General / Off-Topic The seminal catastrophy. WWI a 100 years from now.

[Jacques d'Orleans]

A monk who saw a demonstration of the crossbow in the middle ages said it was a weapon of such awesome power it would end all war.

Turns out he was wrong, we'll do it all again.

They called also called The Great War "The war to end all wars". Yeah, well, that didn't work out well, didn't it?

 

[Patrick_68000]

The French Marshal Foch said about the Treaty of Versailles it isn't a peace treaty it is a seize fire for 20 years and history proved him right. Maybe history would have been different when they would have followed Woodrow Wilsons approach instead of the French.

It is certain that Hitler did not like the Treaty of Versailles.

Just read "Mein Kampf".

 

[Patrick_68000]

Undoubtably it would have been different, but in what way, who knows?

There would have been no big difference. Hitler needed a revenge and also a vital space to the east of Europe.

Finally he had an immeasurable hatred of Jews and Gypsies and other people.

In any case, Treaty of Versailles or not, the Germans were condemned to pay a very high price for their exactions.

 

[Patrick_68000]

A monk who saw a demonstration of the crossbow in the middle ages said it was a weapon of such awesome power it would end all war.

Turns out he was wrong, we'll do it all again.

We have "Rocket Man" today.

I wonder if they had "Crossbow man" at this time.

 

[Chaparral]

AI and grey goo to come. Stay tuned.

 

[Jacques d'Orleans]

The French Marshal Foch said about the Treaty of Versailles it isn't a peace treaty it is a seize fire for 20 years and history proved him right. Maybe history would have been different when they would have followed Woodrow Wilsons approach instead of the French.

It is certain that Hitler did not like the Treaty of Versailles.

Just read "Mein Kampf".

And what has Hitler to do with my above statement? Care to explain?

 

[Schembri]

Interesting videos, never seen it concisely described yet keeping it interesting!
now on to part 3...

 

[The Lawful]

Irony of history.

Uh oh, nothing good will come of this. But still: the [NSDAP]s didn't use chemical warfare in WWII, possibly in fear of retaliation, possibly because Hitler himself was a victim of gas warfare in 1918.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

The [NSDAP]s' decision to avoid the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield has been variously attributed to a lack of technical ability in the German chemical weapons program and fears that the Allies would retaliate with their own chemical weapons.^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#cite_note-Borchers-55"][55][/URL]} It also has been speculated to have arisen from the personal experiences of Adolf Hitler as a soldier in the Kaiser's army during World War I, where he was gassed by British troops in 1918.^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#cite_note-57"][57][/URL]} After the Battle of Stalingrad, Joseph Goebbels, Robert Ley, and Martin Bormann urged Hitler to approve the use of tabun and other chemical weapons to slow the Soviet advance. At a May 1943 meeting in the Wolf's Lair, however, Hitler was told by Ambros that Germany had 45,000 tons of chemical gas stockpiled, but that the Allies likely had far more. Hitler responded by suddenly leaving the room and ordering production of tabun and sarin to be doubled, but "fearing some rogue officer would use them and spark Allied retaliation, he ordered that no chemical weapons be transported to the Russian front."^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#cite_note-Coffey-53"][53][/URL]} After the Allied invasion of Italy, the Germans rapidly moved to remove or destroy both German and Italian chemical-weapon stockpiles, "for the same reason that Hitler had ordered them pulled from the Russian front—they feared that local commanders would use them and trigger Allied chemical retaliation."^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#cite_note-Coffey-53"][53] [/URL]}Which doesn't make it better a bit.

O7,
[noob]

 

[Stigbob]

It also has been speculated to have arisen from the personal experiences of Adolf Hitler as a soldier in the Kaiser's army during World War I, where he was gassed by British troops in 1918.^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#cite_note-57"][57][/URL]} [noob]

A prototype of the MAD doctrine.

 

[Patrick_68000]

And what has Hitler to do with my above statement? Care to explain?

Hitler hated the Treaty of Versailles.

What confirms what you say in your post about the Marshal Foch.

You did not read "Mein Kampf ?

In fact you have the answer to your question in your own bellow statement.

The French Marshal Foch said about the Treaty of Versailles it isn't a peace treaty it is a seize fire for 20 years and history proved him right. Maybe history would have been different when they would have followed Woodrow Wilsons approach instead of the French.

 

[Winterwalker]

And what has Hitler to do with my above statement? Care to explain?

Trouble was that after the Great War the allies didn't win the peace.

In fact two things happened. Firstly the Prussians at World War One were an expansionist force, attempting to grow their empire and when they abandonned that at the armistice they hadn't lost Germany, they just hadn't won or kept elsewhere. They also lost fewer men than the allies did in WWI (the German losses eventually came in WW2) which meant they had the manpower for Hitler to rebuild a war machine. (The allies on the other hand lost HUGE numbers of men in the Great War which made it easier for Hitler's blitzkrieg).

Hitler's (militaristic) view I believe was that Europe had been at the Prussian's mercy in WWI and it was only political weakness on behalf of the leadership that had led them to withdraw and in his eyes fail to take France. On taking power he then combined the subterfuge of fake peaceful relations - plus the goodwill and probably PTSD of people like Edward VII and Chamberlain - to allow the illegal (according to the Treaty of Versailles) rebuild of forces, plus the element of surprise, to try to win the First World War at the second attempt.

 

[Strangepork]

Today, 11 November will be celebrated the centenary of the end of the greatest manslaughter in human history.

A catastrophe of such amplitude that it destroyed empires, and brought Europe to its knees.

From there on, the world began a new era, an era where Europe was no longer the center of the world.

Seminal catastrophe, because the shock wave of that event was felt during the whole duration of the 20th century, and even today.

Without it, we would have no WW2, no Hitler or Stalin, no cold war, and probably no 9/11.

The end of a nightmare that began on the 28th of July 1914, the day that Europe decided to suicide.

The world had entered the industrial revolution, and brought with it more effective ways of butchering each other.

Clashing armies had been completely replaced by the use of cold and effective machinery. A charging horse by tanks.

Soldiers at the time called it the "last of the last". For the carnage was such, that it should have dissuaded anyone to start a new one.

The ripples of the conflict where felt world wide, from the fields of France to the plains of the USA, to the lands of Asia and trough the depts of the sea. NO one was spared.

And yet, this event could have never happened. It was so close to never happened. But history took a wrong turn, and the wrong man stood at the wrong place.

Now, more than ever we must remind ourselves of the reasons of why suddenly the world decided to put itself ablaze. Now that once again the world seem to let itself go to demagogy, populism and xenophobia.


Lets never forget.

Like any (war) crime, follow the money, if you choose to understand more...