As you may know, before WWII started Germany put up with a few punishments. Such as the Rhineland and Saar being a demilitarised zone. But if you think about it, why did Germany get the blame for WW1? The first action of "the great war" had no German influence at all.

To be honest, I feel kind of sorry for how they got treated over that. Then the arrival of Adolf came along, and that didn't help their reputation one bit.

Just my thought on the subject. :king:

kinda a continuation of the ww1 who was good and who was bad thread already in play:)

Basically, WWII happened because of WWI. WWI happened because of a lucky shot by a single Serbian nationalist. Really the effects of that one lucky shot have formed the modern day, because WWII was a political battlefield for the Cold War, and the U.S.'s world policy today would be different if it weren't for the Cold War. Perhaps we would have more government declassification that way...

Originally posted by NewWaver
As you may know, before WWII started Germany put up with a few punishments. Such as the Rhineland and Saar being a demilitarised zone. But if you think about it, why did Germany get the blame for WW1? The first action of "the great war" had no German influence at all.

To be honest, I feel kind of sorry for how they got treated over that. Then the arrival of Adolf came along, and that didn't help their reputation one bit.

Just my thought on the subject. :king:

It can be argued that because Germany agreed to back Austria in hostilities with Serbia, she was war mongering because she knew that her actions would cause an international crisis and a probability of war.

The real answer is it was no single nations fault for the war and the war guilt imposed on Germany was the greatest blunder of the 20th century

I think I've said my peace on all of this in the WWI good/bad thread.

There's three good reasons for Germany to cop the blame for starting WW1:

1) Austria-Hungary wouldn't have acted in the reckless way that it did if Germany hadn't given it unlimited support

2) As CrazyDuck points out, the Germans should have known that their mobalisation would result in inevitable conflict.

3) Despite the threat to Austria-Hungary and Germany really being in the east, Germany still invaded Belgium and France as her first actions at the start of the war. If she had refrained from doing so, then the British would have stayed out and it's hard to see how the French would have made much headway into Germany.

Errrrrr

Where is the concept that Germany was treaty worse than her allies coming from?

Austria-Hungary no longer existed after the Great War.

The Ottoman Empire was totally dismantled after the Great War.

Germany lost a few pieces of territory (some of which were the spoils of earlier wars anyway) and had some territory demilitarised.

Sounds to me like the Germans got off easy, and weren't victimised at all.

(Look at the consequences of WW2 for 'Germany' to confirm that)

Originally posted by Case
There's three good reasons for Germany to cop the blame for starting WW1:

1) Austria-Hungary wouldn't have acted in the reckless way that it did if Germany hadn't given it unlimited support

2) As CrazyDuck points out, the Germans should have known that their mobalisation would result in inevitable conflict.

3) Despite the threat to Austria-Hungary and Germany really being in the east, Germany still invaded Belgium and France as her first actions at the start of the war. If she had refrained from doing so, then the British would have stayed out and it's hard to see how the French would have made much headway into Germany.

Iwould have to agree with this. If I may I am going to elaborate.


When Germany gave ulimited support for the war against Serbia it was a calculated gamble that Russia would back down. Russia had a defensive pact with Serbia as well as a common heritage in Slavic ethncity. They lost face against Austria a year earlier and Russia was determined to not do it again.

The German mobilsation lead to the ineitable conflict with France because of the von Shifflen plan (I know I spelt that wrong ;) ). It called for the quick defeat of France in the west (five weeks) in which Russia would ave to take to mobilise its large and relativley under supplied army. In which time Germany could swing back and defeat Russia at its leisure.

Germany however did not have a plan to just go to war with Russia or just go to war with France. Therefore with the complicated timetables for troops movements (taking months to compile) being mobilised war was inevitable. (France followed its plan called plan17 with it own timetable, once it begun mobilisation before it was invaded)

Britian could of stopped a greater war however. If it ad made its intetions clear, there is a chance war could of been averted. However its twentry-four hour ultimatum sealed the fate of eight million soldiers. The kaiser's government believed Britian would not join the fray, an did not want war with her. However the invasion of Belguim, via the von Shifflen plan caused British entry to the war.

By the time the british ultimatum reached Germany, the kaiser could not stop the war. A sad irony to the testment of military prepardness in the early twentieth century.

Any number of things could of stopped the Great War.

1. Austria could of restrained against Serbia. Their ultimatum was designed to destroy the Serbian state and make it a subsidday of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The fact is Serbia agreed to most of it, but one point. This was considered an outrightrefusal, and Diplomacy wasn't given a chance.

