Who started both World Wars?

[Border Reiver]

The WWI as a bar fight was cute is there a WWII version set at a family BBQ? (in the sense of a European family)

I guess the Canadians, Yanks, and the rest are the out of town cousins...

 

[bonzombiekitty]

I was shopping at a local antique store and they had this set of books from the mid 20's that was supposed to be a complete account of WWI. All the battles, politics.... everything.

What I found funny was the introduction to the first book. It basically said "Germany is totally evil, and the US and its allies are totally awesome. Germany, in its evilness, started the war and deserves everything it got at the end. If you don't agree, you are an idiot, a fool, and probably a traitor"

 

[Horatius]

The WWI as a bar fight was cute is there a WWII version set at a family BBQ? (in the sense of a European family)

The German Family sits down at their picnic table. The German family then declares that the Austrian Family is also part of the German Family. None of the Austrian Family denies this, so they push their two tables together.

The German and Austrian Families then jointly declare that the Czechoslovakian Family is also German, because one of them married a German. They push the Czechoslovakian Family's table together with the German and Austrian Families' tables, and punch out the Czechoslovakian Family's Father when he objects.

The German Family now declares that their table is too small, and they want half of the Polish Family's Table. The Russian Family pipes up that they want the other half.

The British and French Families say that's ********, but don't actually do anything to stop the German and Russian Families, as they're way on the other side of the park. The German and Russian Families slap the Polish Family around a bit, then cut their table in half. Some of the Polish Family slip away to join the British Family at their table.

The German and Austrian Families sit around bragging about the size of their table for a while, until they notice some of the tougher members of the British Family are sneaking over to sit at the French Family's table. The German and Austrian Families then rush the French Family's table, knocking over the Belgian Family's table in the process.

The German and Austrian Families beat up half the French Family, whereupon the other half of the French Family declare they didn't want to fight in the first place, and The German and Austrian Families can just have the table if they want it so much.

The tougher members of the British Family (and a few members of the French Family) retreat to the British Family's table. Several members of the German and Austrian Family move over to the French Family's table, and start hitting on the French Family's girls.

Several members of the Canadian Family show up at the British Family's table, saying they heard there was a fight.

The German, Austrian, and British Families spend the next little while lobbing dinner rolls back and forth between tables.

Eventually, both the German Family and the British family declare that they're going to the beach, and the other better not get in their way. They spend a bit of time shoving each other back and forth from one end of the beach to the other.

The American Family shows up, declares they'd like a chunk of the beach as well, and traps the German family in the middle of the beach between the American and British families. The German Family retreats, claiming they were tired of the beach anyway.

The American and British Families go back to the British Family's table, and start talking loudly about taking back the French Family's table. The Canadian Family gets bored and rushes the French Family's table, but most of them end up coming back with broken noses.

Part of the German Family lounges around at the French Family's table, but suddenly, a large group of them rush the Russian Family's table. The Russian Family retreats in surprise, but then comes back with a large group of cousins the German Family didn't know were invited. The German and Russian Families start brawling. Several tables gets smashed in the process.

While the German Family is distracted, the British, Canadian, and American Families rush the French Family's table. They quickly beat up the few members of the German Family still sitting at the French Family's table. The British, Canadian, and American Families start hitting on the French Family's girls.

After a bit, the Russian Family yells to the British, Canadian, and American Families that they're about to take over the German Family's table, and asks if the British, Canadian, and American Families want to get in on this. The British, Canadian, American and Russian Families beat up what's left of the German Family, and split their tables down the middle.

The Austrian Family declares they weren't ever really part of the German Family, and pushes their original table back to where it came from, and the British, Canadian, American and Russian Families just roll their eyes, and decide not to call them on it.

The Polish and Czechoslovakian Families try to point out that their tables are still full of members of the Russian Family, but everyone ignores them.





