O
O.D.D.
Guest
Going back to the utter insanity of the Western Front for a moment I am reminded of a quote: "It is good that war is terrible, lest we grow fond of it."
The way that quote falls apart can be seen in WW1 easily - WW1 presented unprecedented (to that time anyway) levels of "terrible", an unpleasantness that many of the war's most strident advocates were completely or near completely insulated from. Without having to face the monstrosity of the WW1 battlefield themselves, commanders, leaders and citizenry who were pro war were free to feed people into a meat grinder with little real consequence - from the aforementioned ordering of bayonet charges at MG nests to more subtly pernicious things like White Feather campaigns. The Christmas Truce was a remarkable event that was looked poorly upon by those not in the trenches, to the point of threats of desertion charges being leveled against participants. The White Feather campaigns were particularly reprehensible - a mass shaming campaign leveled against any man or boy perceived as being capable of fighting, that was not actively going out and dying at that precise moment.
The way that quote falls apart can be seen in WW1 easily - WW1 presented unprecedented (to that time anyway) levels of "terrible", an unpleasantness that many of the war's most strident advocates were completely or near completely insulated from. Without having to face the monstrosity of the WW1 battlefield themselves, commanders, leaders and citizenry who were pro war were free to feed people into a meat grinder with little real consequence - from the aforementioned ordering of bayonet charges at MG nests to more subtly pernicious things like White Feather campaigns. The Christmas Truce was a remarkable event that was looked poorly upon by those not in the trenches, to the point of threats of desertion charges being leveled against participants. The White Feather campaigns were particularly reprehensible - a mass shaming campaign leveled against any man or boy perceived as being capable of fighting, that was not actively going out and dying at that precise moment.