Macron is Wrong: Nationalism Was Not the Cause of World War I
by Steve Byas
“By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday at the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War — World War I. It was on November 11, 1918, at 11:00 a.m., French time, that the war that had taken millions of lives was finally over.
Macron’s remarks, in which he blamed “nationalism” for the great disaster of 1914-1918, were widely taken as a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s public support for nationalism, specifically his “America First” foreign policy. Macron said that nationalism was a “betrayal of patriotism,” and warned about “old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death.”
Macron spoke at the foot of the Arc de Triumph in Paris with Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and more than 60 other world leaders in attendance.
According to Macron’s version of history, the millions of soldiers who died in the war were actually fighting to defend the “universal values” of France, and to reject the “selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests.”
That would have probably been news to almost all the soldiers who fought in World War I — that they were fighting to defend the “universal values” of France. It is highly doubtful that any German soldier was fighting to defend anything having to do with France. It is much more likely that German soldiers, and even French soldiers, were fighting because their nation’s leaders drafted them into their armies and sent them off to fight for reasons that are still debated today.
Alluding to the gathered world leaders, Macron asked if the image of them all meeting together would be “the symbol of a durable peace among nations,” or, “on the contrary, a photograph of a final moment of unity before the world descends into a new disorder?”
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"If anything, the cause for much of the world’s problems today can be laid at the foot of globalism. It certainly was the principal cause of a regional conflict in 1914 exploding into a world war, rather than the “nationalism” decried by French President Macron."
“By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday at the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War — World War I. It was on November 11, 1918, at 11:00 a.m., French time, that the war that had taken millions of lives was finally over.
Macron’s remarks, in which he blamed “nationalism” for the great disaster of 1914-1918, were widely taken as a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s public support for nationalism, specifically his “America First” foreign policy. Macron said that nationalism was a “betrayal of patriotism,” and warned about “old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death.”
Macron spoke at the foot of the Arc de Triumph in Paris with Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and more than 60 other world leaders in attendance.
According to Macron’s version of history, the millions of soldiers who died in the war were actually fighting to defend the “universal values” of France, and to reject the “selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests.”
That would have probably been news to almost all the soldiers who fought in World War I — that they were fighting to defend the “universal values” of France. It is highly doubtful that any German soldier was fighting to defend anything having to do with France. It is much more likely that German soldiers, and even French soldiers, were fighting because their nation’s leaders drafted them into their armies and sent them off to fight for reasons that are still debated today.
Alluding to the gathered world leaders, Macron asked if the image of them all meeting together would be “the symbol of a durable peace among nations,” or, “on the contrary, a photograph of a final moment of unity before the world descends into a new disorder?”
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