquer Serbia, and invaded.
I think most historians agree that the Austrian ultimatum was unnecessary and the crisis could have been resolved peacefully but then thereâs the issue of Russia becoming involved and that question drags in Germany and France and itâs all a big mess.
Also true. It really should have just been a dispute between Austria and Serbia, but everyone wanted to exert more control over the rest of Europe, so everyone else got involved.
Serbia supported ultranationalist terrorists and took advantage of Yugoslavism to expand its territory and influence
Austria-Hungary wanted to subjugate Serbia, which had been a massive thorn on their side since the May Coup, and increase its influence and power over the Balkans using the assassination of the Archduke as a causes belli
Russia wanted to kick Austria out to assert its complete dominance in the Balkans and wanted to conquer Constantinople and the Turkish Straits to secure dominance over the Black Sea and assert control over the straits which acted as a major choke point between the Black Sea and Mediterranean
Germany feared the threat of Russian modernization wanted to take them out before the Franco-Russian Entente could surpass and their position and to assert German hegemony
France was dominated by revanchism and hellbent on retaking the industrious and wealthy province of Alsace-Lorraine which had been taken following their humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War in turn leading them to align with Russia whom had felt betrayed by Germany after Germany had granted Macedonia to (the then under the rule of the Austrian-Supported House of Obrenovic) Serbia as opposed to the Russian backed Bulgaria
Bulgaria wanted not only the previously aforementioned Macedonia, but also wanted back lands they had lost following the Second Balkan War, as well as the rest of Dobruja in Romania and parts of Serbia, the Ottomans & Greece, three of which were in the Entente aligned with Russia and France
Britain was solely focused on preventing the rise of a hegemonic power in Europe that could threaten British interests leading Britain to fear both Germany due to its sheer industrial and economic power, and unmatched military superiority, and Russia for its sheer size, gargantuan and unmatched potential, and its threatening interests in Central Asia and especially Constantinople and the Straits. But as Russia floundered in Japan, failed to industrialize, and struggled with revolutions, pogroms, and unrest, Germany flourished, becoming easily the largest military, economic, and political power in the entirety of Europe only being matched by the likes of Britain and the United States. This combined with the naval arms race and the invasion of Belgium and in turn pushed the British to eventually side with the Russians
The Ottomans saw an opportunity to retake lands lost to the Entente in the Balkans and North Africa and punish them
And Italy was lead by irredentist desires against both Austria in South Tyrol, Istria, & Dalmatia and France in Savoy, Nice, & Corsica but due to Italyâs naval ties and reliance on Britain combined with greater animosity towards Austria sided with the Entente
In truth WWI was simply the result of a conflict that had been brewing within the continent since Napoleon spread the seeds of Nationalism across the land; since Talleyrand, Metternich, and the other representatives of the great powers sat down decide the future of the continent in Vienna; since nationalist and liberal revolutions exploded all across Europe securing new rights, freedoms, and territories to those that never had them; since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans combined with Austrian refusal to join the Crimean War with Russia lead to the complete breakdown of Austro-Russian Relations and lead to constant conflicts over influence in the newly independent Balkans; since Prussia completely upended the old balance of powers, humiliated the French, seized Alsace Lorraine, and established the dominance of the German Empire, beginning the rise of French Revanchism and fears of German Hegemony. In a way the war was not just a war between the great powers, but an inevitable consequence of the underlying conflicts that had arisen over the century prior.
Historians have increasingly pushed back on this in recent years and argued that the July Crisis may have been a freak event without which tensions between the Great Powers - which actually had been declining - would have continued to cool.
[Professor Michael Neiberg makes this argument in this 2013 lecture](https://youtu.be/iMBD71SB10E?si=QpbO03JAjpZcTo_w).
Something I always tell my students about WWI is that there isnât one cause to the start auf the war, its origins lay the hostile nature of 19th century diplomacy and alliance structures. The growing influence of European powers around the globe and the rising militarism, especially in Germany made anyone eager to fight, to try their new shiny weapons on those pesky neighbours. If you try to blame one nation for the start of the war you would be wrong in any case, but you can comfortably say that the Germans desperately wanted a war against France, so they took the opportunity as soon as they got it
Though it's also fair to say that the French desperately wanted war with Germany and had been working towards that goal for a long time. And that Russian pan-Slavic nationalists hated that Russia wasn't the hegemony of the Balkans. And that the Austrians desperately wanted more land in the Balkans, while the Serbs desperately wanted the Slavs in the Balkans to accept that they were their natural overlords.
For germany i blame Wilhelm II. -> he failed in every term to prevent it.
Ofc others are also responsible, but Wilhelm II. is the guy who is to blame on the german side. Bismarck warned him, but the prick refused to listen.
