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Animal-Mother posted:Germany and France had been preparing for another war for years. Then right on the eve of starting poo poo off, the Kaiser broke down and cried like a big baby. There's a big difference between preparing for a war and actually consenting to fighting it. You're right though, once war broke out the Kaiser became increasingly paranoid, swapping back and forth from militaristic fervor to despair. I think at one point he declared that the Entente were fighting a war to eradicate Germany. HarlanHell posted:I thought the Napoleonic wars did destroy a lot of towns, and kill a ton of civilians. I know looting, and raping by victorious soldiers was so common back then its was almost an expected perk. Didn't the problem have more to do with the fact that the Napoleonic wars were so far removed. By the time of WW1 Napoleon's wars had become a collection of heroic stories and paintings rather than horrific memories. I would think another big factor is that large scale photographic, and video documentation really didn't start in full until the first world war. I guess my point is that if you take a generation that has never seen real war, and raise them on heroic stories, and quick painless colonial conquest its not too hard to see why they celebrated the coming of war. They were removed because the armies largely fought their battles and then packed up and left. Extended campaigns in an area might see raping and looting of a settled area over time but the actual killing and fighting of the war was still pretty much left to uniformed armies on a battlefield somewhere. I think it's important to consider the scale of death involved. By the time World War I happened technology and modernization made that style of warfare all but impossible. It's wikipedia, so take it with a huge grain of salt, but lets look at the casualties of both wars: Napoleonic: 3.5 - 6 million World War I: 16.5 - 40 milliion The Napoleonic Wars were fought over a roughly 12 year period. World War I was fought over a 4 year period. That dramatic jump is only inside one hundred years. They celebrated the coming of the war because the literally had no idea of the horrendous scale it would be waged on. Their minds seem alien to us because the idea of total war simply didn't exist to them. It was inconceivable. They were writing loving poetry about it. Who does that now. tokyosexwale fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jul 29, 2014 |
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Jul 29, 2014 15:12
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It happened a hundred years ago, dude You think people living during the 1700's became all reflective thinking about the 30 Years War? They were probably like, "Glad we weren't those chuckleheads," and then went off to beat their slaves or whatever
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Jul 29, 2014 15:17
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