We are now before the
100th anniversary of World War I, the war that was supposed to end all
wars. While honoring the 16 million who died in this conflict, we should also condemn the memory of the
politicians, officials and incompetent generals who created this horrendous
blood bath.
I’ve
walked most of the Western Front of the Great War, visited its battlefields and
haunted forts, and seen the seas of crosses marking its innumerable cemeteries.
As a
former soldier and war correspondent, I’ve always considered WWI as he
stupidest, most tragic and catastrophic of all modern wars.
The
continuation of this conflict, World War II, killed more people and brought
more destruction on civilians in firebombed cities but, at least for me, World
War I holds a special horror and poignancy. This war was not only an endless nightmare for the
soldiers in their pestilential trenches, it also violently ended the previous
100 years of glorious European civilization, one of mankind’s most noble
achievements.
I’ve explored the killing
fields of Verdun many times and feel a visceral connection to this ghastly
place where up to 1,000,000 soldiers died. I have even spent the night
there, listening to the sirens that wailed without relent, and watching
searchlights that pierced the night, looking for the ghosts of the French and
German soldiers who died here.
Verdun’s
soil was so poisoned by explosives and lethal gas that to this day it produces
only withered, stunted scrub and sick trees. Beneath the surface lie the
shattered remains of men and a deadly harvest of unexploded shells that still
kill scores of intruders each year. The spooky Ossuaire Chapel contains
the bone fragments of 130,000 men, blown to bits by the millions of high
explosive shells that deluged Verdun.
The
town of the same name is utterly bleak, melancholy and cursed. Young
French and German officers are brought here to see firsthand the horrors of war
and the crime of stupid generalship.
Amid all the usual patriotic cant from
politicians, imperialists and churchmen about the glories of this
slaughter, remember that World War I was a contrived conflict that was totally
avoidable. Contrary to the war propaganda that still clouds and corrupts
our historical view, World War I was not started by Imperial Germany.
Professor Christopher Clark
in his brilliant book, `The Sleepwalkers’ shows how
officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia’s
murder of Austro-Hungary’s Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict.
France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and
loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval
competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of
the world’s surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary’s South
Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia’s desire for the Straits.
Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion.
Prof
Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany
into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two
hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the
more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then
Europe’s leader in social justice.
Britain
kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival,
Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could
stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds
of fools chanted ‘On to Berlin’ or ‘On to Paris.’
Few
at the time understood the impending horrors of modern war or the geopolitical
demons one would release. The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp
foretaste of the 1914 conflict, but Europe’s grandees paid scant attention.
Even
fewer grasped how the collapse of the antiquated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian
Empires would send Europe and the Mideast into dangerous turmoil that persists
to our day. Or how a little-known revolutionary named Lenin would shatter
Imperial Russia and turn it into the world’s most murderous state.
This
demented war in Europe tuned into an even greater historic tragedy in 1917 when
US President Woodrow Wilson, driven by a lust for power and prestige, entered
the totally stalemated war on the Western Front. One million US troops
and starvation caused by a crushing British naval blockade turned the tide of
battle and led to Germany’s surrender.
Vengeful
France and Britain imposed intolerable punishment on Germany, forcing it to
accept full guilt for the war, an untruth that persists to this day. The
result was Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists. If an honorable
peace had been concluded in 1917, neither Hitler nor Stalin might have seized
power and millions of lives would have been saved. This is the true
tragedy of the Great War.
Let us recall the words of the wise
Benjamin Franklin: `No good war, no bad peace.’
Eric S.
Margolis [send him
mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2018 Eric Margolis
