# Who was the right side of WW1



## Ughubughughughughughghlug (Jun 19, 2020)

I insist it's this.


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## The Last Stand (Jun 19, 2020)

I'd say the Germans, only because they got screwed with the Treaty of Versailles.


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## 5t3n0g0ph3r (Jun 19, 2020)

Like the Crimean War, the only real immediate result was the pointless loss of life and the breakdown of empires.
The overall result planted the seeds for the Second World War (If not the Cold War, if the rise of the Soviet Union is to be considered).


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## The Last Stand (Jun 19, 2020)

Whoever shot that Archduke fellow, your mom's a ho. 

World War I isn't really discussed much compared to WWII. I would say there's no "right" side from that War; there's a bit of moral ambiguity and events that led up to that conflict.


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## Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 (Jun 19, 2020)

The Last Stand said:


> I'd say the Germans, only because they got screwed with the Treaty of Versailles.



Probably one of the biggest crimes done to a nation in recent history was what happened to Germany after the first world war. 

And its hard to view the players in WW1 without bringing up WW2 considering the second is a direct result of the resolution of the first. So yeah the allies were pretty terrible to be able to do what they did to Germany. 

Now yeah the Germans in WW1 were the first to use poison gas and I think they had did some mass rapings but it was total war. All is fair in love and war


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## Maskull (Jun 19, 2020)

The only peoples whose actions can be viewed as justified were the ethnic minorities long trapped beneath the boot of empire. Aside from that there is no government involved whose motives are morally clean enough you could call them good.


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## 5t3n0g0ph3r (Jun 19, 2020)

The Last Stand said:


> Whoever shot that Archduke fellow, your mom's a ho.



Agreed.
Gavrilo Princip is an asshole and his grave (if it exists) should be spat on.



Maskull said:


> The only peoples whose actions can be viewed as justified were the ethnic minorities long trapped beneath the boot of empire.



Unless you were a Russian Cossack. They got boned.


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## The Last Stand (Jun 19, 2020)

Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 said:


> Probably one of the biggest crimes done to a nation in recent history was what happened to Germany after the first world war.
> 
> And its hard to view the players in WW1 without bringing up WW2 considering the second is a direct result of the resolution of the first. So yeah the allies were pretty terrible to be able to do what they did to Germany.


What did Germany do exactly to be held responsible for paying reparations to affected countries?


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## Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 (Jun 19, 2020)

The Last Stand said:


> What did Germany do exactly to be held responsible for paying reparations to affected countries?



Lose the war


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## Maskull (Jun 19, 2020)

5t3n0g0ph3r said:


> Unless you were a Russian Cossack. They got boned.


Everyone directly involved in the fighting were and so too many civilians. This is why I specified government. The man crouched in the mud with gunbutt against his shoulder was hardly given a choice where, how and why he would die.


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## 5t3n0g0ph3r (Jun 19, 2020)

Maskull said:


> Everyone directly involved in the fighting were and so too many civilians. This is why I specified government. The man crouched in the mud with gunbutt against his shoulder was hardly given a choice where, how and why he would die.



Not to mention the Spanish Flu epidemic occurred in the waning days of the war.
That must have sucked.


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## solidus (Jun 19, 2020)

No one. it was a pointless war that unleashed untold horrors on Europe.


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## Maskull (Jun 20, 2020)

5t3n0g0ph3r said:


> Not to mention the Spanish Flu epidemic occurred in the waning days of the war.
> That must have sucked.


Finally arriving home after years of ducking bullets and dear family member develops an ominous sniffle. All times were bad but then was special.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (Jun 20, 2020)

The Last Stand said:


> I'd say the Germans, only because they got screwed with the Treaty of Versailles.



Counterpoint: the Germans didn't give a fuck about punitive, abusive treaties when they forced Russia into Brest-Livotsk or forced the Romanians out of the war.


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## The Last Stand (Jun 20, 2020)

Again, my WWI history is a bit rusty. Nobody talks about it.


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## PrussiansMarchingOn1819 (Jun 20, 2020)

Germany certainly get blame for the war because it was the only country in the Central Powers that was taken care of business. Austria  declared war on Serbia, Germany stepped in when Russia got involve and so did France because of their alliance they had with Russia.  England saw Germany as a new dangerous  rival and France was still pissed about losing the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s.  Now if Germany didn't invade Belgium, England might of stay out of the war entirely. The Zimmermann Letter was foolish on the Germans because they thought they could entice the Mexicans to invade the American Southwest, California and Texas. The Mexicans simply didn't have the resources to invade and occupied land in the United States.


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 20, 2020)

The Last Stand said:


> What did Germany do exactly to be held responsible for paying reparations to affected countries?



They won the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870's and were the only one of the Central Powers who hadn't completely collapsed into anarchy by the end of 1918. 

Coincidentally, Germany was the only one of the Central Powers who showed any real military competence.

The Ottoman Empire was the OG sick man of Europe whose only real victories in WWI were at Gallipoli when the ANZAC's foolishly thought the Turks couldn't gun down all of them if they all did the Naruto Run into the Ottoman lines or were when they were up against Armenian civies.

Austria-Hungary was a clusterfuck that got whooped by the Russian Empire fairly early in the war, which is why Germany stepped in and defeated Russia at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes.

Russia's piss-poor performance in WWI helped spark the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and was legendary, but Austria-Hungary did even worse and the Brusilov Offensive more or less crushed the Hapsburg forces completely in the East and probably led to the Kaiser paying for Lenin's train ticket to Saint Petersburg.

Also, the Austro-Hungarian forces were defeated by Italy of all countries.

Germany was fucked over because Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were more or less existing only on paper by the November armistice in 1918, and had to surrender to a vindictive France looking to avenge the Franco-Prussian War and the United States, who now became the premiere superpower because of this war and was royally pissed about the Lusitania and the Zimmerman Telegram.

That whole war was a complete clusterfuck on all ends


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## inception_state (Jun 20, 2020)

PrussiansMarchingOn1819 said:


> Now if Germany didn't invade Belgium, England might of stay out of the war entirely.


Nah, England was going to find a reason, Belgium just gave them a convenient excuse. Their long-term strategy was to keep continental Europe weak and divided, and Germany was the biggest threat to that, as Germany demonstrated that they were miles ahead of the rest of the continent militarily by spanking France in the Franco-Prussian War.

The war was a complete mess, but the part that I think was the most misrepresented was the Lusitania incident. The version I learned in high school was something along the lines of "evil Germans torpedoed innocent Americans on a pleasure cruise to England", but it turns out they were actually also carrying hundreds of tons of undeclared war munitions. Was it justified? I don't know, but that looks an awful lot like the Palestinian strategy of launching mortars out of hospitals and then crying foul when they get drone striked.


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## soy_king (Jun 20, 2020)

The Fall of the German Empire was a true catastrophe. Germany got shat on for starting wars when in reality France started pretty much every European war, with the exceptions of the last one (directly at least) and the Franco-Prussian War.


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## MrJokerRager (Jun 20, 2020)

Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.


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## Slap47 (Jun 20, 2020)

U*nited Kingdom, 2/5 Villainy: *The British failed to their  honor secret agreement with France, and only entered war due to public agreement with Belgium.  The British made secret treaties throughout the war that were all dishonored. This lead to a century of chaos in places such as the middle-east. Their propaganda machine was the best and lied the most. For example, the German decision to execute nurses for spying was the centerpiece of British propaganda but those nurses actually were spies. The British executed German nurses who were spies and the Germans simply admitted they were spies.

*French Republic, 1/5 Villainy: *Was invaded by Germany based on the understanding that France would support Russia based on their alliance. France had very little revanchism regarding Alsace Lorraine at this point and their alliance was entirely defensive. Large portions of France were occupied and made uninhabitable as the result of the war. The French were "bled white" by the war and wanted Germany harshly punished. After the war they occupied Germany to extract reparations but abandoned that program for delayed payments. They used the war to expand their empire. 

