When war broke out the various nations that would play a part in the conflict began mobilizing their forces. Germany's entire war plan counted on a quick strike. In order to ensure victory, they had to seize victory in the west before Russia could mobilize and strike in the east. Russian mobilization was expected to take longer than six weeks. Thus, Germany's plan called for victory over France in 40 days.
A few obstacles to this goal arose. First, was Belgium. Belgium was a newer nation, small in size and not able to fight against one of the continental powers. Thus it was protected by the other powers, including England. Strategically, Belgium was hugely important to Germany. If they occupied Belgium they could strike directly south to France. The German war plan called for the rightmost soldier to brush the channel with his sleeve. In order for that to happen, Belgium's neutrality and sovereignty would have to be violated. German leaders were not concerned about the military threat posed by the Belgians. If anything they expected them to roll over. The timetable for swinging its right flank through the country neglected to account for any Belgian resistance at all. The problem with invading Belgium, from the German perspective, was that once Belgian sovereignty was violated England would be treaty-bound to enter the war. The British military, especially the British Navy, was of concern to the Germans.
When German boots crossed into Belgium they did not find a compliant people or a feckless king. The Belgians resisted, decimating the German army in an early series of battles. Victory by the Belgians was never a possibility, but their fierce resistance slowed down the German advance. Moreover, it emboldened the world to speak out against Germany's aggression. News of German retaliations against Belgian citizens was broadcasted to the world, and the world turned against Germany. England, goaded by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, declared in favor of the Allies and dispatched an expeditionary force to occupy the left flank of the French forces. Though poorly led and mostly retreating the first month of the war, the French rallied the English to their cause when von Kluck exposed his right flank and the BEF was a key part of the battle of the Marne.
Another obstacle to the German timetable was Russia. The Russian behemoth mobilized much quicker than was expected. Spurred on by the French, the Russians sent armies into the field that were grievously unequipped for war with Germany but even 1,000,000 poorly-equipped soldiers is something that has to be dealt with. Germany dispatched two key battalions to the eastern front. Russian losses were staggering, but they accomplished the goal of making Germany fight a two-front war.
In a sense, then, Russia and Belgium are responsible for saving Europe. England might not have entered the war had Belgian neutrality not been violated and popular opinion so enamored of the conduct of the Belgians. If that hadn't happened the Germans would have enveloped France and taken Paris by the middle of September. If the Russians hadn't sacrificed thousands of men in an ill-fated early attack on Germany, the two German battalions called away might have given the Germans all they needed to overrun both the French and the British forces in the west. All of this three years before the U.S. entered the conflict.
The Battle of the Marne was waged over a week in early September of 1914. It falls out of the purview of Tuchman's book, which keyed in only on the first month of the conflict. In that week, though, 500,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. It was the bloodiest-per-day battle of the conflict. While it was ultimately an Allied victory and the Germans would never get as close to Paris as they had been in August of 1914, the victory also set the stage for four years of trench warfare and the madness and killing and senselessness of that war. With victories like that, who needs defeats?
24 August 2014
17 August 2014
The Guns of August
In August of 1914 the world erupted into the conflagration that came to be known as the Great War. After the European powers repeated the steps less than thirty years later, the Great War was amended to World War I. It is a conflict about which I know very little. Its brutality and pointlessness do not make way for glory in the same way as its better known child. There is little glory at the bottom of a trench, nothing rousing in a pile of young bodies rotting in no man's land.
Attempting to rectify my ignorance of the conflict I spent the past month or so reading Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, her account of the first month of the war. Superlatives fail. It was a fascinating read. Even though the Europe it conjures is scarcely a century past (there are people in your town who were alive during the conflict), it is an entirely foreign world--a world of princes and kings and archdukes and detente and entente and confusing treaties and the vast progeny of Queen Victoria. It was an era that still believed in honor, that took a nation's right to dominate whatever was within its power to control as a piece of natural law, that saw Europe as a continent of competing powers and not some panEuropean utopia.
