The Real History of the First World War

 Some of you may know that I'm involved in trying to organise some helpful and educative responses to WW1 and in particular to start by commemorating appreciatively the Christmas Truce when troops spontaneously ceased-fire an Christmas Eve 1914. The more I have been looking into things the more I have come to appreciate what a thoroughly bad thing that war was. As it says in the book:

"The First World war was caused by military competition between opposing alliances of nation states. these nation states represented the interests of rival blocs of capital competing in the world markets.

The British were able to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude because they had grabbed the biggest empire in the 18th century and then led the industrial revolution in the 19th. They favoured free trade because they were economically established.

They were able to portray the Germans as 'aggressors' and 'militarists', and to claim they were 'guilty' of starting the war, only because they were defending an existing empire rather than trying to create a new one.

But the underlying aims of the rulers of all the great powers were identical: to carve-up the world in pursuit of profit and power. The First World War was an imperialist war."

No Glory: The Real History of the First World War - Stop the War Coalition
See also the No Glory website