European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 6, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse F o c us \ at left a worker Deans rubble from a Street in Belgrade Serbia in an undated photo taken during world War i. Above a modern Day serb Soldier patrols a Street in Northern Bosnia during fighting with muslims earlier this year. Broken european empires give Rise to new round of fighting on by Patrick Mcdowell the associated press events five years after All fell quiet on the Western front the conflict soldiers called the great War remains unfinished for their great grandchildren in such places As Bosnia the Middle East and the former soviet. Union. World War i baptized the 20th Century As the bloodiest in history. It ended More than 12 million lives shredded centuries old empires into squabbling states shattered notions of civilization spawned nazism and leninism bred intractable the War to end ail wars formally ceased on nov. 11,1918, with the signing of a treaty in a Railroad car in armistice Clearing France its embers smolder in Small wars and affect the foreign policies of nations wary of bigger ones Quot i can fully understand Why there s no real intervention in the former Yugoslavia Quot said Modris Eksteins a historian at the University of Toronto in Canada. Sarajevo is a textbook example of the changed attitudes toward military intervention. According to Eksteins a lesson has been Learned and arrogance humbled. The world plunged into a cataclysm because of an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914. This time despite the serbian siege atrocities throughout Bosnia and what Many see As a threat to Western values the26 United states France Britain and Russia have found reasons not to be dragged into the Balkans it was different in 1914, before instant Media when arrangements that changed the course of history often were made in private. Europe had finished a Century of relative peace. The Industrial revolution gave the ruling classes Faith in Progress. But Europe was divided among seven Powers largely equal in military strength. They nurtured alliances and armed for a War Many thought inevitable even desirable. In 1914, Sarajevo Lay in the Southern reaches of the Austro hungarian Empire whose holdings included what Are now Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina next door to them was the kingdom of Serbia suspected in Vienna of fomenting slav separatism within the Empire. A serbian nationalist shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria to death in Sarajevo on june 2b, 1914, and Austria Hungary threatened Serbia with retaliation. Serbia appealed for Aid to its ally Russia. Austria called on Germany. Russia demanded help from France which coaxed Britain in. By August armies were mobilized and soldiers were dying in a painting shows Allied and German leaders meeting in a Railroad in Northern France before signing the armistice ending world War i. France Belgium and the Balkans. Before the year was out the ottoman Empire a what is now Turkey and the Middle East a joined Germany Japan cast its lot with the allies Italy did the same in 1915 and the United states followed in 1917. Fighting spread to the the arabian. Peninsula the Dardanelles and Central Asia even to Africa China and the Falkland islands. The world encountered total War. Germany sent submarines to sink passenger liners it suspected of carrying War supplies. Aircraft bombed London. Britain blockaded Germany. Turks massacred armenians. Women s liberation got a boost when a generation before Rosie the Riveter French women worked in munitions factories so men could go to the front. Every available Man went tens of millions from the belligerent nations and their far Flung empires. They found War of attrition on a scale unimagined and Industrial age weapons a machine guns Poison Gas rapid fire artillery air planes tanks siege guns that could flatten a City Block a entrusted to generals weaned on Napoleon s campaigns. Under mind shattering barrages of High explosive shells men huddled in trenches in a misery of mud lice poor food and disease until ordered Over the top into the hell of no Man s tand. Generals promised decisive victories in Short Battles. They delivered neither. The stars and stripes continued on Page 27 monday december 6# 1993
