With the events of this week it was hard to not think about how the world stumbled into the Great War of 1914. Almost all know that the spark of the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and was then shortly thereafter followed by an invasion of Serbia by the Austro Hungarian, causing Russia to mobilize in Serbia’s defense, to which the Germans invaded Belgium and as they pushed towards France drew the United Kingdom into the fray.
This week a Russian jet allegedly strayed into Turkish airspace and was subsequently shot down by Turkish fighter jets. Turkey NATO membership forced other members including of course the United States to speak out in support of Turkeys tight to action.
The Great War changed the world, as we knew it. The war killed more than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians. It set us on course for a subsequent confrontation in World War Two and forged a lot of the borders that still cause tension today.
As they rightly say history is written by the victors and so often our understanding of historical events are condensed into book friendly paragraphs that demonize the adversaries and paint the victors in a righteous light.
It wasn’t however until 2014 that Mark Heyhurst gave us the real taste of the dialogue and the state actors who’s actions and missteps saw the world literally stumble into war.
Mark Heywurst along with Director Justin Hardy painstaking recreated the path to war in the three-part BBC production “37 Days”, which marked the centenary of the Great War.
In researching the screenplay Heyhurst stated “I traced every conference, every telephone call, private letter and telegram swirling around Europe. This helped me understand what my main characters would have known and said.”
The missteps, misunderstandings and predicaments of Heyhurst’s characters as they try and understand what’s happening around them is breathtaking. The total futility and ridiculousness of the happenstance that cost so many lives and put the human race on a path it still treads today would almost pass for black humor if it weren’t historical fact.
In the end it was all about politics and alliances.
Forming alliances and guaranteeing someone or each other’s security is a complicated business and in such a reciprocal arrangement there must be a generous measure of trust. For if one member of an alliance missteps or provokes or is provoked into a conflict the consequences can be far-reaching and devastating.
Seventeen seconds, was the time that the Russian jet spent inside Turkeys airspace before it was blown out of the sky by Turkish missiles. If the pilots survived maybe it wouldn’t have been so serious, but to see so called “moderate” Syrian opposition or Turkmen forces shooting the pilots as they parachuted to earth, in direct contravention of all levels of human decency, not to mentioned the Geneva Convention.
Up until this week the top search result for Seventeen Seconds was its use in the naming of the second studio album for the band the Cure. I sincerely hope that in a year from now, even five years from now, that that is still the top search result for Seventeen seconds.
In the meantime I think it would be pertinent for everyone to take a re-look at 2014’s centenary three part series called “37 Days” and reflect on just how fragile our peace actually is.
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