This week marks the 100th anniversary of the event that ignited World War I, the horrendous event that shaped the rest of the 20th century and the aftermath of which impacts us today. If the Great War had been avoided or gone another way, we might have been spared the millions of dead from Nazism and Communism, and the situation in the MidEast and the Third World would be drastically different. One thing that has struck me is how few people who aren’t history nerds know much about the First World War.
I’m starting a new project here, which I’m calling “100 Years On”. Over the next few years, I’m going to mark some of the major events in the war, from Sarajevo to Versailles. Some of it will be information; some of it will be me editorializing on what happened and how those events are either connected to today’s world or are mirrors of things we are seeing today.
I’m not going to do a “Day by Day” kind of thing, because, to be honest, I wouldn’t be able to do that well. I’m not an expert on the subject, and others have already done work much better than I could with my time and talent. If you’re looking for sources of information on the war and its details, I suggest you read the outstanding books on the subject authored by Barbara Tuchman, John Keegan, and Niall Ferguson. If you’re more of a podcast kind of person, I suggest listening to Dan Carlin’s current arc in his Hardcore History series, “Countdown to Armageddon”.
I’m sure there are other sources of information out there, and if you can recommend one, please drop a comment here. Like I said, this is becoming a forgotten war now that the last of the veterans are gone, and that’s a shame and a danger.
I hope you enjoy.
DaddyBear’s Den 
oldnfo
/ June 26, 2014Looking forward to the new series!
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bluesun
/ June 26, 2014Listened to Carlin’s latest Common Sense, and he made some really good points and connected some dots that I hadn’t ever thought about, speaking of the echos of the Great War.
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daddybear71
/ June 26, 2014Yeah, I listened to that this morning.
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mrgarabaldi
/ June 26, 2014Hey DB,
This should be fun….First thing I though of was if Russia hadn’t got her butt spanked repeatedly by the Germans in WWI,and caused such resentment for the losses of millions of soldiers to the Germans. Our buddy Vladimir Illych would not have been able to make such an impact on Imperial Russia. Russia was having a lot of problems before from the strikes in 1905 with the Battleship Potemkin and other issues. It makes me wonder how this would have played out if there had been no WWI
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daddybear71
/ June 26, 2014Russia would probably have fallen apart eventually, along with the Ottomans, but it probably wouldn’t have been as bloody.
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Odysseus
/ June 27, 2014Dreadnought and Castles of Steel by Massey covers the naval side of the war in wonderful detail.
The Guns of August by Tuchman focuses on the beginning stages of the war and the fallacies of thinking(like the French refusing to abandon the bright red pants on their uniforms for fear of damaging their elan)
With Our Backs to the Wall by Stevenson details the happenings of 1918 that finally brake the stalemate as well as the factors that made another war inevitable.
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daddybear71
/ June 27, 2014Thanks!
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Christina LMT
/ June 28, 2014I’m currently devouring Charles Todd’s books. The Ian Rutledge mysteries and Bess Crawford mysteries. Historical mysteries, where Rutledge is a WWI veteran and Scotland Yard inspector, hiding the fact that he has wicked shell shock, and Bess Crawford is a battlefield nurse during WWI, who solves mysteries on the side. Entertaining AND educational!
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