Summer VII. International politics + war, revisited

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: VI. Peace and war + Internet & good at TV

I have been reading one of those prognostic articles on international politics which every now and then appears in the reviews. Why I should so waste my time it would be hard to say; I suppose the fascination of disgust and fear gets the better of me in a moment’s idleness. This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about “dire calamity” and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which  casts scorn on all who reluct at the “inevitable.” Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

But I will read no more such writing. This resolution I make and shall keep. Why set my nerves quivering with rage, and spoil the calm of a whole day, when no good of any sort can come of it? What is it to me if nations fall a-slaughtering each other? Let the fools go to it! Why should they not please themselves? Peace, after all, is the aspiration of the few; so it always was, and ever will be... Let them blast the cornfield and the orchard, fire the home. For all that, there will yet be found some silent few, who go their way amid the still meadows, who bend to the flower and watch the sunset; and these alone are worth a thought.

Alpha.

How lucky he was to have not lived to see the age of “Total War” and the “Doomsday Clock.” From 2nd grade through most of my young adulthood, I lived with the knowledge that I, and everyone around me, could be vaporized in the next hour or so. When there were international crises of the kind Ryecroft here alludes to -- and which did in fact lead to a Great War -- this thought was much more on our minds, but we also knew that it could come out of the blue, either on purpose or as a cosmic accident -- see also Doctor Strangelove.

Today I am even more frightened, in retrospect, by the knowledge that for much of this time I was “protected” by Air National Guardsmen equipped with short range surface to air nuclear missiles. How a bunch of screw ups like George W. Bush failed to accidentally blow-up some American city is perhaps the greatest miracle of the 20th century.

On the other hand, nuclear weapons succeeded in ending the chain reaction of conflict among the most powerful states at any given time. Study history from the Hellenic period to WW2 and you would predict the inevitability of a war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. -- yet this never quite happened. Perhaps the M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) aspect of nuclear war will not always protect the world from use of these weapons, but so far it has been surprisingly effective. One could almost suggest a policy of giving perpetually warring states nukes to make them finally give it a rest -- India and Pakistan could be the test of this policy.

Beta.

There is really no excuse to write more about the Great War than I already have, but I am writing this in August of 2014 and that now antique war is much on my mind.

Again I’m reminded of Uncle Toby from Tristram Shandy, as we would have got on like a house afire. First he would take the bit between his teeth about the exploits of the first star of the Churchill family, the Duke of Marlborough, and when he finally ran out of gas, I would seize the reins and go off on the multiple generations of campaigns in that same small area of Europe (There are competing equine and also an automotive metaphor in there, but I feel they all work well together.) 

It always amazes me how close together many of the battlefields of the War of the Spanish Succession, Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian and World Wars were. From Ypres on the west to Bastogne on the east, from Sedan at the south to Oudenaarde in the north -- it's such a small portion of Europe yet within it you will also find Waterloo, Wavre, Ramillies, Tournai, Malplaquet, Mons, Ligny/Fleurus. You would think that Belgium was the geographical prize of the planet for all the blood the English, French, Germans and eventually Americans have spent there. 

It is also worth noting that in five of these battles the British, Dutch, and Germans fought the French while in six (including the four Great War battles around Ypres) some combination of British, French, Belgian, and Americans fought against the Germans. In three other battles it was strictly Germans against French.

The military authorities of Europe had largely dismissed the lessons of the American Civil War because the American armies were militias, not professional European armies. That wasn't unreasonable, at least for the first years of the Civil War. By the end, however, the American armies had become well trained by war and even, for the most part, well lead. In particular, General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) was as experienced and efficient an army as you will likely find in the 19th (or arguably any other) century. Following the death of Lee’s brilliant wing commander, Jackson, the ANV had become a one trick pony, with the sole trick being the ability to quickly form defenses at any point using almost exclusively infantry with muzzle-loading rifles and artillery very similar to what Napoleon knew. European armies seemed to be less proficient at this trick of defense in the decades of the 19th century that followed, and also during the opening weeks of the Great War -- even though bolt-action rifles and machine guns should have made them even more deadly. In compensation, the rapid technical development of artillery between the 1860s and 1910s -- and that the machine gun was a weapon that cut both ways -- gave the offence again some advantages in the field. But the lessons of the American Civil War remained true and only waited for armies to grow as practiced and efficient as the ANV had been. This is what did in fact happen as the First Battle of the Marne and especially the Race to the Sea came to an end, and this superiority of the defense would remain decisive until new tactics (fire and maneuver) and new technology (armored fighting vehicles) again changed the equation in 1918.

Next: Summer VIII. Heat + light.