by Richard A. Koenigsberg
Contents
- The Psychological Interpretation of Culture
- Hitler’s Ideology
- War and Genocide
- The First World War
- War as Sacrifice
- Training Soldiers to Die
- Like Sheep to Slaughter
- The Psychopathology of War
Works Cited
VI. Training Soldiers to Die
In 1916 the British felt that they had found a commander-in-chief who had the resolve to sustain the heavy losses necessary to break through the German line. General Douglas Haig believed that given an adequate supply of arms and men, victory could be achieved quickly, though not without great loss of life. The specter of massive losses did not deter Haig. He said that what was needed for victory was patriots who “knew the importance of the cause for which we were fighting (De Groot, 1989, 170)."
Whereas Germans had been impregnated from youth up with an intensely patriotic feeling so that they willingly died for their country, Haig said, British men could not do this unless well led. Haig wrote in his memoirs with annoyance, this simple fact seemed to have escaped the King who, during a visit to the front, seemed inclined to think that "our troops are by nature brave and is ignorant of all the efforts which commanders must make to enable a company to go forward as a unit in the face of almost certain death (De Groot 170)."
Haig conceived his job as commander, then, in terms of training his troops so that they would be capable and willing to move forward to die. Over 410,000 Britains were killed in 1916 at the Somme, but battle lines did not change. Some were critical of Haig’s profligacy with human life, but many shared the opinion expressed in the following letter written to Haig, which the General preserved:
"Illustrious General, the expectation of mankind is upon you—the ‘Hungry Haig’ as we call you here at home. You shall report 500,000 casualties but the Soul of the empire will afford them. And you shall break through with the cavalry of England and France for the greatest victory that history has ever known. Drive on, Illustrious General (In De Groot, 1989, 255)."
The author of this letter does not shirk from the idea of 500,000 casualties, declaring that the “Soul of the Empire” can afford the sacrifices. Willingness to accept and embrace sacrificial death constituted a testimonial to the greatness of England.
Colonel Shirley greeted British military recruits with the following speech:
"My object is to convince you, now that you have entered upon the service of your Country, that you must proceed to serve her with all your heart and with all your soul. If you have done your best and yet must fall, you may take comfort in the thought that you will have suffered for a cause greater and more noble than that for which any man has ever yet sacrificed his all (In Kerr, 1993, 174)."
Such rhetoric resonated. One million volunteers joined the British army the first year of the war. War Office recruiting stands were inundated with men persuaded of their duty to fight. On September 9, 1915, Basil Hart asked his parents not to wear mourning clothes in the event of his death: “I do not wish you to regard my death as an occasion for grief, but of one for thanksgiving, for no man could desire a nobler end than to die for his country and the cause of civilizations (in Bourke, 1996, 132)."
Frenchman Robert Dubarle similarly wrote, shortly before his death, of the “glorious privilege of sacrificing oneself, voluntarily. Let us try, without complaining too much, to offer our sacrifice to our country and to place the love of fatherland above our own grief (in Horne, 1985, 233)."
In contemporary America—prior to 9/11—patriotic fervor had diminished considerably. In an October 1994 article in Newsweek written while the invasion of Haiti was being considered, Jacob Weisberg noted that only about 400 U. S. soldiers had been killed in action in the twenty years since the end of the Vietnam war, which meant that serving in the armed forces was a relatively safe job. Driving a truck was three times riskier than being in the military, driving a taxi six times riskier.
On the eve of an invasion that did not happen, former Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney appeared on Meet the Press and stated that Haiti was “not worth American lives.” Senator John Glenn suggested that the case for intervention could not pass the “Dover Test,” the televised return of body bags from Port-au-Prince to the Air Force base in Dover, Delaware. In an article in the New York Times on July 16, 1995, Roger Cohen wrote about the unwillingness to intervene in Bosnia, suggesting that such unwillingness spelled the “death of Western honor.”
In his video series on World War I, Jay Winters concludes that it was “in the interest of no great power to go to war, but their honor was at stake.” In the battle at Tannenberg, Russian soldiers raised themselves to advance in potato fields and were mowed down by German machine guns. Commenting upon the deaths of over 30,000 soldiers, Czar Nicolai said: “It’s an honor to make such a sacrifice for our allies.” A nation demonstrates its honor—proves its devotion to a cause—by virtue of its willingness to send men into battle, where they frequently die or are maimed.
Injury and death on the field of battle prove one’s sincerity, demonstrate the depth of commitment. One may feel that the cause for which young men die is a good one—such as Lincoln’s effort to preserve the union and abolish slavery—or a bad one, such as Hitler’s effort to prove the superiority of the Aryan race. Whatever the cause, mutilated bodies of soldiers strewn upon the battlefield testify to the significance of the idea in the name of which the war was fought.
WORKS CITED
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Winter, Jay. The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. Alexandria, VA: PBS Home Video, 1996.
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