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[Straif]

Good.

[BarkingLizards]

Hmm, In real life, Germany did technically start WWI, even if it was an Serbian school boy that killed the Archduke. But Germany wanted it, and they had all the plans to take over countries. The Von Schlieffen plan( I think I spelled that wrong...) the Luistania in America. Everyone blamed Germany because they were the offensive country. If they had won, and maybe would have if they didn't take out a third of the people in the Von Schliffen plan, then I think they would still be blamed, because they still started the fight (unofficially). But since they lost, they had to pay reparations, which angered them...and made them extremely poor, and they started WWII.

However, Scott probably just made the Germany in his books appear to be evil because that's what everyone thought of them.

[Straif]

And because this is a book for teens who want romance and a little action, not history nerds with hardons for technology and biological combat.

[BarkingLizards]

That too...I'm totally a history nerd...as you can see...But most of what he wrote is true.

[TractionEra]

Well, it was a misunderstanding with the Russians, I think. Both sides were building up troops and war material on the Eastern Front and Germany chose to attack rather than be attacked. Of course my history is a bit rusty, so I may be wrong. All I know is that this is what led to France joining, and the attack on France (which required marching through Belgium) is what prompted Britain to join. God, that was a mess of treaties they had going.

The reason Germany took the blame was simply because they were the strongest nation and had caused the most damage. The Allies were pissed so they pinned everything on them and kept them from the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles so they could write the terms without protest.

[Straif]

History/war nut myself. Mostly war though.
And that works for me. All I know is, DF soldiers are going to have a BUNCH of mental trouble later cause of their indoctorination.

[BarkingLizards]

The Russians had a treaty with Serbia, and Austria fought Serbia, So Russia fought Austria. Germany had a treaty with Austria. Therefore they fought Russia, and France had a treaty with Russia. Then Germany went through Belgium to attack France, And England had a treaty with Belgium so they started fighting too. And then in 1917 Germany attacked the American ship, Luistania, because they had "English people" so America joined too.

Err are you talking about real life or Straif's story...?

[Straif]

Real life I think.

[TractionEra]

Real life. Like I said, my history is a bit rusty. And The Lusitania was attacked because it was in waters where Germany was waging unrestricted submarine warfare as well as ferrying war material to Britain (a fact confirmed later by wreck divers).

[Straif]

Fuses and stuff, right? Part of the reason it went down so fast. They went off.

[BarkingLizards]

That's right, but America was supposed to be protected because they weren't involved in the war. And the Germans weren't supposed to know about the weapons.

[TractionEra]

That's why it's called "urestricted" submarine warfare. They were indiscriminately sinking Allied vessels.

[BarkingLizards]

Yeah, but it was an American ship. So it wasn't an ally. America was sending weapons to both powers.

[TractionEra]

America was still isolationist at the time, so they weren't officially supporting anyone. The fact is that the Lusitania was in fact a British ship of the White-Star Line company (A sister-ship of the Titanic) in waters patrolled by German U-Boats. American outrage came from the American passengers on board who were killed.

[Straif]

They were leaning more toward Britian though, those who wanted to join the war. And that's where Darwin's Fist comes from in the story. A bunch of very wealthy people come together and say "we need to do something about the Germans" and a disgraced but extremely motivated and disturbingly gifted British boffin comes to them and says "I can do that, if you have the money."
And they have the money. So she does it.