On the 28th of July, in the year 1914, exactly one month after the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were gunned down in the streets of Sarajevo, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia.
Within another month, most of Europe was at war.
An entire generation was crippled. Millions (literally) were killed outright. Many more were physically maimed. Millions of others bore the mental scars for the rest of their lives. Military and civilian.
Virtually no one was left unaffected.
Empires crumbled. Boundaries were redrawn.
The bloodiest century in human history had begun.
While the guns of that conflict did fall silent four years later, it was not the end.
It was only a respite.
It did not end when Berlin fell or when nuclear fire rained on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It did not end when the guns fell silent in Korea in 1953.
It did not end when Saigon fell.
It did not end when the Twin Towers fell.
War has raged, sputtered and gone silent. Only to flare again.
World War I began this on date a century ago.
One might argue that it continues still.
In some places, it's NEVER ended...
ReplyDeleteToo true.
DeleteIt was the war to end all wars and it spelled complete ruination for the world that existed before it began over a trifle. When you think how decolonialization would have gone absent the war, it is to wonder and if only the Germans hadn't sent a young Marxist back to Russia to undermine the Czar....
ReplyDeleteIt boggles the mind.
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