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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

#61

Post by smhenderson »

thinkloop wrote: post #46
yazan94 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was Germany's involvement in WWI really based on a "hate-fueled, racist agenda"?

Of course it was for WWII but I thought Bismark was more into empire building than out to get rid of anyone except the Germans...

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#62

Post by anigbrowl »

danteembermage wrote: post #13
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…

Wilson in his speech asking for American involvement in the war cited the injustice of submarine warfare more than anything, so I agree this point at least seems to fall flat.

German submarine warfare upset the US because they sank some US shipping at considerable loss of life, rather than because of any inherent moral flaw. Had they steered clear of civilian shipping (trickier than it sounds because some military ships disguised themselves as merchant marine vessels) or at least avoided sinking anything that was likely to belong to the US, things might have turned out very differently.

Moral arguments in political speeches should not be taken at face value, since their inclusion is for emotional arousal rather than reasoned analysis.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#63

Post by jcranmer »

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…

Having read a lot of books on the lead-up to WWI, and a few more on the conduct of WWI myself, I must say that the entire thesis comes across as rather forced.

First off, it's rather well-known that Germany's fear of a two-front war and encirclement led to much of its preliminary war plan. On the other hand, the circumstances that led up to such a scenario were not preordained from its construction. It was largely a result of the early 20th century Germany managing to piss off just about everybody else with amazingly inept foreign diplomacy. In particular, Germany decided to give up its relationship with Russia, which France eagerly took advantage of and bound the two countries fairly close together. Germany's naval race with Britain also did much to antagonize it for no real gain.

Also, Alsace-Lorraine is much oversold as a cause of war. It's true that France did want Alsace-Lorraine back. But many in France were not prepared to go to war to actually achieve that aim. Instead, the situation in France post-Franco-Prussian War was to try to find allies that could help divert German attention, and their allies were the Russians who needed lots of help to even minimally qualify for that role and the British who went to rather great lengths to try to avoid actually fulfilling their commitment when August 1914 came around (Germany marching through Belgium gave Britain the political cover to actually commit).

As for whether or not Germany could win, that's a difficult what-if to answer. The Schlieffen Plan was, in the abstract, a masterpiece of precision planning and timetabling. But the plan also had very little room for change if things didn't work out. Belgium put up an unexpectedly fierce resistance, Austria-Hungary had a surprisingly hard time in Serbia, and Russia was doing better at first than Germany expected. In the end, the German momentum and logistics chain was incapable of carrying them to Paris, which completely ruined their plans and any hope of a quick end to the war. And Germany was completely unprepared for that scenario (to be fair, no one else was).

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#64

Post by anigbrowl »

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?

I'm only an amateur historian but I'd say you're very wrong. I'll be surprised and happy if we avoid a major international war in the next 5 years. I will be astonished if we avoid one over the next 20.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#65

Post by cynusx »

The need for Germany to secure their left flank to avoid a two-front war and France's realization that it has nothing to gain from war with Germany also led to the creation of the European union in response. The idea was to deeply intertwine their economies so neither nation would benefit from war with each other.

As for the US, their only objective is to prevent the rise of a dominant european power that can compete with them. e.g. WWI prevent germany from capturing france, WWII prevent germany from occupying russia (lend-lease) and then enter the war to prevent russia from occupying europe.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#66

Post by vkou »

bluejekyll wrote: post #58
WesleyLivesay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

> Agreed, but did they have any reason to believe it would be shorter than the Franco-Prussian War?

Yes. Germany came within spitting distance of Paris thanks to the Shlieffen plan, and was only hobbled at the eleventh hour by overextended supply lines.

Meanwhile, the Entente was counting on the Russian juggernaut, with its millions of men to overrun East Germany. The Russians saw great successes against Austrian forces, but met a complete disaster when they engaged the Germans. As it turned out, the Russian empire was a paper tiger - completely unprepared to fight a war.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#67

Post by sytelus »

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…

I still don't get how Franco-Prussian war was the cause for WW-I after nearly 45 years. Sure, French were pissed off with Prussia in 1870 but then almost two generations passed by before WW-I. The whole article talks about France and Germany as if they are each single person fighting with other and waiting for 45 years to take revenge. Lots of things changes during two generations - governments, art, politics, economies... So connecting dots like this doesn't make any sense.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#68

Post by vkou »

smhenderson wrote: post #61
thinkloop wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was Germany's involvement in WWI really based on a "hate-fueled, racist agenda"? Of course it was for WWII but I thought Bismark was more into empire building than out to get rid of anyone except the Germans...

1. Bismark would have never supported Germany's behaviour leading up to WWI. The people in charge thought they had the genius of Bismark, but had a bit more in common with Nero.

2. The primary 'hate-fueled racist agenda' in WWI was the Serb-Austrian relationship... And that was less about direct racism, and more about imperialism. (Which the Entente was completely guilty of.)

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#69

Post by lmickh »

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…

This is a common mistake when reading about military history. Casualties are not deaths. It is the lose of fighters for a wide range of reasons (death, injury, illness, catpure, and etc).

Roughly 650k people were killed during the American Civil War, but the casualties were closer to 1.8mil.

Much of the casualty count of the Franco-Prussian War is related to the fact that France lost entire forces in engagements. Mass routes nearly always lead to inflated injury and captured counts which in turn leads to high casualties.

By comparison, few of the engagements were as one-sided in the American Civil War. The combat death rates were actually fairly close to each other over time (~160k/yr).

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#70

Post by anigbrowl »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #59
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…

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.

Some people would like to go to war with Islam, knock over a bunch of unstable Middle Eastern theocratic regimes, and essentially re-establish colonialism qua 'peace keeping operations' in a number of very resource-rich temperate countries, while denying strategic positional advantage to the other two actors you mention.

Other people would like to have the US go to war with itself and exploit its geographic advantages to set up a nuclear-shielded autarky and then immanentize the eschaton, partly from narrow tactical considerations and partly in fulfillment of religious prophecy/worldview.

I'm being a bit vague to avoid seeming too partisan or hurting anyone's feelings.

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