Bosnian Serbs erect statue to Gavrilo Princip

[Simon_Jester]

Among the many fundamental points of disagreement I have with Stas here, I think I'd like to point out one in particular: the idea that wars fought to national destruction within the metropoles of the large empires are a linear outgrowth of wars fought over limited objectives on the peripheries of the empires. That once the periphery is divided up, all wars necessarily become wars of total destruction.

I disagree with this, because the evidence does not support it. In many places and times, the empires do not fight to the death until only one remains. Empires can come into contact and remain in contact without having to wage all-out, do-or-die campaigns of mutual conquest, even if there is bloody friction at the join between the two... and sometimes there is not even that.

Granted, empires usually do this for mutual security against a common threat. Britain and France, Britain and Russia, Britain and Japan in the WWI era, all were examples of cases where any potential colonial squabbles were brought to a halt due to a single nation presenting a common threat.

But there is ample precedent for the idea that empires can coexist (mostly) peaceably; the mere existence of multiple empires does not guarantee that they will fight.

In Korea we did a similar thing by erecting a statue for Ahn Jung-geun who's claim to fame is having murdered japanese resident general Itoh Hirobumi. It's just as dumb as both Itoh and Franz-Ferdinand were moderating and compromising voices whose death made everything worse. Neither deserves a monument and it's clear it's just spite that's behind them anyway.

Did killing Hirobumi touch off an apocalyptic war that killed tens of millions, which in turn touched off a second apocalyptic war that killed tens of millions?

If not, then the Bosnians are on a whole different level of stupid than the Koreans.

I voted "No", but honestly that's mostly because I don't think he is worthy of adulation per se. However, I think a monument to him is important for historical reasons. But it is possible to memorialize without glorifying.

^this. Here is a man who quite literally made history. Not in a good way, but he deserves to be remembered if not revered.

Well, he's got Herostratic fame if nothing else.

Thing is, building a statue of someone isn't remembering them, it's revering them. There's a reason even the Germans don't have statues of Adolf Hitler, or the Italians statues of Mussolini.

[Someone will probably now link to a counterexample of an Italian statue of Mussolini. Nevertheless, you know what I mean]

Franz Ferdinand's life is irrelevant (as an aristocrat, he probably deserved to feel the wrath through a bullet).

Do you think it best to take such a stance, in a society which has an aristocracy? I question that. Progress away from aristocracy and imperialism can easily proceed in a much less bloody fashion and with less political chaos... in places where the old order doesn't expect to be massacred as part of the establishment of the new order.

If you tell a man with absolute power that you are going to do your best to murder him, his brothers, his wife, and his children, because of who they are,* because they were born into and inherited positions of responsibility, of course he is going to do his best to destroy you and everyone like you, without mercy. It's self-defense. And of course innocents will get caught in the crossfire.
__________________________________

*This is basically the message that, say, Franz Josef I of Austria got. He personally was targeted by assassins who came within a hand's breadth of killing him, his brother was killed by nationalists, his wife by anarchists, his nephew and heir by other nationalists, specifically Princip... what could he possibly be except a mortal enemy of all revolutionaries and all political change? Can you ask a man, not a king or a noble but just any two-legged rational animal of whatever rank, to cut his own throat, literally to cut his own throat, by surrendering to people who act this way toward him and his family?

Neither would his life stop a World War from happening, since it is the general trends and not isolated incidents which determine what happens. Titanic forces were at work, both Gavrilo and Franz totally irrelevant, a mere trigger for the loaded gun.

In which case, in light of the fact that this gun went off and killed so many millions that we struggle to count them all... should we be celebrating that trigger, or the finger that tightened to pull it?

Why not celebrate a plague bacillus too, arguing that all the people who died of the plague would have died anyway of something else later on?

We should laud as heroes those who avert the terrible destruction of war, and condemn those who provoke them, even if we happen to think that particular war might have happened some other way.

How was it not a period of tension?

Of course it was a period of tension, but that hardly means war was historically inevitable. A great war in Europe had already been averted in response to previous crises, more than once, and there were other forces in play that could change the balance of power to make it less viciously unstable.

If the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone nuclear, would we say that Khrushchev and Kennedy were somehow not to blame? Such an attitude is nonsense.

And at the same time, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we stepped back from the blink. The great powers began downsizing their nuclear arsenals and seeking rapprochement in the 1970s. The risk of nuclear war receded.

So by avoiding the immediate crisis, time was bought for the situation to cool down. Who can now say that this wouldn't have happened in Europe of 1915-20?

Ferdinand might have ascended to the throne and ushered in his policies of turning the empire into a federation of several ethnicities.

As we know, this doesn't help much: even the US, a Republic from the start, participated in lots of colonial wars, in the bloodbath in China and finally both World Wars.

Was there war between Hungarians and Germans within the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Was one oppressed by the other? I argue 'no,' the Hungarians wielded great political influence within the state after they were incorporated under the Dual Monarchy.

Reimagining the Empire as a multi-ethnic federation might not have made it democratic, but it would at least grant representation to many of the minorities you argue were oppressed by the empire, reducing the level of imperialism. It would also make it more plausible that any minorities which wished of their own accord to leave could do so peaceably, without resulting in the whole region becoming "balkanized" into a shattered mass of individually helpless nations permanently at each other's throats.

I am talking about a way to avoid the ethnic bloodshed that followed much of the dissolution of the empire.

How exactly is this going to stop the bloody path of imperialism, though? If not there - then elsewhere.

Except that the World Wars did not stop imperialism either.

They simply turned the slow oppressive cruelty of traditionalist imperialism into the more vicious cruelty of fascist imperialism. And the bloody purges of the communist regimes that emerged in the region. And the almost incalculable, staggering wreckage and death of the two world wars in which entire districts and nations were utterly laid waste, all infrastructure destroyed throughout a continent-sized area, millions of able-bodied men thrown away for nothing, the entire productive capacity of the great industrial nations devoted for roughly a decade of combined time to no end save destruction.

HOW IS THIS AN IMPROVEMENT?

[Metahive]

Did killing Hirobumi touch off an apocalyptic war that killed tens of millions, which in turn touched off a second apocalyptic war that killed tens of millions?

If not, then the Bosnians are on a whole different level of stupid than the Koreans.

Well, if one's purely comparing the effect it had for the country they comitted the deed for then Korea was worse off since Serbia didn't end up someone else's slave colony for 36 years. But I didn't make the argument that both were on the same global level anyway, just that neither deserves veneration since both not only failed to improve the situation for their homecountry but arguably made it worse.

[K. A. Pital]

I think I'd like to point out one in particular: the idea that wars fought to national destruction within the metropoles of the large empires are a linear outgrowth of wars fought over limited objectives on the peripheries of the empires. That once the periphery is divided up, all wars necessarily become wars of total destruction.

I disagree with this, because the evidence does not support it. In many places and times, the empires do not fight to the death until only one remains. Empires can come into contact and remain in contact without having to wage all-out, do-or-die campaigns of mutual conquest, even if there is bloody friction at the join between the two... and sometimes there is not even that.

World War I wasn't a fight to the death from the start. Even campaigns with limited objectives can have a high death toll. It is a function of industry of war, not exactly of war itself: most pre-modern wars tend to have a lower deathtoll due to the absence of industrial warfare itself. The problem of industrial warfare remains regardless of whether you are fighting anohter empire 'to the death' or merely fighting what you think is a local war, with limited objectives. How are the millions of dead Vietnamese anyhow different from millions of dead Germans? One was a fight to destroy an empire; another a 'local war', a 'proxy war', a 'colonial conflict'. And so? What you are saying is that the vector of imperial aggression could be redirected elsewhere. That is true. But due to the industrialization of war, the place where that aggression is redirected to is bound to suffer casualties in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps in the millions when it escalates.

But there is ample precedent for the idea that empires can coexist (mostly) peaceably; the mere existence of multiple empires does not guarantee that they will fight.

Pre-industrial coexistence of Empires was a necessity - being unable to use industry for total war, an Empire had to plan carefully what they could feasibly do with the rather limited military means; the industrial war period coexistence was not like this at all. In fact, the entire period of industrial warfare was, pretty much, a rush to the top with conquest of the world itself as one would do in a simplistic RTS like Hearts of Iron; when they ran out of places to conquer, it became a vicious fight between blocs; blocs collapsed, reformed, collapsed again, until there were two: the US and Russian spheres. Eventually the latter one collapsed, and just one remained; but it was a transient phenomenon, and now new blocs form here and there as new countries get more power.

But even if Empires coexist 'peacefully', they will attack some other places - which, in the age of industrial war, will mean millions of dead just the same, simply in another place. An Empire, especially one driven by racist expansionist ideologies of European, or general Christian or Islamic dominance, cannot refrain from expanding. Which they all were.

Thing is, building a statue of someone isn't remembering them, it's revering them. There's a reason even the Germans don't have statues of Adolf Hitler, or the Italians statues of Mussolini.

But hey, we do have statues of Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas. And Ottoman officials in Turkey. How about this, huh? Why does a person who could never forsee the conflict formally arising from this tiny spark, not deserve to be remembered, while despicable pieces of shit like Willy, Nicky and the others, e. g. Clemenceau, deserve memorials and statues? People who actually commanded the millions to die, people who actually transformed their nations into total war machines hellbent on one goal only: murder. These people deserve to be remembered as statesmen, yes sir! And the soldiers, the good old soldiers who mindlessly followed orders one after another going down into the meatgrinder! They, the trained murderers of the State, deserve remembrance! But a rebel who killed an official? No sir! No remembrance to that person! Because he was at fault: not Willy, Nicky and the other "enlightened leader" that actually commanded the fucking bloodbath to happen and continued to send people into the "bath of blood" until the fucking ran out of bodies and were either demoted or outright executed by their OWN CITIZENS, but a lone guy shooting some official is the REAL REASON for war.

