(no subject)
Here are the top three killers of the twentieth century:
1. Malaria
2. Influenza
3. Silliness
Now, I'm sure that you'll notice that, for comedic effect, I've made a fairly rudimentary list and stuck a silly one on the end (literally, in this case). Although, that's actually where it belongs as silliness is (approximately) the third biggest killer of the last hundred years.
I'd better get to the point. I've been reading up on how World War One got going and it turns out that the nations of Europe all being silly set in motion a course of events that led to the first half of the 20th century being the most bloodthirsty in human history. By the way, I'm not going to be prattling on here about how war itself is silly or futile because, as I've alluded to on this LJ before, wars tend to lead to to massive advances in human inspiration and achievement. Almost everything in your house features at least one component that has, at some point, been invented or improved upon to help in the noble cause of exterminating a bunch of people who didn't agree with a bunch of other people.
Anyway, back to Sarajevo in June 1914 and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary has just taken a wrong turn on a journey back to his lodgings and was now sat in the back of his car at it drove past Gabrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian terrorist organisation called The Black Hand. Earlier that day, this rag-tag bunch of idealistic young men had made a staggeringly bad attempt at assassinating the Archduke with a couple of hand grenades. After the failure (which did manage to maim a policeman), half the perpetrators had fallen back to their 'Plan B' concocted for just this situation and promptly taken a cyonide pill and jumped into the nearest river. Princip, however, wasn't even any good at that and as a reward for his lack of perseverance now found himself with a golden opportunity to make up for his outfit's earlier ineptitude. He had a gun on him and he trumped the form book by actually managing to successfully kill the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. And his wife too, just for good measure. This in turn lead to the start of The Great War and this much, I assume, you all know from GCSE history.
However, what you may not be aware of is that this event could only have led to the start of the first world-engulfing conflict due to a spectcular sequence of assumption, double-think, speculation and, yes, silliness from the major European powers which had been going on for the first few years of the century.
Essentially (and I'd get a packed lunch if I were you) Britain had the biggest empire ever on Earth and thus didn't want to get too involved with Europe other than to keep them off the Queen's international turf- accordingly they'd agreed not to have any dust-ups with the French and the royal family was half-German which kept things in order. For a bit. France, meanwhile, had been involved in a bit of a ding-dong with the newly formed German state in the late 19th Century and prmoptly made off with the resource-rich areas of Alsace and Lorraine- possibly the most disputed territory on Earth to be named after a quiche. This had rather ticked off the Germans who'd subtly alligned themselves with the Austro-Hugarian empire, possibly history's most mediocre imperial force. Think of them as like when two slightly naff countries get together to hold the European Football Championships. They were, however, a cause for concern to Western Europe whilst in alliance with the Hun, but they instead spent most of their time gazing fondly East to where Serbia were determined to form a Balkan superstate of their own- rather cheesing off the Bosnians and Bulgarians in the process. Russia, during all this time, was very cold and struggling to decide whether to have a Czar, have an uprising, or slowly swallow up everything up to the Red Sea and do a bit of sunbathing. Sitting in the middle of all this, as per usual, was Belgium, plonked amongst Europe like the nice people trying to watch the Old Firm derby whilst Popes and Queens are burnt all around them. They were terrified that should any trouble flare in Europe, they'd be invaded from all sides like a continental pub car park and so persuaded Britain, with no apparent self-interest involved, to promise to deck anyone who set foot on Flemish territory without a note from their Mum. The only possible reason we could have agreed to this must be an agreement to allow England to score a 119th minute winner against the Belgians in the 1990 World Cup- a covenant they duly honoured.
So there you have the state of play in 1914. An entire continent who'd decided that the best way to avoid a war was to have relationships based on fragile alliances, blind hatred, bitter envy and seething suspicion. All rather silly, you'd have to agree and it lead directly to 6,000,000 deaths in the following five years. Then everything calmed down. Until about 15 years later when exactly the same thing started happening again.
The run-up to World War 2 (the first ever superior sequel, by the way) is well documented and not really worth going into here, other than to point out the ingrained silliness of an Austrian (funny race, them) take over Germany, then half of Eastern Europe whilst Britain and France were apparently still fumbling down the back of the sofa for their glasses. Result: 20,000,000 dead in 6 years.
And it's not just conflict on a global scale where humankind's capacity for silliness claims life by the bucketload. El Salvador and Honduras had a war over a World Cup Qualifier whilst Zanzibar once woke up with a hangover and petualntly declared war on Britain- a conflict which lasted precisely 38 minutes and was followed on the one British battleship involved by breakfast. In fact, it's hard to find a war in this century where someone being plain daft isn't at the root of the tensions exploding. From Argentina suddenly deciding it really needed those sheep-infested rocks in the Atlantic in 1982 to Idi Amin stating he was King of Scotland and killing anything that spilt his pint- it seems mankind is desperate to have wars with one another and, whereas wars used to be fought over religion and proper things like that, we're finding new and silly ways to wipe each other out of the gene pool.
And now people are saying that George W. Bush should be told to not invade Iran under any circumstances and that the Palestinians could be persuaded to stop fighting the Israelis if they'd just stop fighting amongst themselves for a moment. Only one thing to say to those people.
