Page 30 - All About History - Issue 54-17

i
i
i
l
l
l
l
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
l
s
s
l
s
s
s
s
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
k
k
k
t
k
k
c
o
Cocktailss
C C C C C C C C C C o c k t a i l s
c
o
o
t
i
i
i
i
i
i
a
a
t
t
a
a
a
THE GREAT WAR’S GREAT DEBATE
WHY BLAME T
KAISER?
I
w
I
’
I
m
ilh
W
How Wilhelm II’s
lm
e
s
nd
imperial ambitions and
ambitions an
d
personal anxieties led dl anxieties led
the world to ar in 1914
to wa
9 4
Written by Harry Cunningham
f
o orld War I was one of the most
d devastating conflicts in human
h history. It is estimated that over
ll
l
k ll
11 1 million soldiers were killed, ,
g
Ww wounded or went missing. On
d d
a single day in 1916, , as the Battle of the Somme
began in earnest, th he British Army suffered 54,470
casualties. This truly ly was a world war, with the
l
h h
conflict spilling out f from Europe into Asia and
Africa. From the mi ight of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, which now w stretched all the way from the
g
Adriatic to the swee eping and unwieldy Russian
p
q
f
expanse, to Britain, the undisputed queen of the
seas, and finally to G Germany, the newest empire on
the block, keen to fl lex its muscles and prove to the
world that it was a f force to be reckoned with. .
But who was resp ponsible for this tragedy of
f
g
f
h
epic proportions? M Many blame the entire imperial l
bl
system itself, a regime that allowed a select band
of elites to govern i in their own self-interest with
little regard for ordi inary people. But in recent
years this theory ha been re-evaluated so the
d
h
l
as b
finger could point t to Kaiser Wilhelm II — the
g
gg
paranoid, arrogant a and self-aggrandising emperor
of Germany — as th he man who bears overall
f
responsibility for th he start of this conflict in the
f
summer of 1914. Is this an overly simplistic view,
placing too much im mportance on the actions of the
y
individual? And if w we can conclude that Germany
was the main aggre essor, was it the kaiser alone
h k
l
with all of his insec curities who bears the brunt of f
g
the blame, or is it th he many generals that he was
surrounded by?
30