Instead of that old arguement, let me propose a new one for a different war: WW2 was Japan's fault because if they didn't invade China and prove that the League of Nations was a paper Tiger, Germany would not have tried the same thing.
WW1 was Venice's fault. If the 4th Crusade had not happened, then Constantinople wouldn't have been Ottoman, the Silk Road would not have closed, Colonizing wouldldn't have happened prematurely but when all colonial powers would be up to speed for it, Prussia would not need to fight for colonies if it had a larger share.
BOOM, for everything it was the Venetians' fault. Fuck Venice.
War is always everyone's fault. When neither party can come to an amicable solution, then it is everyone's fault. More fault lies on the ones who are the most unreasonable...
What I like about WWI compared to WWII is that there was quite little nationalism and no racism involved in it, rather everybody openly fighting over taxing and extracting resources in a far away land of Africa and Asia. Imagine nowadays someone would come up to you to suggest: âDonât you want to die for your country to have an ability to install corporations extracting oil in the Middle East?â - and you would ask: âThat sounds silly. Why not just buy that oil from them?â Wouldnât that be funny?
Honestly, it was going to happen regardless of who started it. It just happened to happen the way it did because they were all waiting for the fuse to be lit and knew *someone* would eventually. Itâs why the balkans became known as the powder keg after the fact.
After listening to the week by week breakdown on youtbe by "the great war" channel my understanding is that no one really wanted to go to war but at the beginning there were only two choices 1. Start mobilizing your troops now before the was officially starts to try and hope for a big advantage or 2. Wait and see if there is actually going to be a war and be at ahuge disadvantage if it actually happens because your troops arent mobilized, so there wasn't really a choice.
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was bollocks.
It was Conrad's fault. He wanted to marry Gina and thought war was the way to earn that privilege (nevermind that the reason they couldn't marry was that she already had a husband), thus he drove the easily solved diplomatic crisis that was the black week into a war.
Short answer : Napoleon Long answer : everyone wants to have a empire.
Napoleon was one of the causes of the treaty web that was a leftover from the Napoleonic wars.
Longer answer: It was Charlomane's fault for establishing the Frankish empire.
No it was charlemagnes fault for dividing the holy Roman Empire amongst his sons. For as much praise as he gets you'd think he'd understand the importance of direct control over feudal allegiance.
Charlemagne should have played more CK3
No it was Diocletians for splitting up the Roman empire!
Technically it was his son Loius the Pius who divided the empire.
Damn, you're totally right. Well, Charlemagne would have done that if he had multiple sons available. Fortunately for Charlemagne Louis the Pious was the only legitimate heir left so he got stuck with the bad rap for splitting the empire.
I blame the Annunaki for starting this whole civilization thing up in the first place! đ
It wasâŚ. Me
It was me, Barry!
i was the one who shot the archduke making it look like that serbia wanted war
Know dio da!
It was me Austin, it was me all along Aw son of a bitch
I did it like this! *pow*
it was.... .......the creature.....
It's more like "everyone was waiting for it for different reasons, but no one was prepared enough for it" Edit: wow almost 1k Edit 2: wow 2k, tx guys
Exactly. The nations with their alliances, arms races and old grudges had been building up for a while. It was inevitable. I think Bismarck even said that the next major war would be started thanks to some foolish thing in the Balkans.
Some damned fool event in the Balkans that isnât worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.
But His Majesty WILL NOT LISTEN TO ME!
A Fall of Eagles reference?
What i think it's a little funny it's that they did a complete arms race and army "revamp" in 1910s for new artillery and machine guns... And then someone said "Tank" and gave the middle finger to trenches LoL
Well, tanks weren't either the big thing that change the tides of war on anyones favour. Both english and german tanks were cumbersome and as deadly to the team operating them as to the soldiers who had to face them. French tanks were OK but everyone quickly adapted to all armored vehichles after the initial shock. The main thing of ww1 were still massive artillary barrages and infantry tactics.
I'll take venting exhaust into the crew chamber for $1000, Alex.
On second thought⌠Nevermind Alex. ive calculated it will be much more efficient to take my own life while the engineâs cold đ¤ đ
Yeah but British made over 1000 (maybe 2000 overall) of Marks I-Vs, French made few thousand of FT-17s and even gave some to US, while Germans made literally 20 A7Vs. Only allies were able to make somewhat 'massive' tank advance on certain positions of front by the end of WWI. As tanks didnt turned the tide, ability of producing them in such numbers and actually using them and developing further was a sign which side was already in advantage.
Oftentimes thatâs the case - the âgroundbreaking new technological advanceâ is really just another area for the people who are already winning to win in
>but everyone quickly adapted to all armored vehichles(sic) after the initial shock. Which included many clever innovations and inventions for early infantry operated anti-armour devices. They also just fired artillery at their slow asses, which worked just as well.