Don't you all fucking see how preposterous that is? You hypocrites, having memorials to Nicky, Willy, Clemenceau and Woodrow, while saying that the one guy who had no power to command armies and who did not, in fact, command these armies to attack each other, is at fault. Not the militarists who created the monster! Not the overlords that commanded Cerberus to attack! No. They are absolved.

Do you think it best to take such a stance, in a society which has an aristocracy? I question that.

Well, for one thing, it is the inheritance of power that produced irresponsible, power- and war-hungry monarchic regimes that were the classical Empires. Power should not be inherited. Much less absolute power.

It's self-defense. And of course innocents will get caught in the crossfire.

Every major Empire should have a Cromwell or a Lenin; the cycle of 'we let them RULE, cause otherwise it may be WORSE' should be broken. Otherwise the people will continue to take inheritance of power as the norm. That is a much more dangerous development than blood spilled in wars. And why? Because it stops critical thinking.

In which case, in light of the fact that this gun went off and killed so many millions that we struggle to count them all... should we be celebrating that trigger, or the finger that tightened to pull it?

Well, the trigger is a mere instrument. But you seem to be fine with people still keeping the statues of all World War I leaders: the people who actually sent, who ordered untold millions to go and die for the economic interest of the few and the abstract concept of Empire. Whereas one person, who could not command anyone to go die, cannot be remembered? Are we then to forget Gavrilo, but keep naming aircraft carriers in honour of Clemenceau? Ships in Wilson's name? Streets in the Kaiser's name? Cities in the Czar's name?

Why not celebrate a plague bacillus too, arguing that all the people who died of the plague would have died anyway of something else later on?

Well, why don't you tell me why you consider Gavrilo a person who actually caused World War I, as opposed to the crazy militarists, bloodthirsty leaders and commanders and callous politicians? Is a lone Yugoslav really that powerful? He is the 'plague' - and not the Empires? Frankly, were it me, I would raze, and abolish, all symbols of Empire after World War I. I would honour the dead; those who died for the Empire, died for NOTHING. I would despise and remind people that the Empire was the true plague, the true Black Death; that Empire commanded them to die and kill. I would clearly break with the legacy of Empire; I would reject continuity with that government. Pretty much a sensible position, right?

We should laud as heroes those who avert the terrible destruction of war, and condemn those who provoke them, even if we happen to think that particular war might have happened some other way.

Well, so far it seems humans laud the very people who led them, like sheep, to the slaughterhouse. Who was 'averting war'? The power-hungry strategists, high on drugs after 'Great games' and 'Scrambles for Africa' (what innocent names for bloodspilling, may I note)? The soldiers, the willing executioners, who kept following orders and shelling trenches and gassing towns until there was nothing but death everywhere on the ground? Were these the people you'd like to have honoured? Because they are; there is a cult for them. For many: for the Imperial leaders, for the soldiers, for the Generals - the 'wise men'. For each of the actual guilty there is a cult of honour. And for one person who can't be faulted for a bloodbath that, in fact, entire nations and governments are guilty of, there shall not be memory?

Who can now say that this wouldn't have happened in Europe of 1915-20?

Because what is the fear? Even after World War I, the Empires did not think industrial warfare and total war are a huge and immediate threat that will end the world (unlike a nuclear war). Not the leaders die; the pawns die, the willing executioners. The governing have zero empathy for the government; all their words are lies, all that comes out of their corrupt lips.

It would also make it more plausible that any minorities which wished of their own accord to leave could do so peaceably, without resulting in the whole region becoming "balkanized" into a shattered mass of individually helpless nations permanently at each other's throats.

I am not saying that the Empire couldn't have dissolved in another fashion. But how is that relevant to the subject of world wars? Besides, Empires do not go away peacefully. Thanas and you say that World Wars accomplished nothing. It is not true. The Japanese and the British and Dutch Empires pretty much mutually self-destructed; freeing billions of people in the process. India, Indonesia, China, huge parts of Middle East and Africa. The process set in motion the initial successes of decolonization: paving the way for the dismantling of the French and Portuguese Empires. Is that not so? So I would not say the destruction of Empire serves no purpose. A continental and localized one, like the Austro-Hungarian, could have been an exemption. Would the British and Japanese Empire just cease to exist without mutual destruction? Without one being on the brink of bankruptcy and the other destroyed by warring powers? Would decolonization even happen at all in a world where the concept of Empire was never seriously challenged because no Empire collapsed?

Except that the World Wars did not stop imperialism either.

Except, as said above, the result is the exact opposite: imperialism took a very heavy blow after World War II; it was so heavy that most authors, even from the left, said that it ceased to exist. Some Western scholars even spoke about the end of imperialism; classical imperialism at least, which is the thing that gave us Empires which commited themselves to two world wars. Others invented the term 'neoimperialism', which also clearly meant that original imperialism is over. The destruction of largest Empires; the concept of formal independence, weakening influence - all this happened primarily because of the World Wars. The keyword of the Cold War was 'satellite state'. The keyword of the preceding period war COLONY, for fuck's sake. The keyword of the post-cold war world is an even softer yet 'sphere of influence'. Now how different is the world, is it not?

And the almost incalculable, staggering wreckage and death of the two world wars in which entire districts and nations were utterly laid waste, all infrastructure destroyed throughout a continent-sized area, millions of able-bodied men thrown away for nothing, the entire productive capacity of the great industrial nations devoted for roughly a decade of combined time to no end save destruction.

Yes; maybe because it was high time for the 'great industrial nations' to consider that they were shit and behaving like shit to begin with. Maybe because the 'great industrial nations' never were that 'great' to begin with, they were great at killing, conquering and enslaving others? Maybe because it paved the way for over one billion people to be freed from the 'great industiral nations' and their higher-race overseers? Have you thought about that?

World War I and World War II turned this:


Into this:


Now, if any of you guys think the first map is normal and allright, and the people in charge of those blots deserve to be honoured because... uh... because they what, tried to prevent World War - either I or II? No, that's not so. But in any case, if you think the first map's normal and nothing actually changed, I guess we'll never agree.

[Thanas]

The complexity of social systems is no different from the complexity of other system. We still cannot predict many things about turbulence, for example. But if you know the general underlying principles, at least partly, you can understand more than if you treat history as simply a collection of events, each of which could be removed by altering some minor details. This approach, in fact, is ahistorical.

I disagree. Turbulence works alongside natural laws. Once these laws are researched, we can predict them 100%.

We cannot say the same for human action.

I am not making assumption: I am saying that if it is simply trying to prove readiness, it would have a hard time dealing with very simple facts. Like this:

With the start of the First World War on August 1, 1914, the German chemicals industry faced immediate and radical changes. First, companies could no longer import the raw materials they urgently needed; second, they increasingly shifted their activities to weapons production. Once the positional war on the Western Front began in September 1914, it became clear that Germany was not ready for a long war and possessed no raw materials reserves.
...
Late September 1914 saw a meeting between Carl Bosch, the second ranking executive of BASF, and representatives of the War Ministry. Aiming for a solution to the saltpeter shortage, the military hoped it would be possible to develop a process for industrial creation of nitric acid (which in turn is used in making saltpeter) from synthetic ammonia. Bosch gave the high command assurances that it was possible to oxidize ammonia into nitric acid on an industrial scale. This became known as the “saltpeter promise,” and it signaled a commitment by the chemical industry to the arms industry.

So I am not exactly sure how this could be twisted into 'they started the war knowing it will last for years'. Looks more like 'maybe they wouldn't have done it if they knew it would last for years'.

That depends, they might very well have gone along with the hope for a quick victory even if they knew the means to do so were not there. Heck, Moltke launched Schlieffen despite being very pessimistic about it. I do not see the huge contradiction in people doing something they know has little chance of success if they also happen to think that unless they act now all chance will be gone.

Even the very dissolution of Austro-Hungary does not necessarily mean Germany and Austria won't combine efforts. As it did not mean this IRL, when the Third Reich annexed Austria. 'Crowns laying in dust and nobody even caring to pick them up' is a temporary phenomenon, which lasts only a limited amount of time. When one empire falls, blood will be spilt taking over its remains; needless to remind you how coalitions repeatedly attacked the weaker Empires (Russia, China, Ottomans). Low casualties of wars was only a function of their pre-industrial nature, limited scale and time.

Against a coordinated France and Russia? No way. Germany leapt to the aid of Austria because they believed they would lose their ally. If their ally is gone, any war would be outside the boundaries of reason. They went to war to safeguard their last ally and prevent isolation. If they are isolated already, then they would most likely fall into a defensive, not offensive posture.

Sure enough, none of the imperialist powers operated without contraditions. France could go to war over the colonies. So could Britain. With any of the up-and-coming Empires - Japanese, Russian... What would produce a massive and deadly war? A clash of industrialized Empires. If there'd be more of them (which is what happened in reality), the chances of war grow, they don't somehow evaporate. Tearing Russia apart created enough casualties on its own; the Civil War and intervention by the Entente was quite deadly. Removing Britain? If not with Russia, they would sooner or later be fighting Japan. Let's imagine the blocs fall apart. This only means that after some local conflicts to delineate colonial spheres new blocs would form; Britain would necessarily be part of one of them, since it would want a leading role in a sizeable alliance and wouldn't want to be on its own.

Maybe, or they would go back to the same system that had existed for close to a hundred years before WWI. In comparison to the slaughter of WWI, that one is infinitely more preferrable. Heck, just having one less nation get involved in the slaughter of WWI - no matter which of the grand powers - would be an enormous reaction in casualties.

