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

81–90 of 221 posts

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#81

Post by InitialLastName »

kristianc wrote: post #35
jordanpg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

See - at times the pacing is what I quite like - I agree that there are other ways to get information across faster, but Carlin plays with the audio format to force you to dwell on certain things. It has some passages on the human cost / experience of war which are incredibly memorable imo. Of course no one source should be used in isolation and YMMV.

I'm with you. He does a great job of integrating sources, (with lots of quotes from the seminal works, in addition to memoirs and primary accounts) with a really cohesive arc to the story.

Nothing's ever made me feel the way the 2nd-3rd episodes of that show made me feel. There's something about the horrors of trench warfare being described in his way that really brings it home.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#82

Post by sgt101 »

Koshkin wrote: post #54
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...

There's some fun alternative histories to be written there. I would suggest that life in Africa, India and China in the late 20thC would have been significantly more unpleasant than it was. A chaotic and strongly resisted end to empire such as the one seen in Mozambique but involving billions rather than millions would not have been a happy story.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#83

Post by autokad »

bluejekyll wrote: post #45
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 defini…

England definitely slowed Germany down but Germany was decidedly winning.

Prior to US involvement, the front line was quite close to Paris. After, it was just over the border of Germany, and then as you said, they knew it was over. US' involvement was huge.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#84

Post by r00fus »

tannhauser23 wrote: post #71
sytelus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, econom…

Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was a source of ongoing resentment by the French. As was France's loss of its status as the dominant land power in Europe. War was not inevitable, but the unresolved issues from the Franco-Prussian war ensured that the two dominant continental powers would be enemies. France's desire to be secure against Germany leads it to form an alliance with Russia, which then puts Germany…

And then the Treaty of Versailles went on to cause the forced repairations and subsequent hyperinflation and depression in Germany leading to the Nazi takeover and WW2.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#85

Post by sgt101 »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #43
mamon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Forget ideology, forget politics, forget racism. It's just economics.

Also, when you say States, do you mean modern nation states? If so what about conflicts prior to the formation of the modern state... were these not wars? When a modern state is confronted by another actor - then?

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#86

Post by sgt101 »

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…

Interesting - Northern Italy is/was part of Germany too ?

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#87

Post by AnimalMuppet »

whack wrote: post #75
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 inte…

You didn't listen to the podcast, did you? Germany didn't have the choice not to fight France. France had decided to wage war against Germany, in support of their ally Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Third_Republic#First_Wo... "France entered World War I because Russia and Germany were going to war, and France honored its treaty obligations to Russia.[58]" Not that Germany wanted to wage war against Russ…

If I'm going to blame anybody, I'll blame Austro-Hungary for deliberately designing their ultimatum to be unacceptable to Serbia. Why did they do that? Because they wanted war with Serbia.

So Germany had to honor their agreement with Austro-Hungary, and therefore had to violate Belgium's borders? If they had displayed as much honor and integrity toward Belgium as they did toward Austro-Hungary, that would have been a good thing. It's not "behaving honorably" when you only do it toward some.

So Germany had the choice: Fulfill treaty obligations toward Austro-Hungary, or observe Belgian neutrality, or do both and be at greater risk of losing the war. Arguably, they chose what worked out to be the worst (at least, the most destructive) of the three options.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#88

Post by llukas »

thinkmilitant wrote: post #49
llukas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Doesn't apply here. You seem to think otherwise - why?

I explicitly say that what Germans did is inexcusable.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#89

Post by jonathonf »

autokad wrote: post #83
bluejekyll wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 defini…

England definitely slowed Germany down but Germany was decidedly winning. Prior to US involvement, the front line was quite close to Paris. After, it was just over the border of Germany, and then as you said, they knew it was over. US' involvement was huge.

> England

Britain. Along with contingents from most of its Empire.

(Saying "England" when you mean "Britain" is like saying "Texas" when you mean "U.S.A.")

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#90

Post by WesleyLivesay »

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…

There were many reasons that they thought it might be short and quick. They didn't think the economies could take that kind of strain for a long time, they thought technology would make wars faster (British cavalry journals before the war thought the machine gun would help more than hinder the cavalry), and they just had too much faith in their first strike capability (France with plan XVII and Germany with Schlieffen plan).

The biggest problem was that it had been over 40 years since Europe had been at war. This meant that there was little evidence based study to do with new military technology advances and it was too easy to dismiss colonial conflicts (Boer War, Russo-Japanese War) as not indicative of what a general war in Europe would look like.

It is actually remarkable to hear some people argue that a world war today would be short (if it is non-nuclear) because of the same reasons.

Post reply on HN