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The Struggle for Pacifism: Peace in Our Time October 5, 2015

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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. 

Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

– Albert Einstein

Long before the Great War erupted in 1914, having had their sons, brothers and fathers taken forever in a distant fight, pacifists assembled locally and eventually abroad to form organizations and offer peaceful resolutions to potential conflicts arising between nations intent on war. At the outset of the World War One, with hostilities imminent, an international peace convention was actually taking place in Switzerland and many attendees en route witnessed city streets filled with patriotic celebrations and trains stations with soldiers enthusiastically heading to the frontlines.

Advocating peace, people who opposed war and had traveled to Constance to opine idealistically, nonetheless on August 2 appealed to their respective governments to end the escalating tensions and stop the frenzied mobilization of troops, and also sought the direct intervention of US President Woodrow Wilson to intervene and mediate a solution. Historians today estimate there were approximately 190 peace societies active in Europe at that time who between them published and distributed periodicals in at least ten languages.

In the few months after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in June, the European powers were finished rattling their sabres and officially went to war on August 4, fighting each other relentlessly and at great expense until 1918. Prior, the area known as the Balkans was ruled by the Turkish Ottomans and had for decades been widely disputed. In 1874, Bosnia and Herzegovina had rebelled and two years later Serbia declared war on Turkey. Sarajevo, where the assassinations had taken place, is located in Bosnia which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.

Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, at a peace conference hosted by Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, without truly taking into consideration the Balkan peoples, Bosnia and Herzegovina were allowed to be occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces, and Cyprus was given to Britain. Russia’s leaders had sided with the so-called Slavic nations of Eastern Europe seeking independence and desired to unite and in fact rule the Balkan peninsula. While Britain – seeking to maintain control of the vital trade route to India and its Pacific colonies via the Suez Canal (completed in 1869) – sided with Turkey.

By allocating these lands, peace had been achieved, but with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, the Treaty of Stefano that had been signed three months earlier by Russia and Turkey was effectively replaced. The victorious Russians who had relieved the Ottomans of their territorial possessions in Europe now found their influence greatly diminished. Upon leaving Berlin, the leaders of Europe were satisfied, though many others were not, including those among the Russian and Ottoman empires. Underlying their goals, was the issue of religion – noticeable in Bulgaria.

Planting seeds for the World War One, the effects of the Treaty of Berlin were anything but peaceful, as Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro were declared independent principalities. Meanwhile Russia “kept” South Bessarabia, which it had annexed in its war against Turkey, though the Bulgarian state it had created was split into the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, both of which were given nominal autonomy under the control of the Ottoman Empire, where the Turkish government were obliged to guarantee the civil rights of non-Muslim subjects.

On one hand there were those individuals who enjoyed power and could enforce peace, for the benefit of their nation by “wielding a big stick”, an ideology proposed by then-US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901, and on the other there were those who opposed violence in general as dictated by their conscience or their religion, such as Mennonites and Quakers. In between, there were groups from socialists who opposed war based on its capitalist agenda, to scholars and philosophers who argued any dispute could be settled amicably and hence war is unjustifiable.

The Napoleonic Wars had ended in 1815 with the dramatic defeat of the French forces at Waterloo. Leading up to their victory, however, the British government had received no less than sixteen peace petitions and faced many public anti-war demonstrations.  After the war, in 1816, the London Peace Society was formed, which was originally known as The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace and then, after merging with the International Christian Peace Fellowship in 1930, became the International Peace Society.

It was the London Peace Society who convened in 1843 the International Peace Congress seeking peaceable arbitration in the affairs of nations and the creation of an international institution to achieve those objectives. Nevertheless, Britain throughout the 19th Century would continue to fight overseas, sending its army and navy to India, China, Burma, Iran, Afghanistan, Crimea, New Zealand, West Africa and South Africa. Subsequently in Britain, after the outbreak of WWI, religious groups, libertarians and elements of the antiwar movement created two new pacifist organizations:  the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the No-Conscription Fellowship.

In 1889, the inaugural Universal Peace Congress had taken place in Paris, yet people representing many organizations from many countries had been assembling annually since the first peace congress had taken place in London. Fredrik Bajer, a Dane, eventually established the Permanent International Peace Bureau (PIPB), which comprised a coalition of like-minded groups who demanded not only disarmament and an international court, but also mandatory arbitration to settle disputes between states. The PIPB were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 for their efforts.

Throughout the 1800s many people across America were also involved in both pacifist and antiwar movements. Perhaps the most notable was the American Peace Society, which formed in 1828 and organized many peace conferences while publishing the Advocate of Peace. Before the Civil War broke out,  prominent intellectuals of the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and William Ellery Channing also contributed literary works against war. As well, during the Civil War, riots erupted in New York in opposition to conscription proposed by President Lincoln. Further, George McClellan ran for President as a “Peace Democrat” against the incumbent Lincoln.

Be assured, women contributed their voices to the antiwar movement during World War One. As Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, a well-known activist in Britain, explained:

“The bedrock of humanity is motherhood…Men have conflicting interests and ambitions. Women all the world over, speaking broadly, have one passion and one vocation, and that is the creation and preservation of human life. Deep in the hearts of women of the peasant and industrial classes of every nation, there lies…a denial of the necessity of war.”

At the outset of the Great War, in Britain the League of Nations Society was formed and in America, likewise, in 1915 the League to Enforce Peace was created – with leaders of both groups hoping an international organization could find a peaceful resolution to the on-going and intensifying conflict. Germans, too, were neither immune to nor could contain antiwar and pacifists’ sentiments.

And so one of the most influential Germans in the world and Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein, as a young scientist, openly challenged the authority of government and opposed the war. “It is my conviction,” he concluded, “that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

Adding to his voice,  the war deeply disturbed Clara Zetkin, a longtime leader of the international socialist women’s movement in Germany. Critical of the Social Democratic Party’s support of the war and perceiving men’s inaction generally, she decided that women had to take up the peace cause.

“If men kill,” Zetkin said, “women must fight for peace.”

