One hundred years on nobody knows what the whole wretched conflict was about. Millions died over the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but that's like saying WWII was about Poland.
The Great War hastened the collapse of three fading empires, the Austrian, the Russian, and the Ottoman, and gave us the modern world. The modern Middle East is a direct result of the war. The Great War also begins the decline of the British Empire, first slowly, then all at once after WWII. The British lost 60,000 men on the Somme's first day and far more besides. Britain lost its confidence, its optimism and its sense of itself when the German's scythed down those volunteer 'pals' battalions.
After the war Europe began to fade to be replaced by the United States and the Soviet Union.
After writing a book about the AEF, we're still trying to figure out why the United States joined the war. Did it really make a difference to us if the Krauts won? We have no use for President Wilson's high minded 14 Points. God only needed 10, as Clemenceau once said. Bear in mind that sentiment is coming from a semi-lapsed neocon who wanted to remake the Middle East. America came out of the Great War cynical and jaded and with good reason.
In true European fashion the victors learned nothing and forgot nothing. Whenever Europeans criticize American diplomacy, like now, we remind them that European diplomacy gave us the Great War and then gave us the Second World War by failing to win the peace. The Versailles treaty was just harsh enough to really piss off the Krauts, but not harsh enough to prevent them from doing something about it. They should have broken Prussia off from the rest of Germany and be done with it.
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