The Caterpillar Crawl

The nearby towns of Bridgeplace decided that they needed to have An Event to promote literacy in the local children. How or why they arrived at this conclusion, I don't know. But I suspect that they're probably right.

What they decided on was to make An Event based on Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They got one of the local artists who does bronze work to create ten statues, each depicting a scene from the book. The ten statues would be put in various locations along the sides of the road between the City of Bridgeplace and the other City of Bridgeplace, five on each side. Then they would hand out to the kids brochures with maps and clues, making it into a sort of scavenger hunt.

I may not be technically a kid anymore, but I decided to go over there myself one day and to see what was to be seen. And now you can see what I saw when I went to see what I could see and saw what I saw!

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1) The Start!

Clue: "Now our hunt has just begun, find caterpillar number 1. At the farmer's market is where you'll look. See him perched upon a book."







"He started to look for some food."



"On Monday he ate through one apple. But he was still hungry."

The first statue was lurking beside the farmer's market.

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2) The Second Statue

Clue: "You'll find him eating an apple this day, near the Carter's Family Way. A big ol' bank's the place to go, in a corner way down low."

I simply couldn't find this one. It was supposed to be near a bank, but I never saw it. And I didn't want to go poking around too much around a bank, in case the police happened to start taking an interest in my activities. I'm afraid that this statue might have been stolen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3) The Third Statue

Clue: "Walk past 7th if you dare, to find the fella on a pear. Another corner on a brick. . .looking for it is the trick."





This little guy was sitting on a pear, outside of an accountant's office.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4) The Fourth Statue

Clue: "As you ponder all these clues, stop to ask 'Do I need new shoes?' Kinney's would be the place to buy, on the plum you'll find the guy!"



The clue for the fourth one indicated that he would be outside of a shoe store. Unfortunately, the shoe store has gone out of business since the statue was placed and the brochures given out, so it is now a little statue of a caterpillar perched upon a plum outside of a vacant storefront. But he was pretty obvious to spot, so it probably didn't matter much.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5) The Fifth Statue

Clue: "To find caterpillar number 5, go where you'd see performances live! On a sweet strawberry near the ground, he's very close. . .just look around!"



The fifth little guy was lurking in the shadows of the recessed front entrance to one of the local theatres. He had a strawberry to munch on.

After the fifth statue, the hunt left the City of Bridgeplace, crossed the street (which is also the state line), and entered a different state and the other City of Bridgeplace.

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6) The Sixth Statue

Clue: "Now cross the road to the next state, but please be safe while on your way. When you get there make a right, at the corner, the caterpillar's in sight!"



This one was perched atop an orange, outside of a coffee shop. Beside him you can see a little caterpillar made out of a sort of paste stuff. When the statues were first put out, people kept stealing them. The towns kept replacing them, but even so there would be times when there was no caterpillar in place. That made it difficult for the kids trying to complete the hunt. And so the towns decided to make some little extra caterpillars and place them beside the regular ones. Unlike the bronze ones, the extras were made to be nearly impossible to remove in one piece and also very ugly. That way, nobody would be likely to want to steal one. Apparently, the idea worked.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

7) The Seventh Statue

Clue: "Back the way you need to go, can you guess what makes him slow? Behind a column on a cupcake, feeling full with a big stomach ache!"





Caterpillar number seven sits atop a cupcake, hiding behind a pillar on the facade of a girly clothing store.


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8) The Eighth Statue

Clue: "Number 8, now we're almost done! Aren't you having so much fun? If you wanted money, where would you go? On a step, you'll find a fat caterpillar moving slow."





Number eight, lounging upon a leaf next to a bank's ATM, is looking a bit rotund.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

9) The Ninth Statue

Clue: "Number 9 you must find soon, for our small friend is now a cocoon! Toward the corner of Piedmont and State, on the guardrail is where he will wait."





It seems that this little fellow has decided to take a nice nap, all wrapped up in silk.

The ninth one was a bit tricky to find. From the clue, I knew it was on a guard rail at a certain corner of an intersection. The problem was that the guard rail was on the edge of a parking lot, up against a building, set up to keep the cars from smashing into the brick wall. So there were a bunch of great big oversized SUVs all lined up against the rail, and I had to work my way around them to find the statue.

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10) The More-Than-Ninth Statue

Clue: "Alas, our time has flown right by and now we have a butterfly! Where's the final spot you need to look? Same place you'd go to read a book!"



The very last statue on the hunt is, appropriately enough, at the local public library. Now it's no longer a caterpillar hunt, though. And this guy was also very tricky to find, because he was lurking up in some shadows on the side of one of the many columns, about twenty feet up.

The Abby At Play

Abby 1

Abby 2

Abby 3

Abby 4

Abby 5

Abby 6

Abby 7

Abby 8

Abby 9

Abby X

Abby XI

Abby 12

Abby 13

Abby 14

Abby 15

Abby XVI

Clash of the Fuzzy Titans

A few days ago I was out in the back yard, looking around and seeing how things were. It was a bright sunny warm day, and the kitties were out enjoying it. Marshmallow likes to tag along with me when I'm in the yard, and Abby decided to follow along, too.