At an international meeting of antiwar socialist women in Berne, Switzerland, in February 1915 Zetkin issued a peace manifesto which declared that the war constituted imperialist aggression to enrich the armament makers and other capitalists, and proclaimed that “the workers have nothing to gain from this war, they have everything to lose, everything, everything that is dear to them.”

According to Wikipedia, during the Great War, “the war to end war”, the total number of deaths includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians. The Triple Entente (also known as the Allies) lost about 6 million military personnel while the Central Powers lost about 4 million. At least 2 million died from diseases and 6 million went missing, presumed dead.

The Struggle for Financing August 22, 2015

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Wars not only cost lives, they cost money. French nationalists, after losing the Franco-Prussian War and subjected to (and obligated to pay) war reparations totaling five billion gold francs, took their pound of flesh in return at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 forcing Germany to pay 132 billion gold marks to the victors. Although suspended by Adolf Hitler prior to the outbreak of WWII, and which was reduced after the war in 1953, Germany actually paid the last of the debt in 2010.

As a sidebar, it is interesting to note after the Second World War German leaders agreed not only to a policy of pastoralization but to pay the Allies in machinery and manufacturing plants, whereby factories were actually dismantled and sent to France and Britain, while the United States harvested its technologies and patents, as well as scientists and researchers. Also, in addition to cash paid, millions of prisoners and civilians were forced to work in European and Russian plants for years.

It has been calculated that the Great War in total cost the Allied Powers, from 1914 to 1918, over 125 billion dollars, whereas it cost the Central Powers over $60 billion. In retrospect, the war directly led to the Great Depression, World War II and the Holocaust, and the Cold War, impacting the lives of many more millions of people around the world, including immigration and emigration, as the various empires collapsed and better opportunities were sought for children across oceans.

In the United States, World War I led to prohibition, women’s suffrage and eventually civil liberties. The war not only led to the collapse of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian (and some would add the British) empires, but sparked colonial revolts in the Middle East and Vietnam. In Canada, both conscription and income taxes were introduced (temporarily) during the war; in fact, a lack of income tax was provided as an incentive to attract immigrants before the war.

After the war, independent republics were formed in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Turkey. The latter had controlled most Arab lands which subsequently came under the control of Britain and France, specifically their oil companies. Sadly, the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey was a consequence of the war, as was the influenza epidemic that killed over 25 million people worldwide, more than the war itself.

Nonetheless, there were some positive advancements made during the war, such as those related to hospitalization, medical care and treatments in general for the wounded, sick and infected, at home and on both the Western and Eastern fronts, as well as battles fought at sea and in the air, and in African nations, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East and the Falkland Islands.

Quite a few innovations were to emanate from the war:  sanitary napkins, facial tissues, the sun lamp, daylight saving time, tea bags, the wrist watch, the zipper, stainless steel and vegetarian sausages.

It has been well documented that many companies benefited financially from their inventions and contributions to the war effort, on both sides of the conflict and for various reasons, balanced between patriotism and profit. As we understand it today, prior to 1914 nations simply did not have military-industrial dependencies in place to finance research, develop infrastructure and indeed manufacture and distribute the various disparate materials necessary to win a modern war.

Gillette made and sent to the front millions of razors which were needed and eagerly used by unshaven soldiers, especially those who had suffered and died enduring a poison gas attack while fumbling to put on a rubber mask atop their (lice-filled) beards. It is no secret millions of pens made their way to the front in kits for soldiers needing in a moment of solace to put their thoughts to paper and send quiet reflections back home to friends and family members.

One such note was a poem written by a Canadian doctor during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, titled In Flanders Fields; it was used in advertisements by the British and Canadian governments to raise funds from the public by helping to sell war bonds at home, which ultimately made John McCrae famous, but he died of an infection on the Western Front before the war ended. These much-needed funds were to offset the millions already being borrowed from the financiers of the day.

In 1918, over 4,000 soldiers of Britain’s Army Postal Service were delivering twelve and a half million letters a week to the front. During the Great War the fountain pen was not an insignificant weapon, as these letters were known to be a morale booster for their armed forces.

Stateside, a Christmas-season Parker ad shows a firm-chinned, mustached army officer and a boyish, smiling aviator wearing a leather helmet and goggles, who emerge from the leaves of a holly wreath, framing a popular wartime catch-phrase: “Keep the home fires burning,” while the Sheaffer Pen Company assured customers its lever filler was the pen “for Uncle Sam’s Fighting Boys” and was “The Gift of Gifts for Soldiers and Sailors” to boost sales.

At the outset of the First World War, many countries were ill-prepared to finance their initial efforts, not to mention maintain and increase operations on a global level for the next four years. In 1913, following the passing of the Federal Reserve Act, US Congressman Charles Lindbergh stated: “The Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this Bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized. The greatest crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.” The Federal Reserve is in fact a private company.

In Europe, in 1914, the Rothschild family loaned money to the Germans, British and French, while also controlling three of the leading European news agencies: Wolff in Germany, Reuters in England and Havas in France through which public interest in these respective countries was manipulated.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild founded in the late 18th century an extensive banking dynasty by sending four of his sons to major European cities with instructions to remain loyal to the family at any cost (the fifth son remained behind to manage the family business in Prussia) whereupon they bankrolled various kinds of national infrastructure projects. They were family bankers indeed, but the families with which they did business were the royal houses of Europe.

Despite its neutrality, the US was not immune to the pressures of its financiers. “The war should be a tremendous opportunity for America,” wrote J.P. Morgan in a letter to President Woodrow Wilson on September 4, 1914 immediately after the outbreak of hostilities along the Western Front.

Twenty years later the US Senate would conduct an investigation into the causes of WWI and, specifically, why the United States had entered it. Called the Nye Committee, it was headed by Senator Gerald Nye (R-North Dakota). Their investigation focused primarily on the munitions industry and its influence on the federal government, but also on the Wall Street banks.

After nearly two years of investigation the committee found that between 1915 and January 1917, before entering the war, the United States had lent Germany 27 million dollars, while at the same time lending Britain, France and their allies $2.3 billion!

