World War I is generally overshadowed by WWII but arguably had as much or even more of a role in shaping the world as we know it today - particularly the postwar treaties, which were so sweeping and so wild, and the empires breaking like brittle leaves - ThreadSky

swordsjew.bsky.social • 484 days ago

World War I is generally overshadowed by WWII but arguably had as much or even more of a role in shaping the world as we know it today - particularly the postwar treaties, which were so sweeping and so wild, and the empires breaking like brittle leaves

Reposted from Hare 🍉

Kurt Vonnegut, on 11 November.

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cmf406.bsky.social•484 days ago

We just donated all the Lusitania paperwork to a university archive, including the reparations check that my great-great-Aunt refused to cash, because it would never replace her parents (also, she was rich enough to take such a stand). Changed our family forever.

finaldad.bsky.social•484 days ago

As I see it, there's a multitude of ways WWI could have been avoided but WWII was an inevitable consequence of WWI

fortunasaga.com•484 days ago

The hardcore history series " blueprint for Armageddon" does a really good job painting this picture.

moonmayor.bsky.social•482 days ago

I have been saying this for weeks! You can trace everything that's happened in the last hundred years to WWI.
From the bombing of Pearl Harbor to what's happening in Israel right now

ninjamonkky.bsky.social•484 days ago

It's really a war in two parts, and arguably, we have entered a third installment. WW part II began in the 1930s and quite frankly, given current world events, and the leaders that must weather them, would not be surprised if we're fully in part III by the 2030s.

pjeffe.bsky.social•484 days ago

Kurt had something to say about WWIII as well:

As long as they did not use nuclear weapons, it appeared, nobody was going to give the right name to all the killing that had been going on since the end of the Second World War, which was surely “World War Three.”

ninjamonkky.bsky.social•484 days ago

I agree with his point in part. You look at the WW they always begin about a decade before the "Real War," starts. I think Russia is A/H again. WWI, Aristocrats fight to preserve empire, WW II A fight to preserve aristocracy/primacy, WWIII Corporate Interests fight to preserve empire...

ninjamonkky.bsky.social•484 days ago

I suspect that the proxy war period though instrumental in the lead up to where we are is part of the current conflict developing, but they probably deserve their own separate designation and time period.

pjeffe.bsky.social•484 days ago

And of course whenever you drill down things always get fuzzier. Like the period of 18th/19th-century imperialist expansion wasn't a world war?

ninjamonkky.bsky.social•484 days ago

I call Queen Victoria, Vicki the C*nt, largely because she's so instrumental in the conditions that lead up to WWI, like it's pretty much her children and grandchildren fighting amongst themselves.

ehusman.bsky.social•484 days ago

And so much effort made to control/prevent Jews from moving out of Russia-Poland-Lithuania, including the implementation of passports (incl. Nansen passports), the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and finally the eugenics-based Johnson-Reed Act of 1924.

enbuenora.bsky.social•484 days ago

imagine how different the world might be if the lesson the victorious powers drew from the Great War wasn't 'we can now do whatever we want, nothing like this can ever, ever happen again'

beaverstanacct.bsky.social•484 days ago

There's a chapter in Seven Pillars of Wisdom where Lawrence describes his recommendations to the Foreign Office for a post-war pro-Western Pan-Arab state, was told nah, colonies, and the next chapter talks about the Wahhabists as these backwoods weirdos nobody likes working with. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

rexlibris.bsky.social•484 days ago

"Empires breaking like brittle leaves" is as beautiful and poetic a way as I've ever read it.

chrisblue.bsky.social•484 days ago

@adamhochschild knows

ravenonthill.bsky.social•484 days ago

🎶 I'm here sitting in the wreck of Europe with a map of Europe and the lines and the borders are gone…

https://youtu.be/kjz5A6AGlBk?si=F6PFQ_UqnE6yog6L

leastactionhero.bsky.social•484 days ago

world war i is based and goated when the vibe is sowing the seeds for century-long territorial disputes and ethnic strife

kevdog.bsky.social•484 days ago

Kurt had his shit together.

erileykc.bsky.social•484 days ago

And then there's Decoration Day.

bibliotequetress.bsky.social•484 days ago

Pan-western suffrage for women would never have happened without WWI & this is a hill I will die on.

Sadly could make a similar argument for 18th Amendment

pyrholidon.bsky.social•484 days ago

Our entire immigration system was overhauled to what it is today and made worse as a direct result of the events in WW1.

avramg.bsky.social•484 days ago

I've heard World War I described as a huge explosion that blew us all up into the air, and we haven't landed yet.

largecharlie.bsky.social•484 days ago

And interestingly WWI informs a lot of the American thinkers in International Relations theory.

wendelschwab.bsky.social•484 days ago

The idea of society progressing toward a modern, enlightened future was shattered by WWI as many vets came home and wrote about the horrors of war and how technology and mechanization was used for the first time to slaughter people on a mass scale.

patrickcanning.bsky.social•484 days ago

I also always wonder - did they REALLY happen to settle the war on the 11th, at 11:11 am? Or was it done earlier, and announced then because it's a nice number?
How many people died in the interim?

wendelschwab.bsky.social•484 days ago

People died AFTER Armistice. People didn't stop fighting just because someone said "oh we all agreed to stop."

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/

patrickcanning.bsky.social•484 days ago

I saw a book years ago of this guy's travels through south, central and eastern Europe in the years before WW1 - tiny governments, principalities, and kingdoms - all swept away and levelled into "nation-states."

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