T.S. Eliot may have gotten it wrong when he penned “April is the cruelest month” as the opening line to his 1922 poem The Wasteland. What about August?
It was August 1914 when the carnage known as the Great War commenced in earnest. Tensions in Europe had been building for years. There was no lack of discontent among the Balkan states within the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire. European powers were competing for colonial expansion, mostly in Africa. Germany feared being surrounded by Russia on one side and France and the U.K. on the other. Germany’s huge naval military buildup was particularly aimed at Britain: To some extent, England owned the world, and Germany wanted it.
A Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. Austria seized upon the event as a casus belli. Austria was emboldened. In an agreement resembling a Teutonic blood oath, the Kaiser had promised to back Austria to the hilt in any conflict that might arise.
Tsar Nicolas’s allegiance to Russia’s Slavic cousins overshadowed his reluctance to get into a war with the European powers: the tsar issued an ultimatum to Vienna, hoping that if he threatened to mobilize, the Austrians would back off. However, on July 23, Austria gave Serbia only two days to agree to a list of 10 ultimatums that were deemed humiliating and egregious enough to force Serbia to reject them. Some historians say Serbia accepted them; others say Serbia offered a compromise. No matter: Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28. Russia responded by mobilizing her reserve troops along the border with Austria-Hungary on July 30.
Germany then issued an ultimatum to Russia to demobilize. When Russia refused, Germany issued the order to mobilize on July 31 and declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914.
It would be a while before Russia and Germany would come to blows. Count Alfred von Schlieffen, former chief of the German General Staff, had developed a plan in 1905 to quickly defeat France by going through Belgium and northern France to avoid Germany having to fight a two-front war against Russia. In the years leading up to 1914, war between Germany and France was regarded as inevitable, such that the logical result of Germany’s mobilization was to attack France. German mobilization kickstarted the meticulously planned process to move troops and materiel by trains, trucks, etc. into position to attack and defeat France within six weeks.
As France was aware of this plan, she issued the call for mobilization on August 1, 1914 so as not to be overrun before she could react. (As part of the hellish spiral of alliances that sucked dozens of countries into the war in varying degrees, France could not be seen as initiating war with Germany, so as not to endanger the French-British alliance that guaranteed Britain’s defense of France.)
During the month between the archduke’s assassination and the war declarations, there were numerous telegrams, communiqués, exchanges and visits among diplomats, politicians, and military leaders involving the countries that would soon engage in a world war that could easily have been averted. Arrogance and hubris led Germany, England, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary to believe that the war would be over by Christmas at the latest. The fact remains that world leaders got the First World War because they wanted it.
So during this August, 101 years later, is it hyperbole to ask if we are in danger of repeating or exceeding the carnage of the first half of the 20th century?
On July 27, the German government “submitted a formal Letter of Request to the United States to procure the Typhon mobile missile system.”
The Typhon system can employ both the Tomahawk cruise missile, which has a 1600 kilometre range, and the SM-6 multi-purpose missile which can be used for both ballistic missile defence and for medium-range anti shipping. The German Defence Ministry is reportedly primarily interest [sic] in the long range strike capabilities provided by the Tomahawk.
President Putin reacted with fury at this announcement, as the Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile can reach Moscow from German territory in 10 minutes.
On Tuesday, July 29, President Trump announced he had shortened Moscow’s timeline “from 50 days to just 10 to show progress on ending the war in Ukraine. If Russia fails to comply, Washington will impose fresh tariffs and sanctions.” Based upon information published in June, Russia and Ukraine are still worlds apart when it comes to agreeing on terms to end the war.
The spark that sets off an out-of-control chain reaction can be ignited in unlikely places. Take Kaliningrad, for example. Formerly known as Königsberg, the 70-km-wide slice of land was under German control until the Allies ceded the territory to the Soviet Union in 1946. Kaliningrad is a strategic port that houses Russia’s Baltic fleet and is one of the most militarized regions in Europe. It is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, and the only Russian land access to Kaliningrad consists of a rail line in a strip of land called the Suwalki Gap that runs through Lithuania from Belarus to Kaliningrad.
Since June 2022, Lithuania has been restricting rail transit of European-sanctioned goods to and from Kaliningrad. Just a couple weeks ago, U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander General Chris Donahue added to the tension by saying NATO forces could capture Kaliningrad “in a timeframe that is unheard of” if necessary, which elicited the following response:
Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, warned that any attack on Kaliningrad would trigger retaliatory measures. “An attack on the Kaliningrad region is tantamount to an attack on Russia,” Slutsky said, according to Russian state-owned TASS news agency. “With all the corresponding retaliatory measures, including the use of nuclear weapons.”
Harrumph. Is that just another Russian Bear bluff? If Western military leaders were to deem it somehow “necessary” to take Kaliningrad, might that provoke Russia into attacking one of the several NATO countries that border Russia, thus triggering NATO’s Article 5 and blasting the lid off the box of nuclear war wide open?
Pray for peace, for mercy, for forgiveness.
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