On this day a century ago started the First World War, a month after the assassination in Sarajevo, which killed throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. 

Austria-Hungary was the 28th of July  2014, declared war to Serbia, and thus, as it turned out, he started the First World War. A declaration of war was sent to Belgrade in the morning, an ordinary telegraph post. The telegramcontained three sentences. 

The first stated that the Serbian government is not "satisfactorily responded to the letter" in Vienna, submitted on 23 July, that the ultimatum. Then followed the view that hence the Austro-Hungarian Empire "forced to rely on the forceof arms," and the third, the last sentence was: "Austria-Hungary believe that as of this moment is at war with Serbia." 

The next day, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, released a declaration of war "people" of his country, in which he stated that he was forced "to tackle the sword in defense of honor", and that "the imperial-royal government attempted to calm way to resolve the dispute, "but without success, and to someone else's guilty".The goverment officials in Vienna were assassinated in Sarajevo used them as an excuse to go to the showdown with Serbia, convinced that Serbia would be quickly defeated, and it would be a "small war "that will very soon to be completed successfully. 

Therefore the text note or ultimatum Baron Giesl delivered the Serbian government on July 23, was worded so that meant it is almost impossible that any sovereign country to accept what it is required. The goal, certainly, was it to be rejected, as evidenced by the fact that Baron Giesl, when he was on July 25, Nikola Pasić, gave a veryconciliatory response serbian government immediately responded that he was "not satisfactory". 

This was followed by an official letter to the Austrian Minister Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of identical content, and embassy staff and Baron Giesl soon after that night left the territory of the Kingdom of Serbia. As to this act took the severance of diplomatic relations, the government of the Kingdom of Serbia announced, also in a veryconciliatory tone, a manifesto in which he stated: 
"Trusting in the help of God, in his justice and friendship in the great country that we are convinced they want also tokeep the peace, we hope that it will end the conflict peacefully, but as the Austro-Hungarian Minister said tonight on behalf of his government was not satisfied with our response, and finally breaks off diplomatic relations, the government of the Serbian forced to, just in case, just take the most necessary military measures to defend the country. considered a duty to invite the people to defend the homeland, believing that our patriotic call each happy tooblige. If we were attacked, the military will do my duty ... ". 

The following day, on July 26, followed by the mobilization, on the same day it announced the mobilization. Actaully decree on the mobilization of the entire army was issued on July 25 to 22 hours, and for the first day of mobilization was determined after 26 jul. Promptly formed the Supreme Command of the serbian army led by general found Stepa Stepanović, as agent currently absent Duke Radomir Putnik; team immediately moved into the interior of the country, in Kragujevac, as Belgrade was located right on the border line. 

At the same time came the order is that the court, the government, state government offices, the vaults of the National Bank, State Archives and Press office, operating inside of country. A decision of the government in Viennato go to war was preceded by the support of Germany, such as the 7 July at the ministerial meeting Vienna decided to send a note with Serbia would be unacceptable content, which is then worked out at a meeting. It was supposed that Berlin and Vienna was that they be able to instantly make the mobilization and concentration of power, beforethe French, especially the Russians. 

It was intended to be a lightning thrust through Belgium, broke France. The German goverment believed to be repeat scenario of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. when France defeated tremendously. Only then they were going to get all the power to direct Russia. A day after the declaration of war, on July 29, regent Aleksandar Karadjordjević issued a proclamation to the people:

 
"In our Serbia assaulted is a great evil. Austrougarska has declared war (...) I am compelled to call all my dear andbrave Serbs under the Serbian flag ..." That on July 29, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II issued a partial mobilization. The next day, 30 July, Germany has introduced a general mobilization on 1 August declared war to Russia. Already on August 2, Germany invaded Luxembourg, andon August 3, declared war to France. Because Belgium rejected the German request for transit through its territory, Germany declared war on August 4 and Belgium, then immediately United Kingdom, due to non-compliance withthe German neutrality of Belgium, on August 4, 1914. declared war to Germany. The Great War begins, later known as the First World War.

We must remember the 18 million dead and morn them but in the same voice denounce all those that started it, all those that escalated it and perpetuated it and all those who would glorify it.

My thoughts precisely! I have studied warfare and military matters not because of an aggressive or racist disposition (polar opposite really) but because it dawned on me from a very young age that war seems to have been the only ongoing idiocy since the caveman , has solved NOTHING and yet goes on undeterred, with a lovely industrial-military complex to feed it greedily. The current European borders are hardly different from 1918 and yet millions have died in the meantime. The border between France, Belgium and Germany, all the way to the Swiss border is an unending series of cemeteries that shockingly (you have to see this to believe it) are mostly 18 to 20 year old boys, surely thousands of future Nobel laureates in science, art, literature,music etc... among them. RIP 

Quite logical, since Holland was neutral in WW1 and Belgium had all the horrors of WW1.

One of the most horrible wars ever...

Indeed! The Dutch really got nailed in WW2 though! 

BTW 2 great prog albums on the subject of the Great War

Xang- The Last of Lasts

Freedom to Glide- Rain

tszirmay wrote: Indeed! The Dutch really got nailed in WW2 though!