When the Russian government began to topple after the February Revolution in 1917, Wall Street pressured Wilson’s government to come to the aid of their allies, and their outstanding loans. Within months the United States was at war. Due to Nye’s investigation, it is known the profits that Wall Street banks made from these war loans were enormous.

Before the war had begun, the French firm of Rothschild Freres had cabled Morgan and Company in New York asking for $100 million. From that point going forward, J.P. Morgan became the main point of contact in the United States for allied war effort borrowing.

After surveying the U.S. mobilization and financing for the war, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Hugh Rockoff stated that perhaps the greatest impact of World War I was a shift in the landscape of ideas and the proper role of government in economic activities.  When the war began, the U.S. economy was in recession. But a 44-month economic boom ensued from 1914 to 1918, as Europeans began purchasing U.S. goods and later as the United States itself joined the war.

In 1914, the United States was a net debtor in international capital markets, but following the war began investing large amounts internationally, particularly in Latin America, thus “taking on the role traditionally played by Britain and other European capital exporters.” With Britain weakened after the war, New York emerged “as London’s equal if not her superior in the contest to be the world’s leading financial center.”

Rockoff concluded that the scope and subsequent speed of government expansion were likely due to the emergence new economic and political leaders, who in turn inspired future generations of reformers with a new view of the world and its order.

 

The Struggle for Dignity August 12, 2015

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During the Great War, once assigned to the front, a combat unit arriving would inevitably need to wind themselves through a maze of trenches; each replete with various forms of life. Upon their approach, typically at dusk, they would see and hear exploding bombs, shells and mortar rounds, as well as machine gun bursts and sniper fire. However, they would likely smell the frontline first. Adding to the dried sweat of all soldiers’ uniforms, bandages and encrusted feet, would be the carcasses of not only animals and fallen comrades, but wood, sandbags and tents.

There was the smell of cordite too, not to mention lingering poison gas. In No Man’s Land, during the day crows would peck out the eyes of the dead and bodies would swell and turn blue before the putrid gases would eventually escape. It was a haunting smell no soldier could ever forget, and who would have to fight atop the dead, some buried by bomb blasts; the living would then be commanded to dig new trenches among the carnage and, if sadly unlucky enough to fall upon them, to have rotting flesh – the consistency of Camembert cheese – stuck for weeks between their fingernails.

Lice and nits infested soldiers’ hair from head to toe, and caused incessant itching. Fearless rats, brown and black, some as big as cats, feasted on soft tissue, carrying with them an array of unpleasantness, each pair easily reproducing hundreds more in a given year – thus there were millions joining the men in the crowded trenches, crawling over faces at night. Adding to the terror of being shot or maimed, disease was rampant, from common ailments suffered by the cold and damp conditions to fungal infections and Trench Fever, caused by lice, which was extremely painful and lasted several months.

Trench Foot affected many combatants along the Western Front, mainly as a result of constantly walking through the soggy, muddy and simply unsanitary conditions, which if untreated would turn gangrenous, to be then followed by amputation in severe cases. There were flies and insects to deal with, and there was excrement, as well as vomit, lining the deadly trenches. Despite rotations, living in a trench was appalling and, being shelled and trapped, sometimes soldiers at the front would not eat for days, even while injured, having had a leg or arm blown off, a piece of metal, shrapnel, a bullet or several embedded in either bone or muscle.

Throughout the war soldiers spent from days to weeks on end in wet, cold, muddy trenches which alone created many symptoms such as swollen limbs, damaged sensory nerves and inflammation. But, apparently, not one British soldier starved while serving at the front.

Field kitchens were close to the frontlines, but not close enough so that the enlisted men could ever enjoy a warm meal; besides, eating in filth was repulsive. Stale food, which took over a week to reach them, sent many an able-bodied man to the infirmary with a multitude of stomach and intestinal ailments. The bulk of the British soldier’s diet in the trenches was bully beef (tinned corned beef), bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips, and pea soup was flavoured with lumps of horsemeat.

In this environment, for four years, men did their duty; they killed and were killed, suffered and caused suffering. They also cleaned their rifles, refilled sandbags and drained trenches, chores constantly inspected by officers. They went “over the top” when ordered, and crossed No Man’s Land to sit quietly adjacent to the enemy in their Listening Posts with bayonets fixed, or to repair barbed wire. Day and night soldiers were also assigned sentry work, though only for a few hours, as the penalty for falling asleep on the job was death by firing squad.

This is what greeted a soldier arriving at the front and if he survived all this, whether a bomb or bullet, sickness or disease, rat or insect, among this malignant stagnation and cacophony of most-foul odours, he then might be assigned the task of cleaning their overflowing latrines.

Augmenting a horrible lack of hygiene, sleep deprivation and faced with the prospect of dying, quickly or slowly, many soldiers also fought the psychological damage inflicted upon them daily – the shock of seeing bodies blown apart, limbs disappear into the mud forever, or having to look into another man’s eyes before plunging a bayonet into his stomach, or throwing a grenade into an enemy trench to hear the resulting screams for help go unanswered and drift away.

During the war, the executions of 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers took place, for crimes such as desertion and cowardice, which still remain controversial, with some believing that many of those executed should have been pardoned as they were suffering from what is now called shell shock. However, then, military commanders would not accept a soldier’s failure to return to the front as anything other than desertion, and court martials speedily convicted offenders.

Private Abe Bevistein, aged sixteen, was shot by firing squad at Labourse, near Calais. As with so many others cases, he had been found guilty of deserting his post. Just before his court martial, Bevistein wrote home to his mother: “We were in the trenches. I was so cold I went out (and took shelter in a farm house). They took me to prison so I will have to go in front of the court. I will try my best to get out of it, so don’t worry.”

It is estimated that 9 of 10 British soldiers who served in the trenches along the Western Front during World War I actually lived to tell the tale.

Lest we forget.

The Struggle for Early Victories August 6, 2015

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Planning for a short war in the early part of the Twentieth Century, leaders of the German army had hoped to sweep, uncontested, through Belgium and into France, seeking merely the quick capitulation of an their enemy who they had recently fought and beaten in the Franco-Prussian War, acquiring the territory of Alsace-Lorraine as part of their settlement, which was then re-acquired by the French after the Great War at the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Franco-Prussian War had lasted only several months, from July 15, 1870 to February 1, 1871.

