Guthroth | 27 Jun 2014 10:32 p.m. PST |
Some damn foolish thing in the Balkans began it link |
Dave Jackson | 28 Jun 2014 4:30 a.m. PST |
link And then there's this
.note last couple of paragraphs about the licence plate |
Huscarle | 28 Jun 2014 4:42 a.m. PST |
The BBC are also do a "live" account of this day link |
Wackmole9 | 28 Jun 2014 8:12 a.m. PST |
I Still can't figure out why some people are making the assassin out to be a hero. |
Guthroth | 28 Jun 2014 8:20 a.m. PST |
History and a nationalistic lens can make anyone look like a hero. He was a deluded young man who's actions were exploited for political means with consequences no-one could have imagined. |
Wackmole9 | 28 Jun 2014 8:26 a.m. PST |
But, we know the consequences. It killed 37+ millions people and lead to another costly war 20 years later. How can another one think he was a hero! |
Lion in the Stars | 28 Jun 2014 9:40 a.m. PST |
Most heroes have a rather large body-count tied directly to their own hands, particularly the pre-1900 ones. Vlad Tepes is a national hero in Romania to this day, and he's the equivalent of the boogeyman in Turkey, still used to frighten children into behaving. I'm also not willing to concede that World War One only happened because of the assassination of the Archduke. Based on the military stances of each of the European nations, the war was going to happen. The question was merely when. |
Guthroth | 28 Jun 2014 12:30 p.m. PST |
Yes, one cultures Hero is usually anothers villain. Just sticking to Anglo-Americans, I can think of Custer, Churchill, Cromwell, John Brown, 'Bomber' Harris, etc etc. History is a cruel examiner. |
Great War Ace | 28 Jun 2014 12:53 p.m. PST |
Simple version: Assassination seized upon by Germany to compel Austro-Hungary to buck up and prove that they were a top nation, if they expected to continue to have an alliance with Germany. Between them they cooked up a list of demands on Serbia that no self-respecting nation could possibly accept, and Germany, certain that this would result in war between Austro-Hungary and Serbia, promised A-H that they would be backed up to the hilt in anything they did resulting from said-war. This is called the "blank check" ploy, and A-H complied. But Serbia accepted all the demands!? With one small condition, that she be allowed to use her own troops to ferret out and punish the guilty parties. This was entirely reasonable, as Serbia was agreeing to allow A-H to send overseers to assure that the guilty were in fact found and arrested or killed. But Germany pushed A-H to declare war on the basis of Serbia not agreeing 100 percent, and it was done. Germany knew that this would bring Russia into the war on A-H's eastern border, "forcing" Germany to declare war to "save" A-H and defend itself against the "Russian steamroller". And with Russia coming in, France would be mobilized in her ally Russia's war with A-H/Germany. Now the trick was to keep GB out of it. But there was this 39 day war plan (by general Schlieffen) that Germany was committed to, once the inevitable war started: it required that in order to subdue France within that time, the entire right wing of the German army must sweep through neutral Belgium. No amount of excuses made by Germany for being "forced" to violate Belgian neutrality impressed GB a jot, and when the Germans set foot in Belgium, GB declared war on Germany and A-H. Italy and Japan declared for the Allies, and Turkey was talked into an alliance with the "Central Powers", so the war spread over the Middle East and portions of Africa and all over the globe at sea, and claimed on the Western Front some ten million men in the next four years
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Great War Ace | 28 Jun 2014 12:58 p.m. PST |
One of the results of the alliance with Japan was that she began her massive land grab in the Far East, which resulted in her role during WW2. Irony. As an "Ally", Japan committed the atrocities that caused the USA to levy sanctions upon her, which "forced" her to attack the USA
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Tgunner | 28 Jun 2014 3:11 p.m. PST |
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Johny Boy | 29 Jun 2014 3:01 a.m. PST |
Check out BBC'c "37 days" if u can, a very good docu-drama about the reasons and prelude to WW 1. |
ScottWashburn | 30 Jun 2014 11:58 a.m. PST |
One thing many people don't know is that the assassination was just the last in a long list of terrorist activities by the Serbian nationalists. It was all frighteningly similar to present day events. The Serbs felt that anywhere that Serbs lived ought to be part of Serbia. Several million Serbs lived in Austro-Hungary so a terrorist campaign was started to sieze control of that part of A-H. The Serbian govenment fully backed the terrorists. There is plenty of blame to go around in starting the war, but the Serbs deserve a full share. |
Great War Ace | 30 Jun 2014 9:24 p.m. PST |
It seems more likely that the Serb gov't was distancing itself from the extremists by the time of the assassination, trying for legitimacy in the place of expansion through violence, etc. But the past dogged their efforts. And protesting innocence in the assassination, though true enough (the gov't did not supply, train or direct the terrorists as they were accused of), was not widely believed at the time
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