Last survivor re-lives the horrors of Passchendaele (World War I)

It’s become common in many quarters to say WWI was pointless and about nothing, but that’s not really true. The Kaiser’s Germany was seriously expansionist and (just on the western front) occupied virtually all of Belgium and much of northern France to within 30 miles of Paris. They weren’t planning on giving up that dominant position which they had reached via invasion. One can certainly debate whether people outside of France and Belgium had as much at stake, but to allow Germany to so dominate the continent certainly was not a trivial matter, contrary to what revisionists have said. It would have changed the whole course of history for the worse, unless perhaps one was a German militarist.

Same issues apply in different details on much of the eastern front.

One can argue that surrender/submission was preferable to the vast casualties, but it’s not reasonable (as so many do say) to claim that there was nothing of value at stake for the Allies.

As to whether the war ever should have broken out or exanded beyond Austro-Hungary punishing Serbia, that had a great deal to do with the Kaiser letting Austria have essentially a blank check to act without restraint, and Britain failing badly to indicate any bright line (sich as invasion of Belgium) that would bring them into the war. In the face of uncertainty, Germany gambled that the Brits would stay out; the Kaiser almost certainly would have been more restrained if he had known that the Brits would go to war and would actually raise a major army to fight on the continent. So there were some terrible miscalculations of diplomacy and strateg on both sides, but once Germany invaded Belgium and France the Allies had a LOT at stake, it wasn’t about nothing.

I am reflecting my grandfather’s views. He fought in the US 4th infantry division in France an didn’t think it had been worthless to take a stand against Germany’s invasion. Of course, the Brits, French and Germans experienced horrors and slaughters that few if any Americans endured, coming into the war in the last year.

p.s. One of the most disillusioning aspects was, of course, the frequent blundering by generals ordering mass suicidal attacks in the face of machine guns and artillery. The generals were still thinking almost in Napoleonic terms and had not come to terms with the vast rates of fire and massive artillery barrages which made traditional tactics simply suicidal. Don’t know if anything could have gotten them out of the trench warfare in the west until the advent of tanks and more sensible infiltration tactics, which were a long time in coming (though fairly quick in the context of military history).

Yes, war sucks and the violence and brutal cruelty is a real horror. However, to avoid it at all costs can mean slavery to those who don’t mind employing violence and brutal cruelty to others in order to get what they want. There are even those who enjoy the violence and brutal cruelty as a means unto itself.

We can call this Evil, which does exist in this world. To not oppose it perpetuates and strengthens it.

This is the sad reality of the world.

I remember in my youth some hippies that had a sign that read, “What if ‘they’ gave a war and nobody came?”

I laughed. I wanted a sign that said, “Then we’d be ‘their’ slaves and would have to do whatever ‘they’ wanted!”

Until a few years ago, there were two WWI vets at the local veterans’ home, one of whom still liked to dance with younger ladies (hard to find older ladies anyway). At that time the French were going around decorating all surviving foreign soldiers who’d fought in France in that war, and there was a ceremony here where ours got ‘em.

What remains mind-boggling to me is that the last of the Civil War veterans died tbe year after I was born.

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