Comments on: Before the horror

By: Artfldgr

Artfldgr — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 01:57:11 +0000

It’s astonishing how many of our current hot isms, from socialism to nihilism to anarchism and nationalism, were set in the era from 1875 to 1915.

ergo TheConcept OfTheWardIsNotOver

its been Hot n Its Been Cold ButIts NotI’ve

By: rickl

rickl — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 18:14:07 +0000

I remember back in late 1999 a local radio talk show host had a discussion on who was the most influential person of the 20th century.

Callers nominated all sorts of people, such as FDR, Hitler, JFK, Stalin, Einstein, Reagan, etc.

At the very end of the show, one caller suggested Gavrilo Princip. I sat bolt upright and thought, “Of course! That’s it!”

He set in motion a chain of events that led to WWI, hyperinflation in Weimar Germany which led to the Third Reich, which led to WWII, during which the atomic bomb was invented, which led to the Cold War. Also guided missiles were utilized during WWII which led to the space race and the moon landings.

If you want to get technical about it, modern electronic computers were invented during WWII for the purpose of predicting the trajectories of artillery shells. Which ultimately led to the internet and blogs. Etc.

By: ErisGuy

ErisGuy — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 14:32:22 +0000

The Empress Elizabeth was also assassinated in Geneva in 1868 by an Italian anarchist.

By: PapayaSF

PapayaSF — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 05:35:11 +0000

If you ever visit the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna, you can see the Archduke’s automobile and his bloody uniform.

By: parker

parker — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 05:15:07 +0000

Tuchman’s The Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century is a worthy read for those who wish to understand the 20th, and now the 21st century. It was and remains prophetic. She was a great historian.

“This is the age of machinery.
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare.

This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation.
It’s the age of insanity,
What has become of the green
Pleasant fields of Jerusalem?

Ain’t got no ambition,
I’m just disillusioned,
I’m a twentieth century man
But I don’t wanna be here.

My mama said she can’t understand me,
She can’t see my motivation.
Just give me some security,
I’m a paranoid schizoid
Product of the twentieth century.

You keep all your smart modern writers,
Give me William Shakespeare,
You keep all your smart modern painters
I’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough.

Girl we gotta get out of here,
We gotta find a solution.
I’m a twentieth century man
But I don’t want to die here.

I was born in a welfare state
Ruled by bureaucracy
Controlled by civil servants
And people dressed in grey.
Got no privacy, got no liberty
Cause the twentieth century people
Took it all away from me.

Don’t wanna get myself shot down
By some trigger happy policeman,
Gotta keep a hold on my sanity
I’m a twentieth century man
But I don’t wanna die here.

Ray Douglas Davies

By: KBK

KBK — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 04:03:48 +0000

Yeah, click on Neo’s Amazon link and check out Tuchman’s Proud Tower. A remarkable book describing the lead-up to WW1, and even better than Guns of August, IMHO. It’s astonishing how many of our current hot isms, from socialism to nihilism to anarchism and nationalism, were set in the era from 1875 to 1915.

Very well written, history as it should be done. The reasons for WW1 are more interesting than the war itself, which is the opposite for WW2.

By: rickl

rickl — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 02:11:48 +0000

In Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, her description of that day in Sarajevo was almost funny. I got the impression that there was hardly anybody in the city who wasn't trying to kill the Archduke.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 00:04:28 +0000

You’d like to think the reaction–to use a chemistry analogy–was just about ready to blow anyway. It would be too tragic to think nothing was going to happen until this farce of missed chances, wrong turns and nutcase kids turned the world bloodily upside down.
Easier to think of it as a trigger.
Tom Clancy, talking to journalists, remarked that, had it not happened, nobody would have bought a fiction manuscript laying out how it began. Far, far too unlikely.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 20:26:16 +0000

“The bodies of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (1863 – 1914) and his wife Sophie lie in state after their assassination at Sarajevo.”

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-bodies-of-franz-ferdinand-archduke-of-austria-and-his-news-photo/2663382

By: Sgt. Mom

Sgt. Mom — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 19:03:51 +0000

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie had three children – a daughter and two younger sons. They were raised by one of their father’s best friends, although as adults they ran afoul of the Nazis, since they were seen as opponents of the German annexation of Austria. They were kept as political prisoners in Dachau, IIRC – although they all survived the experience.