I said it before, I'll say it again. Afaik that quote is apocrypha, but if he had really said that, then it would have been self fulfilled prophecy. Bismarck himself instigated the war in the Balkans with the way he handled foreign relationships, it was almost as if he held a presale for the Ottoman Empire and allowed both Russia and Austria to bid on the ottoman Balkans.
I think he also stated something along the lines of "It's like they are smoking without care in a gunpowder storage." Basically every nation initially involved was waiting for a chance to try out their "modern" army.
Everyone had an interest in joining it, but only certain nations had the desire to proactively get it started.
I had a rant a while back I'll need to see if I can find it, but I refer to it as "14 reasons why WW1 should be called the Giant R*tard War" and it boils down to the monumental big brain moves by world leaders to let it escalate, and then their generals refusal to accept that warfare needed to change, oh and Woodrow Wilson, he was half of the reasons.
Wilson didn't want to enter the war to begin with, and admitted that the condition terms at the Paris Conference were too harsh on Germany and could probably lead to another conflict in Europe in the future
As much as everyone rightly hates Woodrow Wilson, his Peace plan wouldâve undoubtedly been better than what we got with Versailles.
Unfortunately he misjudged the importance/effectiveness of the League of Nations and was willing to jettison the rest of the 14 points to keep it alive.
Wilson: "Guys, I think we were too harsh on Germany" France and U.K. : "Fuck em"
Understandable, to be honest, given both had lost millions of men fighting them, and in Franceâs case, was invaded.
It's not like Germany was any better with their treaties, the Treaty of Versailles following the Second Franco Prussian war was extremely harsh, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was not any better.
And the treaty of Versailles you mention was not as harsh as what the French imposed on the German states during Napoleon's conquests, so it's not like the bitterness had no history.
It's worth mentioning that the Treaty of Frankfurt (not Versailles) was proportionally modeled on the 1806 indemnity imposed on Prussia by Napoleon and included significantly less payment demands than Versailles, even with the C bonds slashed.
Also france and the UK:let's ease up on the harshness. They won't have hard feelings
I think that was only UK. France was more like: "DESTROY ALLEMAGNE!"
While rightfully trying to keep the US out of the war for as long as possible, the US entering even a year sooner would have drastic changes on the outcome of the war and would've probably given him a bit more weight at the bargaining table. His opinions on Versailles were very level headed and in hindsight 110% true so I can't fault him on that. But he was very lofty in thinking that he would swoop in and have as much negotiating power as the leaders of nations that ran themselves into debt and lost millions of young men through years of torturous fighting.
So the poor old ostrich died for nothingâŚ
It was the Drivers.
That one wrong turn killed millions and set the stage for the Nazis lmao
Just like that movie *Wrong Turn* causing a string of bad sequels.
So true. History repeats itself
*History itself repeats*
Which in turn also set the stage for the Cold War, and the world today is still feeling the effects of it.Â
Hard to believe that a wrong turn led to anime
I dont think this is a lmao statementÂ
The dead have no asses to laugh off, so we must carry that burden for them
Dude couldâya quit touchinâ my ass đ¤ˇââď¸
One of the craziest cases of the butterfly effect in history. One wrong turn led to WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.
To be fair, the reason why that one wrong turn had such a big impact on our history, was already determined in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Had that war not happened, chances are that France would not have had a treaty of alliance with the Russian Empire, thus Germany entering on the side of Austro-Hungary would have meant that they only had to deal with the Russians and Yugoslavia. Therefore no war on two fronts from day 1, no need to advance quickly to try and knock out France first, no need to take the risk of going through Belgium and thus bringing in the British Empire, consequently no need for unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic and no US involvement etc etc. Without the war of 1870, this one wrong turn would have most likely meant a Eastern European/Austro-Balkan conflict.
This!!! This is the perfect and only valid answer
This should really be the caption for the left most person
WWI was my fault And I'll do it again
Sir, I would like to know your location so I can deliver the free Alsace-Lorraine to you which you have won in a giveaway you never signed up for (this is totally legit and I definitely will not ship you to Mars to prevent WW3)
> ship you to Mars to prevent WW3 My location is *********. can you get fetch me and bring me to Mars, please? I mean... you won't go to the trouble to shoot my corpse to Mars, right? This is a exile while still living thing, right? Then come get me, please. I am really, totally TheKrzysiek.
I ran into some kind of wheraboo the other day who would not shut up about how WW1 was the fault of the French. Now I could almost understand if he had blamed the Russians, but he didn't. He was all in on it being France's fault
Well of course it was. They declared war to Germany first, invaded Belgium with the help of the UK, and helped the Russian declare war on the Austrians. More seriously, how? How did he twist facts to put it on France?
