Re ww1 what started it.

[poppet2]

... it also led to a completely devastating loss of life.

Having said that, there is no way that tens of millions lives should have been lost in that manner.

 

Lest we forget.

 

Surely it won't be too long before we have androids instead of men going to war.

If we can grow an ear on a mouse's back and have 3D printers that copy everything, then why not 3D printers making physical copies of men, then add micro chips to them, like Data, from the 'Next Generation" of Star Trek, and then send them to war instead of human beings.

[Danco]

Learnt an interesting thing regarding WW1 recently.

Apparently the main explosive used by both sides for shells and bombs at that time was a thing called gun cotton - basically cotton soaked in a chemical mixture which exploded when set off. Cotton doesn't grow much in Europe so it was imported from the USA by both sides all through the war. It wasn't on the banned list so Royal Navy ships couldn't impound vessels carrying the stuff bound for Germany.

Which is a bit odd.

[Vannguard]

Peter talking about it

 

a bit about the footage

 

thanks for that, i missed them

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Lets hope this film is more diverse than 2017's Dunkirk

Why should it be, though? Isn't the idea to tell the story of what happened?

If everyone involved was white and male, you cannot re-write history just to satisfy modern tropes.

[melthebell]

Why should it be, though? Isn't the idea to tell the story of what happened?

If everyone involved was white and male, you cannot re-write history just to satisfy modern tropes.

i think he meant the subject matter not the people

[andyofborg]

Surely it won't be too long before we have androids instead of men going to war.

If we can grow an ear on a mouse's back and have 3D printers that copy everything, then why not 3D printers making physical copies of men, then add micro chips to them, like Data, from the 'Next Generation" of Star Trek, and then send them to war instead of human beings.

 

problem is, we'll just end up here

 

[Jeffrey Shaw]

But, back on the topic of World War I (ne The Great War)...

[blake]

the primary reason was latent German militarism.

 

They were annoyed that the French, British and even the lousy Dutch had beat them in the imperial power game. The Dutch for example, a tiny ineffectual neighbour who the Germans looked down on, had what is now Indonesia - a massive east Asia prize - the very Spice Islands. The Germans had nothing like that.

 

the German predicament was that they achieved their unification too late. By the time they got out of bed as Sleepy Michael from 1870 onwards, when they achieved their first ever thumping military victory in Europe, all the best prizes had already gone.

 

feeling inadequate and very hard by - Germany were by far the largest nation in Europe by this stage apart from Russia - they needed to make their prescence felt. And they did. They kept that militarism up. Really the German militarism that started the 14-18 war, was not much different to the militarism that inspired the 39-45 one. It was a bunch of Germans feeling hard done by both times.

Edited February 2, 2018 by blake

[Guest]

Neigh. Brexit.

 

Surely Thatcher.

[Anna B]

the primary reason was latent German militarism.

 

They were annoyed that the French, British and even the lousy Dutch had beat them in the imperial power game. The Dutch for example, a tiny ineffectual neighbour who the Germans looked down on, had what is now Indonesia - a massive east Asia prize - the very Spice Islands. The Germans had nothing like that.

 

the German predicament was that they achieved their unification too late. By the time they got out of bed as Sleepy Michael from 1870 onwards, when they achieved their first ever thumping military victory in Europe, all the best prizes had already gone.

 

feeling inadequate and very hard by - Germany were by far the largest nation in Europe by this stage apart from Russia - they needed to make their prescence felt. And they did. They kept that militarism up. Really the German militarism that started the 14-18 war, was not much different to the militarism that inspired the 39-45 one. It was a bunch of Germans feeling hard done by both times.

 

Very interesting. In all these things, I wonder how much say the ordinary people had in it - the people who actually had to fight in the trenches?

 

---------- Post added 02-02-2018 at 20:08 ----------

 

Ive just started watching "The Great War" dvd's, and even the first two episodes leading up to the start of the war are tough going. The previous answer I googled was straightforward but even that was not explained very well in the dvd's.

My aim is to have a reasonable knowledge of "The Great War", before the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, this year.

 

---------- Post added 24-01-2018 at 19:04 ----------

 

 

Another version I've heard is it was all down to the cousins of cousins of Royalty and the spats they had with one another over their kingdoms and territories.

What gets me is the newsreels showing the public happy to go to war in all these countries. Wonderful propaganda, but people fell for all this. For some it meant their first opportunity to have three meals a day and a thick overcoat. A way out or rather away, from poverty - for a while.

 

Most of Europe had familial links to Queen Victoria, thanks to her marrying off her 9 children to the various Royal Houses of Europe. I also know Queen Victoria's Grandson Keiser Willhelm, Emperor of Germany, spent much of his youth with his cousins (also Victoria's Grandsons') George V and Czar Nicholas of Russia, and always felt 'less' than them as he was disabled, and had a huge 'chip' on his shoulder as a result. They were always very competative in games, and Willhelm was usually the loser. So maybe it really was simply payback time. Millions died as a result of one man's perceived inferiority complex...

 

As for the enthusiasm with which the people went to war, I think you're right that some saw it as the only way to be clothed and fed, but I also think some of that competativeness had filtered down to the people. None of them had any idea of the new technology that was going to rain down and slaughter them. They thought it would just be a short and glorious scrap. The power of propaganda eh'?...

Edited February 3, 2018 by Anna B