"Please don't draft us, we're sorry!"
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Conscription is Napoleonic nuclear weaponry. Once one superpower has it, they all have to have it. It's not going away.
I would find conscription to be a necessary evil if it were only used for actual common defense instead of things like "much of Europe is big mad at the Kaiser for some reason or other. let's get involved."
Yeah, that's not what dragged us into WW1. Do you really not know about the Zimmerman telegram? The diplomatic proposal to turn Mexico against us if we helped the British against Germany?
You can't just simplify things to people are "big mad at the Kaiser"
Is it more likely that the Zimmerman telegram was an instigator of US entry into the war or that it was leveraged to Crystalize Public Opinion? Have you read any Bernays or Lippmann?
Probably a little bit of both. The question is who benefits from a weak nation, because we were absolutely a weak nation at the time, joining a war against super powers? International standing? Maybe.
Regardless it probably conviced the fence sitters in congress and gave the Warhawks the political capital necessary to push for the war.
I just really hate it when people try to condense these wars down to people being "big mad" at someone else. Fuckin zoomers.
But did you know that Kaiser was big mad about shotgun?
Well we were big mad about mustard gas so it evens out.
And a saw-bayonet.
And? That's the biggest fucking nothingburger. Oh no. A telegram!?
How ignorant of history can you get?
Germany had massive conscription in both World Wars.