During the Napoleonic wars Napoleon Bonaparte and his army had smashed through the German states with ease on their way to Russia. A generation later, roles would be reversed and the Franco-Prussian War changed European history. The rapid and overwhelming victory of the German states under the leadership of Prussia in this 19th Century conflict directly led to the creation of a unified Germany and brought down Napoleon III’s empire, which was replaced by the Third Republic. Exiled, Napoleon III died in London in 1873.

Their impressive land forces ensured Imperial Germany was recognized and appreciated across Europe as a dominant military power and, aided by a modernized Navy, their guns assured their role as a global superpower as their acquisitions mounted. Prior to the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany had been divided primarily by religion, with the Protestants in the North and the Catholics in the South. Under Otto Von Bismarck, and his quick and successful wars, Germans were united in their hatred of France, who had conscripted 250,000 men into Napoleon’s armies.

Under Bismarck’s leadership, the German army trained and maintained formidable reserves, which led to victories against both Denmark and Austria, as well as subsequently France. Since its defeat by Wellington’s combined armies at Waterloo in 1815, France had become a subordinate power in Europe. Napoleon III, hoping to defeat Prussia, sought to recover the Rhine frontier lost after the defeat of Bonaparte. Many French military leaders were shocked by the Prussian defeat of the Austrians an Koniggratz in 1866 and urged immediate military reforms.

Yet in 1869 a pretext for war presented itself when the Spanish parliament offered the throne of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, nephew of King Wilhelm I of Prussia. The throne was vacant after a revolution in 1868 had deposed the Bourbons. If he could place Prince Leopold on the Spanish throne, Bismarck hoped to provoke war with France. Upon Bismarck’s insistence, Leopold accepted the offer and on July 2, 1870, the Spanish informed the French ambassador of their choice.

Two weeks later, rejecting Britain’s offer to mediate, the French Chamber declared war on Prussia, as expected. The German states, seeing France as the aggressor, came to Prussia’s support. The Germans, with a national army organized under universal military service, and an efficient use of new railroads, mobilized their forces, who quickly proved their superiority and won a decisive battle at Sedan in September, where Napoleon III was captured.

Following a three-month siege, Paris surrendered in January, and the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed on May 10, 1871, ending their war, crowning their aspirations. Previously, on Jan 18, at Versailles, the new German military headquarters, Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser. France not only ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany but also agreed a German army could occupy northern France until an indemnity of five billion Francs was paid.

Under the new constitution the southern German states were annexed by the North German Federation. There were 25 states in the new unified Reich: 4 kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg), 6 grand duchies, 5 duchies, 7 principalities and 3 free cities, certainly upsetting the delicate balance of power that had been created with the Congress of Vienna in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars.

French anger at the Germans over the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, not to mention the large indemnity, would lead to a permanent state of crises between the two states and trigger events which would launch World War II . The First World War also influenced Italian history and its struggle for unification. With the outbreak of war, Napoleon withdrew his garrison from Rome. With this garrison gone, the Italian national army was able to overtake the Papal State of Rome in 1870.

In France, growing discontent after the Franco-Prussian War led to the establishment of the Paris Commune from March 18 to May 28, 1871, which the National Assembly’s army crushed and proceeded with summary executions that numbered 20,000 in one week.

However, by 1914 the French Army had 47 divisions (777,000 French and 46,000 colonial troops), with attached cavalry and field-artillery units. Most these troops were deployed inside France with the bulk stationed along the eastern frontier as part of Plan 17. A further 2.9 million men were mobilized during the summer of 1914, and heavy losses during the first months of the war forced the French government to conscript men up to the age of 45.

The development of the railroad networks in Western Europe, allowed each army to be deployed, reinforced and supplied with unprecedented speed, yet neither to gain a territorial advantage. Once deposited on the battlefield, armies could maneuver no faster than those of the Roman Empire. Although their 20th Century weapons delivered unprecedented casualties, men were trained to fight a 19th Century battle, which led to “digging in” and the arrival of trench warfare.

By the end of 1918, a total of 8,317,000 men, including 475,000 colonial troops, had been called up to fight in the French Army. France suffered 4.2 million casualties, including 1.3 million dead in the Great War. The deaths of their soldiers created 700,000 widows and more than 1,000,000 orphans. At the Battle of Charleroi on August 22, 1914, 27,000 French soldiers were killed alone. In fact 1914 was the bloodiest year for the French Army suffering an average of 2,200 deaths per day.

The Battle and Siege of Liège, which lasted two weeks from August 4 to the 16th, was the first battle action on the Western Front, fought between the German Imperial Army and the Belgian Army. The Belgian city, located on high ground on the banks of the River Meuse, was surrounded by fortresses. Twelve main forts encircled the city, built as defenses to protect an important route into Belgium between the Dutch border and the Ardennes forests.

Six brigades from the German Second Army were sent to Liège to capture the forts on August 4. One German brigade succeeded in breaking through the line of forts. The Germans occupied the city on 7th August after attacks by a Zeppelin airship and artillery fire. From August 12th – 16th shells from 11 huge howitzers, these being two German “Dicke Bertha” (Big Bertha”) guns made by Krupp and nine Austrian “Schlanke Emma” (Skinny Emma”) guns made by Skoda, smashed the forts.

Following the capitulation of the city, German Imperial troops marched to the equally fortified city of Namur. Meanwhile, on August 7 the French had crossed the border into German-occupied Alsace, attempting to capture Mulhouse and liberate the province from German occupation. At the Battle of Mulhouse, which lasted until the 25th of August, this important industrial city on the Rhine river was entered and occupied twice by the French, but both times the German Seventh Army retook it.

The Battles of the Frontiers (August 14th – 25th) took place along the French-German border in Alsace-Lorraine and the French-Belgian border. As the seven Imperial German Armies advanced westwards, according to a carefully timetabled, meticulously programmed plan for their invasion of France, they came up against proud and defiant Belgian and French troops intent on defending every inch of their national soil; commanded to do so.

