Armistice Day

wastages? Isn't it wastes?

one of the most egregious wastages of life in human history???

That's like saying "Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the US" or "Isiah Thomas is one of the worst GMs in the NBA."

Let's see:
WW1 - changed the world - 9,000,000 military dead.
WW2 - sorting out the problems left over from WW1 - 62,000,000.
Vietnam - fuck knows - 4,000,000 dead.
Iraq - cos Rumsfeld wanted better targets for his bombs - 650,000 dead.

I know it's a cliche but look at the Treaty of Brest-Liovsk to see what the European Allies would have had to accept if they had lost.

You know, Gus, they have online dictionaries now.

Waste? But I thought it was a "great war"!? From what I've been able to tell, it was fought entirely by unassuming but heroic kids backed by swelling string music.

I really believe that the turning point of world history was 1914 -- not Hitler or WWII. Institutionally the great nations were all bent on war, and when the chips were down there was little significant popular resistance, even though pacifism had been very influential in the decades before the war.

The period 1880 -- 1932 was full political extremism and cultural weirdness, but the war was mostly brought about by respectable conventional people (though triggered by and assassination).

The Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, with its Holy Roman pretensions, was an incredibly peculiar and archaic political form. Russia (also archaic) and Austria-Hungary got the war started, and the more serious countries couldn't stay out.

Waste? But I thought it was a "great war"!? From what I've been able to tell, it was fought entirely by unassuming but heroic kids backed by swelling string music.

I don't recall anyone portraying WW1 in this way. The only time I've ever seen it portrayed at all was in All Quiet on the Western Front.

"Wastages" may be correct, but it's still wrong. It strikes the ear with a painful clang.

Hate to agree with MY, but "wastes" has acquired so many colloquial overlays that my ear at least much prefers "wastages."

And I hate to disagree with John Emerson, but -- as I once heard the great Roman historian Ronald Syme say much more eloquently than I can -- The Austro-Hungarian empire, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its archaic elements may not unfairly be considered the most tolerant and multi-cultural country in the world in 1914. Remember that the Sigmund Freuds and Gustavs Mahlers admired Kaiser Franz Joseph, and were to some extent protected by him. It was the modernizers who wanted to replace the archaic dual monarchy, such as Karl Lueger, whom the Kaiser kept out of office, that point the way to Fascism and murderous anti-Semitism.

It really was just about the worst thing that ever happened.

The fascinating thing about recent American "conservatism" is how many Republican commentators have tried to rehabilitate WWI as a noble cause. It was when Tacitus made that argument that I first really understood that he was insane. I've since seen it from others.

How "archaic" was either Austro-Hungary or Russia in 1914? Empires were certainly not outdated in that year; much of the world was under the rule one one imperial power or another. And in the Old World at least monarchy (of one sort or another) was very much the norm; in fact the only republics not in the Americas were France, Portugal, Switzerland, Liberia, San Marino and Andorra.

China was also a republic in 1914. Andorra is not a republic even now, but a "whatever the hell Andorra is".

What was, at the time, considered to be the main thing archaic about Austria-Hungary was that it was a multi-national empire. It was generally thought at the time that this made A-H a relic of the past. This part of contemporary thought has of late seemed itself, well, outdated, in light of how nobody really cares for nationalism anymore.

But, more than that, Austria-Hungary was archaic because, unlike most of the other monarchies of Europe at the time, it was the last state to consist of what was essentially the personal inheritance of its prince. Austria-Hungary did not have the borders it had, and these various peoples were not united under a single rule, for any reason other than that these were the lands that the Habsburg-Lorraine family had managed to acquire and hold onto over the centuries (or rather, that the extinct House of Habsburg had managed to acquire over the centuries and turn over to the House of Lorraine, which then changed its name). The place was named "Austria" only indirectly after the place called 'Austria' (which technically consisted only of a small part of the present-day Austrian republic surrounding Vienna), and directly after the *House of Austria*, that is to say, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Austria-Hungary was a family with a state attached, not the other way around.

