Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

angrystaffofficer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 221 posts

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#41

Post by WalterBright »

neaden wrote: post #20
jimmyk wrote: post #6

And it meant that there was a precedence for taking up arms for equality and freedom...for a war that would, "make the world safe for democracy," as President Woodrow Wilson put it in 1917 when he requested a declaration of war on the German Empire. What was the German Empire doing to threaten equality, freedom, and democracy that France and England and the US weren't also doing? The argument that the US entered beca…

Germany invaded the neutral country of Belgium and killed about 60,000 civilians in Belgium, looted and burned cultural artifacts, and conscripted laborers. That in combination with unrestricted submarine warfare really did mean German conduct in the war was far crueler then the Allies.

It turns out the Lusitania was filled with arms after all. It's like painting a red cross on the roof of your military supply depots.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#42

Post by neaden »

llukas wrote: post #33
neaden wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Invading a neutral country, burning the the entire village of Louvain, executing 6,000 civilians in reprisal strikes were all things Germany was forced into doing? Belgium actively tried to German soldiers because they were being invaded! That's a reasonable response to being invaded! I have no idea how you can write something like this.

What Germans did in Belgium is inexcusable. However, knowing what Belgians did in Africa in XIX/XX century I do not have much pity for them.

There is definately a legitamate argument that WW1/2 were essentially the West using the lessons they learned from colonialism on each other. This is pretty explicit in WW2 with Hitler's plan to ethnically cleanse and colonize Eastern Europe. At the same time, the horrible atrocities Belgium committed in the Congo don't make the murder of civilians any more inexcusable.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#43

Post by Synaesthesia »

mamon wrote: post #37
Synaesthesia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We certainly have these triggers and it's possible! The Middle East is in chaos, and it's causing conflict between US and Russia, as well as the China-US conflict. Europe has been fighting vicious wars for centuries, climaxing in WW2. What's kept Europe peaceful since WW2 is the realisation that if they go to war again they might destroy everything! WW 2 was enormously destructive. However the US was not destroyed as…

Yeah, the only thing that US learned from WW1 and WW2 is that wars can be a great way to make money. Since then most of the wars that US started was due to economic reasons: either to control some valuable natural resources, like oil, or to punish the countries that refused to make business with them.

You are correct, the US does all of this, just like every great military power in history - and all wars are for economic reasons. States are not moral actors, they seek to expand their power and influence and it's up to us to keep them in check.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#44

Post by readittwice »

> Prussia had recently adopted a new model of rifle: one that was bolt action and so allowed for rapid fire, in comparison to the Austrians’ outmoded muzzle-loading Lorenz rifle-muskets.

This really made a long-lasting impression, in Austria today (so 150 years later) we still use the phrase: "the prussians don't shoot that fast". We use it when there is still time and a solution isn't ready yet.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#45

Post by bluejekyll »

badloginagain wrote: post #17

Tying in the US seems a bit forced here. WWI as a result of Franco-Prussian war I can understand, US civil rights not-so-much. That Germany was 'destined' to lose is a non-starter anyways. From my understanding it was Britain's decision to enter WWI that really shaped the outcome, and that it was far from a foregone conclusion that Britain would enter a continental European war. If the British didn't get involved, Ge…

The argument was that the US had gained a "defend the rights of man", i.e. Democracy, attitude because of the Civil War (though honestly with the early end of Reconstruction, I'm not sure it's valid). This attitude eventually encouraged the US to come directly into the War, though the US had been giving significant support to England and France prior to that point.

I agree that it's weak though. And Britain is definitely the reason Germany wasn't capable of overrunning France. America at best made it clear that Germany could not win. While 120,000 troops lost by the US is far less than the Europeans, that is by no means a small number, especially considering such brief involvement.

There really was no reason to ever believe the US would ever get involved in WWI. Even WWII there was no indication the US would actually enter the War directly until the Japanese forced the choice.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#46

Post by thinkloop »

yazan94 wrote: post #12
threesixandnine wrote: post #2

What a fail. The very first paragraph is factually wrong. Didn't read the rest. Due to already receiving negative feedback on my comment let me explain. The assasination didn't happen in Serbia but Bosnia that was at the time occupied by Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's a huge fail by somebody who tries to explain to us what 'really happened'.

True, you are correct. Though it could be attributed to the author as a smaller mistake, as Franz was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. I am more confused to how the US's reconstruction had anything to do with setting the stage for World War 1. > For just as 1866 guaranteed a militarily and culturally strong Germany which would wear down Britain, France, and Italy to a near breaking point in World War I, it also…

I understood it that since the US unified and was able to allow african americans into the military, they were strong enough and stable enough to participate. Additionally since african american (human) equality was front and center, germany's hate-fueled racist agenda was especially distasteful adding social and political motivation to participate.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#47

Post by rhizome »

Animats wrote: post #28

Germany: too big for Europe, too small for the world. It's worth reviewing the run-up to WWI. The pre-WWI model of Europe, an endless struggle between Great Powers which had gone on for a millennium, is Putin's model of the world. That's because it gives Russia a role in the world. As an economic power, Russia is in 12th place, behind S. Korea. In a peaceful, trade-based world, Russia is a bit player. Especially sinc…

The pre-WWI model of Europe, an endless struggle between Great Powers which had gone on for a millennium, is Putin's model of the world

Who plays Hindenburg in this scenario?

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#48

Post by zeveb »

> Not only had the Prussians humiliated them on the battlefield, but they had marched through the streets of Paris – and if that wasn’t enough, they had taken the French territories of Alsace and Lorraine and added them to their Germanic realms.

Weeellll, Elsaß was German (i.e., part of the Holy Roman Empire) until 1639 & Lothringen was German until 1766. They were both retaken from France in 1871, retaken by France from Germany in 1919, occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940 and restored to France in 1945. Out of the past 1,000 years, Elsaß has been de jure German for 687 and Lothringen has been German for 814.

So describing them as French territories is a bit … Francophilic.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#49

Post by thinkmilitant »

llukas wrote: post #33
neaden wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Invading a neutral country, burning the the entire village of Louvain, executing 6,000 civilians in reprisal strikes were all things Germany was forced into doing? Belgium actively tried to German soldiers because they were being invaded! That's a reasonable response to being invaded! I have no idea how you can write something like this.

What Germans did in Belgium is inexcusable. However, knowing what Belgians did in Africa in XIX/XX century I do not have much pity for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#50

Post by bluejekyll »

WesleyLivesay wrote: post #40
bluejekyll wrote: post #36

So, I had always learned that the American Civil war was a foreshadowing of WWI, both the high number of casualties, and the entrenchment which was being utilized by the end of the Civil War... I knew about the Austro-Prussian and the Franco-Prussian Wars, but I didn't know about the casualties, OMG: > Total casualties in killed, wounded, and missing broke 100,000, with Austrian losses nearly doubling those of the Pr…

I think they are erroneously including the number of men captured in the Franco-Prussian number. They aren't sharing sources for this article so it is hard to know but Wikipedia (which does source the number) lists 475,000 of that million number as prisoners of war that probably survived the war and were repatriated.

Well, even if you do divide it in half, that's still a rate of death of 500,000 a year. So using that as a way of estimating deaths of another conflict, it should have been enough to stop an actual war. That requires the people ruling the countries to actually care about the effects this would have on their own populations...

Sadly, even using that as an estimate it would have been off by more than half of how many would actually die.

Post reply on HN