Remembrance Day is fast approaching. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns fell silent across Europe. The Great War was over. Later it would be known as the War to End all War and finally after we did it again as just plain World War One. What does it mean and what should it mean to us today. Perhaps the best place to start is to look at where it comes from and what it meant in the first place.
The call to arms that followed the guns of August 1914 came not from the Canadian government but a foreign power, Great Britain. Most Canadians are unaware that Canada never declared war on Germany in 1914. The government of Robert Borden did not deem it necessary as we were part of the British Empire and therefore legally if Britain was at war so were we. I have often wondered what the turn of events would have been had Wilfrid Laurier not lost power in 1911. Laurier’s career had been marked by his efforts to prevent our entanglement in Britain’s European and colonial problems. But to war we went and served our King and country faithfully. Canadians distinguished themselves on the battlefield to such a degree as to shame our ‘Johnny come lately’ southern neighbours (the United States) into backing down when President Wilson attempted to exclude us from the peace talks at Versailles. It should never be forgotten that ordinary young men ventured into harm’s way and did what was required of them with honour and courage.
But soldiers do not choose to go to war, they are sent to war. War is a political activity. Karl von Clausewitz said that “War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means.” That is of course political policy. I would diverge from Clausewitz and say rather that ‘War is the failure of policy and politicians’. It is an activity that should be avoided whenever possible and only embarked upon in the most desperate of circumstances, i.e. to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. But no war to date has ever been fought for a humanitarian reason and with our current international system it is a certainty that none ever will.
Remembrance day was said to have been created to remind us all of the great sacrifice and tragedy of war and to celebrate the peace. However early on a controversy began as more and more memorials began to appear to be a celebration of the victory and not the peace. I am proud to say that the memorial in my home town (photo above) was one that focussed more on the lament of what we had lost rather than our martial prowess. Many at the time who argued this point were accused of being unpatriotic (sound familiar). We had won because we were in the right and the evil tyrannical Kaiser had been righteously punished. God in his wisdom had seen the nobility of our cause and smiled upon it. Nonsense!
Let’s set the record straight. There was no righteous cause in World War One. The war was nothing more than a family squabble amongst a bunch of inbred crackers (the royal families of Europe). America entered the war, abeit late, for financial reasons (why they do most things). As we all know today, or should know, the first casualty of war is the truth. Our governments regaled us with a steady diet of ‘Democracy vs. Tyranny’ and ‘Freedom vs. Slavery’ and the every favourite ‘Good vs. Evil’. The fact that the most autocratic ruler involved in the war was our ally ‘Bloody’ Nicholas the Tsar of Russia seemed to escape notice. Also our governments failed to inform us that the German Reichstag had overwhelmingly voted the appropriations for the war with the support of Karl Kautsky, leader of the largest socialist party in Europe at the time (yes, we socialists have skeletons in our closet too and sometimes we err in judgement). And thus the imperial chess game of the 19th century was played out with 20th century chess pieces unfolding a scene that would make Dante wince.
So what does all this mean to us today? It means several things:
- We should mourn the useless loss of life in World War One not puff our chests about victory over the Hun.
- We should hold the collective feet of our current leaders to the fire ever time they say we must go to war. Make them prove the necessity of such a horrendous action. We must not blindly accept them at their word as they have lied so many times before with such great cost.
- We should ask ourselves what we can do individually to end war once and for all. Remember my last axiom on my about page “Anything human beings create; human beings can change.” Human beings create wars.
So this Remembrance Day don’t just stand their for a minute thinking about that pain in your back or where you are going for lunch but think what war means to you and whether you want it to some day take your son.