*German Empire, 4/5 Villainy:* Kaiser Wilhelm irresponsibly declared that he would support Austria. This blank cheque empowered Austria-Hungary to act push for war.  During the war the Germans were the first to commit war crimes via chemical weapons and unrestricted submarine warfare. The German high command were strongly influenced by the ideas of Lebensraum and wanted to transform eastern Europe into a feudal society dominated by ethnic Germans. Such societies already existed in the Baltic states. The Germans actively sabotaged their economy to avoid paying war reparations.

*Austro-Hungarian Empire, 4/5 Villainy: *Konrad Von Hotsendorf, his general staff the Hungarian parliament wanted to dominate the slavs. They intentionally made overbearing demands that would be rejected and were surprised when all but one was denied. They went to war anyway and their army was crippled due to ethnic conflicts within the military. They had expected to get their way as they were the only great power to not have used their one free pass to get whatever they want during a crisis. Russia had been able to bully Poland, France was given a pass during the Morocco crisis, etc.

*Ottoman Empire, 5/5 Villainy*: The Ottomans were forced into the war by a clique of officers who orchestrated an attack on Russia. These officers mismanaged the army. Envar Pasha lost a whole army invading the Caucasian mountains during the winter without the proper equipment.  The Ottomans were crushed at Suez but were able to survive thanks to the leadership of Attaturk. The bad situation of the war was blamed on ethnic minorities instead of mismanagement. This resulted in several genocides against groups like the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians. The Armenian genocide was used to create the word genocide.

*Russian Empire, 3/5 Villainy*:  Russia was the protector of the Slavs and so declared war on Austria in defense of Serbia.  They were allied with France to contain Germany. Germany declared war on Russia and annihilated the Russian military over the course of 3 years. The Czar was incompetent and being cucked by a magical homeless man but he meant well. He willingly conceded power but foolishly remained in the country. His oppressive empire was replaced by the just as oppressive USSR.

*United States of America , 0/5 Villainy*: Germany began sinking American shipping as part of their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This policy resulted in the sinking of civilian ships (that were carrying weapons). The Germans also violated the Monroe doctrine by trying to manipulate Mexico into fighting the USA. It is very unlikely that these were the reasons as few people wanted war despite these atrocities and violations of American honor. Regardless, the USA funded the allied effort through loans and finished off Germany with their soldiers. The US policy during the treaty of Versailles was the promotion of national self-determination and democracy. After the war the USA went to great efforts to stabilize Europe through economic schemes and diplomatic intervention.



The Central Powers seem to be the bad guys. They lack war justification and were more willing to commit war-crimes. All of the powers were empires to some degree but the amount of racial domination and genocide displayed by the central powers is clearly worse. Russia was the most autocratic of the great powers but their war aims were in honor of agreements that were known to all. Their entry into the war as the result of Austro-Hungarian aggression and foolishness. Germany's strike first strategy was defensive in nature but it was the incompetence of their leadership that enabled the war to begin with.  It should be noted that the majority of the population in all of these nations did not desire war.




Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 said:


> Probably one of the biggest crimes done to a nation in recent history was what happened to Germany after the first world war.
> 
> And its hard to view the players in WW1 without bringing up WW2 considering the second is a direct result of the resolution of the first. So yeah the allies were pretty terrible to be able to do what they did to Germany.
> 
> Now yeah the Germans in WW1 were the first to use poison gas and I think they had did some mass rapings but it was total war. All is fair in love and war



Germany was treated relatively well by the war. The inflation crisis was caused by bad monetary policy, not war debts. Those debts were also justified due to them actually invading other countries. Their borders were left relatively untouched and the USA even offered them generous loans to finance their ruined economy.



The Last Stand said:


> What did Germany do exactly to be held responsible for paying reparations to affected countries?



Pushing Austria-Hungary into declaring war, declaring war on other great powers, invading neutral minor countries and committing atrocities.


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## 5t3n0g0ph3r (Jun 20, 2020)

PrussiansMarchingOn1819 said:


> Germany certainly get blame for the war because it was the only country in the Central Powers that was taken care of business. Austria  declared war on Serbia, Germany stepped in when Russia got involve and so did France because of their alliance they had with Russia.  England saw Germany as a new dangerous  rival and France was still pissed about losing the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s.  Now if Germany didn't invade Belgium, England might of stay out of the war entirely. The Zimmermann Letter was foolish on the Germans because they thought they could entice the Mexicans to invade the American Southwest, California and Texas. The Mexicans simply didn't have the resources to invade and occupied land in the United States.



We're not even going to mention the "Old Man of Europe," the Ottoman Empire....



MrJokerRager said:


> Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.



Italy jumped in from being neutral to siding with the Allies because they wanted a say on the negotiation table.
They ended up receiving some land as promised in The Treaty of London but not northern Dalmatia nor Fiume.
The Italians were butthurt over that.


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## Draza (Jun 20, 2020)

No one was. It was a pointless war that led to countless deaths of millions of people and destabilized Europe further destruction.


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## Dom Cruise (Jun 20, 2020)

My impression is that there was no real "right side" in WW1, the whole thing was just a clusterfuck.

Honestly? I think one of the reasons the war happened was there was all this new military technology and the leaders in Europe simply wanted to use it.... because it was cool, because they just wanted to see what would happen.

Not to mention the usual phenomenon of war as business which pushes governments towards getting their hands dirty over pursuing peace.

If anything it shows how little the elites of the world really care for the common man that they would allow such a massive loss of life to happen for no real good reason.

I think it's similar reasons to the later US Vietnam and Iraq wars, an opportunity to use new toys and make profit.


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## Slap47 (Jun 20, 2020)

Dom Cruise said:


> If anything it shows how little the elites of the world really care for the common man that they would allow such a massive loss of life to happen for no real good reason.



An odd thing about the war is that the aristocratic class was basically nuked by the war in every country. Officers were wiped out due to the tradition of leading from the front in bright clearly marked uniforms.


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## byuu (Jun 20, 2020)

The US was one of the few nations that actually made genuine efforts to deescalate and tried to get the European forces to make peace.

Also, Belgium's neutrality is overrated. Despite their official stance, they were very much aligned with the French. And they allowed French troops inside their country but not German ones.


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## 5t3n0g0ph3r (Jun 20, 2020)

Dom Cruise said:


> If anything it shows how little the elites of the world really care for the common man that they would allow such a massive loss of life to happen for no real good reason.



The Crimean War was worse.
On the onset, you would think this was about the Russian Orthodox Church and controlling churches in Jerusalem (which never got resolved).
Yet, the leaders of both sides MUTUALLY agreed to fight in Crimea like it was a sporting event instead of treating it like a traditional war.
It was senseless. The only thing lost was the soldiers' lives. Dumb, dumb, dumb war.


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 20, 2020)

MrJokerRager said:


> Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.



Same thing happened to Italy, more or less.

The whole war was a senseless waste and ended up creating more problems than it solved, some of which still persist over a century later


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## MrJokerRager (Jun 20, 2020)

Syaoran Li said:


> Same thing happened to Italy, more or less.
> 
> The whole war was a senseless waste and ended up creating more problems than it solved, some of which still persist over a century later


Hmm, in human life yes. But also created the modern world as we know it and its problems like the middle east. And it ended the aristocracy and kingdoms for fascism and communism. It was the beginning of the end for the age of empires and colonialism. They got swapped out for foreign aid and interventions. Battlefield 1 had definitely taught me a lot about the war and how important it is to create the world as we know it today.


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## DJ Grelle (Jun 20, 2020)

The blame of WW1 lies 100% with the Russians. Their decision to support the Serbians (on a whim, there was no treaty between Serbia and Russia before that) led to A-H declaring war after Serbia refused their 'ultimatum'. The Serbians were about to concede to the demands the Austrians made, which were not too harsh contrary to popular belief. What A-H demanded was to a) have their own police do the investigation, even in Serbia, and b) the Serbian government wouldn't assist the terrorists. Not unreasonable when *the heir to the throne *was killed. The archduke was also known for his progressive views on the question of nationalities (he would probably have federalized A-H). A man in which a lot of hope and trust was placed, and then he was killed by a Serbian nationalist. Can you see how this requires assertive action from the Austrian side to be a good response towards both the rest of Europe and the minorities inside the empire?