While there's ground to carve for everyone? Sure. When the ground runs out, it is either a grand alliance against some other alliance (which means the possibility of an even more massive war later), or direct war. You asked about the finale of the Grand Game between Russia and Britain in the Middle East - you were quite right. Had there been no other powers but Russia and Britain, no alliances to make against some powerful other, it would be war. Industrial and deadly, had it happened not in the XIX century but sometime in the early XX one.

No, that does not necessarily follow. Not when considering the many colonial crisis that were resolved peacefully before WWI. Heck, the marocco crisis was resolved peacefully. The Congress of Berlin resolved disputes. Really, widespread slaughter is the exeption, not the norm.

Don't you all fucking see how preposterous that is? You hypocrites, having memorials to Nicky, Willy, Clemenceau and Woodrow, while saying that the one guy who had no power to command armies and who did not, in fact, command these armies to attack each other, is at fault. Not the militarists who created the monster! Not the overlords that commanded Cerberus to attack! No. They are absolved.

I don't think you will find either Simon or me advocating for erecting memorials to all of those, so you can stick that humongous strawman and smoke it.

Every major Empire should have a Cromwell or a Lenin; the cycle of 'we let them RULE, cause otherwise it may be WORSE' should be broken. Otherwise the people will continue to take inheritance of power as the norm. That is a much more dangerous development than blood spilled in wars. And why? Because it stops critical thinking.

I remain unconvinced that the slaughter of millions is the only and the best way to get rid of an aristocracy and feelings of Imperialism. Plenty of nations managed to do so without.

Well, so far it seems humans laud the very people who led them, like sheep, to the slaughterhouse.

Another strawman.

Thanas and you say that World Wars accomplished nothing. It is not true. The Japanese and the British and Dutch Empires pretty much mutually self-destructed; freeing billions of people in the process.

That was more a by-product of economical means, keeping the colonies was just way too costly. Britain also started the process of devolving the Empire before the Second World War. If they wanted to hold on to economically viable colonies, they did so. It simply became more economical to just prop up dictators and exploit the people that way instead of ruling them directly.

[Ultonius]

However, as far as I know the oppression of the Northern Irish Catholics did cease, which I suspect was the main goal all along for the individual members if not the organization as a whole. And from what I understand, the IRA started switching to political activities in the 1980's and their last major attacks were not intended to cause any casualties, in fact, from what I understand they notified authorities and journalists prior to the attacks to ensure evacuations were performed. If you have evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it.

The Civil Rights Movement was peacefully campaigning for full civil rights for Catholics years before the Troubles began, and had persuaded the Northern Ireland government to announce the introduction of universal suffrage in 1969. If the Provisional IRA had not muddied the waters by rioting and attacking British soldiers, full civil rights might have been achieved with much less bloodshed and bitterness on all sides.

[K. A. Pital]

I disagree. Turbulence works alongside natural laws. Once these laws are researched, we can predict them 100%. We cannot say the same for human action.

Actually, I am sure that even if we research nature to the best possible extent, chaos will still allow us to make only probabilistic predictions. Such as, with probability so-and-so approximately in zone so-and-so, such and such will happen. That's an inherent limitation. Same goes for humans. Our model of reality was very crude (Newtonian mechanics), but it still predicted a lot of stuff. Our model of history is very crude and sometimes sucks at prediction, but the first step towards science is to stop treating it like a series of isolated events. Frankly, I'm amazed I have to explain this to you and Simon.

How many times the nobility were assiassinated or attempted to be assassinated? Pretty damn lots of times! In fact, targeted assassinations were the norm in the early XX century. So what? That particular one was somehow different? Really? Looks like nothing but blame-shifting to me, and blame-shifting it is.

That depends, they might very well have gone along with the hope for a quick victory even if they knew the means to do so were not there.

So? My point stands: they did not expect the war to last very long, at first. There was a feeling of recklessness, intoxication from the successes of industrialization and industrial conquest of colonies. Yes, of course Moltke launched the Schlieffen plan. Not Gavrilo Princip. Willy, Nicky and the lot started the war. Not the Yugoslav. And to be fair, the mentality of 'we have one chance which will be gone...' is a very dangerous type of thinking, which was prevalent among the racist Empires of yesterday, each of which had its own idea of why its nation was the best, and why and how it had some sort of Manifest Destiny. If not today, then... What? Nothing. All these millions died for nothing. For nichts. Zero.

Against a coordinated France and Russia? No way. Germany leapt to the aid of Austria because they believed they would lose their ally. If their ally is gone, any war would be outside the boundaries of reason. They went to war to safeguard their last ally and prevent isolation. If they are isolated already, then they would most likely fall into a defensive, not offensive posture.

Austria is worthless from an industrial viewpoint; this will be even more clear as Germany continues its industrialization, which was not fed by colonies and therefore had an impetus to continue even with pure internal resources and manpower. "They would most likely" is the thinking that led to World War II: 'a weak Germany won't attack!' Sure. Yep. Totally believable.

Maybe, or they would go back to the same system that had existed for close to a hundred years before WWI.

Do you even realize how non-professional this sounds? That's like saying people will go to slavery now. No. They won't. Because it's impossible! The material circumstances, the production chains, everything changed so much there's no way back, and in fact history works that way, there's no way to return if the social change already happened. Industrial and total war was already starting to become the norm in short campaigns around the world; it was only a matter of time until some smart ass realized you could get so much more if you converted a large share of industries to dual-use or install a huge monopoly that'd run war production. Nitrates, airplanes, artillery... You could get overwhelming amounts of that, and put them to use. A loaded gun, unless it's a doomsday gun, does not sit idly.

Heck, just having one less nation get involved in the slaughter of WWI - no matter which of the grand powers - would be an enormous reaction in casualties.

Let's say we removed one nation from World War I. How do you even know that this removal won't result in a different scenario for the war? A more prolonged one, perhaps, like in Years of Rice and Salt, which I find one of the few good AH experiments out there. Maybe the countries will have a longer industrial war, maybe that war goes over the oceans. What then?

Not when considering the many colonial crisis that were resolved peacefully before WWI.

And not when considering that almost no colonial crises has been 'solved peacefully' after industrialization of war. Name me a few. Because I don't give two shits about the pastorale of pre-industrial society: like I said above, it is the logic of the industrialization of war that will see to the slaughter. Not World War I? Then Colonial World War One, where untold millions will die. Maybe fast; maybe over the course of many years. But it will happen. Vietnam war had as many casualties, mostly civilians, as Germany in World War I. But it was just one limited conflict. How is that preferrable?

I don't think you will find either Simon or me advocating for erecting memorials to all of those, so you can stick that humongous strawman and smoke it.

Really? Well, you came to a thread to deride the stupidity of a tiny nation. Damn right, they're stupid for making a statue of a person who didn't send millions to die. What about those then?


How about Germany and Russia go on and remove these obnoxious figures before deriding people to remembering someone who couldn't really command people to kill each other; it was the people, and their leaders, who did it in the end. Nobody asked them to; if they were foolish enough to follow their leaders into a bloodbath and if their leaders were so callous as to expend millions of lives for their 'Empires', then I say it's logical. And if the memorials to those people still stand, or are erected, well... Fucktards who never learn from history are bound to repeat the mistakes and get another massive Darwin award!

I remain unconvinced that the slaughter of millions is the only and the best way to get rid of an aristocracy and feelings of Imperialism. Plenty of nations managed to do so without.

Actually, no. There were no nations that 'managed to do so without'. All Empires either perished in preceding colonial conflicts, weakened, or were smashed during World Wars II and I which caught most of the Empires and left them in shambles.

I would also note that World War I would never have happened, unless people kept fanatically supporting their BEST COUNTRY for several years in a quest of total kill. But that's the paradox: unless there was a war that demonstrated the danger of reckessly believeing your Leaders, people would still believe them. As we know the leaders were simply shortsighted callous tyrants or populists, who extinguished tens of millions of lives without even flinching, so it is a necessary pre-requisite to make sure World War X never happens.

One world war was not enough to do it; maybe its just a function of human shortsightedness in general. Maybe people are so stupid and gullible, in fact, they deserve to be killed in the millions by their favorite God-Emperors. But in this case the only solution lies through the weakening of Empires to such an extent that industrial warfare of that scale becomes infeasible.

Another strawman.

Not in the least. Just look above.

That was more a by-product of economical means, keeping the colonies was just way too costly. Britain also started the process of devolving the Empire before the Second World War. If they wanted to hold on to economically viable colonies, they did so. It simply became more economical to just prop up dictators and exploit the people that way instead of ruling them directly.

A falsehood - in the immediate post-war years Britain benefitted from the Empire. Britain started decolonizing because it was almsot bankrupted by the war, and without American help would have likely gone totally bust; there were food rations until the mid-1950s, dammit, even the USSR removed them faster, apparently. Britain was getting money out of the colonies, but at some point the human and economic cost of potential war (which, I think, many realized could happen since Britain control in territories that already felt freedom never was as strong as it was before the war(s)) outweighed the benefits. Besides, military costs do tend to be higher than ordinary financial burdens because they also require specific resources. Especially in India. The other Empires - Dutch, French, Portuguese - demonstrated that in fact, the normal course is to wage bloody wars to keep the colonies. The torturous and murderous wars in Vietnam and Algeria, the slow and painful bleeding of Portuguese Colonial war, the Dutch 'by product of economic means' in Indonesia - it is all an example of how in fact there was nothing benigh in the behaviour of European powers unless they felt too weak to continue holding to their possessions.