2. Germany could of notgiven unrestricted support of Austria, however the Kaiser could not afford to lose his last reliable ally in Europe.

3. Russia could of stopped the war by not mobilising and not suppporting Serbia, causing German mobilisation. However Russia could not afford to lose face after the Blakan Crisis inj 1913, if the monarchy was to continue.

4. Finally Britian could of stopped the war by declaing open support against Central Powers moves. Instead of the poxy ultimatum, it was possible that British cocerns could and would of been taken into account wih by Germany.

In the end it was the coninue bungling by national governments in not dealing with true and proper diplomacy instead avin nationalistic pride and passions take hold that lead to war a mere 33 days after the Archduke's assasination in Sarejevo.

I mostly suport Germany as they only helped their only ally.
After all, serbia used terorism... and thats not somthing good that we could just dont' loko at, as you see USA is today austro-hungary :lol: ... (so is britian germany??)

My memory on this isn't the very best, but if I recall correctly, it was Germany's choice to keep the conflict within Austria-Hungary and the Balkans, or extend it to France and the UK. Russia was inevitably involved, but hadn't Germany done all this **** with mobilizing, it wouldn't have been as bad as it has been.
I'm not quite sure on this, but I think it was the UK who offered to settle this peacefully provided Germany wouldn't mobilize. It did, it started the large-scale war by invading a neutral country which Germany knew would draw the UK into the war.
I think Germany started the world war this way and is/was guilty.

The Germans were very militaristic. They believed that they could quickly and easily win. They were looking for an excuse for a war. They expected Italy to join them so that it would be a walk over.

Central Powers Team

Austria-Hungary
Germany
Italy
Turkey

Peripheral Countries

France
Russia
Serbia

A key part of German strategy was to (a) stir up diplomatic trouble between Britain and France (e.g Africa or Asia) and (b)choose an issue on which Britain had no direct interest such as Serbia.

As soon as the assassination occurred; the German leadership thought this is their chance. Encourage the Austro-Hungarians to go over the top, provoke the Russians, obstruct any (e.g. British, Italian or American) attempts to mediate.



However the Germans made several critical mistakes:

(a) invading Belgium (brought Britain in)

(b) failed to realise that Britain, very deeply shaken by the superior marksmanship of the Boers, had made rapid accurate rifle shooting its top priority for its small professional army.

(c) relied on the Italians fighting for them for no obvious territorial advantages who surprised the Germans but nobody else by joining the peripheral powers instead.

(d) under-estimated the defensive strength of a trench.

In my opinion, if the assassination had not happened; the Germans would have started the war using some other pretext.

Originally posted by trumpeteer
Basically, WWII happened because of WWI. WWI happened because of a lucky shot by a single Serbian nationalist. Really the effects of that one lucky shot have formed the modern day...

Why was it a lucky shot? Didn't the assassin shoot the archduke at point blank range? As I recall the assassin leapt onto the running board of the archduke's motorcar...

Gravillo Princip was a member of a pro-Serbian terrorist organistaion called the Black Hand. Black Hand received co-vert assitance from the Monarchy of Serbia.

Gravillo Princip along with sreveral others planned the assaination of the Archduke while he toured Sarjevo, in the Austrian province of Bosnia. Their first attempt failed as the bomb hurled by the terrorists bounced off the roof of the carriage the Archduke was using and exploded 50 meters behind him.

That afternoon, Princip lamenting his failur in a cafe, sa the Archduke pass by. The Archduke has continued his tour with his wife. Sensing his oppurtunity, Gravillo Princip walkred up to the stopped carriage, pulled his revolover out and shot the Archduke and his wife at point blank range.

It was the Black Hand's assitance from the Serbian government that lead to the chain of events that ultimatley caused World War One.

If Austria had helped Russia during the Crimean war, Russia would have fought with the Central Powers. And the reason that the Germans were militriastic and thought they could win was because of their lightening fast victories over France, Austria, and Denmark under Bismarck in the late 19th century. Bismarck tried to keep Russia as an ally after the Crimean war, but Kaiser Wilhelm messed that up good. The Three Emperor's League, Austria, Russia, and Germany assured that the most powerful European state, Russia would be on Germany's side. But with Austria's refusal, the plan failed.
And what was up with the reparations that the Germans had to pay? 20 billion marks all in gold, that was too much.

Germany got blamed for WW1 because they started out 'defending' there allies but there goal turned into grabbing as much land as possible.

And what was up with the reparations that the Germans had to pay? 20 billion marks all in gold, that was too much.

