Best Books
While I have read quite a few books on WW1, only a couple really “stand out”:
Niall Ferguson (1998) – The Pity of War: Explaining World War I [download] does justice to its subtitle, boldly reinterpreting most of the standard narrative through vivid statistical argumentation.
For instance, the claims that there was widespread enthusiasm for the conflict at the outset seems to be pretty much false. This was also the book that introduced me to the work of Dupuy et al., who have calculated that the Germans were consistently much more combat effective than the Anglo-French forces; conversely, he also very effectively shows why the war was lost for Germany after the end of the Spring Offensive.
One need not always buy into his arguments – ironically, I am rather skeptical of his “Anglophobic” thesis that it was England most at fault for making WW1 into the carnage it was – but his counterintuitive takes strike home sufficiently frequently to justify this as a must-read in addition to the more conventional histories.
Barbara Tuchman (1962) – The Guns of August [download] may not be the most groundbreaking WW1 book, but it may well be the best from a literary perspective. Seriously, just read her opening paragraph:
So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.
Whether one agrees with her thesis that it was Germany that was overwhelmingly culpable or not – though I suppose it helps that I do – her skill at bringing the increasingly agitated diplomatic activity in the buildup to the war and the military maneuvers in its first few months is unrivalled. This is history that reads like fiction, and I mean that in a good sense.
Articles
I haven’t written too much about WW1, but here a couple of the more notable posts:
- Prophets of the Great War: Friedrich Engels, Ivan Bloch, and Pyotr Durnovo – on how quite a few people predicted what would happen well (not that it did anyone much good).
- A Short History of the 20th Century – on how Russia lost its future in 1917, amongst other things.
Biggest Winner
The US. And Romania.
Biggest Loser
Russia:
“Surely to no nation has Fate been more malignant than to Russia. Her ship went down in sight of port. She had actually weathered the storm when all was cast away. Every sacrifice had been made; the toil was achieved. Despair and Treachery usurped command at the very moment when the task was done.” – Winston Churchill
Today’s Relevance
Mostly irrelevant, actually. There’s no comparable webs of alliances. The relative importance of gross industrial production (vs. technology) is far, far lower. Nationalism is now mostly exclusionist, not expansionist.
However, one thing that is still relevant is that globalization is no guarantee that there will be no war (an argument frequently made re-the US and China). World trade was comparable as a percentage of GDP in 1914 to today’s levels.
Today’s relevance is in fact large.
WW1 effectively broke the British Empire by making the white dominions set on independence.
WW1 caused the horror of world communism.
WW1 half-broke Germany and inspired its final destruction in WW2.
France was forever ruined.
America set upon its disastrous path to empire.
The world was ruined in 1914.
“Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea” by Robert K. Massie is one of the best on WWI
Ernst Junger’s book about his experiences, Storm of Steel, is a great counterpoint to Remarque’s more popular work, but get an older edition before certain parts were edited out.
Agree x100.
The Christmas Truce happened in 1914.
I also read these two books and if I remember correctly the educated classes were enthusiastic in the UK.
Interestingly, Barbara Tuchman was the granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr., Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and niece of Henry Morgenthau Jr., of Morgenthau Plan fame.
Would you mind elaborating? I remember hearing about how the newer versions were edited but I am not sure what was changed.
I vaguely recall something to do with him killing an American up close which would probably be one, but it’s been many years since I read it.
Superb book.
Niall Ferguson’s book was influential on me as well. I believe I read it in 2004 when I was a young man.
The part that stands out is a sort of mystical poetic passage at the end after he describes the final offensive (my memory about it is a bit fuzzy, it’s been about two decades). I had read the book as an undergraduate from the university library where they had an old edition, when I ordered it a few years ago on amazon I was disappointed that this part which I had liked back then was no longer there. Ugly reminder of mid 20th century European mentality?
I think there was more but this stood out. It’s still good and worth reading without censored parts.
I’m reading Timothy Snyder’s ‘The Red Prince The Selected Lives of a Habsburg Archduke’ right now. Although the scope of the book extends beyond WW1 to the interwar period, it does offer some interesting glimpses of the political alignments of all of the players involved. I wouldn’t recommend that Thorfinnsson read this book, for a good part of it involves Austria’s involvement in Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia too. (Hack’s Law in play for Snyder too). 🙂
How surprising. I guess common hostility to Germany is one of those things Russians and Anglo-Americans will always agree on, despite their occasional spats.
Anyway, “best” books on WW1 from my perspective (clearly influenced by my own biases, I’ll readily admit that):
Christopher Clark, The sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914: a somewhat revisionist account of the July crisis. Clark has been accused of pro-German bias (his wife is German, so there may be some personal reasons for that), but imo he doesn’t exculpate the German leadership in 1914, it’s still clear that they acted recklessly and irresponsibly and missed several opportunities to defuse the crisis. His account doesn’t absolve the other actors of responsibility though (and yes, Russia looks especially bad in that regard, as it should imo) and makes clear that German perceptions of reality in 1914 (a hostile bloc encircling Germany and trying to humiliate her only ally Austria-Hungary) were fundamentally correct.
Holger Afflerbach, Auf Messers Schneide: Wie das deutsche Reich den ersten Weltkrieg verlor (On knife’s edge: How imperial Germany lost WW1), published in March 2018. One of the most gripping books I’ve read in the last few years, Afflerbach’s book deals with the entirety of WW1 from a German perspective, including ususally neglected topics like the Italian front and events in the Balkans. He doesn’t deny German responsibility (together with Russia and Austria-Hungary) for the outbreak of WW1 and acknowledges the serious war crimes committed by German forces in Belgium and the wide-ranging demands for annexations by influential ultra-nationalist lobby groups…but his account is revisionist insofar as he points out the war crimes and imperialist designs of the allied powers as well. His most explosive thesis is that the German military and political leadership would have been willing to accept a negotiated end to the war from quite early on and that German offers for peace negotiations in 1916 and 1917 were serious (even if proposed in a rather clumsy way), but rejected by political elites in France and especially Britain who wanted to end the war with a total defeat of imperial Germany, with disastrous consequences for the later history of 20th century Europe. He also thinks that the outcome of the war was open for a long time; Germany’s fatal mistake in his opinion was the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 which caused the US to enter the war.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be an English translation of this book so far, even though Afflerbach is professor at the university of Leeds and has published a lot in English (and who knows if there will be one, given how emotive much of British public is over WW1, there may not be a market for it).
Articles: Alexander Watson, Unheard-of Brutality”: Russian Atrocities against Civilians in East Prussia, 1914–1915, in: The Journal of Modern History 86, no. 4 (December 2014): 780-825. This examines German claims about Russian war crimes during the invasion of East Prussia in 1914 and comes to the conclusion that there’s a substantial factual basis to those claims. German conduct in Belgium may still be considered as worse in some ways (invasion of a neutral state, executions of civilian hostages, including women and children in some cases), but it wasn’t as unique as is commonly claimed.
If one is primarily interested in military aspects, the first volume of the Cambridge History of the first world war is decent enough imo (the chapter by Paul Kennedy about the war at sea is pathetic though, makes me wonder how this guy achieved distinction as a historian).
Essentially you’re right. If one or more of the major powers had avoided WWII, there might have been a glimmer of hope for at least a part of the West. This was not to be.
I think I’m well known here as a Germanophile. Perhaps even more Germanophile than you despite it not being my country.
But I agree that Germany has the main responsibility for WW1. Though Britain would have to be a very close second.
I disagree completely. Russia is most culpable imo, they backed up Serbia (which before had seriously considered accepting the Austrian demands – which were reasonable given the magnitude of the crime), which meant there would be an Austrian-Serbian war (admittedly something many Austrians wanted). Russia was the first great power to commit to general mobilization, this made all but certain that there wouldn’t be just a limited Balkan war, but a general European war.
Britain did contribute to the formation of the alliance system which made war more likely in 1914, and Grey and his Foreign office clique were intensely anti-German. But as regards the July crisis, Britain was the least culpable great power imo (I’d rank responsibility as Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Britain).
Oh, I agree it’s extremely relevant in a world-historical sense, but is not so relevant to today’s realities.
The international arena today increasingly resembles that of pre-1914.
I think it’s likely we’ll have another world war in the next decade.
Sweden stayed out of both world wars, which makes me think that they don’t explain what happened to the West at all. And America, at least by way of comparison to other Western countries, was not deeply affected. If it was simply destruction, you would expect the most damaged countries to be the most deeply pozzed.
The standard thinking is totally wrong.
In fact, one of the results of WW2 was that over 100 million in Eastern and Central Europe were forcefully brought under Communism. This may have even been a net positive in the battle against globohomo.
@German_reader
Austro-Hungary had been preparing for a punitive war against Serbia since 1905. – AU Chief of Staff responsible for the war plan was sacked afterwards but reinstated immediately before the war.
Serbia practically accepted (only one subclause was changed, a token in reality) the ultimatum Austro-Hungary purposely drafted to be insulting and to be outright refused – it caught them by surprise, but Serbia was nowhere near the shape to fight a war – the government was in upheaval, there wasn’t even a budget voted, and the Balkan wars left their mark on society and army.
Ignoring the 1903 coup with very shady – Freemason+Anglo backing that toppled pro-Austrian Obrenović dynasty and imposed Anglo-Freemason vermin Karađorđević, the 1905-1906 tarrifs war between Serbia and Austro-Hungary (ironically resolved by Serbia turning to Germany for help!) is an obvious failure on your part.
Black Hand were fifth column, that much is certain – Britain protested vehemently once its leader was executed by Serbia. Framing a bunch of Bosnian “Serbs” and Muslims as agents of Serbia is a joke – they were retarded Yugoslav ideology zealots used as pawns.
It’s worth reading some first-hand, non-fiction, accounts to get a feel for the period – Robert Graves’ “Goodbye to All That”, for example.
What Russian equivalents would you recommend? Konstantin Paustovsky’s “Story of a Life” gives a civillian perspective.
“Mud, Blood, and Poppycock” by Gordon Corrigan is a very good read.
For the long lead-up look at “Dreadnought” by Robert K. Massie.
Abandoning Bismarck’s balance of power principle and wise diplomacy and managing to unite Britain and Russia on the same side is an accomplishment by itself.
Arrogance, stupidity, incompetence – you name it.
Ranting about limited wars and blaming Russia for not allowing its regional ally to be annihilated (it actually did get annihilated, with 1.2 million dead Serbs in WW1), the same Balkan people the Great powers fucked over bigly! since 1853, 1878, 1908, 1912-1913 is entertaining.
There is something repulsive among Germans – whether one looks at Hegel, Engels, Bismarck, Liebknecht or Naumann – this ingrained idea of superiority and manifest destiny to enslave and erase Slavs and dominate Europe from Baltic to Black Sea. Such sentiments led to Slavs violently pushing back.
Britain is to blame for making the world a worse place because they had little moral reason to be involved and because if not for them the right side would haver won and the war would ended earlier, saving millions of European lives. And ironically Britain itself would have ben better off if it had stayed out. It would have had millions of more young people and its Empire.
Russia chose to come to aid of a regicidal regime whose elements committed a vile act of terror and turned what should have been a limited conflict (like the US invasion of Afghanistan) into a world war.
Its seems blasphemous to say this, but there seems to be some sort of cruel Old Testament divine justice at work. The Tsar went to war to support a regicide, and was himself murdered with his family. The regicidal regime and its people probably suffered the most deaths per capita in that war. The people of the Russian Empire overthrew their ruler and were passive when the new rulers looted the churches and murdered the priests, and themselves were killed by the millions. The killers were themselves cruelly liquidated in waves of purges. The country whose destiny would have been to liberate Constantinople, rule the Earth’s’ center and probably the globe, was forced into playing the role of foil in an American century instead, and stumbled into second-tier status and probably eventually a satrapy of China.
Morgenthau was the United States Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Which is the correct usage for that time period.
He also was the first prominent American to draw the world’s attention to the ongoing Armenian massacre
UK orchestrated the war to defeat the challenger.
The leader/hegemon has to make sure to defeat the upstarts.
Napoleon was defeated through a coalition, the awakened German Reich had caught up and was threatening UK global position – so it had to be dealt with.
UK had laid the foundations of conflicts through their actions and decisions in 1853, 1878, 1908 and 1912-1913.
Russians had learned that Germany and Austria were not to be trused at all – Habsburgs betrayed them already in 1853 even though Russians saved their ass in 1848-1849, and the rapidly strengthening Germany could see the continuation of Drang nach Osten that Russians dreaded – The Three-Emperor pact was a failure.
On the hand – Germany was running against the clock – the same way as in WW2. There was a clear opportunity considering the condition of France and Russia, but the prospects would be far worse in the future. So it was do or die – a modified Schlieffen plan that failed because Russians mobilised too efficiently and too much forces had to be diverted.
This sounds like you would be willing to be a proud Russian if only things had gone differently.
Proving Karlin’s point, no?
Austro-Hungary was a shitty, dysfunctional oppresive state with ridiculous amount of Jewish power – Budapest and Vienna being exemplary cases, and regional seats of Bratislava and Zagreb cementing it.
The armed forces fared spectacularly poor against a much smaller and poorer adversary, while harboring delusions about ruling eastern and southeastern Europe, scheming and positioning to do so.
It is downright ludicrous to consider that Serbia wanted the war against AU after fighting Balkan wars – the population, economy, military power comparison couldn’t be more straight.
Anyone read How Diplomats Make War, by Francis Neilson? One of Moldbug’s favorites.
Sweden is a tiny country which is swept up in the tides of history that happen elsewhere.
The lasting effect if WWI was that the old ruling class of Europe was discredited everywhere. Before the war they had tremendous prestige and self-confidence. After the war they were ridiculed – by the working class socialists, and by the new money cosmopolitan elite.
This may have happened anyway, but the war speeded it up by decades, at least.
Read Stefan Zweig’s “The World of Yesterday”, or watch the excellent film, “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” for (an admittedly exaggerated) idea of the pre-war European society’s stability.
They rejected the Austrian demand for an Austrian inquiry within Serbia. Now this demand certainly was incompatible with full Serbian sovereignty…but the Serbian state had forfeited any rights to full sovereignty by its support or at least tolerance of anti-Austrian terrorism (Franz Ferdinand’s assassins had been trained and equipped by Serbian intelligence services, that is beyond doubt; the only question is how much civilian politicians knew about this). There was no reason, why the Austrians should have trusted Serbia to carry out a real inquiry (insteand of one intended to cover up the full extent of the responsibility of the Serbian state).
