What caused WW1

What caused WW!


  • Total voters
    78
  • Poll closed .

MrP

Banned
According to Erich Ludendorff, and he had much knowledge about this, it were the Catholic Curch and the Freemasons who started the mess known as the Great War.
Their helpless instrument was General Helmuth von Moltke, as Ludendorff ascertains. But the Kaiser may also have been under their spell.

The Catholics? Yay! :D

I was reading Haig's diaries t'other week, and he's got a specific animus against Catholics because of the Pope's failed peace deals (and doubtless Ireland to a lesser extent), even distrusting officers who are Catholic as peaceniks. So it's good to see that while one side thought we started the war, the other side thought we were too wussy to see it through. :D
 
The Catholics? Yay! :D

I was reading Haig's diaries t'other week, and he's got a specific animus against Catholics because of the Pope's failed peace deals (and doubtless Ireland to a lesser extent), even distrusting officers who are Catholic as peaceniks. So it's good to see that while one side thought we started the war, the other side thought we were too wussy to see it through. :D
Creepy Stuff, MrP ...

The REAL Irony is, Both Perceptions have a Grain of Truth to them ...

The Centuries Old Orthodox-Catholic Divide is Part of Why The Black Hand had The Arch-Duke Assassinated, Plus The Relatively Newer Protestant-Catholic Conflict is What Kept Northern Ireland as a Thorn in Britain's Side; Too Bad Freemasonry is Mostly an English-Speaking Phenomenon huh?
 
I had a brief look at "An Improbable War?: The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1914" edited by Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson. It suggested that war was considered improbable in 1914, which gave freedom to all the "statesmen" to take risks (Ferguson also shows that the stock markets considered war improbable).

I don't really want to change my vote for Russia but perhaps we should also blame all those intellectuals such as Ivan Bloch who wrote that war would be catastrophic, the organizers of disarmament conferences and pacifists generally.
 

boredatwork

Banned
as a quick response to the OP query -
(IMHO)

0. The european elites, their anxieties about their place in the world, their delusions about the relative power at their command, and their multitudinous errors in judgement, strategy, and execution.

1. Unrealistic visions of national power and prominence (and how to achieve/maintain same) on part of European ruling elites. (french delusions of grandeur, prussian-german idea of glory through conquest, russian overeagerness to take a leading role before afairs were in order at home, Austrian inability to handle rising nationalisms, british belief that the world, including other european powers, were easily manipulated pawns, everyone's idea that the war could be easily 'turned off' when the need arose)

2. Unresolved struggle to determine dominance hierarchy in Europe

2.A. British efforts to unsure struggle remained unresolved for own benefit

3. Clash between Napoleonic/Victorian worldviews and realities of industrial age warfare, esp w/ regards to domestic order (or lack thereof) and total war.

4. Inherent fragility/instability of monarchial/imperial orders given #3

5. Unrealistic overestimations (by all parties) of possibilities for swift or clear victory.
 
Definitely, it was everyone's fault. Sure, the Germans DoWed on France and Russia, but the Russians mobilized against them and Austria-Hungary. The Brits didn't state their policy on Belgium. And the whole revanchist thing in France was quite bad too.
it can be summerized in the acronym MAIN.

Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism and Nationalism
Funny, my freshman history teacher used that.
 
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