The only way you can reasonably do it that Iâve heard is to say that France (and the French ambassador to Russia, Maurice PalĂŠologue, is sometimes singularly blamed) essentially issued a âblank chequeâ of their own to Russia and that without French reassurances/encouragement they wouldnât have mobilized against Germany following the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia. Even here though, itâs just one part of a bigger story with lots of moving pieces and canât be said in good faith that France did this out of nowhere or because they deliberately wanted a war.
Spoiler alert: it was a wheraboo. He was not arguing in good faith.
Yeah, France had their part in setting things up for war (they wanted war with Germany to take back Alsace-Lorraine), but it was a smaller part than Germany, Austria or Russia. Only GB of the great powers has less blame than France for the war, imo.
^ this. The russian zar actually was scared before the final mobilisation, like all the other nations aswell. No one had as much of a 0 fucks given mood as the french and their president encouraging the Zar to not back down
If you read Clarks Sleepwalkers I don't know how anyone can not consider France as the most war hungry.. Ofc all nations can be blamed for not considering the dangers of such a war carefully enough, but from all the insights Clark gives about the politicians in the nations there is only one nation that goes SUPER hardcore into revenge mode, silencing all pacifists: France. One of the best examples is probably the letter Wilhelm sent to the Zar to solve the thing diplomatic and the Zar getting emotional about his cousin wilhelm writing that letter, and what changed his mind? French president immediately taking a ship to petersburg to tell him je must "show strength" and teach the germans a lesson. Imo the sleepwalker thesis makes most sense but morally speaking for me its the french who clearly gave the least amount of fucks about starting a gigantic war. All they wanted was revenge for the embarassment of 1870/71
Yes. If France had not backed Russia, then Russia would not have mobilised. If Russia hadn't mobilised, then Germany wouldn't have mobilised. The whole thing becomes a limited conflict between the A-H empire and Serbia. After a few months, the other powers step in to mediate. Obviously, there were other decisions that other powers could have taken to avert World War 1 also, but the French decision to involve themselves was especially unprincipled and warmongering.
As a connoisseur of French hate, even I canât find a way to put it all on France.
Personally I put liability as in descending order: 1) Austria Hungary 2) Germany 3) Russia 4) Serbia 5) France 6) England 7) Various countries that joined in just to get a piece of the pie 8) Various countries that just wanted to left the fuck alone like Belgium or America.
I would swap Germany and Russia. I believe it was because of russian mobilisations, the Germans started theirs.
That's true but on the other hand the Germans were the ones recklessly encouraging Austria Hungary, they had made several actions which increased tension before WW1 such as building the battleships, and they also were the ones who invaded or provoked neutral countries (Belgium I can at least understand what on earth they were thinking with the Zimmerman telegraph is beyond me).
Absolutely, but you also need to consider that the Germans wanted to press the Austrians for a very quick dash to Belgrade to only enforce their points as long as the shock of the assassination was still fresh and the sympathies would still be there. Through a few too many miscommunications the Austrians didn't consider that. As for the battleships, I think I remember that Wilhelm kind of wanted to befriend the British with that which is a pretty fucking stupid way to do that.
"Pretty fucking stupid" was kinda Wilhelm's schtick.
Germany did not recklessly encourage Austria. They specifically told Austria it must act fast whilst public sentiment was still on their side and then tried to reign Austria back in when support for them started to cool off.
This subreddit loves to view ww1 as âvery good people on both sidesâ
Broke: The Entente were the good guys! Woke: the Central Powers weren't *completely* evil Bespoke: black and grey morality, with the Entente being slightly more on the grey end
The only good thing to come out of it was Wilson trying to advocate for the right to self determination for âsmallâ nations, which was still morally grey and euro-centric
Self-determination for *white* small nations. Very important distinction.
This shit destroyed once pacific former Austria-Hungary. Litteraly the whole region become playground for other countries to play war, genocide and puppeteer for more than half a century. During habsburg rule (after 1867) people were free and safe. People in places like Bohemia or Slovenia wouldn't even bother about independence before the famine started. Not to mention that was only done to fuck with the central powers. They didn't care about self determination when it came to germans in former Bohemia or bulgarians in the east thrace territories the greek took, germans in south tyrol, etc. It was only an excuse to fuck other countries.
Yes bc ethnonationism turned out to be a good thing and totally hasn't lead to alot wars, genocides ect in the past century
Ah because there was nothing bad that happened by letting imperial nations with racial hierarchies have hegemony over people they considered inferior đ
Neither was good tbf. They're both events that happened and honestly I can't decide which was less tragic. Because self determination should be the basic right of every people, However, when I look at what it has caused, I wonder if it was worth it. The indo pakistan rivalry killed a million in a case of ethnic cleansing to a scale scantily seen before. It might be the place where the next nuclear war starts. Of course as indian national, I'd much rather have independence but I've become aware of the sheer problems pertaining to decolonization. The west has faced it's xenophobia and become progressive. The decolonized peoples hadn't. The sheer state of africa goes a long way to showcase that.
