[July 29, 2014] Recognition began last night began of the 100th Anniversary of World War I. In Europe and American, there are many events and tours of the battlefields planned. This is good news because it provides leaders the opportunity to tell of the horrors, the sacrifice, and the heroism of the war. It also provides the world an opportunity to see what can happen when nations are at war. The cost of not remembering World War I can be very high if the world repeats those same mistakes.
Most of us have never had the chance to meet and talk with a WWI veteran. I was fortunate that when working on a graduate degree, that my neighbor was a “doughboy”. He knew I was in the Army at the time, as he was during the Great War. The most I remember was that he was in his 90s and was still married to his sweetheart that he took to be his wife after returning from the war. Once he told me about an attack where he lost his rifle, but there were so many lying around it was easy to get another. I was not lost of the subtlety of his words.
It is estimated that nearly 9 million combatants were killed making WWI one of the deadliest conflicts in history. Generally recognized as the underlying cause of the war, the growth of imperialism had been going on since at least the 1830s. The acquisition of colonies along with its accompanying ideologies was a new form of imperialism. Countries began building their empires and pursuing new technological advances and developments. National leaders were making their countries stronger and bigger through conquest and expanding their resources.
By the end of the war in 1918, four imperial powers ceased to exist: the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. The map of Europe and Asia was redrawn and the League of Nations formed to prevent these types of wars in the future. This goal failed however and sparked a new rise of European nationalism and German fascism. As we all know, these conditions lead to World War II.
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[Here are some very good websites dedicated to World War I]
http://www.spiritofremembrance.com/page/2014-2018
http://worldwar-1centennial.org/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-World-War-100th-Anniversary-2014-2018/232773673423155