Britain Should Not Have Fought in the First World War. Yes or No?

[SysError]

I must admit that WWI has always been a bit foggy to me.  Especially how the assassination of a pompous heir apparent to one of the more minor powers of the great powers could lead to the deaths of 10 million combatants and perhaps 10 million civilian deaths.

The reason that the causes of WWI are foggy, as one historian puts it, is that the causes of WWI are actually very complicated. 

I think that it would be fair to say that for some, and here I would have to include myself, WWI is often just viewed as an unexamined preamble to WWII.

Anyway with the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI there have been a number of events, remembrances, lectures and debates about the War.  Here are some videos of events that I have found interesting.

Debate motion:
 
Britain Should Not Have Fought in the First World War.

If you want to “play along at home” you should decide if you are For, Against or Do Not Know before you watch the debate and then compare that to your thoughts at the end of the debate.  Please remember, you can only vote on the stated motion, you cannot vote for an altered motion that you wish was there.




For those of you without Flash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqO5CnnKLtA&t=43


Military History
I thought that this was a brief history that many of the guys here would be interested in

The Military History of the First World War: An Overview and Analysis - Professor David Stevenson


For those of you without Flash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMEFg_-26Ms



This lecture is by Christopher Clark author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.  As put by amazon the book is: One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year and Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepwalkers-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0061146668


How Europe Went to War in 1914. Tans Lecture Maastricht University. Christopher Clark


For those of you without Flash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hv4HfLQGlw


France and the Origins of the Great War


For those of you without Flash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx_V4NAUuW8

[Curval]

WW1 was started because of a complicated system of alliances between the great Colonial Powers of the Day.  It cannot be viewed from a modern position of "morality" or current political correctness.  It was what it was.

It even started when it did due to train schedules.

[Masherbrum]

Exactly Curval.


Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

[FLOOB]

Nobody should have fought in the first world war.

[SysError]

WW1 was started because of a complicated system of alliances between the great Colonial Powers of the Day.  It cannot be viewed from a modern position of "morality" or current political correctness.  It was what it was.

It even started when it did due to train schedules.

I could agree with you.

Are you For, Against or Do not Know on the motion?

[Curval]

Against.

[SysError]

Against.

Prior to watching the debate I was Against.

I say this primarily b/c I had always thought that Britain had a treaty obligation to defend Belgium.  Well that may not have been the case.  I say may b/c it is unclear to me if this is just a case of some dodgy creative lawyers seeing what they wanted to see or if all the signatories had that understanding when drafting the treaty.

That point was not cleared up for me during the debate.

If the answer is that Britain was not obligated to defend Belgium, then I would lean very heavily For the motion.  I have been trying to read up more about the Treaty of London.







 

[zack1234]

If we never fought in WWI we would not have got the WWI arena

[Bruv119]

If we never fought in WWI we would not have got the WWI arena

not to mention planes or tanks!   

[bozon]

Britain did not go to war to defend Belgium. Nobody really cares about Belgium, they had their own selfish reasons like every other nation that is not Belgium.

[pembquist]

I dislike these kind of counter factual propositions. I believe it is too simple a question to answer honestly. I have been reading a little popular writing on probabilities and I just finished a Nasim Taleb book which (while the man is a bit of a blowhard) is pretty clarifying on how poor human judgement of randomness is. I don't see how you can make an absolute declaration that Britain should not have fought in the war as it immediately begs the question of exactly how and what would have happened then. It also suggests that somehow it was up to Britain (whoever that is) to decide.

I personally believe that that war was analogous to a never burned forrest after years of drought. Stupidity, ignorance, dillegence in planning, fear and ambition, mistaking the future for the past, technology so many things caused and made that war so traumatic that boiling it down to binary questions seems, (while enjoyable, mind you,) a little silly.

I enjoyed watching, thanks for putting them up.

[Golfer]

Episode one of Blueprint to Armageddon from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History does a very good job of describing the entrance into the truly modern area by the old world and how they met in the early 20th century.

Check it out in the Podcast App on your phone (free) or this website:

http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/

I won't be responsible for your subsequent addiction or listening to the Mongols episodes and the subsequent purchase of many books.

[Arlo]

Pretty sure there's no 'do over' option, making this exercise in futility, well, futile.

[JimmyC]

Except one should learn from history
Learn from mistakes
For the betterment of civilisation. ..
So not entirely futile.

[Arlo]

Don't get me wrong. I've been a student of history my whole life. I've even participated in more than one 'what if' discussion. This particular yes or no question is just that ... a 'what if' discussion. History is a 'what happened' discussion.