98. World War I

An archduke was shot.

The new shot heard around the world.

Weapons were built.

A new war sparked.

Alliances formed.

Germany, Austria, Italy

Russia, France, Britain,

They stood against each other.

Pushed each other.

Never gaining ground.

Monsters rumbled over land

Bringing destruction to lives and property.

The Wright Brothers’ innocent invention turned to war as well.

People lived, fought and died in the trenches.

Both sides bravely faced their bloody stalemate.

Europe became a black hole of war.

Americans preached isolationism

But war came to them anyway.

Lusitania opened the door to America.

A solution finally came.

Mr. Wilson’s pipe dream,

The bubble from his head

Of a perfect world

Happy and peaceful

here nations could bring their problems to a league.

The Treaty of Versailles

Turned the league into reality.

Peace reigned supreme.

The war seemed to be over

For now.

80. The Hundred Years War

Through politics and marriage,

France came to serve England

As vassal to the king.

France reorganized

Centralized.

They had enough of the English

Lording over them

So they took Aquitaine away.

The third Edward,

Wanting that land back,

Claimed the seat where France sat.

Propaganda

Promising plunder and victories

Flowed through the English countryside.

The people mobilized

Crossing the Channel

To start the War of a Hundred Years.

For a time England triumphed

Gaining ground in the continent.

A victory by England’s king

In the land of Crecy

Then at Poitiers

Where the old king was captured.

They crowned the Dolphin man

To bring control to the continent.

Mad kings of France and England

Held the fighting at bay.

In the short lived first peace,

Small raids were made

While France and others

Fought their Levantine crusades.

45. Sparta

To the South in the lands of the Peloponnese

There was a mighty race of men.

The Spartans

They were brave

Marching in military formation.

Living a utilitarian lifestyle

In barracks.

The state owned the Spartan man

From birth until death.

Any children not suitable

Were abandoned.

This was where Ares lived

They fed off of blood

Drinking of the spoils of constant war against helots

Eating the gentle cow.

Were toughened by conflict and civil strife.

They made slaves of the locals

Messenians twice rebelled.

They were subdued both times.

Colonizing as needed.

While Athens was founded on the intelligence of the gray eyed one

Sparta was founded on the dreaded god of war.

When a Spartan was young

He was a ball of flesh

The handlers of the herd

Whipped him and trained him

Until he hardened into stone.

The barracks was home.

Men were warriors first

Husbands second.

Even the women were hardened and powerful.

They buried their children proudly

When they died for Sparta

For that was why they were born.

Men were there to fight and die noble deaths

As they turn back the foemen’s sharp edged battle lines.

Sparta was double edged for Greece.

Inspiring fear

Inspiring imagination.

Admired in peace.

Dreaded in war.

They became powerful.

Many looked upon them

As a great ideal

Of patriotism

To uphold.