Who triggered the First World War in August 1914? All members of the national parliaments who voted for the war credits? The Serbian terrorist who killed the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo? Let us look at the more extravagant competitors for the title of the most triggering contribution to the outbreak of World War I. Who has unchained the bloody war experience? One of the candidates is anonymous. His or their personal identity is buried in the archives of the national railroads of the combatants. His or their contribution is the train schedule. The secret schedule to help mobilize citizens and to move them by trains. The algorithm. Mobilizing millions of soldiers and moving them towards the borders required special plans for the trains. Once trains started following the pre-war mobilization algorithm, return became less likely. Dropping the special schedule would plunge the mobilizing countries into chaos. Other states also moved their trains, until the point of no return was reached. For most involved individuals and organizations going back was not an option anymore. It was simpler and easier to let the trains run their runs. It was easier to let the soldiers fire their guns. It was easier to try out the airplanes, the tanks, the poisonous gases and the blockades. It was easier to wait until one party surrendered, three empires fell apart, and one of the empires was kidnapped by the terrorist coup d’etat. Then it was easier to bury the millions of dead, to heal the millions of wounded, and to start building the new Maginot lines, just in case.
Could the trains be stopped? Could the mutual fear of being late for the forthcoming war be overcome?
Who triggered the Second World War? Was Lloyd George or Poincare, who ignored the Rapallo conference, which allowed Germany to train pilots and experiment with the poisonous gases in Russia (1922)? Was it Franco, who won the civil war in Spain (1936-1938)? Was it Daladier or Chamberlain, who gave Hitler part of Czechoslovakia immediately (1937) and the rest later (1939)? Were it Ribbentrop and Molotov, who met in Moscow to sign a treaty with a secret clause (August 23, 1939)? Or were it simply Hitler (who invaded Poland on September 1, 1939) and Stalin (who invaded Poland on September 17, 1939)?
Too early to tell? Not too early, if new AI beasts, their algorithms disguised and hidden, slouch towards the places, where new wars could be triggered.
Haarlem, September 14, 2026