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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2014 6:03:33 GMT -7
I simply quote JJ ( John) post in another thread on this Forum: Is it 1914 all over again? We are in danger of repeating the mistakes that started WWI, says a leading historianThe Great War was sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Balkans. The Middle East could be viewed as the modern-day equivalent, argues Professor Margaret MacMillanIan JohnstonSunday, 5 January 2014History never repeats itself, but it sure does rhyme, it has been said. Now an internationally respected historian is warning that today's world bears a number of striking similarities with the build-up to the First World War. The newly mechanised armies of the early 20th century produced unprecedented slaughter on the battlefields of the " war to end all wars" after a spark lit in the Balkans with the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Professor Margaret MacMillan, of the University of Cambridge, argues that the Middle East could be viewed as the modern-day equivalent of this turbulent region. A nuclear arms race that would be likely to start if Iran developed a bomb " would make for a very dangerous world indeed, which could lead to a recreation of the kind of tinderbox that exploded in the Balkans 100 years ago – only this time with mushroom clouds," she writes in an essay for the Brookings Institution, a leading US think-tank. Professor Margaret MacMillan, of the University of Cambridge" While history does not repeat itself precisely, the Middle East today bears a worrying resemblance to the Balkans then," she says. " A similar mix of toxic nationalisms threatens to draw in outside powers as the US, Turkey, Russia, and Iran look to protect their interests and clients." Professor MacMillan highlights a string of other parallels between today and a century ago. Modern-day Islamist terrorists mirror the revolutionary communists and anarchists who carried out a string of assassinations in the name of a philosophy that sanctioned murder to achieve their vision of a better world. And in 1914, Germany was a rising force that sought to challenge the pre-eminent power of the time, the UK. Today, the growing power of China is perceived as a threat by some in the US. Transitions from one world power to another are always seen as dangerous times. In the late 1920s, the US drew up plans for a war with the British Empire that would have seen the invasion of Canada, partly because it was assumed conflict would break out as America took over as the world's main superpower. Professor MacMillan, whose book The War That Ended Peace was published last year, said right-wing and nationalist sentiments were rising across the world and had also been a factor before the First World War. In China and Japan, patriotic passions have been inflamed by the dispute over a string of islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japan and Diaoyus in China. " Increased Chinese military spending and the build-up of its naval capacity suggest to many American strategists that China intends to challenge the US as a Pacific power, and we are now seeing an arms race between the two countries in that region," she writes in her essay. " The Wall Street Journal has authoritative reports that the Pentagon is preparing war plans against China – just in case." The Senkakus (or Diaoyus), a string of islands in the East China SeaThe US has a mutual self-defence treaty with Japan and in 2012 it specifically confirmed that this covered the Senkaku Islands. In November, China set up an " air defence" zone over the islands and a few days later two American B-52 bombers flew over the islands in defiance of Beijing. " It is tempting – and sobering –to compare today's relationship between China and the US with that between Germany and England a century ago," Professor MacMillan writes. She points to the growing disquiet in the US over Chinese investment in America while " the Chinese complain that the US treats them as a second-rate power". Another similarity highlighted by the historian is the belief that a full-scale war between the major powers is unthinkable after such a prolonged period of peace. " Now, as then, the march of globalisation has lulled us into a false sense of safety," she says. " The 100th anniversary of 1914 should make us reflect anew on our vulnerability to human error, sudden catastrophes, and sheer accident." " Instead of muddling along from one crisis to another, now is the time to think again about those dreadful lessons of a century ago in the hope that our leaders, with our encouragement, will think about how they can work together to build a stable international order." Japan Coast Guard patrol ship, fishing boats from Taiwan and Taiwan’s Coast Guard vessel sail near the disputed islands in the East China SeaConfrontation between Japanese Coast guard ships and a Chinese fishing vesselA Japan Coast Guard cutter, left, sprays a Taiwanese protest ship, upper right, with a water cannon on Jan. 24 in a contiguous zone outside Japan's territorial waters 33 kilometers west-southwest of Uotsurishima, the largest of the Senkaku Islands. In the center and right are Taiwanese cutters. (Shiro Nishihata)Japanese activists hold the national flags on Uotsuri island, one of the disputed islands of Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, in the East China Sea. Source: APChinese activists with Chinese and Taiwanese flags on the same islandsP.S.- John I quoted your post, because I think it belongs in this thread. It is directly linked to it! Thank you for posting it.
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2014 7:10:07 GMT -7
John, Kaima and Karl,
I don't think that the danger lays only in the Middle-east or Eastern-Asia, because the tension, the trigger and thus the starting point for another major armed world conflict could as well be lying in Europe, Africa or the America's. A political murder, a series of very large terrorist attacks or sabotage actions in Europe could start a new conflict there. I remember the explosive tension and the very thin balance in my own country after the political assasinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh. Imagine what would happen if one of the rightwing populist leaders in Europe would be assasinated? I see burning mosques, burning Muslim community centres, attacks on migrant communities, burning Muslim schools and etc. People in Northern-America and Central- and Eastern-Europe with less multi-culturalism do not understand Western-Europe and the tensions there.