It’s something I have speculated about myself; perhaps it’s as strong a “proof” of God’s existence as any.
The people who murdered the Tsar in turn lost their firstborn sons to the WW2 meat-grinder (or more; it wiped out 40% of the 20-40 y/o male cohort). And even there it was the White areas (e.g. Siberia) that suffered relatively less.
Poetically, the Jews and Balts paid an extremely heavy price for their disproportionate contribution to the murder of God’s representative on Earth; I think Ashkenazi Jews, Latvians, and Estonians are unique in that there are today fewer of them than in 1918.
(Though there are wrinkles in the theory. Not sure what the Armenians did wrong. Or the Irish, for that matter).
Anyhow, if this theory is true, one wonders about the blood price that God will exact of Western Europeans for their disbelief and waging war against Him.
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/map-europe-future-muslim-demographics.png
I agree with you about Britain being culpable not only for making the war longer and for the wrong side to win, but also that it was happy to have continental Europeans slaughter each other so no one country became powerful enough to challenge Britain’s (fading) power. In modern terms, it would be like the USA manipulating a war involving China, Russia, India, Europe, whoever, and helping the weaker side to prevent the stronger from winning.
But Russia did not have to take the bait, it did not have to turn a just and limited punishment of Serbia into a world war.
Russia was strengthening more rapidly than was Germany. Another 20 years and Russia would have been unstoppable, and Germany would have come to terms with Russia on conditions that would have been friendly to Russia.
Correct. It is not without guilt. This is why even though Austria-Hungary was justified in its treatment of Serbia, Germany did not stop it. But its posture was in essence defensive. If Russia had not mobilized to crush Austria-Hungary, Germany would not have been at war.
I have a mostly negative view of Britain’s role in WW1, but there is no basis for such a statement imo. Britain did raise mass armies and introduced conscription (something unprecedented in British history), and its forces suffered horrendous casualties (almost 20 000 dead on the first day at the Somme). It would have been strange for Britons to feel any happiness about the carnage of WW1, since it killed hundreds of thousands of their own countrymen.
No, the 6th clause demanded Austro-Hungarian law and order organs presiding over the trials of suspects on Serbian territory.
Serbia had immediately arrested Tankosić while Ciganović was in flight. The suspects claimed they were working behind the backs of governments – A-H claimed that Serbian border officials passed the ammunition and assassins.
Serbia accepted every other clause, 9 of them, and proposed instead that Hague Court should arbitrate the affair between Austro-Hungary and Kingdom of Serbia.
Serbian response was surprising and it ammounted to a capitulation – something Kaiser Wilhelm II noted himself. But Austro-Hungary was just looking for an excuse to start the war anyway.
Like Italy did with their assassination? Funny, no outrage over those.
Gavrilo himself visited London twice before the assassination. The organiser you quote was Dimitrijević Apis, who also organised the 1903 coup (bankrolled by Georg Weifert) which resulted in pro-Austrian monarchs and their families mutilated and the loot, including rings from monarch’s dead bodies, auctioned off in London.
The same bloke was executed in 1917 by Serbia on account of treason. UK protested wildly.
You are framing Austro-Hungary as some innocent bystander. In 1878 they invaded Bosnia and Herzegovina and were given a 30 year mandate at Berlin. In 1908 they annexed the province and started various repressive acts.
As I have already stated, ever since 1903 anti-Austrian coup in Serbia and 1905 Customs War between Austria and Serbia, they were longing for a war. The war plan was initially drafted in 1905/1906, resived and improved. Hoetzendorf, the proponent of pre-emptive wars against Italy and Serbia, was sacked briefly from Chief of staff, but was reinstated following 1911-1912 crisis period.
Russian prestige was at stake here. Not only prestige, but international standing.
Russian allies and clients were given a rough handling by other Great Powers and Russia failed to protect them.
Bulgarians and Serbs suffered first from Anglo-French-Sardinian involvement in the Russian war to remove Ottomans from Balkans in 1853-1856.
Afterwards, the Bulgaria of San Stefano was dismantled at Berlin congress in 1878, and Serbia was stripped of its gains.
In 1908, Austro-Hungary annexed Bosnia & Herzegovina directly violating the 1878 Berlin Congress treaty, and went away with it.
In 1912-1913 London Conference, great powers tried their best to prevent Balkan League from succeeding, eventually forming Albania out of thin air, getting an Ottoman pasha to rule it and issuing an ultimatum to Montenegro and Serbia.
At the same time, goading erstwhile allies of Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia to war over Thrace and Strymon Macedonia (present day FYROM/North Macedonia), and giving Ottomans a saving grace.
Russian allies suffered at each instance, and Russia was in no position to gamble anymore after humiliation of Russo-Japanese Wars. What kind of a Great Power and an ally is Russia if it can’t exert any pressure or protect any of its allies and goals?
Furthermore, you are omitting the fact that Russians sent guarantees to Germany they are issuing limited mobilization aimed against Austro-Hungarian prospective aggression against Serbia. And the Serbian response to the ultimatum was commented by Wilhelm II in a favourable way. But Germany also must have stood by its allies, because it couldn’t be too picky (Italy backstabbed, Ottomans and Bulgarians were a sideshow).
That the Austro-Hungarians decided against the then-already adopted way of resolving differences at Hague international court is telling.
To be honest, I can’t see Russia ever surpassing or beating 2nd Reich. 2nd Reich was really the epitome of scientific and engineering advance, efficiency and inovation. Combined with strong demographics and national spirit, pride.
I probably would not have existed, because one of my grandparents from a village a couple hours from Kiev and the others were from Galicia.
The ideal resolution to the war would have German victory in late 1917 – Ukraine’s unnatural link to Eurasia severed, the right side winning the war, Bolshevism in Russia probably exchanged for a pro-German reactionary regime before it could do more damage to Russia and its people.
But this would not have been worth the millions lost in 1914-1917.
The best situation of all would therefore have been no war. I don’t know how the Ukrainian situation would have been resolved in the Russian Empire, maybe it would have been a simmering powder-keg or maybe Ukrainians would have become Bavarians to Moscow’s Prussians (Bolsheviks not Tsars linguistically Russified the people of Ukraine). In Galicia, Ukrainian culture would have advanced at a strong pace in its conservative middle-European form. The Hapsburgs would have fulfilled their role in bringing civilization to the Balkans (no coincidence that probably the greatest Serb ever, Tesla, was an Austrian Serb). Russia would have played a similar role in the Caucuses and Asia, and native Russian birth rates plus tens of millions not lost to war, civil war, and famine would have been high enough that this would not have been a problem. After Wilhelm there would probably have been another Holy Alliance between the monarchies, closely matched but with Russia inevitably eventually playing a leading role due to its size, population and development.
Anyways, I am off to spend the weekend with old college friends so may not post for the next couple of days.
Text of the Austrian ultimatum:
https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Austro-Hungarian_Ultimatum_to_Serbia_(The_German_original)
https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Austro-Hungarian_Ultimatum_to_Serbia_(English_translation)
Erhebungen is translated as proceedings in the English version, imo inquiries would be more accurate. Judging from the text, I don’t think this can be read as Austrian officials “presiding” over trials in Serbia, it’s a demand for the participation of Austrian officials in the inquiries (based on the reasonable belief that the Serbs would cover up the full extent of the conspiracy if they could).
Don’t know what’s that supposed to refer to (the assassination of the Yugoslav king in 1934? That’s hardly relevant imo).
That sounds exceedingly unlikely, what’s your evidence for this?
We won’t come to an agreement about this, but imo Austrian rule in Bosnia was quite benevolent. Serbian forces had committed numerous atrocities during and after the Balkan wars which could be reasonably described as ethnic cleansing; and Serbia was just a very retrograde place in general. The enlightened rule of Austria-Hungary was far preferable.
I admit though that the Austrians were too eager for a war against Serbia in 1914, they should have been more restrained, despite the serious provocation.
British casualties were small in comparison to German, French and Russian.
Even better, the war was taking place in foreign lands, so Britain suffered negligible devastation.
Meanwhile, German and Austrian citizens were starved, France battlefields were a hellscape and Russia was nearing the breakpoint.
Furthermore, the opportunity presented itself – the preservation of British Empire and global hegemony fought by mostly non-British peoples against the challenger.
The stakes were very high, and worth the losses in manpower and material.
Serbia was insignificant, not really important to any Russian core interests…whereas Austria-Hungary was Germany’s only reliable ally (Austrians are also the close ethnic kin of Germans – in fact were regarded as Germans back then – which Serbs aren’t in relations to Russians). It Austria-Hungary had been defeated by Russia, Germany would have been completely isolated…whereas a defeat of Serbia wouldn’t really have damaged Russia much.
Since they were the first great power to adopt full-scale mobilization, those assurances turned out to be completely meaningless.
The German navy shelled some British seaside towns, and Zeppelins bombed London, so that’s not completely true.
I don’t think there was a conspiracy by Britain (or any other power) to deliberately start WW1.
Empress Elizabeth was assassinated in 1898.
Will track down this claim, can’t remember where exactly I have read it. The pistol is preserved and kept in London today, too.
You view the initial invasion and tens of thousands of dead and many expelled, followed by martial law, violent expropriations and forced import of “colonist” populations of AH subjects as enlightened?
Forced assimilation and failed creation of “Bosniak” nation of three faiths under Benjamin Kallay?
You are quotting the works of Trotsky himself (in Vienna and Sofia in 1913), operating as part of Austrian propaganda during the entirety of war.
You are also quoting the widely spread, but also debunked claims of the first Communist of Serbia, Dimitrije Tucović. Both him and Trotsky reported on mass crimes they were not present at, and which were decisively debunked using primary sources, witness accounts and demography-census data.
The enlightened rule of Austria-Hungary equated to a Habsburg-Catholic tyranny supressing other people giving Hungarians their share of pie to Magyarize some, while delivering everyone to Jewish exploitation. Austro-Hungary was such a nice place that in 1913 Vienna saw Tito, Trotsky, Freud and Stalin. It was Austro-Hungary that supported Bolsheviks in their quest for power in Russia, and I believe they were the first to propose the utilization of “Russian” emigrees to effect it.
It also regarded Dalmatia and Bosnia&Herzegovina as its colonies, and treated the people there accordingly. It was so nice, that the englightened rule of Dalmatia resulted in the mass exodus of Croats to USA and South America.
My impression of Sweden is that it was about the first country in the West to be truly pozzed. If it was swept up, I think it would not have been leading the trend but rather lagging.
IMO, the aristocracy was doomed by prosperity, which is arguably part of the reason it never formed in the US. You can actually see the spirit of classless egalitarianism quite a bit before the war in Europe. There was an exuberance for public education and a great delusion about how it would equalize society.
Thanks for the recommendations by the way.
As jimmyriddle has written, Sweden was and is not a major power. Since the 1930s, it has followed a form of Socialism that has led to a Dead End, literally as well as metaphorically. Apart from a couple of microstates, the only other parts of Europe to avoid WWI and II are Spain and Switzerland. The Spanish Civil War finished the former off. The latter is too small and particularist to have any real influence.
In what possible way? Britain was trying to defuse the crisis
That was just some lone anarchist, there was never any suggestion that the Italian state had anything to do with it (in fact the Italian king was also murdered by an anarchist just a few years later).
iirc there was an international commission that concluded Serb forces had committed significant war crimes during the Balkan wars of 1912/13:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_of_the_International_Commission_on_the_Balkan_Wars
Its report can be read here:
https://archive.org/details/reportofinternat00inteuoft/page/n3
It has of course to be admitted that Austrian-Hungarian forces were pretty brutal too during the campaigns against Serbia in WW1.
I don’t know, my impression is that many Croatians liked Serbian rule after 1918 less than Austrian-Hungarian rule, but maybe I’m mistaken.
How? Britain was the last great power to join an alliance
Bavarians and Prussians together in one country sounds like a happy outcome.
I realize you cannot admit this yourself, but it sounds more and more like Russians and Ukrainians are in fact one people separated by tragic circumstances.
And unlike many Ukrainians today, you seem to genuinely care for Russia.
Serbia by itself, no. Montenegro and especially Bulgaria back then, and Balkans as whole – very much important.
Serbia even today controls the Danube and Morava valley. Two crucial transport routes.
Warm water Mediterranean ports and control of Bosphorus and Dardanelles were ultimate Russian goals in 19th century. Ergo sponsorship of Balkan Christians.
Meanwhile, Germans viewed Balkans as an important region to control due to Berlin-Baghdad route.
Being allied with Italy and Austro-Hungary at the same time turned out marvelously.
So the removal of last Russian ally in the Balkans and the end of Russian ambitions in the region wouldn’t have damaged Russia?
How do you explain the present-day Russian efforts aimed at Serbia?
Here’s an alternative policy proposal for Germany: adopt Grossdeutschland programme, ally with Italy and seek to extinguish the crappy Austro-Hungarian Empire. Germany gets all South German areas, Bohemia and Moravia probably as well. Italy gets Trieste, Istria, most of east Adriatic. Hungary becomes an independent nation in wider that present borders and a German ally.
Classic anti-anglo fantasism. In fact Britain had nothing to do with the formation of the French/Russian axis and in 1900 had offered Germany an alliance
It’s called Christianity
The same people you accuse of orchestrating the assassination of Franz Ferdinand had murdered the Serbian monarchs and their families in 1903.
That’s the current spin. In reality, things were quite different, especially in some regions. The Croatian Parliament called upon Serbian Army to institute law and order because demobilised soldiers and bandits roamed the countryside.
Croatia and Slavonian were under Budapest – part of Hungary in Austro-Hungary. Dalmatia was under Vienna, in Austrian part.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t Serbian rule. But that is altogether different issue. Which resulted in disgusting Yugoslavism morphing into Yugocommieslavism.
Bulgaria was a German ally in WW1.
I don’t see how Montenegro could be important to anybody but its own inhabitants.
Regarding the geopolitical importance of the Balkans, I guess some people saw it that way in 1914, but that was rather misguided imo.
Sentimental attachment? Orthodox solidarity?
I just don’t think that the Balkans are intrinsically that important to Russia.
The Italians had some unreasonable ambitions, as their eventual annexation of South Tyrol showed.
In hindsight it would of course have been better for Germany and Austria, if Austria had never gotten involved in the Balkans.
Junger is essential reading to understanding the rise of fascism in Europe, specifically to understanding the war veterans who were the backbone of these movements in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere.
