Onelvi Martinez
5/16/18
English III
Ms. Edvalson
What if the great war never happened?
If history could have the biggest what if? As one it would probably come out as What if the great war never happened? How would the course of the human race and history change if this never were to occur and what would take its place afterwards? As a great doctor once said “Conflict often sparks the brings out the best and worst in humanity.” To understand the opposite of this incident we must explain the history behind what caused this conflict to all start. It all started on June 28th when Archduke Franz Ferdinand decided to ride through the city Sarajevo, Bosnia where a secret organization called the black hand would plan to assassinate him that day when it came the day for action to be taken they would try to take him out by shooting him or trying to bomb him but every time the bombs malfunctioned or guns jammed getting them arrested in the act until the driver took a wrong turn to the destination where Gavrilo Princip was waiting and ran towards the Archduke shooting him in straight through the neck and hitting his wife in the abdomen he would perish an hour later. The death of one man would throw the entire world into an all-out frenzy making entire empires fall and making the foundation for new ones to rise, this would setup the world stage for another world war and the cold war. But what if the driver didn’t take the wrong turn and took the right turn towards the palace how would the world and the grand scheme of things change things and what would replace the grand scientific and technologic advances we accomplished what would take its place if we didn’t have that today?
Over the course searching for research on my topic my three main sources of information were documentaries, history websites detailing the course of events from 20th century to the 21st and a book written by Peter Tsouras called “Over the top: alternate histories of the first world war.” Documentaries that I watched from the history channel, BBC and National geographic contained great sources of information so I would search these Documentaries gave a great source from trusted sources from these history channels often providing facts and images never seen before until they showed it so it was great find to put on display.
I would be digging along history websites when searching throughout google many were helpful some were repetitive often just saying the same thing from the start it took about a good whole week trying to find to find 5 websites that were direct with its message and provided enough information that even if I had to use one alone it sustains itself enough to help me get through this paper without any complication or flaw to hold me back from writing.
But the biggest help was a book my dad brought for my eighth-grade graduation that I wanted so much since it made my mind crave the knowledge to know its contents, a book written by Peter Tsouras called “Over the top: alternate histories of the first world war.” It opened my mind to alternatives viewpoints that could have been today’s history if such and such never happened or did happen. So, I went to my room pulled it off my dusty bookshelf and started to go through it again analyzing each detail how timelines would be affected by a small or grand scale.
The great war pushed science years forward 30 years ahead of its time coming with ground breaking discoveries to powerful titans rolling the lands moving throughout no man’s land to winged barons raining hell from above and truly. These were the main two staple marks of WW1 production changing warfare years from the tactics and weapons evolved in every conflict. But under the sea roamed a bigger threat the “German U-boat” or “submarine” in its proper term was effective assets to naval warfare from remaining undetected and this was first machine to use “Hydrophones” which was able to produce sonar sound waves to locate other naval ships, while many years later sonar would be used for medical purposes in the mid 1970’s able to find internal problems such as tumors, cancer, etc.… But science wasn’t just extended to warfare alone it greatly increased the medical department, amputations were done in great quantities to bacterial infections. Due to the massive scale of WWI, the number and variation of injuries from battle was extraordinarily high, and required quick transportation and treatment of the injured. During the war the first ever blood transfusion was performed during the early parts of the great war although blood bags couldn’t be stored for long until 1917 when US doctor Captain Oswald Robertson discovered the use of sodium citrate in the storage of blood, establishing the first blood bank.
While the first world war saw the use of weapons on a scale unseen in the years before 1914, as well as many inventions geared towards large-scale destruction, it also provoked a lot of scientific and medical progress greatly affecting how we perform medical outbreaks and diseases. Without the war and the scientific advances that it brought, medical procedures and drugs might not have been developed. For instance, chemotherapy is used widely today, and the infection of wounds is relatively uncommon. While it is hard to ignore the massive amount of death and destruction brought by war, the challenges and pressures of wartime have historically driven necessarily fast developments in science, technology, medicine and engineering – many of which have gone on to have wider reaching potential in peacetime as well.
