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Article: 'I Know This Will End Badly'.(Otto von Hapsburg on World War I and dictatorship)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- March 1, 1999
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WORLD WAR I
It began with an assassin's bullet, but by the time World War I was over, it had cost more than 9 million lives-116,516 of them American. "Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans," Bismarck had predicted, would start a war. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, ignited a Europe that had been seething with arms races and burgeoning nationalism. The ensuing four years were unimaginably bloody. President Wilson tried to remain neutral, but by 1917 the German U-boats were attacking American ships. Proclaiming that "the world must be made safe for democracy," Wilson won a declaration of war and American troops were destined for Europe. ...