This is the fifth in a series of papers/booklets written by Koenigsberg during the period 1990-2000 in which he lays the foundation for the sacrificial theory of warfare. There is a link directly below the document. We hope you will click the link and study this classic paper.

Best regards, Mei Ha Chan, Executive Director 
_____________________________________________________________________________________

THE SOLDIER AS SACRIFICIAL VICTIM (Paper)--click previous link

1. “Blood Sacrifice Preserves the Nation”
2. The First World War as a Sacrificial Ritual
3. Hiding the Victim
4. “Body-Bags” and the Evolution of a Counter-Sacrificial Culture
5. Awakening

My understanding of the sacrificial dynamic of warfare grows out of research on the First World War. This war (1914-1918) is famous for the way in which battles were fought. Soldiers hunkered down in trenches on opposing sides on the Western front: France and Great Britain on one side; Germany on the other. Battles or attacks occurred when a line of soldiers got out of a trench—often several miles in length—and advanced en masse toward the enemy line, where there was a probability that the soldier would be hit by an artillery shell or mowed down by machine-gun fire as he moved forward.

In spite of the absurdity, futility and massive casualties that resulted from this strategy, this way of fighting continued throughout the war’s duration. Most historians agree that the endless battles produced insignificant results, apart from the monumental wastage of lives. Writing about the first two years of the war, Eksteins says that the belligerents on the Western front “hammered at each other in battles that cost millions of men their lives but moved the front line at most a mile or so in either direction.”