Who was responsible

[krrish]

On June 28 1914,Archduke Franz Ferdinand,heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb citizen.History tells that this is the cause of the first world war.The war spreaded quickly from Europe to entire part of the world & it became the first global war.And the result was 20 million deaths & 20 millions injuries.Who were responsible for this huge loss ?Can we say that only Austria-Hungary was responsible ?

[jasmor58]

An inponderable question. There are all sorts of implications to be considerd here, Britain declaring war on Germany, the incompetence of the the War Cabinet led by Asqith , poor military leadership and lack of understanding of a war of attrition. Haig's belief in the "Big Push" to break the German lines and take large territorial gains and lack of adequate fire-power There is no one factor which is entirely responsible for the huge losses of men. As late as the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) it was Haig's belief that the big push was the way to win the battle and he consistantly refuted the idea of smaller "Bite and Hold" operations. However, the full blame can not be placed on the shoulders of Haig as there are so many other factors to be considered.
Jasmor58

[Stalin]

During the first half of 1939, an atmosphere of foreboding hovered over Europe. There was the sense of an approaching storm. A revered British figure, Winston S. Churchill, who had held a number of cabinet posts but was now out of politics, warned that “ferocious passions” were “rife in Europe.” He was referring to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cohorts in Berlin. The preparations for war were everywhere in England, and in London, the high-pitched moans of air-raid sirens were heard for the first time as defence officials tested the nation’s early warning system against attack by the powerful Luftwaffe. At the same time, another force was at work, this one invisible to the eye. For many months, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, Germany’s intelligence agency, had been feeding a stream of accurate reports on the military and political situation in the Third Reich to MI-6, Great Britain’s secret service for foreign operations. Canaris was a leader of the Schwarze Kapelle (Black Orchestra), the conspiracy of prominent Germans pledged to curb or halt Hitler’s dream of conquest. Soon after the führer sent his booted legions to gobble up defenceless Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Canaris implemented a new strategy in an effort to prod Great Britain into taking action against the Reich. Now he ceased sending factual reports and planted false information on MI-6. On April 3, Canaris, a small, nervous man, stated that Hitler might send his Luftwaffe to attack the Royal Navy, Great Britain’s first line of defence. A second haunting report “disclosed” that German U-boats were prowling in the English Channel and even penetrating far up the Thames Estuary, the water passage to London. This time, the crafty German master spy got action, minimal as it may have been. Lord Stanhope, the first lord of the Admiralty, swallowed the bait. That same day, he gave orders for the fleet to “man the antiaircraft guns” and “be ready for anything that might happen.”

Yet another false report planted by Canaris stated that Hitler planned to launch a war against Great Britain by a sneak bombing raid on London. This time, the wily admiral overplayed his hand. When none of his concocted scenarios developed, he lost credibility with MI-6 and other British leaders. Many in London believed, wrongly, that the admiral was hatching these fanciful tales as part of a devious Hitler deception scheme to mask the führer’s true intentions. Meanwhile in early 1939, Hitler was preparing to launch Fall Weiss (Case White), the code name for a massive invasion of neighbouring Poland. Army ranks were swelled by new men called up for “summer training.” The great German armament works were humming, turning out guns, tanks, airplanes, and ships.
The führer’s highly capable general staff had put together an invasion plan which could be spearheaded by the infiltration of a large number of Germans behind Polish lines to create confusion, sabotage key facilities, and protect bridges needed for the advancing panzers. Earlier, notice had gone out from the Heer (army) that volunteers were being accepted for a special commando-type unit. It was headed by Oberst (Colonel) Theodor von Hippel, head of Section II, the intelligence branch responsible for clandestine operations. Within a few weeks, Hippel organized a force of picked men, who were chosen not only for their combat skills, but also for their resourcefulness and fluency in at least one foreign language. This project was designated top secret. To mask the true function of this crack outfit, it was designated Lehr und Bau Kompagnie (Special Duty Training and Construction Company). Its headquarters was in the old Prussian city of Brandenburg, giving the organization the name it would carry during the war, the Brandenburgers. Specific missions for the outfit would be decided by the high command, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. On a large country estate outside Brandenburg, the future commandos were taught the techniques of stealth and individual sufficiency, how to move silently through woods, live off the land, and navigate by the stars. They learned to handle parachutes, kayaks, and skis, and how to create explosives from potash, flour, and sugar. The first real test of the Brandenburgers came in mid-1939 when small parties of these men, disguised as coal miners and labourers, began stealing into Poland and infiltrating the mines, factories, and electric power stations. Hitler, in essence, had a large covert sabotage force deep behind Polish lines along the frontier.
X-Day for Case White was set for September 1, 1939, but the conflict that would become known as World War II erupted a half hour ahead of the scheduled kickoff. Curiously, participants on both sides in this opening round would be wearing civilian clothes, not military uniforms. On the evening of August 31, a group of Brandenburgers in civilian disguise prepared to go into action in the Baltic port of Danzig, which the victors of the First World War had awarded to Poland to prevent that country from being landlocked.

