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Kaninchen
Guest
Which war would this be?
The United Kingdom is a republic?
History isn’t exactly your strong suit, is it?
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K
Kaninchen
Guest
The Germans took the first opportunity for war after the widening of the Kiel Canal for Dreadnaughts.
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holdencaulfield
Guest
However they did not start the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire started it.
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Kaninchen
Guest
The Germans pushed them into it. The Hungarians, in particular, certainly didn’t want to go to war over Franz Ferdinand!
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holdencaulfield
Guest
Well, if you want to say that. Then I would say it’s all the Serbians fault, with their Black Hand and all.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Maybe so, and I have no reason to doubt it. But his judgment was incredibly poor. Russia absolutely didn’t need to go to war with Austria, particularly knowing as it did that Germany would join Austria in it. Even then, Germany’s posture vis a vis Russia was defensive. Russia could have strongly garrisoned its frontier, beef up its armaments and done nothing more. Instead, it went on the offensive against Germany, poorly armed, poorly led and with revolutionaries it knew about waiting in the wings.
And meanwhile, the Serbs Russia was supposedly protecting gave Austria a pretty good slapping around all by themselves. It would have been nothing but a messy little Balkan war resulting, most likely in a draw, but for the big powers’ involvement.
Just unbelievably poor judgment.
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Kaninchen
Guest
They were merely the excuse - the first one after the widening of the Kiel Canal, it could have been anything.
You might, perhaps, read German historians on the subject. It’s not something for the backwards and forwards of a message board.
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Kaninchen
Guest
The Russians had to mobilize first, for logistical reasons. They were as trapped in the alliance with France as the French were with them.
It was merely an excuse - the Germans knew that they had to take the first opportunity for war that they could, later and the odds on them winning would be reduced (even weaker Austria-Hungary, even better prepared England and France, even Russia would have been better organized).
From the German point of view, the whole thing was a ‘world power or downfall’ struggle with England.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I’m not sure the first assertion is true. The Kaiser himself admitted the Serbian concessions removed every reason for war. According to some, it was the Austrian Count Bertholdt (sp?) who really even pushed Germany into it by persuading Austria to reject Serb concessions, attack Serbia, thus causing Russia to start mobilization, which caused Germany to mobilize, and so on. It was believed at the time that mobilization was tantamount to a declaration of war and, given the logistics of the time, perhaps it was.
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holdencaulfield
Guest
Why does everyone have to blame this on the Germans. Of course WWII was the Germans fault, however I don’t see them as having done anything wrong in WWI. Everyone knows that France, Russia, Serbia, The Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Great Britain were itching for a war. They hadn’t had a real war since the Napoleonic Wars.
France wanted to take back Alsace-Lorraine, even though they lost it in a war they started. Russia was wanting more land in the Balkans, like always. Besides Franz Ferdinand wanted to give the ethnic minorities in Austria-Hungry more rights. Serbia was just mad because of their “Pan-Slav” movement would fail.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Had the Kaiser not discharged Bismarck, there would never have been WWI. Bismarck’s understanding with Russia, (Drei Kaiser Bund) and his famous line that “The whole of the Balkans is not worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier” pretty well tell the tale. There were enough fools to go around.
But I expect WWI, like all wars, have more and deeper roots than that.
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holdencaulfield
Guest
Can you say Imperialism and Nationalism?
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kesa82
Guest
I don’t know if you are being serious or sarcastic. Genuinely confused, merely pedantic, or being obfuscatory.
Please advise.
You really don’t know which war I’m refering too?
The UK, circa 1914, was not a republic? So the king really was running things?
The last one : ???
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holdencaulfield
Guest
Great Britain in 1914 was a Constitutional Monarchy or a Limited Monarchy. It still is to this day. The only country that was a republic in 1914 was France. Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungry all had an Absolutist Monarchy for government.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Well, doubtless nationalism was a precondition for a war of nations, but I am not sure that’s an adequate cause in itself. I’m even less certain imperialism had much of an effect, except, I suppose, the rather weak, slow-motion imperialism Austria was conducting in the Balkans.
Certainly, though, it could be said the Alsace and Lorraine were the objects of nationalistic ambitions on the part of France. But since Elsass und Lothringen (Alsace and Lorraine) were actually German speaking places, indistinguishable from the people on the other side of the Rhine, French ambitions to reclaim them could be considered imperialist in a way. Could be said of Germany as well; Nationalism while in occupation of Elsass und Lothirngen, imperialism in 1870. German designs on Russian territory were not evident; even less Russian designs on German territory. Germany’s non-European territories were negligible. Russia’s (except for largely uninhabited Siberia, Central Asia and the Russian Far East, which were uncontested) and Austria’s were none. So I don’t know that non-European territorial ambitions had much to do with it, though some believe the German naval buildup and the Kaiser’s stupid ride into Agadir might have made England desirous of sinking Germany’s ships.
I am one of those who believe that France’s Plan 17 was fundamentally an aggressive strategy that France might have hazarded sooner or later over Alsace and Lorraine. But France was much less of an industrial power and had a substantially smaller population than Germany, so that could reasonably be doubted. Germany itself had nothing to gain in WWI.
