The most tragic part of WWI was the ability of war planners to devise extremely effective strategies of getting thousands of people killed. Every time they thought of a new (fantastic) idea, it mostly involved storming the other side's trenches and being shot. Why?
Was the world not really ready for this war? Maybe technology and war mongers and society was still in love with the old style of war (heroic charges and honor), and wasn't ready for a war of this scale with these new technologies... Maybe they still wanted the honorable part of war, and weren't really ready for anonymous mass killing. But they did that. To win the war? So why not devise better plans as well?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Japan in WWI
When I was reading about Japan's involvement in WWI, I kept thinking that I was reading about WWII, because I don't really know anything about Eastern involvement in the Great War.
I don't know if this is just my lack of much concrete knowlage about the first world war, or my tendancy to mix most of the 1900's together, but mostly I think it speaks to the highly westernized view of our historical education. We focus so much on western Europe and the war that we are familar with, we often forget that there were other players.
I know that Japan's role in the war was not a major one, and it may be that I've simply forgotten learning it... but I still think that the lack of emphasis but on Japan's role is rather scary.
I don't know if this is just my lack of much concrete knowlage about the first world war, or my tendancy to mix most of the 1900's together, but mostly I think it speaks to the highly westernized view of our historical education. We focus so much on western Europe and the war that we are familar with, we often forget that there were other players.
I know that Japan's role in the war was not a major one, and it may be that I've simply forgotten learning it... but I still think that the lack of emphasis but on Japan's role is rather scary.
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