On the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of WWI, we're doing a panel AMA for any and all questions about the Archduke and the resulting war! So if you have questions about the "War to End All Wars," or if you're curious about anything surrounding it, this is the place to ask!

Our panelists are as follows:

/u/CrossyNZ: A military historian who will discuss the public perceptions of war, as well as the military science developed during the wartime years
/u/RenoXD: Will be answering questions regarding the British side of WWI
/u/an_ironic_username:He focuses primarily on the Great War at Sea, the naval conflict between the participants of World War One. He also can talk a bit about the Eastern Front of World War One.
/u/TheAlecDude: A user who specializes in all aspects of the war.
/u/BeStillAndKnow_: Specializes in Britain and France in the War
/u/military_history: Specializes in the British Army during WWI
/u/eidetic: Will be focusing on the aerial warfare during WWI and the developments thereof
/u/elos_: Military doctrine going into the war and the transition into trench life and operations.
/u/NMW: May be popping in and out - his schedule is packed, but if possible, he'll be able to answer a question or two as well.

Ask away! Please just note that, as per our AMA rules, we ask that only the panelists respond to questions. Thanks much!

Pardon me if I seem ignorant. But do Marxists just have a different interpretation of History or do they tilt it to suit their ideologies? How exactly does one define a Marxist Historian?

Were they considered one of the great powers of Europe or just a populous nation?

I was reading Courage Has No Color, a book about the first black American paratroopers. At the end of the book it was talking about how modern media still neglects to mention the contribution of black soldiers in WW2. It lists Band of Brothers by name as one of the offenders.

Band of Brothers follows a very specific series of events through WW2 and is about a small group of the soldiers. Other than that they were paratroopers at the same time as the Triple Nickles became the first black paratroopers in the American army, is their any events that black soldiers played a part in during the events of the series?

To add some information that may help answer, Band of Brothers was about Easy Company, the 101st Airborne Division and part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The book I mentioned was about the Triple Nickles (555th), "Airborne Infantry 92nd Infantry Division (later incorporated into the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division post World War II)" (from Wikipedia).

I'd be interested in hearing about any black soldiers that would be relevant to the events of Band of Brothers though, not just the Triple Nickles.

How did WW1 change Turkey/The Ottoman Empire territorially and politically? Did the aftermath of WW1 change Islam's role in Turkey's politics?

Looking at all the propaganda posters during the war, it seems Hirohito was by far the most hated man in America, moreso than even Hitler. The deal with the Emperor doesn't seem to have been something that affected Macarthur's career, either.

This may sound like a strange question but when the Europeans first made contact with the Native Americans how did they communicate if neither spoke each others language and how did the Europeans learn the language of the natives when there was no easy way of translating and vice versa?

Today's Wikipedia "On this day" describes Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary as "Yugoslav nationalist". However, most of times, from what I remember, he was described as a "Serbian nationalist". So which is the better description for him?

not nescessarily about space ships.. but did people think how their society and mankind in general would look like maybe 100-200 years in the future ?

we all know about jules verne, but did people in medieval times or ancient times fantasize about the future ?

I've been watching a lot of Game of Thrones, and I thought it was really funny in the scene where Arya says "lots of people name their swords", to which The Hound replied, "lots of cunts".

It got me thinking about exactly how common it was back in the day for people to name their swords. The most I could imagine would be for a nobleman with a fancy, expensive sword, or maybe a knight who survived a great battle and would name their sword in celebration of their victory.

JFK's famous speech about going to the moon is a cultural icon, but what are these "other things" that he refers to in the middle of it?

I know a good bit about political theory, enough to know that the "Right to Left" scale is already pretty worthless when looking at specifics. For instance, I often am told Jacobins are extreme Leftists, but they also supported Laissez-faire capitalism which is not exactly mainstream of the extreme left.

Were there any Anarchists or Pre-Fascists running around?

I apologize if this is the wrong place to be asking this question.

I was watching Deadwood tonight, and in the first episode of season 3 Charlie Utter glances at a note he has scrawled onto his palm.

Now, Deadwood is set in the 1870s, and it looks like the ballpoint pen was not patented until 1888. Based on that it seems unlikely that someone in the comparatively remote frontier of Deadwood would be using a ballpoint pen to scrawl a note on their hand.

So this got me to wondering: Was this just an anachronistic goof on the part of the show-runners or were there other ink tools (and I'm assuming a fountain pen or quill pen would be too sharp) that a cowboy could use to jot down notes on their skin back then?

As per the context is concerned, I studied somewhere that Ramayana was written later than Mahabharata, as it shows the diffusion of people in much deeper parts of India and there by towards Sri Lanka. Is is true? How does the events of Aryan invasion deeper to the continent might have influenced these epics?