>tfw you realise world war one actually happened
>battle of the somme
>tfw it all happened for nothing
>the war to end all wars
>an even bigger one happens so soon after that there are people who served in both
>>406227
>>tfw it all happened for nothing
>defending your country against an unprovoked invasion is nothing, honoring your treaties in defense of an ally is nothing, claiming your own place in the sun is nothing, vying to increase your political power and prestige is nothing etc. etc.
>tfw all that's preventing it from happening again is the threat of nuclear holocaust
>tfw humanity has used nuclear weapons on itself
>>406298
This is sad.
>>406298
This is actually the most chilling it is not as if major powers just decided to stop fighting each other head on post WWII
>>406299
>>tfw humanity having a reason to use nuclear weapons on anything besides itself
Now that would be a scary notion.
>>406337
>>406298
>>406332
>>406336
>Humanity has learned to annihilate its own civilization
->When you realize mankind no longer even deserves death
>>406298
nope, ww1 was result of many men with guns but little air or tank power. look up iran iraq war, same predicament
>>406738
>Electrified swamps
Jesus Christ, Saddam
>>406756
sometes you gotta sell your soul and put everything you got in to win
>>406756
Don't forget the artificial lakes full of barbed wire.
Or the poison gas.
>>406337
>implying the Australians wouldn't have used them in a heartbeat in the emu war
>>406188
>"Don't worry mom, we'll beat the French and be back by Christmas! It will be just like the war stories grampa tells!"
>>406188
>tfw you realise there's actually war right now and it's not just an /his/ thing like your own life would suggest
>>406337
>Now that would be a scary notion.
IIRC the USA once considered using nuclear bombs to carve out a harbor in Alaska.
There's also the Orion project, which was a proposal to use nuclear bombs as propulsion in spaceflight.
>>406992
>tfw /pol/ is real
>>406188
>the middle east is a total shitshow right now
>>407633
>tfw you will never take a break from fucking your sister, crack open a delicious bud light and switch the channel from NASCAR to Fox News where they're showing a live feed if the gubmint blowing a nuke up in Alasker
Why live?
>islam ruined arabia forever
>>406188
dumb feels thread, fuck off faggot
>>407681
Arabia was shit to begin with
>>406255
>claiming your place in the sun
>wanting to be like the eternal anglo
this is where germany fucked up.
>>407681
Tell me about this magical time when Arabia wasn't shit anon.
>Syria is over
;_;;;
>>407644
>/pol/ will always be right no matter how many times we meme on them
>>407681
Arabia was always a shit hole. More importantly, it ruined the Levant and Anatolia.
>>406950
;_;
>>407740
:(
>syria is going to be one big crater once all 100 intervening countries are done proxy-war butt-fucking it
>tfw the reds won
>tfw the means of production will never be seized
>>408563
You had them Piotr. You had them and ruined everything.
>>408544
>tfw the reds dragged this qt into a room and shot her to death
>>407663
And it will be for the rest of our lives
>TFW you realise that the WW1 and WW2 were the same war with a gap in the middle.
We'd do it all again too if the threat of nuclear Armageddon didn't keep us in check.
I don't get world war 1
why did the generals/commanders/officers think that anything they were doing was a good idea?
>hey let's send out troops out in nice neat waves up over the trenches into no-mans land
>what could possibly go wrong
>>409417
t. girl
They literally had very little idea what they were doing. Nobody had used the technology they were using against someone with the same stuff before.
They tried new stuff constnatly but at the same time some of the more conservative guys were saying "hey if we can just mass our forces and get ONE breakthrough...it can be open country warfare again and the war will be over quickly. Which was true.
Unfortunately they spent a long fucking time trying to get that breakthrough.
>tfw WWI is much more interesting but will forever live in the shadow of WWII because it can't be used to spread USA! USA! propaganda
>>409447
>tfw WW1 is the number one cause of ww2
>tfw WW1 is so big you probably never heard of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
pic related, is Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
>>409460
not him but I already knew about that guy from Ray Mears
thinking about WWI always puts a huge knot in my stomach. So many dead, the entire old world order essentially collapsed, and no one except the people making money off the war saw anything but tragedy.
>>409463
This, WW1 is very fascinating for me, the useless loss of life was just terrible.
>>409447
WW1 is more interesting because it radically changed the human conscience in the west. It's like we were a different species before.
>>409463
>and no one except the people making money off the war saw anything but tragedy.
except for the peoples of newly liberated or independent states
and except for the people who have successfully fought off enemy invasions
>>409417
You are now aware that attacking a trench was not the problem in WW1. Holding it against a counterattack was.
