FReepmail me to get on or off this list

If any of you are still lurking in this Jacobin pit. Been a long time since I pinged the list, mainly because I simply don't come here alot. If anyone is more active and wants to take over the list send me a frmail.

A victory for Germany would have avoided bolshevism in Russia and the Second World War. We don't know what would have replaced these calamities though.

The Western civilization committed a suicide in 1914. No matter who won in 1918, the social, spiritual and cultural collapse would have continued, perhaps along a slightly improved trajectory.

And now I am going to read the article....

No. Russia's monarchy would have suffered the same fate - defeat, actual or perceived, would have killed it off. The only winning move for Russia was not to play.

Those who organised the Black Hand movement to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand have a lot to answer for.

Regards, Ivan

While we're rehashing early 20th century history, I may as well lay some blame at the door of King Edward VII, the man who took over the throne after Queen Victoria.

Edward liked to go to Paris, drink, smoke cigars and have inappropriate relationships with actresses. Because he liked Paris, as King, he set up a peace treaty with France, without the express wishes of the British Government. This was the Entente Cordiale, which set us up on the side of the French and Russians. We did not need this. We had no interest in doing this. And we paid dearly for this in the First World War.

Thanks a lot, Eddie.

Regards, Ivan

Yes, but a strong Germany would have been a check on the Bolshevik expansion, if even it had gone permanently Bolshevik under these circumstances.

As the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk showed, the Germans were prepared to parlay with the Bolsheviks. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest they actually funded Lenin's activities (there is a deficit in the accounts of his party which can only be explained by financial assistance from Germany).

If the Germans were prepared to support the Whites, then it might be a different matter, but that is not altogether clear.

Regards, Ivan

Sure the Germans funded the Bolsheviks.

Brest-Litovsk was no "party". The Germans owned the Ukraine and felt no need to occupy Russia proper. Brest-Litovsk was a virtual capitulation by the Soviets to that fact.

"A victory for Germany would have avoided bolshevism in Russia and the Second World War"

--- Recall though that it was the Germans who shipped Lenin at al on a sealed train into Russia.

Yes, to take Russia out of the war.

The scenario in the article is, Germany abandons the Schliffen plan, leaves France alone, and fights Russia. Despite treaty obligations, France and Britain then engage in an earlier case of funny war, because their livelihood is not threatened by the events on the Eastern Front. The Russian Empire collapses, but without the exhaustion of a 3-year trench warfare, the Bolshies have no chance and instead a weak and democratic government is established. Russia stays benign, German interests are directed toward the East, and the Western civilization dies at a slower rate.

The war started because the Tsar's government supported Serbian regicides. While I do not approve of the deal with Lenin in the least, it has a sort of tragic poetic justice to it.

I didn't realize you were still here. (I'm usually not either.)

I doubt very much that Tsar Nicholas II or his government in 1914 knew about the connections between Gavrilo Princip, the Black Hand, and the Serbian government.

What I don't know is whether Kaiser Wilhelm II personally authorized the deal with Lenin. I get the impression that he was not really in control of much by 1918. Certainly Bl. Emperor Karl was horrified when he learned of the plan. But of course no one on either side was listening to him...

Russia started to lose its lofty principles when the Russian ambassador was permitted to stand at a playing of la Marseillaise. I am fairly certain that this was in the very late nineteenth century.

After that, it's a small step to supporting Serbian regicides.

But history plays tricks. So the French monarchy was bankrupted by its support for the American rebels, only to be toppled later by its own rebels, with the ungrateful Yankees cheering on the executioners of their former beneficiary.

Sort of like the Americans supporting the mujahadeen against the Russians in Afganistan, only to have them turn on us.

Yes. But according to Robert K. Massie in Nicholas and Alexandra it wasn't just the ambassador:

Despite the great differences in their political systems, the needs of diplomacy had made military allies of Europe's greatest republic and its most absolute autocracy...In 1891, the French fleet visited Kronstadt, and the Autocrat of all the Russias stood bareheaded while the bands played the Marseillaise. Until that moment it had been a criminal offense to play this revolutionary song anywhere in the Tsar's dominions. (p. 60)

An unfortunate exception to Alexander III's otherwise "reactionary" reign.

So the French monarchy was bankrupted by its support for the American rebels, only to be toppled later by its own rebels, with the ungrateful Yankees cheering on the executioners of their former beneficiary.

That's about the most concise and accurate summary of the events of the 18th century I've read. Today, of course, American neocon dimwits despise the French (for all the wrong reasons), forgetting that if it hadn't been for French aid there might not be a United States to dominate the world...