Ao mesmo tempo que é noticiada uma vitória sobre os Alemães "All Germans Pushed Back Over the Marne; Allies Gain Three Miles South of Soissons; Now Hold 20,000 Prisoners and 400 Guns" cai a primeira monarquia a que se iria juntar a monarquia dual do Império Austro-Húngaro, os Principados Germanicos e o Império Otomano.
Caiem as monarquias, mas ganha o fanatismo comunista, fascista e nazi. Terá dito Leon Trostsky em 1935 sobre da morte da família imperial:
"The decision was not only expedient but necessary. The severity of this punishment showed everyone that we would continue to fight on mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the Tsar's family was needed not only to frighten, horrify, and instill a sense of hopelessness in the enemy but also to shake up our own ranks, to show that there was no retreating, that ahead lay either total victory or total doom."
Foi esta a consequência da declaração de guerra do Império Austro-Húngaro ao Estado terrorista da Sérvia que incentivou o atentado que vitimou o Príncipe Herdeiro austríaco (a caminho duma visita a feridos de um atentado anterior). De que lado tiveram os "aliados" (na altura, Impérios a disputar as colónias dos derrotados)?
E o que dizer da participação americana forçada pelo idealista Presidente Woodrow Wilson (eleito com a promessa de cumprir o tradicional afastamento dos EUA dos problemas, intrigas e interesses em conflito dos Impérios Europeus)?
Citado num curioso artigo da Reason, "Teddy Roosevelt’s Hidden Legacy, How an "imperialist" president’s record makes the case for military restraint.":
“Winston Churchill suggested as much in 1936:
"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World
War. If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with
Germany in the spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been
no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed
by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which
has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all
of these ‘isms’ wouldn’t today be sweeping the continent and breaking down
parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it
would have saved over one million British, French, American and other
lives."
O que contribuiu para a participação americana? Como nos tempos actuais, a demonização do inimigo, em "The Historian Who Sold Out", Thomas Fleming, autor do "The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (Basic Books, 2003)":
"From the start of World War I, stories of German atrocities filled British
and American newspapers. Most emanated from the German march through Belgium
to outflank French defenses in their drive on Paris.
Eyewitnesses described infantrymen spearing Belgian babies on their bayonets
as they marched along, singing war songs. Accounts of Belgian boys with
amputated hands (supposedly to prevent them from using guns) abounded. Tales
of women with amputated breasts multiplied even faster.
At the top of the atrocity hit parade were rape stories. One eyewitness
claimed the Germans dragged twenty young women out of their houses in a
captured Belgian town and stretched them on tables in the village square,
where each was violated by at least twelve "Huns" while the rest of the
division watched and cheered. At British expense, a group of Belgians toured
the United States telling these stories. President Woodrow Wilson solemnly
received them in the White House.
The Germans angrily denied these stories. So did American reporters with the
German army.
(...)
The Bryce Report was released on May 13, 1915. British propaganda
headquarters in Wellington House, near Buckingham Palace, made sure it went
to virtually every newspaper in America. The impact was stupendous, as the
headline and subheads in the New York Times make clear.
(...)
From a perspective of a hundred years, we ought to take a harsher view. The
Bryce Report has obvious connections to the British decision to maintain the
blockade of Germany for seven months after the armistice in 1918, causing
the starvation deaths of an estimated 600,000 elderly and very young
Germans. This was far and away the greatest atrocity of World war I and it
made every German man and woman hunger for revenge. By creating blind hatred
of Germany, Bryce sowed the dragons teeth of World War II."
As consequências da Segunda Grande Guerra? Para além das mortes, a infame perseguição dos Judeus, ciganos e opositores, resultou na vitória da União Soviética sobre metade da Europa Cristã e talvez o pior, na influência intelectual que produziu ilusões e sofrimento pelo resto do mundo até à queda do muro. Acabou também com o que restava do Liberalismo Clássico (já moribundo após a Grande Guerra).
Talvez o Império Austro-Húngaro antes de declarar guerra à Sérvia por causa de um atentado terrorista tivesse outras opções. Talvez a sucessão de declarações de guerra que se seguiram para cumprir o primado das alianças (com se tratassem de acordos divinos) e do temperamento “tough e hawkish” pudesse ter sido evitada.
Talvez existam sempre outras opções em casos semelhantes. Talvez a história nos possa ensinar algo. Talvez.
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