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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jun 29, 2014 5:27:28 GMT 1
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by a group of Serbian Anarchists known as The Black Hand. Their deaths wound up being the catalyst for World War I and eventually led to World War II thanks to the Treaty of Versailles enabling Hitler to rise to power.
May the souls of the good men and women who died in those wars and the intervening years find peace.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Jun 29, 2014 12:33:15 GMT 1
... I was not aware that the trigger for World War I was the assassination of a specific noble and his wife... I may have to brush up on my world history... though to be honest, I was always a little more knowledgable about World War II and the Holocaust than World War I, probably because my History teacher in Grades 11 and 12 (same teacher for both grades, he was awesome ) focused minorly on WWI and mostly on WWII and the Holocaust, and the Holocaust was the topic for my major Grade 12 research paper. Linders knows more about World War I than I do... Having said that, I will also extend my hopes for the souls of the defenders of our freedoms to find peace, and my hopes that the world can find enough peace to not be always at war with itself.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 29, 2014 14:16:41 GMT 1
Most wars are pretty damn senseless. I feel WW I was by far the most senseless and most costly to humanity both in it's own right and how it set Europe up for WW II. I hope to not see the next big one.
Too many good men and women going into a meat grinder for religion and politics.
To the soldiers who died and had no choice in where they were, Rest in Peace all of you.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jun 29, 2014 16:57:07 GMT 1
WWI was a game changer. It was one of the first proper public media wars and the last time it was fought in the way of the 18-19th century. Its pretty much a kid finding a way into his dad's guncabinet and playing cowboy with his friends. Now WWI would have happend sooner or later, the assassination was just one trigger. Anything else would've set off the powderkeg that is early 20th century Europe. Imperial ambitions, need for resources, having all those fancy new guns you bought and you cant use them....and the treaty of Versailes never did any good either.
Personally I hope we never get WWIII but history has a way of repeating itself...lets just hope the sensibilities we gained in the 20th century stays with us.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jun 29, 2014 17:13:53 GMT 1
The worrying thing for me is today's world is looking quite similar to how the world looked in the run-up to WWI and I seriously hope we don't have another World War.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 29, 2014 20:18:36 GMT 1
The worrying thing for me is today's world is looking quite similar to how the world looked in the run-up to WWI and I seriously hope we don't have another World War. I'm seeing some of the same signs myself. We don't need that right now with the destructiveness of modern weapons. I'm not even talking nukes here.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jun 29, 2014 20:42:48 GMT 1
I agree. I'm very well aware of what even conventional weapons can do to say nothing of nukes. To be honest, the Middle East (Iran especially) scares the shit out of me. Countries like Russia and China are rational for the most part once you understand their objectives, but the Middle East as a whole seems to be stuck in a 13th century mindset and many of them have access to 20th Century weapons.
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Post by Cali on Jun 29, 2014 21:49:57 GMT 1
Theocracies and nuclear weapons Don't. Fucking. Mix. Some of these dictators are selfish enough that they don't give two shits about anybody else and are willing to blanket earth in a veil of nuclear hellfire just so they can chuckle about, and get brownie points from their dubious prophecies it in the safety of their bunker.
Unfortunately, fundamentalist/militant Islam isn't the only thing I'm worried about. There are some serious crazy ass Orthodox Christians in Russia who are borderline every bit as fucked up and selfish as some of the loonies in the Middle East. As much as I can't stand Putin, I hope nobody crazier than him gets put in power, like Vladimir Zhirinovsky or anybody from Russia's LDPR (Radical Right) party. At least Putin has gone on record voicing his dislike of nuclear weapons.
Sorry about the rambling. Contemporary politics aside, WWI was a tragically pointless and bloody war. Well, at least it's done humanity a fair bit of good in the long run, such as advances in medicine, aerospace engineering, women's rights, and last but certainly not least, the severe limitation or outright exclusion of European aristocracy from important politics. I mean, if some Archduke getting clipped gets 10,000,000+ other people forcefully involved and killed on his behalf then that sort of thing is just gross and unnecessary power.
I've had relatives that fought in just about every American war (as well as a few foreign wars, such as a known distant cousin of mine being involved in the Irish civil war), but I can't for the life of me trace any relative who was a veteran of WWI.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jun 29, 2014 23:47:40 GMT 1
Archduke Ferdinand's assassination only advanced the beginning of WWI by a few months. It was going to happen. Considering the politics of the day and changing them to modern terms, imagine of say John Kerry was assassinated by North Koreans and we declared war, thus dragging in China and the rest of the world goes nuts.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Jun 30, 2014 6:29:19 GMT 1
I don't think that would inspire Obama to do anything. Benghazi, anyone?
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Post by jklinders on Jun 30, 2014 13:11:59 GMT 1
He was only giving a possible example.
Also, I really don't want to have to move this to R&P so let's work really hard to stay on topic here.
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Post by Cali on Jun 30, 2014 20:56:10 GMT 1
First major battle of the war, the Battle of Liège, where the German army pushed an offensive into Belgium, which has through the course of history been a major strategic asset, if only for being a connecting point between Germany and France (also chocolate). This was before trenches became a major thing in the war, and consisted of Belgians holing themselves up in forts and shooting at approaching Germans. Oh, also the German military sent Zeppelins for the first time in battle, but they were tragically ineffective. Fig 1: Triangular Brialmont fort Fig 2: Pentagonal/Squarish shaped fort. The Kaiser threw enough Germans at the defenses that many of the forts were captured in around two days. They also captured their artillery and bombarded other forts with their own medicine as well. Eventually, the city of Liège was besieged (hey that kinda rhymes) for a week and captured, and the German Empire ended up winning the battle.
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