The Bloody Trail of Imperialism - The Origins of the First World War

The Centenary of the outbreak of the First World War produced a deluge of commentary in the mass media. Much of this projected the idea of young Catholic and Protestant Irishmen going into battle side by side as something noble, and altogether more edifying and somehow more !”European” than engaging in a mere struggle for Irish independence. Others have said that the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence were a mistake, that we should instead have supported John Redmond’s gradualist approach to securing home rule, trusting in the British government to do the right thing.

All these presentation are designed not to inform or deepen understanding but the opposite, to sow confusion and obscure the real trust: that the great powers did not “sleepwalk” into war, that the war was not an accident or an aberration but was the continuation and logical outcome of decades of rivalry and conflict between the same powers.

The world war came at a time when the European empires and, ultimately, Japan and the United States had completed the division of the world into colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence. Any attempt to understand the causes and motive forces behind the carnage of 1914-18 that do not apply this basic understanding are doomed to failure.

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