
A Clear Case of Trading with the Enemy (2015) - ZeljkoS
http://greatwarproject.org/2015/07/20/a-clear-case-of-trading-with-the-enemy/
======
Animats
World War I was very strange by modern standards. It has to be understood in
the context of previous centuries. Europe had a long history of wars, and
several Great Powers pushing back and forth against each other. There were 18
or so wars in Europe between 1900-1917 alone, before WWI. Wikipedia has a
list. Wars between the same players were accepted as normal, and businesses on
both sides dealt with each other before, after, and sometimes during the war.
In WWI, Vickers and Krupp had licensed each others patents for various
weapons, and after the war, they settled up on royalties for wartime
production. This was considered normal business practice at the time. War
wasn't viewed as total; it was just something princes and governments did;
politics with guns.

WWI started almost by mistake. It rapidly got out of hand. All the major
countries now had machine guns, artillery, railroads, and steel mills. This
was an industrial strength war. It started with calvary and ended with tanks.
That was new. The level of destruction was much higher than in past wars. This
was the first war where there was more than enough ammo, and enough machine
guns and artillery to use it. France is still cleaning up unexploded ordnance
from WWI.

It's important today to understand how Europe worked before WWI today, because
that's Putin's view of the world - Great Powers engaged in ongoing power
struggles and land grabs. Hence Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine. We're used to a
comfortable superpower stalemate, which we've had since the atomic bomb in
1945. That may not last.

~~~
tsukikage
It sounds like an obsolete worldview when put like this, but it's worth
bearing in mind also that "a comfortable superpower stalemate" is not really
what it's ever looked like from the other side.

For the US, the decades of assorted coups, intrigue, proxy wars, military
adventures, tinpot middle eastern dictators, oil crises, war on terror, drone
strikes etc mostly happen somewhere off in another comfortably remote
hemisphere, with US involvement small and limited to people who signed up for
the job.

From the other side, all this stuff is happening near your country's borders
and potentially affecting your conscripted kids. It's like the Cuban missile
crisis ALL THE TIME. It's not "comfortable" at all.

------
ZeljkoS
As a side note, I have never heard of steel tires, but apparently in WW1 they
were a big thing:

\- Truck spring wheel:
[http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/smw/images/thumb/a/...](http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/smw/images/thumb/a/ab/Steel_tires_IMG.png/256px-
Steel_tires_IMG.png)

\- Bicycle spring wheel: [http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/WW1-...](http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/WW1-Germasn-Bicycle-Victoria-Springwheel-091.jpg)

~~~
kiddico
I think I can see some grooves on the first picture, but I don't see anything
on the second (bike) picture. How did those grip onto anything at all?

~~~
stagbeetle
Treads are usually for harsh environments: hard rain, ice, mud, to increase
traction and avoid hydroplaning.

In regular environments (see: driving on paved road) they actively work
against speed by reducing road contact due to tread gaps. That's why racing
vehicles use smooth wheels:

[http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/01/26/388620.1-lg.jp...](http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/01/26/388620.1-lg.jpg)

[http://www.slowtwitch.com/articles/images/6/75576-largest_MI...](http://www.slowtwitch.com/articles/images/6/75576-largest_MICHELIN_PRO4_Grip_cropped.jpg)

Plus most cars were still using slick (smooth) tires up until around the
1940s-1960s and (I don't believe) were fast enough to have a threat of
hydroplaning.

ETA: Just remembered you were talking about the bike. Considering the
background, it looks like it was used on dirt roads so if ever mud happened to
be in the way, one could just carry the bike over. Dirt roads also don't
usually require too much turning and are fairly sturdy, so there's little
reason to believe skidding was a common problem.

Even if it were for sidewalk/road riding, you can easily get out of the way of
puddles and slow down easier than cars.

------
RachelF
Many of the machine tools used to make the Merlin engines in British fighters
were made in Germany.

The British and Germans traded a lot prior to both wars, which is worry for
the argument that the trade links between the US and China will prevent a
future war.

------
brudgers
War is business by other means.

------
dagenleg
18-20 July? Of which year?

~~~
jmharvey
This website seems to post articles about what happened 100 years earlier, and
the URL says 2015/7/20, so I'd assume it's talking about July 1915.

