WWI and WWII Discussion

[Tetro Kornbluth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh Jesus tapdancing christ, not this sh!t again. (Among the other many other stupid things you have said here... not least that the Third Reich held no threat to America. The Merchant Navy would I'm sure agree with you there.)

Look in terms of political debates the division between "big government" and "small government" is intellectually insignificant, pretty much an American invention probably due to the fact that America never really had a feudal period (unless you count Slave Plantocracy in the south but that was still very different) and has pretty much has had one dominant ideology in its history - Liberal Nationalism.

In Europe however the ideological war was not won until 1989 (for now) and so we realized long ago that the structure of government isn't what is important ideologically as the reasoning and thinking behind it. Fascism was supported by conservatives, monarchists, romantic-era nationalists and elements of the Upper and Middle Classes who saw it as an alternative to communism, Capitalism and democracy having to seen to have 'failed'. It had its roots in Modernism, Romanticism (see nationalism), Futurism, Nietzschean 'superman' ideas, social darwinism, technological and industrial development as progress, eugenics... all recent inventions (in the 1920s) yet it was recast as a new society of order and social certainty against self-expression, equality and intellectual individualism and everything else what we call 'the left' has believed in since forever. Rather fascism from Mussolini's new "Roman Empire" to the Nazis neo-paganism, to the Rexists, Blueshirt and Falangists Catholic social order and hierarchy worship recalled a feudal past (or rather what early 20th Century people thought of as a feudal past), a new Ancien Regime if you will which would pre explicity anti-revolutionary led on by one supreme man to which the nation would march towards. The fact that fascism was corporatist was part of its appeal, social union with social hierarchy. The ideology being society.

And if you believe that is a form of 'socialism' then you dear boy, should leave this forum at once and read up on as many as books by socialists as you can imagine.

(And I'm going to set up links to this post if I ever see that stoopid fascism = left or socialist arguement.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

NONE!  As an ethnic Irish Catholic, I would have fired the torpedo!  Thing is I would be torn on the simple fact of preservation of democracy which the Central Powers were clearly against.  To hell with the British!

Most Ethnic Catholics in Ireland would disagree with you, they don't share your triumphalism (except of course for Republican splinter groups, no-one cares about them anymore). Not to mention that at this point Most Ethnic Catholics were still 'pale green' nationalist and thus wanted to preserve the union with autonomy and probably had family fighting on the western front.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh many Germans were pissed alright, but only some of those took up nazism and anti-semitism.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Interesting. I don't particularly like the idea of Ireland being 100+ gaelic chieftaincy no matter how seductive that may seem. People have to live here you know. And do the business of life.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So should have Ireland of course btw.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The bolded bit is LOL.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

No chance in hell. I may not like Dev but he was committed to democracy and opposed to triumphalist ultra-nationalism (Despite his role in the civil war). More likely some kind of fascist german-backed putsch putting Eoin O'Duffy in charge of some kind of Vichy Ireland. (Which would then proceeded to kill en mass Jews, Freemasons, protestants, women who didn't live up to 'gaelic' ideal and so on.)

League of Nations mandates failed. An independent Sudetenland would have been the worst case, as with Trieste. Ever since Napoléon, Europe has never been peaceful (or even relatively so), when there have been many squabbling foreign policies to be pursued. The great empires pre-WWI managed to keep peace reasonably well. Interwar, there were endless struggles (Poland, Austria vis-à-vis Germany, etc.), and during the Cold War, the Brezhnev Doctrine essentially divided Europe into two camps, keeping the peace. Post-Communism, there's been much trouble in the Balkans.

Europe had hardly been peaceful since Napoleon especially in the 1848-1871 period certainly compared to Europe since 1945 (except in the Balkans). And alot of those peace was due to the old reactionary elite fear of revolution ("Metternich System".)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I can't believe I missed most of this

Al is pretty much correct. Much of the self-determination rhetoric after WWI was bullsh-t designed to fragment the ancien regime (but retain continuity - if you were the victor) and the borders imposed were even worse. There was always a case for the creation of states like Poland and the full autonomy of Hungary, but the adjustments to German territory were broadly unfair. There was a fine line at Versailles between punishing the defeated and state-building. If self-determination was uniformly applied or was weighted heavier than the 'punishment', Hungarian borders would not have been clipped in nearly all directions for example, nor would Anschluss have been forbidden. Versailles was not a new beginning, it was an appendix to the Congress of Vienna that had taken place over 100 years before. It was the also an unnecessary jolt to the dying, pre-industrial romantic nationalist ideal, that combined with fascism created a more serious problem than the one that preceded it.

Ancien Regime? I don't get your reference, all that was finished by 1918. And by the time of Versailles there was less than a zero percent chance of a Habsburg restoration (Except perhaps in the Rump Austria) and the pathetic attempt of Karl I to take back in his throne in Hungary after Horthy came to power proved that. Neither was the Ottoman Empire to be reconfigured (in any serious way).

For the bit in bold in the case of Hungary most of the Austro-Hungarian division of terriority was little more than a continuation of the end of 1919 where Romania took Transylvania, The Czechs took Slovakia, The Serbs Vojvodina and other terriorties. The Liberal Hungarian PM Count Karolyi making the disastarous decision to disarm his armies, mainly thinking that Hungary would be offered good terms by the allies in his effort to create a Middle European multi-ethnic 'Switzerland' (Funnily enough a similar goal was held by the then Czech PM, Tomáš Masaryk). All the allies did was confirm the terriorities already lost.