The eastern side of the yard borders on a wooded lot, with a little grassy meadow in the middle of it. This is a favourite prowling place for my feline friends, but it's also a good place to see other critters. The skunk lives there, for example, and on occasion everything from squirrels to deer can be spotted lurking.

I was standing near the split-rail fence at the edge of the yard, with Abby near my feet sniffing at some plants and Marshmallow a couple meters away sitting on the ramp leading up to one of the outbuildings. Suddenly, I heard some thrashing and crashing from the far side of the meadow. I looked, and I saw this:

Movie 1

Our resident giant groundhog, Groundhogzilla, was sumo-wrestling with a smaller rival. I'm not sure what the scuffle was all about. Food, perhaps, or territory, or mates, or the television remote control. They didn't say. Instead the smaller one broke away and went dashing madly across the meadow, Groundhogzilla in close pursuit. They zigged back and forth, back and forth. . .and then right under the fence and at me. The smaller one ran right between my feet and hurtled beneath the outbuilding. Groundhogzilla stopped for a moment to perch on my right foot, peering to see where his opponent had fled to. Then he, too, dashed beneath the outbuilding.

Abby and Marshmallow had been right beside me when this all started. I'm not sure what happened to Marshmallow. Apparently the sight of two groundhogs, one an enraged rodent probably weighing more than both cats combined, was too much for her. She totally vanished. Abby ran off a little ways and crouched in the grass, ready to flee or attack or fall over twitching from hysterics.

From beneath the shed came some sounds of scuffling, and then the smaller groundhog came flying out. It charged across a bit of open yard and tried to fling itself beneath a smaller outbuilding. This didn't work out too well, though. Even though it was the smaller of the two groundhogs, it was still a bit larger than the space beneath the building. So it sort of smacked into the side of the building, managed to wedge its head beneath, and spent a moment scrabbling away madly trying to wiggle its way beneath. Hardly graceful, elegant, or dignified. It finally managed to work its way under.

Groundhogzilla had emerged from beneath the first outbuilding, too. For whatever reason, he decided to just watch the other groundhog rather than to keep chasing it. My theory is that he was just enjoying watching the other one trying to squeeze under that building. He sat back on his hind legs watching his opponent for a moment, until the other one managed to disappear beneath the building. Then Groundhogzilla suddenly appeared to realise that he was sitting right beside a human, and turned and dashed beneath the first outbuilding again.

I waited for a few moments to see what else would transpire, while Abby decided that she needed to reassert her authority as Queen of the Yard. So she went stalking in under the building after Groundhogzilla. I don't know what happened under there, but a moment later she came sauntering back out looking pleased with herself.

After another moment, I saw Groundhogzilla peeking around the far corner of the outbuilding at me.

Movie 2

He didn't appear to know quite what to do, and kept hiding back underneath. I crept over to the corner and climbed up onto a fencepost, to be up out of easy sight to him. He stuck his nose out a few more times and looked around, but didn't seem to be in any hurry to go anywhere. Then Marshmallow appeared from whichever alternate universe she had vanished into, and worried him into retiring for a while.

Movie 3

After that, Marshmallow joined me up on the fence, and I spent a moment petting her. Then I left, so as to allow Groundhogzilla to wander off and attend to his groundhogy business.

I saw no further sign of the smaller one.

Autumn Has Fallen!

Well, Autumn is arriving and making its presence noticed. It has gotten cold enough several nights now to leave a little frost, and the leaves are turning various weird colours. The air conditioning has been turned off, while the fireplaces have been burning (much to the delight of our feline friends).

The garden is doing its last hurrah, with only a few edible things still growing. Mainly peppers, squash, and herbs. It has been a very fruitful garden this year, though.

Strawberries!

Squash!

Grapes! And fuzzy wrath!

Peppers!

More peppers!

Various yummy herbs!

Lettuces and chard!

Tomatoes!

Weird mutant tomatoes!

And Abby's favourite, catnip!

This particular type of catnip is quite potent, too. . .

Even outside of the garden, there are tasty treats to be found. For example, the various nut trees are being all nutty. The back yard is full of pecans from the looming pecan tree, which makes it a good time for the kitten to play "catch the pecan". Walnuts and chestnuts are falling, too, which is a bit of a hazard.

The squirrels are living the good life, though, once they manage to chew their way through the layers of shell.

There are other signs of Autumn, too, in the animal life rather than the plant life. This town is located in one of the main gaps in the Appalachians, and so the annual Monarch butterfly migration passes through the area. All the butterfly bushes in the back yard have lately tended to be visited by lots of butterflies (what a surprise!).

The Monarch butterfly is one of those animals that suffer from cheap imitation knock-offs. In this case, the culprit is the Viceroy butterfly. Monarchs are one of the only things to eat milkweed plants, a type of very noxious weed. The butterflies store up the noxiousness inside of themselves, and thus when another critter eats one then the critter gets a mouthful of ick. Critters don't like that, and so no critter will voluntarily eat more than one Monarch during that critter's lifetime. This is a useful survival strategy for Monarchs overall.