The situation in the Belgian area of the Sambre-Meuse rivers became critical following the capture of Liège, as the German Second and Third Armies pushed along the Meuse. Namur lay at the junction of the Sambre and the Meuse rivers, but it too could not hold out against the destructive might of the huge German and Austrian howitzers. With support from only one regiment of French troops being able to reach the city, the defending Belgian forces were compelled to leave and by August 25th Namur was occupied by German troops.

The Battle of Mons was one of the major battles in the Battles of the Frontiers and was the first encounter between British and German forces on the Western Front. The British Expeditionary Force comprised four infantry divisions and one cavalry division of the British First Army. The British had advanced through northern France and Belgium to support the French Fifth Army’s left flank on the Sambre river. Having reached the area of Mons on August 22nd they encountered German patrols at Soignies, which were advancing ahead of the German First Army.

The next day, commanded by General von Kluck, the German First Army launched an attack. The British managed to hold the Germans, but realizing their smaller British force was up against a much greater force in terms of German manpower and artillery, leaders ordered a retreat.

By the end of August the French and the German Armies had sustained some 300,000 casualties, including wounded or killed, on both sides. The German advance had successfully penetrated the French border in several places and was pressing its advance, following the withdrawing French and British forces.

Advancing towards Paris, the German Armies stretched along a line from Verdun to Amiens. By the end of August 1914, the German First Army was within 30 miles of the French capital. In early September the British had crossed the Marne river in a retreat to the south and held a position east of Paris between the French Sixth and French Fifth Armies. However, the commander of the German First Army made a fateful change to the original directive of The Schlieffen Plan, making an assumption that the Allies were not in a position to hold out against an attack on Paris from the east.

The original Schlieffen Plan directive had been for German forces to attack Paris from the north in an encircling manoeuvre. Nonetheless, launching an attack east of Paris, the German First Army made progress in a southerly direction. This change to the plan exposed the right flank of the German attacking force, so the French and British armies carried out counter-attacks from Compiègne east of Paris to Verdun.

On September 9, the war a month old, the German First Army pulled back as the British First Army moved in on its left flank. All the German forces in the Marne river region retreated in a northerly direction, crossing the Aisne to the high ground of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The First Battle of the Marne was a victory for the Allied Forces, and marked a decisive turn of events in the war. Germany’s Schlieffen Plan was stopped in its tracks. Stalemate.

This bitter deadlock lasted four years.

The Struggle for The Truth August 4, 2015

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One hundred and one years ago, in 1914, citizens of the world found themselves at war. On August 4, Germany invaded (neutral) Belgium and Britain subsequently declared war on Germany. By doing so, Britain also plunged its Commonwealth allies into the costly fray. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa were automatically committed to delivering men and women to the front and those not enlisting were expected to pay for the troops’ training, transportation, equipment and munitions, and hospitalization, as well as food and lodging along the way.

Newspaper editorials were relied on to ensure readers were aware why their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands had volunteered to fight, and possibly to pay the supreme sacrifice in battle. The Austro-Hungarian army was sent to war after the assassination of its empire’s heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to halt radical separatists in the Balkans. Leaders in Russia condemned the aggressive actions of the Germanic states and mobilized its army in defense of Serbia.

Russia’s army quickly invaded East Prussia but were defeated at Tannenberg, and in September Germany’s likewise advance into France was halted at the Marne and with the war merely a month old the Western Front was a stalemate and would remain a killing zone until the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, ending its policy of neutrality stated by President Woodrow Wilson at the outset of hostilities, similarly at the Eastern Front until the Bolsheviks came to power.

It is believed today, and at the time, that the unprovoked and thus widely publicized sinking of the Lusitania was the reason America reversed its position and began to mobilize its troops. In addition to eventually selling a lot of razors and pens to soldiers heading overseas, the war in general was a boon to corporations, whose owners circling Washington would’ve certainly lent their vocal support. The Lusitania’s cargo included over six million rounds of ammunition (courtesy J.P. Morgan) destined for British and French soldiers, augmenting the 1,200 lives lost off Ireland.

The international finance community was giddy at the prospect of war. On August 3, according to then-US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, the French firm of Rothschild Freres cabled to Morgan and Company in New York suggesting the flotation of a loan of $100,000,000 to pay for French purchases of American goods.

On May 27, 1916, President Wilson spoke to the League of Nations and argued that to prevent the recurrence of a similar war a world government was needed. To make the world safe for democracy, nearly a year later, on April 2, 1917, the President asked Congress for a Declaration of War, which was granted on April 6. The United States was now in the war to end war.

It is now known many American families profited from the decision, including the Rockefellers, who were apparently quite eager for the United States to enter World War I, and made far more than $200,000,000 during the conflict.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, criticized war profiteering during World War I in his book, War Is a Racket, stating some companies and corporations increased their earnings and profits by up to 1700% and many willingly sold equipment and supplies to the U.S that had no relevant use in the war effort. “It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers,” Butler added, “that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits.”

War was upon the world and its citizens needed to act accordingly. Men went to the front lines and women to the assembly lines. Newspapers were publishing propaganda as fact and greatly influencing opinion. Notwithstanding the Defense of the Realm Act, introduced a mere four days after war broke out, which restricted criticism of the war effort, to maintain high levels of morale across Britain, editors simply began to demonize Germans in their daily papers, embellishing stories and alleged atrocities, bordering on the hysterical.

With censorship, British blunders went unreported as did German victories. Nonetheless, some journalists sought to report the truth, whether the shortage of shells or useless (Ross) rifles. The Daily Chronicle’s Philip Gibbs and the Daily Mail’s Basil Clarke risked the wrath of Lord Kitchener by defying his ban to report from the front line. Gibbs was arrested, warned that if he was caught again he would be shot, and sent back to England, and Clarke, after reporting on the devastation in Ypres, was returned home with a similar warning.

Even the bloodiest defeat in British history went largely unreported. At the Somme in 1916 – in which Allied troop casualties numbered 600,000 – the battle’s disastrous first day was reported as a victory.

