100 year anniversary of the start of WW1

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

That, and rapidly improving technology and an arms race. All the major powers at the time thought they could easily win a war with the others. I don't think any ever envisioned a stalemate like the one that occurred for a long time.

Many in Britain fully expected the war would be over by Christmas 1914.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Many in Britain fully expected the war would be over by Christmas 1914.

the recruiting posters of the era were more about helping your buddy and friendship then fighting some dire threat from the East that was going to enslave mankind.

That of course changed in WW2

[FlamesAddiction]

CBC has an decent analysis of WWI:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-100...-war-1.2721971

It is interesting how the Balkan wars of the 1990 and much of the problems in the ME today can arguably be traced back to WWI.

The death toll is unfathomable to me still. It's also crazy to me how many died of disease and not directly from combat.

[nik-]

I'll be curious to see this series, but my interest in WW1 is a fraction of a fraction of what it is in WW2. Other than knowing the basics of WW1, I've never really bothered to learn more about it.

WW2 was just a better war in so many ways. A real reason to fight, multiple huge theatres and so incredibly documented during the war itself. There's just so much more footage.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by nik-

I'll be curious to see this series, but my interest in WW1 is a fraction of a fraction of what it is in WW2. Other than knowing the basics of WW1, I've never really bothered to learn more about it.

WW2 was just a better war in so many ways. A real reason to fight, multiple huge theatres and so incredibly documented during the war itself. There's just so much more footage.

Personally, I always thought WWI was more interesting when it comes to the intrigue and politics. There was just so much unpredictability with the modern era and military romanticism clashing. It seems like the technology quickly outpaced the tactics. It definitely changed the way the world thought about diplomacy and war.

But I agree that WW2 was a lot more dramatic and had bigger sense of good and evil.

[habernac]

My wife's grandfather was a WW1 AND WW2 vet. I know he was hit with mustard gas in WW1, yet he still re-upped when he was in his 40's to fight again in WW2. He died before age 55 leaving behind a young son (my father-in-law) and a British wife who was suddenly all alone in this strange huge country called Canada. Wish I knew more about his story.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Personally, I always thought WWI was more interesting when it comes to the intrigue and politics. There was just so much unpredictability with the modern era and military romanticism clashing. It seems like the technology quickly outpaced the tactics. It definitely changed the way the world thought about diplomacy and war.

But I agree that WW2 was a lot more dramatic and had bigger sense of good and evil.

WW1 was fairly dramatic in its own sense. But it wasn't a war against what you would class as absolute evil.

It was a true clash of empires.

It was a war that saw the end of cavalry clashes and mobility and quickly ground down to static lines.

but it saw the advent of the air war, it saw the machine gun really coming into its own as a weapon of absolute destruction, it was the rise of the submarine, and a lot of advances in field medicine. It was the first and really last war where the use of chemical weapons was a standard tactic and an encouraged part of any generals strategy book. It was also a war where we saw the evolution of artillery.

While it was a horrible and destructive war, it was also the last war that could be associated with the term chivalry.

After that war, tactics caught up with technology out of necessity.

It was the last war where Dreadnaughts really ruled the seas as well which was a cornerstone of the great empires.


While WW2 was considered in a lot of ways cooler because its more comparable to what we see today. WW1 was a true representation of how horrible war can be.

[MoneyGuy]

Since we're choosing our favourite world wars I'm gonna go with WWII. Not even close. Fascinating times. Sure glad I didn't have to live it. God bless those who fought.

I hope to get over next year to some of the sites and sights.

[jammies]

World War 1 is more interesting to me because it is a war that could easily have never happened, and because it destroyed the imperial system, and eventually every European empire that existed within that system - a system that at the time was unchallenged, and might have endured still had not it destroyed itself from within. Practically every political development of note in the last hundred years had its roots in this war, from obvious ones like the rise of totalitarian states (Lenin's Russia of 1917 was the first), to less obvious ones like the establishment of Israel from the British mandate of Palestine, which would never have happened had the Ottoman Empire not been dismembered by the Allies following the war.

It's difficult for us to comprehend the power that Europe had over the rest of the world just this short time ago. The British, French, and Russian empires controlled over half the world's land mass and population between the three of them. The USA was an isolationist backwater that was pretty well impotent and unimportant outside the Americas. China was divided into spheres of influence by a consortium of Western powers and had essentially no central government to prevent those powers from doing whatever they wanted within those spheres. And all of it changed or ended because of the war.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by jammies

World War 1 is more interesting to me because it is a war that could easily have never happened, and because it destroyed the imperial system, and eventually every European empire that existed within that system - a system that at the time was unchallenged, and might have endured still had not it destroyed itself from within. Practically every political development of note in the last hundred years had its roots in this war, from obvious ones like the rise of totalitarian states (Lenin's Russia of 1917 was the first), to less obvious ones like the establishment of Israel from the British mandate of Palestine, which would never have happened had the Ottoman Empire not been dismembered by the Allies following the war.

It's difficult for us to comprehend the power that Europe had over the rest of the world just this short time ago. The British, French, and Russian empires controlled over half the world's land mass and population between the three of them. The USA was an isolationist backwater that was pretty well impotent and unimportant outside the Americas. China was divided into spheres of influence by a consortium of Western powers and had essentially no central government to prevent those powers from doing whatever they wanted within those spheres. And all of it changed or ended because of the war.

Don't forget the Austria-Hungry Empire was an incredibly powerful empire in its time, and though it was declining it was still a force to be dealt with.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Don't forget the Austria-Hungry Empire was an incredibly powerful empire in its time, and though it was declining it was still a force to be dealt with.

Yes, and it all ended because of a group of more-or-less incompetent terrorists who proved that sometimes getting what you want (a greater Serbia free of Austrian influence) is a long-term bad idea if you only get it by being more violent and crazy than your enemies.

