The Forgotten Catastrophe
I write this article only a few days after November 11, the anniversary of the First Armistice at Compiegne, which ended the First World War. For me, this was a somber occasion; I commemorated the date by rereading some of the most touching poems from the period and by reflecting on my feelings on war and society. Yet, as I performed this ritual, I realized that many people are unaware of the significance of the date or the war that came to an end just over a century ago.
While this is a solemn anniversary, and I am admittedly a sober person, it seems so odd to me that such a momentous event could be seemingly glossed in the shared memory of society. Therefore, I wanted to address this gap and explain why the First World War deserves our attention and remembrance and sticks out among all of history’s uncountable tragedies.
It seems evident at first that World War I is generally skipped over because its far more famous younger cousin, World War II, with its popular depictions in iconography that are ingrained in popular understanding, from the shores of D-Day to the snows of Stalingrad and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tends to overshadow it. Yet, while the Second World War is undoubtedly an important event, the truth is that it was all a response to the First World War and the hellish cataclysm that ravaged Western Civilization from 1914–1918.
I do not blame anyone for not being familiar with this war and its effects; in my experience, I am very much glossed over in many history classes. This, unfortunately, has led to a sort of vague awareness among even educated, intelligent people that yes, World War I was a horrible thing in which many people died but ultimately was not that important since we did have to have a second one twenty years later to resolve everything finally.
However, this sort of attitude completely misses the most fundamentally important element of studying history: how we understand the human experience through the eyes of those who lived before us and our ability to empathize across the vast expanse of time and geography with those who are fundamentally human, like us, and how that understanding and our past shared human experiences shape our viewpoints of ourselves, the world, and our place in it.
While this critique can be applied to much of the ‘standardized history’ that many of us had to learn in school, which often turns into a procession of facts about people and places and dates, or possibly some more significant ideas that connect them, the human element is still missing in a lot of these courses, which is the greatest failing of our history education system, in my opinion.
Perhaps I am more sensitive to this issue regarding World War I because my experiences of learning about the war during my senior year of high school were the first time I could connect this human element to my knowledge of history and understand the importance of the subject overall. In addition, I was fortunate to have a teacher for my European History course who cared a lot about this and focused on understanding both the facts and what it must have been like to live in the society of whichever period we were studying.
While I had generally understood what other people must have been feeling at different times during the course, our unit on World War I was where this skill of empathy finally snapped me into the reality of what it must have been like to live during that war. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact I had recently turned 18 and thus was the same age as the boys being drafted to fight in the war. Whatever the reason, when I read testimonies and pieces of literature from veterans of World War I, I cried when I viscerally understood the horrors they were confronted with. I felt their terror as they huddled, cold, dirty, and far from home under a thunderous artillery barrage in their trenches. In my mind were etched the horrors of a gas attack. I felt with them the awe and dread as the first tanks reared their heads, pushing over the trenches and through barbed wire.
But, most importantly, I understood their return home and the utter disillusionment and hopelessness they must have felt, that feeling of ‘after this, what happens now? What can I do now, after all, that I have seen?’ Studying World War, I ultimately changed my understanding of history from a set of exciting stories to how we can see and feel through the eyes of people from our past. Fundamentally, history is supposed to develop our skill of empathy.
I should also provide context around World War I, its effects, and how it was catastrophic for Western Civilization. It serves almost like the climax of Western history. Starting back with the ideas of the Renaissance in the 1400s, the philosophy of humanism was created, which focused on the potential and greatness of humanity. Humanism and statements like it were expanded upon during the rest of the Early Modern Era, strengthened significantly by the Enlightenment, leading to the flourishing of rationality and new, utopian ideals that surfaced across Europe in the 19th century. The 19th century is often called the age of the ‘isms’ because of all these new ideologies (communism, anarchism, utopian socialism, and nationalism, to name a few).
While I’m glossing over a lot of this background for the sake of simplicity, I want you to put into practice the sort of historical empathy I’ve mentioned earlier. Imagine living under an autocratic monarchy and reading, for the first time, about a new philosophy for running society based on rationality and egalitarianism that has never before been tried in the entire world. Can you imagine how powerful that must have been, how intoxicated by belief in the possibility of creating a new, perfect world through the unconquerable power of human reason it must have been? Millions of Europeans experienced what drove them to fight in many different uprisings throughout the 19th century.
Now, imagine that same idealistic dreamer thrown into the trenches of the First World War. Covered in mud, watching thousands die around them in dozens of horrific new ways, from mustard gas to artillery to machine-gun fire, they see this new world that has been built around them on the principles of human reason and logic. It is horrific and traumatizing as the belief in the fundamental good of humanity and hope for the world's future is ground out of an entire generation in the most brutal way imaginable for four grueling years.
What are they to do when they return home, psychologically destroyed and seeing their whole world, their hopes and dreams turn to dust in their hands? Imagine this same sentiment, the destruction of all that is good and hopeful in the world expanded upon millions of people in Europe, dubbed ‘The Lost Generation.’ That is an ideological apocalypse. That is the result of the First World War.
I’ve said my part about the First World War, for now at least. In my opinion, it is one of the least discussed events in our history books compared to its devastating impact on our world. Yet, it is also one of the best events. We can put the very underdeveloped skill of historical empathy into practice, which is vital to being a good citizen and a better human in society today. If nothing else, I hope I could at least stress the importance of the war and the totality of its destructive power. Let its senseless horror be a solemn reminder of what we have been through, and what if we are resolute in our senses of both compassion and justice, shall never allow to transpire again.
