Franz Ferdinand Quotes

This quotation is important for two reasons. First, it shows that there was a very hostile environment in Europe well before the assassination of the Archduke of Austria that “triggered” WWI. Second, that the Germans were racist before Hitler ever came on the scene. The Emperor demagogued the issue and took it to new extremes, but the evil was there. To the Germans, the Slavs and Russians were a lesser form of humanity than the Germans. The Austrians were threatening to attack Serbia and Russia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled many ethnic Slavs, Russians and Muslims—the lower forms of humanity—and long before Hitler, Wilhelm and other leading Germans thought that the Germanic Peoples should rule that part of the world as the lesser “races” were not fit to rule.

German ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had declared war on Serbia. See {642085}. The Russian Czar was under great pressure because a large Roman Catholic Empire was warring against a small Orthodox co-religionist of Russia and Russians of all classes wanted Russia to defend Serbia. The Czar was making a good faith effort to stave off the war. What he did not realize was that Germany had actually planned for war against Russia and France and was using the alliance with Austria as an excuse.

See the American ambassador’s assessment after the war began {41089}

He unfortunately turned out to be right as Germany started WWII to get back the territory that they lost at the Treaty of Versailles for starting WWI.

The Times regretted that the Germans did not speak to the Austrians more vigorously when they were threatening to attack Serbia who harbored anti-Austro-Hungarian terrorists (see {642085}). What the Times editors did not realize was that the Germans had already made their war plans (see {642092}) and the Serbian issue was just the justification they needed to implement them. So there was no real reason for the Germans to discourage the Austro-Hungarian Empire from its mission to punish Serbia.

This was very much a minority opinion at the time, and has much historical significance as he was the father of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, 1869-1940, whose appeasement of Germany led to Word War II. . See {585941}.

Vladimir Lenin

The French Revolution with the rise of Napoleon was a classic example. The American Revolution was an exception.

This was a terribly accurate prediction of what occurred in South America. However even the smaller states then began to have self destructive cycles of destructive revoutions.

He had just assumed his post 6 days earlier. At this point he did not have enough knowledge to favor or oppose the regime change, but he did realize that the decision was a serious one and there would be no turning back. Diem was a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. An anti-Communist Christian in a Buddhist county, the CIA engineered his rise to power, created his political party, provided him with cash to bribe other Vietnamese politicians, and paid for all the propaganda so he would “win” the Presidential elections. However, he abused the Buddhists, was thoroughly corrupt and ran a corrupt administration, but worst of all from the American point of view, he was unable to motivate the South Vietnamese population to fight the Communists. He reached the point where he was more of a liability, and the Central Intelligence Agency engineered a coup d’etat to remove him from power and replace him with a President more to our liking. (See {634540}.)

Germany had just attacked Russia with whom it had a treaty. For a while, Hitler paid little attention to Italy and just gave their “ally” orders and instructions. Italian public opinion was concerned about the same question. See {627973} .

A few months later, that is exactly what Germany did. She was hoping that England would not enter the war despite her treaty obligations, but she was willing to risk the possibility. The Czar had a strong espionage and intelligence service active in Germany, but, like so many other intelligence failures, the intelligence operatives and analysts had military and economic facts but had little understanding of the German culture which propelled Germany to what to most other cultures was “irrational policy making.” People and nations often engage in irrational activities, even against their own self-interest.

The Hapsburgs were the ruling family of the Austrian Empire who wanted to invade Serbia in retaliation for their complicity in the assassination of the Austrian Archduke. This would likely bring Russia in the war in support of Serbia. The editor thought that there was no obligation to support Austria when they were planning a war of choice. What the editor did not know was that the German leadership very much wanted war at the time and supporting Austria was the perfect excuse to fight without them starting the conflict. However, the evidence became clear later than it was German aggression that turned the dispute into a World War.

The report was from Heinrich von Tschirschky, the German ambassador to Austria-Hungary. He recommended that Germany persuade Austria-Hungary to not attack Serbia, not realizing the German leaders had already planned a war with Russia and saw the issues between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia was a good excuse to implement their war plans (see {642092}).

The existing treaties of many of the different European countries like the NATO Treaty obliged them to assist their allies if they were involved in war. Once Austria attacked Serbia, Russia had to assist Serbia against Austria. Germany then joined with Austria and that triggered the treaty whereby France had to support Russia. And when Germany overran Belgium to attack France, England was obligated to come to Belgium’s defense. The only country that had planned for and wanted war was Germany who used her obligation to Austria as the excuse to implement her war plans (see {642092}). The entire Western World was at war when all but one nation wanted to avoid war. The communications and diplomacy of the time could not keep up with events and one of the worst wars in history ensued.