Obviously now the troubles lay in the Middle-east and troubles are transported to the Middle-east, by the influx of European, North-African, North-American and Chechen Jihadist fighters to Syria and Iraq. But the problem might return to our soil with the return of the Syria veterans, Jihadist veterans. Besides that there are the tensions between European powers. Turkey and Greece, Poland and Russia, between Pro-Western and Pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine, between Serbia and Kosovo, between Croatia and Serbia, between Austria and Italy over South Tyrol (Italian name Alto Adige), the tensions between Georgia and Russia, instability in Albania, the Basque and Catalan seperatism in Spain and the anti-European sentiment in various European countries. The danger can come from all directions. There are enough lunatics, lone wolves and groups in the world.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2014 9:23:49 GMT -7
The guy in the Middle with the moustache excactly looks like the images of my Polish grandfather at the Eastern Front.
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2014 9:30:29 GMT -7
Probably my Polish grandfather did the same as this German officer is doing on the other (Western) side of the Eastern Front
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2014 9:55:42 GMT -7
Józef KotowiczMy Polish grandfather, Józef Kotowicz (standing in the middle), as a Polish officer in the Russian imperial army during the First World War. Somewhere at the Eastern Front.Józef Kotowicz nearly two decades later in Warsaw as a teacher at a Warsaw girls lyceum (at the end of the war Jozef, his wife and his two daughters moved to Poznań, where he and his wife lived from 1945 until his death in 1976. My grandmother died in 1987) More than sixty years later with his two daughters in Poznań, my mother on his right side and my American aunt Maria Rybak (from Chicago) on his left side.With his wife and daughters in their house in ulica Mickiewicza 24 Poznań shortly before his death in 1976 Jozef Kotowicz was witness to three wars during his life, The First World War, the Polish–Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) and the Second World War and he survived them all. And that is a miracle if you know his life story. He was a very kind, friendly, sophisticated, old fashioned gentleman (in his manners and decency). A sort of man you don't see a lot these days. He was a man of his time, a man of the 20th century, born in the late 19th century.
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Post by Jaga on Jan 7, 2014 18:24:50 GMT -7
Pieter,
thanks for sharing pictures of your grandfather, grandmother, mother and aunt. Did your aunt move to the US? I knew that you have a family in the US, but I did not realize that this was your mom. The photo of your grandfather standing with his daughters - where was it made, which year?
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Post by pieter on Jan 8, 2014 4:27:55 GMT -7
Jaga,
My aunt Maria Rybak (Her childs name was Maria Kotowicz and my mothers name was Alina Kotowicz) moved to the USA in the fifties where she married with a Polish man who was a war veteran from Europe (so also a Pole who went to Chicago after the war). She later divorced and married with an Ukrainian-American with the name Rybak. They had a short and very happy marriage, but unfortunately she died early in 1981 of an intracranial hemorrhage (that is 5 years after these photo's were taken in Poznań in 1976) . I think I saw her three times in my life. In Poland, in the Netherlands and in Belgium. A very nice woman. Her daughters are my Polish American cousins from Chicago and Milwaukee. They both have a son and daughter. I have good contact with the Polish-American family. My Chicago cousin is also married to a Polish-American man, a very nice guy. My Milwaukee cousin is married with a husbant with Ukrainian and Italian heritage. Both cousins are very nice women.
My mother, the woman in the middle inbetween my babcia and dziadek met my father in Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia (Croatia) in 1966. They married in 1967 and my mother moved to the Netherlands. Both the American and the Dutch families visited the Polish grandparents in Poznań during the fifties, sixties, seventies and my grandmother during the eighties. The girls name of my cousins is Kwasieborski, the name of their Polish father, the first husbant of my aunt. The photo of my grandfather with his daughters is made in the same home as the photo with the four family members, during the same holiday in Poznań. maybe it was another day, because they wear other cloths. So in 1976. My dziadek died shortly after we returned to the Netherlands and my aunt returned to the USA. Unfortunately he was killed by a drunken Polish driver ho hit him at a pedestrian crossing. After that my Polish grandmother visited her daughter and cousins in the USA and us in the Netherlands. When she came she stayed for longer periods and that was nice for us kinds to have our grandmother staying with us. (Chicago, Milwaukee and her daughter and her new husband of her daughter in Dixon, Illinois) Both the tragic deaths of her father and her sister had a great impact on my mother. In the seventies and eighties we went to Poznań to visit my grandparents, (great-) aunts and uncles ( a brother and a sister of my grandmother and their partners, who lived in Poznań too) and the daughter of the brother of my grandmother, thus my aunt, and her husbant (my uncle) and their daughters, my cousins. These children were younger than me and my sister. Next to that we visited friends and family of my mother in Warsaw too.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on Jan 8, 2014 7:25:26 GMT -7
Pieter
It is very gracias of your sharing the life of your Grand Father in his military career as a Polish officer in the service of the Russian military. You have much to be proud of with him. Time is not our friend, it is then to have and keep these memories alive with photos and the story behind them as momentos of a time long past. With this, is the legacy of enhertance of family history to later pass on to the younger of our family for them to know for whence they have as their legacy in life.