Still at the front, Gibbs defended his actions, claiming that he was attempting to “spare the feelings of men and women, who have sons and husbands fighting in France”. He claimed that the truth was reported about the Somme… “apart from the naked realism of horrors and losses, and criticism of the facts.” Only later did the public learn of the high casualty toll and the horrific nature of trench warfare, such as the use of poison gas and the effects of shell shock.

With these appalling conditions in mind, it was no wonder that UK Prime Minister Lloyd George confided to CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian in December 1917: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know, and can’t know.”

The Struggle for Hearts and Minds August 3, 2015

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When the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was shot and killed in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914, igniting a powderkeg that sent shockwaves around the world, industrialized nations across Europe were suddenly galvanized and armies mobilized within days. Led by competitive and idealistic monarchs, leaders among these empires were equally determined to maintain their control of natural and human resources to fuel factories and expand markets globally.

In addition to cars and trucks replacing horses and buggies, there were many other quiet changes occurring at the outset of the twentieth century impacting an ever-growing disposable income afforded the legions of new factories workers and administrators. Soon enough, watches strapped to wrists, popular among officers of the British Army – convenient and critical for timely coordination of efforts on the battlefield – replaced pocket watches.

With horses no longer polluting city streets, and human refuse being swept away into sewage systems, urban planners began to incorporate open spaces for the benefit of citizens, from sidewalks to parklands, while others recognizing people had both time and money on and in their hands began planning to acquire their wealth; publishers of newspapers, magazines and books flourished, and, with the advent of moving pictures, soon enough people were flocking to cinemas.

People were happy to spend their money. Assembly lines and mass production led to mass marketing. When Ford introduced their Model T in 1908, individual tastes and preferences were irrelevant, as each buyer had the option of simply purchasing a vehicle painted black. The way nations did business was changed forever with the introduction of national advertising, department stores and mail-order, as well as advertising agencies, public relations and brands.

In order to reach consumers and influences purchase decisions, leaders of ad agencies relied not only on newspapers but also posters and billboards, and direct distribution of handbills. In America, for example, a range of new products were competitively promoted to consumers from Levi Strauss’s denim pants and King Gillette’s disposable razor to cameras, chewing gum, bicycles, telephones, electric lighting, numerous household appliances and barbed wire.

Capitalism was enjoying its infancy, though balanced by democratic notions of freedom and liberty for all, including safety and security. Convenience and comfort were certainly available to those who could afford these now-common luxuries. After all, the majority of these burgeoning populations required warm homes, safe streets, schools and jobs for their children. An educated and mobile workforce enabled growth on many levels and, admittedly, times were good.

Until, on June 28, 1914, a young Serb leapt from his cafe seat and seized the opportunity to kill Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, which he did with lethal efficiency using only two bullets. Five years later, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a global conflict was officially ended, having effectively caused over 36 million human casualties – 16 million dead and 20 million wounded. During the war, 6 million people alone had died from either disease or starvation.

Military deaths on the battlefield were no longer due to the typical loss of blood from a bullet or several, a stab wound or several, or caused by the shocking effects of a nearby explosion or losing a limb to a passing cannon ball, infection or drowning at sea. In the Great War, soldiers might be blown to mist, crushed by a tank, suffocated by poison gas, burned alive by a flamethrower, suffer a heart attack while falling from a plane, or cut in half by rapid firing machine guns.

One hundred and one years ago, with declarations of war formalizing battle lines and intentions of empires cementing the fate of their people, Britain had a relatively small army compared to the continental armies swiftly mobilized and deployed across Europe. The mobilization of an army was tantamount to a declaration of war, and Britain in 1914 was the only Great Power to not have conscription, unlike France, Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

In addition to soldiers, horses were mobilized. The British had 165,000 horses prepared for cavalry duty, the Austrians 600,000, the Germans 715,000, and the Russians over a million. Expected to fight alongside the British, when Britain entered the war on August 4 – defending Belgium’s right to neutrality – so too did Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. Britain sought hundreds of thousands of new soldiers, and the appeal was met with an enthusiastic response.

The recruitment of volunteers involved the design and distribution of posters on one hand to foster nationalistic patriotism, expecting men to respond to a need, to proudly fight an imposing enemy, to maintain the honour and glory of The British Empire, and on the other to learn a new trade or skill, to become better artisans and craftsmen while serving King and Country, ensuring a worthwhile job at home after returning from the front.

In 1914, Canada’s militia numbered roughly 3,000 and thus an advertising campaign was launched to secure the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and volunteers were encouraged to join a local battalion. This encouragement was quite passive and, to be successful, which initially it was, it relied on the pride of men, to help the cause, to win. As the war progressed and casualties increased, the art of recruitment became more aggressive and also targeted women to persuade men to serve.

Those who did not enlist were deemed cowards. Mass produced posters appealed to men and women of all backgrounds: French and English, Irish and Scottish, young and old, skilled and unskilled, poor and rich alike, each were expected to contribute and leave behind their well-earned conveniences and comforts. Posters were placed in shop windows, on streetcars, alongside vans and upon walls. Combined with speeches, newspaper editorials and lectures at church, the effects of this campaign were staggering: 25,000 men were anticipated, yet 33,000 volunteered to fight.

By the end of 1914, the government of Canada had increased its commitment to Britain to 50,000 and by the following summer again to 150,000 men, but facing pressure of a daunting war with no end in sight, Prime Minister Borden in 1916 pledged a force of 500,000 men. At the time, the population of Canada was merely 8 million.

At the Second Battle of Ypres, which lasted from April 22 to May 25, 1915, the Germans attacked using chlorine gas for the first time. The French Algerian Division fled the yellow-green cloud but the Canadians repulsed numerous assaults. Upon inhaling chlorine gas the effect on lungs is severe: within seconds, its vapour destroys the organs, bringing on immediate and fatal choking attacks. For their valiant efforts, four Canadians won the Victoria Cross.

The war to end war, as US President Wilson said, was a becoming war of attrition. Given the numbers being lost on the front, however, the campaign at home in Canada continued and intensified, and throughout 1916 appealed to Asians and Africans, but even these volunteers were not enough to fill rapidly emptying trenches in Europe. Conscription became reality for Canadians in 1917.

