WW1: Whos to Blame?

America isnt immune to imperialism and greed, just look at the mexican american war. We got alot of colonies form Spain, over a really stupid reason that we used to go to war, just like what Austria-Hungary was trying to with Serbia. The American people were behind the war, so the government was able to do it, thats about the only real difference (And America won :D )

Also, im quite certain that the Black Hand was not sponsored by the government of Serbia. THye may have received training and weapons there, but it was not state sponsered, so Austria blaming the state is unjustified.

While im not sure of the exact contents, they did find chemical weapons delivery systems, even if the chemical weapons themsleves were not present (destoryed, most likely, since it would be like a building a nuclear warhead without Urainium), which violate the treaty. Also, to me it does not matter what weapons he had or did not have, he was slaughtering his citizens. If Germnay had never gone past the gain of the munich conference, but convinced all it’s allies to deport jews to germnay and began slaughtering them (he would have about 2 million to kill), do you think a war with him would be justified? (the answer is yes, in case you have no, or very twisted, morals :P ) its the same thing with iraq, even if it was not on the same scale.

Now that ive said that, i would appreciate if you mentioned something on topic along with the iraq debate. While Austria’s actions with Serbia were pretty bad, using the knoweldeg that the austrian;s had they could be justified. When you look at the demands, thye did not actually harm the Serbain state physically, it just impinged on theri soveriegnty in regards to the conviction of members of Anti-Austrian terrorists. Serbia could ahve accepted them, it would not have been harmed physically, although it’s pride would have been shot, burned, ressurected, and shot again. A COnflict between Austria and the midget state of Serbai did not have to invlove the rest of the big 6 (Germany, Britian, Russia, France, and Italy), which is why i blame Russia. Thye were not ready for war, had little monetary value invested in Serbia, and could have let the conflict play out. Thye decided to go to war with Austria, and obviously Germany as well, depsite Germany’s attempts at diplomacy. Furthermore, they dragged France into the mix with their allaince. Austria may have lit the match, but Russia lit the fuse.

Also i would like to hear from the person who said that britian was to blame, that would be interesting :D. And no one has said france…you would think with all the french bashing these days they would score a few votes :lol: .

i dont think it was the alliance system exactly, but the way all the countries handled their allainces. Before 1914 the countries used their allainces to pressure there allies into avoiding war, while in 1914 countries like Austria and Russia used thier allainces to pressure Germany and France INTO a war. Also, before around 1905 (Russo-Japanses war), the way war was conducted prevented such a long conflict from occuring. There were wars (Franco-Prussian, Six weeks war, Crimean war, etc.) but they were wars of movement and armies, not total wars of trenches and entire nations.

Im officialy a comrade now, pretty sweet. Fear my bolshevik hordes! 8)