The guy who has 99% of the blame would probably be Alfred Redl, a gay, jewish traitor who sold the Austrian war plans for Serbia to the Russians, who gave the plans to the Serbs. This led to the disastrous Austrian offensive into Serbia. Austrian success early in the war would have an unbelievable domino effect over the rest of the war that him not being a traitor could change the entire outcome. Imagine if the German divisions detached from the west front to be sent east were replaced by Austrian divisions. This means no "miracle on the Marne" and Germany taking Paris towards the end of 1914. France without Paris is GG for the western allies. Britain can hold out but they cant invade the continent. German victory in the east would be a certainty. 

The guy who has 98% of the blame is Alfred Harmsworth, a British """"journalist""" and newspaper owner who was extremely anti-German. His popular press dominated British public opinion in the late 19th and early 20th century and was decisive in turning British public opinion against the Germans. The idea of Germany as warmongers was something he came up with. Before WW1, it was France that were the traditional warmongers of Europe. Germany was seen as the industrial and intellectual powerhouse of the continent. f.e. almost all historiographical theory came from Germany. This was the reason why Versailles was seen as a _humiliation. _Germany was baptized as the warmonger, the destructive brute which could destroy and do nothing more. Centuries of reputation for intellectual rigor and industriousness wiped out by four years of war and a single perfidious Albion. 

To say Germany was the villain in WW1 is evidence for nothing but ignorance.


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## Dom Cruise (Jun 20, 2020)

DJ Grelle said:


> The blame of WW1 lies 100% with the Russians. Their decision to support the Serbians (on a whim, there was no treaty between Serbia and Russia before that) led to A-H declaring war after Serbia refused their 'ultimatum'. The Serbians were about to concede to the demands the Austrians made, which were not too harsh contrary to popular belief. What A-H demanded was to a) have their own police do the investigation, even in Serbia, and b) the Serbian government wouldn't assist the terrorists. Not unreasonable when *the heir to the throne *was killed. The archduke was also known for his progressive views on the question of nationalities (he would probably have federalized A-H). A man in which a lot of hope and trust was placed, and then he was killed by a Serbian nationalist. Can you see how this requires assertive action from the Austrian side to be a good response towards both the rest of Europe and the minorities inside the empire?
> 
> The guy who has 99% of the blame would probably be Alfred Redl, a gay, jewish traitor who sold the Austrian war plans for Serbia to the Russians, who gave the plans to the Serbs. This led to the disastrous Austrian offensive into Serbia. Austrian success early in the war would have an unbelievable domino effect over the rest of the war that him not being a traitor could change the entire outcome. Imagine if the German divisions detached from the west front to be sent east were replaced by Austrian divisions. This means no "miracle on the Marne" and Germany taking Paris towards the end of 1914. France without Paris is GG for the western allies. Britain can hold out but they cant invade the continent. German victory in the east would be a certainty.
> 
> ...



One funny thing that works against Germany's favor is simple optics, their style of military dress at the time with the spiked hats and whatnot makes them easy to paint as the bad guys in the war because they simply _look _villainous.

It's the same deal with World War 2, everything about the Nazi aesthetics simply _looks _villainous and even more so than WW1.

I get you want your military to look like badasses, but that backfires when you make yourself look so badass it's easy to be painted in propaganda as the bad guys.

It may sound crazy, but you really can't underestimate the power aesthetics have over people.


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## DJ Grelle (Jun 20, 2020)

Dom Cruise said:


> One funny thing that works against Germany's favor is simple optics, their style of military dress at the time with the spiked hats and whatnot makes them easy to paint as the bad guys in the war because they simply _look _villainous.
> 
> It's the same deal with World War 2, everything about the Nazi aesthetics simply _looks _villainous and even more so than WW1.
> 
> ...


Hard disagree.
You're projecting modern day sensibilities about traditional German military dress on the past. It looks villainous? The pickelhaube isn't any more villainous than the bearskins of the British grenadiers. Same for ww2 dress uniforms. Modern day society is built on nazis=bad and you thinking the uniforms look evil are simply an extension of that. What part is more villainous than other countries uniforms? The swastika? That had a whole different meaning pre ww2. The imperial German eagle? Just a bird. The SS collar runes? How is that different from say; the red/green and grenade of the legion etrangere? The skull and crossbones? A symbol used by many nations.
German uniforms did not look more or less villainous than other uniforms. How do you think redcoats looked for Boers or the blue/red combo for the Vietnamese?


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 20, 2020)

Dom Cruise said:


> One funny thing that works against Germany's favor is simple optics, their style of military dress at the time with the spiked hats and whatnot makes them easy to paint as the bad guys in the war because they simply _look _villainous.
> 
> It's the same deal with World War 2, everything about the Nazi aesthetics simply _looks _villainous and even more so than WW1.
> 
> ...



You actually do kind of have a point.

The Imperial German aesthetics ultimately made for bad optics when combined with the German Army's conduct in the ostensibly "neutral" country of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, the rapid technological advancement of the German military that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and good ol' fashioned 1910's Yellow Journalism.

Imagine the sight of a large well-trained army men rampage through a nominally neutral country mainly known for beer and waffles, and whose only real imperial possession is the Congo all while wearing dark gray uniforms with Pickelhauben and heavily armed with some of the most advanced small arms and artillery in Europe at the time.

Or as one cultural icon would put it...



			
				Homer Simpson said:
			
		

> The British tabloids would have a field day!



Seriously, the yellow journalists of the early 20th Century make the clickbait mills of the 2010's look truthful and unbiased by comparison.



DJ Grelle said:


> Hard disagree.
> You're projecting modern day sensibilities about traditional German military dress on the past. It looks villainous? The pickelhaube isn't any more villainous than the bearskins of the British grenadiers. Same for ww2 dress uniforms. Modern day society is built on nazis=bad and you thinking the uniforms look evil are simply an extension of that. What part is more villainous than other countries uniforms? The swastika? That had a whole different meaning pre ww2. The imperial German eagle? Just a bird. The SS collar runes? How is that different from say; the red/green and grenade of the legion etrangere? The skull and crossbones? A symbol used by many nations.
> German uniforms did not look more or less villainous than other uniforms. How do you think redcoats looked for Boers or the blue/red combo for the Vietnamese?



Again, it's the aesthetics when specifically paired with the yellow journalism and print propaganda of the time.

The news about the sinking of the Lusitania and the invasion of Belgium whipped the British and American public into a frenzy despite the glaring omissions of their coverage. That's without taking into account the more egregious propaganda of the time.

Plus, the German aesthetics of WWI were visually impressive in a way that the garish blue uniforms of the French or the bland khakhi of the British Army were not, and became even more impressive when they replaced the old Pickelhauben for the far more practical Stahlhelm early on in the war. 

Had it not been for the sensationalist coverage of the war, those aesthetics would've been viewed in the same context as the old redcoats and bearskin hats. 

Ironically, the sensationalism and propaganda of WWI ended up making the Western Allies more jaded and less willing to believe the extremes of Nazi crimes against civilians in WWII. 

Until the camps were actually discovered by Allied troops in 1945 and the world saw those horrors with their own eyes, a lot of people in Britain and the United States thought the Holocaust was merely a bunch of crazy rumors or exaggerations to drum up war support.


