World War I summary kind of

World War I seemed to me like a war that in many ways could have been avoided, but in many other ways was entirely unavoidable.  As we talked about in class, there were many opportunities for either Germany or Russia to take diplomatic action to prevent what happened.  Russia could have told Serbia that they weren’t in the mood to go to war against the Germans, and the Germans could have told Austria-Hungary that forcing the issue in Serbia wasn’t worth total war with Russia.  But, on the other hand, it feels as though every single nation wanted to go to war.  Germany wanted to establish itself as a world dominate power and it did not want to back down from a fight with Russia, considering it had a stronger army.  Russia wanted to make amends for the fact that the Japanese had crushed it earlier in the century, and it seemed only logical that they were on a collision course for the Germans anyway. 

            The war itself was an example of what happens when countries with large standing armies are given technology to kill, but without a concrete understanding of those weapons potential.  The use of combined arms only came about towards the end of the war, and it helped with the stalemate aspect.  Most of the war was spent in the trenches, which became one of the deadliest yet fruitless ways of fighting the war.  Although, I do find it interesting how close the Germans came from actually winning the entire war, only stopped by the fact that they spent a little too much time working the political sides of things.

            The end of the war is simply what can be seen as the allies’ attempt at completely and utterly destroying Germany, which was a flawed plan because Germany is nearly impossible to destroy.  Germany had to take blame for everything and pay for everything, sending its already chaotic economy into absolute shambles and planting the seeds of severe embitterment.  I can’t figure out whether it’s the fact that World War II happened, or the fact that the treaty of Versailles was actually as bad as it seems to be and it seems only logical that someone like Adolph Hitler, who had completely extreme ideas, was able to take power in Germany.