Your Grand Father stands proud in all his photos as well he should be, for he has earnt his merits by virtue of his standing in life. With this, your description of his high standing in character as: Polish Officer/Friendly, A Gentleman of Sophistication, and with this, your enhertence of his manner that is intrinsic withen your self.
Withen the above of my self in personalfication of you, please do not be offended, for I do not wish to shine you up, what I wish to do is bring to light the wonderful back ground you have to be proud of. For it is not out of reason that these attributes of your Grand Father is not wasted upon your father and then passed on to your self..An enhertance to be proud of,,indeed so I must say..
Withen the life time of your Grand Father to have seen and expereinced three wars is some thing of noten. For with this, think of all the changes he has experienced withen his life time: Most every thing we know of today in advances, technology of our time, with the up side of change mixed with the down side. If his memories were ever to have been preserved, think of all that he has seen and equate that with what we know..
Once again, please not be upset if perhaps the above is overly personal, for I mean not that to be. If so, please advise and I will deleat it out in a follow up post..
The group photo of your Grand Parents with both of your Aunts is a very precious photo and one I am sure you are proud of and cherish. For as speaking for my self, this would be also of my self.
Thank much for sharing of your family
Karl
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Post by pieter on Jan 8, 2014 12:18:38 GMT -7
Karl,
Thank you for your reply. I am not offended by your personal reaction. Yes, I am proud that Józef Kotowicz was my grandfather and I am glad that I have images and memories of him. He was a nice grandfather for us children. Even though we were very young and he very old. The only sad thing is that I have never been able to speak with him as a teenager due to the tragic accident on the pedestrian crossing where he was walking. I have my length from him and share his fondness of books, history, culture and his ethics. He was a pleasent kind of Polish Patriot. When his daughters left Poland he told them; "Don't forget where you came from, keep your Polish heritage." His wife, a strong, brave (during and after the Second World War), intelligent and working woman, house wife, mother and excellent cook, was different than him, but they were a good couple. His daughters were different than him too. The three women were more practical, pragmatic and focussed on their lives. Józef was a typical Polish intellectual. Loved by his students/pupils from the Warsaw girls Lyceum. Some of his former students kept writing to him during the rest of his life. They were polite and sophisticated correspondences. He was a loyal man and always stayed with my grandmother.
He wrote his Memoir, and send copies of it to my mom and my American aunt. I hope that one day his memoir will be translated. My American cousin from Chicago has my grandfathers memoir, because my mother gave it to her. Because she couldn't find the copy of her mother. My American cousins, who speak, read and write in Polish translated the memoir of my grandmother earlier. I hope that they will manage to do the same with my grandfathers memoir.
For sure, the group photo of my grand parents with my mother and American aunt from Chicago is a very precious photo which I cherish. My mother is the only one of the four who is still alive. Grandfather (dziadek) died in 1976, my aunt (Ciocia Marysha) died in 1981 and my grandmother (babcia) in 1987. My Dutch grandmother who had the same age as the Polish grandmother (oma in Dutch) died in 1986 and my Dutch grandfather (opa in Dutch) in 1962. I never have had the chance to know my Dutch grandfather and therefor I am glad that I have met my Polish grandfather and that I have memories about him as a 6 years old boy in 1976 in Poznań. For a long time during the ninetees I remembered the smell, the atmosphere, the seize, and the interior of my grandparents apartment in ulica Mickiewicza 24 in Poznań. When you look at the street on google maps I see that the street and the apartment has completely changed. And that is good. I see that a Centrum Materiałow Turowicach is settled there, some sort of institute, a Pywnica arystycna and a pub next door. These things weren't there during the seventies and eighties. A lot of families lived in little space in small apartments and rooms and shared their entrance, kitchen, bathroom and cool room (in staid of a refrigerator). The building, the brown door at the entrance with the windows in it, the stairs and the round form with organic plaster flowers above it are the same as in my grandparents time. I remembered going in and out of there as a child and teenager, and walking through that street with it's many trees. As kids we went a lot to the little zoo and the cinema nearby. For us Westerners the prices were very low. We also went more to restaurants over there than we would do in the Netherlands or Belgium. We also like to go the the sam, the supermarket, and to buy Polish icecream wrapped in paper. Very nice. We were also fond of Bar mleczny, the Milk bars, because they had delicious cheese cakes there.