:-[

Indeed here in Belgium it's a big remembering, being born and raised in neutral Spain I did not get much about it when I was young but now living in Belgium I have understood a bit more about it. Let's hope humanity will not see anything similar again, but humans are animals and animals fight among them even in the same species, usually just for territory, mating couples and children, but on top of that humans have invented new reasong for fighting, religions, races, power, politics, money, moral beliefs...

Sometimes you wonder whether the mindset has been eliminated. WW1 was an 18th century war fought by 19th century soldiers using 20th century weapons, WW2 became a 20th century war fought by 20th century soldiers with 20th century weapons - humans learnt fast and just got better at killing each other. The concept of "canon-fodder" has been replaced with "friendly fire" and "collateral damage" and the mindset remains; WW1 legitimised civilian casualties and WW2 legitimised civilian targets and that has not changed, the ability of a human to show his inhumanity to another human has not changed.

Again, spot on! Napoleonic wars were extremely brutal (Leipzig and Borodino especially) , pitting hundreds of thousands of bright uniformed troops and cavalry , literally an orgy of killing with cannon, bayonet and musket, cavalry charges and countless dying and unattended wounded. Civilians casualties ? negligible. In fact, the local populace would watch from afar the slaughter and then move in to pillage whatever remained, looting each and every body. 

WW1 also introduced aerial city bombing, artillery barrages aimed at towns, gas attacks, the machine gun, the tank, the airplane and buried trenches (in Verdun, there is a " tranchee des baionnettes" , a buried trench where soldiers died asphyxiated and their bayonets still stick out from the ground. 

All the horrors and negative things that were associated with it, well sounds quite familiar even now in 2014. 

I reckon physical things and motives change, so much comes and goes...but human nature is immutable 

This explains my signature below 

Yes, I grew up with a lot of WW2 stories, both from books as from my grandfather.

I later heard that both my parents were into the resistance.

There's another prog album on WW1: 1914 by Dutch (!) neo prog band Arkus.

The album is musically not very challenging but it has good melodies.

That's unfair. Give a dog the ability to understand how effective your new advanced weapons can purify and clean up a place from invasive ugly postmen, he'll probably rush on them.

Now can cybernetics / natural selection cleanse next generations from the biomecanics of potentially tagging others as unbearable and "must be annihilated" (like when someone pushes the one too many button) ?

That's unclear. What do you mean, precisely? En francais, peut-etre? 

"Plus j'analyse la race humaine, plus j'aime mon chien" Mme de Staël 

C'est injuste. Donnez à un chien la capacité de comprendre comment vos [ "vos": pour autant que l'interlocuteur soit citoyen d'une nation puissante qui fabrique des armes h-tech] nouvelles armes sophistiquées peuvent purifier et "nettoyer" un endroit de vilains facteurs [employés de poste] envahissants, il [le chien] va probablement se précipiter sur elles  [lesdites armes] ."

(Donc on résumé on donne une arme à un chien, et s'il sait l'utiliser il dégommera tous les employés de poste qu'il voit !)

"Cela dit: la cybernétique / la sélection naturelle peu(ven)t-elle(s) soulager les prochaines générations [humaines] du bio-mécanisme d'étiqueter d'autres personnes comme "insupportables" ou "doit être annihilée" (comme cela arrive lorsque quelqu'un presse le bouton de trop)"

Peut-on par la science (la cybernétique) débarrasser l'humanité de ses pulsions de mort, ou du sentiment que des gens ou des choses puissent paraître insupportables ? À moins que la sélection naturelle ne s'en charge: les futures mamans et papas seraient incapables de trouver quiconque insupportable et de vouloir l'éliminer; ou de trouver une situation insupportable et de vouloir se suicider.

(Can science eradicate humanity from its deadly impulses, or from the feeling that people or things come across as unbearable ? Or else natural selection would do the job, so that future mums and dads would be unable to consider anybody as unbearable to the extent they want to bump him/her off; or to the extent  they'd be pushed to suicide by anything.)

Thanks for that second chance ! How many tries do I get ?...

It's not three, it's four: although romansch language has never been used (as far as I know) on swiss supermarket products like the three others, kids are still being taught in romansch in canton of Graubünden.

Yes, I knew that because I was educated in St-Gallen , so I know all about your homeland. 

Since I am fluent in the other three, I would love to learn romansch! 

I admire your talent for speaking languages, then.

Now I still find your de Stael quote to be unfair. Give a dog a weapon, if he can use it he'll fire at every postman he sees.

If you tell your wife/girlfriend that you will be home at 6pm and you show up at 3am , drunk like s kunk, you will pay dearly.

The loving dog would allow himself to lick my face, covering it with his saliva. It can be felt as uncomfortable, but he won't care. Also the dog didn't understand that, as a drunk man, I may end up in jail and he'd be left alone for long, by my fault. Give him the intelligence to understand that, and I'm not sure he'll rejoice the same.

Also let's consider female dog's mating availability: an average of two mating periods a year isn't much is it.

I find de Stael / likers unfair, because I suspect they've been partial in analyzing both dogs and the human race.

How about Einstein's quote "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" ?