|
|
Vertaal:
              Tenzij wij vergeten: Kon de Eerste Oorlog van de Wereld zijn opgehouden?
Donderdag, 13 November, 2008 Door George Monbiot | Als de meeste mensen van mijn generatie, groeide ik met een geheim. Ik vond ik de Tweede Oorlog van de Wereld begreep. De poging, om de mensen van andere rassen te elimineren te vernietigen te overheersen en? niettemin verhoogde aan ongekende niveaus door Nazis? is een vertrouwd historisch thema. De behoefte om Hitler tegen te houden was absoluut, en de vreselijke offers van de Tweede Oorlog van de Wereld waren onvermijdelijk. Maar de Eerste Oorlog van de Wereld, die 90 jaar geleden vandaag beëindigde, scheen onbegrijpelijk. De klassenbelangen van de mensen die naar doden elkaar worden gestuurd waren het zelfde. Terwijl Duitsland duidelijk de aanvaller was, de vooruitzichten van de verzettende bevoegdheden? willen hun kolonies uitbreiden en Europese handel overheersen was niet wild verschillend. Lelijk aangezien de Duitse staat was, kon niemand de oorlog bij zijn uitbarsting kenmerken? met Tsarist Rusland aan de kant van de Bevoegdheden van de Entente? als eenvoudige strijd tussen democratie en dictatuur. Noch deed dit lijken op de huidige oorlog in Irak, waarin de wetgevers de kinderen van een andere klasse naar matrijs sturen. De kansen om worden gedood waren minstens vijf keer hoger voor mensen die studenten in Oxford of Cambridge in 1914 waren geweest dan zij voor handarbeiders waren.1 De eerste Oorlog van de Wereld was een handeling van sociaal kannibalisme, waarin de staatsmannen en het algemeen aan beide kanten hun eigen nakomelingen moord. Hoe kon het gebeurd zijn? Op 1 Juli 1999, verbruikt door de drang om de oorlog vóór de eeuw te begrijpen was over, bezocht ik Thiepval op de Somme. Dit was de verjaardag van de eerste grote aanval op Duitse salients, die verwoestende verliezen voor Britse en Ierse troepen veroorzaakten. Mensen die dragen fluiten en gekleed in oranje sjerpen? het herdenken van de Ulster Afdeling? ongeveer afgepast. Onder de bogen van het gedenkteken Lutyens koesterde een cirkel van evangelische Christenen en gilde en ululated, terwijl een kleine jongen zich in gevechtstoestel kleedde dat rond hun benen met een plastic machinegeweer wordt gespeeld. Ik goggled bij de namen op het monument? 73.000 herdenken slechts de Britten en de Zuid-Afrikanen die op de Somme vielen en de van wie organismen niet werden teruggekregen? but I couldn?t grasp the scale of what I saw. Dizzied by these conflicting sights, unable to connect, I wandered behind the old German lines and into a field of sugar beet. Walking between the rows, trying to clear my head, I noticed a spherical pebble. I picked it up. It was strangely heavy. Then I looked around and saw that the field was covered with the same odd little balls. Almost every stone was in fact metal. Within a minute I picked up more grapeshot than I could hold. I found shell casings, twisted bullets, fragments of barbed wire, chips of armor plating. I stopped, overwhelmed by shock and recognition. It was a field of lead and steel; and every piece had been manufactured to kill someone. There are plenty of words to describe the horrors of World War Two. But there were none, as far as I could discover, that captured the character of the First World War. So I constructed one from the Greek word ephebos, a young man of fighting age. Ephebicide is the wanton mass slaughter of the young by the old. But how did it happen, and why? In his fascinating book The Last Great War, published a fortnight ago, Adrian Gregory shows that the notion that Britain was carried to war on a wave of patriotic enthusiasm is false.2 The crowds that gathered around Buckingham Palace and in Downing Street when war was declared seem to have been more curious than excited. Most people appear to have greeted the war with resignation or dismay. Nor does voluntary enlistment provide clear evidence of enthusiasm. It is true that some wanted to fight, and others saw war as a more exciting prospect that working in a dead-end office job.3 But Gregory shows that voluntarism wasn?t all that it seemed. For many men fighting was the only employment on offer. The largest numbers volunteered not at the very beginning of war, but after the disaster at Mons on August 24th, when it became