So such photo's of family members that died are precious. They are a memory of a lost time and of shared moments. My sister and I were there as kids too, in the same house. Probably my father took the pictures.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by kaima on Jan 14, 2014 16:02:14 GMT -7
Stolen Triumph: Russia Revisits Pivotal Role in World War IBy Christian Neef www.spiegel.de/international/world/russia-revisits-its-role-in-world-war-i-a-942500.htmlAt the beginning of World War I, Russia was a member of the Triple Entente, which went on to win the conflict. By then, however, the Russian czarist empire had vanished and the war was swept under the historical rug. Putin is now bringing it back. This is Part II in SPIEGEL's series examining World War I and it ongoing relevance today. Part I can be found here. Anyone looking for human traces of World War I in Russia is well advised to start on the Moscow metro, specifically the green line, which runs to the river port where day-trippers cast off for trips up the Volga River. But you have to get out three stations before that, in Sokol. It's a walk of 400 meters, away from the noise of Leningradsky Prospekt, through a gate and past the Church of All Saints in Vsekhsvyatskoye and across a small street to a park that opens up between two tall residential buildings. It is one of the many green spaces that provides a bit of fresh air to Moscow's 14 million residents. As in all parks in the city, mothers push their strollers through fallen leaves and elderly women walk their dogs. There are joggers, pick-up football games and people talking on their mobile phones. And yet this park is special due to a slab of red granite that stands alone in the middle of an open field. White letters engraved into the stone read: "Sergei Alexandrovich Schlichter, student at the University of Moscow, born on Dec. 31, 1894, wounded in battle on June 20, 1916 near Baranovichi, died on June 25, 1916." Nowhere else in Russia is there such a stone, bearing the name of a soldier who fell in World War I. The almost 2 million Russians who died in the conflict have disappeared from the country's memory -- because the "Great War," as it was once called here, long found no place in the historical narrative mandated from above. So why did Sergei Schlichter's monument manage to avoid the censors? The Story of an Imperial Soldier Somebody attached a photograph of the soldier to the stone along with images of two nurses who belonged to Schlichter's unit and lost their lives as well, one from a shell and the other from typhoid fever. Schlichter, Sergei Alexandrovich. Information about him can be found in the archives. He was born in the Ukrainian city of Poltava, his father was a staunch Bolshevik. When the war began in 1914, Schlichter was in his second semester of studies in the Historical-Pedagogical Faculty of the Imperial Moscow University. He volunteered for work in a military hospital and was sent to the front in November. Schlichter must have been a courageous man. He crossed the lines to the German side as a peace envoy, and was awarded the Cross of St. George as a result. Later, he was given an even greater honor. In May, he joined the Imperial Russian Army's 266th infantry regiment as a volunteer. Just a few weeks after that, his regiment joined the fight near the Belorussian city of Baranovichi. After the officers fell, Schlichter led the unit forward, taking an Austrian outpost. The fighting ended when shrapnel from a stray shell struck Schlichter. He died on the long journey to the hospital. He was buried in Moscow in the cemetery of honor for casualties of the war. Schlichter found his last resting place in Sector 13 -- at the spot where his gravestone now stands. A Monument of Upheaval Sergei Schlichter's fate, and that of the veterans' cemetery in Sokol, is symbolic of the radical changes in course undertaken by Russia in the 20th century. When the graveyard was opened on Feb. 28, 1915 with plenty of pomp and a bevy of prominent guests, the 22-hectare (55-acre) space was laid out as a place of commemoration for a proud nation. The consulates from Russia's allies -- Great Britain, France, Belgium, Japan and Serbia -- were there for the opening, as was the Orthodox bishop and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the older sister of the Russian Empress, who hailed from German nobility. Pall bearers soon had plenty to do at the new cemetery. Fully 17,920 generals, officers and soldiers from the czarist army found their final resting places in Sokol -- until the Bolsheviks took power in November of 1917. That winter, the carefully planned order of the military cemetery gave way to confusion. No longer was it reserved just for soldiers: Junkers, who had defended the Kremlin against the communists, were buried there too. Later, executions were carried out at the cemetery walls. On a single day, Russia's new rulers shot to death a bishop, an archpriest, two czarist interior ministers, the head of the national council and several senators at the site. Soon, World War I battlefield dead stopped coming. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks reached their own separate peace treaty with the Germans. By this point, though, the domestic war within Russia had intensified. Troops with the former regime began shooting Lenin's revolutionaries. Dead soldiers from the Red Army were then buried in Sokol next to members of the White Guard. The cemetery was closed in 1925 and then levelled by Stalin in 1932. The Kremlin boss even ordered that the head stones be ripped out of the ground and that part of the complex be transformed into a park. According to legend, Sergei Schlichter's father, a confidant of Lenin, threw himself on top of his son's gravestone as it was about to be torn up. Homes and a cinema were later built on top of the remaining graves during the 1950s. Those walking to the park from the Sokol metro station pass over the burial ground of thousands of deceased. The Key Event Why is it that Russia wiped out any memory of World War I for nearly 100 years? And why is the country only just now rediscovering the war? The Great Soviet Encyclopedia described the battle of nations between 1914 and 1918 as an "imperialist war between two coalitions of capitalist powers for a redivision of the already divided world." On both sides, it argued, the war was "aggressive and unjust" and led to an "aggravation of the class struggle and accelerated the ripening of the objective prerequisites for the Great October Socialist Revolution." The revolution, the encyclopedia argued, allowed Russia's "toiling people" to "throw off the oppression of the capitalists and landlords." The essential message was that it was Lenin's revolution and not the war that was the key event -- and this despite the fact that Russia lost nearly a quarter of its European territories in the war including Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Finland. Even though it bred the revolution, the armed conflict was banished to the margins of Russian history books because it increased social and political tensions to the extent that the Bolsheviks, even though they were in the minority, were able to overthrow the imperialists. In Russia, World War I didn't create any heroes. Very little of it took place on Russian territory -- instead undulating back and forth between East Prussia and the Caucasus. And unlike the war against Hitler, the Russians didn't really have any idea what it was they were actually dying for in the war. Even when East Prussia fell to the Soviet Union in 1945, the very region where 160,000 Russians lost their lives at the start of World War I, Moscow had every trace of the mass graves there eradicated and simply ignored the war's history so as not to harm the myth of the revolution. Now, nearly a hundred years later, the story is changing. On Aug. 1, 2013, the Kremlin commemorated the outbreak of World War I for the first time and launched a competition to design a memorial that would honor the "15 million soldiers" who rose up in 1914 "to protect the homeland." The monument is to be unveiled on Aug. 1, 2014 at the memorial site on Poklonnaya Hill currently devoted solely to the war against Hitler.
