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Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

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Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#51

Post by ruleabidinguser »

badloginagain wrote: post #29
cholantesh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, everything Prophets of Doom onward is completely free. Not sure how long that will last, and I would love for Dan to put out a monthly or yearly subscription via Patreon; his work is of such high quality.

The latest 10 episodes are free. If a new one is put out, the 10th oldest is no longer available. You can buy his discography for something on the order of $50. Remember, if you think his shows are worth a dollar, Dan and Ben would love to have it.

Do you know them personally?

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#52

Post by knz »

kristianc wrote: post #8

If this is up your street, may I recommend Dan Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon, which has over ten hours of podcast material exploring the lead up to the first world war. Probably the best podcast I've ever downloaded, and insane that it's available for nearly free. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepri...

Check out his series "Ghosts of the Ostfront" if you enjoyed "Blueprint for Armageddon" - it's about the Eastern front during WW2 and does a similar job of immersing you into the violence of the conflict while explaining the implications of the various developments.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#53

Post by WesleyLivesay »

bluejekyll wrote: post #50
WesleyLivesay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Absolutely! I don't think your conclusions are wrong, it is pretty crazy that they would make that large of an error in the article. I assume they mixed up "missing" and "captured".

It is also worth remembering that everybody thought the war in 1914 would be short, there were very few people who thought it would drag out for years. All involved probably did some mental math based on actions like the the Franco-Prussian war and figured that the same level of casualties, or even twice as many, was worth it.

If they would have known, which we do with hindsight, that it was going to take 4+ years of fighting it may have never happened.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#54

Post by Koshkin »

WalterBright wrote: post #34

PBS just ran a 3 part "The Great War" which is an interesting documentary on the American perspective of WW1. It did strongly argue that America's entry into the war ensured the defeat of Germany.

Oh well... From today's perspective, who knows, the world might have been better off if Germany had won that war...

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#55

Post by knz »

jordanpg wrote: post #32
kristianc wrote: post #8

If this is up your street, may I recommend Dan Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon, which has over ten hours of podcast material exploring the lead up to the first world war. Probably the best podcast I've ever downloaded, and insane that it's available for nearly free. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepri...

Carlin is entertaining to listen to at times, but the information density is quite low. He takes a long time to say not much, all the while sounding quite profound. I'd recommend the classic references instead/as well: * The First World War by John Keegan * The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

> He takes a long time to say not much, all the while sounding quite profound.

Carlin is definitely verbose but personally I think that is part of the appeal! It's easy to skim through a historical account and only hear a series of dates and names. Dwelling on a subject helps with his narrative of reinforcing how horrible these conflicts were and allows Carlin to delve deeper into anecdotal accounts etc.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#56

Post by AnimalMuppet »

whack wrote: post #23
neaden wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Both of the things you mentioned, were things that Germany was forced into doing, as a matter of survival. For example, Germany had no intentions of conquering Belgium. They simply wanted to travel through Belgium in order to reach France, and put an end to the war early on. This was something they were necessarily required to do, because they were sandwiched between both France and Russia, and hence, couldn't afford…

> Both of the things you mentioned, were things that Germany was forced into doing, as a matter of survival.

Germany wasn't forced into anything. They still had the option of not starting the war at all.

> ... but Belgium instead refused and actively tried to kill the German soldiers passing through. Hence why Germany then had to wage war against Belgium.

"Passing through"? They were invading. (Yeah, they were intending on just passing through, but they were still invading to do so.) Belgium was actively trying to kill German troops? Yeah, that's the way it goes when you march your army into another country without their permission. This is why Germany then had to wage war against Belgium? Putting troops across the border was already an act of war against Belgium.

Given that Germany insisted on starting the war by invading France, these were things that Germany was "forced" to do in order to have the best chance to win. But not invading France was actually an option.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#57

Post by pharrington »

neaden wrote: post #30
whack wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of the things you mentioned, were things that Germany was forced into doing, as a matter of survival. For example, Germany had no intentions of conquering Belgium. They simply wanted to travel through Belgium in order to reach France, and put an end to the war early on. This was something they were necessarily required to do, because they were sandwiched between both France and Russia, and hence, couldn't afford…

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.

in which you learned why war is hell

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#58

Post by bluejekyll »

WesleyLivesay wrote: post #53
bluejekyll wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Absolutely! I don't think your conclusions are wrong, it is pretty crazy that they would make that large of an error in the article. I assume they mixed up "missing" and "captured". It is also worth remembering that everybody thought the war in 1914 would be short, there were very few people who thought it would drag out for years. All involved probably did some mental math based on actions like the the Franco-Prussi…

Agreed, but did they have any reason to believe it would be shorter than the Franco-Prussian War? I agree, they definitely believed it was going to be over quickly, but why would they have thought it was less than 9 months (easy to assume 500K killed based on previous experience). In addition to that, you had two countries that were literally preparing for this conflict for years, poking each other around the world up to that point.

I think anyone who thought it was going to be short, would have been completely ignoring all evidence that would have stated otherwise.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#59

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #31
huangc10 wrote: post #9

What's interesting to me here is that, it seems like a lot of the causes/triggers to WWI/WWII were due to conflicts between nations and/or assassinations. We don't necessarily have anything as big as 2 equal nations fighting, capitals getting invaded etc. So does that mean WWIII will probably never happen given that we don't have any of of these crazy causes/triggers?

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…

But who will the US go to war with? It would have to be either China or Russia, both of whom learned the lessons of WWII at least as well as Europe did.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#60

Post by AnimalMuppet »

zeveb wrote: post #48

> 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…

That's like listing how long Texas or California were part of Spain/Mexico. It's true, as history, but it wouldn't make the US any happier if those lands went back to Mexico. Current facts on the ground say that those are part of the US, and have been for over a hundred years.
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