It was exactly one hundred years ago, on July 28, 1914, after the declaration of war of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the Kingdom of Serbia, following the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, that WWI broke out. A cruel conflict which destroyed the whole Europe during four years, involving British Empire colonies, the United States and Japan. Also called the "Great War", World War I was, up to that date, the largest and bloodiest conflict ever fought in human history.
Italy, my country, which entered the war only one year later (on May 24 1915), was one of the parties (along with France, Germany and the Ottoman Empire) with the highest death toll, having lost at the end of the conflict the 3.49% of its population. Who is writing this post lost his great-grandfather, Giuseppe Castelli, right in the bloody Piave river battle. Most likely, I would have never met him, but my grandmother was not even a year old when she lost him, as she often told me with tears in her eyes.
Despite Marinetti and the Futurists described the war as the world's only hygiene, conflicts imply great consequences. It is undeniable - as our ancestors usually remind us- that war is just misery, pains and poverty.
And yet, today, July 28, 2014, one century after that conflict broke and 75 years after World War II, we witness the shame of war and misery in many areas of the world. From Middle East to Ukraine, the most silly and unnecessary conflicts continue to spread on the world map, proving that history taught us nothing at all.
As a matter of fact, there is poor international media coverage on the issue today, although this conflict will always be a big wound in the history of mankind.
For all those who died in the trenches in 1914/18, for all those who lost their beloved ones and a piece of their lives in that terrible conflict, and especially for those who continue to suffer the pain of unjust wars nowadays, my thoughts and those of this blog.
AV
