this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Ferdinand was the straw that broke the camels back. tensions had been building for a while. if it wasn't that it would have been something else. A lot of the consensus at the time was that war was inevitable
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-proud-tower-a-portrait-of-the-world-before-the-war-1890-1914-barbara-w-tuchman-s-great-war-series-barbara-w-tuchman/1417915?ean=9780345405012&next=t&next=t
Very good one volume look at Europe/America in the run up to WW1. There had been a lot of changes in a short period of time and a lot of intelligent people thought that a little bloodshed might help things get back to normal.
Up until then, war has been kind of a game. Gentlemen gathering the peasants to poke each other with sharp and/or pointy sticks until the food ran out. Then they'd swap some land, maybe a political marriage or two, then go home to tell stories of how courageous they were.
They weren't ready for the horrors that technology would bring them.
During the Napoleonic era the highest ranks would meet for a handshake and discussion before fighting (unless you’re a traitor then you kill people in their sleep during the Christmas truce)
Now a lot of that was because communication was difficult
...And in WW2 no one was ready for what airplanes could do, and in Vietnam the Americans couldn't wrap their minds around what a dedicated guerilla army could accomplish.