We are approaching the centenary of World War I (as we now call it). This was a war of firsts,
the first global war, the first time civilians at home were targeted by bombing from the air, or dying in merchant ships from neutral countries, the first industrial war that used weapons of terror like chlorine and mustard gas, tanks, flame throwers and the first extensive use of submarines and machine guns. It was the first time the United States of America became involved in a war in Europe.
The war was of course a horror, but we should learn by trying to understand what caused it and kept it going. I have been reading some books about it,
"The Proud Tower" and "The Guns of August", both by Barbara W. Tuchman, well written, taking viewpoints from all sides yet still focused,
and
"To End All Wars" by Adam Hochschild, mainly from the English point of view and many details from the home front.
Perhaps another approach would be to read the authors of the time, like
John Buchan
Rudyard Kipling
John Galsworthy
Charlotte Despard, the eldest sister of Sir John French
Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Sylvia
Virginia and Leonard Woolf
Vera Brittain
Beatrice Webb
Thomas Hardy
Arthur Conan Doyle
Siegfried Sassoon
H.G. Wells
Winston Churchill
I wonder whether WW1 and subsequently WW2 have causes rooted in events of earlier centuries. I refer to corruption within the Catholic Church that led to the the Protestant Reformation, the creation and expansion of the Kingdom of Prussia under the Protestant Elector of Brandenburg out of a fiefdom of Poland, and the dominance within the Empire of the Kingdom of Prussia whose area made up about two-thirds of the German Empire. I also wonder to what extent the savage territorial losses after WW1 created the fuel within Germany for the rise of Hitler and his demonic policies and aggressive territorial aspirations without regard for human life. Of course, Germany, and in particular Prussian influence, was even more savagely dismantled after WW2. Now the original area known as Prussia that was previously a fiefdom of Poland is now completely within the boundaries of Poland and Germany is a democratic nation. Regards ChrisM.
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