Landships II

Centurion · Legend

The war that didn't end all wars

J Fullerton · Captain

I would have also included the Mongolian Civil War/Revolution, caused by the occupation of Mongolia by a White Russian faction (expelling the previous Chinese re-occupation) which was eventaully defeated by the Soviets and Mongolian communists, ending in 1921.

-- Edited by J Fullerton at 14:00, 2006-01-14

Centurion · Legend

J Fullerton wrote:

I would have also included the Mongolian Civil War/Revolution, caused by the occupation of Mongolia by a White Russian faction (expelling the previous Chinese re-occupation) which was eventaully defeated by the Soviets and Mongolian communists, ending in 1921.-- Edited by J Fullerton at 14:00, 2006-01-14

I also considered including the occupation of Georgia and the supression of its nascent independence (plus similar events in other parts of what became the Soviet Union) and then I decided that these didn't grow directly out of either actions by one or more of the major combatants during 1914-18 or the results of the treaties, border changes and their enforcements at the end of this conflict. Instead Mongolia, Georgia et al were either secondary events contingent on the Russian Civil war and the formation of the Soviet Union or were the results of opportunistic actions (as was the 3rd Afghan War 1919). However on reflection there might be reason for considering Mongolia to be a genuine conflict that was contingent on 1914-18. Anyone got any views?

With regard to the enlargement of the Soviet Union it might be argued that this continued (in spasms) until late 1940 including the Winter War, the annexation of the Baltic States and the Red Army airborne invasion of Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina (then both part of Rumania). Incidentally this last saw the first air dropping of tanks. However I think beyond the scope of this forum.

Simarly the conflicts arising out of disatisfaction with the border settlements of 1919-22 (which also went on until 1941 and included an invasion and annexation of part of Czechslovakia by Poland in early 1939 - most people mised that one- and conflicts between Hungary and both Czechslovakia and Rumania) might also be consider to be secondary actions and outside of scope.

But if anyone thinks different lets hear it.

J Fullerton · Captain

Oh, I see. Russian Civil War is a first generation result of WW1, events caused by RCW are second generation. You can draw the line wherever makes the most sense to you, of course, but I was thinking that it should be drawn at the end of the (more or less) continuous chain of fighting that followed the Great War.

Thus, while the Spanish Civil War may (I guess) have had some of it's origins in WW1, it was not an immediate descendant...there was a period of peace interrupting those two wars. the Third Afghan War strikes me as being unrelated to WW1, though I'm sure there was some definite sympathy for the Ottoman call to Jihad. If the Afghan fighting erupted two years earlier it would have been a different story, and I suspect there would have been a German presence (however small) in Afghanistan.