Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Stock market crash?

I have a question regarding the effects of WWI. What confuses me the most is the stock market crash. I understand the US was spending ton's of money and other nations were struggling just to get a scrap of bread, and that caused a big unbalanced money distibution which in the end may have caused it crash the way it did. But why did it crash so fast. Why was it that in one day the stock markets fell 9%? Why didn't that happen over little bit longer span of time?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

NIght by Elie Wiesel

This book showed me how hard and incredibly strong the people that had to indoor the Holocaust were. With their lack of food and the Nazi's lack of humanity toward them, it showed me that the people who made it through the Holocaust were not a force to be reckoned with. They had been mentally and physically but up to the challenge and although they may have thought they would never survive they did, and they mastered life's greatest challenge. It showed me the strengths that humans can pull out and how strong we can really be. And in the end when situations like that occur it is truly the survival of the fittest and you have to give it everything you've got.

Imbalance of nations

In my opinion the after effects of WWI caused a plethora of good things to happen in the US. People began to research new medical advancements, which in the end improved inoculation of disease, and increased the human life span. After WWI there was also an increase in technology such as the radio and automobiles. Hence communication, and transportation excelled substantially, the US had hit the dawn of a new era. Unfortunately not all places could advance, nations like Germany were stick in a rut because they had been in the middle of everything. But sense the US had not been fighting on its own turf and had money coming to it from the nations that it had helped and supplied the US was having a hay day. But i have a question. Was it because the US was having such economic prosperity, and technological advancements, and other nations were being left to try to pull things together that the depression came about. Did that imbalance ultimately cause the depression?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Technology

Technological developments in WWI are thought to be a big advantage to the war. But was it really? I don't think so. As a result of technological development i think it hindered progress. I think it caused people in the war to depend on them in a way. It seemed that the people thought the new technology would do everything for them. They assumed that gas would just take everyone out, but really it just slowed down movement of their own army's. They also thought that tanks would help them but the tanks couldn't cross many tranches and all and all were more of a problem to keep going than they were benefiting the army. As a result of the new technology, there was less concentration on the actually army battle plans, and less emphasis on coming up with ways to defeat the enemy by foot. So did technological developments in WWI advance anything? I would definitely say no.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Why the Schlieffen Plan failed

I feel like Germany should have thought through their plan better, it seems like they were so excited when war was declared that they just needed to immediately carry it out. They should have thought about the fact that their army was huge and it was going to be hard to feed and move. I think it was a good plan, I'm definitely not saying that it was a bad plan because I think it was pretty ingenious for them to think of encircling their enemy in an unsuspecting way, but it wasn't thought through to the length that it should have been. They should have had a steady food supply, and a way to transport it to them already planned out.  Also it should have been considered that the army was going to get tired after a few weeks and not be as productive, thus not being able to carry out the plan as well as they thought. Thus overall I think it was a good plan i just don't think every detail was thought through thus it caused its failure.