What is the greatest tragedy in western civilization, Veeky Forums, and why?
What single event or war had the largest negative outcome for the western world?
I'm almost split between the First World War and the Napoleonic Wars. Let me make my case:
The Napoleonic Wars ended the period of European history, in which the powers fought limited wars, with a few thousand deaths, one state would concede, some territory would change hands, and everything went back to normal more or less. Napoleon unleashed total war for the first time since the Wars of Reformation, and set the stage for all subsequent wars to be fought with near total conscription of the population, setting the stage for the World Wars to follow to be civilization-ending.
At this point you can already see how much of the terribleness of World War 1, I already tie back to Napoleon, but that doesn't let World War 1 off the hook. Europe still hasn't recovered from the trauma of World War 1. It can never recover from that loss. Before it, Europe still valued its own life, and I don't think it has forgiven itself for what it did there, tearing itself apart. Although we have had wars in the past and even the terror of World War 2 since, nothing can match, the degree to which Europe destroyed its own identity and culture in that war.
I think F. Scott Fitzgerald put it best, in my opinion, in Tender is the Night, when his characters looked out at the carnage of just one little battle in the uncounted millions that made up this Death of Civilization:
“General Grant invented this kind of battle at Petersburg in sixty- five.” “No, he didn’t — he just invented mass butchery. This kind of battle was invented by Lewis Carroll and Jules Verne and whoever wrote Undine, and country deacons bowling and marraines in Marseilles and girls seduced in the back lanes of Wurtemburg and Westphalia. Why, this was a love battle — there was a century of middle-class love spent here. This was the last love battle.”
IT IS THE HOLOCAUST AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A BIGOTED ANTI-SEMITIC NAZI WHO SHOULD BE PUT IN A CAMP.
Charles Murphy
30 Years War
Andrew Perez
It was hardly Napoleon who started it, but the French Revolutionary state that was literally in a battle for its very survival with the rest of Europe. If the monarchies hadn't pushed it to the brink, it wouldn't have needed to engage in absolute total war.
Logan Baker
The fall of WW1 Empires. The end of monarchism paved the way for cancerous ideologies
Julian Sullivan
It was pretty bad, I agree, but Europe moved from it directly into its most prosperous period ever, so was it really that bad?
Sure it reduced Germany to a ghost for about 100 years, but the rest of Europe barely missed a step and went on to conquer the whole world.
Adam Thomas
That's why I said, "Napoleonic Wars" and not Napoleon.
I didn't blame Napoleon or France, but the wars themselves, and all those involved.
Cooper Evans
Hardly the Holocaust when the colonial powers were doing similar shit, in their territories. The only difference is that Hitler suddenly brought such brutality at the doorstep of Europeans. In the grand scheme of things he really didn't do anything that many countries hadn't tacitly condoned when done to other subjects.
Ian Scott
>Napoleon unleashed total war for the first time since the Wars of Reformation, and set the stage for all subsequent wars to be fought with near total conscription of the population, setting the stage for the World Wars to follow to be civilization-ending.
Julian Lewis
...
Noah Hernandez
K.. Well now you know what I meant.
Napoleon sure had a central role in it all, wouldn't you say?
Landon Gomez
The fall of the Inca empire.
Blake Mitchell
Who gives a fuck about that?
Adrian Anderson
That's not a Western Civilization
Asher Miller
What a retarded way to look at history. Completely useless.
Blake Gray
What a retarded way to post on Veeky Forums. Completely useless.
Benjamin Murphy
Never gone to /pol/ in my life, and I have no reason to have a predisposition for the "aryan race", as I'm essentially a mutt with traces of virtually every nationality out there.
I'm just saying that Europeans did plenty fucked up shit, like Leopold I in the Congo, who might've murdered twice as many people as Hitler did in the concentration camps. But this is usually not mentioned, and is swept under the rug.
Hitler merely took the types of war to which the Europeans were accustomed to with other nationalities, and applied them to people that happened to be the same skin colour as him. So when put into its rightful historical context Hitler's own behaviour wasn't that outside the norm for absolute rulers...
Jack Cook
>I'm essentially a mutt with traces of virtually every nationality out there. gross.
>like Leopold I in the Congo not true. those niggers killed themselves. Leopold dindu nuthin wrong. When his colonial governor got pissed off at his retard African conscripts shooting all their ammo, for jollies, they instituted a policy that for every bullet spent, they must bring the hand of a man killed. He believed this would stop the niggers from wasting ammo. Instead the niggers just kept wasting ammo, and would cut the hands off of innocent niggers to pay for it.
Never expect niggers to behave like you would expect a human to.
