The seeds of World War One were not nurtured amid lofty principles of liberty, religious freedom or from a need to topple cruel despots. It was a conflict conceived in smoke-filled board rooms, political offices, stock exchanges and banks on both sides of the Atlantic and carried to term by various parties who stood to gain politically or financially.
Birthed into the waiting arms of jealousy, politics and greed, it was a banal, vile creation, an artificially inseminated monster that maimed and murdered a generation of young men and laid a direct pathway to another war. To achieve this goal, motivations and villains had to be artificially crafted. What ensued was the largest ethnic assault in human history. |