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## Shadfan666xxx000 (Jun 20, 2020)

DJ Grelle said:


> Hard disagree.
> You're projecting modern day sensibilities about traditional German military dress on the past. It looks villainous? The pickelhaube isn't any more villainous than the bearskins of the British grenadiers. Same for ww2 dress uniforms. Modern day society is built on nazis=bad and you thinking the uniforms look evil are simply an extension of that. What part is more villainous than other countries uniforms? The swastika? That had a whole different meaning pre ww2. The imperial German eagle? Just a bird. The SS collar runes? How is that different from say; the red/green and grenade of the legion etrangere? The skull and crossbones? A symbol used by many nations.
> German uniforms did not look more or less villainous than other uniforms. How do you think redcoats looked for Boers or the blue/red combo for the Vietnamese?


Nigger, there's a spike in his hat.


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## millais (Jun 20, 2020)

The "human soap" meme actually started in WWI, but back then it was being falsely claimed that the Germans were rendering their own battlefield dead into soap to get around lard shortages from the British blockade.

It's no wonder people were initially skeptical of the Holohoax twenty years later when they had already been fooled by the Allied propaganda machine the first time around.


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## Dom Cruise (Jun 20, 2020)

DJ Grelle said:


> Hard disagree.
> You're projecting modern day sensibilities about traditional German military dress on the past. It looks villainous? The pickelhaube isn't any more villainous than the bearskins of the British grenadiers. Same for ww2 dress uniforms. Modern day society is built on nazis=bad and you thinking the uniforms look evil are simply an extension of that. What part is more villainous than other countries uniforms? The swastika? That had a whole different meaning pre ww2. The imperial German eagle? Just a bird. The SS collar runes? How is that different from say; the red/green and grenade of the legion etrangere? The skull and crossbones? A symbol used by many nations.
> German uniforms did not look more or less villainous than other uniforms. How do you think redcoats looked for Boers or the blue/red combo for the Vietnamese?



And I'm gonna have to hard disagree right back, German military uniforms were pretty clearly designed to be a little more intimidating than average, you comparing the British bearskin hat to the pickelhaube and saying you don't see a difference? Come on now, that should be obvious, one of them has a _spike _ie you could kill someone with part of the dress alone, which I'm pretty sure you couldn't do with a bearskin hat, if that's not more intimidation I don't know what is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying stuff like the pickelhaube isn't cool, it's cool as hell, but that's the thing, it might have done it's job a little too well.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Jun 20, 2020)

Well, as you ones may know my current waifu is a 15 year old lass who fought in World War 1 on site of the Entente powers in an alternate timeline. In her world, the Great War lasted only 1 year instead of 4, it ended with the Co-Existence Treaty of 1915. Likely because everyone realized how pointless that war was, both in our and her timeline. Also she fell in love with the Austro-Hungarian prince. I hope he doesn't find out! 

So yeah, no one was good or evil, World War 1 was totally pointless in every way.


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## No. 7 cat (Jun 20, 2020)

5t3n0g0ph3r said:


> Not to mention the Spanish Flu epidemic occurred in the waning days of the war.
> That must have sucked.


In its ultimate origin, some suggest that too was a Chinese albeit not a bio-engined weapon. The new Chinese Republic wasn't malevolent, and couldn't anyhow.

Woodrow Wilson was the real demon. This segregator of the US Army, ripped up ancient polities, inspired by a mendacious 'small nations' idea. None of these lands could be divided up neatly, and irrendentism, while not a cause, gave fuel to the troubles of the 1930s and WW2.


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## Phallicus the Girthy (Jun 20, 2020)

DJ Grelle said:


> The blame of WW1 lies 100% with the Russians. Their decision to support the Serbians (on a whim, there was no treaty between Serbia and Russia before that) led to A-H declaring war after Serbia refused their 'ultimatum'.



You can hardly call it a whim. Even putting aside Russia's animosity towards Austria-Hungary after getting back stabbed in the Crimean war and Russia's fairly consistent Balkan and Pan-Slavic Policies over most of the previous century their relationship with Serbia was hardly a secret. Since 1903 Russia and Serbia had close economic and diplomatic ties. This included Serbia receiving significant diplomatic and economic aid during a trade war with Austria-Hungary. That Russia would support Serbia was considered a virtual certainty by the Central Powers themselves. 

Before Russia officially announced support for Serbia, Zimmerman already predicted with what he termed a "90%" certainty that military action against Serbia would induce a war with France and Russia. In A-H though the Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold also viewed a war with Russia as the natural result of any action against Serbia to the extend that he asked Hötzendorf to prepare for a major war at the beginning of July. Germany and A-H clearly didn't think that Russia's support was unlikely aside from a mere "whim". 



DJ Grelle said:


> The Serbians were about to concede to the demands the Austrians made, which were not too harsh contrary to popular belief. What A-H demanded was to a) have their own police do the investigation, even in Serbia, and b) the Serbian government wouldn't assist the terrorists. Not unreasonable when *the heir to the throne *was killed.



If the Serbians were actually about to agree to the demands then you've shot your own argument in the foot. It was the Austro-Hungarians which broke off diplomatic contact with Serbia before the war and not the other way around. In reality though Serbia had agreed to other terms but asked for arbitration from the Hague on the terms that you noted. Incidentally, that was when Austria-Hungary cut off contact with Serbia rather than respond to this request. It should also be noted that Russia had also asked for international arbitration from the Hague with the Tsar even asking the Kaiser personally in a telegram.

Let's say that Serbia agreed whole heatedly to the terms though. That wasn't the desired outcome of A-H. Repeatedly on record Austro-Hungarian ministers noted that the ultimatum was written to be rejected. Most notably this was the view of Berchtold himself. From the 7th of July the Austro-Hungarian cabinet had agreed that a "great show of force" was their desired outcome of the crisis with it being acknowledged that a war with Serbia would be most likely be undertaken. So, what if Serbia had accepted all the demands? The A-H ambassador to Serbia, Von Geisl, was instructed to break off contact *no-matter the Serbian response.* Anything other than an unconditional acceptance constituting an immediate justification for war. This raises two points. Firstly, it would probably have been nice for Serbia to know that asking for arbitration would be considered justification for war. Secondly, even Serbia's acceptance would likely have led to their invasion though justified in a more roundabout way. Then again there was also Germany's ultimatum to Russia over mobilization. Maybe that would have served as a straightforward pretext?


----------



## soy_king (Jun 20, 2020)

Slap47 said:


> U*nited Kingdom, 2/5 Villainy: *The British failed to their  honor secret agreement with France, and only entered war due to public agreement with Belgium.  The British made secret treaties throughout the war that were all dishonored. This lead to a century of chaos in places such as the middle-east. Their propaganda machine was the best and lied the most. For example, the German decision to execute nurses for spying was the centerpiece of British propaganda but those nurses actually were spies. The British executed German nurses who were spies and the Germans simply admitted they were spies.
> 
> *French Republic, 1/5 Villainy: *Was invaded by Germany based on the understanding that France would support Russia based on their alliance. France had very little revanchism regarding Alsace Lorraine at this point and their alliance was entirely defensive. Large portions of France were occupied and made uninhabitable as the result of the war. The French were "bled white" by the war and wanted Germany harshly punished. After the war they occupied Germany to extract reparations but abandoned that program for delayed payments. They used the war to expand their empire.
> 
> ...


Britain and France should at least get another point for willfully violating Greek neutrality and occupying the north of the country to open a front against Bulgaria while creating a second pro Entente government in the North


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## verissimus (Jun 20, 2020)

Shadfan666xxx000 said:


> Nigger, there's a spike in his hat.



I hate to be that guy...but actually....  In all seriousness though, and I know this is TMI, 

1) the "spikes" were for show on those helmets with them and 
2) more importantly the "spikes" weren't meant for all helmets.  I have an image somewhere on another account on my computer, but the short of it is that I believe only the infantrymen's version of the helmet had the spike.  The artillerymen specifically had a knob...(would that be the best was to describe it) instead.

On another note, who gives a crap how "ominous" German uniforms looked.  Would you rather they fought the war wearing Lederhosen?



soy_king said:


> Britain and France should at least get another point for willfully violating Greek neutrality and occupying the north of the country to open a front against Bulgaria while creating a second pro Entente government in the North



Agreed.