When war began, Europe ruled most of the world. The British Empire covered a fourth of the earth’s surface, the Russian Empire a sixth. The French Empire spread from North Africa to Indochina, Germany’s from Africa to Samoa. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe. None of these empires survived the war, nor did Austria-Hungary.

The United States entered the war in 1917. Although Wilson had been re-elected in 1916 with a promise to the people for the country to remain neutral, five months later he had convinced Congress to declare war against the Central Powers. Convincing the American people required some additional expertise and in this respect within days he authorized the creation of the Committee on Public Information, or CPI, to help spread the virtues of democracy the world over.

Incredibly, by 1918 nearly 100,000 very bright people – a small army unto itself – had been retained and created Uncle Sam, and other famous images to assist volunteerism, and published millions of press releases, bulletins and iconic posters. Not only did Americans eagerly volunteer to fight but they also volunteered their money, giving millions to the Liberty Loan program. CPI was a propaganda machine hell-bent on appealing to the hearts and minds of Americans.

They delivered posters that decried the atrocities of German soldiers that never happened and played to the fears of people, fearing the loss of conveniences and comforts, that by all accounts were wildly exaggerated. Interestingly, as an output of this activity, one young member deeply influenced by CPI was Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who in fact worked on their campaigns.

He noted how many people could be converted or diverted due to their passions, acting upon images and symbols, not necessarily their intellect, and how these decisions could after the war be used by the corporations of America to sell just about anything through well planned and executed public relations, augmenting advertising campaigns. Indeed, he was successful.

Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company who wanted American women to feel comfortable about smoking in public. He concluded that women needed to see cigarettes as “torches of freedom” that would help emancipate them from the social taboos imposed on them by men. And, after arranging for several young women to walk down New York’s 5th Avenue during the Easter parade, smoking, the rest is history, as the story made front page news across the country.

The Struggle for Soldiers August 2, 2015

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Among the technological advances throughout the Twentieth Century leading up to The Great War, augmenting the industries of transportation and communication, such as motorized vehicles, mighty steamships and trans-continental trains, telephones and the light bulb, and greatly aiding the military in its efforts to kill more people more swiftly were the rifle and the machine gun, and the “ironclad”, replacing the front-loading musket and cannon, and the wooden galleon.

Also, during Britain’s illustrious war in Crimea – in the decade preceding America’s Civil War, a nurse called Florence Nightingale introduced a standard of care that would soon be replicated as a model for all field hospitals in the treatment not only of incredibly traumatic wounds inflicted on soldiers in battle, but others equally lethal in those days, whether scurvy, infection or severe blood loss. In those days, nearly 80% of British soldiers died from infections obtained in a field hospital – not from their original wounds.

Nightingale helped drop these appalling rates by simply improving hygiene and sanitation in hospitals. Inspired leaders quickly realized it was more cost effective to treat a wounded soldier and get him back to battle than to acquire, train and ship a new soldier to the field. Not only did Nightingale have a profound influence on the rapid modernization of hospitals and their care of the sick and wounded, but on their hiring practices. By delivering female nurses to the field, it allowed more men to be deployed as soldiers or battlefield medics.

After the Crimean War, medical reform was deemed critical; for instance, typhus typically contracted in ambulances was eliminated, beds were provided in field hospitals, as were antiseptics, and soon enough doctors were able to save broken limbs as opposed to amputating them. In essence, following the Second Boer War, the war machine was well-oiled. Troop numbers could now be raised in great numbers, transported efficiently and treated effectively if wounded, in the light of day or at night, and most importantly enemy soldiers could be mowed down from a distance.

Mobilization in 1914 meant massive armies were on the move. For each nation intent on going to war, acquiring the right men to fight was finding a balance between capacity: of their professional administrators and recruiters during the Marketing and Enlistment phase, educators and trainers to provide the necessary skills (and separate the men from the boys) during the Assessment and Allocation Phase, and drivers and shippers during the Transportation and Deployment Phase. Patriotism, solely, would not win wars. Winning required planning.

At the behest of Nicholas II, and the various members of the ambitious Romanov family who had ruled the country for 300 years, Russian planners eagerly sent millions of men to their deaths on the Eastern Front, poorly trained and ill-equipped against an incredibly efficient German killing machine. It was an effort that had obviously a devastating effect on the Russian men and women lost in battle, but also for the monarchy. Nicholas committed his army, and backed Serbia, to maintain control of the Balkans, whose borders lined up against the empires of Germany and  Austria-Hungary.

After Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the leaders of Austria-Hungary had issued an ultimatum to Serbia, notwithstanding the fact that Serbian nationalism represented a major threat to its empire, which contained more Slavs, including Bosnian Serbs, than either Austrians or Hungarians. The German empire supported the Austrians because Austria-Hungary was its only reliable ally in Europe. France supported Russia to regain the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, previously lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

Britain entered the war because Germany attacked Belgium, though moreso due to an increasing industrial and military competition with Germany. It’s worth noting Germany prior to 1918 won more Nobel prizes Britain, France, Russia, and the United States combined, a formidable industrial, technological and scientific sleeping giant. As well, Germany at the start of World War One boasted a navy to rival the British, keeper of the waves. Germany attacked Belgium because of its plan to minimize the consequences of having to fight against both France and the Russian Empire.

Upon being placed in the field, soldiers in large numbers faced each other and fought when commanded to do so, bravely standing as one. United, they each fought for King and Country. They each fought believing God was on their side. In order to regain Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, which they succeeded in doing with the signing of the war-ending Armistice after four years of constant fighting, France had lost 30% of its men between the ages of 18 and 28 in the process.

At the outset, nations were limited by numbers, and struggled to match eager recruits with the right weapon: no longer thinking in terms of one rifle per soldier, as a machine gun might require a crew of four, and long-range artillery a crew of a dozen or more. Throughout the war, new weapons were developed and brought forward to the front, including the bayonet, flamethrower, grenade and tank, not to mention poison gas, airplanes (as well as air traffic control), aircraft carriers, depth charges, torpedoes, tracer bullets and trench mortars.

