The War that Changed the History
If one goes to a library and tries to find a book on World War-I, there would be a number of shelves dedicated to the topic. Every book on every shelf will have its own theory about the cause of the war. A war which changed the course of the history. A war which took millions of life. One of the most debatable topics in the course of history has been the cause of World War-I. Every country has its own version for the cause of this war.
Indian Soldiers fighting for the British Empire
Mrs.Margaret Macmillan from Oxford University gave a lecture on the topic of ‘World War-I: Cause and its effect on Europe and the World’. She says, “People around the world have different theories as to why, did the World War-I happen? Some people blame Germany, some blame France, which was hellbent for revenge against Germany. Some people also blame Russia. If Russia hadn’t made a military alliance with France, Germany wouldn’t have had to increase its military activities.”
‘Is India and Pakistan going through the same phase’, Mani Shankar Aiyer
There was a popular perception, and many believe it still is, that World War-I was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Europe had become unstable as it got divided into two alliances. The first one had France with Russia and later joined by Britain and the other was Germany with Austria, Hungary and Italy.
“There is no consensus on the cause of the war and I can assure you that there will never be one. English alone have more than thirty thousand pieces on the theory of origin of World War-I. When I started my theories I made sure not to pin the blame onto one country or person”, revealed Mrs. Macmillan.
The Soldiers at the war
Nationalism played a major part in creating the situation of the World War-I. Countries in Europe stressed on the concept of nationalism to a great deal. Universities were told to develop a curriculum where students only get to know the history of its native country. The pluralistic approach ceased to exist. Every country blamed the other for its problems. The other country was painted with suspicious colour. This resulted in a framework of suspicion and everything the other country did was look through the window of that framework. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Rajya Sabha MP, raised a poignant point when he asked if the current situation between India and Pakistan have parallels from that period. “It is a difficult question to answer. I suppose the situation is not as bad as it was in Europe back then. Having said that, what’s always dangerous of course is, if you have military forces in close contact. And it seems to me that fighting in Kashmir always has the potential to grow the conflict.”
Mrs.Margaret Macmillan
“What I think is Europe, like our own world today, had many possibilities before it. It is, in fact, quite dangerous if we throw up our hand and say what can we do? War is bound to happen at some point of time. I think we have to recognise that human decisions play a part in creating history.”
The World War-I has always been a source of mystery. It’s still a puzzle, how it happened? How Europe did it? “I hope we are going to continue to be very careful about what we do in future because my own view is Europe plundered into a war without realising what’s really going to happen. It didn’t foresee the catastrophe that would accompany it. And I think we need to be careful as to not do anything foolish as the leaders of that time did.”
Picture Credits: Neel Kamal Pandey, OneWorldNews.
