By Vestnik Kavkaza
Last weekend the head of the Roman Catholic Church celebrated a Mass in memoriam of thousands of Italian soldiers who were killed during the First World War. He said that the world is on the edge of the third world war. “War is often justified by ideology, but in fact it is always a result of someone’s greed and longing for power. Even today after two world wars, we can speak about a third war that is going on in local conflicts, mass murders, genocide, and other crimes by aggressors and terrorists,” the Pope said.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church is not the only person who thinks that it is important to learn the lessons of the First World War today,
Sergey Karpov, the dean of the History Department of the MSU, is sure that the history of the First World War needs verification. “I am glad that our society (not the scientific community, but society; the situation is clear for the scientific community) that civic society has begun to consider the war as the greatest event in human history. There would have been no revolutions with the First World War, no collapses of the four great empires which used to be the backbone of Europe. The European picture changed. New states appeared on the map of Europe. New ideological theories appeared. New political activists appeared. The offended person syndrome appeared in Germany. And offence as a result of the war led to the Second World War. The sources of the Second World War, revolutions, Bolshevism as an ideology, new radical changes in people’s psychology are connected with the First World War,” Karpov is sure.
He thinks it is important to answer the questions: why did the war start? What was behind the scenario of the war? What capital flows and economic interests led to the war? Could the war have been avoided? “When they say that history knows no ‘if’, I agree with that but under the proviso: it knows no ‘if’, but it has an aspect – a history of missed opportunities. What opportunities were missed? What were the mechanisms which could have prevented the war? For example, I’m sure Nikolai II didn’t want the war. He did all his best to avoid the war. But public opinion, the social situation, the political situation made Russia participate in the war and it couldn’t avoid it. Russia had treaty obligations with the countries of the Triple Entente. Russia had friendly relations with Serbia and had to help it,” the academician says.
He recalls the role played by public opinion during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. “Actually, it made Alexander II, who was afraid of war and didn’t want to start a war for the liberation of Bulgaria and the Balkans in general. So, the first question is a preamble, the reasons for the war and the mechanisms that caused the war. And we should remember what the last country that entered the war was and what the results of the entrance were. I mean the United States. This issue is very interesting,” Karpov thinks.
“When they speak about ineffective management, poor commanders, they forget about amazing achievements. There was the Siege of Przemyśl at the beginning of the war, the Brusilov Offensive, the Caucasus front. Yudenich, the great prince Nikolai who commanded troops and others were distinguished on the Caucasus front. Great results were achieved. A ring of the Turkish army which strived for the Caucasus front was broken. Several victories were won near Manzikert, Kars and Trabzon. Actually, Russian troops almost reached the shore of the Black Sea and Giresun, moving toward Constantinople. There were various events which need serious and independent analysis.”
