Part of a Continuum

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Jun 30, 2014 at 02:37

Ludvikus,

Both you and Daniel have valid points, and much insight. Horrible things certainly happened, pursuant to the Sarajevo assassination: two world wars, the Holocaust and nuclear warfare. That said, the actions of a Serbian Nationalist gunman were not the ultimate cause. Germany's rise, after all, was an expression of ethnic nationalism, which some date back to Napoleon. The Ottoman Empire, likewise, was carved up not so much by WWI, as by nationalist movements in Serbia, Romania, Greece and other places. Austria-Hungary was already tottering in 1867, with the creation of the Dual Monarchy -- again, as a resutl of the same nationalist forces that eventually formed Jugoslavia. Russia morphed into the USSR during WWI, as the result of Communism, a whole different cause from the Yugoslav Nationalism that Gavrilo Princip espoused. Zionism, which triumphed in 1948, had its beginnings in the 1880s, a generation before Prinicp; it was mainly a nationalist movement, with elements of Socialism.

All of these were part of a continuum of events. Had Princip never been born, WWI would still have happened; because a rising Germany would eventually challenge British superiority. Likewise, the Japanese had begun their expansion long before 1914. Colonialism essentially grew until the entire world was carved up between the great powers; then a climax came, in which they turned upon one another with full force. The great victor was a relative outsider in Napoleon's day, the United States of America.

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