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Post by kaima on Jan 14, 2014 16:06:01 GMT -7
part 2 Stolen Triumph: Russia Revisits Pivotal Role in World War I
By Christian Neef
The resurgence of World War I commemoration is nourished by that inferiority complex that has plagued the Russians for centuries -- particularly since the start of the Putin era. Russia is not taken seriously by the rest of the world, the Kremlin elite believe, despite their view of it as always having been a great power.
That also applies to the period between 1914 and 1918. Russia occupied more than half of the enemy divisions for three years and held its ground, protecting Great Britain and France, the other two countries allied with Russia in the so-called Triple Entente, from certain collapse in the process, say historians. In the fight for common victory, Russia suffered more casualties than all of its allies put together, they argue.
Yet Russia, under Communist rule after 1917, was not invited to the victors' feast in Versailles, but was -- like always, according to the narrative -- left in the cold: Only France, Great Britain and the United States profited from Allied victory. Winston Churchill once encapsulated the tragic trajectory of czarist Russia when he wrote: "Her ship went down in sight of port."
The Russian view is that, prior to 1914, the country was not only large and rich, but also orderly, thanks to the czar, police and clergy. It had experienced an economic boom, delivered more than half of its exports to Germany and thus supported the German war industry -- facts that are part of the educational cannon in today's Russia. But this economic boom was not welcomed by Russia's foes, a group that not only includes Germany and its allies but also Russia's erstwhile partners, including the United States. The conclusion? All of them, whether Triple Entente or Central Powers, actually wanted to wipe Russia off the map.
So was the czarist empire just an imperialist power like any other? Not in Putin's Russia. The czar is now described as having been "wise and great" and would have won, had the Revolution not gotten in the way. For the Kremlin, World War I is a welcome blueprint for the present. Are not Western governments just trying as always to keep Russia down? Is the West not complicit in the downfall of the Soviet Union? NATO pressing at Russia's borders, the West's offensive in regions of Russian influence like Georgia and Ukraine: These are all symptoms in the Russian mind of a persistent goal -- the division or liquidation of Russia. This is what Russians must brace against.
A Metaphor for Putin
It is striking how hard Moscow is currently trying, against this backdrop, to position itself as a major foreign policy player. When it comes to Syria, Iran and American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Moscow's role in the conflicts is sold to the Russian people as clever geopolitical maneuvering. In reality, the country has defined itself as being in opposition to the West since 1917. It is a poorly organized empire whose power now depends on oil prices remaining at over $100 a barrel.
Nevertheless Putin acts at home as if the empire had been resurrected.
"Forgive us, Sovereign," it reads on large panels that recently commemorated the 400th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty. Back in 2008, there was a television broadcast of the film, "Nikolai II: The Stolen Triumph." It brings together leading politicians, clergymen and historians "to show a fair picture of the reign of Czar Nicholas, one of the most successful in our history."
The czar can also be seen as a metaphor for the reigning leader of the Kremlin. Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky has praised Putin as the "first ruler since Nicholas Romanov" who came to power legally. And Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Orthodox Church, honored him in November for "preserving Russia as a great power."
Guarding the Czar
The rewriting of history is both broad and detailed. The Russo-Japanese War, which the czar lost in 1905, is now interpreted as the first attempt at an "Orange Revolution," aimed at preventing Russia's ascension to the rank of world power. And the Brusilov Offensive in the summer of 1916, Russia's greatest feat in World War I in which they defeated the German and Austro-Hungarian armies in what is today's Ukraine, is seen as a turning point in the relationship between Russia and the Western Allies. The Americans and the British suddenly understood, according to this narrative: If Nicholas II is not gotten out of the way, the Russian empire will take down Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on its own -- and then become world power number one.
The view of today's ordinary Russian is that czarist Russia was a paradise of civic life and imperial power. Built 120 years ago, the newly renovated Moscow department store Gum on Red Square is infused with this feeling of imperial nostalgia, promoted in TV commercials referring to the good ol' days. And in April, President Putin bestowed the honorary title of "Preobrazhensky Regiment" on the elite Moscow unit responsible for protecting state guests and carrying out counter-terrorism operations. For 230 years, that was the name of the hard-nosed aristocratic regiment tasked with guarding the czar.