>>409487
Yes but all those people still went through immense tragedy to get those victories. Reading the works of authors from the American Lost Generation like Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald really shows how the horrors of the war utterly disillusioned everyone in Western civilization was with authority in general after seeing so many die for no other reason than the king demanded it. The only real winners were maybe the Bolsheviks and Middle East, although the Middle East's problems were only just beginning then.
My pic related is a WWI monument in Kansas City. I always liked it.
>tfw all of this suffering has shaped our modern world
>tfw a large number of our creature comforts and everyday technologies were created out of a desire to directly or indirectly kill more efficiently
>tfw people have died cold/hungry/thirsty/scared/alone at the hands of this tech
>tfw it probably also has a direct hand in your upbringing or daily life, and its improvement
>tfw there were countless millions that weren't at all able to live the kind of life you live
>tfw you never even thought about it as a kid
Jesus.
>>409499
by that logic every single war is pointless
>>407681
You know, if civilization actually did start in the Fertile Crescent, why did everyone try to get as far away from it as possible, going all the way into mountains and crossing oceans in the Ice Age?
Cause its been shit for literally 6000+ years
>>407681
>If I use an anime pic they won't realise I'm from /pol/
>>409509
Well aren't all wars just bankers wars?
>>409523
Yes, obviously all wars in history are a schemes by TPTB and JOOOOS to make money.
>>407663
It always has been. Always will be.
>>406188
WW1 really was horrid.
"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
>if we live in a cyclical universe, it will happen again and again and again, an infinite amount of times
>every single iteration will be pointless
H-hey guys at least it strengthened the USA
that's a good thing r-right
>mfw my country was neutral during WW1
>>410116
Swiss?
>>410132
A post in this thread reveals it to you
>The definite end of romanticism
>>406246
That's because poor policy at Versailles directly lead to the events of WW2. Thus, it was more like a 20 minute intermission before the start of the second half. The Great Depression was the halftime show.
>>410206
What poor policy of Versailles directly led to the events of WW2? I can certainly think of the lack of political will to enforce the treaty that could be blamed for that. Or the mythology conjured up by the German propaganda machine as helping to foster resentment in Germany. But I have a hard time thinking of a particular policy that could be easily and simply said to have directly led to WW2.
>>410222
>"And let it be here noted that men are either to be kindly treated, or utterly crushed, since they can revenge lighter injuries but not graver." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
France advocated for the complete balkanization of Germany and stipulating that they never again be allowed to unite. Instead, the victorious powers succeeded only in humiliating their defeated foes and instilling a deep feeling of resentment and revanchism.
>>410246
And yet you would be hard pressed to find revanchist war hawks hell bent on revenge against the allies in power in Germany before the depression. And even afterwards you will see the earliest German gains be an aggressive expansion, and not a strike back at the western allies (who have only entered the conflict on their own accord, not because of being attacked themselves). Which surely would have been the case had this mythical Versailles revanchism truly played such an important role.
>>410269
Take a look at a map of east Prussia in 1914 and then again in 1938, then recall where the first German boots ended up at the outbreak of war.
>>409460
This, the German east Africa campaign was fucking amazing
>>410108
This image always triggers me. Isn't that a ww2 helmet for the german?
>>410269
As a frenchman I like the idea that WWII was not caused by Versailles.
But what you said doesn't prove there was no revanchism. Every step of that aggressive expansion was a loud "fuck you I won't do what you told me" adressed to France and the UK, and everyone understood it as such.
The germans who wanted revenge did not especially want to kill the french and the english in a new war : on that account they already gave more than they recieved in the first war.
Revenge thus was not about hitting back, but about taking back what was taken (mostly, the power and the ability to use it without restraints), and humiliating the ennemy as they had been humiliated.
Munich achieved that.
Alsace was never felt to really belong in the Reich anyway, so it was last on the list.
>>406188
Everytime that I start to feel like european culture is superior to others, I remind myself of WWI.
Every other terrible thing that our ancestors or their leaders did is in line with what the rest of humanity did.
But no one else can match such an absurd devastation.
China doesn't count.
>>409460
literally the most based general of all time
>mfw bongs try to catch me
>>410549
He even ended up meeting and befriending the British general, J.C. Smuts, that he campaigned against in East Africa, and formed a lasting friendship. When Smuts died in 1953 he sent a "moving letter of sympathy" to his widow.
Back when officers were gentlemen.
WW2 was bad and all, but nothing, not anything else in history ignites my feels like the Great War, especially from the perspective of the French. I can't imagine what it must be like to watch your entire generation be sent into hell on earth like lambs to slaughter.