Most works on World War I are left-leaning (not a coincidence that the war is routinely blamed on the abstracts of nationalism, imperialism, and militarism). The war is a horror show of abject misery, suffering, and death. There is no heroism, and there is no reason.
Now the leftists have a point. But if the leftists are all you rely on, you’ll struggle to understand the mindset of the war veterans who came home to Germany and Italy and found that being at war was more tolerable than living in the societies they had returned to. Were they sociopaths? Evil? Fanatics? Had the war utterly broken their minds?
Read Storm of Steel, and you will understand. Human beings can adapt to almost anything. Ernst Junger was in the thick of the fighting on the Western Front. Leading night raids into enemy trenches, crouching under massive artillery bombardments, wallowing in filth and disease with his men dying all around him every day.
But he never wallows in grief or despair. What’s most striking about this book is how normal all this becomes to him. He’s not shell-shocked. He’s not broken. He hasn’t been forced to some realization that everything he once believed in was a lie. If anything, I’d say his mood throughout most of the book is downright upbeat, at least compared to what we’re used to from other works on the war in the trenches. No, it’s not just fun and games for him. Every day in the trenches is a hard day, and he is often pushed to his limits with stress, fear, and fatigue. But his mindset is never that of a man helplessly trapped in some prison or house of horrors. He’s just another guy with a shitty job he gets up and goes to every day, like a coal miner. It’s a dirty, exhausting job, but he gets up with a purpose every day and does it.
It’s not easy to get a sense of what that purpose is. He’s not a jingoist who truly believes in some just cause behind the war. He doesn’t really hate the French or the British or any of his other enemies. He doesn’t feel any exceptional loyalty to the Kaiser. Why he is there and what he is fighting for are never really questions that cross his mind much. His country is at war, as a man he has a duty to fight. So he fights. That’s good enough for him.
When we ask what’s going through the minds of our soldiers in Afghanistan, fighting a pointless war for seventeen years running, the answer is probably the same for most of them as it was for him.
Now bring back millions of men who felt like this to the peacetime societies of Weimar Germany or to an Italy overrun with strikes and civil disorder. Life was tough for however many months or years you spent at the front, but you got up each day and had a purpose. Now there is no purpose. When you were at war, you had only your memories and your imagination and your letters from your family to remind you of the home you were fighting for. Your memories were probably nostalgic, you were probably imagining the better things you were missing out on, your family letters were probably encouraging and written to keep your hopes up.
Now you’re here, and now you’re home, and now the reality is a shocking letdown compared to what you remembered and what you hoped for. This place is a mess! The government is falling apart, the economy is a wreck. Culture is degenerate and meaningless, people live petty and selfish lives.
Now it’s very easy to see where fascism came from, and why these men were happier at war than they were at peace.
From my seat here in America, it’s all Theodore Roosevelt’s fault.
If he hadn’t run for President in 1912, splitting the Republican vote, Taft would have won and there would have been no American involvement.
America would not have been sent on the road to wicked empire, and Russia would probably have turned out reasonably okay. Western civilization would have been devastated, but probably not destroyed.
By the way, here in Gettysburg we have a large community of historians, battle enthusiasts, genealogists, tour guides, and the like. One of our guides recently led a tour to France to find the graves of 9 Adams County, PA soldiers killed in World War 1. They found the grave of one of my relatives. Needless to say, I was touched. He is buried near the American poet Joyce Kilmer.
Even better is that now Perun is awakening the Slavs back to his presence।।
After having the christcucks, muslims & libs destroy each other in 3 world wars (cold war)
It’s pretty great being Aryan.
I don’t blame anyone for WW1. The balance of power changed with German unification and the only way there wasn’t going to be a war eventually was if all the various powers were ruled by people with a mechanistic view of these things who realized the current powers had to make room for Germany – and even then it probably wouldn’t have worked.
The details of how it started are just details imo – in a hundred different timelines there’d be 100 different ways it started.
I’d say it’s relevant to today as we’re currently in the same situation with
– China’s rise
– America and Europe’s gradual fall
– Russia’s fall and partial rise
the balance of power has shifted dramatically – which is when big wars happen.
With the additional wild card in the shape of the US banking mafia who as a result of their betrayal of the US currently have lots of productive capital in China and therefore don’t want US-China conflict which is part of the reason they are stoking US-Russia conflict instead.
When you quote 1900 to explain events of 1914
Excellent debating skills.
Now do the same thing for Bavarians and Prussians in 1866 and 1870
Cruel Old Testament justice?
Ah, you mean the god of the Jews?
Grey and his Foreign office clique had all those secret talks and agreements with France and Russia – and some of that was known in Germany and contributed to the German feeling of isolation and encirclement (e.g. there were negotiations between Britain and Russia about British ships landing Russian troops on the German coast in case of war, which freaked out Bethmann Hollweg).
But before you feel compelled to defend British national honour once again: I’ve already admitted that Britain was probably the great power with the least responsibility for the outbreak of war.
I have no idea what the Irish in Ireland did to anger any divine force.
Now, the Irish-Americans ….. that’s a different story. Their leaders, anyway. The Irish in America became Democrats largely because it was the best way for them to get jobs. Reasonable enough. But they stayed Democrat, and kept voting Democrat, which ended up being the best way to water down their country and their Catholic faith.
Bishop John Ireland, an Irish-American bishop fond of the heresy of Americanism, was a grade A prick.
It ended up a German ally precisely because being a Russian ally and asset in 1878 and 1912-1913 got it nowhere. It entered the WW1 to retake the Serbian-held lands they claimed (the Strymon Macedonia is the most toxic acquisition in the history, as it turned out for Serbs).
Russia worked hard for Balkan Alliance to form and wage a war against Ottomans, and to present a credible deterrent to German ambitions in the Balkans. Once London conference threw the sabot in the gears of Balkan alliance, it was all over and a major disaster.
Russians had been funding the puny Montenegro principality since Peter the Great, yearly.
They obviously had their reasons.
If the German Empire claimed it as part of the deal, the Italians couldn’t do anything about it. The Austrians in Tyrol would obviously prefer German rule. Self-determination and nation-states, ethnic principles have shown their merit. Empires are crap.
They needed de facto colonies to fuel their economy. Being locked-out of overseas gains, they viewed Balkans as prospective expansion territories.
Austrian demands? Reasonable? They were specifically designed to make Serbia say “no.” Only Austria had no plans for what to do if Austria said yes!
As for Russian general mobilization, what choice did they have but to mobilize? The key to understanding how the war began, from the generals’ perspective, is railroads railroads railroads. Russian railroads were infinitely backward compared to the other great powers, and they had little choice but to mobilize quickly if they didn’t want to be pounced upon by Germany.
the most tragic thing about WW1 imo was simply the timing – after machine guns but before tanks.
if it had started a few years later when there were tanks (but only really slow ones) the inevitable war might have been done and dusted without ending up being so bad.
Most of the Germans Epigon mentions , or could have mentioned, were either not Christian or Calvinist, which might as well be not Christian.
You’re close.
The single biggest problem with timing of the war from the perspective of ground combat was that it was after machine guns but before cheap and light radio communications. Most of the big “pushes” on the Western front failed because communications were FAR behind the technology of weaponry. Hitler’s role as a messenger is illustrative. The only reliable radio comms were wire-based; those were immobile and easily cut by artillery fire. Portable man-carried radio did not exist. So commanders above the most basic ranks had no way of quickly issuing crucial orders.
John Keegan explains this at length in his book ‘The Face of Battle’
Mind you, I’m talking about the West. Like any true Westerner, I am ignorant about the nature of the war between the Russians and the Austro-Germans.
I don’t find that plausible (what could Austria have gained there?), imo it was more like that Austria had (maybe unwisely) gotten involved in the Balkans and couldn’t get out anymore, because giving in to Balkan nationalism would have eroded the legitimacy of the multinational monarchy and emboldened other nationalist secession movements.
But I have to admit that I don’t have personal Balkans experience, so maybe I’m getting all of this wrong. Endlessly debating the question of “guilt” for WW1 is probably somewhat futile anyway.
Well jews certainly exploited slavic women perhaps these two are result?
In a European context, if you’re not a Pagan you’re a Christian.
We don’t get involved in the debates over which sect of the son of Panthera is correct
We just worship Weapons & Prepare for Battle
Is there a reason to suppose that tanks would have been invented without WW1? As I understand it, their invention was a direct reaction to the stalemate of the trenches, would any army have adopted them without that experience?
Market + raw resources. From farms and pastures, to timber, iron, copper, salt, silver, zinc.
You might be surprised if you check the 3rd Reich economic investments immediately prior to WW2, and the quantities of raw resources and metals they imported from Yugoslavia – mostly Serbia proper.
It wasn’t a multinational monarchy at all. It initially had a German ruling elite and German language dominance, with strong Jewish economic presence. After Hungarians exerted their pressure, they were elevated to ruler status in their part of the country.
There was no legitimacy apart from force of arms – Bohemia and Moravia were conquered, Salzburg was actually Bavarian etc.
It was a dysfunctional state marred by so many issues and contradictions. Hitler was right to be angry.
Or you might be right, and I got it wrong. In my opinion, discussing the issues and presenting pro et contra arguments should be done in case of all historical events.
I would agree, but if proper conclusions are reached and the lessons of previous times are learned and applied to correct the current issues – perhaps not so futile at all.
Would the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian case make a good analogy to Swedish, Norwegian, Danish one?
Gavrilo himself visited London twice before the assassination.
Can you provide a reference for this, and also for your account of British backing for the 1903 “anti-Austrian” coup (the UK having in fact cut off diplomatic relations in protest shortly after the coup). Thanks.
It didn’t have adequate arrangements for representation of the Slavic parts of the monarchy, that’s certainly true. Maybe it could have been reformed, maybe not. There’s probably a certain tendency in Germany and Austria to romanticize it (it’s sometimes seen as a kind of precursor of the EU, supposedly the good old times before diabolical nationalism took over), but I realize that this is a rather one-sided view.
WW1 should certainly serve as a warning to all politicians in great powers, but given events of the last few years it seems many of them haven’t understood it.
The Anglo-French treaty was before Grey and wasn’t aimed at Germany, it was actually (as Clark says in his book) aimed at constraining Russia. This was also the main purpose of the Anglo-Russian treaty. Anyway, since those succeeded both the Franco-Russian alliance and the Triple Alliance, I don’t see how the alliance system can be blamed on Britain.
So tell me how Britain conspired to create the Franco-Russian alliance in 1895
I’d have to look that up again, but you’re probably right, I used imprecise language.
He is buried near the American poet Joyce Kilmer.
TREES
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Another way WW1 may have been bad for the West is that there was a great surplus of planes at the end of the war, which may have accelerated the aviation industry by a few years, eventually, but still many decades away, leading to cheap flights, as well as better international communication.
The war was certainly bad for white supremacy (if that’s what you mean).
From the chapter about Asia (by Guoqi Xu) in volume 1 of The Cambridge history of the first world war:
fair point
It is too simple of an idea.
The idea of armor is age-old. The idea of cavalry is quite old too. IMO, when automobiles were introduced, they would have already inevitability led to tanks, anyways – trench or no trench.
Armored vehicles would be a good way to transport troops or to conduct raids, the latter of which was done in the Middle East, where trench warfare largely did not exist. Tanks would be the result of opposing or assisting these vehicles. The sea had already had ironclads, for decades, leading naturally to battleships.
Massie has put out some great stuff. A fluent Russian speaker to boot.
I’d go further and say non-white soldiers were bad for Europe. Their presence was undoubtedly due to improving transport, but they were able to form their first impressions of Europe and send back word back home, which probably grew the desire to be in Europe. American blacks, for instance, learned that they would be treated as a novelty in Paris. Their presence was probably like crack-cocaine for the egalitarians.
There’s a kind of irony because the Left always seems keen to do historical revisionism and exaggerate their number and function. But if they’ve glommed on to it, to exaggerate it, it can’t have been good to start with. That some of them were fighting in Europe probably just adds to the crazy idea that we owe them.
I understand there was a pecking order, but I don’t like the term “white supremacy” because it has been used too long as a hobgoblin by the Left. Most nationalists, whether white, white ethnic, or other, simply aren’t interested in world dom, or having a subservient class, or extra-national territorial ambitions.
Barbara Tuchman is wonderful. Read The Proud Tower, a portrait of the Western World on the eve of WWI. IMO it’s better than Guns of August. And for something completely different, read A Distant Mirror.
All this was very on point. It is needed to remeber that people are psychologically wired differently and have very different reactions – some men become pacifists, some not at all and are voluntarily leading others to another war or directly participating themselves if given opportunity.
Of course it would be interesting to know what are the actual proportions of each camp (let’s call them “remarqists” and “jungerists”) in population and how much presence of the so called specifical “warrior” genes can be found in men like Junger.
Some good WW I reads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2026400.The_Twelve_Days
https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-1914-1918-Cyril-Falls/dp/0399501002
Russia’s WW I contribution and significance gets periodically overlooked on account of Western centric (include Western lefty) and sovok influences.
Haven’t read Ferguson’s WW I book. His PBS involved TV series feature on empires is classic anti-Russian propaganda, in line with some of his other commentary concerning Russia.
It’s a question of status (like most things).
In an alternate world where Russia didn’t turn Communist and been on the winning side of WW1, associating with it would have been very prestigious. Ukrainians would have melded into it without a second thought. Who would even want to be a discount Pole when one can join the Russian Cosmic Empire instead.
Associating with today’s Russia is very unprestigious, hence why almost nobody wants to have anything to do with it. Developing a fictitious nationality (which can become substantive over time) with help from Euro gibs can be legitimately viewed as a superior strategy. Especially since it also conveniently doubles as a shit test for Russia. One it’s been failing.
His wife Suzanne Massie wrote Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. Ronald Reagan read this book and invited Suzanne to advise him on Russia and Russians. She taught him Russian proverbs, including “Trust but Verify.” Today, it’s impossible to imagine an American President hiring a Russophile historian (or a Russophile anyone) to be his Russia adviser.
I bought a used copy of Land of the Firebird from a black street vendor in New York’s Madison Square for $5. I am yet to read it though.
I’m aware of her. They’ve been divorced for a good many years now. She’s quite competent in her own right.
Massie’s book Dreadnought was very good.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p389_John.html
I knew the Armenian Brit Robert John, his book is the seminal work on the Balfour Declaration, he was an acquaintance of the notorious Benjamin H Freedman.
