World War I ended just 100 years ago today. It was a terrible war. It lasted four awful years. The war wrecked Europe. It created Soviet Communism, a menace to
civilization that would not be defeated for 70 years. Before the war, Europe
had ruled the world. After the war Europe
could barely feed itself.
The tragedy is
that no one in Europe knew why they were fighting. Woodrow Wilson had to create the 14 points to
explain to Americans what their war aims were and why we should join the
fighting. The Europeans didn't have a
clue as to why they were pouring out their blood and treasure.
The spark that set
off WWI was a Serbian terrorist assassinating the heir to the throne of the
Austro Hungarian empire. Naturally the
Austrians wanted to retaliate and kick some Serbian tail. Serbia
was a small backwards 3rd or 4th class power, and what should have happened was
a short "police action" where the Austrian army occupied Serbia,
hanged a few more terrorists, and incorporated
Serbia
into the Austro Hungarian empire as a province.
Unfortunately the Russians, for reasons that have never been explained, decided
they would protect Serbia
from Austrian aggression. The Austrians
looked to their German ally for support, and they got it. "I'm 1000% behind Austria"
was the tone of the German reply. Germany
was run by a nincompoop emperor in those days.
A more developed state would have a foreign office, an effective
parliament, and various other institutions of government, that would prevent a
single klutz from leading the entire nation into war, especially a war over a
worthless piece of real estate like Serbia.
None of the leaders
of the time had any understanding of how the industrial revolution had
increased the populations, the economies,
and the will to fight all over Europe. The European great powers were able to field
million man armies, where as the last serious war, the US Civil War, General Grant only had 100,000 men under his
command at Appomattox. Ten times the
manpower, and armed with small arms so good we still use them today. After the war, all the surviving leaders of
1914 said that if they had known how bad the war would be, they never would
have allowed it to break out.
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