The Viceroy, on the other hand, is relatively yummy. But it has made itself up to look very similar to a Monarch in colour and pattern. There is one relatively simple way to tell if a butterfly is a Viceroy instead of a Monarch, though, that doesn't involve tasting it: count the legs. When a Viceroy changes from a caterpillar to a butterfly it keeps all six legs. When a Monarch changes, it loses a pair and only has four legs. Here is a Monarch:



If you look closely, you can see that it only has two legs on either side of its body.



So if you see a butterfly with that pattern and six legs, then it is a Viceroy pretending to be a Monarch. If you see a butterfly with that pattern and only four legs, then it is either a real Monarch or else a Viceroy that had an accident.

The other way to tell the butterflies apart is by the Viceroys having an extra line on their wings that the Monarch don't have, but that can be hard to distinguish sometimes. Unlike insect legs, of course, which are so easy to see and count!

And in related news, the woolly-bears are a-swarmin'!

Woolly-bears, also known as woolly-worms and who knows how many other appellations, are the caterpillars of a family of moths called Arctiidae moths. This includes species with more familiar names as tiger moths and tussock moths. They are generally fat fuzzy caterpillars, often several inches long. Unlike many caterpillars, woolly-bears are safe to handle; their hairs ("setae", really) are non-poisonous and don't cause itching. This contributes to their popularity among kids, and thus to such institutions as the annual Woolly-Bear Festival.

Woolly-bears hatch from their eggs in the Autumn, and survive the Winter by producing a natural antifreeze in their bodies. This lets them remain alive and awake during the cold.

Their fur is generally shades of black and/or orange; commonly they are orange in the middle and black on one or either end, though all-black or all-orange ones can also be found. This range of colours is due to just individual variations in the caterpillars, not to different species.

A collection of various woolly-bears:

Woolly bears 1

A nearly all-orange one (the heads themselves are always black, even if the fur is all orange)

Woolly bears 2

One that is black at both ends:

Woolly bears 3

One that is black at only one end, with a little orange at the very end:

Woolly bears 4

This one is curled up in the woolly-bear's instinctive defensive posture:

Wooly bears 5

On this one, you can see the usual leg arrangement of caterpillars:



The head is on the right. Behind the head come the three pairs of true legs, which are on the black-furred section. Beyond those, on the orange-furred section, are four pairs of false legs; they aren't really legs, just growths with gripping ends that help the caterpillar to hold on to things. And at the end opposite the head, on the small black-furred section, is a final pair of false legs that help anchor the tail. So though it looks as though caterpillars have more than the standard six legs of insects, they really only have six legs. And with those legs, they can really move along!

And then there are the spiders!

For whatever reason, the big orb-weaver spiders always come out towards the start of Autumn and make themselves very obvious. Most of the fences around here have their share of big spiders hanging around on webs, as do many porches, bushes, and the like. Always fun to be walking along in the morning and get a face full of spiderweb!

In my spare time around town, I've been attending to various projects and doings and manly deeds of might. I've been working on building a little work studio for my landlady; she makes lots of stained-glass artwork, and really needs a space devoted solely to that. And so I laid out some foundations and started building away. It hasn't fallen down yet, so that's a good sign.

I also have been roaming about the countryside a bit. One day I decided to try seeing how many of the tallest peaks in the state I could get to the top of in a single day: I managed the four tallest, the sixth tallest, and the fourteenth tallest. I'd planned that event for that day because the weather forecasts were all calling for mild temperatures and mostly sunny skies. What we got, however, was this:



Apparently "mostly sunny" means "you'll see a bit of sun around sunrise, and then not again until several days later". At least it didn't rain, though when I reached the very top of the very tallest mountain the bottom of the clouds was literally only a few feet over my head. It was rather damp, therefore. But I managed to find the little survey marker marking the highest point in the state.

Naturally, standing upon the highest point of land in the region called for a suitably dramatic and noble comportment.



Anyway, that's how life in a little mountain town has been of late. In closing, only more thing remains to be illustrated:
a dragon car!

I have no idea what that car was about. It was here in town on Main Street, parked in front of a funeral home. A new high-speed hearse, for when you're really dying to get to the cemetery quickly?

Statues of Wolf Hills

This one is actually more of a plaque than a statue, but I threw it in anyway. It commemorates the event that gave the town its name: the day when a pack of wolves came running out of a cave on a hill and tried to eat Daniel Boone's dogs.

Outside one of the town funeral homes. Perhaps that's supposed to be an urn full of ashes she's carrying?

A rather large. . .ummmm. . .thingy at the Veterans' Memorial Park. The back part is stone, the ribbon is some sort of bronzish metally stuff.

Two small statues that the town has sitting next to each other beside one of the main road intersections. I have no idea what, if anything, they are supposed to symbolise.

A statue entitled "Fantasy Takes Flight", on the Barter Green near the theatre. Yes, that is a turtle with wings and a bow on its tail.

Another statue on the Barter Green, "Midsummer Night's Dream". Supposed to be Titania surrounded by faeries and wild critters, but I doubt that she'd be flattered by the representation.

It, too, has a
turtle. This one has a big grin and its mouth hanging open as it stares up at a little topless faerie girl. Coincidence?

The Civil War memorial at the court house. Interestingly, it is dedicated to only the locals who died on the Confederate side. Those who died fighting for the United States aren't mentioned. . .