It’s interesting to fantasize different outcomes in history. Had the Kaiser and the Hapsburg emperor decided to unite the crowns with a diplomatic marriage, giving Hungary a “rotation” in the system like the one among the princely families in Imperial Japan, the union would have been unassailable by any, needing nothing from any. England would have felt isolated, as England often does, and likely would have gotten closer to the U.S. (everyone on both sides of the Atlantic knew that was inevitable anyway) France could have dreamed its revanchist dreams and those of La Gloire over many bottles of excellent wine. Croatia would have become ever more integrated into the Empire. Germany/Austria could have given Russia the “green light” to retake Constantinople, the ancient Russian dream, (and that of all Orthodoxy) and be the indisputable leader of the Orthodox world. Europe would have been redivided (except for part of hapless Poland, which had been divided in three) along the ancient “Latin/Orthodox” line, which took another hundred years, nearly, to reestablish after WWI. Japan would never have taken the Kwantung Peninsula, which was its later springboard into China, and would not have dared challenge Germany for it, an undistracted France for Indochina or an undamaged England, allied to the U.S., for anything. Nationalism, which became so toxic under Hitler and, indeed, under Stalin and Japan, would have had to take a back seat within the polyglot empires on both sides of the Latin/Orthodox line, England and France could have played imperialism out to their terminations in a more peaceful way and given more time to formulate better institutions worldwide, the tatterdemalion Ottoman Empire could have gone back to sleep after the Russian seizure of Constantinople, both Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque would have resounded with Orthodox hymns in both Greek and Slavonic round the clock, and the world might well have enjoyed a century of prosperous peace.
Lenin would have had to be a schoolteacher with unlikely dreams. Hitler could have been a perpetual vagabond on the edge of insanity. Stalin could have had a fair life for a time as the bank robber he was otherwise born to be, Hirohito could have grubbed for worms in Tokyo Bay decades earlier, and millions would have survived that did not survive.
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Milliardo
Guest
Being new to Orthodoxy, I don’t know the exact answer, but AFAIK there are local saints (meaning, for a particular jurisdiction or place) and saints recognized universally by the Church.
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Kaninchen
Guest
The questions of the origins and ‘timetable’ for the First World War are a bit beyond a message board and more than a little beyond any time I have available to plow through and translate German academic works!
My original comment hadn’t been about that really - I’d been thinking primarily of Nicholas’ failures within the Russian context. The victory of the Bolshevik section of the Russian Social Democratic Party was one of the least inevitable events in human history and, without a ‘Red Scare’, no victory for the NSDAP.
My original comment hadn’t been about that really - I’d been thinking primarily of Nicholas’ failures within the Russian context. The victory of the Bolshevik section of the Russian Social Democratic Party was one of the least inevitable events in human history and, without a ‘Red Scare’, no victory for the NSDAP.
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angelusm
Guest
They were killed and it doesn’t mean they were martyrs. Being killed is not enough to be saint. I’m not sure how it works in the Orthodox Church but in the CC there have to miralces caused by the intersessions of the candidate for sainthood. Were there any miralces because of Romanovs’ intercession?I read somewhere that Tsar Nicholas II and his family, murdered by the Bolsheviks, have been made martyrs by the Russian orthodox church. I know little about orthodox. Did I understand that correctly? Is a martyr the same as a saint? How does it differ if so ?
I get very emotional about the late Tsar and his family.
What good have they done to be declared saints? Did they live strictly according to the Jesus’ will?
Russian tsars were always brutal and primitive rulers. They enslaved many nations, also mine, and have blood on their hands. Westerners believe in lies and legends about Russia. That’s all. God bless.
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HashemEchad
Guest
I believe (as Orthodox Judaism teaches) that God uses rulers of the nations to serve the ultimate purposes of the Jewish people.
I believe, as the Torah states, that God uses other nations to either bless or curse us.
I always found it providential that Ferdinand and Isabella sent Columbus on his expedition to discover the New World on the very date that they were also issuing their Edict of Expulsion of the Spanish Jews, August 3, 1492 (which was also the 9th of Av that year, when all Jewish tragedies seemt occur.)
Here were two antisemitic rulers, driving the Jews out of their country, yet also, unknowingly, paying an explorer to discover a country that would later become the only truly safe haven the Jewish people has ever known!
Similarly, Nicholas II, through his antiJewish policies, made Russia an intolerable place for Jews (as well as others, I should add). This caused millions of Jews to flee Russia, go to America, and as a result, those Jews (my grandfather and grandmother included) were safe from Hitler, a mere 20 or so years later.
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lucy212
Guest
Have you noticed the name of this sub forum?
You can’t kick us to the “Non-Catholic” section
like there is no difference between LDS, SDA, Hindus, or Luthern, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, etc…, and then cry foul when the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t follow Roman Catholic rules, on who is and who is not cannonized as saints and martyrs.
It seems a bit ridiculous, as a matter of fact.
I would be interested in what you knowledge of the Orthodox church canonization process, and a list of books you have read on the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution. Sources would be nice.
And when did being nice, just, honest, and a wise ruler become one of the requirements for sainthood
I think that would leave some Roman Catholic Rulers out in the cold, not to mention many Roman Catholic Popes.
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