ITT: Post your best WWI memes

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Thank god for the Onion.

I never understood how people found the onion humorous. I've seen a handful of gems throughout the years but most of that shit is straight up not funny.

it's really not that complex though

it's really simple, austria attacks serbia, so russia attacks austria. austria's ally germany attacks russia and france

britain joins when germany moves through belgium

turks join cos they're allied to germany

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The average high schooler has a hard enough time remembering when America gained it's independence, let alone remember Serbia's a real place and not a Disney kingdom

Youre ignoring all the secret treaties and backroom deals to divide up the old empires. FFS even history channel covers that part.

This doesn't address that serbians attacked franz and also doesn't address why France got involved.

The French were allied with the Russians.

>This doesn't address that serbians attacked franz
Because it was an irrelevant event.

France's alliance did not require that the French aid the slavs of Serbia when the Russians mobilized

The treaty was something "if Russia or france mobilise, the other party mobilize, also come in cae of defensive war"

>I've seen a handful of gems throughout the years but most of that shit is not extremely funny.
For you.
But I hope you do realize that humor differs. I do not find Monthy Python funny at all, but do like the Onion.

>so russia attacks austria
that isn't true though. Germany attacked Russia before Russia declared war on Austria. Russia had mobilised, but they hadn't actually declared war. Basically this pic is completely misleading - in fact, so is the general narrative of the start of WW1. Ultimately, it wasn't a complicated web of alliances that dragged everyone into war. It was just:

- Austria declares war on Serbia
- Germany declares war on everyone (Russia, France, Luxembourg, Belgium)

The only country that was actually dragged into the war because of an alliance with a nation under attack was Britain. Which is probably why this narrative has featured so heavily in explanations of the start of WW1, especially in English speaking countries. In reality, Germany started WW1 by launching invasions of four as yet neutral countries.


And for those of you about to say that Russia would have declared war on Austria and things would have happened more or less the same anyway, firstly, thanks to Germany we'll never know now, will we? And secondly it's entirely possible that they wouldn't have - the Russians were well aware of the weaknesses in their own military, particularly compared to Germany, and they would have much preferred to negotiate a settlement. Their intent was probably to leverage the threat of their armies on Austria's borders to incentivise Austria to negotiate a settlement after a short punitive military campaign against Serbia, thereby allowing the Austrians to say that they had retained their honour, and the Russians to claim that they had prevented the annexation of Serbia.

Russia and France mobilising were pretty much declarations of war. What, did they ready up all their military power and geared up for war just for shits and giggles, and their prior warnings and threats are somehow magically completely irrelevant?
>hey dude I'm going to kill you
>alright I pulled out my gun now
>okay I'm raising it up to point it at you now
>oh man why the fuck did you shoot me I didn't even open fire yet?!

>What, did they ready up all their military power and geared up for war just for shits and giggles
They readied up their military power because they knew that Germany was planning to attack.

>and their prior warnings and threats
meanwhile in the non-fictitious version of history, Russia sent multiple diplomatic messages to Germany assuring them that their mobilisation was purely defensive and expressing their desire for continuing peace with Germany. And France even pulled back its armies ten kilometres within its own borders to avoid the risk of an incident providing German with a pretext for war (and then Germany then went ahead and launched a raid across the border anyway).

>And France even pulled back its armies ten kilometres
>hey guys
>we have these millions of men and thousands of guns pointing your way and we're very revanchist about that one thing you did to us about 40 years ago so we want nothing but to see your burn
>but it's okay we'll take like one step back we cool right ;^)

>we're very revanchist
>le revaunchism meme.
revaunchism hadn't been a serious force in French politics for 20 years at the outbreak of WW1

One of these days I'm going to work out why there are so many German apologists on this board. I'm pretty sure even actual Germans aren't this obtuse about their country's history.

>We extend our blessings and best wishes to all European nations who wish to obliterate each other from the face of the Earth
kek

>turkey joins because they're allied to Germany
Haha no, the story was convoluted and ridiculous to the point of sounding like something out of a comedy show.

I fucking hate the German Internet Defense Force. Not only do they deny Germany's problems or belligerence, they go farther and blame Germany's faults on other countries.

t. German

>le
>meme
wow great argument fagtron you sure convinced me with those hot opinions

Actually post memes instead of arguing over a literal picture from a satire website, you lot of sperglords

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>Turkey

>Victory can only be attained when it is built on the bodies of millions of dead British boys. In his Majesty's name, go forth and claim it!
-Sir Douglas Haig before the Third Battle of Ypres

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>revaunchism hadn't been a serious force
>The Prime Minister in 1914 had supported Clemenceau
>The Minister of War was expansionist and notably anti-German
whew

Clemenceau wasn't the militarist tyrant the anglos made him out as

He didn't support colonization in favor of building up forces to retake Alsace-Lorraine. He saw revenge against Germany as France's prominent goal during his first term as prime minister.

You realize that just supporting military buildup and wanting Alsace-Lorraine returned did not make you a revanchist, right?

>knew that Germany was planning to attack.

This is utter bollocks. Russia didn't mobilize in self defense. They mobilized to assume an aggressive posture against Austria to show their support of their Serbian friends (whom they had no formal alliance with). Germany only mobilized AFTER Russia mobilized because being surrounded on two sides by allied great powers meant their security hinged on their meticulous war plans for defeating both which depended on outpacing Russia's mobilization.

It was made known to Russia that their mobilization would set in motion a chain of events would become impossible to arrest and eventually lead to a war between great powers, but Russia was determined not to back down and lose face.

>It was made known to Russia that their mobilization would set in motion a chain of events would become impossible to arrest and eventually lead to a war between great powers, but Russia was determined not to back down and lose face.
You replace "Russia" with "Austria-Hungary" in this statement and it would be even more true

>Turkey

Revanchism literally means revenge. All Clemenceau wanted was revenge against Germany for the Franco-Prussian War. Revanchism is the reason for the Russian Alliance. George Clemenceau was one of the leading figure heads of revanchism. He was a powerful political influence until shortly after Versallies.

Wasn't the onion founded in the 80s?

Haig > Zukhov

OM FUCKING G YOU RETARDS THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN THREAD

>instantly turns into Veeky Forums' 1000th thread about the start of WW1

The joke clearly went over your head, and you've turned a humor thread to a who's to blame thread.

This thread is a great example of why y'all are virgins.

You got it wrong though
It's:

Austria attacks Serbia, so Germany attacks Russia, Luxembourg, France and Belgium, so Britain attacks Germany

France started its mobilization few hours after the German one though
It was more of a defensive measure than anything else