So, what DID cause the First World War?

There is, of course, no single "cause" of the First World War. Every single action that occurs has literally thousands of causes, and each of those causes has a thousand causes, and so on. A person could rightly say that the First World War was caused by Henry VIII marrying Anne Boleyn, by the Hebrews taking Israel from the Canaanites, or by Theodore the Tyrannosaurus eating Ned the Triceratops. This makes assigning causes a bit messy, and people like such things to be neat and clear-cut. So people tend to look for causes immediately prior to the event, and declare those to be the immediate causes. But even then, there's never one immediate cause. There will often be one that is obvious, or is sensational, or that become famous. But there are always going to be a huge number of lesser known immediate causes.

In the case of the First World War, the most famous and familiar of these immediate causes was the assassination of a certain nobleman on the streets of Sarajevo in 1914. While this was only a cause and not the cause, it makes a good point around which to tie some of the other causes and make them more apparent. So we'll look at this assassination and what it led to.

To see how events led from an assassination to a small limited war to a global war, you have to know what went on with five key players: the Kingdom of Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Empire of Russia, the German Empire, and France, as well as the interrelations between them all.



1. The Kingdom of Serbia was dominated by ethnic Slavs, the Serbs. For centuries it had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire, but in the last half of the 1800's had managed to gain its independence. Serbia wanted to form a unified nation of all Slavic lands (with, by pure coincidence, Serbian Slavs being in control of it), which would in all encompass much of the Balkans and Russia. The fact that most of that land actually belonged to other countries at that time was a minor technical difficulty. Serbia's relations with other countries in 1914 were thus:

- Serbia regarded the Austro-Hungarian Empire in much the same way as Iran or Syria views Israel today. Serbia saw Austro-Hungary as a prison for all Slavs who lived within its borders, felt that Austro-Hungary had no right to exist, and was entirely hostile and antagonistic towards their larger neighbour to the north.

- Serbia and Russia had a common bond of ethnicity: both were controlled by Slavs. And so Serbia looked to Russia as their main ally. This didn't mean that Serbia actually liked Russia, but they saw the value of having a friend who was even bigger than the local bully.

2. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a hodgepodge of different regions and ethnicities and cultures. The only commonality held by the people of the Empire were that they were all in the Empire. Though there were over a dozen major ethnic groups, only the ethnic Germans and Hungarians had any influence. For over six decades the Empire had been ruled over by Emperor Franz Josef. Franz Josef saw himself as a defender of the "old ways", and violently opposed any form of government reform (or reform in general) during his reign. This was unfortunate, as his total unwillingness to make changes or compromises led to severe unrest among the unrepresented ethnic groups. By 1914, the Emperor had to keep the military on full alert constantly to keep rioting and civil unrest in check. Austro-Hungary's relations with other countries in 1914 were thus:

- Austro-Hungary did not get along with Serbia. They saw Serbia as a rallying point for the discontented Slavs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They also recognised Serbia's total belligerence towards them, and were more than willing to reciprocate it. Austro-Hungary felt that a severely beaten and weakened Serbia was essential to stability within their own country.

- Austro-Hungary also wasn't very friendly with Russia. For one thing, Russia was just a really big powerful nation with more manpower than all the rest of Europe combined. Up to this point in its history it hadn't often used its resources well, but in 1912 the Russian Tsar started a program of modernisation of the military. . .including increases specifically in Russia's ability to launch offensives towards the west. This did not reassure its western neighbours, Austro-Hungary and Germany. Furthermore, Russia had somewhat vague dreams similar to those of Serbia: a unified Slavic state incorporating Russia, Serbia, and the other lands of Eastern Europe inhabited by Slavs (although as opposed to the Serbian plan, the Russians felt that Russian Slavs ought to govern it all instead of Serbian Slavs). Since some of those Slavic lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was less than reassured as to Russia's peaceful intentions.

- Austro-Hungary and Germany were buddies. For one thing, ethnic Germans were one of the two ruling groups in Austro-Hungary. So there was a "blood bond". Also, Germany and Russia had historically been rather antagonistic towards each other (with conflicts going back over a thousand years, to the time of Alexander Nevsky and before), and so by being friends with Germany the Austro-Hungarians had a powerful ally to check any Russian advances.

3. The Empire of Russia was the giant of Europe. The British Empire was larger overall and probably had more people in total, but no European power had quite so much land, resources, and manpower all concentrated in one area. Russia had the potential at the time to dominate the world. Luckily for the world, Russia was a mess. In the mid-1800's, Russia was literally only just dragging itself out of a self-imposed Medieval-style society. Russia had had one of the harshest examples of serfdom and some of the most antiquated systems in all Europe, and the ugly aspects of that were still being felt in the start of the 20th Century. The large population was largely unhappy. The military was plentiful but outdated. The resources were available, but the means to tap them were lacking. Tsar Nicholas II was trying hard to bring Russia up to modern standards, but the situation was rather bleak. Especially with those pesky Communists popping up all the time to harangue the masses. . .

