World War III...is it really possible?
How not understanding WWI, the Inter-war period, and WWII have left us right back at 1914!
It was the end of July in 1914 when the assassination of an ineffective emperor and his beloved wife turned into a world war. The concept had never occurred before - the entire world at war with each other, but that is what comes of alliances and colonies outstretched far beyond any direct border. To this day most school children across the world are taught 2 misnomers : that World War I was the result of a royal assassination by a Serbian nationalist thug and that it was the war to end all wars.
Of course neither is true, nor was it ever true. Both are propaganda.
World War I was the result of growing tensions between nationalism and imperialism. Contemporary imperialism began with the “discovery” of the Americas, but the concept goes well into antiquity. Human civilization seems to feel an urge to “rule the world” like some episode from Pinky and the Brain on loop. Each Imperialist era ends, often in bloodshed and a destruction of all the good the empire may have contributed to society as a whole. This was true of the Ancient Romans, The Ancient Mayans, Incas, Aztec, Egyptians, and Zulu. In the age of European Imperialism we see the end of its imperialism in the Americas with the American Revolution and in 1810 the fall of Spain’s imperial rule over Latin America began. To believe that an end to imperial rule over the Americas was the end of Imperialism is not only factually untrue, but naive. Once a handful of people hold absolute power over the masses, they never give it up freely or fully. No, the European imperialist royal houses simply had a meeting. They called it The Congress of Vienna. It was a series of face-to-face meetings between the colonial powers of Europe in which they looked to the rest of the world for ways to make-up their losses from the independence gained in the Americas.
From 1815 to 1871 Britain became the world’s leading, and often only, industrial power while the rest of Europe’s imperial countries expanded their empires into Africa and Asia. The British simply retained what colonies in the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa they already had. The years from 1871 to 1914 would be marked by an unstable peace as the countries of Europe shift in size and change borders creating a simmering animosity among neighbors.
Unlike the United States of America where the ties that bind are based on shared ideology of freedoms as described in the founding documents, in Europe the ties are based on a superficial belief in the validity of ancient borders, linguistic or religious ties and not shared goals or ideologies.
By 1884, these ruling countries felt the need to hold the Berlin Conference where they defined “effective occupation” as the criteria for international recognition of a territory claim, particularly in Africa. In other words, no longer was a full colonial government required, but simply full dominance over the native people of a region. This could be achieved in a variety of ways from violence to transferred local power resulting in tensions between local people over perceived preferential treatment. The Berlin Conference, also sought to claim an end to the slave trade. This is a misnomer as they simply no longer needed to transfer people from one colony to another for slave labor, they simply kept it all “in house”. This new colonialism gave rise to Eugenics and its application from social policies to medial paradigms. And while the empires of the world may have felt secure in their way of thinking and ruling democracy was spreading, even if only as the ideal of national sovereignty and individual rights. Nationalism is identifying of oneself with a group based on borders, a flag and a culture not based on subjects to a crown. National identity is far less fluid that imperial identity. This can create hostile sentiment towards the conquering empire and solidify sentiments of unity towards fellow compatriots - people of the same nation.
In 1914 the world saw what that really meant. Austria-Hungary, an empire consisting of Austria (at one point part of Prussia aka Germany) and Hungary (the Western most part of Europe once conquered by Attila the Hun with more Eastern cultural influences than Western) had conquered and consisted of several Slavic countries primarily the Balkans (Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia). Arch Duke Ferdinand had hoped to continue with the established policy of his empire to pay the conquered countries for their peaceful submission. But as his empire grew his ability to continue such payments lessened. And with that, the intensified national fervor among the people of each area. Ferdinand, like many rulers today including Biden, stated that the Serbs were Pigs, among other villainous or disparaging remarks - something the Serbs still hold against Biden to this day.
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