100 years ago today, fighting began on the Western Front of World War I.  Belgium, a tiny country whose neutrality was guaranteed by all of the major European powers, was invaded by forces of the German empire.  German demands that Belgium allow its army to swing through its territory as part of the Schieffen Plan were rebuffed.  Belgian resistance to the invasion would bloody Germanies nose, and would be a forewarning of the carnage and stalemate to come.  The siege of Liege would be a microcosm of the war, with fortifications, entrenchments, machine guns, huge artillery pieces, and massive casualties.

Great Britain, who had been teetering on the knife-edge between neutrality and war with Germany, issued an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that her forces be removed from Belgium.  Germany was required to answer the ultimatum by 11 PM London time.  The German chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, is reported to have been outraged by this, calling the treaty that bound both the United Kingdom and Germany to Belgium’s neutrality a “scrap of paper”.  Where he seemed to fail in his understanding was that, while a treaty is indeed written on paper, it is made out of the honor of the nations that sign it, and it is backed by the power and the blood of those nations’ citizens.

The ultimatum lapsed without an adequate German reply, and the United Kingdom went to war against Germany and her allies on August 4.  The rest of the major powers would complete their declarations of war in the following days, and the Battle of the Frontiers, the first great battle of the Western Front, would commence on August 7.

Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Minister, is believed to have said “The lamps are going out all over Europe, and we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”, and his words were remarkably prophetic.   Peace on the European continent has been a fleeting dream and memory for a century.  Our hopes for peace in Europe after a century of warfare and the fall of Communism, were dashed by sectarian violence in the Balkans.  Europe, even with the unity of the European Union, is still beset with violence and tensions.  The destruction of the old world, which the First World War was a part of, took away a moderating agent in the mix of ethnic, social, and  religious conflicts that the continent has always held.  Strife between ethnic groups, riots in France and Great Britain, and the over-arching influence that Russia has gained over the EU show that Europe is still struggling with issues that the Great War released.

The lamps of Europe are, at best, dim, on the anniversary of the beginning of the war.  I wonder if we will see them lit again in our lifetime?