The Austrian half, at least, was tolerant, but not because its rulers thought that tolerance was a virtue. It was tolerant rather by default, as they didn't know what else to do with it.

That being said, very few people within Austria-Hungary in 1914 really were actively interested in the break-up of the monarchy. Most groups simply wanted to improve their own position within it. It was the one nationality that didn't feel that way - the Serbs, who set off the war.

It was when Tacitus made that argument that I first really understood that he was insane.

Dude. The tipoff should have been the pseudonym. Anyone who goes Grand Roman when choosing his nom d'blog (or signs his memos "Cato the Younger," for that matter) is precisely the sort of person who still thinks that there's wisdom to be found in twenty-sided dice.

As Niall Ferguson reminds us in his new tome, 11/11/1918 didn't end all the fighting. The Russian civil war continued and claimed a million or two lives.

Re: What was, at the time, considered to be the main thing archaic about Austria-Hungary was that it was a multi-national empire.

Well, what in the world were the Russian, Ottoman, British, French and other empires? They too consisted of lots of diverse ethnic groups under someone else's rule. Austro-Hungary of course had (in theory) two such somebodys: the Austrians and the Hungarians, although this was true in principle of Britain as well where the English and Scots (and maybe the Welsh) were partners in imperium.

Re: Austria-Hungary did not have the borders it had, and these various peoples were not united under a single rule, for any reason other than that these were the lands that the Habsburg-Lorraine family had managed to acquire and hold onto over the centuries (or rather, that the extinct House of Habsburg had managed to acquire over the centuries and turn over to the House of Lorraine, which then changed its name).

That's more or less true of other empires too. The borders of Russia and the Ottoman domains were certainly not set by anything other than historical accidence, i.e., the conquests and acquisitions of tsars and sultans past. And what "extinct" house of Hapsburg? The line went extinct in Spain, replaced by the Bourbons there, but the Austrian Hapsburg clan is alive and well even to thsi day.

When the Austrian Hapsburg heir became a woman (Maria Teresa), she married Charles of Lorraine, and thus, just as non-royal women traditionally take their husband's last name, the ruling house of her and her descendants technically became the House of Lorraine, which was renamed the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine in token of the fact that it was the Hapsburgs who had done all the land-acquiring. Similarly, the last British ruler of the House of Hanover was Queen Victoria, her son Edward VII took his royal house name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha from his father, Prince Albert. (Of course, his son George V was forced to change this to House of Windsor.)
I think the difference between Austria-Hungary and the British or French empire is that Austria-Hungary was a contiguous empire, without a clear distinction between homeland and possessions. (This was true of the UK as well, of course, but except for Ireland this was generally papered over at the time.)

P.S. Apparently protocol on this subject has changed - I believe if Charles or William eventually ascends the throne, the name House of Windsor will be retained rather than Prince Philip's name of Mountbatten adopted. However, the official SURNAME (as opposed to royal house name) of Elizabeth II's descendants is Mountabatten-Windsor.

"Prince Philip's name of Mountbatten"

Which (to bring matters back to WWI) was adopted by Phillip's father at the beginning of WWI because it was deemed impolitic for a senior British Admiral to bear the German name "Battenburg."

WW1, which had been advertised as "the last war to end all wars," was the trigger that spawned most of the conflict of the 20th century. That armistice only temporarily stopped the carnage.

The break up of the Ottoman Empire at the end lead to the middle east conflicts we hold so close and dear to our frothing mouths. No Iran-Iraq war, no US invasion of Iraq, no Israel-Palestinian problem, no Israel, no Lebanon. All that blood and suffering came about due to the punative settlements forced on the losers of WW1, and their allies.

The Cold War also began before WW1 was even over. The Russian Revolution torqued off the western allies who were more than upset that weapons sent to fight the Germans weren't going to be used against the Germans. The British and Americans even had troops occupying portions of what we call Siberia until the mid 1920s. Long before Churchill went on about "Iron Curtain" we hated and despised the Soviets.

And of course, one can't forget WW2 arising from the ashes of WW1.

Horrible waste. I wish it never happened.

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