
Under a Spell – The Armistice at 100 - paulorlando
https://unintendedconsequenc.es/under-a-spell/
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airfreak
I really learned to appreciate the scale and horror of the war after listening
to Dan Carlin's 6 part podcast series on it. I highly recommend it though it
isn't for the faint of heart. [https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-bluepr...](https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/)

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thrower123
This is a fantastic series, and it's worth noting that it is free to download.
Buckle in for a wild 24 hour ride...

Ghosts of the Ostfront similarly cannot be recommended enough.

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logifail
>> ‘The politicians are the guilty ones,’ said one cavalry officer. ‘I am all
for revolution after this bloody massacre. I would hang all politicians,
diplomats, and so-called statesmen with strict impartiality.'

This section was the stand-out for me. Some things haven't really changed very
much, have they?

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credit_guy
> The waiter drew a diagram on the table-cloth. ‘I was just there.’ The three
> cavalry officers laughed. ‘Extraordinary! We were a few yards away.’ They
> chatted with the waiter as though he were an old acquaintance who had played
> against them in a famous football-match. They did not try to kill him with a
> table-knife. He did not put poison in the soup.”

This rarely happens after a war. A lot of wars are fought over ideological
reasons: Crussades because the Cristians hated Muslims, lots of medieval
European wars because Catholics and Protestants hated each other, the
Napoleonic wars because monarchists hated republicans, etc.

In my opinion WW1 was different because the cause of the war was not
ideological, but more materialistic: Germany had perceived that it had
achieved technological military parity with Great Britain. They did that after
a phenomenal 50-year burst of productivity advances that rivaled the advances
seen in Great Britain roughly 50 years before. They probably had the feeling
that everything is possible. So any spark could, and did trigger a war. The
people in the trenches though, had nothing agains each other. They fought
because they would be executed if they didn't, but otherwise it was natural
for them to be friends once the war was over.

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cafard
It had nothing to do with Serbian ambitions?

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vmh1928
You can use the unstable sand pile analogy to describe the state of Europe at
the time. The assassination was the last grain of sand that triggered the
collapse of the sand pile.

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dragonwriter
> You can use the unstable sand pile analogy to describe the state of Europe
> at the time.

Or, if you want to be direct a d literal, you can note that a key feature of
great power relations was belief in (what is now recognized as the myth of)
offense dominance—the belief that the technology of the day rendered the power
that attacked first an overwhelming military advantage, such that in the face
of likely impending war it was critical to attack first. It was literally an
inverse of MAD.

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Theodores
This is the best story on HN right now, it has been up here for an hour and
nobody has sought to comment.

It brings insight on a WW1 reporter who most people know nothing of and could
be enlightened by. A true literary gem is here.

Had there been a post on something really vital such as that newish function
key strip thing they have on those Apple computers these days then there would
be 480 comments on how to customise it best for Vi/Emacs.

And then we wonder why we - us - human beings - fall into the same traps of
propaganda and war every time.

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paulorlando
Thank you! It's comments like yours that keep me writing. And as to your point
on what draws attention.. yes, agreed. Recognizing that is a step and I remain
optimistic.

