In
1914, when the biggest and most horrible of wars that they have
witnessed swept across Europe, H.G.Wells remarked that this will be the
"War that will end all the wars", perhaps
thinking that people would learn something from this war and work
towards more peace. This was perhaps the last of the wars that were
fought in many aspects. One, the use of military for imperial expansion
started getting criticized. The wars to protect "humanity" started
becoming more pronounced. The need for reasons to war became more
necessary. Second world war had points to justify, it was fought to save
humanity and the victims of holocaust still remind us about that. But
for the first world war, they didn't have any answer to those questions.
First world war happened at a time when the world was turning itself
around. The voiceless started getting voice, the people who were
otherwise suppressed were getting empowered to let them be heard in the
annals of history. In other words, the usual elites interpretation of
wars and its cultural symbols started changing. People started asking
why was this war being fought? Soldiers who otherwise never seem to have
any significance in any literature or news started getting more
importance. So such questions started moulding the nature of wars.
League of nations were formed since the great war, which then became the
United nations. But, most prominent of all the changes were the
de-culturalisation of war. Pulling down all those glossy, heroic stories
that inspired countries and kingdoms to war. In other words, the
anti-war movements, which were in their nappies, started coming to age.
I
was reading few books that incidentally sets itself around the First
world war. The first one was a non-fiction called, 'Missing of the
Somme'. This was the book that spoke of the aftermath of the Great war.
The author travelled through the European cities exploring how the
memorials are built and what message does the 'memorialisation' of the
war, as projected to the later generations. It was since First world war
the anti-war literature started becoming very popular. There were many
war-poets and war-writers who wrote of the futility of wars and its
brutal consequences and better options. Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves
etc. are some well-known war poets, they wrote poems from trenches in
Belgium, France borders. The book heavily criticized the way the war is
represented, which often being in the custody of warmongers, has only
tried to justify their stance. A dead soldier is always a martyr for
good cause. I remember a poem from school days where a soldier who was
decorated for killing an enemy soldier consciously was awarded death
sentence for killing another civilian in a drunken brawl. When you make
someone martyr you are actually glorifying the purpose for which he
died. A soldier who dies is always given a honour of one who tried to
protect the people and safeguard the country thereby justifying the war,
whatever be the original reason.
The
above mentioned book explored all the aspects of the Great war that is
represented through paintings, sculpture, memorials, literature etc. It
talked about sculptures that were commissioned by the governments, which
gave a heroic representation of the soldier, then there are other
sculptures that shows the other side of the war, of the faceless
soldiers, soldiers crying over the body of his best mate, of soldier
holding his dead horse against his chest. The memorials were designed
by many well-known architects e.g.. Luyten who had built New Delhi. One
of the war memorial built in London is called 'Unknown soldier'. As a
post war activity the governements had to ensure proper burial of all
soldiers. But the war fronts were sprewn with countless un-identified
bodies that it started getting difficult. So they picked whatever they
could, the mortal remains of an unknown soldier, and was cremated in the
capital city on which the memorial was commissioned. Siegfried
Sassoon's and Robert
Grave's poems spoke of bloody atmosphere of the war front
where the supply is scant, so is ammunitions, poor communication
devices, slow yet dedicated medical services and of strange state of
humanity that people learn only after they experience hell in person.
During the war, the punishment for deserters were death and thousands of
youngsters were killed by their own nation because they flee from the
war front, from a war that wouldn’t serve any better purpose. It was
only recently the governments apologized to their families and gave them
honours for volunteering for the war. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A very
long engagement tells the story of a girl trying to find her
lover who was sentenced to death for trying to escape.