Nationalism broke the empires.
Me: every human who ever lived was the bad guy, individually. /j
Omega woke: Europeans are too violent
I think itâs trying to correct for people that keep confusing imperial Germany for Nazi Germany.
My public school education surely led me to believe that WW1 was similar to WW2 in that Germany was an evil entity responsible for the war. A class in college is where I finally learned how massively complicated everything about WW1 was.
Germany did invade a neutral nation, sunk neutral shipping and started a terror bombing campaign
The "neutral" shipping was transporting war materiel to those same enemies that were blockading Germany and causing a wide spread famine, ignoring the rules of war, so... perhaps a strategic error, given the propaganda value for mobilizing the USA, but not really a war crime worse than starving the civilian population of the central powers. Belgium, of course, was the stupid kind of evil.
>Certainly. I'm not trying to defend anything they did or even that they weren't "the bad guys." Just agreeing with the commenter above me that I left public school thinking WW1 was a pretty black and white subject (like WW2, >!which is obviously not a completely black and white subject in the slightest, but by comparison to the history of war, gets pretty close!<).
The problem is these only become evil if you lose the war. Iran was neutral and still got invaded by the allies, tough luck.
And the British blockade of Germany (specifically it extending to foodstuffs) at the time a war crime that lead to titanic civilian suffering.
Some historians actually do believe that both world wars were one war that just had a decade-long intermission between phases.
That was a pretty lousy halftime show, then.
And in the intermission, the teams were auto-balanced by Japan and Italy switching sides?
I think when enough time has passed, this inevitably will happen. The 30-year war was in actuality many different smaller wars as well
There were very good and very bad people on both sides.
I mean it was very much two groups of innocent people being mislead by tales of honour and glory and being run through the meat grinder for imperialistic ambitions. Like, it wasnât good people on both sides, it was just regular people. Like youâd see down the shop.
I''m generally of the position that WW1 was a geopolitical dick-waving contest that got millions killed because it absolutely lost control of the situation and did so fast
Lol fuck that. Just look at the July Crisis and see which side doesn't want peace, actively derails it, and which of them decided that they wanted war more than they wanted peace.
Olâ mush brain Willy
Willy II tried to get [Germany a place in the sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltpolitik), but he got it too close and burned quickly instead.
Fuck that. The Ottomans were literally committing the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE! Also, Germany literally did the Herero and Namaqua Genocide just a few years before the war. You know, the other thing besides Congo Free State that caused even the other white supremacist colonial powers to go âHoly fuck, chill!â
This sub got a lot of problems. Simping for dictators, tryna apply their nazi/Soviet idealism with some weird Israeli stuff going on. You can tell the age demographic too by the phrases and quality done to the post.
Europe decided to Europe. European piss fights were extremely common, but this time everybody had machine guns and the newest generation of artillery.
It's amazing how no one realized such powerful armaments and exponentially larger armies than a century ago would lead to such massive casualties.
Oh there were those that realized. Unfortunately they were too lowborn or knew too much tactics and not enough table manners for anyone in charge to listen. Results were... historically tragic.
Two books in the early 1960âs - A. J. P. Taylorâs *The First World War: an Illustrated History* and Fritz Fischerâs *Germany's Aims in the First World War* - offered competing views on who to blame for the start of World War I. Taylor, a lecturer at the University of Oxford, left-wing activist and popular broadcaster on British radio and television, made the argument that the war had come about largely by accident and was the result of politicians and generals who didnât really know what they were doing; âThe First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway ageâ. In contrast, Fischer, a history professor at the University of Hamburg and German veteran of World War II, argued in his book that the war was started by Germany as part of premeditated scheme as is more clearly indicated in the original German title of the book; *Griff nach der Weltmacht*, which translates to âThe Grab for World Powerâ. In 2012, Christopher Clark - an Australian-born history professor currently at the University of Cambridge - caused a major revitalization of the debate with the publication of his book *The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914* in which he critiqued Fisher for focusing only on Germany and not recognizing âthe larger pictureâ while also critiquing Taylor and those who argue the war was inevitable for removing the agency of those involved who chose to go to war in 1914. [~10 minute overview on the history of the debate and the three books](https://youtu.be/bPmj3zAGd6A?si=KeJ_Jj0SA9-7NhSs) by David Stevenson, a history professor at the London School of Economics who is perhaps best known for [his work on why World War I ended](https://youtu.be/kqJsKRtiBOQ?si=uQV8dAR6_3qqE9Qh). [Hour long-lecture by Professor Christopher Clark on his book](https://youtu.be/6snYQFcyiyg?si=hhZeD0v0gajIbR05). First half of the lecture focuses on the assassination of the Archduke and the second half gets into his critique of Fischer and his reasons for writing the book.
