I came on AS recently, so let me to bring this thread alive again.
Especialy because I live in Belgrade, a capitol of Serbia, yesterday I was in Kalemegdan, it is wonderful park with a fortress and many historical monuments and sights
http://www.bascoagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/tvrdjava-960x420.jpg
This was a place where first campain in the WWI started after midnight on July 29th,2914.
It was a first line of Serbian defence and hundreeds of gun shells here fell down fired from Austro-Hungarian cannons.
This was a strict punishment toward Serbia, which is accused by Austro-Hungary for Sarajevo Assassination on June 28th, 1914.
If you ask me which words describe the best my people, my choise would be from a speech of August von Mackensen, a German feldmarshal to his soldiers:
Unfortunately, such love for freedom had a heavy and tragic price: over a million people of Serbia are WWI victims or over 30% of Serbian population.
WW1 has impact on my family too, looking my father and mother side, 10 of my grandparents gone. I got my name by my greatgrandfather, he survived WW1, but he was war prisoner more than 3 years.
There is different scopes on WW1, from viewpoint of big forces as it is UK, Germany, France,Russia, this war was for their prestige and for benefit of their ellite, while from viewpoint of small nations, this war was a chance for liberty.
Except Serbia, which defended its independence recognised on Berlin Congress 1878, first time in history many nations got their own states as it is Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Ireland, Finland and many.
Since WW1, it was started a huge wave of anticolonialism and social movements.
No matter of that, 17 million of deaths is tragic for a humanity.