Another
book was the last book of 'Regeneration' trilogy of Pat Barker. That
was when the war was described with a bitterness, with a nonchalance
that may sound suicidal. It was about a young soldier who was brought
from the war front with shell shock, who after his treatment, has to
report back at the front. The other character is the doctor of the
hospital who has to witness countless causalities and broken down
soldiers and try to recuperate them. Another book from the same writer
was 'Life Class'. A tale of two youngsters and how a massive force like
war impact the idea of love, art and freedom. It retells the horror of
the war through the eyes of one of the protagonist who volunteers as
nurse in war front. Both the novels emphasized on the brutality of the
war and its vanity as opposed to the excitement and chivalry that normal
war literature give. It was a pointless war, where people went and
died in scores. There wasn't a definite answer to the question as to why
was that war fought? Was that the vestiges of imperial strength show
that it had to prolong unnecessarily. In the narratives, we could feel
the hopelessness of a soldier who might very well be walking into his
death. That book had received Booker prize in 1995
'Penguin
book of First world war stories' was the last one. It was a
meticulously arranged collection of short stories told in the backdrop
of First world war. It had stories written by Somerset Maugham, Joseph
Conrad, Katherine Mansfield, Conan Doyle, Julian Barnes etc. It is
arranged into 4 sections - Stories from the front of which a story
called 'Blind' by Mary Borden and A. W. Well's 'Chanson Triste' were
incredible, second one was on spies and intelligence used during the
first world war - Sherlock Holmes appear in one of them penned by Conan
Doyle, At home - this section had stories of people back home, of
mothers waiting for their sons, Hugh Walpole's 'Nobody' was a heart
breaking tale of a 16 yr old boy who faked his age to enter the army and
was sentenced to death for deserting, and In Retrospect, it was about
the impact of war in the future generation. Julian Barnes' 'Evermore'
was the best amongst that. The story was an attempt to exorcise the
ghosts of un-redeemed soldiers and their stories that got buried under
the bigger second world war that eclipsed the first. Christian Caron's
movie Joyeux
Noel is based on a story from this book, the incident was real
though, where on the Christmas days the soldiers from British, French
and German fronts defied the higher commands and celebrated the festival
together.
In
the movie 'Troy' Odysseus tells Achilles "This war will never be
forgotten, nor will the heroes who fought in it", but do anyone remember
anyone other than Achilles or Odysseus or Hector? , in Baghavad Gita
the war was a righteous move to get back what was rightfully theirs, to
protect dharma (whatever that means). Is it a dharma of a poor foot
soldier to die unnecessary for a feudal war between two arrogant clans
of co-brothers over who will own the kingdom? Had those soldiers been
given a voice they would have called Mahabharata an epic blunder. If you
look at the gods and heroes and legends that people follow or worship
there is this war or their violent nature associated with it. There is
an embedded heroism in war that still hasn't lost its seductive charm.
It shows off patriotism, manliness, heroism etc. People hate Gandhi for
his unmanly non-violence philosophy. And on the contrary adore
authoritarians inspired over their megalomaniac tendencies.
Around
1000+ American soldier died in the last Iraq war, and they were
honoured for protecting humanity. That is just like legitimizing the war
which was fought for oil companies as something fought for humanity,
waged to safeguard the world against mass murdering despotic country.
And every dead American was made a martyr, like he died trying to
protect his country or even the world. A 100 years ago a country never
had to give an excuse to fight wars, but now they have to. So it is the
duty of the governments to demonise a country before attacking it. If
you read the amount of propaganda materials against Iran, however true
or false, one cannot escape a thought on the need of such necessity. In
the naxal hinterlands, the brutality of naxalities are measured in terms
of number of CRPF jawans or policemen killed. Higher the number more
brutal they become. Though they are deployed there to protect the
interests of some mining company, their martyrdom makes an impression
that they are there to fighting for people. The people back here loves
it. To many war is the first step of negotiations. "The rush of battle
is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug" said Chris
Hedges in "War is a force that gives us meaning" . For that reason
there is an overt inclination to such violence of huge proportions. The
thrill of some poor soldier killing another can always be an incredibly
good entertainment for the public, like getting a chance to view their
frustrations getting redeemed. In all the wars perpetrated in
democratic nations, the culpability of the public can never be
underplayed. H.G.Wells may have been wrong, what couldn’t end all the
wars started the fire at least.
