The Unraveling: A Preview

Here are some excerpts from my work-in-progress. I am planning on naming it “The Unraveling: A History of World War I”. Let me know if you wish to review it before its release.

“Charles Darwin, the man who introduced the theory of evolution with his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, isn’t often credited as the one who sowed the seeds of the Great War but his evolutionary theory, coupled with the further philosophizing of men like Herbert Spencer, the father of Social Darwinism, did much to cause the First World War.
Social Darwinism declares that man is currently evolving, not biologically but socially, and that some men are further along in the process than others. The secondary title of Darwin’s book demonstrates this concept. To men like Darwin and Spencer, and many European leaders for that matter, “natural selection” meant that some “favored” races would be preserved by a process of elimination where only the strongest survive. This mindset gave birth to the phrase, “survival of the fittest”.
But you contend, “How can philosophies and scientific theories cause catastrophic wars?” The phrase goes “ideas have consequences” does it not? Indeed, ideas do have consequences, sometimes cataclysmic ones. Historians will tell you that World War I was fought because a head of state was assassinated or because Germany was an aggressive, militaristic empire. The truth is, come 1914, all the great European powers were aggressive, militaristic empires. The truth is, the great unraveling had been building up for a long time. A superiority complex had been formed and nurtured in Western civilization and when it grew to full maturity, war was practically inevitable.”

“Germany found itself fighting for survival and thereby making new enemies and rivals with each new decade’s dawn. Germany may have been a military machine but not without cause. The basis of German militarism was the “natural selection” of the Western nations and the German’s desire to be the last man standing.”

“If there ever was a “shot heard around the world” it was the shot that killed Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia on June 28, 1914. This shot culminated in the unraveling of the world and the end of the Napoleonic age and the dawn of the modern age.”

“The Battle of the Marne was decisive but it may have been in the better interests of humanity that this fight ended in German victory. While the consequences of a short war would have been hard to swallow for nations like Great Britain and France, the war would not have grown into the catastrophic event that it was. The war would hardly have tipped the world upside down like it did. When we consider the “miracle of the Marne” let us also soberly consider the consequences to the world which the Allied victory caused.”

“1914 had taught the warring nations that victory would not come to them as easily as they anticipated. It had taught them the hard realities of modern warfare and the hard reality that the glory which had once accompanied battle was now extinct.”

Stay tune for more updates as we near the release date!

Note: This post is part of a series of blogpost on the First World War, leading up to the release of “World War I: The Unraveling of the World” by Jace Bower in the Fall of 2014. To see other posts in this series, type “Unraveling” in the search bar located in the top right corner of this page.