If World War 1 was a bar fight;

[A HERETIC I AM]

Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint.

Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg.

Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view.

Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.

Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers.

Russia and Serbia look at Austria.

Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.

Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.

Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.

Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.

Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?

Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.

Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium.

Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.

Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.

France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other.

Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.

Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it.

France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.

Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.

America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.

By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault . While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.

Found at;

http://www.tentimesone.com/if-world-war-one-was-a-bar-fight/

[Dogtown]

1. Extremely funny.

:applause: :patriot:

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. Glad you liked it! n/t

[The Magistrate]

3. Not Bad At All, Sir

[JVS]

4. The assassination of the archduke was no accident.

[Dogtown]

5. Gavrilo Princep does not =Serbia.

It's an analogy. It's close enough, as that goes. The strategies employed by the various combatants is particularly appropriate, I think. Especially America's cynical pretense at moral reluctance and the subsequent self-promotion.



Sad that so many in this thread have accordion-views of history.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Well, no.

Somebody shot him on purpose.

It's not like he was cleaning his gun and it accidentally went off.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Another gratuitous and self serving kick...

For those of you who join in the evening and might think this was funny.

I put up very few threads. I thought this one and my other was funny.

Best way to get eyes on a thread is a kick.

[RandomThoughts]

8. And the point is.

I still don't have beer and travel money.

So what does it matter if such things happen.

[Vehl]

9. lol this is hilarious! nt

[Odin2005]

10. That is hilarious!

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

11. Ask the revolutionary proles in Europe's streets what happened and you might hear a different tale.

The Second International expected and predicted war, pledged itself in opposition to the war several years before it occurred, and then promptly disintegrated as the war broke out and the allegedly antiwar activists all fell into nationalist patriotic fervors

Manifesto of the Extraordinary International Socialist Congress at Basle
November 24-25, 1912

... If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation. In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule ... http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1912/basel-manifesto.htm

The Russian revolutionaries continued to take the Basle Manifesto seriously when many people had forgotten it

Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International
V. I. Lenin 1915

... In a perfectly clear, precise, and definite manner, the Basle Manifesto analyses the concrete clashes of interests which led towards war in 1912 and brought about war in 1914 ... The 1914-15 war, as clearly expressed in the Basle Manifesto, ... is a war among predators for division of the loot, for the enslavement of other countries. Victory for Russia, Britain, and France means the strangulation of Armenia, Asia Minor, etc.—this is stated in the Basle Manifesto. Germany’s victory means the strangulation of Asia Minor, Serbia, Albania, etc. This is stated in the selfsame Manifesto ... Recognition of this war as connected with national liberation leads to one line of socialist tactics; recognition of a war as imperialist, predatory and aggressive, leads to another line. The latter has been clearly defined in the Basle Manifesto. The war, it says, will evoke an “economic and political crisis”, which, it continues, must be “utilised” to “hasten the collapse of the rule of capital” ... The Basle Manifesto has decided this question; it has mapped out the line of tactics ... http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/dec/x01.htm

Thus, in Russia -- a country Marx thought very unsuited for a working class revolution -- the Russian revolutionaries took advantage of the war conditions to overthrow the existing government in 1917 and to withdraw immediately from a war that they had opposed for several years before it even began

The patriotic pro-war fervor in Germany had started to disintegrate with disintegrating living conditions and falling real wages within a year or so of the outbreak of the war. But the situation for the revolutionary street changed after the failure of strategic German military initiatives in the summer of 1918. The German military rapidly became convinced that the war was lost and set out to sue for a favorable peace. Even many common soldiers and sailors in the fall of 1918 were disinterested in continuing the war. Various mutinies, notably the famous one at Kiel, followed. Germany itself then experienced widespread and continuing mass armed rebellions, so that the Kaiser finally fled into exile before the Armistice, with much of Germany temporarily under the control of worker-soldier councils, as a number of the returning soldiers agreed to support the revolutionary crowds and not the government. The situation in Germany for the next four years or so is a complicated interplay of politics, armed revolution, and armed counter-revolution

As predicted at Basle, the war and its aftermath produced conditions for rebellion elsewhere in Europe. Ireland revolted in 1916. The 1918 civil war in Finland was decided by the intervention of German troops. There was a briefly successful revolution in Hungary in 1919, quashed in part by Romanian forces

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Well, thanks for the history refresher, but I hope you understand that I put this up....

because it is funny.

It's funny because it takes the piss at international relations.

It didn't really need such a thorough retort, but I do appreciate the effort.

With all the GD and the rest of the board has been putting itself through the last few weeks, I thought an off the wall thread or two might help.

It helps some, that's obvious.

Others, not so much.

[struggle4progress]

13. And it was funny. I really didn't mean to detract from that -- I responded as I did

because WWI is usually taught in the US public schools as the sort of bizarre and incomprehensible chain-reaction barfight you portray -- in which everybody went off to fight what was the most destructive war in the history of the world up to that point, a war in which great masses of soldiers simply vanished into piles of anonymous bone that were slowly collected later, for no particular reason that anybody could ever remember later

Yet, perhaps, it was not a incomprehensible chain-reaction because the communists of that era predicted it several years in advance and identified it as their chance for communist revolution in the industrialized world -- and despite this, what they accomplished was only a successful revolution in backwards agrarian Russia, and very nearly a successful revolution in the industrial powerhouse of Germany where everything strangely disintegrated in an upside-down world of German politics

I simply think that in 1912 Basle the revolutionary street proles said something like This barfight is a just pretext for a turfwar between our ruling gangs of criminal thugs; we have no interest in this barfight; and if a turfwar breaks out we ought to use it as an opportunity to rid ourselves of the gangs -- and then all across Europe promptly forgot they'd said anything like that and joined into the turfwar with gusto and wondered later what the hell it was all about

It was probably about something. So why can't we remember?