- Russia and Serbia didn't really like each other, but they had common interests and so worked together. They had a bond of both nations being predominantly Slavic, and both had aspirations towards uniting the Slavs of the world. Russia also saw Serbia as being strategically important: it was a small independent nation serving as a sort of buffer amongst the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires. Keeping Serbia alive and feisty would help keep those other two big empires from bothering Russia; if Austro-Hungary, for example, were to attack Russia, then the rabidly anti-Austrian Serbia might take advantage of the Austro-Hungarians being occupied on their eastern borders and make an attack into the Austro-Hungarian heartland. So Russia looked down on Serbia and basically considered them to be a pack of noisy uncouth upstarts, but they were noisy uncouth upstarts with some use.

- Russia and Austro-Hungary didn't get along all that well. For one thing, they had a long history of broken alliances and failed joint efforts; the two societies just couldn't seem to ever work together effectively. Also, Russia wanted some of the land that Austro-Hungary owned, and Austro-Hungary wasn't about to hand it over.

- Russia was extremely distrustful of Germany. Xenophobia is somewhat ingrained in Russia, and is especially strong towards the Chinese and the Germans. And this xenophobia is rather strongly justified by the long, long history of Chinese and German invasions of Russia and massacres of Russians. Russia and Germany had distrusted each other so much for so long that even in the event of there not being any reason for distrust, they'd still distrust each other because it was traditional.

- Russia and France tended to get along well, except for when guys named Napoleon Bonaparte intent on world domination led France. In 1914 France was led by a guy named Poincaré, so relations were good. France had helped Russia on its centuries-long struggle to become part of the modern world, and French influence was strong in the social centers of Russia. Furthermore, the French were probably the only other people who thoroughly hated the Germans more than the Russians did, so the French must be good people!

4. The German Empire was the new kid on the block of European power politics; before the 1870's, the term "Germany" was simply a vague term for a region of separate squabbling small nations in central Europe. Forty years before the start of World War One, the Germanic kingdom of Prussia managed--through politics, guile, and occasionally military force--to unify all the little Germanic states into one large political entity: the German Empire. This sudden appearance of a new, large, populous, highly-industrial, and very militaristic nation on the European stage startled and alarmed much of the rest of the continent. And sure enough, Germany quickly showed off its military abilities by kicking the French around and starting to colonise lands in Africa and Asia. By 1914, the German Empire was one of the (if not the) overall strongest militaries in Europe, or even the world. And with an enormous manufacturing capability, a moderately large population, and the need to prove itself to the rest of the world, Germany was a very energetic and important power.

- Germany got along well with Austro-Hungary, for the most part. Both nations were heavily populated by ethnic Germans, with the same language, culture, and suchlike. They also shared a distrust of Russia, and realised that working together they could thwart Russia better than they could working alone. Furthermore, Austro-Hungary had been a buffer between Central Europe and the various invading Asiatic Hordes since the Mongols and the Muslims first moved against Europe. A strong and happy Austro-Hungary would take the brunt of any future invasions from Asia, and spare Germany from being ravaged. A good deal for Germany! Also, if Austro-Hungary were to fall apart then it might turn into just another extension of the Balkans. And having that sort of squabbling noisy fractious neighbour on your border is not an appealing notion.

- Germany distrusted Russia due to historical reasons. Plus, Russia's plan to update its military and its offensive abilities was for some reason rather poorly thought of in those lands where those offensive military abilities were most likely to be used. Besides, those Russians were dirty icky Slavs, not noble heroic Germans. They probably had cooties or something.

- Germany didn't get along with France. Germany had memories of France messing around with them in the Thirty Years' War. Germany also had memories of kicking France around in a lot of more recent wars, which resulted in the increase of Germany's size at the expense of France's.

5. France was, well, France.

- France tended to get along with Russia and sort of considered itself to be Russia's godmother. Many lucrative trade and other treaties had been made with Russia, and Russian nobility often came to France on holiday. France and Russia also both distrusted Germany, and by working together they could intimidate Germany by looming as a threat on two sides simultaneously. Hopefully, the dangers and difficulties of fighting a war on two completely separate fronts would be enough to keep Germany in line.

- France despised Germany. Germany was a new, loud, boorish, uncouth nation, and, well, it was Germany. Besides which, those rotten Germans had had the effrontery to not only go to war against the noble and chivalrous French, but to win and take some prime land from France in the process!

Those were the main players in the opening phases of the war, and some of the relations between them. There were, of course, many other likes, dislikes, treaties, suspicions, and the like all at work. For example, there were all manner of incredibly complicated trade treaties and trade-related reasons for the various countries to get along or want to go to war with each other. But this gives a sort of general idea of who was doing what.

The most commonly pointed to "cause" of the First World War was the June 28th assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Austro-Hungarian Serb Gavrilo Princip.

Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb, a Slav. Bosnia at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Princip wanted to destroy that empire and bring freedom and liberty and happiness and light and laughter and free beer and cute cuddly puppies and whatever else to the Serbs there.

He wasn't confident enough to try acting on his own, though. So he went to the obvious place to find pro-Serb and anti-Austro-Hungarian assistance: the Kingdom of Serbia. There, Serbian government and military officials provided him and several other agents with guidance, guns, bombs, and assistance in crossing the border into Bosnia.

