World War I Remembered; Could it Have Been Different?

Armistice Day/Veteran’s Day – the “war to end war;” the dead, the wounded and the missing. Almost faded from memory now – 92 years after it ended – the “Great War,” World War I. The consequences have been unfolding ever since, but what if the slaughter – over 10 million dead, many more wounded or missing – could have been avoided. Would the world be as we know it today? Perhaps, but then again, maybe not. Would it be a better world? Or worse? We’ll never know, but there are some possibilities.

If there hadn’t been a first world war, there most likely wouldn’t have been a second world war 20 years later. The two conflicts, the wars, are irrevocably linked. Eventually history will treat them as one war, the same way it now speaks of the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War and the Napoleonic Wars.

World War II killed so many people – most of them civilians – and destroyed so much of Europe’s infrastructures, that it really finished off what World War I started. The U.S., which was already a major power, emerged from the conflict as the preeminent “superpower,” ending Europe’s global dominance, which had begun with the defeat of the Turks at Lepanto in 1571.

Would the U.S. have been in the same position, if the wars had never occurred? Probably – being catapulted into the role of the allies’ armory, as well as their banker, certainly helped. But it might well have inherited a more secure and less divided world, if it hadn’t been at war. U.S. growth might have happened at a slower pace, but this would have given the rest of the world a chance to grow and evolve peacefully..

The rest of the world takes in a lot of territory, and by 1914 most of it was ruled from Europe, either by outright colonization – Africa, India Indonesia, and the Pacific – or by economic dominance – China. Soldiers came from all over the far flung empires, particularly the British and French, to fight in the wars.

They took home some bitter lessons, beginning with a greatly diminished view of their European masters. National movements for freedom, and decolonization, already under way before the wars, received a huge boost from them. India cast off British rule in 1948; Indonesia got rid of the Dutch soon after, Indo-China, Algeria and the African colonies emerged from French control. Eventually colonialism died a deserved death.

Would this have happened if the wars had never been fought? Certainly, but the newly emerging nations might have had a far easier birth and a better afterlife. The military strongmen, who dominated the first post colonial governments, and whose successors continue to do so, got their training in those wars. The simple dictum “might makes right” was their guiding principle to the detriment of their people and their countries.

Had Europe been spared the destruction of the wars it might have been in a better position to guide its colonies towards independence, especially in Africa. Had there been more time, perhaps the convoluted borders, established by the colonizers, might have been reformed to avoid the ethnic, religious and tribal conflicts, which have plagued the continent ever since. Zimbabwe’s melt down and South Africa’s apartheid might have been avoided.

World War I was also the catalyst for the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century. The economic and social chaos it created brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia, setting the stage for Stalin’s murderous rule. Hitler came to power in Germany on its coattails, with the terrible consequences that ensued. The Fascists, led by Mussolini, took power in Italy. Mao formed an army of peasants, which eventually took power in China in 1949, and subsequently killed millions. Japan reacted to being one of the “victors” in World War I, by putting generals and admirals in power, who led the country to its defeat in World War II.

Would any of these events have occurred, but for the wars? Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, probably not, as the conditions that allowed them to take power would not have existed.

China certainly could have fallen to Mao’s tyranny without any outside wars, but, as the world has seen, China is a very resilient and practical country. It might have avoided Mao’s dictatorship and the Communist Party’s dominance, or at least channeled them into less violent acts.

One thing the wars produced, which could be called positive, was the empowerment of women. In most of Western Europe and in the U.S. women couldn’t even vote before the 20th century. Many countries forbade women from owning property, or running their own businesses or even their own lives without male guidance.

Women’s suffrage movements had long clamored for the right to vote, but it was only after the First World War that they began to achieve success. The U.S. in 1919, Britain in 1928, and eventually even France in 1945, adopted universal suffrage.

The role of women during the wars – taking the place of men on the assembly lines and in the delivery trucks, nursing the wounded and taking care of the home front – proved to even the most die-hard male chauvinist (well most of them anyway) that women could run their own lives as well, or as badly, as men, and should be accorded the chance to do so.

Unfortunately, in places less touched by the wars, this hasn’t happened. One of the great problems, and one of the great tragedies of the Islamic world, particularly in the Middle East, is the absence of women from positions of power, or from having anything but a peripheral role in open society.