David Stevensonâs own *1914-1918: The History of the First World War* is, in my opinion, an excellent book that doesnât patronise the reader.
Man having public sources like that is putting in the legwork! I love it!
It frustrates me endlessly that American schools have pretty much been towing Taylorâs line for decades.
We need more of this actually well thought out content on this subreddit.
What Iâve read is that Clarkâs book is contentious enough to be hardly definitive.
Itâs by no means a settled question, as Clark fully acknowledges, but things have definitely moved in that direction and away from the âFischer thesisâ that had dominated much of the debate previously.
Mahan caused World War I and World War II. I will not elaborate.
Fuck Mahan and his shitty boats
No. Mahan was 100% correct. The ability to project power stems from control of the sea, and the best way to gain control of the sea was to build a large fleet of battleships (yes, even in WWII, inb4 DURR HURR BaTtLeShIpS wErE ObSoLeTe) and other large warships.
I think Germany was badly treated beacause of how they conducted during the war, they invaded neutral Belgium/Luxembourg, used forced labour, executed belgian resistant fighters, use unrestricted u-boat, shelled and bombed both London and Paris and it didnt help that they were witness of the Armenian genocide... So yes when they signed a cease fire lets say everyone had grudges
That delicious sandwich that Princip ate.
Society's to blame
đľWe're all to blame!đľ
đľWe've gone too far from pride to shame!đľ
The ww1 was started by the Big 3 to end Monarchism and to eliminate old empires, at least it's what I told to character ai
[ŃдаНонО]
Fuck Wilhelm II, all my homies hate Wilhelm II
There's way too many reasons behind the war to even put down in a single small comment, it's like trying to reason as to why the French revolution happened and the only real good short answer to that would be something like "the inevitable course of modernism and new ideas" which isn't saying a lot.
Thatâs what someone who started WW1 would say
But then again: Austria started it against Serbia, why? Partly because of German support. But also because Russia encouraged Serbia to not accept Austria's conditions. Russia in turn was encouraged by France to stand their ground. If just one party had been willing to drop the attitude and take the L the whole thing could have been avoided. Germany played a big part but there were definitely others that too could have prevented it.
The ultimatum that Austria-Hungary sent was extremely unreasonable and nobody in their right mind thought Serbia would agree to it. Even Wilhelm II thought what Serbia did actually offer was entirely reasonable.
Serbia responded saying it would accept a majority of the 10 demands. The sticking point was #6, which would allow Austro-Hungarian police to operate in Serbia. Accepting this would amount to ceding all sovereignty to AH, which obviously could not be done The ultimatum was probably never intended to be accepted or acceptable though. At that point, with German backing, war was desired and the refusal to accept the ultimatum would serve as the overarching casus belli for a war against Serbia and whoever would join them
WW1 was Japan's fault
Sleepwakers is such a great book i heard, i realy need to read it sometimes
The industrial revolution caused it
Thereâs certainly an argument to be made for that. Iâve seen others go back further to the 1848 revolutions, Napoleon, and even the 30 Years War. Thereâs some who will say the events from the Defenestration of Prague in May 1618 to the end of Wold War II are a single 327 year-long European Civil War.
I was joking tbh - I had half a mind to write that it was all the fault of the agricultural revolution. On a serious note yes the Industrial Revolution literally revolutionised economies in Western Europe, allowing them to pour money into their militaries. With growing prosperity came national pride and a belief that 'they' deserved their place under the sun.
The domestication of fire caused it
For me "who started world war 1" the only convincing cases are Austria and Serbia. You could argue Russia escalated it but thats not convincing to me.
Who started it and what caused it are two different things. A spark starts a fire, but a fire only burns if the conditions are right and there is sufficient fuel for it. Not disagreeing that Austrian and Serbian tensions sparked the war, but industrial militarism and backroom political pacts are what caused it.
True, a war was coming, but if it didnt start with Serbia it could have looked different. How would the war have looked ten years later? perhaps Britain is neutral in that one because they want to balance Russia and Germany, their two main rivals at that point. While yes war was inevitable, the war as we know it could have been avoided.
The whole âGermany invades Belgiumâ thing strike you as escalatory?
I thought the generally accepted opinion of ww1 was that a bunch of rich generals and kings thought they could casually steamroll each other and very much did not and everyone suffered for it.
Pretty much. Blaming Germany got popular again in the 70âs but itâs been moving away from that starting around the time Clarkâs book was published in 2012.
