World War I inevitability

[albionmoonlight]

So the current European mess has reminded me of a question that I've had floating around my head for a while. And I know we have some history buffs here who might be able to point me in the right direction.

When I first learned about WWI, the thinking was that a war between these great European powers using modern weapons was inevitable. The actual spark that started the war (the assassination of the Archduke) was seen as almost random. And nothing was going to stop the war from happening.

What's the current thinking on that? Do the recent books/publications still support that theory? Or is there another theory that is currently in vogue?

[molson]

I'm just glad to see that your thread title wasn't a typo. I thought, "oh, he means III" when I clicked on it.

[flere-imsaho]

My understanding was that it was thought of as inevitable due mainly to all of those mutual aggression treaties. So, any two countries start fighting, and everyone else pretty much has to pile on or agree that treaties aren't worth shit. And since pretty much all of European history up to that point included countries fighting off and on, it's easy to see why it was felt to be an inevitability.

[Thomkal]

Its been awhile since I've studied European History but there has always been multiple causes for why it started. It seemed inevitable given the political, economic, and military furor going on at the time. Not sure if these are new thoughts or not, but you might be able to start your search here:


Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access Denied


Edit: Should be able to reach this site so not sure why its saying Firewall

[sabotai]

Personally, I would push back against the idea that anything is "inevitable". It's easy to look back at how things happened and not think of how they couldn't.

There's a YouTube channel called The Great War that made week-by-week videos of the war, and made several "prelude to war" videos going over the causes.

And while the assassination is called "the spark that started the war", there was an entire month between that and the start of the war. Here's the Wikipedia article on "The July Crisis" that led up to the war.

July Crisis - Wikipedia

[tarcone]

And that assassination was as random as they come. The killer missed his chance, but the Archduke wanted some food so they turned off their route onto a side street and who was there? His assassin.

And the rest is history.

There is a great podcast by Dan Carlin called Hardcore History. He has a series on WW1, maybe 12 or more hours. Fantastic.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by tarcone

And that assassination was as random as they come. The killer missed his chance, but the Archduke wanted some food so they turned off their route onto a side street and who was there? His assassin.

And the rest is history.

There is a great podcast by Dan Carlin called Hardcore History. He has a series on WW1, maybe 12 or more hours. Fantastic.

Second that podcast, it is terrific

[Carman Bulldog]

I think it's actually closer to 20-25 hours. Blueprint for Armageddon. The series on the Pacific Theatre of WWII is also excellent, Supernova in the East.

[sabotai]

I listened to the WW1 series, Mongols and the first few Supernova in the East ones. In fact, I'm not sure I even finished Blueprint for Armageddon. That come in at just over 23 hours. Supernova in the East is 26 hours, 45 minutes.

[larrymcg421]

One of my favorite quotes from a professor is we don't really know why World War 1 started, but we do know why World War 2 started: World War 1