Remembering

100 years after the end of WW1, we are still fighting wars and innocents are still being killed. Looking back, WW1 seems a total waste of young lives. Lambs to the slaughter!

World War One

Arguably, the most futile waste of lives ever, we are, this week, celebrating 100 years since we went to war.  I fail to agree with any arguments that it was a "just war"  or that it was necessary.  With the wisdom of hindsight, it is easy for us to look back at WW1 and be wise after the event I know.

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I am sure that, at the time, the masses were stirred by patriotic fever and I am also sure that Kaiser Bill was a war monger. Still, millions of innocents were killed and with what result?  Just 21 years later we were at war with Germany again!

To my mind, "ordinary" men were coerced into battle on all sides. I think that first Christmas truce tells us a great deal.

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World War One - what a waste!

At the moment there is a lot in the media about WW1. With the perspective of 100 years behind me, I cannot but think this was the most pointless of wars for ordinary people. Millions dead and for what real gain?

Just 21 years later we were at war again, arguably because the settlement at the end of WW1 was so bad.

As far as I can see we only got involved in WW1 (sorry, ordinary folk were made to get involved) because our elders and "betters" had agreed nonsense alliances and stirred up hatred.

Brahms

The Christmas truce of 1914 was a real leveler: ordinary  folk just wanted to live peaceful lives. Ordinary folk were just cannon-fodder in WW1 on both sides for their aristocratic elders. Looking back, I cannot but believe this carnage should have been avoided. This was just slaughter.

The kaiser may have been bad, but I doubt the masses of Germen men and women were. This is the same nation that just 50 years earlier had seen the first playing of Ein Deutches Requiem by Brahms; a nation rich in culture. Hitler's evil was arguably a result of the settlement following WW1. Looking back at all the arguments for and against WW1, nothing has changed my views: it was a bad war that should never have started.

Unless we are careful we in the west will believe our own propaganda and get involved in a new European war over parts of Ukraine. There are always several views of a particular situation.

We must learn the lessons of history. Don't let tyrants have it their way but don't fight pointless wars. Listen to the real people, not politicians, military generals and aristocrats. Ordinary people matter most - listen to their voices.