World War I began 100 years ago this month
Almost everyone is very familiar with WWII due to the hundreds of movies and the fact that most have fathers or grandfathers who fought in that cataclysm. Less well-known but no less interesting is what was called at the time "The Great War" and only later relegated to simply being described as World War I. This war and its results set the stage for most of the events for the rest of the 20th century and some are still with us today. Here are some examples.
The empires of four great powers were destroyed: The Hohenzollern German Empire, the Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary, the Romanov Empire of Russia, and the Ottoman Empire of Turkey. New states were formed in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most of the modern Middle East.
The emergence of the United States as a superpower and later the other superpower of the Communist Soviet Union.
Set the stage for the rise of Adolf Hitler and his genocidal murder of millions. The devastating loss of an entire generation of young men led to the pacifism of England and France which allowed Germany to gobble up smaller neighbors until finally beginning to fight in 1939.
It was the first genuine world war and total war utilizing armies of millions and requiring the wartime production of many more millions of civilians.
First widespread use of new military technology on the land, sea, and air. On land, millions were slaughtered with machine guns, flamethrowers, poison gas, portable powerful mortars, tanks and motorized transport, and rifled artillery of unimaginable power and accuracy. On the sea were submarines and huge dreadnought battleships. In the air were now thousands of fighter planes and the first bombing of civilian populations from the air with aerial bombers and airships.
The establishment of the forerunner of the United Nations in the form of the League of Nations.
If this stimulates interest by the history buffs on NT, every Saturday I plan on posting a short summary of the War's progression each week 100 years ago.
''The war to end all wars'', well that has pretty much been disproven.
Sounds like a great project pokermike. I, for one, will be interested in your weekly summary.
There is much to be learned from studying history . Please continue Mike .
Thanks for the support guys.
I think in a addition to a short summary of the week's events beginning in 1914, I will flesh it out a little with one or two interesting stories related to those events.
Major kudos and a tip of the Swami's turbanfor this project, poker!!! Great idea for a series, particularly of an era that has major impact & implications in the current geopolitical arena. I stumbled into WWI kind of bass-ackwards from the ME, looking the emergence of Iraq as conceived by the victorious colonialist powers.
Realized I hadn't ever (duh) managed the connection between "WWI" as the great European boondoggle )& the collapse of Germany & Austria-Hungary) and the 'other side' of the coin-- the result of the disintegration of the Romanov & Ottoman empires. Either I slept through that part of World History or some things were 'glossed over', whatever...
Looking forward to seeing more from you on this one, Mike.
Look forward to more.
We can salute the last American veteran of World War I who passed away in 2011 at the age of 110 years, 26 days:
Corporal Frank Buckles, U.S. Army (enlisted at 16 in 1917)
You might be on to something Fish.
Just joking JR. No offense intended.