Would Israel be around?

(06-28-2014 07:29 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Would Israel be around?

Impossible to say for certain, but my guess is that the world was on a clear path to a Jewish-and/or-Zionist State even while Archduke Ferdinand was still alive. The exact borders/location of such a state were to be determined, but I think it would have come into existence.

Just as many good things might have transpired had the Archduke was not killed, there could be a mirid of negative things that could have happened had he lived. The nuclear bomb might never have been built or may have been used in a different theater.

(06-29-2014 08:59 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Just as many good things might have transpired had the Archduke was not killed, there could be a mirid of negative things that could have happened had he lived. The nuclear bomb might never have been built or may have been used in a different theater.

Mankind has always shown the capacity to innovate death.

I recently took a course called "The Paradoxes of War" which took a history and psychology/sociology interdisciplinary approach. A couple of things from the course:

.WWI was the last of the medieval wars whereby soldiers were intentionally sacrificed as part of combat. The frontal assaults of trench warfare were designed as a war of attrition, not to gain territory but to kill more than you lose.

.although WWII had frontal assaults (Normandy and Iwo Jima) these only were to establish footholds.

.WWII was the first war to substantially include the home front in the battle, as this poster suggests





.The paradox of the "home front war" was that it provided the rationale for the massive strategic bombing of Germany and Japan. Since we recognized how important the home front was to the effort, both as productive machine and morale support, the German and Japanese cities that housed the factories and people, were fair game.

.The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were merely more efficient weapons in the strategic bombing campaign. Far more damage and deaths were caused by the Allied bombings of Germany and US conventional bombings of Japan.

(06-29-2014 09:06 AM)QuestionSocratic Wrote:  

(06-29-2014 08:59 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Just as many good things might have transpired had the Archduke was not killed, there could be a mirid of negative things that could have happened had he lived. The nuclear bomb might never have been built or may have been used in a different theater.

Mankind has always shown the capacity to innovate death.

The scientists who developed the Atomic bomb were reluctant to do so. Leo Szilard, who first conceptualized the A-bomb, in an effort to keep Hitler from developing the bomb wrote the now famous letter to Roosevelt signed by Einstein, that began its development and construction.

Leo Szilard has been lost to history.

The best book I read on WWI was John Keegan's "The First World War". It is probably the most read book on WWI after Tuchman's "Guns of August."

One of the things that I still recall was the description of the "stench" in the trenches. I'll have to paraphrase, but Keegan described:

The smells in the trenches were beyond description. They were a mix of dead bodies decomposing, vomit, defecation, mud, rotting vegetation and disease. There were no toilets, so the soldiers simply went in the trenches. When soldiers went "over the top" they often soiled and wet themselves.

(06-29-2014 09:28 AM)QuestionSocratic Wrote:  The best book I read on WWI was John Keegan's "The First World War". It is probably the most read book on WWI after Tuchman's "Guns of August."

One of the things that I still recall was the description of the "stench" in the trenches. I'll have to paraphrase, but Keegan described:

Th smells in the trenches were beyond description. They were a mix of dead bodies composing, vomit, defecation, mud, rotting vegatation and disease. There were no toilets, so the soldiers simply went in the trenches. When soldiers went "over the top" they often soiled and wet themselves.

With those conditions it's not hard to fathom why many had dysentery.

(06-28-2014 08:48 AM)Ole Blue Wrote:  What a turn of events in the history of the world. I wonder how different it would be today if that had not happened.

Heck, if the driver had followed the instructions, would we be in a different world today? The driver had been asked to go to the hospital to check on the failed bombing attempt... only he didn't hear the request, and drove right into the assassin's location.