Prior to the Great War, blood transfusions were risky and not often used by doctors. However, Major Lawrence Robertson of the Canadian Army Medical Corps successfully performed a number of direct donor-to-patient transfusions in the field without cross-matching blood types.  In 1917, Captain Oswald Robertson of the U.S. Army Medical Officer Reserve Corps demonstrated blood could be donated in advance and stored using sodium citrate as an anticoagulant, and thus is credited with developing the first blood bank.

With respect to advances in medical technology, Marie Curie had begun to create mobile X-ray stations for the French military immediately after the outbreak of war, and by October 1914 had installed X-ray machines in several cars and small trucks which toured smaller surgical stations at the front. By the end of the war, 18 of these “radiologic cars” or “Little Curies” were in operation.

Also, the modern sanitary napkin was made possible by the introduction of new cellulose bandage material during the First World War, and innovative French nurses quickly determined that clean and absorbent cellulose bandages were far superior to any washable or disposable undergarment. Kinmberly-Clark a few years later commercialized the napkin and introduced their Kotex brand.

In addition to the good deeds of researchers, scientists and engineers, who were tasked to repair the millions of men who were returning home scarred and shattered forever, it should come as no surprise, at the the United States’ Walter Reed Hospital, the goal of their Artificial Limb Laboratory, which opened in 1917, was to give every soldier amputee a modern limb so he could return to work.

The Struggle Among Family August 1, 2015

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In 1865, after four bloody confusing years, the northern forces of the Union defeated the southern forces of the Confederacy, ending a so-called civil war that had pitted brother against brother and, with the states finally united, expansion westward was soon a matter of American policy. Recognizing the opportunities on many levels provided by a growing nation and a productive people, businesses in this ruthless era swallowed their competitors and politicians astutely noted the benefit of continued geographic expansion, whether by force or negotiation.

In March 1867, Queen Victoria provided Royal Assent to the British North America Act and several months later the Dominion of Canada was created, and many Europeans bought tickets to find refuge in a vast and civil country – notwithstanding the issue of land ownership still in dispute across the western provinces. So, nearly two decades later in 1885, to control their fertile prairies, to feed their growing empire, British soldiers quashed angry rebels in Saskatchewan and, to solidify its authority, the new Government of Canada then hanged opposing Metis and Native leaders.

Prosperity assured and the last spike driven, a decade would pass before Canadians would be sought to fight against Dutch and African farmers during the Second Boer War in 1899, following the discovery of gold in the Transvaal. A year prior, in 1898 patriotic American armies had defeated Spain in a series of battles to acquire sugar-rich Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as the islands of Guam and Philippines. A war that ended the Spanish Empire effectively launched a new empire and American forces would soon be needed to protect expanding economic interests abroad.

In the hundred years following the defeat of Napoleon, numerous empires ruled by regal and noble families fought each other for colonies and the resources they provided. Competing for land, to forge their empires, were the armies of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Britain and the Ottomans, supported at home by a wildly nationalistic newspapers and magazines constantly feeding the appetites of naturally competitive humans, always hungry for more and prepared to fight, equally proud of their rulers’ stance and each proclaimed victory in the field.

The bubble burst in 1914. In the month that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife while traveling in a motorcade along a narrow Sarajevo street, battle lines were quickly drawn as were allies for the war to come. Nationalism fomented by imperialism, aided by militarism and fueled by capitalism, had launched the First World War. Indeed it was a global conflict fought on many lands, and many lives were lost, many millions in fact as empires collapsed. Recovery would take decades, and yet again the world was plunged into another war.

Queen Victoria had married Prince Albert, son of Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha in 1840, and remained a member of the House of Hanover. King Edward VII was the only British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and he reigned for nine years at the beginning of the twentieth century, and was succeeded by King George V who replaced the German-sounding name with that of Windsor during The Great War. However, the title survived in other European monarchies, including the Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and Bulgaria.

At the outbreak of war, the royal rulers of three empires were cousins: King George V of Britain, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. In fact, all three were equal descendants of King George II of Britain. The struggle among them proved personal as George would deny Nicholas asylum after the Russian Revolution in 1917. After being captured by the Bolsheviks, Nicholas and his family would be subsequently executed by firing squad.

Despite mobilizing its army against them – on behalf of Serbia – Russia did not declare war with either Germany or Austria-Hungary; whereas Germany declared war with Russia, France, Belgium and Portugal in August 1914 but not any other country, and Britain declared war with both Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as Turkey and Bulgaria. It is estimated that 10 million military personnel died during the war (7 to 8 million due to combat and 2 to 3 million due to accidents, disease and while held captive), and there were nearly 7 million un-armed civilian deaths.

The Struggle a Century Ago August 1, 2015

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A hundred years ago Britain ruled the waves and, with military precision, the world’s resources landed at its doorstep. Acquiring raw material by the boatload and financing these daily shipments was one matter, but marketing the finished goods to qualified buyers was quite another. To facilitate supply and demand, professionals were needed across this spectrum of economic activity to manage the limited capacity of their ports.

Nelson had won at Trafalgar and Wellington at Waterloo a century before, and during the reign of Queen Victoria her armed forces went on to assert control of an empire spanning the globe. Shortly after her death in 1901 and a victory in sunny southern Africa a year later, expert administrators of the British Empire viewed global domination as common sense, as there was no one better to effectively maximize their procurements more efficiently.

For Britain, having done so for centuries, taking by force was one tried and true method of acquisition, yet it was found the integrated process of buying and selling was much more civil, and in fact left behind a consumer with money in hand. However, in a rapidly emerging industrialized world, there were sleeping giants among them and change was afoot. Acquiring consumers was the reason nations would soon go to war, not necessarily protecting trade routes.

Unbeknownst to the Old World, oil-powered motor cars would soon enough upset the apple cart, as would certainly electricity. Profits were paramount on a global level, and American industrialists knew Britain could not afford to keep their shipping lanes open.

In 1914, Britain needed to destroy two empires in order to foster commonwealth trade: The Ottoman Empire and The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Facing these two obstacles, among her colonies fervent men were readily trained in the art of modern war, to obey British commands, to bravely stand and fight and assure the safe passage of resources and goods across the world.

By 1918 millions had died.