SUICIDE OPERATIONS DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR IDENTICAL TO THE SUICIDE OPERATIONS OF ISLAMIC MARTYRS
(apart from the magnitude of slaughter)

General Douglas Haig during the First World War (see below) cited a Moslem Emperor who compared the death of the Emperor's troops (in 1527) to the death of his own soldiers in battle (1914-1918).

Haig said if his men died, they died the death of martrys...avengers of the cause of God.

In terms of psychological dynamics, there is no difference between the death of today's Islamic martrys and the martyrdom of British soldiers during the First World War--apart from the magnitude of the slaughter. Far more men were martyed in the First World War (see below).

Yet people pretend that Islamic suicide operations are a strange, unique aberration...foreign to Western civilization. 

Contemplating the nature of “heroic death” during the First World War, British General Douglas Haig cited a speech by the Moghul Emperor Babur to his troops on March 16, 1527 (De Groot, 1989) which, he said, “is curiously appropriate now":

The most high God has been propitious to us: If we fall in the field, we die the death of martyrs. If we survive, we rise victorious the avengers of the cause of God.

This, Haig claimed, is the “root matter of the present war.”

Like Muslim warriors who died for Allah, British soldiers died for Great Britain. Hopefully, England would rise victorious. If not, the soldiers would have died “the death of martyrs.”

What is the difference between the Islamic warrior who died for Allah and the British soldier who died for God and country in the First World War? Only the magnitude of the slaughter.

In his report of August 22, 1919—Features of the War—Haig summarized British casualties, stating that they were “no larger than to be expected.” The total British casualties in all theaters of war, killed, wounded, missing and prisoners—including native troops—are approximately three million (3,076,388).

Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph.D
Director, Library of Social Science
rak@libraryofsocialscience.com