My great grandfather was designated a key worker and was assigned to a munitions factory but his five brothers served on the Western Front, they all enjoyed it to a certain extent. Morale was consistently high in the British Army. Peter Jackson’s new film emphasises the happiness of the average Tommy to serve to stop the Hun.
Freud recognized that men have a death instinct as much as a life instinct – men feel the physical world and solid bourgeois society as an irksome chain and are suddenly possessed of the desire to sweep it all away in an orgy of destruction.
Evidently the European masses on the eve of WW 1 were utterly bored by the stable technocratic society and long years of peace that had prevailed up till then.
Bertrand Russell the pacifist has a fascinating passage where he says his understanding of human nature was overturned when on the eve of WW1 he saw crowds of excited and happy young men preparing to get drafted at an English train ststio. They were ecstatic at the coming destruction.
The Left and elites today are giving similar vent to the Thanatos instinct – utterly bored by the stable technocratic society that was post war Europe and America, they are seeking to destroy it, and chafing at the physical restraints of the physical world, they are promoting fantasies like transgenderism and all sorts of revolts against physical reality.
This impulse is as old and mankind and has been at the heart of religion which seeks to transcend the world. Buddhism with its doctrine of “emptiness” is nothing less than the psychological destruction of the world and everything in it.
If we are to avoid the physical expression of this impulse to transcend the physical order through destructive wars we must cultivate a metaphysical insight into the unreal character of this seemingly solid physical order with all its irksome limitations and restraints.
But we won’t and I agree with Thorfinsson that an orgy of destruction and a world war is likely.
Why should Russia look any worse than Germany though? In book, Willie comes as even more unfit to the task than Nikkie, who was at least countered by two very good governments successively.
In the end, anglo is the true devil anyway.
On the book itself, I absolutely agree. Russian nationalists of any stripe should probably read it for the factual basis of “the Russia we have lost” sentiment alone.
Wilhelm II and Chamberlain (Joseph) were both in favor of alliance. The sticking point was that the German Foreign Office insisted that Britain also guarantee Austria-Hungary’s security, which Britain was not willing to do. And of course once Asquith and his band of anti-German fanatics came to power there was no hope. Wilhelm II of course didn’t help matters when he called the British mad, mad as march hares.
I am not sure you understand what moral means.
If Germany was the most powerful country in Europe, having crushed France in 1870 I am not sure why they should be bothered by their weaker neighbouring countries forming a defensive alliance. Still the main concern was rapidly industrialising Russia. Bismarck was a smarter leader than the Kaiser Wilhelm and his clique.
Doesn’t this apply to every single country apart from Austria-Hungary and Serbia? Why did you choose to single out Britain?
I would recommend Catastrophe by Max Hastings whose books on WW2, Vietnam and the Korean War are magnificent. Great on the military history, the battles, the high politics, the great personalities and also the ordinary soldiers and citizens involved. He takes the common view that the primarily culpable party was Germany which wanted its hands on White Russia in order to expand eastwards and become a genuine global superpower. Hitler’s war aims were essentially similar but with more genocide and outright slavery.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/10382547/Catastrophe-by-Max-Hastings-review.html
I quite look forward to the upcoming orgy of destruction and world war.
Anything is preferable to our disgusting world order.
That sounds idiotic tbh. I don’t doubt that many believed in the rightness of their cause (to stop “Prussian militarism” or whatever), but “happiness” is surely stretching it.
One of my English great-grandfathers was a rigger in the Royal flying corps during WW1. Unfortunately I don’t know much about his service (iirc he wasn’t just in France, but also in Palestine), but I do know that after WW1 he always refused to wear those idiotic poppy symbols (which seem to have become mandatory for British journalists and politicians in recent years), because his view of the war was highly negative and he couldn’t stand any celebrations of it. He was an extreme left-winger though (Independent Labour party), so maybe atypical.
DFH the indefatigable Anglo-defender.
I suppose someone’s got to do the job.
This is evidently a periodic feeling that comes over mankind. I am not unsympathetic to it.
I my self pursue it on a metaphysical level.
A close friend of mine is a Vietnam War veteran. He said the war was the most exciting and happy time of his life, and that he’d love to do it all over again (if only he could could get a guarantee against getting killed).
Men like the brotherhood of war and some (not all) are genuinely thrilled by combat.
Hitler’s plans for Eastern Europe were very much in the mainstream of German thinking, reflected in the EU’s approach to the Ukraine today.
I have seen Adam Tooze’s The Deluge recommended, haven’t read it yet myself.
It’s as ‘fictitious’ or as ‘real’ as many others. As for Russia, it does seem a bit constipated and I can see little relief for it in the near future.
Furthermore, the opportunity presented itself – the preservation of British Empire and global hegemony fought by mostly non-British peoples against the challenger.
Britain’s decision-makers were motivated by continental concerns. Foreign observers seem to always attach far greater importance to the British Empire than the British themselves ever did.
As late as August 1 Grey had to inform the French ambassador that Britain could not be counted on to send an expeditionary force to France even if Britain went to war with Germany as most of the cabinet was opposed to helping France. That only changed in the next couple of days. There was certainly no grand devious British plot, nor was there ever British hegemony over Europe.
There was a potential nightmare scenario for Grey though: France and Russia going to war expecting and needing British help, not receiving it, and being defeated. Germany would then dominate the continent with the embittered French and Russians believing Britain had abandoned them.
Because it is “blasphemous to say this” and something which is the opposite of a religious – in the positive sense – attitude. Also without historical analysis, but just random grouping together unrelated people and incidents. E.g. crimes of Nikolai II results in millions of ordinary people killed – the crime is not that he particularly supported Serbia instead of Austria. Read what Tolstoy wrote in 1904, about “idiots in their palaces”.
Look at all books listed by German Reader above though – I think he knows about this topic a lot. Maybe we should crowdfund him to present some lecture on the topic.
And how’s this project going on for you?
That’s not a common view held by any serious historian (even those who assign primary responsibility to Germany), but myth-making nonsense.
Reasonably well, thank you 🙂
Like everything else it has its ups and downs – but with the assistance of alcohol, occasionally drugs, and psychedelic fairy tea things have been going reasonably well on this front.
Oh, le shawk!
No offense to your friend, but I don’t think something like the Vietnam war is even remotely comparable to the experience of the world wars in Europe. If somebody had told one of my grandfathers (British army 1940-1946, Wehrmacht 1940-1945) something like that, the reaction would have been disgust or violence. Americans have no idea about war.
Combat is combat.
I realize Americans experienced less of it in the 20th century than Germans did.
But those who experienced it still went through it. As an example nearly all of America’s WW1 fatalities occurred in three months in 1918. The intensity of combat for Americans in WW1 was comparable to what Europeans went through, but was restricted to a limited period.
He did make a successful effort to remove himself from the front because he feared death. He experienced one battle in which 80% of his infantry company was wiped out owing to an unnecessary frontal assault ordered by his commanding officer. His XO put himself in for a Silver Star with a valor device after the fact and got it.
And I don’t have a dog in this fight since my family is Swedish, a country which had a very lucky 20th century. Some of my ancestors volunteered for Finland, and we also adopted a Finnish orphan whose parents were murdered by the Russians in front of her.
Shooting a few gooks somewhere in Southeast Asia, under conditions of massive American superiority in firepower and with the prospect that after a combat tour of maybe a few months or a year you’ll be going back to safe and wealthy America, isn’t really comparable to the experience of the world wars in Europe, sorry.
American dead in Vietnam were 60 000. That’s nothing compared to even British losses at the Somme, let alone Soviet and German casualties in WW2.
A bit of a pointless debate though, so I’ll stop here.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to do here.
Win points about the suffering Europeans went through? Yes, your grandfathers went through hell that mine didn’t. Congratulations?
Any man who went through combat, went through combat. Do you need me to dig up accounts from Germans, French, Russians, etc. from the world wars who enjoyed their combat experience?
If you’re in a fucking rice paddy in Vietnam being shelled by 130mm NVA artillery and getting suppressed by machine gun fire, you’re in combat.
That your country happens to have superiority in firepower in said war probably does not occur to you while you’re ducking shellfire and bullets.
This is really ridiculous and I expect better from you.
I just object to your positive view of war which sounds as if you imagine it to be some fun contest where one can win glory and prove one’s manliness. Even if said only in jest, I don’t see the merits of writing something like “I look forward to the coming world war”.
But anyway, this is a pointless discussion and I’d rather end it.
And incidentally, while I wasn’t here, the Vietnam War had an extremely traumatic effect on America. Men were being drafted to fight and die in a country ten thousand miles away in a conflict they didn’t understand and that their leaders could not explain to them.
I understand that Germany went through horrors that Americans can’t even imagine (and these horrors were partly inflicted by Americans without good reason), but every German understood what he was fighting for.
I am usually known as a pro-Trump voice, but it is in fact disgraceful the way Trump, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton, and other elite men of their generation evaded the slaughter of Vietnam that their fathers grimly confined working class men of that era to.
Sooooo serious.
War is fun and exhilarating and countless people have loved it. Instead of denying this fact we should understand what this says about human nature and the inadequacies of every day life and find a way of dealing with it.
This does not mean you support wars. But we need to stop repressing human nature – we need to understand it and deal with it.
Denial, denial, denial, repression, repression, repression – it always just ends up bursting out another way. We did it with sex, now violence – both some of the most powerful forms of self transcendence.
It’s a western habit that must end.
I speak casually and violently sometimes and you were right to push back against said talk.
Obviously we will not benefit from a world war.
Vietnam war was extreme for America soldiers , as the American soldiers were in small independent units, unsupervised for days in the jungle, often murdering civilians.
Fact they have organized for them luxurious parties in South Vietnam between, and they are from wealthy country where other young people like Donald Trump are partying in New York – is just adding more to its madness probably.
The Vietnam war was brutal in its own way, and by your logic the western front of WWII was a joke because it was dwarfed in destruction and savagery by the eastern front.
Carleton Meyer maintains a list of America’s lost battles in Vietnam: http://www.g2mil.com/lost_vietnam.htm
Here is Robert McNamara understanding why we lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl8wpsGooOo
Not sure in either war, most German soldiers know what they were fighting for. Disputes between kings the first time – where it was equally stupid on all sides -, and dictator’s conquest in the second.
German_reader is obviously better prepared to speak on this, but it seems that in the second war after a certain period of time the Germans understood a horrible vengeance would be visited upon them if they were defeated.
Sew the wind, reap the whirlwind.
It is the view taken by Fritz Fischer at the University of Hamburg, David Stevenson at the LSE, David Fromkin at Boston University and Sir Michael Howard at Oxford and Yale. Weltmacht oder Niedergang was firmly official German policy before 1914 and relaunched by Hitler in the 30s.
Agree! Europe in essence lost its soul and never recovered it. And the US, as it turns out, wasn’t far behind.
Everyone is being so mature on this thread – makes me sick 🙂
I want some wild irresponsible generalizations being thrown around…
Come on people….
War is a substitute gratification – in the Freudian sense – for the kind of transcendence of the ordinary world found in religion.
True religion is full acceptance of the ordinary world with all its seeming imperfection as an expression of the ineffable wisdom of the divine, therefore seeing everyday life as a divine mystery.
Transcendence is ultimately not abandoning the every day world for some hazy other realm but seeing the ordinary world in a new light.
“Americans have no idea about war.”
“Americans” as in American combat soldiers? Or American citizens? Disagree in the former case, totally agree in the latter. In the former case-they were no different from the combat soldiers of Germany, England, Russia, France, Japan etc. etc. In the latter case America is clueless. Americans can’t begin to fathom what it was like to be on the receiving end of enemy bullets fired on home soil while bombs fell from aircraft overhead. And I don’t want to hear about Pearl Harbor and 9/11, both of which were one-offs. Germany, England and Japan were subjected to sustained bombing and Russia, Germany and France were subject to invasion (and, in the case of Germany and France, eventual occupation). There haven’t been foreign boots on mainland American soil since the War of 1812.
Also, “The Sleepwalkers” by Christopher Clark (which also serves as a prelude to the war itself), which neatly illustrates the extent to which Britain, France, Germany and Russia were basically flying blind, headlong into eventual conflict.
Thanks to you both for the book recs. Both sound interesting and I added them to my reading list, especially the Tooze book.
Ok, sorry, I got a bit too emotional and wrote a few over-generalized statements myself (“Americans have no idea about war” was a bit disrespectful, I want to apologize for that). Best to leave it at that.
there was only one prime architect of the first, 1914-18, round of the 20th Century World War that destroyed Europe, brought down the White Empires, and mortally wounded Western Civilization and – as current Judeo-globalist machinations indicate – quite likely the White Race itself:
France
France, that is to say its military/political/economic ruling class, never accepted defeat in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War…a war also instigated largely by France. Defeat itself, the German seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, having to rely on the victorious Germans to supress the Paris Commune, and a savage war reparation rendered in gold were all too much for l’amour propre, and the French immediately began re-building and reforming their military forces, weaving a web of diplomatic and military encirclement around Germany and Austria-Hungary, and memorializing the war in a manner indicative of intent; compare the German and French memorials to the dead of 1870-71: the German memorials are dignified, inward, grief-striken…the French memorials are strident, violent, Marie in warlike garb, with rampant sword pointing eastward…toward Deutschland.
by 1914, with Russia in public alliance and Britain in secret accession, the encirclement was essentially complete. Only Italy, still nominally allied with the Central Powers, remained to be roped in; since, however, Italy’s territorial designs were entirely on Austria, she also was certain to come in if the Encirclement Powers could contain the initial German counterblast. It remained only to secure financing and provide a spark. The basis for the debt-finance of the war was secured on 24 December, 1913, when the charter for the Rothschild Third National Bank (alias “Federal Reserve”) was smuggled through an eager-to-recess U.S. Congress. The spark was provided by the 26 June 1914 Sarajevo Hit on the Austrian Archduke, carried out by a 22-man Serbian Black Hand death squad…the Black Hand itself being a creature of both the Russian Okhrana and French Secret Service.
then the dominos fell. Recommended reading:
Warning Tremor, 1870-71
Wawro, Geoffrey: The Franco-Prussian War (NY, 2003)
Steefel, Lawrence: Bismarck, The Hohenzollern Condidadacy, and the Origins of the Franco-German War of 1870 (Cambridge, 1962)
Oncken, Hermann: Napoleon III and the Rhine – Origin of the War of 1870-71 (NY, 1928)
Lord, Robert: Origins of the War of 1870 – New Documents from the German Archives (NY, 1966)
Varley, Karine: Under the Shadow of Defeat – The War of 1970-71 in French Memory (NY, 2008)
1871-1914: France Weaves the Web of Encirclement
Fay, Sidney: Origins of the World War, 2 vol. (Toronto, 1966)
Barnes, Harry Elmer: Genesis of the World War (NY, 1927)
Kennan, George: The Fateful Alliance – France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (NY, 1984)
Lafor, Laurence: The Long Fuse…Origins of WW I (Phila., 1971)
Albertini, Luigi: Origins of the War of 1914, 3 vol. (London, 1952)
The Spark: Sarajevo and the Serbian Black Hand
McMeekin, Sean: July 1914 – Countdown to War (NY, 2013)
Ham, Paul: 1914 – The Year The World Ended (London, 2013)
MacKenzie, David: The Black Hand on Trial, Salonika 1917 (Boulder, 1995)
just a teaser. Extended, multi-lingual bibliography on 1870-1918
http://chaosandconspiracy.wordpress.com/bibliography-on-the-1914-45-world-war/
Fritz Fischer was fixated on Germany to an absurd degree (with all the other great powers only reacting to Germany’s aggressive designs), imo his work can only be understood as a reaction to the Nazi experience. I find it bizarre that he’s still cited today as if his work had settled the question for all time.
