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"Myths about World War One " Topic


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Tango0131 Dec 2016 4:48 p.m. PST

"No war in history attracts more controversy and myth than World War One.

For the soldiers who fought it was in some ways better than previous conflicts, and in some ways worse.

By setting it apart as uniquely awful we are blinding ourselves to the reality of not just WW1 but war in general. We are also in danger of belittling the experience of soldiers and civilians caught up in countless other appalling conflicts throughout history and the present day…"
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charared31 Dec 2016 7:21 p.m. PST

"In Flanders Fields…"

Ottoathome01 Jan 2017 9:39 a.m. PST

If it was so wonderful how is it that only World War One spawned the vast outpouring of anti-war and pacifist, literature, sentiments, and movements. This article is an eloquent example of the sentiment that nothing is so bad to the person who doesn't have to do it himself.

Supercilius Maximus01 Jan 2017 12:45 p.m. PST

If it was so wonderful…

Sorry, I must have missed that bit – could you refer to where Snow suggests it was "wonderful"?

…how is it that only World War One spawned the vast outpouring of anti-war and pacifist, literature, sentiments, and movements.

Well, I'm not sure it actually was the ONLY conflict that did this – or indeed the first, but here are three reasons it happened in this particular case:-
1) because it coincided with the growth of literacy across all classes,
2) because civilian standards of living had improved to such an extent that the severity of military service was noticeably worse, and
3) because it coincided with the growth of international socialism and general politicisation of the masses.

This article is an eloquent example of the sentiment that nothing is so bad to the person who doesn't have to do it himself.

No, it isn't. It sounds like you've just (deliberately?) mis-read it, possibly because it challenges your own preconceptions? I suspect that any "grognard" who experienced the retreat from Moscow in 1812 would present his experience as being as bad, if not much worse, than that of the majority of front-line service in WW1; food and medical services would have been vastly better during the latter, for a start. A number of men who served in both world wars compared the fighting in Italy – and especially in the winter of '43-'44 – very adversely, with that of Passchendaele.

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