To Hell and Back the world at war

To Hell and Back: the world at war “ 30 Year War” All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances…

How did people understand the idea of war prior to WWI? Western wars in recent memory: ◦ Napoleonic Wars: (1803 – 1815) ◦ Crimean War: (1853 - 1856) ◦ American Civil War: (1861 – 1865) ◦ Franco-Prussian War: (1870 - 1871) ◦ Russo-Japanese War: (1904 – 1905)

Perpetual peace is a dream --and not even a beautiful one. War is part of God's worldorder. Within it unfold the noblest virtues of men, courage and renunciation, loyalty to duty and readiness for sacrifice--the soldier gives his life. Without war the world would stagnate and lose itself in materialism. - German general Helmuth Von Moltke the elder (1800 – 1891)

The Call to Service ◦ These are the days when little thoughts Must cease men's minds to occupy; The nation needs men's larger creeds, Big men must answer to her cry: No longer selfish ways we tread, The greater task lies just ahead. ◦ These are the days when petty things By all men must be thrust aside; The country needs men's finest deeds, Awakened is the nation's pride; Men must forsake their selfish strife Once more to guard their country's life. ◦ Edgar A. Guest (1881 – 1959)

Length of time Losses (killed + wounded) Impacts of earlier wars 12 years 2. 5 – 3. 5 million people Napoleonic Wars (1803 -1815) Crimean War 4 years 223 000 people American Civil War (1861 -1865) 4 years 600 – 700 000 people Franco-Prussian War (1869 -1871) 6 months 32 000 people Russo-Japanese War (1904 -1905) 18 months 165 000 people World War 1 million deaths / military personnel) 4 years 40 million: (approx. 20 20 million wounded World War 2 6 years 50– 80 million people perished

Some numbers ◦ During Napoleonic Wars Napoleon bragged he could pay for his wars with 30 000 deaths a month ◦ In the early days of the war 30 000 died in just one day in Battle of the Frontiers ◦ The whole size of the Roman armies consisted of 750 000 people at the most – the Schlieffen Plan had at least that, and maybe up to 1. 2 million people ◦ 1 st 3 weeks of war – already a million people dead

“One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic. ” ◦ (attributed to Joseph Stalin)

Verdun, France: to bleed France white…

Verdun 1916 ◦Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre. What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad! ◦ -Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire, May 23, 1916

2 ND BATTLE OF YPRES “This isn't war; this is the end of the world. ”

Passchendaele/3 rd battle of Ypres: (July – Nov 1917) ◦Total casualties at Passchendaele were estimated at some 500, 000 soldiers (about 275, 000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed and more than 200, 000 Germans. )

I died in hell; they called it Passchendaele

◦ “From the darkness on all sides came the groans and wails of wounded men; faint, long, sobbing moans of agony and despairing shrieks. It was too horribly obvious to me that dozens of men with serious wounds must have crawled for safety into shell holes. And now the water was rising above them, and powerless to move, they were slowly drowning. ” ◦ Edwin Vaughan, British lieutenant, 1917

◦ “We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trenches but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging, even waving. There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying ‘Good morning’ in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath. ” ◦ Leonard Thompson, British soldier

FERMI PARADOX

Option A: It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself ◦ This is the argument that technological civilizations may invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or spaceflight technology. Possible means of annihilation are many, including war, accidental environmental contamination or damage, resource depletion, climate change, or poorly designed artificial intelligence. ◦ Using extinct civilizations such as Easter Island (Rapa Nui) as models, a study conducted in 2018 suggested that climate change induced by "energy intensive" civilizations may prevent sustainability within such civilizations, thus explaining the paradoxical lack of evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life. David Brin: "There are many stories of islands whose men were almost wiped out—sometimes by internal strife, and sometimes by invading males from other islands. "

Option B) It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others ◦ Another hypothesis is that an intelligent species beyond a certain point of technological capability will destroy other intelligent species as they appear. (ie through self-replicating probes). Science fiction writer Fred Saberhagen has explored this idea in his Berserker series, as has physicist Gregory Benford. ◦ A species might undertake such extermination out of expansionist motives, greed, paranoia, or aggression. In 1981, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that such behavior would be an act of prudence: an intelligent species that has overcome its own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species bent on galactic expansion as a threat. It has also been suggested that a successful alien species would be a superpredator, as are

“HELL” BY GEORGES LEROUX 1921

The Battle of the Somme ◦ The Battle of the Somme is the British equivalent to the Battle of Verdun ◦ By way of comparison, the British had mourned their great losses at the famous battle of Waterloo when Napoleon killed approximately 8400 British soldiers. In the Battle of the Somme there were 60 000 British casualties the first day (Germans 6 -12 000) ◦ To compare: on D-Day the Brits and Americans took 20 days on the push in Normandy combined to reach 1/3 the amount of casualities on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (ie 20 000 casualties in 20 days) ◦ Total military + civilian casualties in ALL of European domestic and international conflicts in 1815 - 1915 no greater than any single day combat losses in any of the great battles of 1916 (ie Verdun or the Somme)

A reflection from a once solider at Verdun… ◦ “This western-front business couldn’t be done again, not for a long time. The young men now think they could do it but they couldn’t. They could fight the first Marne again but not this. This took religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties and the exact relation that existed between the classes. The Russians and Italians weren’t any good on this front. You had to have a whole-souled sentimental equipment going back further than you could remember. You had to remember Christmas, and postcards of the Crown Prince and his fiancée, and little cafés in Valence and beer gardens in Unter den Linden and weddings at the mairie, and going to the Derby, and your grandfather’s whiskers. ” ◦ F Scott Fitzerald (1934)

◦If war was once a chivalrous duel, it is now a dastardly slaughter. ” -German General Von Bolfras (Sept. 1914, after 1 month of modern warfare)

German experience

◦ “The whole earth is ploughed by the exploding shells and the holes are filled with water, and if you do not get killed by the shells you may drown in the craters. Broken wagons and dead horses are moved to the sides of the road, also many dead soldiers lie here. Wounded soldiers who died in the ambulance have been unloaded and their eyes stare at you. Sometimes an arm or leg is missing. Everybody is rushing, running, trying to escape almost certain death in this hail of enemy shells. Today I have seen the real face of war. ” ◦ Hans Otto Schetter, German soldier

Dulce et Decorum est… ◦ Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge… ◦ Wilfred Owen

And the humanity in the middle of it all… ◦ “At many places along the opposing line of trenches, a ‘live and let live’ system evolved, based on the realisation that neither side was going to drive out the other anyway. It resulted in arrangements such as not shelling the latrines or attacking during breakfast. Some parties even worked out arrangements to make noise before lesser raids so that the opposing soldiers could retreat to their bunkers. ” ◦ Jackson J. Spielvogel, historian

What if…? ◦ Battle of the Marne (6– 12 September 1914): what if the Germans had won? How would the history of the 20 th century be different? ◦ Some people argue it might have been better had the Germans won this battle and ended the war – think of the heavy consequences of this war and the next