As for German war aims in WW1, there was no consistent programme for conquering a continental empire (let alone a racial empire up to the Urals as Hitler wanted). It’s true that German elites got greedy at times when the war seemed to be going well and dreamed of annexations, and there were influential nationalist pressure groups who drew up all sorts of absurd wishlists about annexations in Europe and colonies in tropical Africa. But these things were constantly in flux. And when Germany was victorious in the east in 1917/18, there was no plan to annex these areas directly to the Reich; instead satellite states were set up there.
Germany was of course an imperialist power. But so were pretty much all the other combatants. I find the selective moralizing about this even after a century just bizarre.
there was only one prime architect of the first, 1914-18, round of the 20th Century World War that destroyed Europe, brought down the White Empires, and mortally wounded Western Civilization and – as current Judeo-globalist machinations indicate – quite likely the White Race itself:
France
France, that is to say its military/political/economic ruling class, never accepted defeat in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War…a war also instigated largely by France. Defeat itself, the German seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, having to rely on the victorious Germans to supress the Paris Commune, and a savage war reparation rendered in gold were all too much for l’amour propre, and the French immediately began re-building and reforming their military forces, weaving a web of diplomatic and military encirclement around Germany and Austria-Hungary, and memorializing the war in a manner indicative of intent; compare the German and French memorials to the dead of 1870-71: the German memorials are dignified, inward, grief-striken…the French memorials are strident, violent, Marie in warlike garb, with rampant sword pointing eastward…toward Deutschland.
by 1914, with Russia in public alliance and Britain in secret accession, the encirclement was essentially complete. Only Italy, still nominally allied with the Central Powers, remained to be roped in; since, however, Italy’s territorial designs were entirely on Austria, she also was certain to come in if the Encirclement Powers could contain the initial German counterblast. It remained only to secure financing and provide a spark. The basis for the debt-finance of the war was secured on 24 December, 1913, when the charter for the Rothschild Third National Bank (alias “Federal Reserve”) was smuggled through an eager-to-recess U.S. Congress. The spark was provided by the 26 June 1914 Sarajevo Hit on the Austrian Archduke, carried out by a 22-man Serbian Black Hand death squad…the Black Hand itself being a creature of both the Russian Okhrana and French Secret Service.
then the dominos fell. Recommended reading:
Warning Tremor, 1870-71
Wawro, Geoffrey: The Franco-Prussian War (NY, 2003)
Steefel, Lawrence: Bismarck, The Hohenzollern Condidadacy, and the Origins of the Franco-German War of 1870 (Cambridge, 1962)
Oncken, Hermann: Napoleon III and the Rhine – Origin of the War of 1870-71 (NY, 1928)
Lord, Robert: Origins of the War of 1870 – New Documents from the German Archives (NY, 1966)
Varley, Karine: Under the Shadow of Defeat – The War of 1970-71 in French Memory (NY, 2008)
1871-1914: France Weaves the Web of Encirclement
Fay, Sidney: Origins of the World War, 2 vol. (Toronto, 1966)
Barnes, Harry Elmer: Genesis of the World War (NY, 1927)
Kennan, George: The Fateful Alliance – France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (NY, 1984)
Lafor, Laurence: The Long Fuse…Origins of WW I (Phila., 1971)
Albertini, Luigi: Origins of the War of 1914, 3 vol. (London, 1952)
The Spark: Sarajevo and the Serbian Black Hand
McMeekin, Sean: July 1914 – Countdown to War (NY, 2013)
Ham, Paul: 1914 – The Year The World Ended (London, 2013)
MacKenzie, David: The Black Hand on Trial, Salonika 1917 (Boulder, 1995)
just a teaser. Extended, multi-lingual bibliography on 1870-1918 @
http://chaosandconspiracy.wordpress.com/bibliography-on-the-1914-45-world-war/
You will have to abandon the every day world willy nilly very soon. What happens to this pseudo-spiritual “transcendence” you keep speaking about then?
Where will I be going when I abandon this every day world? I am everything, and everything is me.
In the case of France at least, it is quite obviously the case. Archbishop Lefebvre, the head of the traditionalist catholic rebellion against the globohomo NewChurch that controls the Vatican since the elevation of Montini (aka Paul 6) to the throne of Peter, announced on French télévision back in 1982 or so that islam was God’s scourge, with which He would flog France for her apostasy. Quite prophetic if you ask me.
He was fined 5000 francs for heinous public speech.
Just parroting words you heard or read is not experiencing transcendence, is it?
I don’t seek to experience transcendence. I am ok with things just as they are.
A very good take, on a truly astounding book. Thank you.
My own reading of Storms of Steel has been a defining moment in my intellectual formation, about 2 decades ago. I would not say that this book made me a fascist per se, but for sure it opened my eyes regarding the vacuity of liberal-democratic polities. I still remember vividly the first pages, where Junger explains how being a soldier in a war is a cure for most illnesses (he even mentions cancer iirc). And it’s true; in democratic-liberal polities, all we do os waste our lives waiting until one MD will announce us a death sentence in his sanitized office, with a picture of he, his kids and second wife in a frame on his desk. What a waste.
Today, we can measure how deeply the European civilization has sunk during the past 100 years. Is there even any left that is worth being saved from the African locusts?
I travel across France quite a bit for my work. If you tell me the name of the cemetery where your relative is resting, I might be able to stop there once, and send you a picture of his grave.
Excellent point about Roosevelt. I had not realized. Wilson was a really wicked Protestant jackass.
Maybe I am.parroting words I don’t fully understand Bliss. What’s you’re take on all this spiritual stuff? What are your beliefs?
I’m curious.
Two books I haven’t yet read, but still want to mention, because they sound interesting:
Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I.
This seems to be mostly a sort of social history of the home front in Germany and Austria-Hungary during WW1. There doesn’t seem to be much else like this in English.
Manfried Rauchensteiner, The First World War and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918.
A massive history (about 1000 pages) of Austria-Hungary’s involvement in WW1. Seems to be the standard work about the subject.
My time in the mandatory military service ranks amongst the very best period of my life.
Being young, wearing cool attire, roaming the hills and the forests with other dudes carrying guns of various kinds, shooting said guns at the range without even have to pay the ammo, singing all sorts of xenophobic and profane songs and having tons of good laughs while doing all that — homestly, and I’m not even being sarcastic, it really does not get much more fun than that in life. I imagine how much more awesome it would have been, with the adrenaline rush of actual combat.
Probably some nonsensical syncretic mumbo-jumbo like yours — but in nigga-oriented fashion.
Well, I would like to hear the nigga oriented version of my mumbo jumbo.
I generally enjoy all kinds of mumbo jumbo. If you wished to give me the French fascist oriented version of my mumbo jumbo I’d be similarly curious.
I agree with you.
The freemasonic cult that is called “Troisième République” is the single main reason of this nonsensical war.
It is beyond comprehension that French Catholics, after having been all but relegated to internal exile after the 1905 secularization laws, have accepted to serve the diabolical regime that sent the French ethnos to its own destruction. Had I been a French Catholic of that time, I would have left for Argentina or Quénec, never to ever come back.
I am not French, so I can’t really help you with that.
Regarding fascism the sources are many. You don’t need my summary to figure this out.
Ah swiss then, from William Tell (as we say in English)?
My mistake. A good friend of mine from France is named Guillaume, so I assumed….but quite stupid of me.
I am not merely interested in fascism which I understand, but fascist mumbo jumbo specifically, which I bet is interesting.
No worries. Many people confuse French and Francophone. Especially those who don’t speak the French language. It can reasonably be argued that the lowest quality French (language) is the variety that is currently being spoken in France.
Not really. The best from a literary perspective might be The Barbarism of Berlin, which is however not of much use as an unbiased historical document. Churchill wrote a WWI book which is probably also pretty good from a literary perspective.
Perhaps try Nichifor Crainic, Alexandru C. Cuza (not to be confused with Alexandru I. Cuza) or Corneliu Codreanu and the Legion of the Archangel Michael.
A lot of quasi-Christian mysticism. Also strident anti-semites.
I have heard of none of these people which is unusual for me – but I will give them a shot!
Codreanu’s wedding clothes. He also rode on a horse while his wife followed in a cart drawn by six oxen.
https://dailystormer.name/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2c62002f_0050000075958_00_600_thumb.jpg
I accept your apology.
I am sure you understand it is quite difficult for me to apologize.
But I do so to you.
And then there is Ariosophy, although some parts of it are rather out there – such as Lanz von Liebenfels’ Theozoology — or the Science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron.
I feel privileged, thanks!
The weirder the better, I shall try it!
I’m not even sure I believe in weird.
Thank you for the recommendations.
Don’t give AaronB so many ideas, if he converts to fascism and spams the comments section with esoteric fascist mumbojumbo, it’ll be your fault. Then we could only hope that a Reichsflugscheibe picks him up and takes him to Antarctica.
WW1 was the eruption of a long-boiling volcano. But none of these things were caused by the war.
Three of the great dominions of the British Empire — the US, Canada and Australia — were basically as independent as they would ever be by WW1. I think the Boer War had more to do with setting off the disintegration of the rest (South Africa, Rhodesia, India, Egypt, etc) than did WW1.
World communism was brewing for a long, long time before 1914. WW1 certainly did not cause it — it would be fairer, if not precisely correct, to say that world communism caused WW1.
The third statement I can almost agree with — except that it was really the Prussians who were the behind the German part of WW1, and really also of WW2. Germany had hardly been “whole” until it was drawn forcibly together by Bismarck only forty years prior, and even he could not bring the Austrians in.
I am not so pessimistic about France, but I think that it may be time for miracles.
The USA may have always had some imperialism in its blood — consider Polk’s conquest of California and the Mexican war (even considering the very strong arguments in support of what he did). In fact the actions against the Barbary pirates were the earliest American police action. By WW1 they had been at that sort of thing for a long time.
If there is any one moment when the world could be said to have been ruined, it would be when Adam and Eve made a certain very unfortunate choice for dinner. But a more recent catastrophic event is the demise of the Christian political framework embodied by the Holy Roman Empire, which made possible the rise of Bismarck, Garibaldi, and the many other thugs who brought down Christendom.
“Such things must come”, but WW1 was a result of those and many other crimes, not the cause of them.
I’m ready to be corrected, but I don’t think Wilson was wicked. The USA produces presidents like that every now and again: well-intentioned men with just enough political ability to climb the greasy pole, but basically lacking in wisdom. Carter and Wilson are the defining examples.
Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, really was wicked, and did more damage than Carter and Wilson combined.
In the UK, possible examples of the Carter/Wilson type are Attlee, Chamberlain, and Lord North — and, perhaps, Gladstone (plenty of room for argument of course).
There is plenty of immaturity and irresponsible generalisations over at /pol/.
I’d rather not have this space turn into /pol/.
Lol more christcuckery about adam eve, abaraham fucking his sister, cain fucking his mother.
When do you jews stop??
It can reasonably be argued that the lowest quality French (language) is the variety that is currently being spoken in France.
And where is the best spoken, Québec? (lol) Although they do so that French Canadian accent is actually the closest to the “true” (royal) French of the 18th century.
How could you miss out on A.J.P Taylor?
Nothing on Jews, Futurism, HBD or Current Affairs was mentioned in this post.
Objectively true.
https://youtu.be/q0aAqLxutuI
The Green Muse?
https://youtu.be/3zKXL8GBh2E
Fully agree, Gordon Corrigan is a norther Irish retired Gurkha officer in the British army.
Mud blood and poppycock demolishes long held British myths about WW 1
His follow up blood seat and arrogance does the same for WW II, where British myths are somewhat detached from reality
I would also recommend corrigans sepoys in the trenches looking at the role of the Indian army.
Others for the french army I would look at paths of glory by Anthony Clayton
For the British army tommy by Richard Holmes and forgotten victory by Gary Sheffield
For the russian perspective towards the flame by Anglo Russian historian Dominic lieven
For naval operations Paul g Halpern a naval history of World War I , and rules of the game by Andrew Gordon
For Nicky Georgie and willy please consider three emperors, three cousins by Miranda carter
Hope this helps
Fully agree, I am sure that German reader meant the American public, Americans have not had hostile troops on their territory since 1865. Americans think that war is something they do to other people. Unfortunately this has led to war being the first choice for American leaders of every stripe.
I would also recommend Alexander Watson’s ring of steel, one of the few English language books that looks at WW I from a German and Austrian perspective
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n23/thomas-laqueur/some-damn-foolish-thing
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark is the most recent major book close to the truth because it explains the assassinations (one of thes Black Hand officers hacked off the Queens breast and kept it in his wallet. Years later he murdered a recruit and the Black Hand had the Serbian prime minister pardon him) that the Serbian leadership and their cat’s paw of the Black Hand planned and perpetrated in the previous decade. The Serbians tried to start the war, they had the greatest sacrifices in percentage of population killed and the greatest gains in territory. They understood huge sacrifices would be necessary to attain their objective.
France, especially Raymond Poincaré, wanted war to get Alsace and Lorraine back, they encouraged Russia, and the French premier and president went to Russia for a summit with the Czar, which caused Germany to delay announcements of its backing for Austria.
