After sabre-rattling at the Serbs, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war and dominoes fell day-by-day until all the major players in Europe were fighting. I managed to catch part of a discussion on NPR with some experts revisiting the events, especially with all the amateurs speculating we may be on our way to WWIII: Gaza, Russia’s proxy shooting the jet and tensions around the South China Sea.
I doubt the Kaiser wanted peace. The man was mostly a chicken hawk itching to demonstrate his relatively young German military against Russia and the UK. France got a can of whoop-ass in 1870 so they didn’t need to prove anything. It would’ve been nice if the US tried harder and/or sooner to broker a peace deal as we had in 1905 with the Russians and Japanese.
Firstly, I never gave the little brush wars before WWI much thought with the exception of the UK’s Boer War, German advisors helping Spain in the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War and dumb Italian adventurism in Africa. None seemed to spiral out to pull in allies or mutual foes. The experts mentioned some additional conflicts I hadn’t heard of…guess I need to find a book.
Secondly, anyone thinking we’re heading toward a bigger mess. I’d say it’s doubtful. Putin and the Russian military may be bullies yet they know they need to rein in their anti-Ukrainian flunkies. Israel v. Palestinians is business as usual. The US military is rather damaged from recent wasteful invasions courtesy of Bush II. The smaller players will likely duke it out with the major powers fighting through them by proxy.
I’m done with this now because I’m on vacation. Just be prepared for retrospectives for the rest of the week and upcoming weekend. I have a dreadful feeling they’ll be mostly inaccurate.