But this time, we'll be protected by the Maginot Line!
>>410804
Goddamn the French went full retard with the Maginot Line. Did they not see Belgium on the fucking map?
>>410859
Not him, but perhaps they thought Schlieffen was too bold to potentially repeat?
>>410866
Yeah, but they then left the Ardennes completely open because it was 'rough terrain' and assumed Germans wouldn't be able to transverse it. So goddamn stupid
>>410859
no anon, you are the retard
the french realized the maginot line would not cover the entirety of the potential front (although they did want it to) and hence focusing their mobile army on belgium was their plan
>>410755
if that makes you feel those feels, what about the soviet union in ww2? the impact on their entire generations was even worse... or do those not count because lol dey r rushns cyka blyat
> millions of people died for bunch of nothing
> weapons of mass destruction are created
> fall of honor culture and rise of feminism
> thousand years monarchies collapsed
> communism takes the power vacuum
> bamboozled germans started WWII
If you think about it WWI basically destroyed Europe forever and we still deal with outcomes hundreds memes later.
>>410679
>Back when officers were gentlemen.
Well let's not get carried away, they might have been all buddy buddy to one another as officers but L-V's campaign in Africa was pretty brutal to the local populace.
>>410892
>for bunch of nothing
What's up with this retarded meme itt
>tfw you realize holocaust was real
Imagine being one of the fags or gypsies or kikes
>>410885
>or do those not count because lol dey r rushns cyka blyat
Yes, that's exactly it.
>>410897
World War I aftermath created USSR, Yugoslavia, Turkey. You really wanted people to die for this?!
>>410486
Stalhelms were used by both German and Austro-Hungarian forces during WWI.
>East Prussia no longer exists.
>>410935
It also saw the allies mount a successful defense of their countries, the rising of independent states in central and eastern Europe, the defeat of militaristic, jingoistic and expansionist policies of Germany, the downfall of the Austria - "prison of nations" - Hungary etc. Even from the German POV the war was not for nothing. They had their objectives and goals.
>>410953
>>409473
It ended almost two thousand years of tradition.
>>406188
>>406188
>>406188
>>406738
>Iraq invades Iran just after a political revolution
>Despite massive instability within Iranian leadership and society, the invaders are pushed back
>Iran decides "fuck this Saddam bullshit" and invades Iraq
>Makes solid gains
>Practically the entire Western world suports Iraq, gives them plenty of aircraft and other weapons
>Iraq destroys foreign shipping vessels supplying Iran, Iran does the same to Iraq
>United States steps in to protect ships helping Iraq, starts looking for excuses to glass Tehran itself
>Iraqi military shells the fuck out of civilian population centers with mustard and cyanide gas, genocides some Kurds while they're at it
>Nobody outside Iran gives a fuck
>Ceasefire called to put an end to Saddam's madness and the threat of US attack
>Entire world gives Iraq a celebratory handjob and Saddam never does anything bad ever again
>that terrible terrible feel when you realize that world war one was the beginning of the end
>>414935
Do old men become obsessed with the world wars because some part of them realizes this?
I feel like there is no truly correct explanation for how things went so terrible wrong in ww1 and especially in ww2.
Also, if you consider fascism, Nazism and communism as attempts to escape from capitalism its further terrifying. They fucked up so bad. But capitalism continues to kill so many, its just a controlled burn instead of a holocaust.
Its like humans can't figure out how to manage the next step.
are we fucked?
>>414935
the beggining of the new world order, and your ancestors enabled it
>>414981
Honestly, the only way I can see world peace occurring is if some sort of dictator somehow manages to conquer the world.
>>410493
Why doesn't china count exactly?
>>414935
>It wasn't the French revolution
You need to dig deeper, my friend. You have much to learn.
Why did everyone hate Germans after WW1?
>>407712
Islamic Golden Age.
>>416052
Weren't three of the great centres of the golden age Córdoba, Cairo, and Baghdad?
>>408544
>the reds won
why do you think right-wingers always say that the left won even thought its bullshit, because when you go right only the elite win
>>417325
> Thinks Communism isn't Authoritarian.
>>417325
>being this commie
I would rather die a white then live a single day as a red
>>414981
>But capitalism continues to kill so many, its just a controlled burn instead of a holocaust.
Typed from a product of capitalism.
>>417439
I hope your dream comes true.
>>417492
they did
>>409509
noone wins a fight
>>406188
>>410859
They didn't want to draw the ire of the Belgium government.
>>415937
Have you ever met a German?
