Valdai Club

If we count the Napoleonic Wars, then the First World War was actually the Second. For a century after Napoleon, it was assumed that war is always limited and fighting is followed by negotiations. War was not an existential threat for the states. That came during the WWI, as it did in the Napoleonic Wars before. Napoleon was creating new states; he was reshaping borders and changing dynasties – as if he was redrawing the entire Europe anew. In the WWI, the same thing was happening. The obvious confirmation of that war’s total nature is that it resulted in the collapse of four continental European empires.