Great Power Most Responsible for WW1?

[Razgovory]

If Russia had not intervened and partially mobilized it would have stayed a local matter.

My thoughts, as well.

Yes, but that's the argument that the bullying would just have involved two students if the anti-bully hadn't stepped in.

Had Austria accepted the Serb response to the ultimatum, it would have stayed an even more local affair.  Austria pressed war so that "the empire can die decently;" Russia because its government was trying not to die.

Had Austria heeded the Russian threat and backed down (yet another Austrian opportunity lost), it would have remained a very local affair.

Yeah, but the anti-bully didn't step in.  Instead he joined the student who smacked the other student in the back of the head when he wasn't looking.

[The Brain]

Slavpologists make me sick btw.

[Sheilbh]

That ignores the fact that there was a significant body of opinion around the Kaiser that wanted a war.

[derspiess]

My uber-redneck high school history professor used to claim that the correct pronunciation for Gavrilo Princep's last name was "Prin-keps".

We used to ask him how you can get that out of "Princip", and his reply was that that's just how people talk over there

[The Brain]

Since no one wanted to discuss the legal angle I'll do it anyway.

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

Source: Wiki ( )

Seems fairly clear to me. If we accept the rule of law Germany was responsible.

[crazy canuck]

This thread is a reminder that MacMillian's book on the of the war is coming out at the end of the month.

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-war-that-ended-peace/9780670064045-item.html?ikwid=war%2520that%2520ended%2520peace&ikwsec=Home

[derspiess]

US should have stayed neutral.  To hell with Woodrow Wilson and his anti-Kraut bigotry!

[Valmy]

US should have stayed neutral.  To hell with Woodrow Wilson and his anti-Kraut bigotry!

I don't see any other way we could have stopped the rampaging and barbarous Hun and saved Democracy.

[derspiess]

US should have stayed neutral.  To hell with Woodrow Wilson and his anti-Kraut bigotry!

I don't see any other way we could have stopped the rampaging and barbarous Hun and saved Democracy.

Also need to put those German-Americans in their place & take their beer away 

Having said that, based on some reading I did recently it appears that the local Germans around here may have gotten a slight bit full of themselves early in the war.  They'd have been treated shitty either way once the US declared war though, I guess.

[Valmy]

Also need to put those German-Americans in their place & take their beer away 

Yeah that was a dark time for Central Texas let me tell you.  For 70 years the Rhinelanders had lived here in their own German speaking towns living in their own little American-German world.  Later German immigrants would find them bizarre since the Germany of Central Texas seemed perpetually stuck in 1849 when they had all moved here en masse.  All the saloons in this part of Texas were either German only or had German speaking sections.  The whorehouses all had German speaking whores.  Central Texas had more beerhouses per capita than anywhere in the country...and then BOOM in just a few short years from 1917-1920 all that was swept away dramatically.  There are scarcely any living speakers of the Central Texas German dialect left. 

Having said that, based on some reading I did recently it appears that the local Germans around here may have gotten a slight bit full of themselves early in the war.  They'd have been treated shitty either way once the US declared war though, I guess.

Yeah alot of them were enthusiastically on the Central Powers side right up to the moment the US declared war (well they and some of the more sympathetic ethnic groups from the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  When you consider the considerable wealth and power the German-Americans enjoyed by that point it did not go unnoticed by the generally pro-Ally nativists.

[grumbler]

Since no one wanted to discuss the legal angle I'll do it anyway.

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

Source: Wiki ( )

Seems fairly clear to me. If we accept the rule of law Germany was responsible.

The US rejected this treaty, and Sweden didn't sign it.  How is that treaty a part of the "rule of law?"

[derspiess]

Also need to put those German-Americans in their place & take their beer away 

Yeah that was a dark time for Central Texas let me tell you.  For 70 years the Rhinelanders had lived here in their own German speaking towns living in their own little American-German world.  Later German immigrants would find them bizarre since the Germany of Central Texas seemed perpetually stuck in 1849 when they had all moved here en masse.  All the saloons in this part of Texas were either German only or had German speaking sections.  The whorehouses all had German speaking whores.  Central Texas had more beerhouses per capita than anywhere in the country...and then BOOM in just a few short years from 1917-1920 all that was swept away dramatically.  There are scarcely any living speakers of the Central Texas German dialect left. 

That's exactly what happened here, specifically in the Over the Rhine enclave.  It was basically like a German version of the New Orleans French Quarter.  Lots of nice beer gardens & saloons, several breweries, and I think the city as a whole had 4 German newspapers at most times.  The US entry into the war and Prohibition were like a one-two knockout punch.  The Krauts in OTR quietly dispersed throughout the city and largely Anglicized, some going as far as changing their surnames.

[Drakken]

If Russia had not intervened and partially mobilized it would have stayed a local matter.

Nicholas II thought like you, except that it wasn't logistically possible; it was either full mobilization or no mobilization. The Russian timetable for mobilization was extremely strict, because of the massive amount of both soldiers to mobilize and ordnance to displace, on such a vast territorial scale as Russia. Plus partially mobilizing would have meant immediately starting at a disadvantage against a retaliating Germany plus Austria-Hungary, who would certainly both immediately order a full mobilization in consequence.

[Agelastus]

Britain was sort of outside the rivalries in Europe, had it's fingers in pies all over Europe, and this enormous navy as leverage.

That "enormous navy" provided exactly zero leverage inside Europe in an era when the question was "how many million soldiers could be delivered to the front in x days/weeks". For a crisis outside Europe, yes, we had significant leverage, but not for one inside Europe.

And the events of 1914 were clearly "inside" Europe.

[Admiral Yi]

That strikes me as asking alot from Russia, just to stand by and watch their allies get steamrolled.  I mean they had sort of done that in 1908 already.

I don't get what you mean by steamrolled.  Are you talking about Austrian oversight of the investigation into the assasination plot, or the invasion that would follow when Serbia refused?