Conference on WW1 hears about history, and current crises

Conference on WW1 hears about history, and current crises

Attempts to falsify history and put the blame for the outbreak of the war on Serbia are unacceptable, said participants.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksei Meshkov said that important lessons should be drawn from that war, the first global disaster of mankind.

"We are increasingly witnessing astonishing distortions of history, coming even from very high levels, which shows ignorance of historical events," Meshkov said, adding that World War I was cardinally different from the previous wars as it saw weapons of mass destruction being used for the first time.

Meshkov said that the pointless attempt to kick Russia out of the world game was a fatal mistake, but it was very instructive when it came to the European politics of today.

According to him, the crisis in Ukraine that has shaken the world has a negative impact on Russia’s relations with its partners.

"But although it is obvious that there would be no return to the old models of cooperation, Russia is open to dialogue and cooperation," he said.

Meshkov also stressed the important role of Serbia as holder of the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in 2015.

He said that all attempts to isolate international partners to force them to give up on pursuing an independent policy and attempts to put Russia on the margins of European politics were dangerous play.

"Our proposals are on the table, we are open to dialogue, and we are interested in seeing our EU partners finding a way out of the maze of illusory political campaigns and returning to the rational approach," advised Meshkov.

Oliver Antić, an advisor to the Serbian president, said that the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908 had been the prelude to the war and that fears had been voiced by European states early in the twentieth century that Austria-Hungary's aggressive policy could push Europe into war.

Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej said that we should respect the historical facts as they were and not “as others prefer them to be.”

After messages from Russian Patriarch Kirill and Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin were read at the conference, Vladimir Yakunin, president of the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called, warned about distortions of historical truth and pinning the blame on others and asked who had really benefited from the war.

"Serbia had the biggest losses in terms of people killed. It is an indisputable fact," said Yakunin. Therefore, the claim that Russia was on the side of those benefiting from the war is not is true, he stressed.

Yakunin said that the United States was the only party that had benefited from both World Wars and it had used them to boost its economic growth and secure for itself the top geopolitical position that they held today.

"It should be pointed out that the world is in a state of constant crises, and if you think back to the events related to, say, Kosovo, who can say that somebody else is violating international law, when Kosovo was used to legitimize a violation of international law. How should one appraise the claim about the exclusive right of the Unites States to use force - in Iraq, Libya, Syria?," Yakunin, who is also president of Russian Railways, said, and added:

"Europe, that went through two difficult wars, is oblivious to the fascistization of Europe. There's no other term for it."

The Russian official added that it was impossible to support Kosovo as independent and deny other nations the right to self-determination, something he believes is "an additional factor for the crisis."

Former president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus said that the Great War began in Serbia, but was not started by Serbia - instead this was done "by Austria with Hungary’s unwilling consent, and Germany had also played a role in it because of its ambition to redraw European borders."

"Gavrilo Princip was not the main reason to start the war. The war had already been in the air," Klaus said.

He stressed that the war represented "a watershed" that, beside shaking the old order, provided his people with an opportunity to build their statehood after many centuries under foreign domination and to develop - something that was later cut short by Adolf Hitler.

According to Klaus, the Second World War is "relatively easy to explain - the evil of Nazism on one side, and those who fight against it on the other," while the First World War was "different":

"It was not caused by a Chaplin movie-like 'mad dictator', it was not easy to tell the good and the bad guys apart, that war was not planned, it just happened, and at first it was limited and nobody expected a conflict on such a scale."

The former Czech leader then noted that future wars will resemble the First World War more than the Second.

"They will not be based on grandiose plans, they will not be caused by terrorists. They will be caused by people in ties and expensive suits, and they will start in Europe if Europeans continue to turn a blind eye," Klaus concluded.