Wasted War

Following the Progressive Era in the United States and Western Europe, when big businesses were dissolved by their governments to help the "little people," the governments led the same "little guys" into a wasted war. The Great War, fought over technicalities of alignment treaties, sometimes without direct threat to the soldiers' nations, saw warriors on both sides sacrificed for the most futile gains. The surviving pawns then had the most horrible postwar consequences while the nations trumped up minor offenses of their enemies in an attempt to prove themselves to be the moral superior.

The first decade of the twentieth century was a time of trust busting, yellow journalism, and muckraking in the Western World. Following the Gilded Age/Victorian Era, the governments felt they had a duty to rescue the people from the claws of the Robber Barons. In America, two presidents served this era, Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. The twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, self-declared as the one who "kept us out of the war," was in fact responsible for America's entry into the costliest war until that time, and a war which lacked true justification for the war.

It was not only the Americans who were to be blamed for disregarding human life with little cause. The entire war was just one overreaction after another. Countries on both sides jumped to misunderstandings and fought for nonsensical reasons. The first example of this happened on June 28, 1914, when a young college radical gave the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife bullet holes for an anniversary present. Austria-Hungary, following the assassination, stated without justification that the killer had been supported by the Serbians. Although disturbing, the deaths of these minor royal figures would have remained low key had it not been for Austria-Hungary's deeming it necessary to call upon the powers of the mighty Triple Alliance to respond with force.

This can be viewed as having gone overboard. The alliances were made to keep Europe in balance. Although it was the lesser of the two European alliances, the combination of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy was designed to be called upon when a large assault was being posed against one of the member nations. It was certainly not needed to beat up on Serbia, a small country with little power.

Nevertheless, A-H attacked, along with Germany. Italy, in a wise move, but showing bad form, refused to help. Instead, a month later Ottoman Empire joined A-H and Germany in battle. This was a horror for nearly all involved, because it merely proceeded to equalize the forces and thereby extend the war. If it had remained only the Triple Alliance, the war would have ended much faster and would have remained focused entirely on Europe.

Seeing their foils on the battle field aligned, the Allies were contracted to declare war on the Central Powers due to signed alliances. The problem which remained, especially for Britain, who had raised a volunteer army , was why Western European nations felt it necessary to fight over Serbia. The quick answer was that Germany had attacked, unprovoked, and it was the duty of the Allies to stop this evil. Allied propaganda quickly appeared, declaring the enemy Huns, "Once a German, Always a German," attacking is part of the Teutonic ruthless nature, etc.

There are some flaws to this accusation of an unwarranted German attack on Serbia. If in fact, the Serbians had devised the assassination, then indeed there had been an attempt to destroy an ally's government. This would be considered a suitable reason to fight. If however, A-H had simply overreacted, and Serbia was not responsible for the murder, then Germany was still duty bound to fight because "shots had been fired." This may seem like a petty excuse for the Germans to mow down Serbians, but the attack on Serbia was viewed as little more than a technicality to Allies, yet large enough to the Allies to invoke the signed alliances.

With this as the setup, the war proved to be the most trying for men in the field to date, with previously unknown travesties befalling the soldiers. The first such example was shell shock. This was the first war with such a large number of victims of shell shock. Never before in all of man's wars had so many of the men cracked in action, with results ranging from men who developed stuttering, lost their speech, had constant shakes, or even became victim of terrors to certain words or images.

The question of why this new medical disaster began can be answered by the noise. Occurring just slightly after the Industrial Revolution, WW I was only the second war to use machine guns. With the constant bombardment of bombs and grenades, both of which were used in record numbers, this was easily the loudest war ever.

Not only was the war the loudest, it also was one of the most gristly. This war lasted half a decade, by no means a long war, but one of average length. However, with battles such as Verdun lasting over ten months, and others having at least thirty-six hours of continuous shooting and bombing, the time spent in the heat of battle was probably in a higher ratio than any other previous war.

Other never before seen horrors hit these virginal warriors. Along with constant machine gunning and frequent bombings, the people also had to deal with the new threats. The air they breathed was poisoned by mustard gas which affected their nervous systems, and the air above, with the Zeppelins flying overhead was equally dangerous. For anecdotal assurance, one could tell of the battle where tens of thousands of casualties were sacrificed for literally a few feet of land. The problem is that over ten such battles occurred. Verdun had over 300,000 casualties.

Moral was so degraded by the middle of the war that both sides went so far as to adopt a Rouseauian philosophy: that the enemy was not an enemy, but instead other young men sent by their leaders to fight in the same winless war. The Central Powers, with their professional forces modelled after the historic Prussian fighting forces, were especially weakened by a new form of insubordination. By comparison, the British forces, manned strictly by patriotic volunteers, saw the war in an uncaring manner, invoking a live and let live policy. Since a minimum amount of rounds were to be fired per day, a great deal of both sides' bullets were aimed at the ground.

If that seems unusual for the UK, in France a hard and bitter war led to various cases of mutiny and abandonment. France's mutinies were overshadowed by those of their ally, Russia. In the span of less than one year, they had not two mutinies, but two coups, the February and October revolutions. The first displaced the Tsar; the second replaced the short lived democracy with the Bolsheviks. Both times, the military, which was called in to disperse riots, joined the fighting to overthrow the leaders.