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## Rafal Gan Ganowicz (Jun 20, 2020)

no body. War of empires. Bullshit.


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## PrussiansMarchingOn1819 (Jun 20, 2020)

MrJokerRager said:


> Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.



They wanted to be treated as equals, but they were disregarded at the table while the Europeans were carving up territories in Turkey and the Middle East and creating borders in Eastern Europe and such.


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## Emperor Julian (Jun 20, 2020)

I'd go with the guy behind the machine gun instead of in front of it.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 20, 2020)

5t3n0g0ph3r said:


> Like the Crimean War, the only real immediate result was the pointless loss of life and the breakdown of empires.
> The overall result planted the seeds for the Second World War (If not the Cold War, if the rise of the Soviet Union is to be considered).


I hear this take all the time and it's the worst opinion to hold about WW1. it wasn't a "pointless war," there were a lot of reasons why each nation participated in the conflict. Do you think Romania or Italy joined for no reason? Romania got a lot out of the war but Italy was cucked by the USA in the peace conference. Germany wanted to destroy Russian industry before it got too powerful, Russian industry was growing exponentially and threatened the well being of Germany. France wanted German Alsace and a secure border, Austria Hungary wanted to secure their borderlands and quell ethnic tensions, Italy wanted to incorporate Italians which were living outside their border, the United Kingdom wanted to curb stomp Germany so they wouldn't surpass them in naval power, and Germany wanted a place in the sun. 



MrJokerRager said:


> Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.


Japan almost got everything they wanted out of the war. The only notable thing they didn't get was the German port in China (which rightfully belonged to China). The reason Japan flipped sides was that all the territories they wanted in south Asia belonged to the Entente and the Netherlands. 
And the league of nations was pointless anyways and the Japanese knew this. The league of nations didn't stop the invasion of Manchuria or the invasion of China


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 20, 2020)

Dom Cruise said:


> My impression is that there was no real "right side" in WW1, the whole thing was just a clusterfuck.


The only right side in war is the side that wins, we have no idea how the world would end up if the Central Powers won the war and I prefer the reality we live in now.


Dom Cruise said:


> Honestly? I think one of the reasons the war happened was there was all this new military technology and the leaders in Europe simply wanted to use it.... because it was cool, because they just wanted to see what would happen.


This is not true at all. There were tons of regulations put in place by international commissions. The Tsar of Russia himself held a conference that regulated which types of firearms were to be permitted by nations of the world. Shotguns weren't used in WW1 because they were considered barbaric (no joke), and gas attacks were used sparingly after 1914. However some generals, namely Conrad Von Hotzendorf, pushed for war a lot, he sent letters to the king of Austria no less than 27 times asking for war with Serbia. So I guess there's some truth in this statement. 


Dom Cruise said:


> Not to mention the usual phenomenon of war as business which pushes governments towards getting their hands dirty over pursuing peace.
> 
> If anything it shows how little the elites of the world really care for the common man that they would allow such a massive loss of life to happen for no real good reason.
> 
> I think it's similar reasons to the later US Vietnam and Iraq wars, an opportunity to use new toys and make profit


War happens because of the free market, in other words God's hand is involved in the appearance of war. Eternal peace is a dream and not even a pleasant one. And of course the "elites," who you cannot name and therefore know nothing about, don't care for the common man, but it's apparent that war can sometimes benefit the common man. WW2 brought the USA out of the great depression


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## Brain.exe (Jun 20, 2020)

Pretty much everyone, for the reasons the thread stated.
Russia for declaring war on Austria-Hungary which pretty much made the war something larger than the standard Balkan clusterfuck.
Germany for being the first to use mustard gas and invading Belgium. Also the entire submarine warfare and Zimmermann note thing.
All of the Entente for making such a harsh treaty. "It isn't peace, but a 20 year ceasefire." - Some guy I forgot the name of.

I'd say the most "good" country in the war was the US, who just wanted to fuck off and do their own thing until they were shown the Zimmermann note. Though even they did some bad shit with the Sedition and Espionage acts.


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## Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 (Jun 20, 2020)

Slap47 said:


> Germany was treated relatively well by the war. The inflation crisis was caused by bad monetary policy, not war debts. Those debts were also justified due to them actually invading other countries. Their borders were left relatively untouched and the USA even offered them generous loans to finance their ruined economy.



Good list of villainy, but Germany's border left relatively untouched? 

Germany lost tens thousands of square miles of land, they had to give up Danzig, they had to recognize Poland and Czechoslovakia that they had to cede land to and they pretty much lost control of the Rhineland. 

This forced secession of land was one of, if not the, biggest reasons why Hitler could mobilize the German Army and populace to start WW2.


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## King Ghidorah (Jun 20, 2020)

MrJokerRager said:


> Everyone forgets Japan fought in WW1 on the side of the allies, got fucked by the League of Nations, which led to changing sides in WW2.


All that important fighting they did on those pissant islands and treaty ports with token military presence at best where they lost a grand total of 415 people


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 20, 2020)

Brain.exe said:


> Pretty much everyone, for the reasons the thread stated.
> Russia for declaring war on Austria-Hungary which pretty much made the war something larger than the standard Balkan clusterfuck.
> Germany for being the first to use mustard gas and invading Belgium. Also the entire submarine warfare and Zimmermann note thing.
> All of the Entente for making such a harsh treaty. "It isn't peace, but a 20 year ceasefire." - Some guy I forgot the name of.
> ...


What was Russia going to do? Serbia was defacto under the protection of Russia, and if Russia did nothing they would look weak.
Germany wouldn't have used gas attacks that early if Britain didn't blockade them. Germany needed to win the war fast and because Britain put a deadly blockade on their country Germany had to resort to devilish means to win the war. Submarine warfare was a fair counterattack on the blockade. There's no way you can have a double standard saying that the blockade on Germany was good while also saying submarine warfare bad. The Zimmerman telegram was justified in that the Entente clearly wanted the US to join the war so if Germany wanted to win they'd need more allies. 
The treaty of Versailes was harsh, but if you take into account the geopolitical goals of each country in the Entente it served most of them well. Of course the treaty needed better enforcement after the war but we can agree that at the time it appeared to be reasonable. 
And the US was the worst country in the war, they got into Europe, fucked around a bit and then left. They messed with the natural balance and indirectly made Italy join the axis in WW2 by not allowing them to annex Dalmatia.


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## Brain.exe (Jun 20, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> What was Russia going to do? Serbia was defacto under the protection of Russia, and if Russia did nothing they would look weak.
> Germany wouldn't have used gas attacks that early if Britain didn't blockade them. Germany needed to win the war fast and because Britain put a deadly blockade on their country Germany had to resort to devilish means to win the war. Submarine warfare was a fair counterattack on the blockade. There's no way you can have a double standard saying that the blockade on Germany was good while also saying submarine warfare bad. The Zimmerman telegram was justified in that the Entente clearly wanted the US to join the war so if Germany wanted to win they'd need more allies.
> The treaty of Versailes was harsh, but if you take into account the geopolitical goals of each country in the Entente it served most of them well. Of course the treaty needed better enforcement after the war but we can agree that at the time it appeared to be reasonable.
> And the US was the worst country in the war, they got into Europe, fucked around a bit and then left. They messed with the natural balance and indirectly made Italy join the axis in WW2 by not allowing them to annex Dalmatia.


Yeah, I forgot about the British blockade. Obviously pretty shitty of them to do. Russia could have done something other than declare war on Austria. The telegram might have been justified but it was still asking Mexico to invade the US. Didn't know that the US prevented Italy from annexing Dalmatia but considering their focus it makes sense. The fact that they fucked around a bit and weren't really involved makes them less "bad" in my eyes. And to be fair the entire war was messing with the natural balance.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 20, 2020)

Brain.exe said:


> Yeah, I forgot about the British blockade. Obviously pretty shitty of them to do. Russia could have done something other than declare war on Austria. The telegram might have been justified but it was still asking Mexico to invade the US. Didn't know that the US prevented Italy from annexing Dalmatia but considering their focus it makes sense. The fact that they fucked around a bit and weren't really involved makes them less "bad" in my eyes. And to be fair the entire war was messing with the natural balance.


