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I was against invading Afghanistan and then came round to seeing it as necessary. Now I read that the Taliban did not know about the attacks in New York.
A thought occurs to me twenty years late.
I always blamed Austria Hungary and Francis Joseph for the First World War, but if the Anglo-Americans and Nato were justified in toppling the Taliban and conquering Afghanistan why was Austria Hungary not justified in invading Serbia in 1914?
Austria Hungary avenging the murder of the heir to the throne, in which the Serbian secret service may have been implicated.
And if Austria Hungary was justified England, France, Romania, America and the other Allies in the First World War were the bad guys.
Please critique my logic.
The British Empire went to war because of the invasions of Belgium and France, not because of Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia 1st August, then on Belgium and France 3rd August. Britain declared war on the 4th August, after the invasions were already underway.
ReplyDeleteIn other words on Austro-Hungary went to war over Serbia.
You are completely right, of course.
DeleteHad Germany attacked France without attacking Belgium I think we would have found a reason to take France's side and had France invaded Belgium to reach Germany we would not have gone to war with France and we were not required by the Treaty of London to go to war to defend Belgium, but you are absolutely right and I was asleep.
I'm okay with your logic as a thought experiment. But, to quote one the greatest woman leaders in history "What difference does it make"?
ReplyDeleteThere is so much historical inertial around the start of WW1 that your conclusion of good vs bad is trite. I'd rather blame both the military and political leadership of both sides for their inability to rein in the disaster that the war became after 1915. I'd rather ask how and why they could draw back from this mutual suicide that the war became. Was it sunk cost?
"There is so much historical inertial around the start of WW1 that your conclusion of good vs bad is trite"- I do not understand what you mean by historical inertial or inertia. A tragedy that Lord Lansdowne's letter asking for an armistice was ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansdowne_Letter
DeleteWW1 was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.
DeleteIts worth trying to understand what its causes were and how it started.
I recommend "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914" written by Christopher Clark.
Or listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hv4HfLQGlw&t=3633s