Starting last weekend, the world started to observe (“celebrate” is hardly the appropriate verb in this case) the centennials of the various events that led to Great Britain’s declaration of war against Germany, automatically at that time bringing Canada into the fray.
One hundred years seems like a long time ago. There are no First World War veterans alive, anywhere.
History has demonstrated that that European war was by no means necessary yet it had such a profound negative effect on virtually every nation that was a major protagonist, primarily through the loss of the lives of a significant part of an entire generation.
In rural Canada, in places like Manitoulin Island, the exodus of young men volunteering for war service, for “King and Country”, began in the early days of the First World War and has continued since that time as young people left the country life (as young people continue to leave the Island now) when they were de-mobilized from service to settle, or re-settle, in cities and so began the migration away from farms and small towns that continues today.
Last Saturday was the observance of the assassination in Sarajevo, in what was at that time a city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of the Archduke Ferdinand, the nephew and heir of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef.
The assassination was an unfortunate local event and was committed by Serbian nationalists keen on their region making its own way outside of Franz Josef’s empire.
But events were spun, fingers were conveniently pointed and in little more than a month from the Archduke’s assassination, the world had begun its bloodiest-ever conflict.
In a personal way, most Canadians are connected to that century-old conflict because most families are well aware of a great-grandfather, or a great (or great-great) uncle who served in France or Belgium and came home or, in many cases, did not.
But the legacy of what that assassination, one hundred years ago last Saturday, set in motion is very much with us still.
In fact, we’re witness to it on the daily television news these days as factions in present-day Iraq continue to feud.
This is very much a legacy of the aftermath of the First World War when the victorious nations of Europe, plus the United States, having vanquished Germany and its ally Turkey and the Austro-Hungarian Empire set about remaking the map of the Middle East to suit themselves.
Prior to 1919, when these discussions took place, there was no Iraq.
The cities we have been hearing about since we sent troops to the first Iraq War over 20 years ago, Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, which became principal places in the manufactured nation of Iraq, had little in common then so it should not be any great surprise that there is regional conflict now.
Basra had more in common with its southern neighbour, India, Baghdad had strong cultural and trade links with Persia (now called Iran) and Mosul had been closely connected to Turkey and its Ottoman Empire and with Syria.
These had represented three provinces of the old Ottoman Empire, which, like the Austro-Hungarian-Empire, were raided by the victors after the 1918 armistice.
The population was about half Shia Muslim, a quarter Sunni Muslim with the rest of the population, by religion, made up from a variety of other faiths.
About half the population of these three provinces were Arab, the other half largely Kurd with some citizens of Persian (Iranian) descent.
They were not a natural nationality and a puppet king, Faisal, was put in place to rule.
Eventually, Britain quietly bowed out, but the deed was done and there has been unrest in one form or another ever since.
This is one of the many legacies of the First World War that our world lives with still and if the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel (formerly Palestine) and Lebanon) is often referred to as a “powderkeg,” it is in no small measure the result of the European perspective overlaid on this complicated region and its mixture of religions, ethnic connections and traditional alliances that has never worked and, with only a few exceptions, haunts the world yet.
The First World War is with us still.