Russia couldn't really do any economic damage to the Central Powers, Russia relied on her military to deter enemies and when that failed they had nothing to back up on other than their military. 
The Zimmerman telegram wasn't asking Mexico to do a preemptive strike on America, it was asking for Mexico to attack America if America attacked Germany. This isn't really a big difference but it's notable. 
And in my eyes America is the bad guy because they made the Italian prime minister, Orlando, cry. When Orlando was in a conference with Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau and George, because Wilson kept rejecting the requests of Orlando, he became furious and stormed out of the conference crying, this was when the big four became the big three. At the time Orlando was under a lot of pressure by the Italian government to get territories Italy wanted, Woodrow Wilson is literally the worse president of America ever; he made orlando cry


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## King Ghidorah (Jun 20, 2020)

America had 0 buisness dictating the territories of Europe and it was basically a power play to try and put an American foothold in Europe by proxy under the guise of  benevolence
T. American


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## Dom Cruise (Jun 20, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> The only right side in war is the side that wins, we have no idea how the world would end up if the Central Powers won the war and I prefer the reality we live in now.
> 
> This is not true at all. There were tons of regulations put in place by international commissions. The Tsar of Russia himself held a conference that regulated which types of firearms were to be permitted by nations of the world. Shotguns weren't used in WW1 because they were considered barbaric (no joke), and gas attacks were used sparingly after 1914. However some generals, namely Conrad Von Hotzendorf, pushed for war a lot, he sent letters to the king of Austria no less than 27 times asking for war with Serbia. So I guess there's some truth in this statement.
> 
> War happens because of the free market, in other words God's hand is involved in the appearance of war. Eternal peace is a dream and not even a pleasant one. And of course the "elites," who you cannot name and therefore know nothing about, don't care for the common man, but it's apparent that war can sometimes benefit the common man. WW2 brought the USA out of the great depression



WW2 brought the USA out of the great depression but Vietnam ruined our trajectory towards utopianism that we've never regained since and Iraq helped ruin what little we had been able to rebuild by that point and now almost 20 years later the country is totally falling apart, maybe sometimes war can be a benefit to the common man but sometimes it can be the exact opposite.

When I say elites I mean politicians, businessmen, bankers, the media etc.


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## LazarusOwenhart (Jun 20, 2020)

inception_state said:


> Nah, England was going to find a reason, Belgium just gave them a convenient excuse. Their long-term strategy was to keep continental Europe weak and divided, and Germany was the biggest threat to that, as Germany demonstrated that they were miles ahead of the rest of the continent militarily by spanking France in the Franco-Prussian War.
> 
> The war was a complete mess, but the part that I think was the most misrepresented was the Lusitania incident. The version I learned in high school was something along the lines of "evil Germans torpedoed innocent Americans on a pleasure cruise to England", but it turns out they were actually also carrying hundreds of tons of undeclared war munitions. Was it justified? I don't know, but that looks an awful lot like the Palestinian strategy of launching mortars out of hospitals and then crying foul when they get drone striked.


The biggest moral issue with the Lusitania is that whilst yes, the US and UK governments were using the ship as a way to try and covertly smuggle munitions into the country, the innocent civilians aboard the ship were just that. The Germans have never shown conclusively that they had enough actual, solid intel that the ship was carrying munitions to justify treating it as a target and therefore they technically fired without cause on a civilian ship.


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## inception_state (Jun 20, 2020)

LazarusOwenhart said:


> The biggest moral issue with the Lusitania is that whilst yes, the US and UK governments were using the ship as a way to try and covertly smuggle munitions into the country, the innocent civilians aboard the ship were just that. The Germans have never shown conclusively that they had enough actual, solid intel that the ship was carrying munitions to justify treating it as a target and therefore they technically fired without cause on a civilian ship.



Why would the Germans reveal their intelligence sources and methods during wartime? It seems like a bit of a weird complaint to make when the fact is that they were absolutely right on that point, even if it took until the 1980s for the British government to admit it.

I'm not trying to present it as Germany being entirely in the right either. Just that it's a much more morally gray situation than was presented in high school history class. You obviously shouldn't kill civilians, but you also shouldn't use them as unwitting human shields for your munition smuggling.


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## Stoneheart (Jun 20, 2020)

the Central powers were in the right without a question. just one side supported terrorists who killed a leading political person of the other side...


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## The 3rd Hooligan (Jun 21, 2020)

The one with the most open mind


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## WonderWino (Jun 22, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> The only right side in war is the side that wins, we have no idea how the world would end up if the Central Powers won the war and I prefer the reality we live in now.
> 
> This is not true at all. There were tons of regulations put in place by international commissions. The Tsar of Russia himself held a conference that regulated which types of firearms were to be permitted by nations of the world. Shotguns weren't used in WW1 because they were considered barbaric (no joke), and gas attacks were used sparingly after 1914. However some generals, namely Conrad Von Hotzendorf, pushed for war a lot, he sent letters to the king of Austria no less than 27 times asking for war with Serbia. So I guess there's some truth in this statement.
> 
> War happens because of the free market, in other words God's hand is involved in the appearance of war. Eternal peace is a dream and not even a pleasant one. And of course the "elites," who you cannot name and therefore know nothing about, don't care for the common man, but it's apparent that war can sometimes benefit the common man. WW2 brought the USA out of the great depression



Shotguns were used quite a bit in ww1,  they even designed versions specifically for use in the trenches


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## Slap47 (Jul 2, 2020)

Get_your_kicks_with_30-06 said:


> Good list of villainy, but Germany's border left relatively untouched?
> 
> Germany lost tens thousands of square miles of land, they had to give up Danzig, they had to recognize Poland and Czechoslovakia that they had to cede land to and they pretty much lost control of the Rhineland.
> 
> This forced secession of land was one of, if not the, biggest reasons why Hitler could mobilize the German Army and populace to start WW2.



I'd say the biggest reason was the German nature. These people fall in line. Hitler _was_ elected to office but he was never elected to rule the country. 

The Rhineland issue was to repay reparations and it was ditched rather quickly. They just had to keep their army out of it.

Danzig was an international city. Without the war it would have likely been allowed to join Germany via popular vote.

The world was perfectly willing to give Germany the Sudetenland. Hitler took the whole damn country and doomed any chance of getting the Polish lands without a major war.


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## TFT-A9 (Jul 2, 2020)

WW1 was a tardfight between European royals over more or less the same dumb shit they had been having tardfights over for the century before then.  This tardfight dragged a bunch of other tards into it, and most of the participants came out of the mess absolutely wrecked.  Then some of the tards decided to bully the tards that lost even harder, operating on the apparent assumption that it would NEVER come back to bite them in their tard asses.

Also, a bunch of normal people got killed because these tards were also massive assholes who were incapable of just settling their retarded feuds with pistols at dawn and leaving everyone fucking else the hell out of their tard shit.

The only even remotely bright point of the whole affair is that it lit a fire under the USA's ass in regards to developing and keeping a modern, well-trained armed forces.  The USA got to basically cut its teeth on real aerial combat, in particular.


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## TaimuRadiu (Jul 2, 2020)

There was no right side of WW1, just like how there are no right sides in any wars.


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## Johan Schmidt (Jul 3, 2020)

WW1 was a fucking dumpster fire that we should have never been involved in.


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## Emperor Julian (Jul 3, 2020)

Johan Schmidt said:


> WW1 was a fucking dumpster fire that we should have never been involved in.



As I recall the Germans were quite insistant you join the fun.