[Thanas]

Actually, I am sure that even if we research nature to the best possible extent, chaos will still allow us to make only probabilistic predictions. Such as, with probability so-and-so approximately in zone so-and-so, such and such will happen. That's an inherent limitation. Same goes for humans. Our model of reality was very crude (Newtonian mechanics), but it still predicted a lot of stuff.

Again, humans are not rational things like humidity or air density. Your model would have to account for individualism to the point that it would require telepathy.

Our model of history is very crude and sometimes sucks at prediction, but the first step towards science is to stop treating it like a series of isolated events.

BS. That does not apply to history. In fact, you appear to have failed the last thirty years or so of history with people abandoning huge concepts in favor of talking about specific circumstances.

Frankly, I'm amazed I have to explain this to you and Simon.

That might be because your "model" is completely without any basis in fact and without any support from any leading historian I know.

How many times the nobility were assiassinated or attempted to be assassinated? Pretty damn lots of times! In fact, targeted assassinations were the norm in the early XX century. So what? That particular one was somehow different? Really? Looks like nothing but blame-shifting to me, and blame-shifting it is.

WTF are you on about? Nobody is saying that this assassination - as an assassination attempt - was any different. The specific set of circumstances leading up to the Juli Crisis however were different and if you fail to recognize that then you got no place talking about things like certainty.

So? My point stands: they did not expect the war to last very long, at first. There was a feeling of recklessness, intoxication from the successes of industrialization and industrial conquest of colonies. Yes, of course Moltke launched the Schlieffen plan. Not Gavrilo Princip. Willy, Nicky and the lot started the war. Not the Yugoslav. And to be fair, the mentality of 'we have one chance which will be gone...' is a very dangerous type of thinking, which was prevalent among the racist Empires of yesterday, each of which had its own idea of why its nation was the best, and why and how it had some sort of Manifest Destiny. If not today, then... What? Nothing. All these millions died for nothing. For nichts. Zero.

Completely unrelated to anything I said. Oh, and Gavrilo Princip was the final straw in making the circumstances happen.

Austria is worthless from an industrial viewpoint; this will be even more clear as Germany continues its industrialization, which was not fed by colonies and therefore had an impetus to continue even with pure internal resources and manpower. "They would most likely" is the thinking that led to World War II: 'a weak Germany won't attack!' Sure. Yep. Totally believable.

Even if they attack, without the Austrian manpower they will lose. They knew that. The entente knew that. End of story. You might say that Austria was worthless from an industrial viewpoint, but they financed about one third of the war, were important for food imports and more importantly a good source for manpower. Without them binding the huge Russian Army in the east Germany would have lost very heavily. There would be no Tannenberg without Austria as the Russians would have marched on Berlin easily.

But then you probably think Russia was even worth less than Austria in the war.

Do you even realize how non-professional this sounds? That's like saying people will go to slavery now. No. They won't. Because it's impossible! The material circumstances, the production chains, everything changed so much there's no way back, and in fact history works that way, there's no way to return if the social change already happened. Industrial and total war was already starting to become the norm in short campaigns around the world; it was only a matter of time until some smart ass realized you could get so much more if you converted a large share of industries to dual-use or install a huge monopoly that'd run war production. Nitrates, airplanes, artillery... You could get overwhelming amounts of that, and put them to use. A loaded gun, unless it's a doomsday gun, does not sit idly.

And yet, unlike you seem to claim, there was no war during the marocco crisis. There was no war during the Nile crisis. There was no war during the Boer war. There was no war during the naval crisis. Your claim that armament automatically leads to war is just that - a pointless claim not evidenced by anything. Heck, right now a lot of nations are modernizing their forces. Yet nobody claims that China and the USA will go to war.

Let's say we removed one nation from World War I. How do you even know that this removal won't result in a different scenario for the war? A more prolonged one, perhaps, like in Years of Rice and Salt, which I find one of the few good AH experiments out there. Maybe the countries will have a longer industrial war, maybe that war goes over the oceans. What then?

I don't know rice and salt and try to stay away from AH. A longer industrial war however would have been impossible. Without Austria contributing Germany would have collapsed much sooner and vice versa. Even more, if you remove one nation then it might very well turn into a war like the Crimean war or the war of 1871. If Germany is gone, there is no war. If Austria is out, then the war does not start. If Russia is not in, the war does not happen. If it is just France and Britain against Germany and Austria, there is no war or if there is, it will not have the high casualties as the French and Brits pretty much took all they could handle anyway. If it is just France then we get 1871 redux. There is no way that there would be the huge millions of casualties among badly equipped troops like the Russians and Austrians fielded.

And not when considering that almost no colonial crises has been 'solved peacefully' after industrialization of war. Name me a few.

Colonial crisis between France and England over Egypt.
Marocco crisis.
Congress of Berlin (regarding balkans)
Congress of Berlin (regarding division of Africa).
All of those happened in the industrialized age, especially the crisis over Marocco.

I don't think you will find either Simon or me advocating for erecting memorials to all of those, so you can stick that humongous strawman and smoke it.

Really? Well, you came to a thread to deride the stupidity of a tiny nation. Damn right, they're stupid for making a statue of a person who didn't send millions to die. What about those then?

What I said was:

It is nationalism - the Bosnian serbs are bitter about the end of the Bosnian war. I doubt most of them even know a lot about the historical event, it is just a statue to make them feel strong and relevant by erecting a monument to a Serb killing what he believed to be unjust rulers.

I don't think you get what you think you got from my words. Kindly fuck off if you think I advocate a memorial for Wilhelm or the other idiots.

How about Germany and Russia go on and remove these obnoxious figures before deriding people to remembering someone who couldn't really command people to kill each other; it was the people, and their leaders, who did it in the end. Nobody asked them to; if they were foolish enough to follow their leaders into a bloodbath and if their leaders were so callous as to expend millions of lives for their 'Empires', then I say it's logical. And if the memorials to those people still stand, or are erected, well... Fucktards who never learn from history are bound to repeat the mistakes and get another massive Darwin award!

Right, because if there is one thing you can say about Germany it is that it has never learned from its history. You realize how stupid you sound, yes?

Actually, no. There were no nations that 'managed to do so without'. All Empires either perished in preceding colonial conflicts, weakened, or were smashed during World Wars II and I which caught most of the Empires and left them in shambles.

Really? No nations ever managed to devolve their colonies. Quick, somebody tell that to the Danes, Belgians who managed to hold on to their colonies for decades after WWII. And let us not even mention the British and French who held on to the economically worth it colonies for decades and then turned them over or were forced out.

I would also note that World War I would never have happened, unless people kept fanatically supporting their BEST COUNTRY for several years in a quest of total kill. But that's the paradox: unless there was a war that demonstrated the danger of reckessly believeing your Leaders, people would still believe them. As we know the leaders were simply shortsighted callous tyrants or populists, who extinguished tens of millions of lives without even flinching, so it is a necessary pre-requisite to make sure World War X never happens.

One world war was not enough to do it; maybe its just a function of human shortsightedness in general. Maybe people are so stupid and gullible, in fact, they deserve to be killed in the millions by their favorite God-Emperors. But in this case the only solution lies through the weakening of Empires to such an extent that industrial warfare of that scale becomes infeasible.

This is hilarious. Nothing was learned of World War I and II with regards to treatments of colonials. Heck, not even a majority of the nations involved were willing to concede that military means were not something to be employed in pursuit of their national interests.

A falsehood - in the immediate post-war years Britain benefitted from the Empire. Britain started decolonizing because it was almsot bankrupted by the war, and without American help would have likely gone totally bust; there were food rations until the mid-1950s, dammit, even the USSR removed them faster, apparently. Britain was getting money out of the colonies, but at some point the human and economic cost of potential war (which, I think, many realized could happen since Britain control in territories that already felt freedom never was as strong as it was before the war(s)) outweighed the benefits. Besides, military costs do tend to be higher than ordinary financial burdens because they also require specific resources. Especially in India. The other Empires - Dutch, French, Portuguese - demonstrated that in fact, the normal course is to wage bloody wars to keep the colonies. The torturous and murderous wars in Vietnam and Algeria, the slow and painful bleeding of Portuguese Colonial war, the Dutch 'by product of economic means' in Indonesia - it is all an example of how in fact there was nothing benigh in the behaviour of European powers unless they felt too weak to continue holding to their possessions.

The process you allude to (colonies being too costly to hold) was noted already well before WWI. Heck, the German colonies for one were never worth it and can only be regarded as a massive failure. If WWI caused colonial empires to go extinct, then why do they survive until well into the 60s? Did it maybe hasten the process? Maybe. Were 37 million war dead with another 50-100 million dead due to diseases that could not be combated effectively worth that? No. Not unless you can convincingly show me some numbers.

[K. A. Pital]

Again, humans are not rational things like humidity or air density. Your model would have to account for individualism to the point that it would require telepathy.

Not much more than needing to learn the quantum mechanics before having a crude understanding of how matter exists and interacts, no. Even though I don't know what's going on inside people's heads, I can be fairly certain that, except for a few suicidal ones, they will not en masse jump to their death on the railway track. So when people stand on the platform and a train is arriving, most of them, most of the time, will remain there. And only a select few will jump. See? Predicting behaviour is possible.

BS. That does not apply to history. In fact, you appear to have failed the last thirty years or so of history with people abandoning huge concepts in favor of talking about specific circumstances.

Yes, that's an awesome idea: let's abandon the scientific method because?.. Well then history's no science. Belongs to where creationism is. Actually, by saying we cannot say anything about human behaviour we are shitting not only on history as a science; we are shitting on behavioural studies as whole field. On the psychologists and neurophysiologists. Good idea! Instead of trying to be more scientific, let's go back to 'unpredictable voodoo'.