The full extent of Britain’s understanding with France was kept secret, and as the Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon did not warn Germany that Britain would come in, it is clear to me that Grey wanted to fight in 1914.
Having already squandered a golden opportunity to crush France in 1905, when Britain lacked an substantial army and Russia was in chaos, German generals wanted to stop Russia before the military-purpose railways France was financing in Russia let them bring the Russian steamroller to bear. The Kaiser refused because Tirpitz demanded time to finish the Navy building program. However the relative power of opponents increased far faster than Germany’s. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg had remarked to his son at the turn of the century that there was little point in planting oak trees on his estate because the Russians would be there before they matured (ie within 20 years).
Winston Churchill’s Navy ally, the wily oriental Admiral Fisher, wanted to Copenhagen the German Fleet (ie mount a sneaky attack without declaration of hostilities). He was forced to retire on reaching 70 years of age in 1911. That year he predicted that war with Germany would break out in October 1914, following the anticipated completion date of work on the Kiel Canal to allow the passage of battleships. The Kiel Canal was completed in July, and war commenced in August 1914.
Long before the war, Russia was focused on the Ottoman Straits and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov ordered the army mobilized very precipitously, and also in 1914 he got Romania Allied assurances it would be given large amount of other countries. We can perhaps see what he had in mind: .
Freud , as his name indicates , was a fraud
And Nathaniel Rothschild, in the final act of Rothschild power, did a deal with LLoyd George over technology to make Acetone for increased Jewish settlement in Palestine. Another problem with which we still live. The Rothschild powers disappeared as the next generation threw it all away partying in the 1920’s. I usually find antisemitism unreadable but this is true. Nathaniel Rothschild was a genuine conspirator. Rothschild, Rhodes and Salisbury colluded together to start the 2nd Boer War for example.
He’s an American. Americans are feral kids raised by TV and intertubes.
They have a massive rude shock coming to them in the coming war, no point in trying to instill sense into them now. (Presumably they already read about the Grasshopper and the Ant, but like the manchildren that they are, they missed all possible points.)
But both my grandfathers, not overly educated, volunteered. Fortunately both lived. One was a Quaker and wouldn’t fight. He served as a medical orderly with mounted infantry. They assigned him to a battalion that served in India for the war as a reward for volunteering despite being an CO. The other poor bugger managed to get to both Gallipoli and the Somme as a sergeant of pioneers building railways (he was a railwayman before the war) and digging trenches – ie right up the front. He wouldn’t talk about it.
Britain created Belgium as a sort of buffer between France and the various versions of Germany. The idea was that Britain had a route to intervention against whoever invaded first, thus avoiding alliances. In the end, that was forgotten. Instead of being Belgium’s protector Britain became too friendly to France and thus drawn in on one side rather than as kingmaker.
I’m reminded of DFH’s tireless work in opposing braindead anti-Angloism.
Do I need to take up the same struggle for my country?
And I’m barely even American.
Polk’s conquest of the Mexican Cession was to America’s benefit. The victory in that war was a great credit and benefit to the American race.
The trouble with America’s modern Wilsonian imperialism is that is of no benefit to Americans…or as far as I can tell anyone at all. Brainless aggression justified by bizarre fanaticism.
FDR destroyed this country and perhaps Western civilization as well.
“It’s worth reading some first-hand, non-fiction, accounts to get a feel for the period – Robert Graves’ “Goodbye to All That”, for example.”
A terrific book which should be read in the first edition – his candor RE the British officers cost him friends, and much was edited out of subsequent editions as his anger faded.
It is like throwing pearls before swine wallowing in filth but still, since the supply is inexhaustible, here is some “nigga” wisdom for you:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bPPfVawQuJk
It’s a really long book. I managed two thirds of it. The early chapters were the most illuminating. IT does try to avoid just running through lists of events which is a blessing.
True – volunteerism always seems to be highest at the beginning of wars. I’m not familiar with the book. Maybe, the premise is about the days leading up to war, or maybe volunteerism should be treated as a separate phenomenon.
The continuation of any war often seems to be based on hard feelings from fighting the war. It seems so obvious, but I wonder if any theoretical war plan ever even considered it.
The top review on Amazon, by “Schrodinger’s Cat,” of Michael Hofmann’s 2004 translation, also complains:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/0143108255
Russia has more Muslims than France and Germany combined. And a higher percentage of Muslims than the European Union.
True dat.
What the slaughter of the hereditary ruling class during the French Revolution did not achieve was finally achieved by the slaughter of it’s Russian counterpart during WWI.
The British government had open Zionists in their cabinet, a war with the Ottomans was to their benefit to as it would give jews their own land. Also replacing the old regimes with the new Weimar regimes were also very good for the jews. Just like the jews are pushing very hard for all the US wars in the middle east there is zero doubt in my mind that their influence to start WW1 was very strong.
But is this a good or bad thing for you? If you are anti white then I would assume you want it to be Muslim, on the other hand if it was Muslim you could no longer demonize it as the great Satan.
Do you have a single piece of evidence that this affected any of the decisions of the British cabinet?
Of which a good majority are are Tatars and Bashkirs, who are highly secular and don’t reproduce faster than Russians.
There is no Russian city that Muslims are taking over.
It is happening aplenty in Western Europe. You’d have a point if Russian cities were similarly full of Central Asian ghettos, but that’s not happening.
The British government had open Zionists in their cabinet
I assume you are referring to Lloyd George. Or perhaps Churchill?
You mean that things like the Balfour declaration had nothing to do with the jews… Or how the Rothschilds had no influence in the British government… Just like with current US foreign policy one just needs to ask who benefits, and by far the biggest winners for having a big conflict in Europe was the jews
Balfour declaration =/= Declaration of War on Germany
I’ll take that as a no for evidence then.
They had had influence on starting the Second Boer War or preserving the Ottoman empire, as was pointed out by contemporaries (including Gladstone).
I think AK has already demonstrated that it was the Romanians.
Beyond those traitors to Western civilization, they already had a jew PM in 1870s, the British Empire was cucked more than a hundred years before the word even came into existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Samuel,_1st_Viscount_Samuel
Which doesn’t make Neutral’s thesis any more convincing though, the Ottoman empire and Palestine played absolutely no role in the July crisis; and the Turks only entered WW1 in late October for reasons of their own.
And it’s not even like all Zionists were anti-Turkish, Ben Gurion originally wanted to fight on the side of the Ottomans, only switching sides after the Balfour declaration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion#World_War_I
Britain was pro jewish, Germany under the Kaiser was a mixed bag at best. You will come across a fair share of jews writing how the Kaiser was anti semitic and they are correct as Germany was not under such heavy jewish control as Britain was (which to them is already anti semitism).
Just like the neocohens want a war with both Russia and China, the benefits for bringing down a regime that is not run by them (which was Germany then) should be obvious.
“Poetically, the Jews and Balts paid an extremely heavy price for their disproportionate contribution to the murder of God’s representative on Earth; I think Ashkenazi Jews, Latvians, and Estonians are unique in that there are today fewer of them than in 1918.”
Damn your cold.
Germany was much better for Jews though than Britain’s ally Russia, which was seen as the chief antisemitic power at the time (and indeed Russian troops behaved in a rather hostile way towards Jews in Galicia during WW1).
It sounds strange after Nazism, but there was even sometimes a belief among British elites that Jews favoured the central powers or were pro-German (already pre-WW1 in Saki’s When William came. A story of London under the Hohenzollerns Jews are depicted as profiting from a German occupation of London; and in Buchan’s 39 steps one character mentions an old Jew as being behind the pro-German conspiracy – even if Buchan meant to satirize such sentiments, they apparently existed).
In what way? The complaint about Disraeli was that he put the interests of imperialism/Jews above that of Balkan Christians, which doesn’t really fit the definition of cuckery.
Cucked in that they had a foreigner as their Prime Minister.
old but good – world war one as a bar fight
Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint. Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg. Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view. Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers. Russia and Serbia look at Austria. Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at. Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone. Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so. Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene. Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action. Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium. Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper.
When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone. Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium. France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other. Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it. France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change. Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway.
Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting. America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a bar stool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself. By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault. While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends
One argument is that the aristocracies of Europe had become hopelessly decadent and only needed a good push to collapse. WW1 just speeded up the process.
Aristocratic rule was already facing multiple challenges from, for example, the new commercial middle classes, democracy, socialist workers and international manufacturing (the US was already outpacing Great Britain by 1900). And Jews didn’t discover Bolshevism in 1917. Jewish radical leftism had been cooking in Central Europe throughout the late 19th Century and had reached a critical state.
I am pretty confident that if we looked at popular culture and newspaper articles before WWI say in 1900-1914 period in Germany and England we would find that the inevitability or even the necessity of war between Germany and England was more outwardly expressed in England than in Germany. British society was psychologically conditioned for the war more than Germans were. I am sure that the language used by English media was much more inflammatory and aggressive than whatever was written in Germany and had a level of conceit and contempt that Germans would not know it was even possible.
In 1910 Lord Milner began to publish The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs which targeted the British elite where the case of war with Germany was being made. The first article in October 1910 was titled “Anglo-German Rivalry”
https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/secret-origins-first-world-war
Control of politics had never been a problem, nor was control of the press. Lord Northcliffe, the most powerful press-baron, was a valuable contributor to the Secret Elite in their drive to vilify Germany and prepare the nation for eventual war. His ownership of The Times and Daily Mail allowed them to create the impression that Germany was the enemy. In story after story, the message of the German danger to the British Empire, to British products, to British national security, was constantly regurgitated. Not every newspaper followed suit, but the right-wing press was particularly virulent. A large and influential section of the British press worked to the rabid agenda of poisoning the minds of the nation. It was part of a propaganda drive sustained right up to, and throughout, the First World War. If The Times was their intellectual base, the popular dailies spread the gospel of anti-German hatred to the working classes. From 1905 to 1914, spy stories and anti-German articles bordered on lunacy in what was an outrageous attempt to generate fear and resentment.
Over the last 100 years facts have been twisted and falsified by court historians. Members of the Secret Elite took exceptional care to remove traces of their conspiracy, and letters, telegrams, official reports and cabinet minutes which would have revealed the truth have disappeared. Letters to and from Alfred Milner were removed, burned or otherwise destroyed. Incriminating letters sent by King Edward were subject to an order that, on his death, they must be destroyed immediately.19 Lord Nathan Rothschild, a founder member of the Secret Elite, likewise ordered that his papers and correspondence be burned posthumously lest his political influence and connections became known. As his official biographer commented, one can but “wonder how much of the Rothschild’s political role remains irrevocably hidden from posterity.”
Professor Quigley pointed an accusatory finger at those who monopolised “so completely the writing and the teaching of the history of their own period.” There is no ambivalence in his damning accusation. The Secret Elite controlled the writing and teaching of history through numerous avenues but none more effectively than Oxford University. Milner’s men largely dominated Balliol College, New College and All Souls which, in turn, largely dominated the intellectual life of Oxford in the field of history. They controlled the Dictionary of National Biography which meant the Secret Elite wrote the biographies of its own members. They created their own official history of key members for public consumption, striking out any incriminating evidence and portraying the best public-spirited image that could be safely manufactured. They paid for new chairs of history, politics, economics and, ironically, peace studies.
There was a systematic conspiracy by the British government to cover all traces of its own devious machinations. Official memoirs covering the origins of the war were carefully scrutinised and censored before being released. Cabinet records for July 1914 relate almost exclusively to Ireland, with no mention of the impending global crisis. No effort has been made to explain why crucial records are missing. In the early 1970s, the Canadian historian Nicholas D’Ombrain noted that War Office records had been “weeded.” During his research he realised that as much as five-sixths of “sensitive” files were removed as he went about his business.22 Why? Where did they go? Who authorised their removal? Were they sent to Hanslope Park, the government repository behind whose barbed-wire fences over 1.2 million secret files, many relating to the First World War, remain concealed today?23 Incredibly, this was not the worst episode of theft and deception.
If in early 1900’s DFH’s ancestors were British not Polish they could have written this:
“The Anti German Demonstrations” SOUTHLAND TIMES, ISSUE 15147, 18 JANUARY 1902
“foreign slanders upon the honour of the British forces serving in South Africa”
“calumnies circulated in Germany reflecting on the honour of the sons and husbands of the women of the colonies and the Motherland”
“to defend the fair name of the British army from foul calumniators”
“in which he has vindicated the honour of Great Britain, and further desires to express its entire confidence in the conduct of the South African war by the British government”
The Tommies likely weren’t much better off in the Great War:
https://www.counter-currents.com/2011/12/henry-williamson-2/
In other words, Imperialism.
I have a book written and published in 1920 by Serbian nationalist Joseph Goricar (who worked in the Austro-Hungarian foreign service ) that clearly and interestingly puts forward the Serbian point of view.
Title: “The Insider Story of Austro-German Intrigue” (Doubleday, New York). My notes after reading it:
Precious indeed: who does not need a good toiler bowl mop?
I wish there really was a hidden elite secretly planning the course of world history from high table at All Souls’ in order to secure Anglo world domination
That is not what the Kaiser thought
There’s also the matter of Germany building up a navy purely for the purpose of attacking the Royal navy.
I am not going to argue with you here: you are probably right and I am not knowledgeable enough about Carter and Johnson.
But as St Bernard put it, “l’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés” (Hell is full of good will). Wilson might have been extremely well-intentioned (and who knows, maybe he was not), but ye shall know them by their fruits (Mt VII-20). Looking at the fruits we must conclude that Wilson was effectively did the work of a very wicked man — albeit, maybe, involuntarily.
This man was the epitome of what the WASP ideology has to offer to the world; in particular, being the ultimate judaizing christian heresy, it is through men like him that the jewie grip on America was established.
A not-terribly scholarly but nevertheless interesting popular history of World War I that is definitely pro-German (in the sense that the Germans were so much more militarily effective than the Allies that they deserved to win) is The Myth of the Great War by John Mosier.
It’s becoming harder and harder for me to read histories of WWI and WWII, which I used to enjoy immensely; I see them now just as huge tragedies of Europeans and European-origin people killing each other in large numbers.
John Redwood, a key Brexiteer in the Tory Party, is an historian and a Fellow of All Souls.
was this the agreement before WWI started?
i thought Balfour happened later
I can tell, sir, that you do not come from the South!
