A Little World War 1 History

I use to have a 101 in 1001 days list. You know a list of things I wanted to do in 1001 days. I think I made it a little less than halfway through my list before my 1001 days ticked away. I have continued to occasionally scratch items off the list. One week in March, I scratched off a good one that has loomed over me.

91. Learn the basics about what started World War I.

My dad pulled a book off my husband's bookshelf that I had never noticed before:
A Pictorial History of the World War 1 Years by Edward Jablonski

"Pictorial" called to me. Give me just the basics. Give me pictures. All of the sudden I was engrossed. ENGROSSED and shocked. WOW the more I learned about this war the more I was shocked and appalled with myself for not knowing!

First off, I could never keep straight who was fighting who.

Central Powers: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria
Allies: France, England, Belgium, Russia, USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, Serbia and many others

Now before I go any further. I have to tell you about another book I read a couple weeks before I read the pictorial history book. Agathe von Trapp: Memories Before and After The Sound of Music by Agathe von Trapp


Agathe was Captain von Trapp's oldest daughter and she was always a little miffed that the movie did not accurately portray her family. She eventually came to terms with the fact that people loved the movie and its message about family and God etc. Regardless of the fact that that they actually took a train out of Austria and into Italy when they left the country. They didn't walk through the mountains to make their escape from the Germans. The Captain was also an Italian citizen so the Austrians couldn't force him into service -yet. There were many other discrepancies.



A proud daughter wrote and praised her father for his important work during World War 1.  He manned a submarine. I thought little of this as it was just Agathe's accounting. So as I am reading the pictorial history I realized that the von Trapp was commanding a submarine that was sinking British & French steamers with civilians on them! This is the danger of not knowing history! Her father was an enemy of America and its Allies and I didn't get it. It greatly disturbed me! I wish I had read the books in reverse. Reading about Agathe's account of history with more knowledge of World War 1 would have enabled me to really understand things and not be so easily swayed into how wonderful Austria was.

Now granted Captain von Trapp eventually came to America and he didn't want to fight with the Germans during World War II so obviously there was some change in convictions and loyalties. The point is had I not read the pictorial history, Austria would have continued to be - as it always has been- just this country where the von Trapp Family Singers originated.

When in fact it was they - the Austrians- who really started World War I.
    

They had wanted to start a war with the Serbians. The Serbians wanted to be their own country or something. So when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot it gave them a perfect reason. The assassination was carried out by Serbian terrorists and not the Serbian government. However, that didn't stop the Austrians from declaring war. The next thing you know Germany is invading Belgium and pushing toward France. It was a war that didn't seem to have a really good reason to be happening and nobody wanted to admit it and no one wanted to end it. They just kept drawing in more countries and sending more young men to die.

There is so much to this war. So much to history we should know.

In the end, which really wasn't an end at all, it was just the ceasing of hostilities aka Armistice Day.
That was another thing that was new to me. I didn't know the war didn't really end. They just stopped fighting.
According to wikipedia over 16 million people died in that war. That's 1.75% of the total population of the earth at that time. That doesn't include the wounded.

On one of the last pages of the book was this quote that really tied it all up for me.

Some German delegate at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, asked Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minster, "I wonder what history will have to say about all this?" Clemenceau said, “They will not say that Belgium invaded Germany.”

May Americans always know this and so much more. 

I just took out from the library The Pictorial History of World War II by the same author...