Short History of the 'Great Wars'

Took me a long time to write this (always in my head). And always remember this: Lee Kuan Yew related in his biography a conversation with Indira Gandhi about why India could not change some of its old customs. Indira Gandhi said something like this 'we are all covered by the dust of history'. With that, here is what I keep for my little 'tryst with destiny'.


Since the time of Charlemagne (about 800 AD), the Franks (present day French and Germans) were the lords of Western Europe. They were the ‘heirs’ to the Western Roman Empire (guess who had the East?), and took turns to claim it in the form of the Holy Roman Empire till the 18th century.

That was a long time and not so long ago.

One of the many people ‘super-power’ and Catholic Charlemagne whacked was the then paganish Saxons, and his offer to them upon victory was baptism or death. So the other fella gave in.

Always on the fringe of Europe, the other fella nevertheless remained a constant thorn on the side belly of Europe (the history surrounding the Spanish Armada is a good example). But full reversal of fortunes was only to be played out many centuries later.

At the end of the 19th century, Prussia (present day Germany) was catching up with the Industrial Revolution and fast developing. Together with the US it was considered 2nd only to Britain. Good quality and cheap Prussian goods were beginning to flood the European markets.

Credited largely to Bismark, this period was proudly known to the Germans as the 2nd Reich (the 1st Reich being the Holy Roman Empire - should be obvious but have to be explicit for the less endowed readers).

Prussia attracted and had a huge pool of talented scientific minds from the likes of Planck to Einstein, and consequentially had the most Nobel prize laureates of that period. This long history and technological prowess were the source of Teutonic pride and arrogance (that later showed its worst in Hitler’s ‘Aryan Supremacy’).

It was also the height of the industrial age, and automobiles and the likes raised the importance of oil and the desire to control it. These factors combine to drive Prussia’s desire for a bigger share of the colonial pie, and were cause for concern for the other European powers surrounding it like Britain, France & Russia.

These other powers therefore took concerted effort to limit the growth of Prussian influence and starve Prussia of both raw materials especially oil and market (which the other powers’ colonies amply provided).

See an example of how they piss Prussia off here - http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_cckplanetblog_archive.html.

As the other powers of Europe were for various reasons relatively weaker (the French for example relied on Britain as ‘king maker’ and guarantor of security) the real antagonists at that time were Britain aided by the US (a.k.a. Anglo-Saxons) and Prussia.

So the British got the French and Russians together in a ‘Triple Entente’ against Prussia and Bismark's 'Triple Alliance' which included Austria-Hungary and Italy (Italy as centre of the old Roman Empire should know who the big brothers of Western Europe are).

The US, already harboring ambitions of its own, was not a bystander.

An example of the deliberate attempt to ‘keep the lid’ on Prussia was an exchange in 1910 (years before WW I) between British politician Arthur Balfour and the American ambassador to Britain where the former explicitly suggested that a war with Prussia be started so that their countries’ ‘standard of living’ will not be lowered by the lost of trade (which of course were highest by virtue of the size of the empire they were milking), and to keep their supremacy.

Japan after being insulted by an American fella by the name of Commodore Perry in the mid 19th century, embarked on a modernisation period commonly known as the Meiji Restoration. The insult arose because the Americans wanted a safe base from which they ‘cover’ northeast Asia, and an island off the coast of China was ideal.

By start of the 20th century, Japan considered itself a world power with rights to ‘Asia’ (a name popularized by them for that purpose), and promptly demonstrated that by defeating the Russians and occupying chunks of northeast Asia.

When WWI started, they joined on the side of the ‘Allies’ hoping to get into the good books of the ‘greatest power’ then (Britain and its then deputy sheriff the US). Always safer to bet on the biggest bully! Their weakening of the Russians earlier (which the British appreciated) also helped them gain entry to the ‘club’.

WW I started largely with this back drop, and resulted in about 8 million casualties with Russia, France, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary having more than 1 million casualties each, and the ‘British Empire’ just a tad below 1 million.

The result of this war was the weakening of all powers involved (except the US which officially stayed out till 1917 which was towards the end), and effectively started the beginning of the end of the European powers, and (luckily for many of us) the colonial era.

Towards the later part of WW I, the Balfour Declaration was one of the excuses used by Britain to occupy the Middle East and control the area. That and conflicting agreements with the French and Arabs to gain their support against the Ottoman Empire (fighting on the side of Prussia) were behind some of the biggest problems our world witness today – the Palestinian problem and the politics/wars of Middle East oil exemplified by the occupation of Iraq today.

The Balfour Declaration, openly addressed to Jewish financier Lord Rothschild was intended to draw the support of Jewish financiers around the world in the war against Prussia in exchange for carving a piece of land in Palestine for the creation of a state for the Jewish people. For those with less imagination, the Balfour Declaration is akin to Britain giving an undertaking to Wee Cho Yaw to occupy a piece of China so that the Wee clan in Singapore can return to stay there.

A Rothschild once said “I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply”.

Such arrogance and perceived Jewish support of the ‘Allies’ coupled with the fact that Balfour was part Jew were likely reasons for the German’s utter dislike/suspicion of Jews after that (anti-Semitism in Europe was common from before Charlemagne and not likely to be the only reason).