WTF are you on about? Nobody is saying that this assassination - as an assassination attempt - was any different. The specific set of circumstances leading up to the Juli Crisis however were different and if you fail to recognize that then you got no place talking about things like certainty.

No, no no. If the assassination is not reason for World War I, because there were many like it and even quite close, time-wise, to the even, then how can you even say that Princip was somehow at fault? For what? For not being a God Machine that knows with perfect certainity that the Emperors are crazy enough to kill millions in a continental war?

Completely unrelated to anything I said. Oh, and Gavrilo Princip was the final straw in making the circumstances happen.

As we already established that pretext does not equal cause, I see no reason to see it otherwise. Princip was a pretext; one of the thousands of possible pretexts. Key point: people were ready to go to war. Leaders were ready to go to war. In your version of history leaders sound even worse than mine; mine were at least somewhat misguided, yours were genocidal maniacs, fully knowing that war will drag for years and millions will perish... for bullshit. For the sky pixies in their god damn heads.

But then you probably think Russia was even worth less than Austria in the war.

Yes - like I said, Russia ran out of bodies by mid next year. Russia imported almost all high-end military technology from the West; its production for war in mere three years brought the agrarian nation to the brink of total collapse. You don't believe me? Well check with the facts, then. The collapsed civilian production/consumption during the war and that Russia was even less capable of attrition warfare that was hard for prime industrial powers is a well known fact.

And yet, unlike you seem to claim, there was no war during the marocco crisis. There was no war during the Nile crisis. There was no war during the Boer war. There was no war during the naval crisis. Your claim that armament automatically leads to war is just that - a pointless claim not evidenced by anything. Heck, right now a lot of nations are modernizing their forces. Yet nobody claims that China and the USA will go to war.

Because nuclear deterrents make war pointless. As in, very pointless. Much more pointless than it ever was. The amount of destruction that can be wrought is so staggering even fanatics would think twice, unless the goal is to end your country and that of your opponent. And maybe some bystander country. Unlike conventional deterrents. Which gave us two world wars. And you have to be kidding to bring up the Morrocan crisis - one of the crises that preceded World War I and served to more clearly delineate the Entente and Central powers blocs. "Armament" itself is pretty much pointless. Unless you want to use it. Weapons find a use for themselves. Note that crises happen quite often, so even if you remove a particular one, you cannot seriously say that it means two massive blocs which were on a collision course won't go to war later over another crisis. The militarism that was the underlying cause isn't going anywhere.

A longer industrial war however would have been impossible.

From 1937 to 49 China was in a state of industrial war. I am seriously wondering if you just make this stuff up.

There is no way that there would be the huge millions of casualties among badly equipped troops like the Russians and Austrians fielded.

Oh please. Just how long can you fight? Depends on the circumstances. On the leaders, on the fanaticism, on the population's docility. There are a lot of factors here which may turn even a war against a weak power into a never ending quagmire, like the Second Sino-Japanese war. You seem to be of the opinion that the Entente winning faster would produce less casualties? Well then the Russian and Japanese Empires were bound to collide in the East, producing the same millions of casualties and wrecking China in the process. Russia collapses? Japan continues; its good relations with the Entente only emboldened the Empire to go on a killing spree around South East Asia, and this did not start in one day by just waking up 'hey let's kill some dudes'.

No. Your only point is that certain parts of Europe may be spared from destruction, while some other places may be wrecked. Well, to me that's not a big deal.

Colonial crisis between France and England over Egypt.
Marocco crisis.
Congress of Berlin (regarding balkans)
Congress of Berlin (regarding division of Africa).
All of those happened in the industrialized age, especially the crisis over Marocco.

The Moroccan crisis was finally 'resolved' in World War I; one can say the resolution was merely postponed. But consider that the Russian-Japanese war was only the start. It paved the way for the understanding for Japan what industrial warfare looks like, gave it a taste of the weaknesses that needed to be eliminated to make an even more powerful war machine; leaders don't really realize what capabilities for warmaking they have at disposal until they get a taste of war. And they were getting it bit by bit. The intensification of contradictions is also important. Hell, for all we know the war could've started in 1911 with teh Agadir crisis. You want to paint a picture of responsible leaders; in fact those were irresponsible warmongers throwing matches around the world. Well one match eventually started a fire. And it would have, because they kept throwing the matches.

I don't think you get what you think you got from my words. Kindly fuck off if you think I advocate a memorial for Wilhelm or the other idiots.

So why do you object to a memorial to a person who couldn't have possibly known that Wilhelm and the others are either terminally stupid or exterminatively callous? What is the point?

Right, because if there is one thing you can say about Germany it is that it has never learned from its history. You realize how stupid you sound, yes?

Not stupid in the least: it took two world wars against industrial alliances that vastly outmatched Germany. In the timeframe of mere decades, I may note. It took the complete occupation, demolition of nation-state structures, and a specific denazification process that seeked to destroy and root out those spreading fascism and militarism.

Really? No nations ever managed to devolve their colonies. Quick, somebody tell that to the Danes, Belgians who managed to hold on to their colonies for decades after WWII. And let us not even mention the British and French who held on to the economically worth it colonies for decades and then turned them over or were forced out.

'Were forced out' or left the colony after decolonization was pretty much complete are not the same. Leaving colonies after understanding that they wouldn't be able to keep them anyway is inevitability. Leaving them after you have been forced out is likewise an inevitability. None of this signifies some sort of internally-originating desire to grant people self-rule. None at all.

This is hilarious. Nothing was learned of World War I and II with regards to treatments of colonials. Heck, not even a majority of the nations involved were willing to concede that military means were not something to be employed in pursuit of their national interests.

I said that World War I and II led to the collapse of Empires; not that they made the Empires more understanding and fluffy. The extremity of strain led the British Empire to final ruin after the Japanese Empire dealt it the death blow; but it also self-destructed by attacking powers too big to handle. World War I and II may have taught nothing, but they have implemented my final option: destroy Empires, make them incapable of maintaining rule over their former possessions.

The process you allude to (colonies being too costly to hold) was noted already well before WWI. Heck, the German colonies for one were never worth it and can only be regarded as a massive failure. If WWI caused colonial empires to go extinct, then why do they survive until well into the 60s? Did it maybe hasten the process? Maybe. Were 37 million war dead with another 50-100 million dead due to diseases that could not be combated effectively worth that? No. Not unless you can convincingly show me some numbers.

Alluded by whom? Oh right: Rosa Luxembourg, a person that in her own country, was shot in the head. World War I did not kill all colonial Empires; only the German and Russian ones. The victorious Empires (British, French, Japanese) got stronger as a result. But eventually the Second World War weakened or outright destroyed even those Empires.

And please, Spanish Flu? It killed people all across the world; antibiotics were not yet invented. Most of the world that remained uninvolved in World War I actually suffered the "50 million dead to disease". Where did the millions of dead come from? Oh right: India (17 million), China probably provided the other 20 million and the rest of Asia and Africa the remaining dead.

Europe had 2 million excess deaths, and depending on how you estimate the total death toll from the flu, the European casualties amount to 2-4% of total deaths. So no, Thanas, your connection of World War I to a pandemic that originated in China and will anyway kill 50-100 million people, minus possibly several hundred thousand, if we take into account better measures in Europe... is completely wrong.

There never were 37 million war dead; this is a casualty number, which combines 17 million military and civilian deaths and 20 million wounded. For someone who prides to know about the history of World War I, throwing out the falsehood is not really welcome.

So here are the numbers: you could save a fraction of those killed by Spanish flu. Maybe half. So one million Europeans. And unless the contradictions between imperialist blocs subside (which frankly I see no reason for - even though colonies were totally worthless to Germany, it rapidly deployed a military ship in 1911 almost resulting in World War starting prematurely, and for no real gain), there will be war. Which could be more or less deadly. Or the contradictions may be brewing until the 20s or 30s, in which case the war will be heavily industrial and, being caught in the 'maximal deadliness' phase of the 1930s, may last for decades...

Now I am sure you have valid counterpoints, so actually a reply is most welcome.

[Thanas]

Not much more than needing to learn the quantum mechanics before having a crude understanding of how matter exists and interacts, no. Even though I don't know what's going on inside people's heads, I can be fairly certain that, except for a few suicidal ones, they will not en masse jump to their death on the railway track. So when people stand on the platform and a train is arriving, most of them, most of the time, will remain there. And only a select few will jump. See? Predicting behaviour is possible.

Basic behaviour. You cannot predict human behaviour in complex situations because you will never know all the variables. History cannot be used to predict the future.

Yes, that's an awesome idea: let's abandon the scientific method because?.. Well then history's no science. Belongs to where creationism is. Actually, by saying we cannot say anything about human behaviour we are shitting not only on history as a science; we are shitting on behavioural studies as whole field. On the psychologists and neurophysiologists. Good idea! Instead of trying to be more scientific, let's go back to 'unpredictable voodoo'.

Holy argumentum ad absurdium, batman.

No, no no. If the assassination is not reason for World War I, because there were many like it and even quite close, time-wise, to the even, then how can you even say that Princip was somehow at fault? For what? For not being a God Machine that knows with perfect certainity that the Emperors are crazy enough to kill millions in a continental war?

He is at fault for being a coward and a terrorist. That is why he should not get a statue.

As we already established that pretext does not equal cause, I see no reason to see it otherwise. Princip was a pretext; one of the thousands of possible pretexts. Key point: people were ready to go to war. Leaders were ready to go to war. In your version of history leaders sound even worse than mine; mine were at least somewhat misguided, yours were genocidal maniacs, fully knowing that war will drag for years and millions will perish... for bullshit. For the sky pixies in their god damn heads.

I am not interested in debating what leaders were better or worse. I am interested in what arguments one can legitimately make.

