General > The Great War
World War 1 Centenaries
Landlubber:
We can use this thread to mark the centenaries of events as they come up. Discussion is welcome, as is explanation of events from your point of view/understanding. Again, aiming to set this up as a discussion and learning tool. We can mark the dates of the big battles and events, to be sure, but if there's some little obscure thing you want to throw in here, by all means do so. So much of WW1 is focused on the trench warfare of the Western Front, and to a lesser extent the Russian/German/Ottoman conflict on the Eastern Front, that people forget this truly was a "world war" (as Ruckdog's post about that Kickstarter project shows). There was fighting in Africa, and there was even some conflict (to what degree I'm not sure) in the Pacific.
We obviously have a big event coming up tomorrow...so feel free to post away!
Landlubber:
And so it begins.
On this date in 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on a bridge in Sarajevo. I don't profess to know very much about either individual, but what I do know is intriguing. After learning of Ferdinand's death, his uncle is rumored to have shrugged and said "These things happen." Princip would wind up in prison on a 30-year sentence for the murder of the Archduke; ironically, he would die of tuberculosis in prison before the armistice was signed in 1918.
Maybe it's the historical nerd in me, but I'm excited to have a good excuse to delve into WW1 over the next few years.
MadDrB:
Cool, keep posting.
An old wargaming friend and I are gearing up to play an epic game of Paths of Glory by mail. It probably won't take us the equivalent number of years, but playing by post may drag it out many, many months, at least.
Landlubber:
--- Quote from: MadDrB on June 28, 2014, 10:50:22 am ---Cool, keep posting.
An old wargaming friend and I are gearing up to play an epic game of Paths of Glory by mail. It probably won't take us the equivalent number of years, but playing by post may drag it out many, many months, at least.
--- End quote ---
Thanks MadDrB! Afraid I'm not familiar with Paths of Glory. But playing anything by snail mail these days is serious old-school.
For any of you who use Twitter (I do, long story) and are interested in WW1, I suggest you start following @WW1now. Not sure who the poster is, but they are tweeting events as they happened 100 years ago to the day. Pretty interesting stuff; they posted a pic of the NYT's front page from 29 June 1914 on 29 June 2014, which featured a story on the assassination. If nothing else, it challenges me to look stuff up as it occurs.
Landlubber:
On this date in 1914, Austria-Hungary delivered their ultimatum to the government of Serbia in the wake of Ferdinand's assassination. From what I've read, the mere delivery of the ultimatum took several European governments by surprise--it had been nearly a month since Ferdinand was shot. The ultimatum was written in such a way that Serbia would not be able to accede to the demands layed out by Austria.
Thus, the dominos have been set up to fall, leading towards war.
You can read the full text of the letter on this site (it is an interesting read).
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