Though World War I is historically called “The Great War,” its stories, lessons and anniversaries are often overlooked or forgotten — left in the shadows of other more “glorious” or more recent wars.
Just recently we remembered the 70th anniversary of D-Day with great ceremony and reverence, but there has been very little mention of the upcoming 100-year anniversary of World War I, despite the enormous impact this conflict had on shaping the world we live in today.
June 28 was the 100th anniversary of Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Duchess Sophie, in Sarajevo. During the month that followed the mentally frail Princip’s dastardly and nearly bungled act, a Europe-wide diplomatic crisis ensued. Some say this single assassination was the catalyst for nearly a century of war, resulting in the deaths of untold millions. The assassination may have been the spark that ignited the fire, but it was decades of failed diplomacy that laid down the tinder for which Princip was ultimately the match.
Ironically, decades of failed diplomacy aboard steamship, rail and horse came crashing down when Princip was able to assassinate Ferdinand and his wife in an automobile through the misfortune of a wrong turn by Ferdinand’s own car driver. The archduke had decided to make a detour to the hospital in Sarajevo to visit another individual who had been injured earlier that day in a separate attempt on the archduke’s own life. Knowing this, one may wonder why getting out of town right away was not higher on the archduke’s list at that point. But on the archduke’s nobly intentioned journey to the hospital, his driver made a wrong turn down a dead-end street, where the feebleminded socialist Princip had placed himself to make the assassination attempt (a tragic coincidence, as Ferdinand’s route would not normally have delivered him to Princip). When the archduke’s driver discovered his mistake, he put the car in reverse and accidentally stalled the engine. Princip then walked up and shot the archduke and duchess at point blank range, igniting a century of bloodshed.
July 28, 1914, is widely accepted as the beginning date of World War I — a war that resulted in the deaths of 9 million people and laid the framework for another disastrous world conflict that would ensue, historically speaking, mere moments later. In turn resulting in the death of tens of millions more as well as bringing the partitioning of Europe, the march of communism and the Cold War, this claimed the lives of or enslaved millions more either directly or through proxy wars. Many historians would say this was all sparked by a single assassination 100 years ago in Sarajevo and the failure of diplomacy that surrounded it before and after.
The 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein looks back
In the tumultuous decades leading up to Prinicip’s assassination of Ferdinand and his wife, diplomacy was often accomplished with a hand-penned letter delivered at the speed of a steamship, rail or horse, rarely face-to-face by national leaders. At the same time, the murderous technologies of mustard gas, trench warfare and the machine gun were already racing past the slow, bureaucratic pace of diplomacy.
Could world events have been different if nations had high-speed diplomacy to cool tensions and bring national leaders face-to-face within hours, or even minutes?
The unbelievably complicated machinations between the nations of the Allies and the Central Powers proved to be a Gordian knot for the then painfully slow steamship, rail and horse-drawn diplomacy. For Western Europe, then intoxicated by Victorian-era imperialism, the easiest apparent way to cut that knot was war. Slow-speed diplomacy had utterly failed.
One wonders if the near-instantaneous diplomatic response offered by today’s U.S. Air Forces in Europe, postured “Ready, Forward, Now,” might have been able to cool things down.
Today, we are watching brushfires in many of the same areas that were troubled in World War I.
Everything old is new again. As a result of the war, the Russian empire was dissolved, resulting in chaos in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Ukraine and Crimea. World War I resulted in the destruction and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which for centuries had held together key regions in North Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq. From Tripoli, Bengazi and Damascus to Baghdad, many of those formerly Ottoman Empire-controlled regions were partitioned and descended into enduring chaos. The artificial borders painted across a tribal, broken region because of failed diplomacy haunt the Middle East and the world to this day.
On this grim anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, many of these regions still simmer with the tensions ignited by the failures of diplomacy that turned this single assassination into a catalyst for global war.
One century later, here at the 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein Air Base, we have the best aircrews and mission support Airmen in the Air Force. We enable diplomacy by providing world-class executive airlift to our nation’s leaders in the same hot spots that simmered 100 years ago. And today, our Airmen do not make “wrong turns” down “blind alleys” as did the ill-fated driver of Ferdinand’s car. The failed horse-paced diplomacy that contributed to a century of war 100 years ago is a thing of the past.
Now, present-day diplomacy is enabled by Ramstein’s 76th Airlift Squadron, which safely, comfortably and reliably delivers our nation’s leaders to these troubled regions.
With the 76th AS, diplomacy has a faster horse. Ready, Forward, Now!