Yes - like I said, Russia ran out of bodies by mid next year. Russia imported almost all high-end military technology from the West; its production for war in mere three years brought the agrarian nation to the brink of total collapse. You don't believe me? Well check with the facts, then. The collapsed civilian production/consumption during the war and that Russia was even less capable of attrition warfare that was hard for prime industrial powers is a well known fact.

Sure, but they still - by their very presence - prevented the collapse of the western front. That is why you just cannot say they did not matter - over and over again they bound millions of enemy troops. Troops that would otherwise have been decisively used in the west.

And yet, unlike you seem to claim, there was no war during the marocco crisis. There was no war during the Nile crisis. There was no war during the Boer war. There was no war during the naval crisis. Your claim that armament automatically leads to war is just that - a pointless claim not evidenced by anything. Heck, right now a lot of nations are modernizing their forces. Yet nobody claims that China and the USA will go to war.

Because nuclear deterrents make war pointless. As in, very pointless. Much more pointless than it ever was. The amount of destruction that can be wrought is so staggering even fanatics would think twice, unless the goal is to end your country and that of your opponent. And maybe some bystander country. Unlike conventional deterrents. Which gave us two world wars. And you have to be kidding to bring up the Morrocan crisis - one of the crises that preceded World War I and served to more clearly delineate the Entente and Central powers blocs. "Armament" itself is pretty much pointless. Unless you want to use it. Weapons find a use for themselves. Note that crises happen quite often, so even if you remove a particular one, you cannot seriously say that it means two massive blocs which were on a collision course won't go to war later over another crisis. The militarism that was the underlying cause isn't going anywhere.

Even if I were to believe you - and I do not, for I do not follow your sociological ideology - it does not follow that war automatically breaks out once people are armed. If there was, humanity would be in a constant age of warfare. And the fact still remains that at multiple crisis during the industrialized period, warfare was kept in check by negotiations. Thus, your argument that warfare automatically follows is nonsense.

From 1937 to 49 China was in a state of industrial war. I am seriously wondering if you just make this stuff up.

Shifting the goalposts I see. China was in a state of constant warfare, yes. That does not impact the scenario of a WWI as we know it, Europe etc.

Oh please. Just how long can you fight? Depends on the circumstances. On the leaders, on the fanaticism, on the population's docility. There are a lot of factors here which may turn even a war against a weak power into a never ending quagmire, like the Second Sino-Japanese war. You seem to be of the opinion that the Entente winning faster would produce less casualties? Well then the Russian and Japanese Empires were bound to collide in the East, producing the same millions of casualties and wrecking China in the process. Russia collapses? Japan continues; its good relations with the Entente only emboldened the Empire to go on a killing spree around South East Asia, and this did not start in one day by just waking up 'hey let's kill some dudes'.

You don't know that the Russian Empire would even go to war. You can't say any of that unless you ascribe to the idea that industrialized powers must always crash. I don't get that one.

No. Your only point is that certain parts of Europe may be spared from destruction, while some other places may be wrecked. Well, to me that's not a big deal.

I'd rather take much less certain casualties than hypothetical ones.

The Moroccan crisis was finally 'resolved' in World War I; one can say the resolution was merely postponed. But consider that the Russian-Japanese war was only the start. It paved the way for the understanding for Japan what industrial warfare looks like, gave it a taste of the weaknesses that needed to be eliminated to make an even more powerful war machine; leaders don't really realize what capabilities for warmaking they have at disposal until they get a taste of war. And they were getting it bit by bit. The intensification of contradictions is also important. Hell, for all we know the war could've started in 1911 with teh Agadir crisis. You want to paint a picture of responsible leaders; in fact those were irresponsible warmongers throwing matches around the world. Well one match eventually started a fire. And it would have, because they kept throwing the matches.

I am not painting a picture of responsible or irresponsible leaders, don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying is that war was averted multiple times and that there is no need to subscribe to some gloom-and-doom inevitability.

So why do you object to a memorial to a person who couldn't have possibly known that Wilhelm and the others are either terminally stupid or exterminatively callous? What is the point?

I object to any memorial of people I consider not worthy of commendation, especially if it is used for the purpose of nationalism and especially more so if it is used by racist nutjobs who already committed a genocide once. Seriously, you of all people should be railing against a monument put up by the serbian minority in Bosnia. After all, aren't you against all forms of nationalism?

Not stupid in the least: it took two world wars against industrial alliances that vastly outmatched Germany. In the timeframe of mere decades, I may note. It took the complete occupation, demolition of nation-state structures, and a specific denazification process that seeked to destroy and root out those spreading fascism and militarism.

Sure, and other nations managed to abandon militarism without any such measures. War is not a necessity for social change. In some cases, all it takes is one influential thinker.

'Were forced out' or left the colony after decolonization was pretty much complete are not the same. Leaving colonies after understanding that they wouldn't be able to keep them anyway is inevitability. Leaving them after you have been forced out is likewise an inevitability. None of this signifies some sort of internally-originating desire to grant people self-rule. None at all.

It does not and I never claimed it did. It does however prove you do not need millions of dead to be forced out, nor do you need widespread devastation to get people - for whatever reason - to abandon their colonial politics.

I said that World War I and II led to the collapse of Empires; not that they made the Empires more understanding and fluffy. The extremity of strain led the British Empire to final ruin after the Japanese Empire dealt it the death blow; but it also self-destructed by attacking powers too big to handle. World War I and II may have taught nothing, but they have implemented my final option: destroy Empires, make them incapable of maintaining rule over their former possessions.

So you are in favor of arguing for the death of millions just so that in some cases the people involved may or may not decide to hold on to empires and release colonies 30 years later on? Sounds ridiculous to me.

Alluded by whom? Oh right: Rosa Luxembourg, a person that in her own country, was shot in the head. World War I did not kill all colonial Empires; only the German and Russian ones. The victorious Empires (British, French, Japanese) got stronger as a result. But eventually the Second World War weakened or outright destroyed even those Empires.

The second world war did not destroy colonialism. The economical realities of the globalised market destroyed colonialism. Wars became too costly, occupations a waste of time as manual slave labour and resource extraction became nearly worthless. The desire to keep colonies were not lessened by WWII, after all the dutch - who suffered under brutal occupation - promptly embarked on new occupations in Indonesia. Nor was it lessened by WWI as you admit. WWII did not lessen the lust for colonial adventures either. Instead, it merely replaced one form of empire with another. I have yet to see your argument being supported by fact - what colony was let go despite being a net contributor to the empire which held it?

Europe had 2 million excess deaths, and depending on how you estimate the total death toll from the flu, the European casualties amount to 2-4% of total deaths. So no, Thanas, your connection of World War I to a pandemic that originated in China and will anyway kill 50-100 million people, minus possibly several hundred thousand, if we take into account better measures in Europe... is completely wrong.

The world war kept empires from preventing responses to the flu and the collapse of the medical system and food stuff in Germany is well linked to the death wave of the Spanish Flu in the 1918/19. I'll concede that a large number of people would be killed anyway but it is not as if there had not been measures available to the colonial powers to take if they had not been focused elsewhere. Ships would have been available for quarantines, as would have been troops. Note that the USA actually managed to conduct quarantines. The English and French had no such resources to spare.

So here are the numbers: you could save a fraction of those killed by Spanish flu. Maybe half. So one million Europeans. And unless the contradictions between imperialist blocs subside (which frankly I see no reason for - even though colonies were totally worthless to Germany, it rapidly deployed a military ship in 1911 almost resulting in World War starting prematurely, and for no real gain), there will be war. Which could be more or less deadly. Or the contradictions may be brewing until the 20s or 30s, in which case the war will be heavily industrial and, being caught in the 'maximal deadliness' phase of the 1930s, may last for decades..

Here's the thing though - history is full of examples of heavily armed powers of their day deciding that war is not worth it. Yes, you might say before industrialization, but consider how much more advanced the Roman Empire was (and consider their level of metal usage was only reached well into the 19th century again). If they had wanted to, they could have crushed any single tribe. But they did not because they decided it was not worth their time and effort. Britain did not use its industrial advantage to enslave Europe after Napoleon though they clearly were that more powerful than any other nation. The USA retreated into isolationism after WWI.

Point is, there are a number of scenarios in which large powers decide not to use their abilities for sinister purposes. I think your overall view of history is too pessimistic, too black. You even find that in industrialized powers. Look at Bismarck and his policies of pursuing peace by not taking anything but limited aims in war. Look at the treaty of Lausanne between nations that had all the reasons in the world to hate each other. Thus I remain convinced that war is neither a necessity for social change nor a necessity to end Imperialism (in fact I would argue that economic factors are much more important than war and industrial progress would have happened regardless of WWI/II).

In short, I think the whole process of decolonization is way too complex to reduce it to "wars weakened empires, so they devolved". Especially when those weakened empires hung on to places worth keeping.

[K. A. Pital]

Basic behaviour. You cannot predict human behaviour in complex situations because you will never know all the variables. History cannot be used to predict the future.

Yet that is what you are trying to do by speculating that war could be averted by simply removing one assassination from history. Isn't that the worst 'kill Hitler' trope out there?

Holy argumentum ad absurdium, batman.

No; I mistook your position for one of complete unpredictability, rather than the sensible understanding that chaos allows us to make only probabilistic predictions.

He is at fault for being a coward and a terrorist. That is why he should not get a statue.

Uh... A coward? A terrorist? What is so 'terroristic' about killing officials of a regime that oppresses your people? If you note, the 'terrorists' of the early XX century usually killed directly the nobility, officials or military officers. They did not kill random bystanders, unlike the suicide bombers of today. What you seek to do is to dishonestly paint a person who, earnestly, was nothing but a freedom fighter, using the loaded 'terrorist' term. What's so cowardly about him, anyway?

