Credit

[charliechaplinfan]

My husband's packed up all the music because we are moving soon. I can croak now, it makes me realise how much I need to raise my voice to make myself heard with the kids. They're just noise, noise, noise all the time. Of course I'm hilarious to them at the moment.

[Garbomaniac]

I'm sure glad I had a credit card today! I was at a stop light and hit my "Low Fuel" button. I had one mile left. I was in the left hand turn lane, and there was a gas station on the right! So, I waited for my opportunity and did a cross over that turned everyone's head! I reached in my pocket, and I didn't have a dime. So, I just handed her my credit card and was motoring happily away in moments.

[charliechaplinfan]

Ever realised that either your husband or child has raided your purse for change, I'm glad of a card then.

[Hollis]

Anne,

Truth be told, the sinking of the Lusitania was what drew the US into WWI. The war had started on the European front more than a year earlier. The single event that's generally credited with "starting" the war was the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. (I hope I spelled that correctly, I'm a bit too lazy to stroll over to Wikipedia and confirm it!) I think this one goes back to 9th grade as well. At this stage of the game, does it really matter?

As always, Hollis

[jdb1]

I can take it up to high school history, Hollis, where we read Barbara Tuchman's excellent analysis of the causes of WWI, "The Guns of August." According to her thesis, the war was a long time coming, and was sparked by the military rivalry between Kaiser Wilhelm and his English cousin, King Edward VII. Each spent millions trying to outpace the other in military might. When the British Navy developed a super battleship, called the Dreadnaught (launched in 1906), Wilhelm began to manipulate the political scene to stir up an eventual war so that he could decimate British military power before any more such vessels could take to sea. He was aided by the circumstance of Edward's death in 1910. By 1914, Wilhelm was manipulating all of the continent behind the scenes and moving it toward war.

[charliechaplinfan]

Our high school teaching and my further reading in the matter is fairly similar. Edward VII was the type to flaunt but I don't believe he ever wanted a war. Kaiser Wilhelm was determined to make the German Empire bigger, better and stronger.

There were plenty of other factors half of Europe had been manouevering towards war for at least 25 years before hand, Wilhelm was prepared to light the touch paper. the biggest irony was that people CELEBRATED the fact that they were at war why would anyone celebrate war? They didn't know that this war would be one of the longest and most inhumane.

[jdb1]

Our high school teaching and my further reading in the matter is fairly similar. Edward VII was the type to flaunt but I don't believe he ever wanted a war. Kaiser Wilhelm was determined to make the German Empire bigger, better and stronger.

There were plenty of other factors half of Europe had been manouevering towards war for at least 25 years before hand, Wilhelm was prepared to light the touch paper. the biggest irony was that people CELEBRATED the fact that they were at war why would anyone celebrate war? They didn't know that this war would be one of the longest and most inhumane.

One of the reasons the rest of Europe was on the same heading is that most of the leaders, i.e., the "crowned heads," were all related, and all were involved in the saber-rattling contest to some degree. There was much private correspondence among them, most moving their allegiances around from one cousin/uncle/nephew to the other as the balace of power shifted continually from Britain to Germany.

Yes, it seems that there was a lot of celebrating reagrding war, and unfortunately there still is in some quarters. But -- in times when there is no military draft, how else to fill up the ranks unless war is made to look glorious?

[mrsl]

Talking about school classes takes me back to some of mine where I was so disappointed. I've said before how I love history, yet it seemed that every year that I took American History, we spent so much time on the American Revolution and the Civil War, that we never got to WWI or WWII. Everything I know about either war was learned from books I took out of the library or talking to my uncles who had been in the Army. Dad had a broken eardrum so that kept him out, for which my mom was forever grateful. I would hear one of the uncles mention a certain battle and off I would go to the library to look it up. I'm not kidding when I say I spent a lot of serious time in the library reading about historical things. To me a history book was like a novel. Four years of history classes and we never got to the modern wars. Of course Vietnam was just starting, all my boyfriends went over there, and many never came back. I often confused Korean battles with the Pacific theater WWII battles, and it was years before I knew they were two different conflicts. My sister used to tease me unmercifully about being born too late, but it sure helped in later years when Trivial Pursuit became so popular.

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

Judith, I love the way that nearly every european royal house is connected to Queen Victoria but it did create problems. I suppose it's family arguments on a much greater scale.