The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [306]
[169] How warring parties define victory can control how the war and its aftermath are handled. Remember Carthage? And when we get to WWII think about how “unconditional surrender” effected the Allied war effort. Same for Vietnam and Korea.
[170] Russia apparently made this promise to support its Slavic “neighbor,” as Russia was also a Slavic nation; however, it makes little sense. Russia was not in a geographic position to render sufficient aid to Serbia before it was overrun. The only reason to support Serbia was to prevent a war, and this Russia could not do if Germany was in the picture. The smart move was to threaten mobilization and then do nothing. If Serbia was crushed so be it, but somehow the Czar thought a war with Austria-Hungary AND Germany was OK. Could it be the alliance with France gave him false hope? Anyway, his actions were stupid. So were the Kaiser’s, the British, and later the USA. With so many dumb guys ruling major powers maybe the war was inevitable.
[171] World War I, Keegan, 2000, Vintage Press. Keegan, excellent, as always, on WWI and its causes, and the importance of time.
[172] “Everything” meaning the survival of the German nation.
[173] The all-important factor to the involved nations, it seems.
[174] See: John Keegan, The First World War, 2000 Vintage Press.
[175] The disconnects are many: the jump from the German plan to the battle of the Marne is too attenuated—who knew a gap would open up? Also, push the argument to the extreme; if the Marne was most important battle, then the gap was the most important gap, and the aircraft flight spotting the gap the most important airplane and flight in history, and the pilot the most important pilot, and the gas in the tank the most important gas, and the truck that delivered the gas the most important truck, and the truck driver the most important driver, and his mom the most important mom, etc It get ridiculous very quickly.
[176] The same thing happened in the American Civil War around Petersburg—and they were using rifled muskets.
[177] “No man’s land” was the area between the two opposing trench lines, so called because neither army controlled it.
[178] These figures are all approximate.
[179] Literally. British posters depicted gorillas wearing German helmets grasping fainting women while their teeth dripped blood.
[180] This was conditioned upon US entry into the war on the English and French side.
[181] The two German generals had been promoted to head the entire German war effort because of impressive successes against Russia.
[182] The previous Allied attacks had been on relatively narrow fronts; this allowed the Germans to shift reserves to the endangered area without having to worry about assaults elsewhere.
[183] Some call this the Spanish flu. Earlier estimates of deaths were in the 50 million range, but newer estimates raise the total to 100 million.
[184] If we multiply the 1919 dollar amount by forty to try and adjust for inflation since that year we get: (32 x 40 = 1,280 billion dollars. You can see the amount is gargantuan, especially when we recall Germany spent herself into bankruptcy during the war just like the Allies. Where was Germany going to get that amount of money? Why the multiple of 40? A new car in the 1920 era was about $500, and a new car today is about $20,000. 20,000 divided by 500 = 40. A very rough estimate and filled with assumptions . . . I know. It is just a way to get an idea of how much money we are really talking about.
[185] USSR = the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[186] Europe was showing signs of recovery by 1932, and some recovery was underway in 1933. In the USA these years were among the worst of the depression era. See: p. 332 et seq, The Third Reich in Power, Evans, R., Penguin, 2005
[187] The same year Hitler came to