Johannes Cornelius Jacobus Van Deventer Quotes
All my burghers armed, mounted and ready. Whom do we fight—the British or the Germans?
The Boers had just a few years before lost their war with the British who were then in control of South Africa. However, the British did not treat the Boers harshly in defeat and most Boers were at the time farmers and land owners who were a major force in democratic South Africa and had much invested in the nation. Others were still resentful of the British. The Boers sided with the British and fought the Germans who had troops and colonies in Africa. Like the Irish, culturally, they were always up for a good fight.
Johannes Cornelius Jacobus Van Deventer, 1866-1948, South African Transvaal Boer Militia Leader, Telegram to Louis Botha, his Boer War Commanding General, Sent at the beginning of WWI, August 1914
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Honore Gabriel Victor Requiti
With a professionalized all volunteer military, most of whom came from just a few socio-economic strata of our society, wars at the time were fought and the risks and burdens borne by a small part of American society. The rest of society, unlike the Second World War did not experience any change in their style or standard of living.
The War Plan that the Germans had developed--{642092}—had gone awry at the battle of the Marne in late 1914.
1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. The pace of change in the world has been accelerating ever since the enlightenment. Even at the beginning of the 20th century to was making politics difficult and be the end of the century the pace of change was many times faster.
The White Africaners were attacking the Blacks to force them off their land so the Afrkaners could take over. The country was under British rule and the unarmed Blacks were being slaughtered by the Afrikaners who were British Subjects. Eventually the Boer War set the English against the Afrikaners. See {583902} for a related quotation.
In 1878 there was tension between England and Russia. Some in England were militant advocates of war. This song was extremely popular among them. As a result, they became known as Jingoes or Jingoists. The song became popular in America at the approach of the Spanish-American War and jingoism became part of the American political vocabulary.
Eisenhower was then Supreme Allied Commander.
Moltke’s plan for the Marne Campaign did not work out as planned and he and the Kaiser had a difference of opinion so Moltke was replaced as military commander. This quotation is of critical importance as it shows that the Germans were actually planning the First World War and simply used the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as an excuse. Thus, the reparations Germany was required to pay when they lost the war. See {642096} for more quotational evidence.
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.
English foreign and military policy had been so effective that English citizens had been completely sheltered from all the British military hostilities throughout the world. Keyserlingk and other German military planners, observing the effect that home public opinion had on war policies and practices, placed a high priority on bringing war to the British civilians and sinking merchant ships was the one way they had technologically open to them. Latter, in WWII, the same objective was achieved by the bombing of the Blitz—bombing of London and other cities with planes and rockets.
