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This assumes, that the crisis was perceived as one and not just as a chance to send the lower-classes into a meat-grinder, stabilizing the regimes by creating a

This assumes, that the crisis was perceived as one and not just as a chance to send the lower-classes into a meat-grinder, stabilizing the regimes by creating a external threat. These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare. The american-civil-war was far away - the last war in living memory was a "smashing success" for those starting WW1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars There were no nuclear weapons to be feared and unions/socialism to be silenced and demands for shared power by the growing industrial bourgeoisie to be ignored.

hilbert42 5y ago
"These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare." It's hard to say how accurate that statement is but in all probability much of it is likely true. However, any reasonably well educated person of the day would have been well aware of the new highly industrialized nature of warfare from both the Crimean War and the American Civil War, both of which represented a new kind of 'advanced' warfare (especially so the American Civil War). Moreover, it wouldn't have been difficult to project that new developments made in the intervening 50 or so years since the Civil War, would likely make warfare considerably worse. Right, 50 years is sufficient time to forget a war but nevertheless many veterans of the Civil War were still alive at outset of WWI. (Remember, Buster Keaton's Civil War film of 1926, The General failed to gain universal popularity as it was perceived by the many Civil War veterans who were still alive as biased in that it told the War from the South's perspective.) This 'corporate' memory should have had a substantial effect in preventing war but clearly its effects weren't nearly enough. No doubt you're correct when it comes to considering the less well educated. However—as with many wars—I'd maintain that whilst they didn't actually start the war, that national hubris combined with young male bravado played an important if not overwhelming role in perpetuating it, especially so at War's outbreak before the grim and tragic reality of the trenches became fully apparent.

hilbert42 5y ago

"These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare." It's hard to say how accurate that statement is but in all probability much of it is likely true. However, any reasonably well educated person of the day would have been well aware of the new highly industrialized nature of warfare from both the Crimean War and the American Civil War, both of which represented a new kind of 'advanced' warfare (especially so the American Civil War). Moreover, it wouldn't have been difficult to project that new developments made in the intervening 50 or so years since the Civil War, would likely make warfare considerably worse. Right, 50 years is sufficient time to forget a war but nevertheless many veterans of the Civil War were still alive at outset of WWI. (Remember, Buster Keaton's Civil War film of 1926, The General failed to gain universal popularity as it was perceived by the many Civil War veterans who were still alive as biased in that it told the War from the South's perspective.) This 'corporate' memory should have had a substantial effect in preventing war but clearly its effects weren't nearly enough. No doubt you're correct when it comes to considering the less well educated. However—as with many wars—I'd maintain that whilst they didn't actually start the war, that national hubris combined with young male bravado played an important if not overwhelming role in perpetuating it, especially so at War's outbreak before the grim and tragic reality of the trenches became fully apparent.