From memory, the Germans had untill the 1980s to pay all the money, so they shouldn't have had any real problem paying it (it certainly would have been a lot more affordable then the spending the Nazis undertook, even before the start of WW2). The damage the repirations and limitiations on the German military inflicted on German pride were a lot more important then the actual sum of repirations which needed to be paid.

Germany got blamed for WW1 because they started out 'defending' there allies but there goal turned into grabbing as much land as possible.

Not true. The first action the Germans undertook in WW1 was the invasion of France and neutral Belgium. There was no defencive phase before German troops crossed the Belgian frontier.

This was perfectly in accord with the Germans' pre-war plans which called for an imeadiate offencive into France in the event of a war against Russia (the Germans wanted to knock the French out quickly so that they didn't get bogged down into a [unwinnable] two front war against the Franco-Russian alliance].

The Germans were very militaristic. They believed that they could quickly and easily win. They were looking for an excuse for a war. They expected Italy to join them so that it would be a walk over.

Close, but not quite. It wasn't that they thought it would be easy, in fact in late July, Wilhelm got cold feet and tried to call the whole thing off, but things had progressed too far at that point and his government disagreed with him.

Nicholas II was modernizing both Russian infrustructure and the military and it would be completed in a couple of years. The Germans knew that once this modernization was complete that they would stand no chance against Russia. The Russo-German conflict was the main driving force behind World War I. Germany needed to provoke a war as soon as they could, when they were at the peak of their strength and Russia was weak coming off the humiliation in Japan. France & Russia were allied, plus France had its eyes on getting Alsace-Lorraine back so France coming in would be inevitable in any Russo-German War. Germany couldn't afford to fight a war on two fronts for too long, so they tried to take France out quickly through Belgium.

Germany never intended for Britain to enter the war. They knew the Belgian invasion would anger them, but they thought they could hammer out a neutrality agreement with Britain. Wilhelm was shocked when Britain immediately declared war on Germany. From a historical perspective it was pretty much over at that point, the Central Powers could not fight Britain and win. They basically were in the same position as the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Fight long enough until the British have had enough and leave. They failed to take France early, dug in, and put most of their efforts toward the Eastern Front.

The idea that Europe was to blame for the war came about in the post-war period when Europeans felt they had to have done something wrong to lead to such slaughter. Most recent historians put more of a blame on Germany. That isn't to say that the rest of Europe didn't have anything to do with the cause of the war, but that Germany was the determining factor. Austria-Hungary was pretty much a vassal state to Germany in 1914 anyways. The war could have easily been contained in the Balkans had Germany not interfered.

And as Case said, the Germans had been planning this for 13 years at least. They were simply looking for the right time and felt that the Serbian conflict would give them the excuse.

Originally posted by trumpeteer
Basically, WWII happened because of WWI. WWI happened because of a lucky shot by a single Serbian nationalist. Really the effects of that one lucky shot have formed the modern day...
Ahh...those damn' Serbs..they're everywhere... ;)


But seriously..ser EdwardTking ,I think, explane how it was..or not?

Originally posted by Quasar1011


Why was it a lucky shot? Didn't the assassin shoot the archduke at point blank range? As I recall the assassin leapt onto the running board of the archduke's motorcar...

well there were actually a team of assassins, the first attempt along the parade route was a bomb which exploded in front of the archduke. the parade stopped because of it and therefor exposed the archduke to an easy shot.

Originally posted by lceman


well there were actually a team of assassins, the first attempt along the parade route was a bomb which exploded in front of the archduke. the parade stopped because of it and therefor exposed the archduke to an easy shot.

Read one of the posts I made above. It tells you of Gravillo Princip's success, and the failure of the Black Hand in the morning of the day of the assaination.

Just to add that after the WWI was finished Serbian goverment prisoned all oficires from theres army who was a member of Black Hand group (at least that ones they discovered) and sentence to death. It was, I think, on the request of the allies country goverment from war.


And ,tho it was a oficial start of the world, my personal opinion is that War would happened anyway sooner or later.

Germany got the blame because the war started out as them backing up their allie(Serbia) but turned into a land-grab.

Right. Do you know what you are talking about mate. Serbia was not allied to Germany, and the war was not a land grab. Turst me on those two aspects.

Serbia was allied with Russia. The Russian mobalisation in support of Serbia caused the Germans to mobalise. A fundamental part of both the German mobalisation and war plans was an imediate attack on neutral Belgium. The rest is history.

Not only Russia - France too, and than UK, USA, Italy...

Well maybe Sultan of Switzerland was missed some classes from that period of history lessons ;) or is to young so he didn't learn about that, yet.

On the other side were Germany, AustroHungary...