The one thing in retrospect I find surprisingly was that the Allies didn't want a powerful central European nation (Germany would have fitted that bill.. but you know..) to counter Bolshevikism which was already spreading across the area at time (Russo-Polish War, The Hungarian Soviet of Bela Kun, All those German revolutions like the Spartacists). It was that sort of thinking, anti-revolutionary, which restored Austria in its power after the Congress of Vienna.

As for jolting the nationalist ideal, don't you remember what caused WWI in the first place?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

As for jolting the nationalist ideal, don't you remember what caused WWI in the first place?

The use of Ancien Regime was an anachronism for Versailles being a rather belated continuation of the Congress of Vienna mopping up after Napoleon. It's what the Congress could have been like if the victors were aware of the tactical advantage of small nationalistic states as opposed to 'stable' ambling empires.

I can see your point, but I'm not much of a backer of the alliance/military/expansionist theory of the cause of WWI. I'm back the economic/industrial theory of the cause of the war. As I've said before I'm not a conservative historian. The visual nationalism was tacked on when Europe went to war (as happens when most countries go to war) Germany wanted to smash the protectionist elements of the British and French Empires (hence the dry run Morrocan crises) and re-order Europe to establish a customs union. Unfortunately it had to violate the territorial integrity and independence of it's neighbours to do so. The main threat to Germany's position as the economic powerhouse of continental Europe was Russia. Germany played a game of 'smoke and mirrors' to portray Russia as a potential agressor to it's sleepy Austrian allies. It also explains the terms of Brest-Litovsk. It also ties in with why Russia became the first communist experiment and not say, Germany as Marx had predicted. There are echoes of 1848 in there too but it gets rather long winded.

And then of course there's Poland 1920 as you've pointed out. The men who said 'join, fight and turn on Russia' after the defeat of Germany twice last century were not as daft as history has often made them out to be. Thank goodness we didn't do that of course

Just a few things.. while I agree that Nationalism was often a smoke screen for various other political and economic interests of the German, British and French governments it should not be forgotten that nationalism was also the major threat to European political stability in the period before 1914. Especially where the war started in Balkans where the Romanovs, the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans had been disintregrating in power and influence leaving a huge power vacuum in its wake mainly taken up various Pan-Slavist groups (in Serbia) and expansionist and feuding nationalisms (in Bulgaria and Greece; see Second Balkan War), the Nationalist coup in 1908 which overtook the Ottoman Empire should not be forgotten. Not that this alone a problem for the Balkans but across Europe, none of the states that went to war were really particularly stable and it should not be forgotten how nationalism divided any potential opposition to the war, especially within socialist circles (Germany being the prime example of this).

Britain: Had a potential civil war about to break out over home rule in Ireland
France: Is France. And the Third Republic was hardly a beacon of stability
Russia: Where to begin? Increasing tensions with ethnic minorities on their borders, widespread violence following 1905 and the weakening of nationalism (which was still very much associated with Orthodox Christianity at this point btw) following the defeat to Japan, an antiquated 18th Century political system which still relied on the Tsar being god's representative.. who no-one respected. Also the Backwardness of the country created a much large anti-establishment intellectual class bitter at the failure they saw around them. Add to the mix then increasing industralisation (and also 'workers soliditarily') between 1900-1914 which was mainly done so Russia could maintain being a power. But the contradictions quickly imploded within themselves.
Italy: Unification was mainly due to other powers and the shifting alliances of mid 19th Century Europe rather than any idealism and anyway "things only changed so they could stay the same" (From The Leopard) and a great deal of disillusion set in after 1871 after the clear monarchial nature of the new regime was apparent. Then add up 30 years of unification not alliveating any of the goals it set out to 'do': didn't fix the backwardness of the South, didn't create a much more efficient or loyal civil society. In fact Italian society was as corrupt as ever and ergo it isn't surprising that by this point clevages of hard left and right begin to emerge with a very strong anti-establishment nationalism of which D'Annuzzio was the best representative (and Garabaldi 2 generations earlier) which eventually led to the coming to power of Mussolini.
Germany: Socialism and Industrial tension contributed to problems within the 'Prussian' Reich mixed with an expansionary foreign policy which required a strong Austria; in both cases Nationalism was a major threat (except non-German nationalism o/c)
Austria-Hungary: Well we all know.. and there is no need to go into that. Needless to say it is clear what ideology Gavrilo Princip had (though the war was inevitable by that point).

Basically my point is here that nationalism was 1) a unifying agent between each nations elite and their people (which would soon be replaced by socialism and fascism in places..) as long one could portray the national cause as 'right' and 'correct' thus 'poor little Belgium', 'Russian Agression', even Pan-German sentiments were stoked up while all the time believing the war would be over soon and 2) the major opposition movement towards de-stabilizing Europe and destroying what was left of the Feudal order. Also to Mention that parts of the European Economy was getting increasingly integrated.. the period of 1870-1914 is the 'first great age of globalisation' after all and where that happens there is both increasing cultural dominance by the more powerful societies and resentment and opposition to that.

Of course it should be pointed here that the Congress of Vienna had been restore the power of Merchantilist era Monarchies across Europe following Napoleon, by 1914 they had disappeared in France (Revolutionary legacy, I think the French still believe they invented Poltics) and had weakened with pressure in most of central-eastern Europe (and had dissapeared in a couple of minor places like Switzerland) but by 1918 it was all over.

* - Okay, Okay, I admit British exceptionalism, though they did lose Ireland thanks to the war, which is something which seems to never be mentioned in British history much.