Legend of The Galactic Heroes and WWI

I wish more Space Operas and other Sci-Fi antiwar War stories would take inspiration from WWI rather then WWII, since their desire to equally condemn and sympathize with both sides is going to be completely disregarded by much of the audience once you've made them see one side as "Space Nazis" even if only aesthetically.

The Anime Legend of The Galactic Heroes. which I'm still only watching via the newer more faithful to the books reboot New Thesis, is a perfect example of a WWI inspired Space War.  But the best context to understand how it draws that inspiration is the sense in which WWI is in part a rematch of the Franco-Prussian War, especially in how many in France initially looked at it.

It's not a 1 to 1 allegory, for one thing in LOTGH this is a conflict that's been going on for centuries.  So all the inspiration is applied somewhat creatively, maybe sometimes mixed around.  The first Emperor of this Germanic Empire is referred to as having been a Democratically elected leader who then made himself an Emperor, and that is why some analyzing this show may want to see that as being Hitler inspired, but during WWI there was already precedent for someone doing that however it was on the French Side, Napoleon III.

Most important to the not a 1 to 1 allegory part however is that the two topics I'm about to discus for how the Free Planets Alliance resembles The Third French Republic before and during WWI are in their real history analogues not as directly connected to each other as they are in the show, they were both Anti-German War Mongers but still represented overall completely different ideologies.

First is the Patriotic Knights Corps. when an American watches this show for the first time the first thing they're likely to compare them to are the KKK and then various Fascist/Nazi paramilitary street gangs many of whom were named after the color shirt they wore.  I however have familiarized myself with some of the more obscure groups who operated this way and in terms of both what they call themselves and the focus on being anti-German war mongers I think the Patriotic Knights Corps most resemble The Chamelots Du Roi who were active in early 20th century France, they were initially the Youth Wing of Action Francaise, a French far right organization.

Second is Job Trunicht the corrupt war mongering President of the Free Planets Alliance who I think can very easily be argued to be based on Raymond Poincare the President of France leading up to and during WWI .  He gets referred to sometimes as a Liberal or a Centrist but that's in the context of how actual Royalism was still a factor in France's political spectrum, in a political compass like modern Americans are used to he'd absolutely be considered Right Wing and maybe even Far Right.

There is this popular mythology that WWI was a war no one wanted to fight but sort of blundered into because of complicated political alliances.  This is the premise of the series Extra Credits did on YouTube about the how the war started, and is also a part of the premise of the short story Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier wrote to be an epilogue to their translation of 813.  However studying historical figures like Poincare has shown me what a lie that is.  The common people may not have wanted war, but all the major players in how it started were lead by powerful people who had been itching for it well before Ferdinand was shot.

In France people like Ponicare wanted another war with Germany to restore France's dignity from it's loss in the Franco-Prussian War.  In Germany the Kaiser wanted war with Brittan because of his weird inferiority complex about them, while the Prussian Junkers who dominated the military already supported the Lebensraum policy that we today mostly associate with the Nazis.  And in all nations there was a growing capitalist military-industrial complex.  And those alliance treaties people talk about were not left completely unaltered from how they were when Bismarck retired, they had absolutely been altered to increase Military obligations by Politicians who were hoping getting a war out of it is exactly what would happen.  Also Italy wound up getting involved on the opposite side of what their prior treaty obligations were.

Even in the case of my country who came into the War late, leaving aside the endless debates about how genuine Wilson's reluctance to enter the War was, there were powerful voices in Congress from both parties who wanted to get involved even before the Lusitania sank, Henry Cabot Lodge on the Republican side and then Southern Democrats like Benjamin Tillman and Ellison D. Smith.  Even the beloved Teddy Roosevelt proved to be a viscous Nativist War Monger during this period.