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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 23, 2014 - 01:50pm PT
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If World War One was a bar fight
The great war explained in pub-brawl terms.
By Toby Manhire
With a deluge of World War I 100-year anniversary coverage on its way, an unorthodox appetiser, “If World War I was a bar fight”, has been dusted off and circulated online.
The authorship is not clear, but it has been bobbling around for at least a few years, having been picked up in a 2010 post for the Economist here.
As to its educational value, I would note simply that it was approvingly shared by the NZ History site’s “Classroom blog” the other day.
The version posted at The Meta Picture goes like this:
Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint.
Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg.
Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view.
Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers.
Russia and Serbia look at Austria.
Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.
Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.
Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.
Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.
Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.
Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium.
Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.
Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.
France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other.
Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Turkey punches Russia in the back of the head when Russia isn’t looking. Britain and France tell Turkey that’s not on and once they’ve sorted Germany out Turkey’s next. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia (and New Zealand) punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings though because Britain made Australia do it.
France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault. While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 23, 2014 - 01:55pm PT
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That is classic.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 23, 2014 - 01:56pm PT
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YOU TALKIN' TO ME?
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Mar 23, 2014 - 02:09pm PT
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Beautiful.
We need one of these for the Middle East.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 23, 2014 - 02:22pm PT
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And shortly after it was finished, America ended up losing its liquor license.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Mar 23, 2014 - 04:54pm PT
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Britain, France, and a new player, Arabia, leave Turkey a double amputee cut off below the knees.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Mar 23, 2014 - 06:50pm PT
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I find myself in rare agreement with Cozgrove.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
I think the above statement is a bit demeaning. Italy suffered 1,240,000 war dead in WWI out of a population of 35 Million, while the U.S. lost 116,465 out of 92 million population.
Romania, which is not mentioned in the story, fought against Austria & Germany, got over-run by their armies and lost nearly a 10th of their population, 700,000 dead out of 7.5 million people.
Serbia got hit the worst, since it also got invaded. It lost 725,000 people out of a population of 4.5 million for a catastrophic 16.11% death rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Are we laughing yet?
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 23, 2014 - 07:33pm PT
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Now that is a rarity when Fritz agrees with Coz. I think you are both missing the point of this, suck up the humor and think about the few, very few demented characters that are the ultimate individuals responsible for most wars. I have always felt the best way to resolve this would be a boxing ring.
Whence come thy fascination with war Coz? And Fritz, tell me you have never told an Italian Army joke? Satirical humor lads, relax and chill for a spell.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Mar 23, 2014 - 08:21pm PT
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GUIDO! I know your story was making a point, and all in fun. However I just suffered through reading a profound book about WW1 on the Italian Front.
THE WHITE WAR, has great reviews, but it was a history face-slap for me to read about those cowardly good-living Italians, attacking & attacking, & attacking the Germanic mountain strong-points, and dying by the hundreds of thousands over a time-span of 3 years of multitudes of meaningless deaths, suffering, deaths, & suffering.
Brave men, killed by their politicians & willing generals.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Mar 23, 2014 - 08:23pm PT
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Coz gets trolled twice in one day...good one guido...
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Mar 23, 2014 - 08:35pm PT
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Dark humor but eerily timely.
100 years.
So illustrative how trigger happy leaders with more bravado than sense can wreak havoc on millions (can you say The Kaiser, Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Bush II? Gaddafi and Assad are pikers by comparison)
We have have quite luckily so far avoided Nuclear Armageddon. Yet now we have the Ukraine/Crimea/Russia mess.
It's easy enough to call Putin out as the almost dictator and bully that he is. It's easy enough to rattle the sabers and yell "I told you so" as Mutt Romney did yesterday.
It's easy enough to lambaste Obama, the EU/Nato and Great Britain as timid appeasers.
It's not so easy to say where a military reaction would lead the world. We've been there twice in 100 years. Do we really want to go there again?
and yes Putin is a megalomaniacal, odious, vile, cunning and brutal bully. He's a Very Nasty Piece of Work (ex KGB Colonel to boot).
As Churchill said of Hitler: a guttersnipe.