clear that there was a genuine threat to national defense.4 The speed with which the war began and Britain joined made effective resistance impossible to organize. By the time the anti-war meetings had been called, it was too late. And by then there was a genuine need to stop Germany. It was as rational to seek to curtail German expansionism in August 1914 as it was in September 1939. But the narratives, like Gregory?s, which suggest that World War One was inevitable begin late in the sequence of events.5 Another anniversary, almost forgotten in this country, falls tomorrow. On November 12th 1924, Edmund Dene Morel died. Morel had been a shipping clerk, based in Liverpool and Antwerp, who had noticed, in the late 1890s, that while ships belonging to King Leopold were returning from the Congo to Belgium full of ivory, rubber and other goods, they were departing with nothing but soldiers and ammunition. He realized that Leopold?s colony must be a slave state, and launched an astonishing and ultimately successful effort to break the king?s grip.6 For a while he became a national hero. A few years later he became a national villain. During his Congo campaign, Morel had become extremely suspicious of the secret diplomacy pursued by the British foreign office. In 1911, he showed how a secret understanding between Britain and France over the control of Morocco, followed by a campaign in the British press based on misleading foreign office briefings, had stitched up Germany and very nearly caused a European war.7 In February 1912 he warned that ?no greater disaster could befall both peoples [Britain and Germany], and all that is most worthy of preservation in modern civilization, than a war between them.?8 Convinced that Britain had struck a second secret agreement with France that would drag us into any war which involved Russia, he campaigned for such treaties to be made public; for recognition that Germany had been hoodwinked over Morocco and for the British government to seek to broker a reconciliation between France and Germany. In response British ministers lied. The prime minister and the foreign secretary repeatedly denied that there was any secret agreement with France.9 Only on the day before war was declared did the foreign secretary admit that a treaty had been in place since 1906. It ensured that Britain would have to fight from the moment Russia mobilized. Morel continued to oppose the war and became, until his dramatic rehabilitation after 1918, one of the most reviled men in Britain. Could the Great War have been averted if, in 1911, the British government had done as Morel suggested? No one knows, as no such attempt was made. Far from seeking to broker a European peace, Britain, pursuing its self-interested diplomatic intrigues, helped to make war more likely. Germany was the aggressor; but the image of affronted virtue cultivated by Britain was a false one. Faced, earlier in the century, with the possibilities of peace, the old men of Europe had decided that they would rather kill their children than change their policies. Have Your Say: Lest We Forget: Could the First World War Have Been Stopped? Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
|
Does Overexposure to Sex Make Us Jaded? Last post by ZingPao @ 07:14 PM Go to Forum
| Latest Topics
How not to jump off a boat Last post by ZingPao @ 07:09 PM Mrs Zing? Last post by Mick @ 06:55 PM Zeik HEIL Welcome to TEXAS Last post by Unregistered @ 06:11 PM Obama: The Postmodern Coup - Making of a Manchurian Candidate Last post by Unregistered @ 05:47 PM Council Warns Staff About Using Offensive Term 'british' Last post by ZingPao @ 05:42 PM Could Bush Be In Trouble???? Last post by ZingPao @ 05:40 PM And the Award for stupidest fitness machine goes too..... Last post by ZingPao @ 05:19 PM An English Lesson Last post by ZingPao @ 05:16 PM Lancaster University : Unlimited Cheap Energy 5 years ahead of MIT Last post by Unregistered @ 05:15 PM  Email This Page To A Friend Latest Headlines
More World News  Archive |
The views expressed in the RINF news wire and newsletter are the sole responsibility of the author (s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the webmaster. RINF.COM: Breaking News & Alternative Media is Copyleft - Copy & Distribute Freely. News Forum |
Loading ...
