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by colechristensen 19 days ago
>It triggered a cascade of some of the stupidest and costliest government decisions in history.

Eh. WWI wasn't an accident, a series of unfortunate incidents, or something that just got out of hand.

Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country, almost sporting. Everybody was feeling powerful with the new capabilities industrialization gave them and they wanted to use that to gain influence. (of course not literally everybody, but this was a prevailing force)
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dctoedt 19 days ago
> Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country

That was true among some of the players in various governments — Kaiser Wilhelm being a prime example. Can you cite any (reputable) historians who think that was a general attitude?

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kergonath 18 days ago
It is well documented in France as well. It was seen as a revenge for 1870. There was quite a bit of enthusiasm. At least initially, before the killing started in earnest and people got stuck in the trenches.
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dctoedt 17 days ago
Point taken about the French thirst for revanche; I stand corrected.

Again: Catastropic naïveté.

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colechristensen 18 days ago
Stefan Zweig famously wrote a lot about it in his memoir, and he describes being in Austria and the general excitement in the lead up to and beginning of the war.

(one of many sources of this kind of information)

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dctoedt 19 days ago
So you agree with me — stupid decisions, catastrophic fuckups.
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colechristensen 18 days ago
>stupid decisions, catastrophic fuckups

The implication here I'm disagreeing with is that the war was the unintended consequence of mistakes. Instead of mistakes leading the continent down a dark path it was intentional, just waiting for an excuse to start fighting.

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dctoedt 18 days ago
I have to differ. I don’t think anyone on either side even imagined, let alone intended, that the Western Front would get bogged down in four years of trench warfare or (on the Allied side) that Russia would fight so suboptimally. There was a lot of catastrophically-naive optimism at work.
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