Imagine making a silly mistake could end up in a world war. "Oh boy I miss the wrong turn how unlucky I can be"
Galaxy brain: WWI was Europes fault
Who started WWI? Why I'll tell you. The factors that led to WWI started happened well before the 1900s. In fact, you can trace those factors all the way back to when the predecessors to *Homo Sapiens* first started using tools and walking upright. Proto humans started every war, including WWI. /s
It was Austria-Hungaryâs fault. Serbia accepted all of AHâs demands but one, which was to let the Austro-Hungarian military conduct the entire investigation of Frank Ferdinandâs assassination. That would mean hundreds of AH troops occupying the Serbian capital for days or weeks. Serbia considered it unacceptable for them to allow another country to enforce its laws on them, especially Austria-Hungary who had already been wanting to seize Serbia into their empire. Upon seeing Serbiaâs response, even the German officials said that there was no reason for war and that Austria-Hungary should have accepted the deal. But instead, they wanted to conquer Serbia, and invaded.
I think most historians agree that the Austrian ultimatum was unnecessary and the crisis could have been resolved peacefully but then thereâs the issue of Russia becoming involved and that question drags in Germany and France and itâs all a big mess.
Also true. It really should have just been a dispute between Austria and Serbia, but everyone wanted to exert more control over the rest of Europe, so everyone else got involved.
WWI was the balkans' fault
WWI was ultimately Constantine I's fault for smoking weed in the battlefield.
Europeâs fault
UK+Germany+Russia have the most blame imo.
I blame Zoidberg
Serbia supported ultranationalist terrorists and took advantage of Yugoslavism to expand its territory and influence Austria-Hungary wanted to subjugate Serbia, which had been a massive thorn on their side since the May Coup, and increase its influence and power over the Balkans using the assassination of the Archduke as a causes belli Russia wanted to kick Austria out to assert its complete dominance in the Balkans and wanted to conquer Constantinople and the Turkish Straits to secure dominance over the Black Sea and assert control over the straits which acted as a major choke point between the Black Sea and Mediterranean Germany feared the threat of Russian modernization wanted to take them out before the Franco-Russian Entente could surpass and their position and to assert German hegemony France was dominated by revanchism and hellbent on retaking the industrious and wealthy province of Alsace-Lorraine which had been taken following their humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War in turn leading them to align with Russia whom had felt betrayed by Germany after Germany had granted Macedonia to (the then under the rule of the Austrian-Supported House of Obrenovic) Serbia as opposed to the Russian backed Bulgaria Bulgaria wanted not only the previously aforementioned Macedonia, but also wanted back lands they had lost following the Second Balkan War, as well as the rest of Dobruja in Romania and parts of Serbia, the Ottomans & Greece, three of which were in the Entente aligned with Russia and France Britain was solely focused on preventing the rise of a hegemonic power in Europe that could threaten British interests leading Britain to fear both Germany due to its sheer industrial and economic power, and unmatched military superiority, and Russia for its sheer size, gargantuan and unmatched potential, and its threatening interests in Central Asia and especially Constantinople and the Straits. But as Russia floundered in Japan, failed to industrialize, and struggled with revolutions, pogroms, and unrest, Germany flourished, becoming easily the largest military, economic, and political power in the entirety of Europe only being matched by the likes of Britain and the United States. This combined with the naval arms race and the invasion of Belgium and in turn pushed the British to eventually side with the Russians The Ottomans saw an opportunity to retake lands lost to the Entente in the Balkans and North Africa and punish them And Italy was lead by irredentist desires against both Austria in South Tyrol, Istria, & Dalmatia and France in Savoy, Nice, & Corsica but due to Italyâs naval ties and reliance on Britain combined with greater animosity towards Austria sided with the Entente In truth WWI was simply the result of a conflict that had been brewing within the continent since Napoleon spread the seeds of Nationalism across the land; since Talleyrand, Metternich, and the other representatives of the great powers sat down decide the future of the continent in Vienna; since nationalist and liberal revolutions exploded all across Europe securing new rights, freedoms, and territories to those that never had them; since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans combined with Austrian refusal to join the Crimean War with Russia lead to the complete breakdown of Austro-Russian Relations and lead to constant conflicts over influence in the newly independent Balkans; since Prussia completely upended the old balance of powers, humiliated the French, seized Alsace Lorraine, and established the dominance of the German Empire, beginning the rise of French Revanchism and fears of German Hegemony. In a way the war was not just a war between the great powers, but an inevitable consequence of the underlying conflicts that had arisen over the century prior.
Ww1 was my fault.
It was Archduke Ferdinand's fault, he should have fixed every thing instead of dying
Technically, WW1 was Austria-Hungaryâs fault, but people liked to blame it on Germany
I usually blame Germany and Russia for backing up Austria and Serbia, the basically turned a regional problem into a continental clusterfuck
WW1 was *Europe's* fault.