Thomas Thompson
HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THAT THE DEATHS OF FILTHY GOYIM ARE EQUIVALENT TO THOSE OF G-D'S OWN CHOSEN PEOPLE!! ONE MILLION GOYISCHE LIVES IS NOT EVEN WORTH A SINGLE JEWISH FINGERNAIL YOU DISGUSTING ANTI-SEMITE!!
Oliver Mitchell
Yes. It's in the west. >answers post You.
Zachary Reed
Go find a rope Wrap it around your neck, really tight. Tie the other end to something solid. Jump out a window.
Benjamin Peterson
He's not fucking wrong you retard.
Elijah Turner
quit trying to kill my thread, you fucking faggot.
William Sanchez
SHUT UP NAZI BIGOT!
Hunter Evans
That quote is fake
Charles Stewart
It's not fake. Even if it were fake, it's true.
Tyler Flores
Indeed. The shit that happens in colonies are completely swept under the rug. Hell when UK lost Kenya they basically tried to remove all the shit involving the Mau Mau Rebellion from records (no Blacks were allowed to work in this endeavor) by taking it back home and disposing the rest that they couldn't biring. They STILL are messing with the records involving the "rebellion" in this day and age.
If Hitler didn't happen no one would bat an eye of what's happening abroad one bit since the people just don't matter. Hell as places get brought up to "settler friendly levels" people would and did have no issues using the state to oppress people for their own benefit (or not really caring but still benefiting) such as kicking people of their land enmasse to make room for settlers or kneecapping local farming to prop up settler farms.
Once Hitler came and went know you couldn't' do shit without ww2 or Hitler being invoked especially since now colonials who fought for Europe want to be treated with respect and the illusion of a utopia shattered the respect of many folks.
>It's true if I believe it
Eli Edwards
Germans existing.
Adam James
I'm sorry you can't a serious answer on this board without the thread descending into /pol/ and antipol retards.
I'm inclined to agree with you about world war 1 at least, in its senselessness and perhaps unmatched impact, although I disagree with your connection of it to the napoleonic wars.
The other event I would mention would be the aftermath of the first European-American contact. I personally think that the outbreak of disease is one of the worst situations that humanity has to contend with for much the same reason: it's ultimate senselessness. In the case of the americas, I know some estimates put the toll of the plagues associated with the Colombian exchange at up to 90%. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but regardless those diseases basically wiped out two continents worth of culture and history with absolutely no rhyme or reason nor anyone to blame
David Cooper
No, Europe most prosperous period was during the 19th century. Right after the Congress of Vienna. Thirty Years' War was much more devastating that Napoleonic wars.
>the period of European history, in which the powers fought limited wars with a few thousand deaths This is completely wrong.
Thirty Years' War wasn't the only devastating war. Just few years afterwards there was Second Northern War and especially its Polish theater called in Polish historiography the Deluge.
>According to the estimates of Polish scholars I. Ihnatowicz, Z. Landau, A. Mączak and B. Zientara, the invasion by the Swedish army and its allies (Brandenburg-Prussia and Transilvania), resulted in the loss of 25% of the population in four core Polish provinces. Lesser Poland lost 23% of population, Mazovia 40% in villages and 70% in towns, Greater Poland 50% in villages and 60% in towns. Royal Prussia lost some 60% of its population. It was an apocalypse. Poland never recovered and slightly more than 100 years later stopped existing.
Anthony Cox
...
Jonathan Lee
>Poland never recovered and slightly more than 100 years later stopped existing. We're talking about Western Europe here. Not some Eastern shithole.
Parker Allen
Women's suffrage.
Evan Taylor
>Western Europe >Germany
Nicholas Hall
Waterloo
Jack Phillips
The 21st Century collective suicide of the West.
By most demographic projections Europeans will be a minority in every major Western European country by 2100 and in North America. The culture of the West will not survive this.
Christopher Rodriguez
>The Napoleonic Wars ended the period of European history, in which the powers fought limited wars, with a few thousand deaths, one state would concede, some territory would change hands, and everything went back to normal more or less. well over a million soldiers died in the seven years war
Liam Roberts
...
Daniel Moore
the 21st century was 25 years ago?
my how time flies
Eli Harris
Christianity
Jonathan Jones
>Although we have had wars in the past and even the terror of World War 2 since, nothing can match, the degree to which Europe destroyed its own identity and culture in that war. I don't see how WW1 beats WW2, unless you're ignoring the Eastern Front.
The Holocaust is definitely up there.
Robert Taylor
>Poland is not Western civilisation Survived the Germanic invasions.
David Adams
The fall of communism. We're just gonna be stuck being ruled by billionaires forever, aren't we? ;_;
Jaxson Jackson
forever is a long time, eventually the sun will burn out
Justin Rivera
The bad guys won WWII, it's sad that we're now being forced to realize it.
