On chance

I was recently reading some more material on the staggering linkage of events and decisions over a month and a bit that led to World  War  One (WW1) happening when it did.

Note that last phrase: “when it did”.

As:

• many of the nations of Europe (and I include the United Kingdom in that) were swaggering and bristling with toxic masculinity & stupid ideas about what constituted “greatness” (basically, they wrongly considered greatness was measured by a combination of how many nations / how much land was enslaved to them & how many people / nations feared them), and
• given the rise of new nation-empires & the decline / inadequate pace of change of old nation-empires,

some sort of violent conflict (i.e., war) based “readjustment” was inevitable.

And that would set off another round of:

• resentments in the losers, and
• hubris-braggadocio in the winners,

which would lead to yet another rhyming of the  Thucydides  trap.

However, going back to the confluences that did lead to WW1 when it actually did, let’s have a look at the sequence of mischances that led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who, nasty human being though he was, may have been planning to make change to improve the lot of minorities in the Austro-Hungarian army):

• plans for security were downgraded to avoid offending the local populace;
• the special security officers were left behind, rather than being included in the motorcade as originally planned;
• a bomb was thrown at the car with the Archduke, his wife (the Duchess Sophie), and others in it, but bounced off a folded down roof and exploded under the car behind, wounding up to a score of people
  (The assassin tried to commit suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill and jumping in a river, but the tablet was old and only made him ill, and the river was only inches deep);
• the motorcade sped up in response and the next three assassins didn’t react as it went by, but one subsequently decided to go to a location where he might have another chance;
• once the motorcade reached safety, a proposal to bring in troops was overruled as they wouldn’t have the correct type of uniforms . . . (and there was the comment “Do you think that Sarajevo is full of assassins?”, which rates up with the Union General in the US  Civil  War whose last words were “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”);
• the Archduke and Duchess decided to change their planned itinerary and visit those wounded by the bombing. But the specific revised route was NOT told to the drivers . . . ;
• as they continued on their way, the driver of the car with the Archduke and Duchess in it was told he was going the wrong way, so he stopped it, and then stalled the car when he tried to reverse . . . almost  right in front of one of the assassins (I count that as a double coincidence);
• that assassin forced his way through the crowd, got onto the footboard of the car (earlier in the day, one person had been standing there in a protective role . . . and where were they now?), and fired twice - mortally wounding the Archduke (one of his targets) and the Duchess (not one of his targets: he claimed to have wanted to kill a Governor sitting beside her), and they were both dead within little more than half an hour.
  (Bystanders seized the assassin, stopped him committing suicide, beat him, and held him until police arrived.)

So . . . apart from the background (freedom of self-determination vs. imperialism, nationalism, human rights vs. oppression, etc) and preparations (training, supply of weapons, planning by a rogue group) that led up to that day, there were around ten or so matters that, had any one of them gone differently (e.g., stopped a little further up the street, not stalled, left people on the footboard, not been able to get through the crowd, or jostled so as to miss shooting the main target), WW1 may not have occurred at  that  time.

There would still have been some sort of reaction (the Archduke was furious after the bombing), and that reaction may have been severe, but without a significant trigger like the assassination, I doubt they would have been as extreme as actually did occur, and thus there is a good chance that events would not have led to a world war (it would have been more like the preceding Balkan wars).

As I mentioned already, there would also have been a major conflict at some time, but had it been delayed a couple of years, it is possible that Russia would have been better prepared, and that may have changed the conduct of the Eastern Front, the balance of strength between the two sides, and thus the conduct and maybe the outcome of the war.

Similarly, there was also a long string of events during the subsequent July Crisis that, had they gone differently, could have led to WW1 not happening at that time. For instance, consider if:

• Austria had taken action within, say, a week - which would have led to a stack of very valid criticism of Austria, but may have averted the massive bloodletting and empire destruction of WW1;
• what if Russia had not moved to a full mobilisation;
• what if the Kaiser had actually kept his military in line;
• what if any of a dozen or more people had acted with integrity.

That time was extremely complex, and a whole series of interconnecting events happened in a relatively short period - with some staggering lies, duplicity, and underhanded conduct. To get a feel for that, have a look at the table of contents of the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=July_Crisis&oldid=1017779805, which lists 15 major events and 20 sub-events in a 37 day period.

There’s an excellent book on what could have happened - for better or for worse - had WW1 been avoided: “Archduke Ferdinand Lives! A World without World War One”, by Richard  Neb  Lebow.

On the other hand, good coincidences can occur as well - such as Vasili Arkhipov being on a Russian submarine that was being hunted by the US Navy during the Cuban  Missile  Crisis. After several days of being hunted, with no contact from Russia, extreme heat and high carbon dioxide levels, and understandably high levels of stress and fear, the captain wanted to launch a nuclear armed torpedo, which was supported by the political officer. However, as Arkhipov was onboard and was the flotilla commander, he also got a say, and voted no - and, as unanimity was required, the world was saved from an event that would likely have been all the gung-ho militaries on both sides needed to destroy the world with a nuclear war.

There have been other such close calls . . .

We, as a world, need to get beyond good or bad luck.

We’ve taken some excellent steps towards that:

• the US-USSR hotline (commonly referred to as the Red Phone);
• development of international diplomacy and relations over several centuries culminating in the - flawed - United  Nations;
• widespread (although not widespread enough) training and education of both experts & everyday people; and
• a media that - patchily - brings what needs to be known to the fore.

On the other hand, we have some dodgy, disreputable and downright evil media, we still have nations wanting their version of superiority (aka “great power”) and fear in others, and we still have too much gross disrespect for - and cowardly evasion of - human rights, democracy, and freedom.

We also, as a species, need to recognise that the survival of the current ecosystems of the world (i.e., properly responding to the climate crisis) is essential for our continuation. We need to stop viewing that crisis as an excuse to peddle tiny inconsequential matters (much like someone I knew decades ago who thought the transition of a TGD person at work was an excuse to peddle their ideas on tiny inconsequential matters - almost as if it was a teaching exercise rather than a matter of survival).

We need to do better - at all levels (not only the rulership/leadership level) and in all spaces (not just the political / economic - the personal also [although I am very mindful of the saying “the  personal  is  political”], to be inclusive, to be tolerant (the word has validity outside of human rights and inclusion / diversity matters, as it can mean tolerance of political differences), and to have a broader perspective on life.