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## Johan Schmidt (Jul 3, 2020)

Emperor Julian said:


> As I recall the Germans were quite insistant you join the fun.


I'm British. As I recall we jumped balls deep into that clusterfuck under bullshit pretenses that are in a large part due to our own fuckery on the continent for years. I also remember one of my history teachers unironically arguing that 'poor belgium' (Her words) needed protection from an evil Germany Imperialist mindset. Fucking _Belgium_!


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## Emperor Julian (Jul 3, 2020)

Johan Schmidt said:


> I'm British. As I recall we jumped balls deep into that clusterfuck under bullshit pretenses that are in a large part due to our own fuckery on the continent for years. I also remember one of my history teachers unironically arguing that 'poor belgium' (Her words) needed protection from an evil Germany Imperialist mindset. Fucking _Belgium_!



Ah my mistake,  our islands policy is historically built around the prevention of a centralized superpower in europe. Most moves we made were on this until our failure with the soviet union. In terms of strategy and realpolitik it was the correct move,  a unified German super empire would have been a major threat to our long terms survival.  If we made an error it was the presumption that a large power of comparative strength would be  short simple matter. Guessing all those wars against cultures which didnt have a snowballs change in hell us made us complacent.


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## ConfederateIrishman (Jul 3, 2020)

The eternal anglo is evil so the Central Powers ofc


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## mindlessobserver (Jul 4, 2020)

World War 1 ruined everything. There was no right side to it, because no side wanted to murder every last fucking Serb for setting in motion the precipitous decline of western civilization and the rise of communism and fascism. If Austria, Russia and France had decided to murder all the Serbs instead of each other there would have been no Lenin, and No hitler.

Fucking Serbs man. They ruined everything.


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## Imposteroak (Jul 4, 2020)

I agree that by the time the war was done there were really no good guys, gross incompetence and disregard for life among military leaders on both sides lead to so many pointless deaths and in the end only to set the stage for it all happen again. While I also agree with kiwis who say the war wasnt technically pointless. (IMO probably going to happen one way or another.) Though i think all gains were rendered pretty pointless by the mountain of corpses and generation of traumatised young men it took to get there.


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## Just_Somebody (Jul 4, 2020)

There's no good guys, just less amounts of suck in World War 1. The United States probably stands out best, just because they avoided most of the stupidity during the war.

 However, Woodrow Wilson was a piece of shit both domestically and foreign policy wise.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jul 4, 2020)

Just_Somebody said:


> There's no good guys, just less amounts of suck in World War 1. The United States probably stands out best, just because they avoided most of the stupidity during the war.
> 
> However, Woodrow Wilson was a piece of shit both domestically and foreign policy wise.


There was an objective good side which was the central powers because they represented the reactionary world view. Woodrow wilson was a piece of shit because he was an inflexible liberal, he sent American troops to Mexico and he was shocked to find out the Mexicans didn't like him there. When he proposed to his new wife, as the joke goes, "she fell out of bed with shock." Wilson really wasn't a good guy, and by extension the United States as well. IF your country is led by a self righteous man then what comes out of your involvement will certainly be bad. 

Also there was no "stupidity" in WW1. I can admit that there were stupid maneuvers (like when Austria lost 500,000k men in the first few months of the war), but developments in warfare don't come without growing pains, and to expect otherwise would be ignorant. The numerous casualities caused by the war were necessary and, from the perspective of a social darwinist, good.


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## Just_Somebody (Jul 5, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> There was an objective good side which was the central powers because they represented the reactionary world view.



I do somewhat agree that a Triple Alliance victory in WW1 could have had a better outcome for human history. However, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was well deserved. If anything, it should have been ruined even further, like returning Constantinople to Greece. However, the slicing up of the corpse of the Ottoman Empire was poorly handled by the British and French.




> Woodrow wilson was a piece of shit because he was an inflexible liberal, he sent American troops to Mexico and he was shocked to find out the Mexicans didn't like him there. When he proposed to his new wife, as the joke goes, "she fell out of bed with shock." Wilson really wasn't a good guy, and by extension the United States as well. IF your country is led by a self righteous man then what comes out of your involvement will certainly be bad.



A liberal is the wrong word. He was an internationalist/globalist, and on top of that, a segregationist (god damn the US Democrats have come full circle)




> Also there was no "stupidity" in WW1. I can admit that there were stupid maneuvers (like when Austria lost 500,000k men in the first few months of the war), but developments in warfare don't come without growing pains, and to expect otherwise would be ignorant. The numerous casualities caused by the war were necessary and, from the perspective of a social darwinist, good.



I don't disagree that new technologies made warfare more bloody, but the conflict was an atrocious meat grinder for years. The Americans avoided most of said meat grinder, which is to their credit.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jul 5, 2020)

Just_Somebody said:


> A liberal is the wrong word. He was an internationalist/globalist, and on top of that, a segregationist (god damn the US Democrats have come full circle)


Wilson was a globalist, but when I say "liberal" I mean the classical definition (like how dumbfuck sargon describes himself). A more apt term for Wilson would be "republican," as in he believed that "democracy is the best form of government to ever exist and if you're not a democratic person then you're a piece of shit."



Just_Somebody said:


> The Americans avoided most of said meat grinder, which is to their credit.


The Americans elected Wilson in 1916 on the basis that he wouldn't go to war, in fact Wilson's entire campaign was anti-war. but then the wealthy American and British industrialists orchestrated the sinking of the Lusitania (which Wilson, no doubt, had a hand in), forcing America into the war. So I guess you're right in that the American people were against entering the war, but most of the time it's not people's decision to go to war so it balances out I suppose.


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## Slap47 (Jul 5, 2020)

Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:


> WW1 was a tardfight between European royals over more or less the same dumb shit they had been having tardfights over for the century before then.  This tardfight dragged a bunch of other tards into it, and most of the participants came out of the mess absolutely wrecked.  Then some of the tards decided to bully the tards that lost even harder, operating on the apparent assumption that it would NEVER come back to bite them in their tard asses.
> 
> Also, a bunch of normal people got killed because these tards were also massive assholes who were incapable of just settling their retarded feuds with pistols at dawn and leaving everyone fucking else the hell out of their tard shit.
> 
> The only even remotely bright point of the whole affair is that it lit a fire under the USA's ass in regards to developing and keeping a modern, well-trained armed forces.  The USA got to basically cut its teeth on real aerial combat, in particular.



None of the royals actually wanted the war. The problem is that they had given up most of their power to bureaucracies that made bad decisions.


----------



## Ughubughughughughughghlug (Jul 6, 2020)

Slap47 said:


> U*nited Kingdom, 2/5 Villainy: *The British failed to their  honor secret agreement with France, and only entered war due to public agreement with Belgium.  The British made secret treaties throughout the war that were all dishonored. This lead to a century of chaos in places such as the middle-east. Their propaganda machine was the best and lied the most. For example, the German decision to execute nurses for spying was the centerpiece of British propaganda but those nurses actually were spies. The British executed German nurses who were spies and the Germans simply admitted they were spies.



I figure the UK gets a 2/5 for me (if we translate that color code into a five-point scale) because of their propaganda campaign against the US. As I recall, they had a monopoly on the only Transatlantic cable, which meant that their Babies-on-Bayonets propaganda got to swarm America while German propaganda struggled to get through. The result being that they basically tricked the American public. Add in their complicity in crap like Lusitania, the fact that they also blockaded Germany (with mines, that can't distinguish between civilian and warship AT ALL) but nobody gave them any shit about it. Then, they're clearly the wrong side of the Irish Revolution. Treatment of their colonial troops was pretty bad.

The causes of Britain entering the world, however, are noble, and they were unprovoked in that regard.



> *French Republic, 1/5 Villainy: *Was invaded by Germany based on the understanding that France would support Russia based on their alliance. France had very little revanchism regarding Alsace Lorraine at this point and their alliance was entirely defensive. Large portions of France were occupied and made uninhabitable as the result of the war. The French were "bled white" by the war and wanted Germany harshly punished. After the war they occupied Germany to extract reparations but abandoned that program for delayed payments. They used the war to expand their empire.