In a rather ironic twist of fate, the target for assassination was probably the person who was the best hope for the Slavs. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef. While Franz Josef was a hardcore conservative who refused to make the slightest reform no matter how urgent or necessary, Franz Ferdinand was a model of unconventionality. He married a commoner, scandalising his relatives. In fact, he and his uncle pretty much hated and despised each other.

Another unconventional notion of Franz Ferdinand's was that some reform was needed to keep the nation from exploding. He saw that all the ignored and slighted ethnicities were angry and dangerous, and that if the status quo was held on to by the government then shortly there would no longer be a government in existence. Secretly, Franz Ferdinand drew up plans to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a sort of confederation of states. German-dominated Austria would be its own state in the western part. The Hungarians would have their own state. The Slavs in Bosnia would have their own autonomous state. And so on, for each of the ethnic regions. While he was still hoping to maintain at least nominal control over the whole confederation, Franz Ferdinand realised that it was better to lose some power than to lose all of it. Under his plan, independence for the Slavs in Austro-Hungary was a real possibility, and it would happen in a neat, orderly, well-managed, planned series of steps without bloodshed and destruction.

All that was needed was for Franz Josef to die or step down from office so that Franz Ferdinand could become Emperor. Everybody thought that this would happen pretty soon. The official portrait of Franz Ferdinand as Emperor had already even been painted and was waiting to be hung on the wall. Then Austro-Hungary would see some serious reform!

And then on the 28th of June, 1914, Princip shot and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Almost immediately, all of Europe. . .did nothing much. People chatting at dinner parties agreed that it was shocking and disgraceful, but that was about it. Ministries were not abuzz with the news. Kings and Presidents were not rushed off to urgent briefings on the situation. Armies didn't start sharpening their swords and oiling their axles. For most of the world, the assassination was social news, not political. The only government to take action on the matter was, as one would expect, the Austro-Hungarian one. . .and their action was to breathe a collective sigh of relief. After sixty years of rule, Emperor Franz Josef had naturally stuffed every possible government position with functionaries who agreed with his own policies, and thus overall the government had not been delighted with the Archduke's plans for reform. The Emperor himself several times stated that the death of the Archduke was a relief and a blessing. Princip's bullets had in fact killed off the mood for reform and put the conservatives more squarely in control than ever before.

This didn't mean that the Austro-Hungarians were going to call for a vote of thanks directed at the assassins, of course. The conspirators had murdered a high-ranking member of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy in an attempt to overthrow the government. That sort of activity could not be tolerated. And so somebody had to be thoroughly punished. But who?

Well, the conspirators were Serbs. And everybody knew that the Kingdom of Serbia supported assassination and terrorism in Austro-Hungary. So even before the conspirators themselves gave evidence showing that Serbia had aided them, there was little doubt as to where the true masterminds of the plan were. Serbia, decided the Austro-Hungarians, had to be dealt with.

There was a catch, however. While the Austro-Hungarians felt that they could pretty much annihilate Serbia on its own, taking on both Serbia and the Russian Empire simultaneously would be a different matter. Russia was big. At this point the Russian military was only partway through it program of modernization and reorganisation, but it still contained an incredible number of soldiers. Even if they were armed with nothing more than pointy sticks and rocks, the Russian army would be formidable.

So before a course of action was decided on regarding Serbia, Russia had to be considered. If war with Serbia was likely to end up with Austro-Hungary facing Russia as well, then a very stern lecture would be the most that Austro-Hungary could give to Serbia. But what they wanted was a full-scale war and invasion. Was that possible?

Well, first they had to consider Russia's situation at the time. As stated before, Russia was still in the process of upgrading its military. It wasn't scheduled for completion until at least 1917. Also, the Communists and other groups were causing all manner of internal problems in Russia; it was deemed likely that Russia wouldn't dare send its army off to war because it would be afraid that the revolutionaries would then take over back at home. Besides which, Russia's imperial family would surely be disgusted by the assassination of another noble, and would be unwilling to appear supportive of such things happening. So the Austro-Hungarians decided that Russia wouldn't be likely to go to war in defense of Serbia unless the potential of a Russian victory seemed likely, quick, and easy.

The Austro-Hungarians decided to take one more step to be sure that such a Russian victory would be none of the three. They sent word to their friend Germany, asking for German support.

At the time, Germany didn't sense anything important in the air. The German government was going about business as usual. Many of them, including the Kaiser, were actually getting ready to go on holiday. So when the Austro-Hungarian ambassador came asking for German support, the German foreign ministry didn't even bother to check to see what actions they were being asked to support. And so on the 6th of July, Germany gave Austro-Hungary their word that they'd have German support for whatever actions Austro-Hungary did. It was, in effect, a blank cheque. The Germans expected nothing more from the Austro-Hungarians than a lot of political maneouvering and the like against Serbia.

The Austro-Hungarians, on the other hand, took the German assurances to mean that Germany was happy to go to war on behalf of Austro-Hungary. And since Germany had a big, powerful, accomplished military, surely Russia would not dare to attack Austro-Hungary! Serbia could be safely invaded, and the war would remain solely between Austro-Hungary and Serbia. It would be a nice, small, neat, manageable war and would finally put Serbia in its place and secure the future for Austro-Hungary. Anything else would be craziness!

