So roughly 100 years ago, Most of Europe was coming apart. After Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in a comedy of errors, and a little over a month of Nervous jockeying and posturing, the Allies and the Central Powers got around to all declaring war on one another.
The Great War found new inventions brought to the battlefield, and a new, gruesome face to war. Machine guns, defensive earthworks, miles of trenches, tanks, and poison gas all contributed to the massive death toll.
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| Joe Sacco's drawing of the Battle of the Somme from his book: The Great War |
The Early portion was about maneuver, as was the tail end of the war in the Western Front. The Italian front wasn't as static, and neither was the fighting in the Levant, and Ottoman Theatres.
The Great War also saw some brilliant espionage and sabotage. Like Freeing Lenin from jail, giving his subversives money, and sending them home to Russia to ferment revolution amidst the discontent caused by war. This would effectively take Russia out of the War. Brilliant stroke of luck and strategy.
The Great War is a part of history that a lot of Americans know little about. It's an interesting time period, that affected Europe in very lasting ways.
With the 100yr anniversary, Take some time to learn, play some games about the Great War.
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The First World War is one of those things that's just too big to fully comprehend. The scale of the destruction and suffering is just too vast to take in. It's like those diagrams of the universe where they start with the entire earth and scale out. At some point your mind just recoils and you lose focus completely.
ReplyDeleteDan Carlin's series on it is really amazing though. I'd really recommend it to anyone who likes learning about history. It's great for lots of reasons but what really chills me is how terribly /sensible/ all the choices are. And yet it all leads into senseless mayhem.
http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive
I've got to agree. The Great War was HUGE. The scale of resources and manpower involved even on a single front is boggling, let alone the multiples of fronts.
ReplyDeleteI remember a good PBS Series I watched on the Great War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtdSoeYQYk
I could only find the first and second in the series. I believe there were 5.
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/
You're right. so much seemed like sensible choices, and still led to so much senseless destruction and death.
It's ironic that Kaiser Wilhelm played as a kid with his cousins, the British royalty, and had a lot of fun on holiday with them.