I am not interested in debating what leaders were better or worse. I am interested in what arguments one can legitimately make.

Well you made the argument that the leaders of nations willingly commited to a bloodbath knowing in advance it will be one. That is even worse than the argument they were intoxicated by colonial conquests and did not expect the war to last long. The latter presumes callousness but also stupidity or lack of knowledge. The former presumes complete knowledge and extreme murderousness.

Sure, but they still - by their very presence - prevented the collapse of the western front. That is why you just cannot say they did not matter - over and over again they bound millions of enemy troops. Troops that would otherwise have been decisively used in the west.

Let's say Russia isn't there. France gets overriden. Total war turns ugly, long and strait-spanning. Britain is saved from the stranglehold of submarines by the United States. New technologies of naval combat evolve; repeatedly the British attempt to break into continental Europe. Better development?

Even if I were to believe you - and I do not, for I do not follow your sociological ideology - it does not follow that war automatically breaks out once people are armed. If there was, humanity would be in a constant age of warfare. And the fact still remains that at multiple crisis during the industrialized period, warfare was kept in check by negotiations. Thus, your argument that warfare automatically follows is nonsense.

Humanity pretty much had a century of warfare after warfare industrialized: the XX century. My ideology isn't even relevant - two imperialist blocs, both full of racist Empires that fired up the weapons and ships of war at the slightest possible provocation is not a stable configuration. Nuclear weapons are an external factor here, a stabilizer; conventional weapons failed to stabilize such a configuration twice (World War I and II).

Shifting the goalposts I see. China was in a state of constant warfare, yes. That does not impact the scenario of a WWI as we know it, Europe etc.

No: what I demonstrated is that industrial war can last for a large mass of humans, as large as Europe, on a territory as large or larger than Europe, for decades. That is even more true for the colonial warfare. So bodycounts will still be huge.

You don't know that the Russian Empire would even go to war. You can't say any of that unless you ascribe to the idea that industrialized powers must always crash. I don't get that one.

Because it was aptly demonstrated that unless a country is in a state of nuclear detterent, even very slight industrial potential between two rival powers equals provocations, which in the end equal war. Let's say the first tier countries (Europe, US, partly Japan and Russia), original great powers are not representative somehow. Let's look at what happened when India, China and Pakistan started industrializing. What happened? Right, war. War and death. Until the deterrent kicked in. Of course, the contradictions must be strong. But when you are talking about two massive imperialist blocs, the contradictions are bound to be strong. History knew three superbloc dualist systems: Entente and Central Powers, end result WAR. Axis and ... Entente remains, later Allies: end result WAR. US and USSR: end result no war, because deterrent. But still very tense.

I'd rather take much less certain casualties than hypothetical ones.

That is the problem with bullshit AH. Who said hypothetical? History is done; for better or worse, it turned out this way. Who said 'kill Hitler'? Maybe if Germany did not go Nazi, some other nation went fascist. What if it were a more powerful one than the Japanese and German 'new Empires'? Same applies to any attempt to rewrite history somehow. The key question is 'why'? There is no guarantee that the end result wouldn't be much worse. A non-invention of nukes with the parallel upgrade of conventional weaponry could make a World War III late in the century; a World War IV or V, why not? History is not static.

I am not painting a picture of responsible or irresponsible leaders, don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying is that war was averted multiple times and that there is no need to subscribe to some gloom-and-doom inevitability.

And you ignore the fact that people provoked each other for absolutely zero gain. Provoked to an extent that a world war was already possible at any date in the timeframe from 1910 to 1920. Now tell me, if people are that militaristic and they never got a taste of mass death, what will stop them from provoking the other bloc further = until finally the provocation will spark a real war?

Seriously, you of all people should be railing against a monument put up by the serbian minority in Bosnia. After all, aren't you against all forms of nationalism?

Yes. I think the monument is bullshit; I also think nationalism is bullshit, though it had a progressive role once. That doesn't change my opinion on World War I and the extremely childish blame-laying to the feet of a pretext while ignoring that entire nations and all their 'smart leaders' are guilty, guilty of that.

Sure, and other nations managed to abandon militarism without any such measures. War is not a necessity for social change. In some cases, all it takes is one influential thinker.

Which nations? Maybe you see someone abandoning militarism? I see Germany and Japan. The second one also occupied, and suffered mass death and shock bombings. Its post-war constitution explicitly prohibiting war. Which other nations are you talking about?

It does however prove you do not need millions of dead to be forced out, nor do you need widespread devastation to get people - for whatever reason - to abandon their colonial politics.

Algerians and Indonesians would cry seeing that bullshit, as would millions, tens and hundreds of millions of others.

So you are in favor of arguing for the death of millions just so that in some cases the people involved may or may not decide to hold on to empires and release colonies 30 years later on? Sounds ridiculous to me.

Untrue. The impact was very quick: Vietnam, Indonesia, India, China, all started the path to breaking free. Most of mankind was free to choose their own paths within 20 years - of course, it took many of them war, and resistance, but it was infinetely easier to do since many Empires were weakened by the fights and occupations by others. Japan helped the Hindu nationalists to get their freedom, proclaim it, and Britain could never even fathom taking back over the land and ruling it with brute force. The Dutch faced a national resistance in Indonesia. The French suddenly faced problems in Vietnam, and later a movement developed all over the Arab nations: the first wave of Arab revolts, many were emboldened by the weakening of oceanic colonial powers that first happened after WWII.

The second world war did not destroy colonialism.

It is well known that it did.

The economical realities of the globalised market destroyed colonialism.

There was no 'globalized market' before the late 1970s. Industrialized countries made the lion's share of industrial products, mostly consumed internally, too. 'Wars became too costly' - because many colonial Empires were either forcibly dismantled or driven to brink of financial solvency, and the sway over territories was lessened by the contra-occupations happening during the war.

The desire to keep colonies were not lessened by WWII, after all the dutch - who suffered under brutal occupation - promptly embarked on new occupations in Indonesia.

And unlike the previous attempts, they found a surprisingly strong resistance that kicked their sorry asses out. I am not saying the war lessened the desire to control. But it sure as hell lessened the ability. Especially for the larger nations in Asia.

I have yet to see your argument being supported by fact - what colony was let go despite being a net contributor to the empire which held it?

I am not saying the Empires let the colonies go of good will, once again. Rather the financial strain made it impossible to keep the Empire.
http://www.activehistory.co.uk/ib-histo ... empire.pdf
That's not, by the way, the only essay that uses the facts to come to these conclusions.

The world war kept empires from preventing responses to the flu

Empires could do little to prevent the flu in non-industrialized territories. Wherefrom >95% of deaths come from. They could perhaps save themselves, in that you are right.

Here's the thing though - history is full of examples of heavily armed powers of their day deciding that war is not worth it. Yes, you might say before industrialization, but consider how much more advanced the Roman Empire was (and consider their level of metal usage was only reached well into the 19th century again). If they had wanted to, they could have crushed any single tribe. But they did not because they decided it was not worth their time and effort. Britain did not use its industrial advantage to enslave Europe after Napoleon though they clearly were that more powerful than any other nation. The USA retreated into isolationism after WWI.

Good examples. They do have some problems: in the WWI example, the collapse of Empires had not yet started and Britain's economic clout was still very strong. The US attempt to impose will on Europe would be quickly thrown off: it depended on Europe's acceptance of help to actually send anything there. The Roman Empire is a good example, too, but it suffers from it being the sole contender. When you are the one imperialist power, there are luxuries. The US did not invade every country that went against it after the Cold War ended. Britain's reluctance to enslave Europe could be explained by many factors (in that time the rebellions were already a serious problem, so the advantage should have been really overwhelming). On the other side, World War I started when no faction had a clear superiority over the other. Same with World War II. Think about that.

You even find that in industrialized powers. Look at Bismarck and his policies of pursuing peace by not taking anything but limited aims in war. Look at the treaty of Lausanne between nations that had all the reasons in the world to hate each other. Thus I remain convinced that war is neither a necessity for social change nor a necessity to end Imperialism (in fact I would argue that economic factors are much more important than war and industrial progress would have happened regardless of WWI/II).

Bismarck is a good example. Also, the Chinese politicians who exhibited unexplained peacefulness once during the Ming era, when they could've easily taken over many nations. Their current strategy is more explainable, because there are nuclear deterrents and powerful rivals, so peace is a much better course of action than war.

To be fair, the enormity of industrial war and its tendency to repeat over the XX century have certainly made me wear black glasses all the time. Researching colonialism and XIX and XX century war meticulously hasn't yielded anything good. It only made me think about humanity much, much worse.

[Thanas]

Yet that is what you are trying to do by speculating that war could be averted by simply removing one assassination from history. Isn't that the worst 'kill Hitler' trope out there?

No, I am saying that if Ferdinand had actually managed to stay alive and if he had become the Emperor there is a good chance he would have dissolved the Empire into something more sensible, a federation.

He is at fault for being a coward and a terrorist. That is why he should not get a statue.

Uh... A coward? A terrorist? What is so 'terroristic' about killing officials of a regime that oppresses your people? If you note, the 'terrorists' of the early XX century usually killed directly the nobility, officials or military officers. They did not kill random bystanders, unlike the suicide bombers of today. What you seek to do is to dishonestly paint a person who, earnestly, was nothing but a freedom fighter, using the loaded 'terrorist' term. What's so cowardly about him, anyway?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. As to fighting to end oppression, as far as I know he also fought for a grandiose idea of Yugoslavia, where the serbs would oppress then the other minorities. I do not see anything notable in his deed any more than I think Karl Ludwig Sand was a great liberal. Princip was a murderer who knew nothing about his target and didn't care about anything other than to kill and throw the Austrians out. Let's not turn him into Washington.

