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

171–180 of 221 posts

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#171

Post by mcguire »

woodandsteel wrote: post #143
zeteo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, if Germany had continued Bismarck's foreign policy [1] then the next war (if it came) would have looked very different. Antagonizing Russia in the Balkans, France in Morocco, and Britain on the high seas were rather gratuitous moves between 1900 - 1914, driven by Wilhelm II's personality more than by any geopolitical factors. It's amazing how much hubris it took to sink the Second Reich. As far as I can tell…

>As far as I can tell, Germany was on track to win the war as late as spring 1917. So did this fact provide the ground for the belief, which helped lay the groundwork for the success of the Nazi movement, that Germany had lost the war because it had been betrayed by its leadership?

That would be my feeling, although the German military was actually betrayed by the Germans themselves: the economy collapsed taking the government down with it.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#172

Post by jcranmer »

hackuser wrote: post #145
bluejekyll wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No debate on any of those points. But, until Pearl Harbor and the Philippines there was no clear pretext for the US to declare war. And had they not attacked, it's not clear that FDR could have gotten congress to declare war. Some of those prominent supporters were significant industrialists like Ford, they would have fought intervention by all means. After Pearl Harbor, there was no debate.

I've heard that too, but how did the draft, Lend-Lease, and the build-up get passed through Congress before Pearl Harbor if there wasn't sufficient support? Maybe the first and third were seen as necessary to protect a neutral country? Or being short of declaring war, they were less objectionable? But I'm just guessing ...

> I've heard that too, but how did the draft, Lend-Lease, and the build-up get passed through Congress before Pearl Harbor if there wasn't sufficient support?

Lend-Lease had fairly staunch resistance, as it basically shredded any pretense of neutrality. The draft and the military build-up were supported in large part due to neutrality--the need to have a sufficiently strong military to deter potential aggression (this was the strategy of Switzerland). When FDR extended the draft term from 12 months to 18 months, it passed by a single vote in the House.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#173

Post by maroonblazer »

knz wrote: post #52
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.

I was going to recommend the same. This was a part of WW2 that I'd not really been exposed to in school; at least not to this level of detail. Carlin's description of it is gripping.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#174

Post by jcranmer »

BurningFrog wrote: post #113
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…

As I remember The Guns of August, The British government was not aware that its military had promised the French assistance, and did not intend to participate in the war until informed about it. I imagine some rather awkward conversations took place.

The military talks were revealed to the British Cabinet during the Second Moroccan Crisis, a few years before WWI started.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#175

Post by travmatt »

SeanBoocock wrote: post #151
travmatt wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: "The Coming of the Third Reich", Richard Evans. I've been reading this recently, it's a very measured look at German politics, culture, and economy from Bismarck through Hitler. Utterly fascinating

I'd recommend the whole trilogy of books by Evans ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Reich_Trilogy ). The broad focus and often ground level perspective on German society is even more apparent in the second volume. I haven't encountered another source that better situates the experience of ordinary Germans in the political and cultural changes of the 1930s.

They are on the list next. Do you have any recommendations covering the Russian Revolution through WW2? I wanted to cover both before I start Hannah Arendt's work.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#176

Post by zeteo »

D-Coder wrote: post #164
zeteo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, if Germany had continued Bismarck's foreign policy [1] then the next war (if it came) would have looked very different. Antagonizing Russia in the Balkans, France in Morocco, and Britain on the high seas were rather gratuitous moves between 1900 - 1914, driven by Wilhelm II's personality more than by any geopolitical factors. It's amazing how much hubris it took to sink the Second Reich. As far as I can tell…

I saw on an AHC program the German calculation about unrestricted sub warfare: that they could choke Britain in six months, but it would take the US two years to ramp up a real fighting force. So it made good sense, but a miscalculation in a different way.

It was a severe miscalculation. First, Germany already had a strategy to win the war - beat Russia first - and any attempt to knock out Britain at the cost of involving the US was a major distraction. Second, even if US troops took longer to arrive, the US Navy was ready to help defeat the submarine campaign right away [1].

[1] https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#177

Post by graycat »

Nice. My college history class started way before the Romans, stayed a long time on what it liked, ran out of time just after the French Revolution, and never got to the 19th or 20th centuries. So, for those two centuries, I've used books, video documentaries, Web sites, etc. The OP here is a nice contribution.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#178

Post by graycat »

Nice. My college history class started way before the Romans, stayed a long time on what it liked, ran out of time just after the French Revolution, and never got to the 19th or 20th centuries. So, for those two centuries, I've used books, video documentaries, Web sites, etc. The OP here is a nice contribution.

Re: Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars

#179

Post by vacri »

Clubber wrote: post #168
vacri wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> military isolationism was in our DNA ... You mean apart from the Indian wars which annexed territory, the Mexican-American war which annexed territory, and the Spanish-American war which annexed territory? Then there was the War of 1812, where the US tried and failed to annex Canadian territory. Or the Barbary wars. The US not wanting to involve itself in internal European wars does not mean it was militarily isola…

Look up the definition of isolationism.

I would say that invading the territory of other nations and annexing it counts as involving yourself in the affairs of other nations. Historically, the US didn't want to interfere in Europe, absolutely, but it stuck its fingers in pretty much every other pie, excluding sub-Saharan Africa.

I mean, how do you characterise sending warships to scare Japan into opening up for trade in 1868 as 'isolationism'?

Post reply on HN