November 05, 2004

The WWI Document Archive I found this when I was looking for biographical information on the Serb nationalist who killed Kaiser Wilhelm. The archive also has great bits like the Constitution of the Black Hand and the Young Turk Proclamation. Also take a look at the thoroughly hilarious Zabern affair!.

In studying the Middle East right now, there's also a lot of parallels to be drawn between British and French policies of that era and US policies now. And I find the WWI era to be generally under-represented, with regard to its big brother WWII. This was the beginning of modern death, and influenced countless artists and writers. I doubt a war like this can happen again, but that's mostly because of wars like this. Maybe in a another hundred years, we'll have forgotten and it will become more likely.

posted by js 19 years ago
  • cool link, js! I was kind of a WWI nut back in college. It's interesting to link more recent wars (WWII, Vietnam, the mess in the middle east) to the fallout of WWI.
  • The Serb nationalist who killed Kaiser Wilhelm? Do you mean Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
  • Cool stuff. Thanks! Very screwball.
  • Great link. I have been becoming somewhat knowledgeable about WWII, but my understanding of WWI is rather limited. Thanks!
  • I'd say it's more wack.
  • Yeah,I meant Franz Ferdinand. Total misscue on my part. Still, I find all of this really neat... But that's why I posted it. (I wish instead of "screwball", they had translated it as "wackjob").
  • And apparently has never been redesigned since then. Ish. But an interesting resource. I went through a WWI interest a couple of years ago myself. Did any of the rest of you read Niall Ferguson's "The Pity of War", and, if so, what did you think of his hypothesis?
  • briank: I haven't read the Ferguson... what's his hypothesis? I did read Paul Fussell's _The Great War and Modern Memory_, which I quite enjoyed. (Though if you ask his ex wife Betty's book _My Kitchen Wars_, Paul does not come off well! She claims to have done a great deal of his research for no credit. Ah, to be a wife of an old-school academic...)
  • can anyone shed light on the origins or purpose of the German helemt with the spike on top ("pickelhaube" I believe) -- was it ceremonial, or intended as a weapon? Were they supposed to lower their heads and spear peopl?
  • "spear people" that is
  • Excellent link! Allow me to point out, in case anyone wants to investigate the "Zabern affair" further, that since WWI Zabern has been the French town of Saverne. (Both forms derive from the Latin Tres Tabernae, which means 'three taverns.")
  • Pickelhaube Evolution. Decorative intent, apparently. and TYVM, languagegat!
  • I believe the point was merely decorative, though I can't be positive (Prussians are more stylish than Germans). Neat link, mwb.