Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The Dirty Hand of Serbia in WW1

  Most historians now recognize the fact that a) Serbian military intelligence was involved in the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, b) the ultimate goal of the Serbs was to create a greater Serbia, and c) the method to accomplish this was to knock off Austria-Hungary via the getting of Southern Slavs under their auspices to revolt................................................................................Look, I get it, Austria-Hungary was imperialistic (though still a piker when compared to France and Great Britain) and the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was probably unjust. But just like those Japanese imperialists, they were late to the table and so you get what you CAN get.......And, besides, the Serbs themselves had recently plucked off Macedonia and Kosovo from the Ottoman Turks and, so pot, kettle, black, I say....................................................................................P.S. And, again, I challenge anybody to look at a map of the world in 1914 and with a straight face tell me that the biggest threats to freedom in the world were Germany and Austria-Hungary. Yes, the Kaiser was a tough customer and hard-core nationalist (ditto, Joseph of Austria) but at least he didn't rule over hundreds of millions of black and brown skinned people with ruthlessness and pretend to be enlightened about it.......Oh, and, yeah, I hate the British.

3 comments:

BB-Idaho said...

'..pretend to be enlightened about it' - true, and exemplified by Kipling's poem,
"Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need.."
-while colonialism actually was the extraction of wealth from the various colonies. We note further that the ancient tribal
divisions in Africa, for example,
were given only the tools which
have resulted in the current
internecine massacres, violence
and corruption in that unfortunate continent. Millions
are thankful that the Sun finally
set on the Victorian heydays.

Constitutional Insurgent said...

In an indirect way, Serbia is to blame for every geopolitical calamity of the 20th century.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I never knew how to take that poem, BB. It's at the very minimum awkward, huh?............You're probably correct, CI (though I still like to blame Churchill as well).