Not that anyone currently has learned from that example. Unfortunately.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by jammies

World War 1 is more interesting to me because it is a war that could easily have never happened, and because it destroyed the imperial system, and eventually every European empire that existed within that system - a system that at the time was unchallenged, and might have endured still had not it destroyed itself from within. Practically every political development of note in the last hundred years had its roots in this war, from obvious ones like the rise of totalitarian states (Lenin's Russia of 1917 was the first), to less obvious ones like the establishment of Israel from the British mandate of Palestine, which would never have happened had the Ottoman Empire not been dismembered by the Allies following the war.

It's difficult for us to comprehend the power that Europe had over the rest of the world just this short time ago. The British, French, and Russian empires controlled over half the world's land mass and population between the three of them. The USA was an isolationist backwater that was pretty well impotent and unimportant outside the Americas. China was divided into spheres of influence by a consortium of Western powers and had essentially no central government to prevent those powers from doing whatever they wanted within those spheres. And all of it changed or ended because of the war.

backwater, impotent and unimportant ... hmm. Isolationist I'll give you, but the US was still the largest economy in the world before WW1. Bigger than the UK, Germany and Austria combined. There's a reason the the british wanted them in the war so badly, and it's not the three things you listed.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by nik-

backwater, impotent and unimportant ... hmm. Isolationist I'll give you, but the US was still the largest economy in the world before WW1. Bigger than the UK, Germany and Austria combined. There's a reason the the british wanted them in the war so badly, and it's not the three things you listed.

Yeah, manpower.

[nik-]

And money, and industrial capabilities. Hardly unimportant.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by nik-

backwater, impotent and unimportant ... hmm. Isolationist I'll give you, but the US was still the largest economy in the world before WW1. Bigger than the UK, Germany and Austria combined. There's a reason the the british wanted them in the war so badly, and it's not the three things you listed.

You're confusing what they were with their potential. The US had a tiny army and medium navy, and at that time, military might was how nations were ranked. The Germans tried to incite Mexico into fighting the US and keeping them occupied and out of the war - Mexico! Whether that would have worked or not is debatable, but that it was assumed the Mexicans could take them on at all tells you how little American power was respected.

The Allies wanted the US in the war badly because they were losing, and this was the only plausible source of sufficient manpower left them. There was an expectation the Americans would fight under British and French command, which never happened, but again they were definitely viewed at the time as junior partners. (The Americans mostly wanted to join because they realized they had loaned out all their free capital to nations that wouldn't be able to pay them back if they lost the war).

Once the war was won, the British position as the world's financiers was lost and the Americans slowly surpassed them there as well, but until they entered World War II and started arming, they still had a joke of a military that nobody feared. So yes, they were an industrial power, but they didn't have the financial power and they definitely didn't have the military power that the European nations had (and needed).

[Aeneas]

I have become more interested in the first world war over the last few years. I think the trials and suffering of the soldiers of the front lines was unbelievable. Such sustained terror and the sense of death at any moment...then to have to climb out of your tenuous safe haven of the trench to advance over open ground through a hailstorm of machine gun bullets and shrapnel.

"A war of industrial might fought with medieval fury"

Just returned from my third trip to Flanders, stayed directly on the Passendale battlefield. For the first time I travelled to Courcelette; walked through farmers fields trying to trace in my mind Regina trench. Pretty sure I was in the right spot, and could see why so many Canadians died right there on the Somme.

Spent 1 July at Beaumont-Hamel for the extraordinary ceremony there for the Newfoundlanders.

I still find WWII very interesting, just the awful plight of the soldiers in the first captivates me.

[Hart50]

Originally Posted by jammies

You're confusing what they were with their potential. The US had a tiny army and medium navy, and at that time, military might was how nations were ranked. The Germans tried to incite Mexico into fighting the US and keeping them occupied and out of the war - Mexico! Whether that would have worked or not is debatable, but that it was assumed the Mexicans could take them on at all tells you how little American power was respected.

The Allies wanted the US in the war badly because they were losing, and this was the only plausible source of sufficient manpower left them. There was an expectation the Americans would fight under British and French command, which never happened, but again they were definitely viewed at the time as junior partners. (The Americans mostly wanted to join because they realized they had loaned out all their free capital to nations that wouldn't be able to pay them back if they lost the war).

Once the war was won, the British position as the world's financiers was lost and the Americans slowly surpassed them there as well, but until they entered World War II and started arming, they still had a joke of a military that nobody feared. So yes, they were an industrial power, but they didn't have the financial power and they definitely didn't have the military power that the European nations had (and needed).

While one can debate the 'importance' of the USA on the world stage in 1914, it is certainly clear that the smoking ruin (some more figuatively than others) left of the 'Imperialist' particpants of WWI accelerated the rise of the USA to its preiminence in the world.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Aeneas

I have become more interested in the first world war over the last few years. I think the trials and suffering of the soldiers of the front lines was unbelievable. Such sustained terror and the sense of death at any moment...then to have to climb out of your tenuous safe haven of the trench to advance over open ground through a hailstorm of machine gun bullets and shrapnel.

"A war of industrial might fought with medieval fury"

Just returned from my third trip to Flanders, stayed directly on the Passendale battlefield. For the first time I travelled to Courcelette; walked through farmers fields trying to trace in my mind Regina trench. Pretty sure I was in the right spot, and could see why so many Canadians died right there on the Somme.

Spent 1 July at Beaumont-Hamel for the extraordinary ceremony there for the Newfoundlanders.

I still find WWII very interesting, just the awful plight of the soldiers in the first captivates me.

Agreed there is book Deaths Men, speaks to what it was like fr soldiers