The Austro-Hungarians, therefore, set about starting a war. On the 23rd of July, they sent a very, very rude ultimatum to Serbia. It was designed to be as utterly degrading and impossible for Serbia to accept as possible, but just in case Serbia did agree to everything in it the Austro-Hungarian ambassador was ordered to deem any Serbian response unacceptable. While the exact consequences of failing to accept the ultimatum were not described, there was no real doubt to anyone what they would be.

Now shockwaves rocked the governments of the world. This wasn't some silly aristocrat being murdered. This was practically a declared intent of war, in the midst of a continental powderkeg.

Serbia read the ultimatum and saw how degrading and impossible it was. Then Serbia looked across the border at the big Austro-Hungarian army that was slavering hungrily waiting to be unleashed. It was decided that perhaps a bit of help was called for. Serbia called up Russia and explained the situation. Russia thought for a bit. Clearly, Austro-Hungary was planning to go to war against Serbia in the immediate future. Austro-Hungary knew that Russia would find that unacceptable, and that an annoyed Russia would not be a good thing for the future prosperity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So clearly the Austro-Hungarians had reason to believe that they had a more than compensating military advantage. And the only such advantage possible was an assurance from Germany that German troops would support Austro-Hungarian ones. Obviously, Germany was planning to finally carry out its cherished invasion of Russia!

Germany, meanwhile, was equally shocked. Those crazy Austro-Hungarians were going to attack Serbia? But the Russians would retaliate! Then they remembered the blank cheque that they'd given to the Austro-Hungarians, where they'd promised to support them whatever they did with whatever means needed. Obviously, the Austro-Hungarians were taking that to mean Germany was ready and willing to fight the Russians. Oops. And equally obviously, the Russians were likely to be now preparing for war with Austro-Hungary and Germany.

And what, Germany wondered, about France? Well, France had close ties with Russia, especially in matters of working against Germany. France was still really angry about having lost a big chunk of land to Germany during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870; in fact, France had lost a whole series of wars against Germany in the not-too-distant past. Everybody knew that France was just looking for a chance to strike back. And Germany being caught in a fight with a monster like Russia would be just that chance. So France was suddenly raised from a minor concern to an imminent threat.

And in France, the reasoning went much the way it had in Russia. Austro-Hungary was going to invade Serbia? Germany must be getting ready to go all militaristic again, in collusion with Austro-Hungary! They'll probably try to take more of our land! And so France was stirred up, too.

This time period is known as the July Crisis.

Now, it's quite true that well prior to this time there had already been a spirit of suspicion, belligerence, and warmongering all throughout Europe. It was no secret that France wanted to go to war against and defeat Germany and thus regain some territory lost in previous wars. Everybody knew that Germany wanted to go to war against and defeat Russia, thus ensuring that Russia was kept too weak to be a threat. And it was well known that Russia wanted to go to war against and defeat the Austro-Hungarians, and thus gain some of the lands in the Balkans region.

The key phrase in the above paragraph isn't "go to war against", however. It is "and defeat". Nobody was wanting to start a war that they would lose. And each nation realised that the war they wanted was extremely risky at best and would result in staggering losses even for the victor. For example, France wanted to take back its lost land from Germany, but France also acknowledged that Germany's larger population and industrial base would make it impossible for France to win such a war. So while everybody wanted a war, they wanted it on their own terms at a later time of their own choosing. Nobody wanted the war that actually happened then and there. Nobody was ready for it.

But due to all the open hostility mentioned above, nobody judged themselves able to afford not to get into that war once it started. Germany knew that France wanted to invade, and that the situation seemed to be a good time for France to make the try. So Germany had a choice: either stand down and risk being caught unprepared by a French attack, or to strike first and try to catch the French unprepared and on French land (it's a maxim of war that it is best to fight the battles on the enemy's land rather than on your own, so that the enemy has to clean up the mess). With matters of a national scale like that, governments can't really gamble and take risks. And so each nation in turn decided that the path of least risk was to attack those who they knew wanted to attack them. It was no longer seen as a matter of alliances, it was seen as a matter of national survival. Basically, Serbia, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Germany and France all entered the war believing that they were acting on the defensive. Serbia was a victim of Austro-Hungarian aggression. Austro-Hungary was a victim of Serbian attempts to overthrow it. Russia was a target of Austro-Hungarian and German militarism. Germany was being threatened by Russian invasion and by France wanting revenge. And France saw itself about to lose more land to Germany. And so everybody decided to strike first.

Austro-Hungary got in the first shots. On July 28th, in spite of Serbia actually agreeing to eight of the ten terms of the ultimatum (knowing that they had Russian support, the Serbs decided to not agree to the two most embarrassing demands), Austro-Hungary invaded Serbia. The next day Russia started readying its army for war. The day after that, Germany did the same. And France followed suit the next day.

And after that, things just keep on rolling. More nations got involved for various reasons, until eventually Belgium, Serbia, France, Russia, Britain (including Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada), Italy, Romania, the United States, Montenegro, Japan, Portugal, Greece, Albania, Brazil, Armenia, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Nepal, Siam, San Marino, China, Andorra, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Liberia, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay were all at war with Austro-Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. To see when who all declared war on who else, you can see a nice list here.