Don't be silly.
1. Malaria
2. Influenza
3. Silliness
Now, I'm sure that you'll notice that, for comedic effect, I've made a fairly rudimentary list and stuck a silly one on the end (literally, in this case). Although, that's actually where it belongs as silliness is (approximately) the third biggest killer of the last hundred years.
I'd better get to the point. I've been reading up on how World War One got going and it turns out that the nations of Europe all being silly set in motion a course of events that led to the first half of the 20th century being the most bloodthirsty in human history. By the way, I'm not going to be prattling on here about how war itself is silly or futile because, as I've alluded to on this LJ before, wars tend to lead to to massive advances in human inspiration and achievement. Almost everything in your house features at least one component that has, at some point, been invented or improved upon to help in the noble cause of exterminating a bunch of people who didn't agree with a bunch of other people.
Anyway, back to Sarajevo in June 1914 and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary has just taken a wrong turn on a journey back to his lodgings and was now sat in the back of his car at it drove past Gabrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian terrorist organisation called The Black Hand. Earlier that day, this rag-tag bunch of idealistic young men had made a staggeringly bad attempt at assassinating the Archduke with a couple of hand grenades. After the failure (which did manage to maim a policeman), half the perpetrators had fallen back to their 'Plan B' concocted for just this situation and promptly taken a cyonide pill and jumped into the nearest river. Princip, however, wasn't even any good at that and as a reward for his lack of perseverance now found himself with a golden opportunity to make up for his outfit's earlier ineptitude. He had a gun on him and he trumped the form book by actually managing to successfully kill the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. And his wife too, just for good measure. This in turn lead to the start of The Great War and this much, I assume, you all know from GCSE history.
However, what you may not be aware of is that this event could only have led to the start of the first world-engulfing conflict due to a spectcular sequence of assumption, double-think, speculation and, yes, silliness from the major European powers which had been going on for the first few years of the century.
Essentially (and I'd get a packed lunch if I were you) Britain had the biggest empire ever on Earth and thus didn't want to get too involved with Europe other than to keep them off the Queen's international turf- accordingly they'd agreed not to have any dust-ups with the French and the royal family was half-German which kept things in order. For a bit. France, meanwhile, had been involved in a bit of a ding-dong with the newly formed German state in the late 19th Century and prmoptly made off with the resource-rich areas of Alsace and Lorraine- possibly the most disputed territory on Earth to be named after a quiche. This had rather ticked off the Germans who'd subtly alligned themselves with the Austro-Hugarian empire, possibly history's most mediocre imperial force. Think of them as like when two slightly naff countries get together to hold the European Football Championships. They were, however, a cause for concern to Western Europe whilst in alliance with the Hun, but they instead spent most of their time gazing fondly East to where Serbia were determined to form a Balkan superstate of their own- rather cheesing off the Bosnians and Bulgarians in the process. Russia, during all this time, was very cold and struggling to decide whether to have a Czar, have an uprising, or slowly swallow up everything up to the Red Sea and do a bit of sunbathing. Sitting in the middle of all this, as per usual, was Belgium, plonked amongst Europe like the nice people trying to watch the Old Firm derby whilst Popes and Queens are burnt all around them. They were terrified that should any trouble flare in Europe, they'd be invaded from all sides like a continental pub car park and so persuaded Britain, with no apparent self-interest involved, to promise to deck anyone who set foot on Flemish territory without a note from their Mum. The only possible reason we could have agreed to this must be an agreement to allow England to score a 119th minute winner against the Belgians in the 1990 World Cup- a covenant they duly honoured.
So there you have the state of play in 1914. An entire continent who'd decided that the best way to avoid a war was to have relationships based on fragile alliances, blind hatred, bitter envy and seething suspicion. All rather silly, you'd have to agree and it lead directly to 6,000,000 deaths in the following five years. Then everything calmed down. Until about 15 years later when exactly the same thing started happening again.
The run-up to World War 2 (the first ever superior sequel, by the way) is well documented and not really worth going into here, other than to point out the ingrained silliness of an Austrian (funny race, them) take over Germany, then half of Eastern Europe whilst Britain and France were apparently still fumbling down the back of the sofa for their glasses. Result: 20,000,000 dead in 6 years.
And it's not just conflict on a global scale where humankind's capacity for silliness claims life by the bucketload. El Salvador and Honduras had a war over a World Cup Qualifier whilst Zanzibar once woke up with a hangover and petualntly declared war on Britain- a conflict which lasted precisely 38 minutes and was followed on the one British battleship involved by breakfast. In fact, it's hard to find a war in this century where someone being plain daft isn't at the root of the tensions exploding. From Argentina suddenly deciding it really needed those sheep-infested rocks in the Atlantic in 1982 to Idi Amin stating he was King of Scotland and killing anything that spilt his pint- it seems mankind is desperate to have wars with one another and, whereas wars used to be fought over religion and proper things like that, we're finding new and silly ways to wipe each other out of the gene pool.
And now people are saying that George W. Bush should be told to not invade Iran under any circumstances and that the Palestinians could be persuaded to stop fighting the Israelis if they'd just stop fighting amongst themselves for a moment. Only one thing to say to those people.
Don't be silly.