Charles Collins
Neither is this
Jose Perez
I know you're from /pol/ and just false flagging for bants but let's be honest here it did not happen, that's just a plain fact.
Carter Hill
the germans were the aggressors and commit many atrocities towards civilians simply because they were born to the wrong religion or ethnicity. They were far more in the wrong than the allies and its a good thing that their hateful murderous ideology was swept clean. It's a true shame that it had to be done with hellfire, but that fact doesn't change anything.
How can you possibly feel otherwise?
Brayden Hughes
This entire post is just proof that you believed all the lies they've fed you. You want me to undo decades of conditioning (assuming you're that old) with a Veeky Forums post? I'm sorry I can't do that, I can only continue feeling bad for you.
Robert Hughes
The last chinese civil war, it had attached the japanese invasion
Mason Sullivan
if you have nothing to say then why even post?
Isaac Richardson
Why ask for information you don't want to hear that you'll simply shut out? Seek the knowledge yourself, let go of your bias, or remain wilfully ignorant. I'm telling you it takes years to undo what they've done to your mind, I know from personal experience.
Daniel Fisher
This is a history board. People here know more about the Third Reich than you. In virtually every thread about WW2 or the holocaust your kind gets utterly destroyed with facts. We know all your tricks and all your "sources".
David Davis
That's not how the study of history works, when you make a claim you have to back it up with a thesis and sources, preferably primary ones. That way your claim can be objectively evaluated.
You can't just say "the conventional narrative of history is entirely wrong, but I'm not going to elaborate on how. You go look up sources on your own" and expect to be taken seriously at all.
You're not ready for this board yet, I suggest you go home.
Brandon Cooper
Maybe I'm just sick of arguing with idiots who seem so certain of themselves. What are your sources? How many of their names have stein in them?
Henry Bennett
>This is a history board
Grayson Ross
Oh no no, you made the claim that Germany were "the good guys" in world war 2 now you're going to either elaborate or concede that point.
also >anyone with the name Stein (which literally just means rock in German) is inherently an invalid source you're going to have to explain that point too
Alexander Morales
>tfw 90% of shitposting on Veeky Forums is because of & Humanities
Lincoln Morgan
Russians and Germans, both the craziest people in Europe, don't count. t. Czech person
James Ross
>Russians and Germans, both the craziest people in Europe, don't count. >t. Czech person Nice try, Sir Alistair Wellington III
Kevin Cruz
Eternal anglo is slightly down the list, because he never actively participated in the destruction of Europe itself - both the Germans and Russians have great experience in that matter (Germans managed to do it even before they could be considered proper Germans, when they sealed the fate of Rome).
Gavin Price
I go to /pol/ all the time, and you are regurgitating the instances that you are taught in trashy publications. At least Jacobin covers more colonial shit that muh Congo for the ten thousandth time.
Faggot, you and all the faggots like you have either never heard of the Thirty Years' War or have no comprehension of what occurred throughout its duration. Turkish Wars and Habsburg-Valois conflicts were just as brutal.
Trying to create this artificial divide between 'real' colonial wars and 'fake' European ones is not only childish, its the kind of shit that created the /pol/ that exists today. Not that you will ever learn, because you are a BSR.
Nathaniel Cruz
>he believes the 80 gorillion maymay Lmao
Nicholas Morales
They commit those attrocities and there is nothing wrong with that.
Ryan Cooper
world war 1
world war 2
bubonic plague
shit like that
and yes the holocaust is included, nutjob /pol/esmokers.
Isaac Sanchez
>I'm just saying that Europeans did plenty fucked up shit, like Leopold I in the Congo, who might've murdered twice as many people as Hitler did in the concentration camps. But this is usually not mentioned, and is swept under the rug. It was actually nigger murdering other niggers. Belgians just wanted hands as a proof of killed INSURGENTS and the niggers just wanted easy money so they started chopping the hands off every random civilian they met.
Henry Mitchell
WW1 for sure. Europe collectively lost its global relevance and lost dozens of millions of good men in the process, literally for nothing.
Easton Harris
The Germ*ns. You start with Rome, than catholicism comes and goes as, once again, Germ*ns aren't content with it (wether just or not is not the point - it was a working system which (((they))) (and by that I mean Germ*ns, not jews, those are perfectly fine) destroyed). Hop along a few centuries when they are ruining themselves in the so-called "Holy Roman Empire", igniting a few wars that only helped in the later destruction of Europe (30 years war). Once they team up things get only worse. You get WW1, which would be perfectly ok, if they weren't stupid to think they can win against everyone and thus leading everyone, including themselves, into that shitshow. Two decades later, WW2 happens and Europe is done forever. Oh, I forgot to mention that nice dude Marx.
