581 – Topics

 

00:03 The Great War: 100th anniversary of World War I, beginning of the end of the European Age, WWII was epilogue to First World War, insufficient education about war’s cause and consequences, Canadians divided between French and English, British influence over Canada, British Empire was global, First World War was the Great War, great wars in history are punctuation marks between eras, expectations of short war, the six empires – British/French/German/Austro-Hungarian/Russian/Ottoman

15:30 Shifting alliances: causes of First World War, complexity of alliances, domino effect, dual alliance between France and Russia, Ottoman empire as the sick man of Europe, alliance split ignited war, Queen Victoria’s family connections to five of the empires, Windsor family, the rise of nationalism, a war that should never have happened – no ideological conflicts, nationalism as the driving force for war, war as a legitimate instrument of national policy, technological advances in the war, Churchill’s war history – from cavalry to nuclear age

31:00 Very impersonal: the impersonalization of war, WWI as a portent of future warfare, technology as the definer of differing ages, cause of war has many aspects, world shaped by wars, first war of the modern world, European age began with Christopher Columbus, the age of Discovery, human motives for going to war, Canada and the Boer War, Canadians went to Boer War as volunteers

43:24 Very personal: In Flanders Fields, the fighting Vaughan brothers, Oscar Frank Joseph and Herbert Vaughan, personal motivations for going to war, Newfoundland in the war, war scars still evident, youth of Europe sacrificed for causes not understood, the great literature of WWI, personal pathos and tragedy of the war, The Soldier, differing motivations and views about the war

59:42 END