Today marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. That World War I (WW I) battle began with a German offensive aimed at crippling the French and ended with the French pushing the Germans back and regaining lost territory. When the battle was over, each side had suffered approximately 400,000 casualties, roughly half of that total being fatalities. (Some estimates put the total number of causalities closer to one million.)
More soldiers were killed at Verdun than the total number of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq. Even as the slaughter of Verdun helps us gain perspective on American losses in the current war, we recognize that one death is one death too many. And it’s impossible to measure the pain that each family who lost a loved one has suffered.
Despite the valor of many on those bloody fields ninety years ago, the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives at Verdun died in vain. The victors at Verdun — and of World War I — imposed harsh terms on the vanquished and so helped set the stage for the rise of Hitler, whose aggression they failed to challenge until it was too late. Less than a quarter century after Verdun, the next generation of Germans and French soldiers would face off in another bloody war and millions of Europeans would perish.
It is too soon to tell whether those Americans who died in Iraq have died in vain. If our project there succeeds, we will have helped promote our own security by defeating a tyrant who threatened the region and who sought the means to attack us. At the same time, we are helping democracy and freedom flourish in the nation that dictator once ruled with an iron fist.
Unlike the victors at Verdun, our leaders have, even before the war started, had an idea of the victory we wanted to achieve. Instead of humiliating Iraq as the Allies humbled Germany after WW I, we seek to rebuild our erstwhile adversary. On September 12, 2002, President Bush told the United Nations:
The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond.
Contrast that vision with the sinister maneuvering which caused World War I. The Austro-Hungarian general staff used the June 1914 assassination (by a Serbian nationalist) of their Archduke Francis Ferdinand to attack Serbia. Soon allies of the two nations joined in the fray and by the end of the year an entire continent was engulfed in war.
At the outset of the First World War, neither side gave much thought to the world after the war. Nations were driven more by commitment to their alliances, nationalistic pride and a desire to exact vengeance from national enemies — real and imagined.
As we remember the hundred of thousands who were killed or maimed at Verdun, we need to bear in mind how much we have learned from that horrible encounter — and its aftermath. We know the horrors of war and that bloody sacrifice does not necessarily lead to an honorable conclusion. The “war to end all wars” failed to live up to its supposedly defining expression.
There are already signs that we are reaching a more honorable conclusion in Iraq. Just over a year ago, American troops fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war, clearing the city of Fallujah of the terrorists who had taken over in the aftermath of the defeat of Saddam’s tyranny. In the November 2004 battle for that city, our armed forces suffered 70 dead and 600 wounded. As soon as our troops cleared the terrorists out, they welcomed the people back and have since then been working with them to rebuild the town.
When the French finally succeeded in repulsing the Germans from Verdun and later, with the help of their British and American allies, in defeating their once-proud army, they had no interest in rebuilding a shattered nation and instead sought, through the harsh provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, to cripple the vanquished power.
While the losses our troops have suffered in Iraq are minuscule in comparison to the losses in just one battle (albeit the bloodiest) of the First World War, they remain losses nonetheless, a loss to our nation and a terrible cost to the families of those brave men and women. The victors of this war have clearly learned from the failures of the victors of that nearly century-old war. Even so, we need to keep in mind the question that Dave Kane (like Norah Vincent and myself, a graduate of America’s finest small college) asked, whether “the benefits for this improvement are worth the costs in blood and treasure.”
As we remember Verdun in the midst of the current war, let us resolve to achieve a victory so that, unlike the aftermath of that bloody battle, the next generation will not have to sacrifice as this one has.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
Wow!
Just think of how excited the liberals would have been over that many American dead. Nevermind their expressions of love and support for the Kaiser.
Talk about a spooge-fest.
Ah, but back then, the parties at least tried to put the good of the country above partisanship. Whereas now, one of the parties goes absolutely histrionic when soldiers try to speak out in support of the war. Via PowerLine: Minnesota Democrats Attack Soldiers Ad
Thanks Dan, for the historical perspective. The value of such information is more valuable than ever as we can not count on the Democrat/Liberal dominated public education system to impart such knowledge. In addition to history I doubt critical thinking or logic courses are widely taught subjects. If so it would be clear to most people that had we not gone to war in Iraq the loss of life in Iraq alone, during the ensuing time by he hand of an unchecked Saddam, would have been greater than it is today.
#1 ThatGayConservative — February 21, 2006 @ 4:32 am – February 21, 2006
You aren’t seriously going to contend that Woodrow Wilson was a liberal, are you?
On another matter, one of the themes of Barbara Tuchman’s book The Guns Of August was that war between Germany and Britain/France was inevitable–the British and French had for a number of centuries been trying to keep, first the Prussians and later the Germans in a state of subjugation–and that the Serbian “Black Hand” assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was merely a spark to the inevitable war.
Verdun also led to the promotion of one of it’s heroes, Robert Nivelle. Nivelle was given great authority by the French and planned the Second Batle of the Aisne.
That battle turned out to be a disaster for the French and led to the French army mutinees.
There were widespread mutinies in the French army in 1917. The poem below was in protest against the pointless loss of life before the village of Craonne. It was banned in France for years.
Adieu la vie, adieu l’amour
Adieu toutes les femmes
C’est bien fini, c’est pour toujours
De cette guerre infâme
C’est à Craonne, sur le plateau
Qu’on doit laisser sa peau,
Car nous sommes tous condamnés
Nous sommes les sacrifiés.
Sorry I didn’t translate:
Goodbye to life.
