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7 days first WWI series
07-31-2014, 06:52 PM
I never understood why WWI happened. WWII is easy to understand since it was mostly due to the insanity of Hitler.
Anyway this series from BBC describes the events prior to the war. Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/37_Days_(TV_series)
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7 days first WWI series
07-31-2014, 07:06 PM
Dang can't find it free anywhere.
Fate whispers to the warrior, "You cannot withstand the storm." And the warrior whispers back, "I am the storm."
Women and children can be careless, but not men - Don Corleone
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7 days first WWI series
07-31-2014, 07:43 PM
WWII wasn't as simple as one man being insane. Hitler captured the German people's minds with his promise to avenge the utter humiliation suffered by the Germans through the treaty of Versaille. Imagine if the US was forced to cede Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Texas to Mexico, as well as pay crippling reparations to the point where our people were burning dollars to keep warm, all because we were called into battle through a convoluted system of alliances and royal marriages to defend Nicaragua. Europe was a clusterfuck.
The series seems really cool. You hardly ever see anything about World War I, since people like to hear about our ideological battles against Fascism.
Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
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7 days first WWI series
07-31-2014, 08:11 PM
A lot of the causes of WWI stem from events in Europe that took place mostly in the 19th century (basically from Napoleon's downfall and onward). You had plenty of European nationalist movements, some major wars between European powers (Crimean, Franco-Prussian, etc.), a new age of imperialism, and several shifts in the so-called "balance of power" that was established after the Congress of Vienna.
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7 days first WWI series
07-31-2014, 08:23 PM
I watched the séries on tv. WWI seemed to be an ego fight between nations. Germany was allied to Austria. An Austrian was killed by Serbs. In response austrians had to punish this act. But since Serbs were protected by Russia. And Russia had an aliance with France who also had an aliance with britain. Atacking the Serbs meant indirectly atacking this countries. It looked has a Mikado game.
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7 days first WWI series
08-01-2014, 06:50 AM
As far as I have understood - WW1 is hard for us to understand because the people back then had totally different experience and expectations as of what a war is.
Before WW1 world was much less globalized and more national. People took pride in fighting for their country. But the main reason nobody imagined that a war will be so terrible is because people thought that war will be short, glorious, noble and brave. It was anything but, because of the new technologies that people did not knew because they just got invented.
WW1 was the first war with widespread use of automatic weapons, tanks, landmines, aircraft. Explosives were bigger faster and deadlier then ever before. We now know that 20th century warfare was a meat grinder, but before that people still thought of war as of something less lethal and more adventurous, as of something where soldiers skills actually mattered and you still held your life in control if you just were a good fighter. Therefore people did less to avoid war and entered into war for reasons that we would find too small for entering a war, because in our understanding a war is something much more horrible than it was in theirs.
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7 days first WWI series
08-02-2014, 05:49 PM
If anyone is wondering why France would jump into this war based on indirect alliances to Serbia, it is because of revanchism. They wanted to regain the alsace Lorraine region that was lost during the Franco-Prussian war, and along with England wanted to strip Germany of its colonial possessions to extend their own empires.
Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.