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Though World War I is historically called “The Great War,” its stories, lessons and anniversaries are often overlooked or forgotten — left in the shadows of other more “glorious” or more recent wars.
Just recently we remembered the 70th anniversary of D-Day with great ceremony and reverence, but there has been very little mention of the upcoming 100-year anniversary of World War I, despite the enormous impact this conflict had on shaping the world we live in today.
June 28 was the 100th anniversary of Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Duchess Sophie, in Sarajevo. During the month that followed the mentally frail Princip’s dastardly and nearly bungled act, a Europe-wide diplomatic crisis ensued. Some say this single assassination was the catalyst for nearly a century of war, resulting in the deaths of untold millions. The assassination may have been the spark that ignited the fire, but it was decades of failed diplomacy that laid down the tinder for which Princip was ultimately the match.
Ironically, decades of failed diplomacy aboard steamship, rail and horse came crashing down when Princip was able to assassinate Ferdinand and his wife in an automobile through the misfortune of a wrong turn by Ferdinand’s own car driver. The archduke had decided to make a detour to the hospital in Sarajevo to visit another individual who had been injured earlier that day in a separate attempt on the archduke’s own life. Knowing this, one may wonder why getting out of town right away was not higher on the archduke’s list at that point. But on the archduke’s nobly intentioned journey to the hospital, his driver made a wrong turn down a dead-end street, where the feebleminded socialist Princip had placed himself to make the assassination attempt (a tragic coincidence, as Ferdinand’s route would not normally have delivered him to Princip). When the archduke’s driver discovered his mistake, he put the car in reverse and accidentally stalled the engine. Princip then walked up and shot the archduke and duchess at point blank range, igniting a century of bloodshed.
July 28, 1914, is widely accepted as the beginning date of World War I — a war that resulted in the deaths of 9 million people and laid the framework for another disastrous world conflict that would ensue, historically speaking, mere moments later. In turn resulting in the death of tens of millions more as well as bringing the partitioning of Europe, the march of communism and the Cold War, this claimed the lives of or enslaved millions more either directly or through proxy wars. Many historians would say this was all sparked by a single assassination 100 years ago in Sarajevo and the failure of diplomacy that surrounded it before and after.
The 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein looks back
In the tumultuous decades leading up to Prinicip’s assassination of Ferdinand and his wife, diplomacy was often accomplished with a hand-penned letter delivered at the speed of a steamship, rail or horse, rarely face-to-face by national leaders. At the same time, the murderous technologies of mustard gas, trench warfare and the machine gun were already racing past the slow, bureaucratic pace of diplomacy.
Could world events have been different if nations had high-speed diplomacy to cool tensions and bring national leaders face-to-face within hours, or even minutes?
The unbelievably complicated machinations between the nations of the Allies and the Central Powers proved to be a Gordian knot for the then painfully slow steamship, rail and horse-drawn diplomacy. For Western Europe, then intoxicated by Victorian-era imperialism, the easiest apparent way to cut that knot was war. Slow-speed diplomacy had utterly failed.
One wonders if the near-instantaneous diplomatic response offered by today’s U.S. Air Forces in Europe, postured “Ready, Forward, Now,” might have been able to cool things down.
Today, we are watching brushfires in many of the same areas that were troubled in World War I.
Everything old is new again. As a result of the war, the Russian empire was dissolved, resulting in chaos in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Ukraine and Crimea. World War I resulted in the destruction and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which for centuries had held together key regions in North Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq. From Tripoli, Bengazi and Damascus to Baghdad, many of those formerly Ottoman Empire-controlled regions were partitioned and descended into enduring chaos. The artificial borders painted across a tribal, broken region because of failed diplomacy haunt the Middle East and the world to this day.
On this grim anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, many of these regions still simmer with the tensions ignited by the failures of diplomacy that turned this single assassination into a catalyst for global war.
One century later, here at the 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein Air Base, we have the best aircrews and mission support Airmen in the Air Force. We enable diplomacy by providing world-class executive airlift to our nation’s leaders in the same hot spots that simmered 100 years ago. And today, our Airmen do not make “wrong turns” down “blind alleys” as did the ill-fated driver of Ferdinand’s car. The failed horse-paced diplomacy that contributed to a century of war 100 years ago is a thing of the past.
Now, present-day diplomacy is enabled by Ramstein’s 76th Airlift Squadron, which safely, comfortably and reliably delivers our nation’s leaders to these troubled regions.
With the 76th AS, diplomacy has a faster horse. Ready, Forward, Now!