Goodbye to love.
Goodbye to all the women.
It is well finished.
It is forever.
That is the infamy of war.
It is at Craonne, on the plateau,
where we must leave our skin.
Because we are the condemned,
and we are the sacrificed.
Not the best translation. Sorry it lacks poetry.
Excellent post! What’s the old saying… those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it. Rings very true when considering this war.
Although if you took a poll of people who don’t read blogs – I wonder how many of them know that we actually won in Fallujah… and are helping to put it back together again as a working city. It’s not like the MSM publicized the fact.
#9 – Hank, I just assumed it translated this way:
Please don’t shoot.
I’ll put down my gun.
I’ll run back to Paris.
I’ll help you take over my government.
I’ll turn my back on my Allies.
I’ll cower against rioting Muslims.
My mistake.
In The First World War the French actually fought for their country.
#2
Huh. Is that what I said, Ass? I wasn’t aware that I even mentioned Wilson. I’ll be damned.
WW1 led to WW2, all those wars in yugoslavia (serbia gained bosnia & kosovo from WW1) and the war on terror (british & french mismanaged territory gained from the ottoman empire). It was more like “the war to START all wars”.
Dan, nice post; interesting perspective.
#4 raj, even if TGC didn’t suggest Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a liberal, it can be argued –and has, convincingly– that his concepts for the New World Order were, indeed, liberal. He may not have appeared liberal to the anti-Roosevelt and anti-Taft voters, but he was. He sure as hell was when you contrast him with Congressional leaders.
His legislative achievements in the days when “Congress was King” in labor law (8 hr day, he was solidly pro-union), financial reform (banking, tariffs, the Fed Reserve, Income Tax, etc), Wilson successfully shifted the costs of the prosecution of the war onto the rich, and throughout his life he saw the US Constitution as in need of major revamping –not tweaking. He misled his supporters into thinking he would avoid war, then turned around and used the US military in an independent fashion in the war without alliances. One thing he did not share with liberals today is an animosity to the military –he pretty much let General Black Jack Pershing do his thing. He was certainly an internationalist liberal –his 14 Point Plan is point in case.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson had liberal leanings in his days as a reform governor of NJ, too. And before that, even, when he headed up the APSA –a group in which I share a membership today.
The biggest difference between the liberal war presidents of Wilson (yes), Roosevelt and Truman AND W is that those guys didn’t care about advancing democracy in the post-war debris. They just wanted peaceful, co-existing, non-aggressive states. W wants democracy adopted –and he’s getting his way. Big difference.
At the University of Michigan, we see Wilson as a liberal –solidly. In his political temperment, his policies both domestic and international, and his penchant for a firm belief that progress can only come with the careful, steady hand of govt at the tiller.
I think the point TGC is making in his comment #1 is that liberals of today use the mounting deaths in Iraq to score cheap partisan political gain… and on that point, he’s dead right. Again. They used it successfully in opposing the war in SE Asia in the 70s… and they’ll use it again until more Americans link that conduct with treason.
I’m going to leave alone your silliness of that world events doomed Europe to war… that kind of assessment only comes when the armchair historians get comfy, sip coffee and second guess it all… Tuchman my ass. Historians do have ONE thing right, Wilson’s refusal to amend the Treaty of V per HCLodge’s suggestion was probably one of the top presidential mistakes of all time.
It even trumps Bill Clinton’s “Monica Moments” as an even worse presidential mistake.
Il semble que nous avons ici, ceux qui n’ont jamais lu leur histoire. Sinon, ils sauraient que ‘liberal” avait un sens radicalement différent en 1914.
hank, it’s a dead language, bankrupt culture and failed democracy…. give it up dude.
You don’t get out much, do you?
#18 reads–it seems that we have here, those who have never read their history. If they had they would know that ‘liberal’ had a radically different meaning in 1914.
And indeed it still does in France.
But NOT the same meaning. Nor does it have same meaning here that it had 15 years ago.
Thanks GPW.
#20 hank, nope I get out a lot… or were you asking for a date there, froggie? I hope not. If I’m wrong, you need to know that real men don’t eat brie, sip French wine with elaborate affectations, or stand around demeaning America or our troops in “polite” cocktail banter here in the Midwest… we ship those idiots off to NYC or SF. So if you want a date, you gotta agree to some rules if I’m to protect my honor in the community. Rule #1: you need to be quiet and repeat “I’m only arm baggage for Michigan-Matt”. Rule #2: see Rule #1.
BTW, liberals then (1914) weren’t much different than they are now –you might have a case if you compared today’s liberals with pre-colonial liberals… or antebellum liberals… but in the modern age, no dice; no difference. If TWW hadn’t been so liberal, America would have never needed the calming presence and astutue leadership of Cal Coolidge and Herbert Hoover… remember, FDR won because he harkened back to the glory days of TWW’s era and the New Liberalism.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
It looks as though there is at least one “idiot” still in Michigan.
And I wouldn’t be seen with anyone who uses the word “dude”.
hank, turn down the ‘tude, dude. Don’t know what I talking about, eh? Wow, man. Sorry about anything I wrote that caused you to cast so much negative vibe. But it’s cool; hey, dude Liberals rock. Really, they do man. I gotta be honest, that whole French condescension thing you have going on is intimidating, dude.
What are you 15 years old?
Are you still trying to find out if I’m a legal date, hank? Is that it? Or are you one of those chickenhawks looking for younger prey to snare?
Gheez, what older men will do to find distraction from their own aging, failing bodies and minds.