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Post by kaima on Jan 14, 2014 18:52:06 GMT -7
Disaster Centennial: The Disturbing Relevance of World War IBy Klaus Wiegrefe It has now been 100 years since the outbreak of World War I, but the European catastrophe remains relevant today. As the Continent looks back this year, old wounds could once again be rubbed raw. Joachim Gauck, the 11th president of the Federal Republic of Germany, executes his duties in a palace built for the Hohenzollern dynasty. But almost all memories of Prussian glory have been eliminated from Bellevue Palace in Berlin, where there is no pomp and there are no uniforms and few flags. The second door on the left in the entrance hall leads into a parlor where Gauck receives visitors. In the so-called official room, there are busts of poet Heinrich von Kleist and Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, the first German president after Kaiser Wilhelm II fled the country into exile, on a shelf behind the desk. There are two paintings on the wall: an Italian landscape by a German painter, and a view of Dresden by Canaletto, the Italian painter. Gauck likes the symbolism. Nations and their people often view both the world and the past from different perspectives. The president says that he doesn't find this disconcerting, because he is aware of the reasons. In 2014, the year of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, the eyes of the world will be focused on Germany's head of state. It will be the biggest historical event to date in the 21st century. And Gauck represents the losers. More than 60 million soldiers from five continents participated in that orgy of violence. Almost one in six men died, and millions returned home with injuries or missing body parts -- noses, jaws, arms. Countries like France, Belgium and the United Kingdom are planning international memorial events, wreath-laying ceremonies, concerts and exhibits, as are faraway nations like New Zealand and Australia, which formed their identities during the war. Poles, citizens of the Baltic countries, Czechs and Slovaks will also commemorate the years between 1914 and 1918, because they emerged as sovereign nations from the murderous conflict between the Entente and the Central Powers. Unthinkable in Germany In the coming months, World War I will become a mega issue in the public culture of commemoration. The international book market will present about 150 titles in Germany alone, and twice as many in France -- probably a world record for a historic subject. The story of a generation that has long passed on will be retold. New questions will be asked and new debates will unfold. British Prime Minister David Cameron is even making funds available to enable all children attending Britain's government-run schools to visit the battlefields of the Western Front. A response of this nature would be unthinkable in pacifist Germany. But Western Europeans paid a higher death toll in World War I than in any other war in their history, which is why they call it "The Great War" or "La Grande Guerre." Twice as many Britons, three times as many Belgians and four times as many Frenchmen died on the Maas and the Somme than in all of World War II. That's one of the reasons, says Gauck in his office in the Hohenzollern palace, why he could imagine "a German commemoration of World War I as merely a sign of respect for the suffering of those we were fighting at the time." The "Great War" was not only particularly bloody, but it also ushered in a new era of warfare, involving tanks, aircraft and even chemical weapons. Its outcome would shape the course of history for years to come, even for an entire century in some regions. In the coming weeks, SPIEGEL will describe the consequences of World War I that continue to affect us today: the emergence of the United States as the world's policeman, France's unique view of Germany, the ethnic hostilities in the Balkans and the arbitrary drawing of borders in the Middle East, consequences that continue to burden and impede the peaceful coexistence of nations to this day. Several summit meetings are scheduled for the 2014 political calendar, some with and some without Gauck. Queen Elizabeth II will receive the leaders of Commonwealth countries in Glasgow Cathedral. Australia, New Zealand, Poland and Slovenia are also planning meetings of the presidents or prime ministers of all or selected countries involved in World War I. 'A Different Nation Today' August 3 is at the top of Gauck's list. On that day, he and French President François Hollande will commemorate the war dead at Hartmannswillerkopf, a peak in the Alsace region that was bitterly contested by the Germans and the French in the war. The German president is also among the more than 50 heads of state of all countries involved in World War I who will attend a ceremony at the fortress of Liège hosted by Belgium's King Philippe. Gauck, a former citizen of East Germany, sees himself as "the German who represents a different nation today, and who remembers the various horrors that are associated with the German state." The 73-year-old president hopes that the series of commemorative events will remind Europeans how far European integration has come since 1945. Gauck notes that the "absolute focus on national interests" à la 1914/1918 did not led to happy times for any of the wartime enemies. But he knows that the memory of the horrors of a war doesn't just reconcile former enemies but can also tear open wounds that had become scarred over. In this respect, the centenary of World War I comes at an unfavorable time. Many European countries are seeing a surge of nationalist movements and of anti-German sentiment prior to elections to the European Parliament in May 2014. In a recent poll, 88 percent of Spanish, 82 percent of Italian and 56 percent of French respondents said that Germany has too much influence in the European Union. Some even likened today's Germany to the realm of the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II. Last August, a British journalist emerged from a conversation with the press attaché at the German Embassy in London with the impression that Berlin, in the interest of promoting reconciliation, wanted to take part in commemorative ceremony in neighboring countries. This led to an outcry in the British press, which claimed that the Germans were trying to prevent the British from celebrating their victory in World War I. Source of