Henry Gomez
While death camps were peculiar to Nazi Germany (I'm not even sure about that either, actually), concentration camps have existed earlier.
Jayden Edwards
>Belgians
Nice way outing you as an idiot
Levi Nelson
>What is the greatest tragedy in western civilization, Veeky Forums, and why? The true answer is the Enlightenment.
Ryder Martinez
You are completely missing the point.
Logan Wilson
...
Brandon Myers
1453
Gavin Barnes
>the holocaust Why is this considered so bad when 10x the amount of people suffered and died under Stalin's rule? Why has no one said the Mongol invasions, their savagery devastated half the known world at the time, yet Hitler imprisoning some Jews who then starved because allies bombed their supply lines is LITERALLY THE MOST HORRIFIC THING EVER. You need to read up on what the Assyrians did. Not even a naziboo but historically what they did was child's play compared to other conquerors.
Alexander Ross
The Neolithic Revolution
Aiden Sanchez
>makes an assertion >doesn't substantiate it because the post looks 'better'
Go to /r9k/, you can trade 'snappy' postlets with other snarking wastes of skin all day there. I missed no point, I just told him that the notion that Hitler was regarded as exceptional solely because what he did was done to Europeans is wrong.
If you actually want to contradict me, tell me what point I missed, and why, like a fucking person would do, rather than giving a subhuman, bot-tier response like that.
Christian Reyes
The "Enlightenment"
Ryder Hall
Jewish migration.
Nathaniel Diaz
That's not a western event.
Brody Anderson
Genghis Khan didn't kill westerners.
Evan Allen
Because idiot child at the time of hitters for a very long period Europe was in a period of relative peace on the continent and actively sought to not escalate into conflict when dealing with colonies and not dogging each other.
Hitler basically broke the code of the time the second time and led to Europe's definitive decline.
Caleb Peterson
Unit 731
Nathan Gomez
>starved because allies bombed their supply lines >not a naziboo Get out, now. It's the industrial nature of the killings which nobody else used, and the whole idea of intentionally making a group of people go extinct based on whom they are born to.
David Cruz
MY LEGS ARE DANGLING OFF THE LEDGE
THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE IS MY ONLY FRIEND
I THINK I'LL SLIT MY WRISTS AGAIN AND I'M GONE GONE GONE GONE
Oliver Baker
>It's the industrial nature of the killings which nobody else used
I never understood why is this supposed to make Holocaust more horrible than any other genocide.
>and the whole idea of intentionally making a group of people go extinct based on whom they are born to.
There have been plenty of such cases before the Holocaust.
Robert Hill
there most certainly is something wrong with deliberately targeting civilians in war
Lucas Diaz
It is normal to kill people. It is normal to round them up. It's not normal to kill them the way you kill annoying insects.
Never on this scale, never this effective. Jews are basically non-existent in Europe nowadays.
And while some may disregard this, it was in one of the most developed countries, with highest literacy, not some African shithole where everyone expects things to go a "bit wrong".
Sebastian Martin
Kek
Caleb Lee
>for a very long period Europe was in a period of relative peace
Relative to what? If you are comparing with the Napoleonic wars or Thirty Years then everything looks 'relatively peaceful', and no, there were not regular colonial wars on this scale during the same period. 1870 was the end of that arrangement. German unification made it untenable. Before that there were plenty of 'little' wars in Europe.
>actively sought to not escalate into conflict when dealing with colonies
Between Britain and France, the only two serious colonial powers of the 19th century which settled outside of Europe - besides Russia.
There was no 'code' by the time Hitler was in power, WW1 dispensed with any ideas prevalent among the middle classes regarding perpetual peace through economic ties between European states.
Robert Hall
Bronze Age Collapse was some Mad Max shit to be honest.
Oliver Ross
That guitar doesn't even have a headstock.
Kayden Johnson
That's actual design.
Evan Foster
Give it up. This board was doomed from the start. If you care about history, just read books and seek the scholars. You can't impose a high level of discourse on a place where no one is capable of it.
Andrew Hughes
WW1
Carter Turner
>See an interesting thread >One post in and its another Holocaust thread >Starring Neckbeard Nazis, Contrarian Commies, and Jeering Jews >Post. Ban. Repeat.
Jason Evans
BBBRRRRCKKKKKKKKKKK TTTTT RRRRDDDDDDTTTTT
Dylan Williams
being a Veeky Forumstorian truly is suffering.
Samuel Phillips
Fourth Crusade was much worse If Ancient Greece can be considered part of western civilisation then I don't see why the Byzantine Empire isn't western as well
Adam Campbell
And the future of Europe is brighter because of it. Could you imagine what a hellhole it would be without the current diversity opportunity that's unfolding?