I agree wholeheartedly with your observation. I also think that it reveals something deeply flawed in the Euros otherwise rather fantastic genetic patrimony.
Yes Christianity
yes
I agree with you completely. Those well-intentioned men — Wilson especially — did untold damage. If Carter had arrived at a worse time, the damage would have been still greater, though Iran was certainly a tragedy.
Johnson was an interesting example of how much damage a talented but wicked politician can do when he sets his mind on it.
Predictably juvenile, trashy reaction. Like I said: pearls before swine…
Btw, for all we know Jesus may have sported a jewfro…
I appreciate the compliment, but regrettably I am not Jewish in any way.
It is an interesting observation. The same imperialistic force was beneficial, and right, in the one case (Polk) and entirely wrong in the other (Wilson, possibly both of the Roosevelts).
Odd as it may sound, I speculate that there is a species of socialism at the core of the American government, and it may be the root of both types; but with Polk it was still in its old post-Enlightenment type, and not yet the chief motive force; whereas in Wilson’s time it was much closer to the world-saving Socialism we know today.
I am probably biased, for various reasons, but Polk is one of the US presidents I most admire.
Asiangeo, dude, this is brilliant, agree.:)
Or Scots and English.
To the same extent as is true of Poles and Ukrainians.
Love the place, culture, and people but if it comes down to Russia vs. Ukraine will choose Ukraine.
Ukrainian language is further from Russian than the Scandinavian countries are from each other. And the struggle between Ukrainians and Russians has been more recent and bitter.
Ukrainian nationalist parties dominated the 1917 elections in Ukraine. This didn’t come out of nowhere due to the defeat. Best case scenario would have been happy Scots in Britain, not assimilated “we are Russians.”
Faulty comparison in the follow-up to the below exchange:
One of several counter-points noting how Poland doesn’t trace its national origin to Rus, unlike Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
In terms of getting the most accurate analogy: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are somewhat analogous to England, Scotland and Wales. Poland and Russia are somewhat analogous to Ireland and English dominated Britain. A key difference being that the Irish haven’t come close to violently attacking and subjugating Britain along the lines of Poland’s past acts against Russia.
With Russian and Ukrainian being (if I’m not mistaken) closer to each other than Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as when compared to the Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland to English.
On that 1917 election, what % of the population actually voted? Kerensky’s government pretty much accepted the Scots in Britain reference for Ukraine in a post-Romanovist Russia. The Soviets had their own concept as well. There was also Skoropadsky’s proposal:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
Without World War I, an independent Poland–let alone an independent Ukraine–would have been much more difficult to achieve, though. Even if Poland would have been able to eventually break away from Russia (if Tsar Nicholas II’s incompetence would have still resulted in him getting overthrown), significant Polish-majority territories would have been located in Germany and Austria-Hungary which Poland could not acquire without a major European war (short of an Austro-Hungarian implosion in the case of Galicia, that is). As for an independent Ukraine, forget it since no non-Bolshevik Russian government would have actually been willing to allow Ukraine to secede from Russia. At best, there could have been a rump Ukrainian state if Austria-Hungary would have eventually still imploded–though even then, Russia could have captured and annexed this rump Ukrainian state.
Yeah, a separate Ukrainian national identity was already developed by 1917. Still, I don’t see a non-Bolshevik Russia ever letting Ukraine secede short of a massive internal collapse–and even then, it would probably aim to reclaim Ukraine as soon as possible.
Completely agreed with this. Pissing off the U.S. was an extremely bad move for Germany even without hindsight.
By that logic, wouldn’t Caucasians and Central Asians also be proud to identify as Rossiyane in a scenario where Russia wins WWI?
I doubt that Russia would have been willing to abandon France like that–especially after all of the French loans that it got. Also, simultaneously allying with both France and Germany probably wouldn’t work since France would want Alsace-Lorraine back from Germany.
Also, WWI could have perhaps ended in 1915 or 1916 had Germany been able to knock France out of the war in 1914. This would have been a somewhat less bloody war and could have possibly still resulted in Ukrainian independence had Germany gotten very ambitious in the East.
In addition to this, I do wonder just how well off the Western European countries would be in a scenario where WWI never occurred. True, they’d be much better off in the short-run, but without the World Wars, they might be more determined to hold on to their colonies, which could eventually result in a civil rights movement in these colonies where the residents there demand suffrage and the right to freely move to Europe. In turn, this could result in European countries such as France, Britain, and Italy having a much larger percentage of Muslims and Africans in comparison to what they have right now in real life.
A nice analogy for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus vs. England, Scotland and Wales, but wasn’t it more a case of Russia subjugating Poland (3 partitions) until it ceased to exist geographically + giving it a Soviet dictatorship shortly after its post WW1 resurrection?
The analogy is Russia subjugating Poland in the same way that English dominated Ireland.
Also, how far back in time do you want to go? If it’s back to the origins of Rus, then Britain was more of a Celtic (Irish) place prior to the arrival of the Germanic Saxons, but even then (for example in 50 A.D.) the majority population were the ethnically and linguistically distinct Old British (Welsh) who’s present remnants can be found in the mountains of Northern Wales.
you yankees still struggle with your identity, haven’t managed to create ‘ american nation’ , let alone ‘american race’
western civ did quite well before america even existed , thank you very much
western civ will be better off when america is gone
being good at tinkering with toys doesn’t mean you’re civilized
yankee hubris on display
At that point in history (around WW I), Russia showed a willingness to consider granting Polish and Finnish independence – on par with how England dominated Britain was considering Irish independence.
Overall, the Irish and Poles exhibited more of a yearning for independence than the Scots and Ukrainians.
I think that’s nonsense. England did have a Red Dawn like literary genre in which Germans invaded (The Boy Galloper, The Invasion of 1910, When England Slept, When William Came: A History of London under the Hohenzollerns), but so too did Germany. For instance, here are a few chapter titles from Friedrich von Bernhardi’s 1912 “magnum opus” The Next War: ‘The Right to Make War’, ‘The Duty to Make War’, and ‘World Power or Downfall’.
In fact, while the English military sci-fi literature was defensist in nature, the German one was more territorally aggressive. There was also a lot more nonsense about the spiritual “cleansing” effects of war than amongst the more practically minded Anglos.
As noted, I don’t fully disagree with the analogy concerning Russia-Poland with Britain-Ireland. I’m correct in noting a key difference, having to do with Ireland never coming close to attacking and dominating Britain in the manner of Poland with Russia.
Going back to history, you’ll see that if anything, Poland initially started the contentious relationship it has had with Russia. Thereafter, Russia had the upper-hand. Notwithstanding, there were close to 100, 000 Poles who joined Napoleon in his attack on Russia, as well as Polish end of WW I imperial action against Russia.
AFAIK, Russia was only willing to grant the Poles and Finns independence after the Russian Tsar was overthrown. Without World War I, this is likely to take a lot longer to occur.
Watching Peter Jackson’s documentary last night it was interesting the differentiation by British soldiers, and the German soldiers themselves, between the Geramn regions. Saxons and Bavarians were well liked, whilst all hated the Prussians and blamed them for the war, including the other German soldiers.
Given the worldwide Jewish jihad against Tsarist Russia I have never seen an analysis of the role the influential German Jewish community had in agitating for war on Russia.
Yes Zionists were keen prolong the war and helped stymie any thoughts of peace in 1916, Lloyd George being bumped up to Prime Minister was aided by Zionist elements.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p389_John.html
Perhaps the same can be said of Britain granting Irish independence?
If I correctly recall (could be wrong), there was some pre-WW I talk (albeit limited) within Imperial Russian ranks of granting Polish and/or Finnish independence. I’d have to back check if such existed.
As you might know, Finland as a part of the Russian Empire, had developed the greatest autonomy of any future independent European nation that was under an empire. At least that’s the opinion of a number of folks, including the not so Russia friendly John Lukacs
Jews did favour Germany, media in the US was pro German, actually anti Russian, and the Allies were refused credit unless it was JP Morgan lending. The Balfour declaration had some impact here but it was more the overthrow of the Tsar that changed things.
Slight difference: Russia has Muslims because Russia conquered Muslim lands. Europe has Muslims because Muslims conquered European lands. But other than that, carry on in your quest, lol.
Not a nonsense. Good hypothesis that is testable. Researching it one must account for different sizes of book markets, the British being much larger than the German. British “invasion literature” was translated to German so it also contribute there. Endings were changed to favor Germany. I would say that the Zeitgeist of war preceding WWI started in England. Propagandizing for war was more intense there than in Germany. One should keep in mind that in more liberal, more democratic countries, which happen to be Anglo-Saxon, the propaganda will be more intense than in authoritarian countries where society is much more disciplined and was ready to obey instruction w/o internalization of propaganda. The degree of vilification and demonization of the enemy in British (and later American) media can’t be matched by anything you could find in German media.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_literature
“Le Queux’s most popular invasion novel was The Invasion of 1910 (1906) which was translated into twenty-seven languages selling more than a million copies world-wide. Le Queux and his publisher changed the ending depending on the language, so in the German print edition the fatherland wins, while in the English edition the Germans lose. Le Queux was said to be Queen Alexandra’s favorite author.”
“Invasion literature (or the invasion novel) is a literary genre most notable between 1871 and the First World War (1914) but still practised to this day. The genre first became recognizable starting in Britain in 1871 with The Battle of Dorking, a fictional account of an invasion of England by Germany. This short story was so popular it started a literary craze for tales that aroused imaginations and anxieties about hypothetical invasions by foreign powers, and by 1914 the genre had amassed a corpus of over 400 books, many best-sellers, and a world-wide audience.”
“Stories of a planned German invasion rose to increasing political prominence from 1906. Taking their inspiration from the stories of Le Queux and Childers, hundreds of ordinary citizens began to suspect foreigners of espionage. This trend was accentuated by Le Queux, who collected ‘sightings’ brought to his attention by readers and raised them through his association with the Daily Mail. Subsequent research has since shown that no significant German espionage network existed in Britain at this time. Claims about the scale of German invasion preparations grew increasingly ambitious. The number of German spies was put at between 60,000 and 300,000 (in spite of the total German community in Britain being no more than 44,000 people). It was alleged that thousands of rifles were being stockpiled by German spies in order to arm saboteurs at the outbreak of war.”
“Calls for government action grew ever more intense, and in 1909 it was given as the reason for the secret foundation of the Secret Service Bureau, the forerunner of MI5 and MI6. Historians today debate whether this was in fact the real reason, but in any case the concerns raised in invasion literature came to define the early duties of the Bureau’s Home Section. Vernon Kell, the section head, remained obsessed with the location of these saboteurs, focusing his operational plans both before and during the war on defeating the saboteurs imagined by Le Queux.”
“Invasion literature was not without detractors; policy experts in the years preceding the First World War said invasion literature risked inciting war between England and Germany and France. Critics such as Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman denounced Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910 as “calculated to inflame public opinion abroad and alarm the more ignorant public at home.“[1] Journalist Charles Lowe wrote in 1910: “Among all the causes contributing to the continuance of a state of bad blood between England and Germany perhaps the most potent is the baneful industry of those unscrupulous writers who are forever asserting that the Germans are only awaiting a fitting opportunity to attack us in our island home and burst us up.””
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/literature
“Although there were often similarities between different countries’ experiences, authors started writing about the war for many reasons. In Britain, literature about a possible war to come had been prominent since the publication of Sir George Chesney’s (1830-1895) The Battle of Dorking in 1871, soon after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. There followed a plethora of imagined invasion literature published in the years before 1914. From the early 1900s, the press baron Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe’s (1865-1922) publications ensured that anti-German sentiment was a dominant feature of popular fiction, newspapers and magazines, as tensions rose on the European continent. Similar material was appearing outside Britain. The French writer Émile Driant (1855-1916), writing under the pseudonym Capitaine Danrit, wrote many guerre imaginaire (imaginary war) novels. He explored a future war with Germany in La Guerre de demain (The War of Tomorrow: 1888), and a conflict with Britain in Guerre fatale: France-Angleterre (Fatal War: France-England: 1902). Driant was recalled to the army when war broke out in 1914. He attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was killed at Verdun in 1916. These imaginings of future wars were extremely popular. Their warnings certainly contributed to a climate in which people were anticipating war in Europe, long before the events in Sarajevo in 1914.”
I neglected to mention France in my post. It’s motivation was no less base than was Britain’s – France was bitter that Germany had liberated territories that were 80% ethnic German and wanted those territories back.
Turnout was about 49%. Support for ethnic Russian parties like cadets matched Russian population so the results were probably proportionate.
At that time Ukrainian nationalist parties promoted a local parliament, local military units and Ukrainianization of schools but not full independence (this declaration came in response to the Bolshevik takeover in Petersburg and Bolshevik support for communist revolution in Ukraine), so there might have been a possibility in a victorious prestigious Russia for a happy Scots situation. But full assimilation was wishful thinking.
I think Bliss is rooting for the non-Muslim, non-whites to take over Europe, in contrast to certain others. Or have I missed my guess?
They spoke a Germannic dialect, but that did not mean that they made good Germans.
I have just noticed that in Chrome I see more comments on this page than in Safari. Anybody could explain it?
After posting this comment everything went to normal.
cookies maybe?
Cookies. When I post from my office I also see fewer comments until I make one.
The people in Alsace-Lorraine, while mostly ethnically German, appear to have preferred France in 1871. A majority of voters in Alsace-Lorraine in the 1870s and 1880s voted for a pro-French party (or pro-French parties)–with an additional 30% or so of Alsace-Lorraine voters voting for autonomist parties.
Still, France should have refrained from starting the Franco-Prussian War. It’s in very poor taste to start a war and then to complain when you lose territory as a result of losing this war.
There is a Russian connection to the Franz Ferdinand assasination.
A fervent member of the “Black Hand” and “Young Bosnia” was the mysterious Mustafa Golubic, a Bosnian Muslim (although he considered himself an ethnic Serb) from Herzegovina. At the time, he was also an agent of the Russian Imperial Secret Service the Ohrana. His handler was an agent known under the alias “Verhovskij” who was also secretly working for the Bolsheviks (later became a prominent member of the Cheka/OGPU). Verhovskij via Mustafa Golubic encouraged and provided logistical support to the assasination squad .
Bio of Mustafa Golubic (aka the Red James Bond) is astounding….a man with a 100 names and 250 passports
Among his exploits, he is credited with organising the kiliing of General Wrangel, was involved in the killing of Trotsky, knew personally both Lenin and Stalin …..was the rival of Tito, who is rumoured to have eventually tipped off the Gestapo in 1941 which led to his arrest and execution. He was a taboo subject during Tito’s rule in Yugoslavia.
