Six on WW I: The Great War’s Unfinished Agenda; WWI battles that levelled East Africa; The two great battles of the Greek arm
philip panaritis
"Isolationism, and its associated retreat from the moral dividends of victory after World War I led to the far worse, historical catastrophe of World War II. Following World War I, the United States did not stand with its European partners to resist Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. To add insult to injury, in one of the greater moral failings in modern history, the US refused to admit but a trickle of legitimate refugees from political terror into our safe embrace.
And yet, we walk the same path now, knowing full well the darkness into which tolerating or abetting anti-democratic authoritarianism leads the world. Multilateralism, through the promotion of democracy, free trade, freedom of religion and speech with the United States and our democratic European, Asian, ANZAC and African allies firmly in the lead politically and morally, can and does create a stable base for a peaceful and progressive world.
The 1920 Treaty of Versailles forced the complete assumption of guilt upon the newly created and ill-fated German Republic, a dodgy assignation that led to the rise of Nazi Germany. This powder keg reignited quickly and powerfully in Europe, but the errors have also fostered slower burning fires that continue to flare up even 100 years later. Other World War I-era agreements, treaties, and mandates have led to ongoing ethnic, religious, and political tensions due to unilateral and haphazard border drawing. Turks and Kurds still struggle with the unbalanced outcomes of the 1920 Treaty of Sevrès and 1923 Treat of Lausanne; Israelis and Palestinians with the 1917 Balfour Declaration; the Syrians with 1920 Mandate for Syria and Lebanon. Even if it takes another 100 years, the world community needs to continue to talk to resolve these and other unsatisfying legacies of World War I and seek mutually just compromises.
"Amid all the usual patriotic cant from politicians, imperialists and churchmen about the glories of this slaughter, remember that World War I was a contrived conflict that was totally avoidable. Contrary to the war propaganda that still clouds and corrupts our historical view, World War I was not started by Imperial Germany.
Professor Christopher Clark in his brilliant book, `The Sleepwalkers’ shows how officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia’s murder of Austro-Hungary’s Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the world’s surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary’s South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia’s desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion.
Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then Europe’s leader in social justice.
Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted ‘On to Berlin’ or ‘On to Paris.’
Few at the time understood the impending horrors of modern war or the geopolitical demons one would release. The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp foretaste of the 1914 conflict, but Europe’s grandees paid scant attention.
Even fewer grasped how the collapse of the antiquated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires would send Europe and the Mideast into dangerous turmoil that persists to our day."
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
