(Making up the second blog post, finally!)

What has most stood out to me in the Very Short Introduction readings so far is the huge part nationality played in the war.  While I have traditionally taken for granted the natural part that language, race, and nationality seem to play in a war, it has been interesting to realize that these factors were not always so central.  The lack of regard for nationality that the ruling aristocracy displayed in the past took a major role in the motivations behind continued conflict; while different countries joined the war for different reasons, a lot of the issue boiled down to border disputes.  On the part of the aristocratic rulers, lands needed to be retained in order to demonstrate their power.  On the part of the people themselves, however, the desire to be united with others of their tongue and ancestry became a driving ideal.

It seems rather incredible in this day and age that the aristocracy would be so far removed from its holdings that it would fail to understand the motivations at those lower levels.  We are so used to discussions about race or about international conflicts, that it is rather difficult to relate to a time when nations might be more or less motivated because of divisions where their cohabitants were so radically different.  The United States and Great Britain, for example, despite all their different views at home, were able to rally much more entirely for war than Austria-Hungary, which grew very quickly tired of the consequences it had not expected to deal with.  I can't help but wonder whether this unity plays a major role in the fact that our country today is losing its grip on its superpower status—we have grown so divided, especially on the subject of foreign policy and war.