The people in countries who continue to believe that women are simply adjuncts to men, and subservient to their will, thereby deprive themselves of the minds and the skills of half of their population – what a waste.

Of course the Middle East has other problems, many of which are directly related to the wars. The first one resulted in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, which had more or less ruled the region since the 14th century. Although it wasn’t an ideal government by any means, it did provide a certain stability to the region, which not only did give birth to the world’s monotheistic religions, but also to the sectarian violence the disputes between them caused.

Left to their own devices after World War II, the governments that came to power became increasingly autocratic and corrupt. Today only Israel and Turkey can properly be labeled as democracies, and both of them have problems. The rest have suppressed their people for so long, that many of them have gone to the one place where they can to some extent vent their frustrations – the Mosque.

However, this in turn has been exploited by extremists, who fear anything to do with modernization, particularly as it’s practiced in the western world. In their minds secularization is a form of blasphemy, and under Islamic Law that’s usually a capital offense.

Although terrorism is a weapon of the weak, monomaniacal Islamists have succeeded in producing a great deal of violence and death, as well as two wars. Until the fundamental problems of the Middle East are addressed in a meaningful way, it will continue to do so.

The conflict between religious and secular societies has gone on as long as the two have existed. One of the more subtle consequences of the wars was to weaken the force of religious belief in many countries, particularly in Europe. How can you believe in a benevolent God, who by implication allowed the unbridled and meaningless killing in the trenches? Or who did nothing to halt the mass murders of World War II?

In essence you can’t. But belief is belief, and people who have faith in a supreme being continue to believe, as a majority of people in the U.S. do, that this gives meaning to their lives. But faith without reason can lead to a dead end. And, how much stronger that faith must be in countries where the main, sometimes the only, educational tool is a holy book? Modernization, even on a modest scale under such conditions, becomes impossible. Words, even in the Internet age, haven’t lost their ability to influence peoples’ hearts and minds.

However, there are words that lead to the truths of things, and there are words that play upon peoples’ fears and emotions to lead them in the direction the speaker or writer wants them to go. World War I wasn’t the birthplace for the art of propaganda, but it certainly helped it evolve into a powerful force. Both sides demonized the other to such an extent that an early end to the war without victory became impossible, even as the losses mounted.

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, manipulated the desperate Germans, using the “big lie” and the media, – press, radio and rallies at the time – to convince enough of them to back the Nazi party in 1933, bringing Hitler to power. One party regimes have embraced the same means to gain and hold power. Basically they tell their people how wonderful they have it under their rule, and warn them to fear attacks by “enemies of the state.”

Much of the information people receive today is, quite frankly, the “big lie,” perfected by Goebbels, and not just in one party states. Democracies can’t function effectively unless the people who vote in elections have sufficient information to make an intelligent, or at least an informed, choice. This has never been easy, but it’s becoming even more difficult.

Technology has given us the means to acquire knowledge on almost any subject we wish, but it has also given us access to so much information, that it’s become impossible to even look at all of it; let alone pick out that which has value from that which is just propaganda.

You really don’t even need to censor media content, as China and a number of other countries do. If you can get enough people to listen to whatever propaganda you broadcast, you’ve achieved your purpose, whether it’s a big lie, or not. That’s perhaps the most insidious contribution made by the wars, and there seems little hope at present of putting this genie back in the bottle.

To be aware of something, even a condition as amorphous as the use of propaganda, gives one the means to resist it; to ask questions; to doubt. However, it’s been shown that people usually choose to pay attention to the views of others – reporters, columnists, politicians, etc. – that are in accord with opinions they already hold. The easier it is to find people who agree with you, the less likely you are to seek out the opinions of those who don’t.

As the calamity of the First World War approached, many leaders and a good portion of the general public in Europe, did question the advisability of entering into a conflict that threatened to engulf the world. Unfortunately their views were brushed aside, as leaders on both sides were certain the war would be over by Christmas 1914, and that they would prevail.

Maybe thinking about that, as well as the rest of the fallout from the wars, will help world leaders think twice before they rush into situations they can’t really control. Maybe it will lead some people to stop and question the wisdom of a course of action, such as going to war, before they give their approval, providing of course that they are even asked to do so. If that happens, the world will have learned yet another lesson from World War I. The odds on it, however, don’t look very good.