I want to welcome everyone back to the Piquanona show.

It feels like we haven't recorded in like six months, Thomas, and it's only been a couple weeks.

You had a birthday.

Let me wish you a happy belated.

And, yeah, how you doing?

Oh, thank you.

I'm doing well, man.

Yeah, like I said, I'm not feeling great today, so I want the subscribers and the viewers

forgive me in advance if I'm not 100%.

But, yeah, things have been very well.

I want to preface this, too.

This is going to be a long series.

I mean, just by nature of the subject. I mean, you could, I mean, frankly, we could,

I'm not suggesting we do this, but we could undertake quite literally an endless series on the

Great War from this moment now until we die, when both of us are long lived. There still

remain aspects that, you know, we neglected to cover in any complete capacity.

My view of the Great War is essentially in line with Christopher Clark's.

I don't, uh, and honestly, it's what was the kind of conventional view of the war outside of, you know,

the experience of the Second War and the subsequent narrative about Germany is this kind of, like,

irredentous power that could not be placated that's colored any analysis of the strategic paradigm as it stood in August 1914.

You've got to understand the Great War as I don't, the last thing I do is

a sign of war guild, because it's conceptually that that's asinine.

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