War that couldn't end all the wars

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.