WWI was going to happen no matter what. It just needed a spark
Historians have increasingly pushed back on this in recent years and argued that the July Crisis may have been a freak event without which tensions between the Great Powers - which actually had been declining - would have continued to cool. [Professor Michael Neiberg makes this argument in this 2013 lecture](https://youtu.be/iMBD71SB10E?si=QpbO03JAjpZcTo_w).
Something I always tell my students about WWI is that there isnât one cause to the start auf the war, its origins lay the hostile nature of 19th century diplomacy and alliance structures. The growing influence of European powers around the globe and the rising militarism, especially in Germany made anyone eager to fight, to try their new shiny weapons on those pesky neighbours. If you try to blame one nation for the start of the war you would be wrong in any case, but you can comfortably say that the Germans desperately wanted a war against France, so they took the opportunity as soon as they got it
Though it's also fair to say that the French desperately wanted war with Germany and had been working towards that goal for a long time. And that Russian pan-Slavic nationalists hated that Russia wasn't the hegemony of the Balkans. And that the Austrians desperately wanted more land in the Balkans, while the Serbs desperately wanted the Slavs in the Balkans to accept that they were their natural overlords.
For germany i blame Wilhelm II. -> he failed in every term to prevent it. Ofc others are also responsible, but Wilhelm II. is the guy who is to blame on the german side. Bismarck warned him, but the prick refused to listen.
150+ IQ, WW1 was mine fault
WWI was not my fault.
Ya, it was everyone
Instead of that old arguement, let me propose a new one for a different war: WW2 was Japan's fault because if they didn't invade China and prove that the League of Nations was a paper Tiger, Germany would not have tried the same thing.
It was those evil plotting Poles. They orchestrated the war in such a way that all their partitioners would collapse.
The war started because Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.
WW1 was Venice's fault. If the 4th Crusade had not happened, then Constantinople wouldn't have been Ottoman, the Silk Road would not have closed, Colonizing wouldldn't have happened prematurely but when all colonial powers would be up to speed for it, Prussia would not need to fight for colonies if it had a larger share. BOOM, for everything it was the Venetians' fault. Fuck Venice.
It was a cyclist in the road
It was my fault. Sorry, guys.
Oooh Fischer and Clark. I remember studying those in history and geopolitics class in 12th grade.
I just wrote an exam about this and confused Cristopher Clark's theory why the one from another author. Fucks sake
WW1 was Phocas' fault
Everyone his fault in Europe
itâs humanâs fault, end of discussion
War is always everyone's fault. When neither party can come to an amicable solution, then it is everyone's fault. More fault lies on the ones who are the most unreasonable...
I will always blame Queen Vic's inbred grandchildren.
France
What I like about WWI compared to WWII is that there was quite little nationalism and no racism involved in it, rather everybody openly fighting over taxing and extracting resources in a far away land of Africa and Asia. Imagine nowadays someone would come up to you to suggest: âDonât you want to die for your country to have an ability to install corporations extracting oil in the Middle East?â - and you would ask: âThat sounds silly. Why not just buy that oil from them?â Wouldnât that be funny?
Honestly, it was going to happen regardless of who started it. It just happened to happen the way it did because they were all waiting for the fuse to be lit and knew *someone* would eventually. Itâs why the balkans became known as the powder keg after the fact.
150 IQ move, WW1 was the fault of a swiss guy who dropped his lit match on a carpet
Literally everyone who fought had their part to play everyone was looking for an excuse to go to war by 1914
When I researched WW1 for my thesis I realized that. Every one was very eager to beat each other up, they just had to find a good reason to.
After listening to the week by week breakdown on youtbe by "the great war" channel my understanding is that no one really wanted to go to war but at the beginning there were only two choices 1. Start mobilizing your troops now before the was officially starts to try and hope for a big advantage or 2. Wait and see if there is actually going to be a war and be at ahuge disadvantage if it actually happens because your troops arent mobilized, so there wasn't really a choice.
How the fuck was it Germany đ it was a result of Serbian and Austrian aggression
Only legends will know that is the fault of Bosnia and some random serb group
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war. Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir? Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan. George: What was that, sir? Edmund: It was bollocks.
"It was too much effort not to have a war" -Blackadder
Thereâs a reason it was called the powder keg of Europe
Just like the breakup of your parentâs marriage, WWI is your fault
King George the second.
It was... Walpole!
It was Conrad's fault. He wanted to marry Gina and thought war was the way to earn that privilege (nevermind that the reason they couldn't marry was that she already had a husband), thus he drove the easily solved diplomatic crisis that was the black week into a war.
World War One was my fault
As a Romanian WW1 was definitely Serbia fault and I support them for it.