Chain of events: Today, 100 years ago

calvinhobbes

calvinhobbes

Forum Addict
DONOR
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Messages
8,334
Location
near Cologne
So it's been a hundred years today that a certain Serbian nationalist shot and killed the prince of the kingdom that was occupying his homeland: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

What followed was an almost comical display of jingoistic arrogance, bruised royal egos and doomed-to-fail diplomacy that ended in the not at all comical loss of millons of lives - for King, Country, Honour and certainly some other variants of harebrained horse manure that were used to disguise the fact that once again, a bunch of snotnosed inbreds was sending people to their graves and destroying countless lives and livelihoods for no better reason than their own grandeur.

Rather than regurgitate what you can find on Wikipedia, I'd like to ask: what can we do to stop it from happening again? The many wars in e.g. Ukraine and the Middle East are, as it were, the grandchildren of World War One, but do they have the potential to set off anoher chain of events where our alleged "leaders" lead us nowhere but off a cliff?
 
calvinhobbes said:
So it's been a hundred years today that a certain Serbian nationalist shot and killed the prince of the kingdom that was occupying his homeland: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

What followed was an almost comical display of jingoistic arrogance, bruised royal egos and doomed-to-fail diplomacy that ended in the not at all comical loss of millons of lives - for King, Country, Honour and certainly some other variants of harebrained horse manure that were used to disguise the fact that once again, a bunch of snotnosed inbreds was sending people to their graves and destroying countless lives and livelihoods for no better reason than their own grandeur.

Rather than regurgitate what you can find on Wikipedia, I'd like to ask: what can we do to stop it from happening again? The many wars in e.g. Ukraine and the Middle East are, as it were, the grandchildren of World War One, but do they have the potential to set off anoher chain of events where our alleged "leaders" lead us nowhere but off a cliff?
Click to expand...


I think we are in the process of watching it happen again. The way things are falling apart in different parts of the world, plus the arrogance of several world leaders and their posturing are going to lead us into a shit storm that may destroy the fragile stability we enjoy.
 
The end result of WWI is one of the most influential events in modern history. We are still suffering the consequences of it (see Iraq among others).

I don't see something as influential as it happening again anytime soon.
 
Last edited:
calvinhobbes said:
I'd like to ask: what can we do to stop it from happening again?
Click to expand...

Honestly?

Part of me says...keep our noses out of other peoples business. But that doesn't work either.

Part of me says...we should all just just grow the hell up. But that's not going to happen either.

But the biggest part of me says...instead of bickering over who did what to whom all those years ago, lets instead worry about what's going on NOW and worry about what we can fix today.

But, let's be honest: that ain't ever going to work. :-(

Every country on this planet is simply too worried over who has the biggest dick.
 
Hm... I do share some of the pessimistic ideas, however I think there's a major difference between today and 1914: In many countries (very far from all, unfortunately), the power of the state no longer correlates directly to the power of its head; e.g. there's no longer a Kaiser Bill who would automatically become and remain more powerful if Germany became more powerful. Instead, the power is given to representatives of the people by the people in more or less democratic elections; they give the power and they take it away - no matter if you've just beaten the Russians or not.

I'm thinking of e.g. Winston Churchill - he led his country to victory and lost the election just two months later. Isn't this a factor that will make most elected heads of state and/or government think twice before they embark on war adventures; in other words: don't the democracies that we do have stabilise the international system - anarchic as it is - to a degree that can keep us safe from more World Wars?
 
Doesn't seem to slow down the USA from taking military actions at a whim. It may help prevent another world war, but it may not. Only time will tell.
 
Before this descends into the inevitable should it perhaps be nudged over into the Politics Thread?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top