I gave them a 3 because I reckoned they were pretty much guaranteed to join with Russia. But if you don't take that for granted, then that falls apart and they do become a 1, unprovoked attack. I don't hold Versailles against them that much since the Germans were themselves punitive towards their enemies, and like you siad, but it is a real bad look that they were pretty much the only ones pushing it hard among the powers.



> *German Empire, 4/5 Villainy:* Kaiser Wilhelm irresponsibly declared that he would support Austria. This blank cheque empowered Austria-Hungary to act push for war.  During the war the Germans were the first to commit war crimes via chemical weapons and unrestricted submarine warfare. The German high command were strongly influenced by the ideas of Lebensraum and wanted to transform eastern Europe into a feudal society dominated by ethnic Germans. Such societies already existed in the Baltic states. The Germans actively sabotaged their economy to avoid paying war reparations.



I'm 100% on Germany's side when it comes to Serbia, Austria, and Russia. Where it gets to be a problem is the extra step of attacking France (understandable strategically but weak morally), and then they fuck up by attacking a neutral (Belgium) just because it's expedient, which alone means they can't be any lower than a 3. However, I only recently learned that the Allies invaded Greece unprovoked, because it was expedient, so maybe the Allies need to be upgraded a step, even if Germany isn't downgraded one.

The Germans were real bastards in how they conducted war, generally being the ones to escalate things, and notorious destroyers of artwork and architecture. Their conduct in Belgium wasn't babies-on-bayonets but it was appalling. Germans are disgusting to where even if they're morally justified, in at least parts of it, it feels bad if they win.



> *Austro-Hungarian Empire, 4/5 Villainy: *Konrad Von Hotsendorf, his general staff the Hungarian parliament wanted to dominate the slavs. They intentionally made overbearing demands that would be rejected and were surprised when all but one was denied. They went to war anyway and their army was crippled due to ethnic conflicts within the military. They had expected to get their way as they were the only great power to not have used their one free pass to get whatever they want during a crisis. Russia had been able to bully Poland, France was given a pass during the Morocco crisis, etc.



I gave them a 2 because Serbia had been belligerent towards all of its neighbors for a long time, and needed cutting down to size. Fuck Serbia. They don't get a 1 because they 



> *Ottoman Empire, 5/5 Villainy*: The Ottomans were forced into the war by a clique of officers who orchestrated an attack on Russia. These officers mismanaged the army. Envar Pasha lost a whole army invading the Caucasian mountains during the winter without the proper equipment.  The Ottomans were crushed at Suez but were able to survive thanks to the leadership of Attaturk. The bad situation of the war was blamed on ethnic minorities instead of mismanagement. This resulted in several genocides against groups like the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians. The Armenian genocide was used to create the word genocide.



Same



> *Russian Empire, 3/5 Villainy*:  Russia was the protector of the Slavs and so declared war on Austria in defense of Serbia.  They were allied with France to contain Germany. Germany declared war on Russia and annihilated the Russian military over the course of 3 years. The Czar was incompetent and being cucked by a magical homeless man but he meant well. He willingly conceded power but foolishly remained in the country. His oppressive empire was replaced by the just as oppressive USSR.



Asshole Serbia acts up and Russia threatens to defend the little punks. Their involvement is the incentive to go to war with France so Russia, to me, is ultimately the cause of escalation, not Germany or Austria, because Russia could have just fucked off and let Germany and Austria give Serbia the beat-down they had coming. Russian soldiers were also vile barbarians, incredibly cruel.



> *United States of America , 0/5 Villainy*: Germany began sinking American shipping as part of their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This policy resulted in the sinking of civilian ships (that were carrying weapons). The Germans also violated the Monroe doctrine by trying to manipulate Mexico into fighting the USA. It is very unlikely that these were the reasons as few people wanted war despite these atrocities and violations of American honor. Regardless, the USA funded the allied effort through loans and finished off Germany with their soldiers. The US policy during the treaty of Versailles was the promotion of national self-determination and democracy. After the war the USA went to great efforts to stabilize Europe through economic schemes and diplomatic intervention.



I suppose the US doesn't deserve any villainy, but I do say that the German submarine warfare is basically the same as the British minefields, and the Americans didn't bitch about the British minefields; in fact, I seem to recall instances of Brits illegally harassing American shipping. Basically, the US played favorites and so it doesn't deserve to complain about the subs, but neither is the US obligated to take the damages without fighting back.


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## Fougaro (Jul 6, 2020)

Right or wrong isn't necessarily applicable in World War I as it was merely a culmination of various diplomatic clusterfucks.

In the years preceding the war however, Austria-Hungary took the question of "On how many layers of being a massive insufferable faggot are you?" as a challenge.


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## FaramirG (Jul 6, 2020)

Fougaro said:


> Right or wrong isn't necessarily applicable in World War I as it was merely a culmination of various diplomatic clusterfucks.
> 
> In the years preceding the war however, Austria-Hungary took the question of "On how many layers of being a massive insufferable faggot are you?" as a challenge.


Germany did its best too, with Wilhelm thinking the best way to smooth things over with the UK was to do an interview with a British paper where he called them all lunatics. if Bismarck had been alive to see that shit he would have had an aneurysm.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Oct 12, 2020)

Thinking that there was a good side in ww1 is trying to take a new world order age theory type thinking and applying it to a world where that thinking didn't even exist. How can you even pose that question unironically? Who was good side in the war of Spanish succession? idk, who cares?


FaramirG said:


> Germany did its best too, with Wilhelm thinking the best way to smooth things over with the UK was to do an interview with a British paper where he called them all lunatics. if Bismarck had been alive to see that shit he would have had an aneurysm.


classic bismarck cock sucker. bismarck was too old for his time, he couldn't keep up with Wilhelm's new age radical extreme (in more ways than one) thinking, Wilhelm was on track to make Germany a world power, and Bismarck's dumb mongrel diplomacy shit tried to make Germany non-power.


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## Foltest (Oct 13, 2020)

I don't know who was the real good guy (the winner were the nordics becuase we were netural) but biggest bastard was Konrad von Hottsendorff. What a pos he was.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Oct 13, 2020)

Foltest said:


> I don't know who was the real good guy (the winner were the nordics becuase we were netural) but biggest bastard was Konrad von Hottsendorff. What a pos he was.


Conrad von Hotzendorf was a military genius


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## Foltest (Oct 14, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> Conrad von Hotzendorf was a military genius


He was such a genius that he press for war when AH was not ready at all. Or that he wasted so much manpower away.


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## MelloYello (Oct 14, 2020)

Slap47 said:


> *French Republic, 1/5 Villainy: *Was invaded by Germany based on the understanding that France would support Russia based on their alliance. France had very little revanchism regarding Alsace Lorraine at this point and their alliance was entirely defensive.



Patently false.
The President of France and the Prime Minister visited St. Petersburg during the July Crisis, to assure the Tsar of their unconditional military support.
Poincaré was the driving force behind this move, and there's a good chance that revanchism for 1870 played a big part in his motivation.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 4, 2021)

Foltest said:


> He was such a genius that he press for war when AH was not ready at all. Or that he wasted so much manpower away.


Austria was ready for war against Serbia and had a pretty good offensive plan against Russia. however, the uppity Magyars didn't want to fund the military and Hotzendorff was stuck with an outclassed military. Despite all odds Austria performed well against Russia.


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## Adolphin (Jun 4, 2021)

No one. It was a war of imperialist powers led by distantly related aristocracies, which failed to realise the gravity of the situation during the July Crisis. It was such a pointless yet monumental war, which forever changed human history.


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## Lemmingwise (Jun 5, 2021)

Slap47 said:


> Danzig was an international city. Without the war it would have likely been allowed to join Germany via popular vote


Ha ha ha no


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