Well you made the argument that the leaders of nations willingly commited to a bloodbath knowing in advance it will be one. That is even worse than the argument they were intoxicated by colonial conquests and did not expect the war to last long. The latter presumes callousness but also stupidity or lack of knowledge. The former presumes complete knowledge and extreme murderousness.

Like I said, I don't care which is worse on moral terms. I care about what legitimate arguments can be made and Münkler's argument is IMO legitimate in that regard.

Let's say Russia isn't there. France gets overriden. Total war turns ugly, long and strait-spanning. Britain is saved from the stranglehold of submarines by the United States. New technologies of naval combat evolve; repeatedly the British attempt to break into continental Europe. Better development?

Yes as it is highly unlikely it will cause millions of casualties. And I doubt Britain would fight on if France had fallen, certainly the USA will not enter the war then. Without the USA then there is nothing Britain really can do.

Humanity pretty much had a century of warfare after warfare industrialized: the XX century. My ideology isn't even relevant - two imperialist blocs, both full of racist Empires that fired up the weapons and ships of war at the slightest possible provocation is not a stable configuration. Nuclear weapons are an external factor here, a stabilizer; conventional weapons failed to stabilize such a configuration twice (World War I and II).

OTOH it also did not have a century of warfare once industrialization started nor did it have a war over Berlin when nuclear armament wasn't enough to secure MAD.

No: what I demonstrated is that industrial war can last for a large mass of humans, as large as Europe, on a territory as large or larger than Europe, for decades. That is even more true for the colonial warfare. So bodycounts will still be huge.

Assuming there will be such widespread wars of which I am not convinced. Maybe China, which is the only large landmass where it could conceivably happen. But it happened there regardless of WWI. And if Britain, France and Germany are still holding on to their possessions then I don't see them allowing Japan to push into China.

Because it was aptly demonstrated that unless a country is in a state of nuclear detterent, even very slight industrial potential between two rival powers equals provocations, which in the end equal war. Let's say the first tier countries (Europe, US, partly Japan and Russia), original great powers are not representative somehow. Let's look at what happened when India, China and Pakistan started industrializing. What happened? Right, war. War and death. Until the deterrent kicked in. Of course, the contradictions must be strong. But when you are talking about two massive imperialist blocs, the contradictions are bound to be strong. History knew three superbloc dualist systems: Entente and Central Powers, end result WAR. Axis and ... Entente remains, later Allies: end result WAR. US and USSR: end result no war, because deterrent. But still very tense.

Provocations do not equal war, as aptly demonstrated by the crisis I showed.

That is the problem with bullshit AH. Who said hypothetical? History is done; for better or worse, it turned out this way. Who said 'kill Hitler'? Maybe if Germany did not go Nazi, some other nation went fascist. What if it were a more powerful one than the Japanese and German 'new Empires'? Same applies to any attempt to rewrite history somehow. The key question is 'why'? There is no guarantee that the end result wouldn't be much worse. A non-invention of nukes with the parallel upgrade of conventional weaponry could make a World War III late in the century; a World War IV or V, why not? History is not static.

Like I said, hypothetical wars based on some nations becoming fascists and becoming more destructive than Germany and Japan (nevermind that the only country where that could happen was France and they matter far less than Germany and Japan) are not that good IMO.

And you ignore the fact that people provoked each other for absolutely zero gain. Provoked to an extent that a world war was already possible at any date in the timeframe from 1910 to 1920. Now tell me, if people are that militaristic and they never got a taste of mass death, what will stop them from provoking the other bloc further = until finally the provocation will spark a real war?

The same thing that stopped them from going to war in the thirty years before. The Bosnian crisis involved the direct annexation of territory and it did not spark a war.

Yes. I think the monument is bullshit; I also think nationalism is bullshit, though it had a progressive role once. That doesn't change my opinion on World War I and the extremely childish blame-laying to the feet of a pretext while ignoring that entire nations and all their 'smart leaders' are guilty, guilty of that.

Nobody is laying all blame on Princip. I think you misunderstand the intentions of both Simon and me if you think that is what has happened.

Which nations? Maybe you see someone abandoning militarism? I see Germany and Japan. The second one also occupied, and suffered mass death and shock bombings. Its post-war constitution explicitly prohibiting war. Which other nations are you talking about?

Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and the list goes on and on. In fact, militarism is the outlier among European nations of, there is only one (UK), maybe two more (Poland, France) at worst.

Algerians and Indonesians would cry seeing that bullshit, as would millions, tens and hundreds of millions of others.

I noticed them explicitly in the same post you reply to. You also fail to mention the examples of colonies that were let go without any such wars.

Untrue. The impact was very quick: Vietnam, Indonesia, India, China, all started the path to breaking free. Most of mankind was free to choose their own paths within 20 years - of course, it took many of them war, and resistance, but it was infinetely easier to do since many Empires were weakened by the fights and occupations by others. Japan helped the Hindu nationalists to get their freedom, proclaim it, and Britain could never even fathom taking back over the land and ruling it with brute force. The Dutch faced a national resistance in Indonesia. The French suddenly faced problems in Vietnam, and later a movement developed all over the Arab nations: the first wave of Arab revolts, many were emboldened by the weakening of oceanic colonial powers that first happened after WWII.

China was never occupied by the west to the extent that it was a colony. So Vietnam, Indonesia and India - the two last ones becoming to large too hold due to economic factors. Vietnam won two brutal wars. As to the arab world, I wonder if they ever got truly free. Seems more like the elites made a deal with the colonial powers to oppress the rest of the nations.

There was no 'globalized market' before the late 1970s. Industrialized countries made the lion's share of industrial products, mostly consumed internally, too. 'Wars became too costly' - because many colonial Empires were either forcibly dismantled or driven to brink of financial solvency, and the sway over territories was lessened by the contra-occupations happening during the war.

Assume Britain still had the financial means it did before WWII. You really think they would have had the manpower to expend in holding their colonies? The dominions started well before WWI, British influence in Egypt and in India was already fading by WWII. Decolonization was going to happen regardless (and most happened in the 60s, well after WWI and II).

And unlike the previous attempts, they found a surprisingly strong resistance that kicked their sorry asses out. I am not saying the war lessened the desire to control. But it sure as hell lessened the ability. Especially for the larger nations in Asia.

For the dutch? They had had enormous trouble before holding on to the territory, what with them having a small population and no military to speak of.

I am not saying the Empires let the colonies go of good will, once again. Rather the financial strain made it impossible to keep the Empire.
http://www.activehistory.co.uk/ib-histo ... empire.pdf
That's not, by the way, the only essay that uses the facts to come to these conclusions.

That one reads as if written by a high school student.

I think we differ mainly on the financial strains. In your opinion it was caused directly by WWI and II, which I find a bit hard to believe. I think it would have happened regardless due to the economical realities of manual labour being worthless.

Here's the thing though - history is full of examples of heavily armed powers of their day deciding that war is not worth it. Yes, you might say before industrialization, but consider how much more advanced the Roman Empire was (and consider their level of metal usage was only reached well into the 19th century again). If they had wanted to, they could have crushed any single tribe. But they did not because they decided it was not worth their time and effort. Britain did not use its industrial advantage to enslave Europe after Napoleon though they clearly were that more powerful than any other nation. The USA retreated into isolationism after WWI.

Good examples. They do have some problems: in the WWI example, the collapse of Empires had not yet started and Britain's economic clout was still very strong. The US attempt to impose will on Europe would be quickly thrown off: it depended on Europe's acceptance of help to actually send anything there.

But the USA did not seek to impose their will on the former German colonies either, they were quite content getting very little. They did not even seek to make sure that they received diplomatic power and prestige equivalent to their industrial strength, hence the result

The Roman Empire is a good example, too, but it suffers from it being the sole contender. When you are the one imperialist power, there are luxuries.

Not really, see the Persian Empire for that. They definitely were a contender over the east of the Empire.

he US did not invade every country that went against it after the Cold War ended. Britain's reluctance to enslave Europe could be explained by many factors (in that time the rebellions were already a serious problem, so the advantage should have been really overwhelming). On the other side, World War I started when no faction had a clear superiority over the other. Same with World War II. Think about that.

And wars were averted when no faction had a clear superiority. There are examples for either case.

To be fair, the enormity of industrial war and its tendency to repeat over the XX century have certainly made me wear black glasses all the time. Researching colonialism and XIX and XX century war meticulously hasn't yielded anything good. It only made me think about humanity much, much worse.

That's understandable, I have experienced a similar change of view the more and more I read about military operations.

[Pelranius]

The irony about Anh killing Ito was that Anh thought Ito was lying to the Japanese Emperor about the treatment of Koreans, and that killing Ito would remove that mistreatment and thus enable the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese to present a united front against European colonialism.

[SilverDragonRed]

I've got to say that I was not expecting this tread for the centennial anniversary of the tragedy. Sounds about as stupid as South Carolina making a statue for John Wilkes Booth. Just don't see a point to celebrating someone who killed the person that would have made things better for your people.

[Metahive]

The irony about Anh killing Ito was that Anh thought Ito was lying to the Japanese Emperor about the treatment of Koreans, and that killing Ito would remove that mistreatment and thus enable the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese to present a united front against European colonialism.

Just as Princip probably thought that killing Franz F. would immediately get Austria-Hungary to retreat from the Balkan forever and unite everyone under serbian rule. Or something. It's not like there was a loud and vocal part of the KUK government that was clamoring for a war with Serbia ("Serbien muss Sterbien/Serbia must die") and publically killing the heir to the throne would give them the perfect excuse to start it, oh no.