Ignores some details (like the Italians), so feel free to add.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I was shopping at a local antique store and they had this set of books from the mid 20's that was supposed to be a complete account of WWI. All the battles, politics.... everything.

What I found funny was the introduction to the first book. It basically said "Germany is totally evil, and the US and its allies are totally awesome. Germany, in its evilness, started the war and deserves everything it got at the end. If you don't agree, you are an idiot, a fool, and probably a traitor"

That about sums it up.

 

[ddt]

I didn't read all 128 pages, so this might have been covered, but in the interest of creating an infinity thread: When did WW II officially end? Not when did fighting stop, but when did the formal state of war end?

That depends on the belligerent. There were separate peace treaties with the various axis belligerents.

Pacific theater:

• Manchuko: it's hard to sign a peace treaty with a state that no longer exists.
• Thailand: Anglo-Thai Peace Treaty on 1 January 1946, signed only by the UK on the Allied side. No formal peace treaty with the US or with France.
• Japan: Treaty of San Francisco, 8 September 1951. Of the Allies, 47 signed - so many of those were only token Allies. The Soviet Union had a later peace declaration with Japan; the People's Republic of China never, AFAICS.

European theater:

• Croatia: see Manchuko above.
• Slovakia: see Croatia above.
• Iraq: no formal peace treaty. A rebel government seized power in April 1941 and sought help with the Axis powers to oust Britain. In the Anglo-Iraqi war of May 1941, the British defeated the rebels and reinstalled the previous government.
• San Marino: no formal peace treaty. San Marino declared war on Britain on 17 September 1940, but declared neutrality three days after Mussolini was deposed.
• Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Hungary, Romania: Paris Peace Treaties, 10 February 1947. Signed by various, differing sets of Allied powers, see the full text of the five separate treaties for the details.
• Austria: Austrian State Treaty, 15 May 1955. Signed on Allied side by the four occupying powers France, Soviet Union, UK and USA: Austria, like Germany, had been divided into four occupation zones which were under military command of those respective Allied countries, and Vienna, like Berlin, had also been divided into four occupation zones.
• Germany: Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, better known as the Two-Plus-Four Treaty, 12 September 1990, less than a month before the German reunification. As with Austria, the treaty was signed on Allied side only by the four occupying powers. Until then, both Germanies were technically still occupation zones of the four Great Powers.

The wiki page on the Axis powers has some more info on obscure Axis client states that were installed during the war.

 

[dudalb]

I was shopping at a local antique store and they had this set of books from the mid 20's that was supposed to be a complete account of WWI. All the battles, politics.... everything.

What I found funny was the introduction to the first book. It basically said "Germany is totally evil, and the US and its allies are totally awesome. Germany, in its evilness, started the war and deserves everything it got at the end. If you don't agree, you are an idiot, a fool, and probably a traitor"

That was probably true about Germany in World War 2,World War 1..not so much.

 

[EventHorizon]

Getting back to the subject of the thread, if anyone's interested, here's my synopsis of the First World War.

Germany, Austria and Italy are stood together in the middle of the bar-room, when Serbia bumps into Austria, and spills Austria's pint.
Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit, because there are splashes on its trouser leg.
Germany expresses its support for Austria's point of view.
Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can't afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for cleaning Austria's trousers.
Russia and Serbia look at Austria.
Austria asks Serbia who it's looking at.
Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.
Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.
Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.
Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.
Britain and France ask Germany whether it's looking at Belgium.
Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.
Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.
France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britan and France with one hand and Russia with the other. Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it's on Britain's side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings, because Britain made Australia do it.
France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
America waits till Germany is about to fall over, then walks over, waves a fist at Germany while Britain knocks it out, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
By now all the chairs are broken, and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany's fault. While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.

Nobody comes out of it looking particularly good.

Dave

This is making the rounds on the interwebs again. Still unattributed. That annoys me.

 

[Border Reiver]

It's still funny though, but yeah, the author should get the credit.