Apprehension Such episodes are a source of apprehension for Gauck. "One can only hope that the voice of the enlightened is stronger today than it was in the period between the two wars." And if it isn't? "Europe is too peaceful for me to consider the possibility of wartime scenarios once again. Nevertheless, we saw in the Balkans that archaic mechanisms of hate can take hold once again in the middle of a peaceful decade," Gauck warns. Such "yes, but" scenarios on World War I are often mentioned. In the era of NATO and integrated armed forces, hardly anyone can imagine a war between Europeans. Still, it is possible to sow discord in other ways in the 21st century. Today's equivalent of the mobilization of armed forces in the past could be the threat to send a country like Greece into bankruptcy unless its citizens comply with the demands of European finance ministers. Historians of different stripes note with concern that the course of events in 1914 are not that different from what is happening in Europe today. Even a century ago, the world was globalized after a fashion. Intercontinental trade was booming, and export quotas were higher than they would be until the era of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Germans wore jackets made of Indian cotton and drank coffee from Central America. They worked as barbers in London, bakers in St. Petersburg and maids in Paris, while Poles slaved away in Germany's industrial Ruhr region. Those who could afford it, traveled around Europe, without requiring a passport. Professors corresponded with their counterparts in Oxford or at the Sorbonne, in English and French. The ruling aristocratic families were related to one another. In fact, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Britain's King George V and Czar Nikolai II were cousins. They called each other Willy, Nicky and George and saw each other at family events, including the wedding of the Kaiser's daughter in Berlin in 1913.
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Post by kaima on Jan 15, 2014 0:41:48 GMT -7
Now in this next segment from Der Spiegel they speak of Russia as having "feet of clay", and "The Kaiser recognized that Russia was "by no means ready for war."" which seem quite poor statements in face of many histories writing of the speed of Russian mobilization and moving in for battle surprising the central Powers.
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Disaster Centennial: The Disturbing Relevance of World War I
By Klaus Wiegrefe
Part 2: A Debate over the Beginnings
This raises the question of why, despite the many trans-national connections and interactions, the German attack began on Aug. 4, 1914, when a group of mounted lancers crossed the Belgian border. What was wrong at the cabinet tables of the day? Why did this war claim such horrendously large numbers of victims? And why did it drag on for four long years?
The calamity began when, on June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was visiting the Bosnian city of Sarajevo. A group of Serbian assassins, outfitted by Serbian government officials, was waiting for him.
The young men dreamed of a Greater Serbia that would include the Serbs living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand's driver had to turn his car around after taking a wrong turn, 19-year-old student Gavrilo Princip fired into the open vehicle. His wife, Duchess Sophie, was hit in the abdomen and died on the way to the residence, while the heir to the throne was hit in the neck and bled to death. Three of the conspirators were executed, while others were sentenced to long prison terms.
The assassination is not among the glorious deeds of Serbian history, and at first the mourning Habsburgs had the sympathy of other European leaders. In happy times, the majesties would have gathered at the funeral of the murdered couple and exchanged pleasantries
But the 83-year-old Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, the uncle of Franz Ferdinand, decided to attack Serbia and wipe out the Serbian nationalism that had become a threat to his ailing realm. The monarch, who had been on the throne for 65 years, had already considered waging a war against Belgrade several times in the past. The assassination seemed to confirm the warnings of those advisers who believed that accommodation with Serbia was impossible. World War I "was unleashed, and it was Austria-Hungary that had unleashed it," writes Viennese historian Manfried Rauchensteiner.
Not Just Germany
Words like Rauchensteiner's have revived a debate that had seemed settled long ago. In the 1960s, Hamburg historian Fritz Fischer shocked Germany more than any other historian before or since. Fischer claimed that Berlin's "grasp for world power" was the main, if not the only, reason for the great massacre. After a heated debate among historians, Fischer's claim became the established view.
But just in time for the centenary, new research has raised fundamental questions about this view of events. Historians are not exonerating Kaiser Wilhelm II, who alternated between public bluster and anxious restraint. But they also stress the failures of Russia (US historian Sean McMeekin), France (German historian Stefan Schmidt), Austria-Hungary (Rauchensteiner) or all the major powers combined (Australian author Christopher Clark).
Two ostensibly solid blocs were pitted against each other: the German and Austro-Hungarian empires on one side, and the so-called Entente, consisting of the French Republic, the Russian Empire and the British monarchy, on the other. Even this constellation shows that in 1914, democracy and human rights were not at issue, but rather capitalism and the planned economy.
Although neither of the two sides was planning an attack in the spring, all the major powers viewed war as a legitimate tool of policy and even considered an armed conflict unavoidable in the medium term. The main parties feared for their standing, influence and even existence. France, believing that it had lost the arms race against Germany, urged Russia to exert pressure on Germany from the east. German military leaders assumed that they would be inferior to the Russians on the long term, which suggested that striking quickly would be the best approach. The czar, propelled by the fear that Great Britain could change sides, decided to build up his military strength. And in London, there were fears that the dynamic German Reich would outstrip the British Empire.
