One hundred years ago today, Austria-Hungary declared a state of war with Serbia. It was the beginning of many decades of death and devastation unparalleled in human history. It marked the beginning of the end of aristocratic rule and it propelled the world, over that thirty year period, into the technological marvel and time bomb we live with today. It was not just the two World Wars that was so tragic, but also the millions who perished in the ideological transitions in Russia and China and even India. I think the terrible conflict of the first half of the 20th century was inevitable, given the state of the world at the time. No government or philosopher or scientist could have predicted the events, and certainly none could have stopped them. (Though in hindsight we see voices in the wilderness such as Churchill whose ideas could have redirected the flow. But he was powerless at the time, and even then who knows what other tragedy lurked in some new direction.)
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:11:28 +0000
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