Fortunately he's managed to keep his anonymous thugs largely in check with only a few dead and wounded.
Putin's also a Capitalist in the truest, ironic sense of the word. We are responding by reducing his Capitalist opportunities (as well as his oligarch supporters). They are already feeling it in their pocketbooks.
Economic muscle has always been an instrument of national power (since the Babylonians). Between the US and EU, we have overwhelming economic power. Let's see how it works.
China can't be too comfortable seeing their historic immediate neighbor, rival and foe reclaiming old empire.
As me Mum used to say: Thieves make strange bedfellows.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Mar 23, 2014 - 08:45pm PT
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The sad part of this world is that millions dead CAN be boiled down into a satirical bar fight anology.
The complexities and death boil out of the considerations of a handful of men and media headlines fanning the sparks into flames that roll across populations.
Yes Putin is the new Tzar and he has the power to do what he wants in his quarter of the world. He runs a "mafia" state and the pigs will dine at the trough until they are full. If left alone they will eventualy become satiated and there will be a chance for less criminally inclined people to rise.
Going to war and killing our sons and daughters over trumped up charges of powerful men against each other - NO MORE!
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Mar 23, 2014 - 09:38pm PT
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Hahaha! Good stuff Guido! "While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends."
...continued....
France and England turn around and get a tad knackered with a few more pints on the "repaid" German Marks. While behind them Germany quietly staggers to it's feet, grabs a baseball bat and goes off on the bar hitting Czechoslovakia first. Russia does the secret handshake of the moustachioed club and they both agree and then proceed to beat the holy f*#k out of innocent Poland, then pick it's pockets and kick it in the nutz while it's down all while England and France look on and suggest that's not a polite thing to do....
...and so it goes.
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Gene
climber
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Mar 23, 2014 - 09:46pm PT
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satirical bar fight anology .
That’s exactly what it is with a huge dose of stereotyping thrown in. Nevertheless, it does capture some of the dynamics involved with WWI. It fails to address the fact that three of the pugilists were cousins. Family Feud anyone?
It also sounds like the teases you get for 'News at 10.'
g
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Mar 24, 2014 - 08:16am PT
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The Atlantic is a stormy moat; and the Mediterranean,
The blue pool in the old garden,
More than five thousand years has drunk sacrifice
Of ships and blood, and shines in the sun; but here the Pacific--
Our ships, planes, wars are perfectly irrelevant.
Neither our present blood-feud with the brave dwarfs
Nor any future world-quarrel of westering
And eastering man, the bloody migrations, greed of power, clash of
faiths--
Is a speck of dust on the great scale-pan.
Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headland
plunging like dolphins through the blue sea-smoke
Into pale sea--look west at the hill of water: it is half the
planet:
this dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water, arched over to Asia,
Australia and white Antartica: those are the eyelids that never
close;
this is the staring unsleeping
Eye of the earth; and what it watches is not our wars.
Robinson Jeffers
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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OK.... Now it is August, 100 years ago, the lights started to go out.
When I was a youth, I lived in Paris.
I discovered the Verdun battlefield, where about 2 million-give or take- a few hundred thousand-people died in a yearlong fight.
Verdun was the home to many fortresses and one of these places Fort Dumont was the scene of the most gruesome sort of gun battle you could imagine.
Down in the connecting concrete tunnels men charged machine gun emplacements!
The tunnels were about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.
Every 100 feet or so the tunnel would turn 90 degrees…. So the bullets would not go all the way down the tunnel.
German and French men squared off and progress was measured in yards.
The attacks would only stop when the tunnel was full of dead soldiers.
These would be pulled out of the way or used to build a wall to hide behind.
My 13 year old brain was blown away.
I stopped wishing to become a soldier, like my Dad and Uncle were.
How in the hell do THEY get people to do that to each other?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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How in the hell do THEY get people to do that to each other?
THEY kill you if you don't go. Simple.
[Click to View YouTube Video]"Situations no one should HAVE to be in."
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Know why the new Italian Navy has glass bottomed boats?
So they can see the old Italian Navy.
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