Summer Happenings

First off, allow me to introduce you to Chuck.



This region is aswarm with groundhogs (aka woodchucks). Groundhogs are a type of large rodent in the marmot family of ground squirrels. They happen to be rather large ground squirrels; Chuck here is a relatively small one, about the size of a large cat. Another one living in my back yard, Groundhogzilla, is about four times his size.

Groundhogs like to nibble on garden plants, and what with the large gardens around the house they can be a bit of a problem here. A live trap is used on occasion when one gets too destructive. Chuck had gotten bold and taken to sitting on the front porch eating the petunias. And so it was decided that Chuck needed to be evicted.

The trap was placed where Chuck was wont to roam, and in a few days I found him sitting in it looking most disgruntled.







Chuck in action!

And so Chuck was taken for a ride in a car to a nice area of woods and fields and streams about ten miles outside of town, where he was released upon the unsuspecting world. Now he's hopefully gallivanting about in happy groundhog style out there, eating things other than peoples' gardens.

So far, Groundhogzilla has been behaving himself. He wanders off to the meadow next door to munch on things, so there are no plans to trap him. It would be interesting to try, though. I think we'll need a bigger boat. . .errrr, I mean a bigger cage.

On a different note, Wolf Hills has started its annual Mountain Festival, the yearly event held to commemorate the desire of local merchants to get lots of money from tourists. Opening day kicked off with a parade down Main Street, featuring lots of Shriners and lots of clowns.

Here is the front of the parade, complete with big lumpy weird mascot thing.



There were also these odd miniature trucks charging down the road.



What would any parade with Shriners be, of course, without their miniature precision driving teams?

And what would any parade be without these guys?

So now the streets of the town are full of tourists and will probably remain so for the next few weeks. Various events and activities shall occur around town, and all will be happy and carefree and merry. Or something like that. So far I've seen the parade, an airplane and car show, several concerts, various demonstrations of Colonial-era and Civil War-era this and that, and other stuff. This upcoming weekend is to have an overall "Celtic" theme to it, so perhaps I'll be able to record lots more bagpipe music for all my Scottish friends to enjoy.

This afternoon, though, I went out of town and trekked southwards to seek out new life and new civilisations around a certain geographical feature I'd heard mentioned a few days earlier: Backbone Rock.



No relation to Brokeback Mountain, as far as I am aware.

Backbone rock is a ridge that juts out from Holston Mountain. I have no idea how it formed; information on it seems to be very, very limited. A small river called Beaverdam Creek flows along one side, around the end, and then back up the other side. The ridge is about a hundred feet tall on average, though it varies considerably. A tunnel was blasted through it in 1901 so as to allow a railroad track to pass through; the train has long since stopped running, though, and these days a road passes through the convenient tunnel instead.

















I decided to climb up to the top of it and see what was to be seen. The entire ridge is perhaps a mile or so long, but at the top is about ten feet wide. So it forms a sort of narrow rocky pier jutting out into the trees that you can walk along.









This is that same bridge, looking upwards from about halfway up the side.



If you look closely, you can see a team of climbers with their ropes and pulleys and pitons and climbing packs and hammers and picks and whatnot, all set up to climb the slope beneath the bridge. If you could look even closer you'd see that they looked rather annoyed, because I climbed up to the top, wandered around up there, and then meandered back down again before they even got halfway up. They were some of the slowest climbers I've ever seen.

Compared to climbing up, climbing back down is generally either extremely fast and easy and unhealthy or else extremely difficult and tiring. So I decided to just walk down the hiking trail that goes down off the ridge rather than climb back down.





The cliff face had lots and lots of nice hand-holds, but most of them were also full of spiders. Which made climbing a bit more interesting.



There were also lots of other fun Naturey things to admire. Such as this tree, which has been very thoroughly visited by woodpeckers.



There were plenty of flowers still blooming, too.



The place was rather damp and shady, so there were plenty of mushrooms. I restrained any urge I might have felt to nibble on them.







I even spotted some of Gustav's cousins lurking about. They were much smaller than he is, though, only about as long as a finger.



After climbing about, I decided to go splashing about. I visited Beaverdam Creek and (keeping an eye out for any bears) poked along it for an hour or so, hopping about on boulders and poking at river rocks.







I didn't see any bears, but I did find lots of our little salamander friends lurking beneath rocks and leaves.







Salamander!

I haven't figured out what type of salamanders they were, other than small and squirmy. I did catch a glimpse of something else; a very pale tail of something slipped quickly beneath a rock. What I saw of it was about the size of my thumb. It was probably either a large salamander of another species (or perhaps a newt or hellbender), a lizard, or a snake. I couldn't tell if what I'd seen was the entire tail or just the tip. Since it would have taken a good bit of up-close effort to lift that rock, I decided that I'd leave it be in case it turned out to be something less than entirely pleasant and friendly that I wouldn't want to be sticking my hands into the middle of.

And that was my investigation of Backbone Rock. From there I drove the long meandering road back to Wolf Hills, and was once more immersed in the seething swarms of Summer tourists.