Commemoration of the centenary of the start of World War One

In 2014 in Britain there are to be events to commemorate the centenary of the start of world war one and I wondered what forms these events would take.

Well the British government has decided that we should have, in the words of the Prime Minister, a "commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, says something about who we are as a people".

Another government spokesman said “We have seen in recent years that communities across the UK are really at their best when they are brought together with feelings of patriotism and history. We saw this with the Jubilee, the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Olympics”.

But is “celebration” and “patriotism” the way to remember the events of 1914?

In order to understand how to commemorate the start of the first world war, I believe it is necessary to try to understand why it started and what the 12 million soldiers who died in it (worldwide) were fighting for.

In 1914 Great Britain was the largest of the European Imperialist powers enjoying an empire that covered 25% of the world land mass. But there we other European Imperial powers that had dominions, France, Italy, Russia, Austria/Hungary, Germany and Turkey, and internationally there was the Japanese empire.

These empires had formed into groups for various reasons of trade and/or military alliance.

The “triple alliance” of Germany, Austria and Italy and the “triple entente” of Britain, France and Russia were supplemented by the Anglo-Japan pact and later in 1914 by the German- Turkish (Ottoman) pact.

These empires were all (including Britain) expansionist – that is they all wanted to conquer and occupy more lands to add to their power bases. So some counties who were bordered by more than one of these empires sought to protect themselves. They did this in two ways, some like Serbia formed alliances with one of the powers (in this case Russia), and some declared themselves as neutral (as in the case of Belgium). The Imperialist powers did not trust one another and there had been conflicts in the early part of the century in Africa between them. In the opinion of many it was only a matter of time until a bigger conflict between these powers erupted.

The assassination of the heir to the Austrian empire, Archduke Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists was the spark that started the big conflict. Austria demanded that Serbia cleanse itself of all anti-Austrian extremist groups and cooperate with an Austrian inquiry into the shooting. They had 48 hours to comply.

The Austrians believed that they could conquer Serbia quickly and avoid Russia getting involved. But this is not how it played out.

Serbia agreed to most but not all of the demands; however Austria declares war on Serbia forcing Russia to mobilise its army. Germany responds to this mobilisation by threatening war with Russia unless it stops. Britain sensing war tries to ensure Belgium neutrality (as a safeguard to France), Germany does not respond to Britain’s request and at the same time declares war on Russia. Germany tries to get France to stay out of the war but it refuses and Germany declares war on France. And eventually the “triple alliance” and their allies are at war with the “triple entente” and their allies.

So what really was the cause of the war? As can be seen above it is complicated

It is easier to see what it wasn’t.

It was not started as a revolutionary war, this was not the people rising up to overthrow the yoke of oppression (no country was supporting the Serb nationalists).  NB The Irish nationalists took advantage of the weakness of the British Armies position in the 1916 Easter rising, but this was not a cause of the 1914 conflict.

It wasn’t a war to defend democracy. None of the protagonists wanted to impose a different system of government on the peoples of the others. It could be argued that the German empire was more democratic than the others, as they alone had universal suffrage to one house of their parliament something that Great Britain did not have until 1928.

This was not a war of ideologies. In 1914 Capitalism was not at risk initially but the communist revolution in 1917 was a direct result of the war, again opportunistically by the “reds”.

It wasn’t a war to defend freedom. It was a war against freedom, the Imperialist powers were never going to voluntarily give freedom to the peoples and countries they had taken over, and they were not fighting a war to give that freedom to the peoples of the other empires.

So this started out as a war between empires to form even bigger empires by conquest.

The fact is that events took unexpected turns and, that as indirect results of the war, the Irish gained independence, the Bolsheviks took over Russia, women in Britain got the vote and the way became clear for Hitler to gain power in Germany, are not what those brave soldiers marched off for in 1914.

So should we celebrate Imperialism? Should feel patriotic about a country (any country) that sent it’s young men to die in order to maintain an empire that exploited the people of its colonies to enrich itself?

I do not believe we should. 

What we should do, is remember the many millions of people who died from all the countries that fought and realise that war is never the answer.

In the words of Ben Griffin the ex-SAS man who is now an anti war campaigner.

 Fight for Queen and Country, what does that mean? It is a jingoistic phrase dreamt up by some propaganda merchant intent on stoking the fire of that false religion patriotism. The idea of fighting for Queen and Country is held tight by those who never have and never will actually fight.

This was as true in 1914 as it is now. We should never glorify war and this is what I mean when I say I will never forget.