Meanwhile, smaller countries like Serbia sought to play off the major powers against one another.
It was a fragile, highly complex system, and controlling it required prudence and foresight. Historian Clark estimates the number of decision-makers in 1914 at several hundred, including monarchs, ministers, military officials and diplomats. They were overwhelmingly older men, and most were aristocrats.
'Quick Fait Accompli'
Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph did not fail to recognize the danger that Russia would come to the aid of its Slavic brothers in Belgrade in the event of an Austrian attack on Serbia. He asked his German allies for support, and on July 5, 1914, the Austrian ambassador called on Kaiser Wilhelm II at the New Palace in Potsdam, outside Berlin.
It's a scenario that often repeats in world politics: For egoistic reasons, a relatively weak country -- Austria-Hungary -- tries to draw a major power and ally -- the German Reich -- into a regional conflict. It wasn't the first time, either, but the Germans had always stepped on the brakes before 1914.
And this time? The Kaiser recognized that Russia was "by no means ready for war." He and his advisers felt that the risks involved in an Austrian blitzkrieg against Belgrade were manageable. "A quick fait accompli and then friendly to the Entente -- that way the shock can be endured," noted Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.
The liberal-conservative lawyer from Brandenburg was a key figure in the so-called July crisis. Contemporaries describe the former civil servant as a conciliatory person and not an agitator. But in the summer of 1914, he agreed with the assessment of German military leaders. If the czar did not flinch, they preferred to attack, as long as St. Petersburg hadn't completed its military buildup. "Better now than later," was the motto of Helmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian Army.
Today we know that the haste was unfounded and the Russian Empire was a giant with feet of clay. But over lunch with the Viennese ambassador, Wilhelm II issued the so-called blank check, saying that Vienna could count on his "full support," and that Franz Joseph should proceed with his attack on Serbia.
The Kaiser's blank check transformed a local crisis into a European conflict. It was the German Reich's decisive contribution to the "seminal catastrophe" of the 20th century.
Demands of an Angry Public
When Italian columnists like Eugenio Scalfari claim today that Germany threatens to ruin the continent a third time with the euro crisis, his count is based on the assumption that the blank check led to war in 1914. From this perspective, some observers could even view the economic reforms Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded for Southern Europe as a continuation of Wilhelmine power politics with different means -- the tools of economic policy.
However, in 1914 the members of the Entente could also have stopped the escalation at any time, especially the czarist regime -- which took Serbia's side, because an angry public demanded it and because the Russians hoped that by aligning themselves with a strong Serbia, they could wage a war on two fronts against Austria-Hungary.
French President Raymond Poincaré, a lawyer from the region near Verdun who pursued a rigidly anti-German course for fear of the Reich, also believed that war was unavoidable. At the height of the July crisis, when Poincaré visited St. Petersburg and gained the impression that fickle Czar Nicholas II was considering relenting on the issue of Serbia, the French president urged the czar to remain steadfast.
There is little for which the British can be reproached. Before 1914, at least at times, they sought to maintain a good relationship with the Reich -- albeit for strategic reasons rather than out of a love of peace. Their position led Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to assume that London would remain neutral in a war, and No. 10 Downing Street allowed him to cling to that belief for much too long.
A few weeks before the Sarajevo assassination, Europe was on the brink of disaster. The events of 1914 were not unlike events in the euro crisis today, argued historian Clark in his bestseller "The Sleepwalkers." According to Clark, everyone knew that they were playing with fire, and yet everyone tried to exploit the general threat to his own advantage.
In late July Wilhelm II, at any rate, was overcome with doubts over the wisdom of his policy. The Kaiser was giving "confused speeches, from which the only clear conclusion to emerge is that he longer wants the war," noted a minister in Berlin. Wilhelm II was now calling on his ally in Vienna to take a more restrained approach toward Serbia. But he did not take back the blank check, which was critical.
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Post by kaima on Jan 15, 2014 1:02:32 GMT -7
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Post by kaima on Jan 22, 2014 21:54:00 GMT -7
Part of a series, fr those who prefer motion pictures over words, here is a project at www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/content/efg1914-projectAbout EFG1914 EFG1914 is a digitisation project focusing on films and non-film material from and related to World War I. It started on 15 February 2012 and runs for two years. 26 partners, among them 21 European film archives, are working towards the following main goals: To digitise 661 hours of film and ca. 5.600 film-related documents on the theme of the First World War To give access to the material through the European Film Gateway and Europeana To build a virtual exhibition using selected objects digitised in EFG1914 EFG1914 covers all the different genres and sub-genres relevant in that time: newsreels, documentaries, fiction films, propaganda films. Moreover, EFG1914 will also give access to anti-war films that were mainly produced after 1918 and which reflect the tragedies of the 1910s. This material is of special importance since only around 20% of the complete silent film production survived in the film heritage institutions. Therefore, EFG1914 set out to digitize a crucial part and a critical mass of these remaining moving image records, mostly undiscovered by the public.
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