I like to debate

This is my response to a letter published in today's paper. Here's the original letter:

How can you allow Gwynne Dyer to get away with false statements such as "by 1939 almost everybody agreed that the world had been wrong to blame the First World War on Germany."

It is genuine, recorded knowledge, that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany approved "The Schlieffen Plan" in 1897. Look it up at the library; it's there for all to see.

The only problem with Germany's invasion of France, in 1914, was that the Schlieffen Plan called for German troops to march "unopposed, through Belgium" on their way to "invade and conquer" France, which Schlieffen had calculated they could do in two weeks time ifthey followed his plan. The recorded historical fact is that Belgium refused to comply with that request but the Kaiser and his boys ordered it to take place anyway, regardless of Belgium's opposition. That resulted in the 1914-1918 conflict.

Germany, most definitely, "started" the Great War of 1914 to 1918.

Ian C. Thomson

Winnipeg

RCK says:

Determining who started a war is not always as cut and dry as deciding who fired the first shot or mounted the first invasion. There were a complex set of factors that started WWI, and although Germany was responsible for it's fair share the rest of the Great Powers were also deeply committed to fostering the animosity that fermented into war. The statement that Ian C. Thomson labels as false is an opinion that is shared almost universally by historians—it's possible that he has been snooping around in the wrong part of the library.