 

[Muc]

The fourth obstacle to a German-Polish understanding was the ruthless Polish treatment of minorities. This concerned primarily the Polish mistreatment of the Germans, but the Polish attempt to strand more than 50,000 of their Jewish nationals in the Reich, in 1938, also had a bad effect on German-Polish relations. The Polish policy in this maneuver to rid Poland of a large number of Polish Jews was both cruel and audacious. The step itself is not comprehensible unless one takes account of the rising tide of anti-Jewish feeling in Poland early in 1938.

Well, thank god the Nazis eventually sweeped into Poland to protect the Jews from discrimination.

 

[chazwyman]

Spin-off from the holocaust thread.

So who started WW1 and WW2? 'Easy', the average Anglo will say, 'The Germans!'... and he will continue to chew on his bagel and listen to the monotonous rap on his iPod.

Is that true? Let's start a little quiz. Here a list of possible candidates:

1) Germany
2) England
3) France
4) Poland
5) America
6) 'The Jews'
7) Hitler
8) Churchill
9) Norway
10) Kazakhstan (according to the latest insights as proposed by carlitos and TSR a European country)
11) Other, namely...
.

The answer is all of the above, especially 11.

WHY?
Let me introduce you to the idea of naive causality...

A cause relies not just on a single intentional agent of causality, but a range of complex factors.
A light goes on and the naive causalist points to the boy pressing the switch. However on deeper inspection we learn that he was told to put the light on by his Mummy, because she could not see well enough to knit the new baby's outfit. The baby was the result of her daughter being raped by a stranger. So the cause of the light going on has a range of other associated causes.
The earth moves and the sun disappears over the horizon; sexual desire can trump social morals; sperm meets egg; there is a tradition of knitting a baby's first outfit by the g-mother of the child; son's follow the instructions of their mothers; and I have not even begun to look at the causal chain inside the light circuit, nor made any reference to power generation, electrons yada, yada, yada....

Now the World Wars had not equally complex ranges of causality, but far more complex.

The World Wars were always going to happen because populations increase with expansive pressure in a political culture in which the idea of War to get what you want was common place; alliances and treaties had been entered into.
Humans prefer not to look at their own responsibility but prefer to direct BLAME onto easily identifiable sources.
But anything that allows or enables a war to happen is part of the cause. Do I blame the political culture? No. But it was part of the cause, so was the shooting of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, the gun seller, the shooter, and the designer of the gun.

 

[erwinl]

The answer is all of the above, especially 11.

WHY?
Let me introduce you to the idea of naive causality...

A cause relies not just on a single intentional agent of causality, but a range of complex factors.
A light goes on and the naive causalist points to the boy pressing the switch. However on deeper inspection we learn that he was told to put the light on by his Mummy, because she could not see well enough to knit the new baby's outfit. The baby was the result of her daughter being raped by a stranger. So the cause of the light going on has a range of other associated causes.
The earth moves and the sun disappears over the horizon; sexual desire can trump social morals; sperm meets egg; there is a tradition of knitting a baby's first outfit by the g-mother of the child; son's follow the instructions of their mothers; and I have not even begun to look at the causal chain inside the light circuit, nor made any reference to power generation, electrons yada, yada, yada....

Now the World Wars had not equally complex ranges of causality, but far more complex.

The World Wars were always going to happen because populations increase with expansive pressure in a political culture in which the idea of War to get what you want was common place; alliances and treaties had been entered into.
Humans prefer not to look at their own responsibility but prefer to direct BLAME onto easily identifiable sources.
But anything that allows or enables a war to happen is part of the cause. Do I blame the political culture? No. But it was part of the cause, so was the shooting of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, the gun seller, the shooter, and the designer of the gun.

Pure mathematically you might be right.

But if you go too far with this line of thinking, then it must mean that nobody is responsible, because everybody is responsible.
And yet some actors have a greater part in starting the World Wars than others.