As our Border is Overrun, The Guns of August Moved 100 years Ago - The Lost Lessons of World War I

Decisions made in a vacuum by the vacuous. It sounds familiar doesn't it? m/r

The Lost Lessons of World War I | The American Spectator

By Jed Babbin – 6.30.14

Great wars are not begun by accident.

Saturday was the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That event is supposed to have caused World War I, which was commonly labeled “the war to end all wars.”

I say supposed to have caused the war because if we look at what actually happened, we can gain a far better understanding of the lessons the world should have but never learned from World War I.

We know the vast scale of the number of dead, wounded, and missing. There were more than 200,000 Americans, three million British, six million French, seven million Germans and nine million Russians among them.

Ignorance of the lessons of World War I is a commonplace. The first among the lost lessons is: contrary to what we are told by an endless string of movies and novels, great wars cannot be begun by accident or by relatively small events such as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Belgium’s independence began in 1830, and nine years later, Germany, England, and France entered into a treaty that guaranteed its neutrality, promising not to engage in war within its borders. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany had other ideas. He saw Britain, under King George V, as trying to encircle Germany and prevent it from becoming the great power Wilhelm believed was its destiny. He pushed German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck from office and his military leaders, led by Field Marshall von Schlieffen, had by December 1905 drafted secret plans to invade Belgium with a massive force and sweep south to conquer France. Germans of that era often toasted to “der Tag,” the day that Germany’s conquest of Europe would begin.

German planning for the war, over the nine years from 1905 to 1914, was developed in the most minute detail. The Schlieffen plan included the movement of armies down to the mobilization of each unit of two million troops, equipping them and sending them by rail (with each locomotive planned to move specific cars and leave at a specified minute) to the points of disembarkation to invade Belgium.   

Bismarck predicted that the next great war would start with “some damned foolish thing” in the Balkans. When Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, a month of diplomacy ending in ultimatums sent between France, Germany, and Russia provided Wilhelm with the spark he chose to begin the long-planned war.

The second of the lost lessons is that civilian control of the military is essential to democracy. …

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The third unlearned lesson is that every nation has a psyche, …

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Another unlearned lesson of World War I is that nations must fire the generals who do not produce winning strategies….

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The last and probably most important forgotten lesson is that to the victors belong not the spoils of war but the power to make the most crucial mistakes in its aftermath that create the forces that bring about new wars. …

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