tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518007.post2543773419734106797..comments2024-02-09T14:11:55.826-08:00Comments on Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: August 1, 1914: The sword is being forced into our handWIIIAIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17267949487358907637noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518007.post-3730958318331450672014-08-01T15:36:39.405-07:002014-08-01T15:36:39.405-07:00World War I may be civilized compared to WW2, but ...World War I may be civilized compared to WW2, but not in comparison to just about anything else, encompassing as it does the second-largest genocide in human history.<br /><br />The perception of 1 as relatively civilian-friendly is probably a function of the static nature of the Western front for so much of it, in parts of France and Belgium from which all civilians had long fled.<br /><br />Starvation is related in part to disruption of transportation, with the various militaries taking over the train systems and commandeering trucks and horses and ships.<br /><br />We'll see if and when the NYT acquires a less naive understanding of warfare. It will be a while before the various countries deploy censorship less ham-fistedly, and allow war correspondents in (I should consult Phillip Knightley's The First Casualty at some point). But early in the war everyone was still talking about the rules of <br />"civilized warfare," usually in the context of accusing their enemies of violating them (dum-dum bullets, shelling cathedrals, burning ancient universities, etc).WIIIAIhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17267949487358907637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518007.post-3902058974770771162014-08-01T14:00:30.698-07:002014-08-01T14:00:30.698-07:00Where I was coming from was an impression that, wh...Where I was coming from was an impression that, while there were the usual blunders and isolated incidents, the bulk of the deaths in the war by far were soldiers (as opposed to, say, WW2).<br /><br />Your reply made me curious, so I looked up the death stats on Wikipedia and the results are interesting. The summary is that we have around 9.5 million military deaths and around 2.4 million civilians --- many more civilians that I'd expected. BUT the distribution of the civilians perhaps explains my ignorance.<br /><br />By far the bulk of the civilian deaths (1.5 million) happen in the Ottoman Empire. It's a matter of semantics, I guess, whether you call them actual war casualties or simply lunatic passions that took advantage of the chaos to carry out genocide. <br /><br />Beyond that the heavy duty civilian deaths happen mostly in Eastern Europe, and seem subject to the same sort of historical amnesia (at least in the Anglosphere) as occurs with WW2, only far more so. Serbia, in particular, loses 150,000 civilians, but we also have 120,000 scattered through Austria-Hungary, 130,000 in Romania, and 410,000 in Russia. <br /><br />There's also a whole different set of civilian deaths arising from food shortages. I was aware of these for Germany (600,000 or so, depending on whose counting) but was unaware that Austria-Hungary had a similar 470,000, the Ottoman Empire had 1,000,000 , and the same sort of gruesome numbers in Eastern Europe: 730,000 in Russia, 200,000 in Romania, 300,000 in Serbia. <br /><br />The two interesting numbers I was not aware of are:<br />Around 600,000 starvation numbers in Italy. (One suspects, given the constant stream of immigrants to the US, that they were living right at the Malthusian edge.) Also France has 300,000 civilian starvations, which is surprisingly high (IMHO) given how we (or at least I) have heard so much about the German starvation in the war, and nothing about this French starvation. One also wonders quite why it happened, given that France was probably not at the Malthusian limit. Was it purely an inability to get food from where it was being produced to where it was needed? Or was it simply not enough labor because everyone was either dead, fighting, or making weapons? <br /><br />Hmm. Seems like there would be value in my reading a comprehensive WW1 book to get the full picture rather than just the impressions I've picked up over time. <br /><br />Having said all this, I think the essence of my original comment (at least as I saw it), remains correct. The NYT seems to be under the medieval impression (or if you prefer the Nazi/Italian Futurist impression) that war is jolly good sport, a chance for young lads to demonstrate their gallantry, and that as long as it doesn't bother the rest of us, they can go off and have their fun. <br /><br />I would guess (though I'll have to see if my reading confirms this) that the ultimate shock of the war was NOT that it somehow involved more civilians, or more violations of the Geneva convention, than expected, but precisely the sort of the thing the NYT doesn't seem to care about --- that the number of military deaths, killed under normal conditions of war, using conventional weapons, were just so high. Certainly that's the focus of all the high-profile post-war culture: All Quiet on the Western Front, The Grand Illusion, Wilfred Owen, that sort of thing. <br />(As opposed to the WW2 cultural package which has substantially less soldier's-eye material, and is much more Holocaust, Blitz, civilians in Stalingrad, atom bomb, that sort of thing.) name99https://www.blogger.com/profile/13655602051960088825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518007.post-90065046378609987002014-08-01T10:46:06.665-07:002014-08-01T10:46:06.665-07:00The myth of the clean war is still very widespread...The myth of the clean war is still very widespread at this point, not least among the generals.<br /><br />But no, it wasn't correct.<br /><br />Attacks on civilians: see Louvain, elsewhere in Belgium.<br /><br />Looting, ditto.<br /><br />Undefended towns: Belgrade already, soon enough Brussels, Rheims. <br /><br />Surrendering soldiers are shot in pretty much every war.<br /><br />Unusually cruel weapons: aerial bombardment of cities, flamethrowers, mustard gas.WIIIAIhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17267949487358907637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518007.post-25769181194099737762014-08-01T10:37:06.309-07:002014-08-01T10:37:06.309-07:00"There won’t be attacks on civilians, looting..."There won’t be attacks on civilians, looting, bombing of undefended towns or buildings, shooting of surrendering soldiers, abuse of POWs, or unusually cruel weapons."<br /><br />Jokes aside, wasn't this basically correct? <br />Unfortunately for the NYT, however, it turns out that "usually cruel weapons" ie guns and artillery (as opposed to the unusually cruel ones) fired at soldiers rather than civilians, still causes a whole lot of unpleasantness...<br /><br />The very theory behind the editorial seems most strange. The author seems utterly unaware or unconcerned that the primary goal of war is to kill the opposing soldiers, that this can be done very efficiently, and that there are many many many soldiers available to be killed. <br /><br />The one place that leaps to mind where the NYT is wrong (ie the "usual rules of war" get ignored) is the sea war, the case they don't mention, starting with attacks on merchant vessels and neutral ships, going on to the wholesale blockade of Germany.name99https://www.blogger.com/profile/13655602051960088825noreply@blogger.com