On the global scale of change many countries that have developed or downgrade after the great war. But if we were to take a different route alternated the changes that would occur we must first focus on the biggest change which was Russia’s change from Autocratic to communist due to the heavy failures that weighed upon them by their defeats. Meanwhile on the other side of the globe America grown in a godly rate because of their involvement with war creating technology that would evolve the world we live for both side of the coin. Great Britain’s empire would never expand its empire to the Suez Canal increasing the oil power they would receive to power their navy to rule the Atlantic Ocean. Germany would still have its federal monarchy still having the figure Kaiser Wilhelm II leading the country and the six independents countries that were supposed to form from the fall of German power and ottoman empire collapse were Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Estonia. Without this setup, many key figures like Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin would never cause another great conflict to arise around the newly scattered Europe. Still going on that note Germany would not have been punished at Versailles and young Hitler could not use the people’s grievances to rise himself into power and horrific events of the holocaust and Ukrainian genocide committed by these two superpowers would never occur and cease being a tragic staple in history we look back to.
The world would face many change over the course post world war 1 from minor to grand scales movements that solidify great figures into history such as Malcom x, Rosa parks, Lucy stone and Picasso. Without World war 1 many grand figures would never have the backbone to support their movements, the civil rights movement had the backbone of the Harlem hell fighters that fought showing that African Americans fought as equals to the white Americans on the battlefield this would cause a great influence during the civil rights era where Executive Order 9981 allowed African Americans and other races to serve in the military without being discriminated. Also during the same time period the women’s suffrage had received great leverage due to their involvements and nurses and doctors supporting the troops coming back from the trenches injured or close to death and they would try heal them up to the best of their ability. Not only just movements but after the great war the roaring twenties were born with many farmers booming in cash from their crops to feed the war-torn Europe and many stockbrokers were changing the wealth of the country. But without this conflict the birth of World war 2 would never occur and shortly right after World war 2, the cold war started causing two superpowers to be at each other throats almost causing the world to go into an apocalypse state with nuclear warheads along with the Cuban missile crisis where almost everything hit the fan.
After rounding up all the research, I concluded that a world without “World war 1” or “The great war” would only push back the world 45 years behind technology alongside the development of countries. Although without tens of millions of deaths, European countries and societies would have likely put more work into building their economies. Germany would have become an ecumenical, scientific and cultural powerhouse that would be revered around the world. While the united states would be isolated from the rest of the world, this would also cause dent in tolerance of the rights of woman and for many years later for the civil rights movement with African Americans, Jews and other monitories trying to fight for their rights as citizens. Russia would never become a communist country causing a genocide in Ukraine and sparking a cold conquest for nuclear domination with America causing the cold war. As stated before the great affect this timeline would have effect on the world is the scientific achievements not just only the military advancements but also medical, communication, roads, air travel and even bringing human to the moon in 60’s. The world would have been completely different who knows the possibilities and outcomes that would alternate timelines maybe changing Germany into superpower or historical figures like Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill are shown as a staple mark in history that people remember by and align to. A famous saying, I follow idly by an Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli “There is no avoiding war it can only be postponed to the advantages of others.” Even with the failed assassination attempt on archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria world war 1 would still come around sooner or later it was only just a matter of time and who wanted to push hard enough to start this conflict and life would still find a way to evolve and go on to the way we are today
The meaning I learned behind this question was that many of our great achievements throughout the 20th century came from one conflict that would shake the world forever changing nations, almost spawning a nuclear conflict between two superpowers at each other’s throat. While giving birth to air travel that would spawn great stories such as the German red baron and his flying circus or Emilia Earhart crossing the Atlantic alone as the first woman pilot.
Or the Harlem hell fighters that fought in the trenches alongside the French showed they were equal to the white soldiers back home that saw them as inferior, helping them setup the path for civil rights that would pass the civil rights movements in 1964. But this war would also spark up rarely recognized conflict in the middle east Asia and Asia with the hostility growing between China and Japan and shift the world the world into a brewing storm for once artist now prime minister would push the world into the brink of darkness and causing the most horrific genocide which would actually coin the term “Genocide” leaving Europe in shambles after the war. But it’s due to this conflict that we live in the world were technology has the capabilities to do great things.