After Prussia surrendered, the Versailles Treaty subjected Prussia to among others punitive war reparations of such unreasonable magnitude and doubtlessly intended to continue to keep the lid on Prussia, that John Maynard Keynes (famous economist whose views present day text-book academics only know selectively) representing the British Treasury in the treaty negotiations, resigned publicly in protest and predicted ominously that it would result in great dissatisfaction on the part of the vanquished (the same observations were made by others).

That plus the Great Depression of the 1930s formed the background for the next and greatest of all wars - WW II.

Hitler and Nazism were as much a result of WW I as cause of WW II. If the use of ‘I’ and ‘II’ is not telling enough, then Hitler’s use of 3rd Reich should.

To make things worse, before starting negotiations for the surrender, Prussia had thought that terms of no annexations and indemnities previously offered by the US as peace brokers would be kept. This is was not to be the case after they surrendered and it is not likely the Germans would have forgotten that till today.

The strategic and geopolitical context of WW II was no different for every key participant – control of markets and source of oil & raw materials critical for further growth and prosperity (Balfour’s so-called maintaining of ‘standard of living’).

This time, Japan joined the Germans. The reason: they were pissed they did not get their fair share of spoils in Asia after WWI.

This time America (with the 'smarter' British this time) again let the others fight it out and exhaust themselves before they joined in as ‘victors’ when the beginning of the end had already begun. For the most part of WW II and to the chagrin of the desperate East Europeans, they used various excuses to remain on the fringes and entered the ‘European theater’ only after the tide had turned on Germany in mid-1944. By then, the brunt of the war and casualties had already been borne by the East Europeans and Germans – about 40 million casualties (the British & Americans suffered less than 1 million casualties in the entire war).

Likewise, Asians were left to their own devices during the Japanese occupation until the atom bomb was deployed – by then more than 10 million Chinese and countless other Asians had died in the hands of Japan which thanks to the ‘bomb’ had close to 2 million casualties.

This approach combined with the resulting exodus of wealth & talent from everywhere to the US safe haven as result of the various conflicts elsewhere over the centuries resulted in the single super power order we have today.

We also see this ‘fomenting of conflict every where else but my own home’ approach in recent times in the Korean peninsula, Taiwan Straits, Middle East, Central Asia and Central Europe.

A reversal of this approach was also cited by Osama bin Ladin as a reason for his Sept 11 attacks - Osama's opinion is that the US should not be left to live comfortably at home while they sow turmoil elsewhere.

At the end of WW II, America and a weakened Britain needed Germany and Japan to stand in between them and Russia.

Unlike what some historical fools think, Russia was the one that won the war in Europe and therefore the new threat to the British & Americans.

For that reason and perhaps realizing the disastrous effects of Versailles that Keynes warned about, Germany got off this time with much smaller war reparation and the Marshall Plan.

Japan had better ‘luck’. It got away without needing to account seriously for its actions nor return stolen wealth and, according to some, for a share of the stolen wealth with the British/Americans.

Perhaps, like the Japanese, the Americans & British thought the other Asians are lesser beings for them to be bothered with that. Which is why Japan (unlike Germany) to this day remains arrogant and refuses to acknowledge its WW II misdeeds including the Nanking massacre where its soldiers raped and murdered an estimated quarter of a million Chinese in a 6 weeks frenzy, in many instances merely for fun or show of bravado as can be seen in photographs.

This ‘indebtedness’ and fear of Russia and the communist threat (real or otherwise), and not to mention their total lack of control of oil (have you heard of a Japanese or German oil company?) resulted in these nations remaining quietly subservient to the US and its interest throughout the ensuing Cold War.

Before the end of WW II, because of his economic insights and perhaps his ominous prediction the last time around (another indication why both wars were essentially one war), Keynes was asked to help draft a new economic world order on the part of the British.

Keynes suggested the setup of a global currency (to be known as Bancor) so that no country can be unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged.

It was an ideal the victorious politicians and their backers understood but would not accept. This resulted in Bretton Woods, and the use of the US Dollar as ‘de facto global reserve’ currency for the last 50 years.

Unlike Keynes, many present day half-baked economists seriously think today’s financial system is a perfect & fair system where all currencies are equally subject to the same rules which they think they understand (until you ask them to explain the likes of the Asian Financial Crisis and ‘irrational exuberance’).

This less than fair system was also the reason for Western Europe’s 40 year effort to create firstly the EU and then the Euro whose global effect we are seeing today.

France and Germany as big brothers of continental Europe since Charlemagme must surely be aware of the above history, and that they were at the short end of the stick for the turmoils of the last century.

The Euro and EU with Germany and France at its core now poses a new challenge to the Anglo-Saxon’s supremacy. We begin to see that recently with their opposition to the attack on Iraq. Bush’s people did not call Germany and France ‘Old Europe’ for no reason – he and his people are well aware of the history of the great wars and the heritage of Charlemagne.


Some quotes to contemplate with respect to the above:

If you will permit us to sacrifice your sons on the European battlegrounds, I promise you that this will be the final war — the war to end all wars — the war to make the world safe for democracy once and for all. – Woodrow Wilson before US joined WWI

I have said this before, but I will say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent to any foreign wars. – Franklin Roosevelt, campaign speech 1940.

"I have always said that I hoped if Great Britain were beaten in a war we should find a Hitler who would lead us back to our rightful place among nations." – Winston Churchill, letter to the Times

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. - Plato

CCK note: Plato was not incomplete. Some tyrants stir up wars in other people's home so that the latter will never get to grow peacefully and threaten their dominance.