1914: a Europa caminha alegremente para a guerra - Delanceyplace book excerpt

Incrível a inconsciência da maior parte dos dirigentes europeus quanto ao poder absolutamente devastador das novas ferramentas militares, e sua crença numa pequena guerra curta ao estilo napoleônico, ou seja, do enfrentamento de exércitos num terreno delimitado.

Elas não tinham consciência de que estavam iniciando uma guerra total, que depois se tornou global, e quase universal (o que seria o caso da Segunda Guerra), que ademais tinha os componentes ideológicos e raciais do nazismo hitlerista e do fascismo econômico.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Today's selection -- from A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer. World leaders in 1914 did not understand how powerful their armies had become and how much destruction they would cause. In the centuries before the 1800s, world population had grown at a snail's pace. But between 1870 and the beginning of the first World War, the population of Europe had increased by 100,000,000, more than the total world population before 1650, the result of a technological revolution that improved life spans. But this technological revolution also produced unprecedented weaponry, and thus World War I unleashed destruction that would kill 8.5 million and wound in excess of 20 million more, many times the casualties of all the Napoleonic wars combined. As the war started, a young and naive Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, could not contain his excitement: "Russia's general mobilization ... called up the Russian reserves -- a staggering total of four million men, enough to frighten any nation on earth. ... "This was war on a truly new scale; the army with which Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo had totaled sixty thousand men. ... "The Germans ... hauled into Belgium ... two new kinds of monster artillery: 305 Skoda siege mortars ... plus an almost unimaginably huge 420 howitzer ... produced by Germany's Krupp steelworks, [that] weighed seventy-five tons and had to be transported by rail in five sections and set in concrete before going into action. Austro-Hungarian 30.5 cm siege mortar/howitzer being towed by a motor tractor, together with its complete crew "Among the holders of high office, one man at least did not share the sense of glum foreboding: the ebullient ... young Winston Churchill ... he wrote to Prime Minister Asquith's wife ... 'I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet -- I can't help it -- I enjoy every second of it.' " Arial view of the Douaumont French military cemetery, which contains remains of French and German soldiers who died during the Battle of Verdun in 1916 A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 Author: G.J. Meyer Publisher: Delacorte Press a division of Random House Copyright 2006 by G.J. Meyer Pages 74, 77, 127, 133 If you wish to read further: Buy Now If you use the above link to purchase a book, delanceyplace proceeds from your purchase will benefit a children's literacy project. All delanceyplace profits are donated to charity.

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