Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

TNSepta t1_iw1e01v wrote

Reply to comment by Thumperfootbig in The effect of the First World War on names, in France [OC] by bjco

It's not about the concern, it is more about how abrupt the change is. It feels extremely unlikely for the entire nation to switch from being unconcerned to fully concerned over the timespan of a week.

4

1945BestYear t1_iw1vvjl wrote

That was quite literally what happened, across most of Europe. Franz Ferdinand is shot on the 28th of June, and it's front-page news in Western Europe for maybe a day. Nobody seriously thinks that this could start a continent-wide war. For about four weeks, while a perfect storm of wrong assumptions and misunderstandings between diplomats and ministers gradually builds up to Russia's call for mobilisation on the 31st of July, France is busy talking about a completely different assassination, that of the newspaper editor Gaston Calmette by Henriette Caillaux, a socialite and wife of a former prime minister, who thought Calmette was going to publish intimate letters of theirs that were written while they were both married to other people.

France going from talking about that to hearing declarations of war and mobilising to meet the invading Germans happens in days, its complete whiplash for everyone in France. Imagine if in 1995 the US just abruptly went to war with Russia or something while in the middle of the OJ Simpson trial. Or put this another way; not many people in America were worrying about terrorist attacks or Islamic fundamentalism on the 10th of September of 2001.

19

nagumi t1_iw3lei9 wrote

This was very well written. Thank you.

3

Condawg t1_iw1g815 wrote

There wasn't a war going, and then there was. Why is it hard to believe that would cause some national concern?

7

j_cruise t1_iw1ixku wrote

I think it's hard for people to imagine when they've never experienced a war take place within their country, or somewhere very near to their country.

7

Condawg t1_iw1nej4 wrote

I live in America, all of our recent wars have been fought elsewhere. It just seems like common sense.

1

sabot00 t1_iw2424y wrote

What do you think the atmosphere in Kyiv was on Feb 27?

2

creamyjoshy t1_iw1z7kj wrote

It wasn't 100% of the nation. The jump was only 5%

1

MaxTHC t1_iw1ltth wrote

It's only a 5% jump. Quite possible that this jump was due to war breaking out, and that the number kept climbing as casualties started mounting

0

WaerI t1_iw1vvn6 wrote

But the confusing thing is the jump stayed at 5%. I can see there being an immediate uptick but I'd expect that rise to continue for a while before leveling.

6

MaxTHC t1_iw462j9 wrote

You know what, my brain interpreted the ticks on the plot as month-long intervals. So I thought it was a much shorter time scale than it actually is.

1