Interesting trivia: he is said to have slept with Greta Garbo and some other Hollywood actresses while serving as a NKVD agent in the US
His Grave stone in Belgrade, simply says: Mustafa Golubic – Hero of the USSR
http://www.novosti.rs/upload/thumbs/images/2017a//10/28/New%20directory/23-(2)_620x0.jpg
Bio:
http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/history/mustafa-golubic/
Question–wasn’t the Russian Provisional Government only willing to give autonomy to central and western Ukraine and not to southern and eastern Ukraine?
The less said about Michael McFaul’s level of Russian….the better. Totally incompetent. I’m convinced that most western journalists in Russia are not only corrupt and stupid…..they can’t speak or understand Russian properly. It would be alright not speaking it…if they could at least understand Russia…but they are too braindead.
But yes, Massie is a genuine russophile and good woman. Professor Stephan Cohen goes on and on about NATO and security but not about Russia as a whole, thus in defending Russia, he’s not making the case for Russia.
Who in these circles of academia is making the obvious statement that, unlike Russia, corrupt Nazi-scumbag Ukropia does not have governor elections, entirely because it is non-democratic and the US dictated it doesn’t have so because to do so would guarantee ( in a fair fight) big, powerful cultural russophiles/Russians as governor in power in several key regions and further expose how fake and ridiculous the whole “Ukraine” and svidomy thing is?
Russia of course does have many governor elections, but for most of the previous decade it didn’t- although for entirely normal, entirely democratic and sensible reasons, given it’s size, diferent ethnicities and so on. There was nothing remotely “dictator”-like about Governor elections being removed. Ukraine, on the other hand never having them this millennium was an entirely US-diktat, anti-democratic garbage heap.
I mention the governor elections issue because it was also used by the moronic western clowns in politics and the press to use as “proof” of their main point BS of Russia being “authoritarian”
Wiki doesn’t differentiate autonomists from separatists. After 1900 they were below 50% in support.
A pro-Nazi party won the elections in Strasburg in the 1930s. So this border region seems to have shown ambivalence about its place.
That question leads to what was considered as part of Ukraine (then known to a good extent as Little Russia), relative to the Russian Empire.
The Ukrainian SSR’s borders came later.
Stephen Cohen has some Sovok tendencies like the idea that the Western allies were actively supporting the Whites against the Bolshes.
Your point about Western journos concerns a babbling hack like Tom Rogan:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/10/23/naming-top-anti-russian-advocates.html
Ther’re also the flack Russian speaking Western mass media preferred journos as well.
Yeah, I remember the hoopla about the governor elections and what was typically downplayed as noted here:
http://www.russialist.org/archives/8375-25.php
Christianity is not genetic, I am afraid.
However where I would agree with you, would be with the fact that liberal Christianity (i.e., the dominant form in the West since at least the 1930s) seems to especially infect Europeans — and even more so, Northern Europeans. Why is that?
Québec is a bit peculiar as a result of the insularity of the French Canadians, immersed in an ocean of English speakers.
This has resulted in a dialectal variety of French that is a bit impoverished, having had to resorte to direct borrowings (with literal translation) from English. See for instance the horrid magasiner, a literal translation from “shopping”. Their accent is kind of nice however.
Your observation about “true” French of the 18th C. must be qualified however: one has to remember that at that time that you mentioned, less than half, maybe just about a third, of what is currently “France” spoke French as a first language. Even at the onset of WW1, before the great slaughters of the summer/fall 1914, many regiments were uni-lingual with a language that was NOT French. There have been several direct observations, reported in diaries, of commissioned officers (coming from Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in Paris) having a hard time getting understood by the lower ranks of provençal regiments.
I think that highly educated Africans of former AEF speak a very nice form a French; it is less true for those of the former AOF, where population density was much higher on the coasts.
But, in all fairness, I must state that the purest form of French is to be found in Lausanne 🙂
But, in all fairness, I must state that the purest form of French is to be found in Lausanne 🙂
The first time I visited Lausanne (in my late teens) I was inordinately amused by the abbreviations on the license plates, VD being a very popular English term in those days (now largely replaced by STD).
They also say fin de semaine. I think they just say un weekend in France.
But that something like the Zabern Affair could occur as late as 1913 even in a city which fell on the German side of the sprachraum shows that they were still not full Germans.
It also seems like they were unreliable in the Western Front during the First World War.
Many if not most Muslims in Russia live in semiautonomous Republics like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya, Dagestan etc, so who controls the cities of these Republics if not muslims?
No city in Western Europe has a majority or plurality of muslims, while a number of cities in Russia do. Unless you don’t count the capitals of the ethnic Republics as Russian cities. If so, why not?
The point is this: Russia has a lot more reasons to worry about muslims than any Western European country. The bloody Chechen Wars should serve as a recent reminder of what awaits Russia in the future.
The many millions of Muslim Tatars/Turks in Russia haven’t forgotten that not so long ago their ancestors were the Masters and the Christian Russians their slaves. And there are over 60 million more muslims speaking their language on the other side of the border in Greater Turkestan. Plus Turkey isn’t far away either.
Fortunately for Russia it is still by far the most powerful nation of Eurasia…
I’m sorry Thorfinnsson, you’re an incredibly intelligent guy, but your post is utter nonsense
It is ridiculous to use a nonsensical “one-size” comment like that
For the interesting and excellent “Great Name of Russia” public project currently underway to name 47 Russian airports…….. the decent majority of the names on the shortlist are from the Communist era…..war heroes, aviators, other engineers and scientists or culture figures produced in the USSR. Generalised stupid comments of “horrors of world communism” are proven worthless when you see how many great people produced and who Russians idolise….and the immense number of pre-1917 great Russians who are not in the final group
At the same time there is no competition of reds versus everybody else for this patriotic competition……Tsars are there, numerous people under the patronage of the tsar…Solzhenitsyn is on the shortlist for one of the airports in Stavropol
It makes some of the drivel that 5th column hamsters like Anatoly Karlin-Soros come out with as even more ridiculous ( disrespecting Victory Day and much of Russian heritage , probably wanting to name airport the “Yevgenia Albats ” or Boris Nemtsov International” etc)
On a separate but amusing note, useless, fake countries as Ukraine would never ever be able to have a “great name of Ukraine” Airport competition due to the fact that they would practically all be Russians/Soviet/Russian world people on the list. it would result in a massive embarrassment fot the current authorities there
I don’t remember which Wiki it was, but either the French Wiki or the German Wiki did differentiate separatists from autonomists in its article about Alsace-Lorraine.
As for a pro-Nazi party winning in Strasbourg in the 1930s, I’ll need a source in order for me to actually believe this. Do you have such a source?
Well, eastern and southern Ukraine were also Ukrainian-majority in 1897, but they had a larger ethnic Russian presence than central and western Ukraine had. They were also more literate in 1897 than central and western Ukraine were with the exception of Galicia.
Galicia wasn’t part of the Russian Empire.
I think AP is referring to the 1929 municipal election.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_municipal_election,_1929
Although the Volksfront at this time was a broad autonomist coalition, and was later split apart by the question of National Socialism.
From Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 – 1944, if I am reading it correct, in the subsequent 1935 muncipal Strasbourg election the autonomists lost their majority with 20 (French) national-minded and 16 autonomist-minded being elected.
In 1935 four autonomists were pro-Nazi Landespartei, two Progress party and ten Communists.
The Irish had to suffer because as the past century has demonstrated they are incredibly annoying when not suffering. But when they are oppressed they win over the whole world.
In 1929 elections, out of the autonomist Volksfront, the Landespartei won 5 seats, the Communists 11 seats, Popular Republican Union 4 seats and liberal Alsatian Progress Party 2 seats.
The national-minded Democrats won 7 and socialists won 4 seats.
Complicating the issue was that the communists in Alsace gradually went renegade and became fascist, eventually merging with the Landespartei, which had also gradually become more fascist, in 1939.
But a larger percentage of GDP was tradable. So a smaller percentage of manufacturing was traded back then.
There is at least one such web (NATO), but since many of the alliances back then were propped up by secret treaties and agreements, and were often finalized in the last minute, it’s difficult to be certain about it. What would happen if there was a war between North Korea and the US? It’s possible that the whole of NATO and SCO would get involved on both sides.
The alliances are theoretically always purely defensive, but in a real conflict it’s often difficult to tell which country is the aggressor. There is often just some vague declaration of friendship and mutual respect there, but when push comes to shove, the parties might feel compelled to join the war. So defensive alliances can be offensive, and vague and meaningless agreements can turn into real alliances.
On the subject of Russia in WW I, this article has a US foreign policy establishment realism slant, that omits some pertinent points:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/lessons-world-war-i-still-haunt-russia-today-35672
Russia’s WW I action involved launching an offensive strike into Germany early into that war – when it wasn’t ready to do so. Imagine the USSR attempting to do such in 1941 or before.
It has said that Stalin’s reluctance to confront Germany prior to June 22, 1941, was motivated by what had happened to Russia in WW I. As for WW I, Max Hastings believes that the outcome for Russia would’ve been better if that war had begun at least two years later.
In WW I, Russia fought effectively against the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian forces. The timing of when WW I began and how Russia fought that war had a devastating effect on the country.
Related:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/03/22/reexamining-russias-past.html
But that something like the Zabern Affair could occur as late as 1913 even in a city which fell on the German side of the sprachraum shows that they were still not full Germans.
It might be more accurate to say that they were not fully “Prussianized”.
During the Second World War many Alsatians served in the Waffen-SS, though they were to an extent forced to do so. But for example the SS company which committed the infamous Oradour-sur-Glane massacre included many Alsatians, and though they claimed to have served in the Waffen-SS against their will, I find it difficult to believe. The SS division in question was one of the most prominent elite divisions, and I don’t think people serving there should be believed. I’d find their case more believable if it was some substandard SS unit, though even then they’d obviously be motivated to lie.
In general there is a gray zone of motivation for people, where they have (or they would have, if they had the opportunity to choose) different preferences from what they actually are compelled to do, but they convince themselves that the situation is, after all, not that bad, or even actually good, and it’s difficult to disentangle how much they are compelled by force and how much they are indifferent, or actively support the situation.
You’re not a Christian unless you’re in a Church actually founded by Christ.
“I don’t think people serving there should be believed” – why?
http://wuenheim.free.fr/histoire/EXTRAITS.pdf
Recruitment into the Waffen-SS started in Alsace in the Fall of 1940, however without any significant success. By December 1940, there were only 68 volunteers and by November 1941, despite an intense campaign, the number only increased to about 322 volunteers, including a number of Germans living in Alsace. (As a comparison, French citizens where not subjected to the same pressures as the Alsatian population (annexation, internment, etc.), yet France provided 2480 volunteers to the Waffen-SS by 1944 and about 8000 men for SS Charlemagne Division).
By early 1943 the campaign to push young Alsatians to volunteer to complete their military service in the Waffen-SS intensifies, yet again only 146 followed the call. In some cases, a number of these commitments ended up being cancelled due to the intervention of parents at recruitment centers. These poor showings resulted in Gauleiter Wagner to conclude an agreement with Himmler in late 1943 to secure 2000 men (50%) of the class of 1926. Following this agreement 2000 young Alsatians were automatically incorporated into the Waffen SS, most of them in Das Reich.
German authorities understood very well that sending these men to a Waffen-SS unit had the benefit of a unit with stricter discipline and less opportunities to desert. SS deserters were very unpopular with Allied/Russian troops or the general population, particularly in France.
Interesting.
I didn’t know that such involuntary recruitment existed for Das Reich.
On the other hand, being unwilling to join the military during times of war is not necessarily a sign of extreme disloyalty. In Germany, the Waffen-SS had many volunteers, because young men had to serve in the Wehrmacht anyway, then why not in an elite unit? They had also been propagandized since a very young age. This was untrue of Alsace, where young men had the option of just staying home.
In Hungary the appeal of the pro-Nazi ethnic German organization Volksbund was seriously limited after the outbreak of the war, because it achieved the option for ethnic Germans to serve their military service in the Waffen-SS, which many were unwilling to do, due to the higher chance of being killed in action. (The vast majority of Hungarian troops weren’t sent to the front until 1944.)
So it’s a bad sign (Alsatians were probably not very loyal), but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they preferred French over German rule by wide (or any) margin.
On the earlier discussed matter of analogies, here’s one concerning Montenegro and Ukraine:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/11/13/intensified-ukrainization-new-nato-member-montenegro.html
Emphasizing how no two situations are exactly the same.
Well, I am campaigning for Saratov-Stolypin
Yes, and if you were courteous enough to tell me which one, amongst the very many whose claim is to be exactly that — and even more so, the only such one — that would greatly help me resolve many politico-religious problems.
Thanks for these references. My Prussian grandfather fought in the East during WW1, and a few times I asked him about it. He rarely spoke (and when he did it was in German). But he liked his Schnapps, and once he told me: “Arms and legs flying in the air.”
I’m afraid this is an NPC piece.
It doesn’t matter who claims what. Every bishop and priest of the Church has a clearly documented chain of ordination that can be easily traced back to Christ. Defrocked and excommunicated priests are likewise clearly documented.
Your attempts at sarcasm are a sign of profound ignorance. Do your modicum of grade-school tier research.
Britain was not considering Irish independence, they were considering “Home Rule” and tending to pussyfoot around it. And then you had the bizarre Carsonite phenomenon of threatening civil war from Ulster and apparently looking to
Germany for aid if Home Rule was granted, leading to the even stranger Curragh mutiny.
You are writing “the Church”, just as if such an entity was well defined, in the logical sense of existing in an unambiguous way warranting the use of the deteminate article, “
”.
The problem is that such an unambiguous construct does not exist: the concept is therefore wholly un-operative.
In addition (I will send you back to your own studies, Sir), many Christian denominations have long abandoned the claim to apostolic succession, even though the same continue to call their hierarchs “bishops”. So much for your claim that “every bishop” has a clear and documented trace of apostolic succession all the way back to OLJC.
But I now realize that you were probably writing the lines above, making the implicit assumption that “the Church” is the corporate entity whose headquarters are currently in the Vatican, with head maffioso some South American crook named Jorge B. If so, then I do not doubt that, indeed, many generations of clerics have long forged the documents needed to establish a “clear” line of succession to Peter, Matthew, or any other amongst the Twelve.