First World War, Begining of the Modern World.

Reflections on World War One:

 

As 2014 draws to a close, the centenary year that saw the beginning of that blood bath World War 1, it seems opportune to look back and consider those macabre events. To evaluate and analyse, whether the world has learnt anything from those experiences over the last one hundred years. Apart from the trauma many combatants experienced for the remainder of their lives, the senseless killings of thousands by long range artillery, death by injury and disease, the war saw the recreation of modern day Europe and the Near East. Empires fell, Russian, German, Austrian/Hungarian and Ottoman existed no more. The map of Europe was redrawn; Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine and other smaller states once more appeared on the world map. The seeds of the current conflict in the near east were created with arbitrary borders showing little concern for the ethnic and religious beliefs of the inhabitants. Armenia despite all the good intentions of the Allies was driven from its historic homeland.

Reading through the diaries, soldiers’ letters, political slogans and speeches of the major players leave any impartial enquirer with a sense of the futile nature of war. Looking back, it seems the great hope of that age still remain unfulfilled today. History teaches us that greed and the pursuit of national self- interest always win. Reading a letter written by Valentine Fleming [ Grandfather of Ian Fleming, author of ‘James Bond’ novels.], who at the time was serving on the Western Front, the letter was written to Winston Churchill who later experience firsthand the hardship of trench warfare. Reading the letter it is impossible not to visualise the reality of a technical conflict. Fleming informed Winston of ‘the absolutely indescribable ravages of modern artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of nature itself. Imagine, he wrote ‘a broad belt, ten miles or so wide, stretching from the Channel to the German frontier near Basle, which is positively littered with bodies of men and scarified with their rude graves; in which farms, villages and cottages are shapeless heaps of blackened masonry; in which fields, roads and trees are pitted and torn and twisted by shells and disfigured by dead horses, cattle, sheep and goats, scattered in every attitude of repulsive distortion and dismemberment.’ A zone continually made ‘more hideous by the incessant crash and whistle and roar of every sort of projectile, by sinister columns of smoke and flame, by the cries of wounded men, by the piteous calls of animals of all sorts, abandoned, starved, wounded’.

Without being judgemental is it possible consider this new technology of conflict heroic? Firing an artillery shell from distances of up to 75 miles to kill combatants and civilians alike is not heroic. This is not to suggest that there were not many heroic acts carried out during the war, simply that such acts should be acts of personal valour and courage not impersonal killing.

It is hard to believe that any thinking person with knowledge of the carnage of this war, ten million soldiers dead would not understand the urgency for a better mechanism to resolve national political ambition .President Wilson’s fourteen points outlined in his January speech to the United State Congress in 1918 seems a good starting point many of these ideas were incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles,  but unbelievably the Senate failed to vote for the USA to become a member of the  League of Nations. Not that other political and military leaders on all sides had seemed to have  been in any hurry to advance the cause of peace through the war. As the Treaty was formed on the assumption that the US would be a  member its absents ensured to a great extent that the League would not be the success many hoped.

Wilson’s fourteen points outlined in his speech, suggest Diplomacy and treaty making should be ‘frank and in public view’. That freedom to navigate the high seas assured for all. Economic barriers removed and equality of trading conditions established among all nations. That the interests of all people whether colonial or not given equal weight in terms of sovereignty. Military armament to be reduced, all nationalities within the Ottoman Empire assured of a secure sovereignty and autonomous development. All nations guaranteed political independence, no matter how large or small. All fine ideas, but how many have been implemented over the last 100 years. It is a sad comment on humanity’s priorities that many of Wilson’s ideals are still just that, ideals. Would the current chaos in the Near East still exist if it had not been for national greed? Unfortunately the First World War resolved very little in how to build a better world. Hopefully as we remember the sacrifices made one hundred years ago over the next four years, serious thought will be given to all these outstanding issues or was it all only a dream.