Perhaps, however, the Russians had the right idea in taking over the government and getting out of the war. In the first year in the war, they lost the infamous battle of Tannenberg when some ninety-thousand sword brandishing Cossacks ran towards German machine gun fire. The Russians improved militarily but were still no match for the Germans. The second revolution, led by Lennin, promised to end the war, giving up a large piece of land.

Other nations should have followed. The British had problems as well. Their soldiers were also sacrificed, but perhaps more importantly their civilians were endangered by Zeppelins flying over the island, causing hundreds of deaths and tens of millions of dollars in damage. Furthermore, since any ships leaving or exiting British ports could become victims of unrestricted submarine warfare, it would have made sense for British merchants to demand a surrender.

The Serbians also should have not gone to war. First of all, if they had simply recanted, surrendered, and said they were not involved with the Black Hand and had no knowledge of the assassination, the attacks would have stopped. Even if Serbia was responsible, the fact that they were being mowed down by the Central Powers should have led them to an early surrender.

The one country that should not have gone to war--the one country who had a clear reason why a war would be moronic was Austria-Hungary. Only one year before, the Austro-Hungarian military, as well as its nationalism, was dealt a severe blow. The Russians had been trying to stop the leading Austro-Hungarian General, General Alfred Redl. He had created one of the most advanced militaries, complete with brilliant espionage maneuvers and supreme weapons. Under close investigation, the Russians discovered that Redl was a pedophile. Planting a wired six year old in front of Redl, they soon had enough material to blackmail Austria-Hungary's highest ranking military figure. As it turned out, Redl was also in debt, so once he made the initial trade for the photographs by giving top secret information to the Russians, he continued to sell them classified information, obtaining approximately one million dollars by doing so.

When Redl was caught, he was given an honorable exit; a nickel plated pistol and a locked room. His demise was supposed to be covered up, but the story was discovered by the press in a lucky turn of events involving a blindfold, a soccer game, and a locksmith. When this story broke, it dealt a serious blow to the Austro-Hungarians. It was as if, in our day, Colin Powell were to be discovered a KGB agent. Their most famous military hero had not only been disgraced, announced a pervert, a traitor, and committed suicide, but had given all their secrets and strategies to the Russians. Because of the Russians possessing all their military secrets, A-H's army met defeat whenever it encountered Russian forces in battle.

While the American situation was not as desperate as the Austro-Hungarians, they still had reasons not to enter the war. They had been making phenomenal profits before they entered, selling arms to the Allies. They reelected Wilson, due to his slogan "He kept us out of war." Just as lives were sacrificed as an excuse to enter the second World War, a few American lives were to be trumped up to cause us to enter the first war.

The sinking of the Lusitania, a British cruise ship containing 100 American passengers, in 1915 was not enough to enter the war, but enough to turn the public opinion against Germany, who had practiced their unrestricted submarine warfare. This was ridiculous as the situation was spun to appear as a merciless attack against an unarmed liner. In fact, the ship had arms in its cargo that it was delivering to the British. Second, the passengers were warned when they purchased their tickets that British ships were to be fired upon. Finally, the Germans even went so far as to put a full page ad in the New York Times a day before, warning that there was a good chance the ship would be torpedoed.

Nevertheless, we had now chosen a side, cheering on the Allies, and contemplating joining in if the need came. The lame excuse to join came in the form of a code intercepted by the British, later proven fake, that proposed Mexico join the Central Powers, attack America, and reclaim the Southwest. Rather than having to lose Oakland and San Francisco, America went to Europe to fight.

The German and Austro-Hungarian governments were just as honest and straight forward to their people as the Allies. Refusing to admit they could lose the war, they convinced the country, it would only be months until they won. Following that, they said that they had to obliterate the enemy, or else the Allies would fulfill their dream of killing off all of the German people. When they did lose, the people were so angered that they looked for the cause of this upset, Not surprisingly, the buck was passed, hitting the politicians, and causing political upheaval in Germany.

Now that the war was over, little was gained, and little accomplished. The Allies found themselves in debt by the billions, millions of men short, and little to show for it, so they said it was the enemy's fault. Germany, according to the Paris Peace Treaty, was responsible for the war, in that they had without provocation attacked Serbia, and that caused the million-dollar-a-minute-war, and millions of deaths. Since it was their fault, they had to pay for it. It has been shown in this essay's seventh paragraph that it was not Germany's fault.

Furthermore, a responsible nation had never before ben forced to foot the bill for a war. It has occurred that the losers would pay for the winners, but never based on a moral standpoint. This too was more of an issue of win and lose, than right versus wrong. The nations wanted to be rid of the guilt of participating in the costliest and deadliest war, so they threw it on the already loaded back of the Germans. It is no wonder they soon snapped.

World War I was fought more by governments, showing off to the people than nations defending themselves. Men were wasted causing continual stalemates in battles at incredible expenses. The people were lied to, the soldiers were slaughtered, and little was gained. It was not so much a great war from treaties, it was a series of nations throwing away lives, money, and nationalism away as the people were the true victims of the first World War.