At 4:17 A.M. on X-Day, the Brandenburgers surrounded the Danzig post office and demanded its surrender. The Polish postal workers were armed, and a shoot-out erupted that would rage all day. While the gunfire was in progress at the post office, the German battleship Schleswig-Hohlstein, supposedly in the harbor on a goodwill visit, began blasting targets in Danzig at point-blank range. It may have been the only instance in history where a warship, in essence, got behind enemy lines on a combat mission. By nightfall, Danzig and its post office were in German hands. At the same time, Brandenburgers who had been working as civilians inside Poland collected the explosives smuggled in from Germany in recent weeks and blew up the key facilities where they had been employed. Elsewhere, other Brandenburgers slipped across the frontier from Germany, got behind Polish defensive positions, and seized the crucial Vistula River bridges. At five o’clock in the morning, five German armies plunged across the border with the panzer spearheads charging over the Vistula spans secured by the Brandenburgers.
It was a brutal, overwhelming assault. The Polish army and air force were antiquated and greatly outnumbered; those of Germany were the most modern that history had known. Adolf Hitler had introduced the term blitzkrieg (lightning war) to the languages of many nations. The Poles fought with desperate courage, but their valor was largely futile. On one occasion, a contingent of horse cavalry armed with lances attacked a group of German panzers. Aided by his infiltrators masquerading as Polish civilians, Adolf Hitler’s legions conquered a nation of thirty-three million people in only twenty-seven days. In the Third Reich, the führer reached a new pinnacle of popular admiration.

[jasmor58]

Not sure how this post by Stalin relates to the original question posted by Krrish? Or am I missing something?
Jasmor58

[Stalin]

Not sure how this post by Stalin relates to the original question posted by Krrish? Or am I missing something?
Jasmor58

Understandable as i left out the title which may of helped.

Post Office Shoot-Out Launches a War

Just to say that this part of history was the start of WW2.

[jasmor58]

Stil do not see how it related to the original question ?
Jasmor58

[brianw]

I can see what you mean Jasmor58 regarding the original question by Krrish.

I my opinion, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand would seem to have been the trigger; the vital spark in an already volatile situation.
Numerous treaties and promises existed at the time; Austria and Germany, Hungary and Russia, Turkey, France, and so the list goes on. At that point, I think war was almost inevitable. The Sarajevo incident just tipped it over the edge.
There was already some “squabbling” going on in the Balkans, tensions were high across most of Europe, and there was also the issue of the perceived jealousy of the Kaiser over the size and equipment of the Royal Navy, which seemed to create a kind of mini arms race.

[jasmor58]

Glad that i am not alone on this one. I would guess that there are so many different factors involved that it is virtually impossible to answer kirrsh's original question. "Who was responsible for the huge loss ?

[brianw]

So far as the appalling losses on all sides of servicemen, civilians, property and material, much of the blame must lie with the military “high-ups”.

The men on the ground and in the trenches were fighting with ever evolving weaponry with ever increasing and devastating capabilities while the generals seem to have been still locked into the ways of the cavalry charge and the fighting of “wars gone by”.

Nobody is blessed with the ability to see the future, but it is the duty of all military leaders to be familiar with current trends and to modify their plans accordingly to take advantage or guard against the latest destructive capabilities.

The leaders who are unable or unwilling to adapt will always lose; and it was only in the final two years of the Great War that such a philosophy was realised.

Even in WW2, up until the BEF was evacuated from Dunkirk, the generals were still fighting a WW1 kind of static trench based “stop-line” sort of war against a highly mechanised and mobile foe; the result was plain to see.