Tuchman begins with a vision of old Europe. The death of King Edward VII of England was attended by nine kings, five heirs apparent, forty imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens, and numerous ambassadors. The Kaiser of Germany, William II, rode in attendance; the new King of England, George V, rode in the front row; King Frederick of Denmark was there, as was Alfonso of Spain and Manuel of Portugal and the soon to be famous Albert of Belgium. Franz Ferdinand was there, accompanied by the old Emperor Franz Josef. Crown Prince Rupprecht, who would lead the German army in battle, was there. Edward had broken England's isolation, uniting the nation with France and Russia, two old enemies and the upstart Japan.
The unity with France unsettled the Kaiser and prevented him from pursuing a better peace with England. The Kaiser longed for the acclaim of France, dreamed of being paraded through the streets of Paris. Tuchman notes, "it is perhaps the saddest story of the fate of kings that the Kaiser lived to be eighty-two and died without seeing Paris." The rapprochement was not to come. The new Germany, united by Bismarck, emboldened by the victories over France in 1870, chomped at the bit, straining to assert itself in a continent that openly derided its parochialism and provinciality. Germany would soon get its chance.
England's unity with Russia was even more of a blow to the German people. Alexandra, Czar Nicholas's wife, was German. Nicholas and William were cousins. But Alexandra hated William and the czar was constrained by his more evenhanded ministers from signing an entente with Germany. Germany was, for all intents and purposes, surrounded. France to the west, Russia to the east, England on the seas. Their alliance with Italy was suspect and Austria could not provide enough protection against the hulking beast of Russia to give Germany freedom to fight only on one front in the west. A two-front war haunted Germany's military minds.
However, much of this was subliminal at the death of Edward. Peace seemed to be the order of the day. Germany could pontificate and quotes its Nietzsche and thump its chest, but the balance in Europe seemed to be stable. In 1910, the year of Edward's magisterial funeral, Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, which "proved that war had become vain." Given the economic interdependence of the nations, no country would be foolish enough to start a new war. A cult grew around the book and optimism seemed to replace predilections of war.
But at the end of June, Gavrilo Princip's shot rang out in the Sarajevo morning and the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire choked to death on his own blood in the back of his motorcar. Austria declared war on Bosnia, Bosnia was defended under treaty by Russia, Germany came in for Austria under odd pretenses. Thus the war in the east began. Inventing a threat from France, Germany violated Belgian neutrality in order to invade France from the north. Treaty-bound to defend Belgium, England declared for the side of the Allies and dispatched an expeditionary force to France. Thus the war in the west began.
Four years later, after 16 million people had died, the madness was put to bed for a time.
In my next post I will take a brief look at how that first month played out and how it served as a harbinger for the horrors to come. I would love to have more time to engage with the book, but tomorrow morning I start teaching and will be pretty busy for the next several months. My posting has fallen off the map since moving to Colorado, but I anticipate being able to post once per week during the school year. I should have a follow-up post by the end of next weekend.
Attempting to rectify my ignorance of the conflict I spent the past month or so reading Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, her account of the first month of the war. Superlatives fail. It was a fascinating read. Even though the Europe it conjures is scarcely a century past (there are people in your town who were alive during the conflict), it is an entirely foreign world--a world of princes and kings and archdukes and detente and entente and confusing treaties and the vast progeny of Queen Victoria. It was an era that still believed in honor, that took a nation's right to dominate whatever was within its power to control as a piece of natural law, that saw Europe as a continent of competing powers and not some panEuropean utopia.
Tuchman begins with a vision of old Europe. The death of King Edward VII of England was attended by nine kings, five heirs apparent, forty imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens, and numerous ambassadors. The Kaiser of Germany, William II, rode in attendance; the new King of England, George V, rode in the front row; King Frederick of Denmark was there, as was Alfonso of Spain and Manuel of Portugal and the soon to be famous Albert of Belgium. Franz Ferdinand was there, accompanied by the old Emperor Franz Josef. Crown Prince Rupprecht, who would lead the German army in battle, was there. Edward had broken England's isolation, uniting the nation with France and Russia, two old enemies and the upstart Japan.
The unity with France unsettled the Kaiser and prevented him from pursuing a better peace with England. The Kaiser longed for the acclaim of France, dreamed of being paraded through the streets of Paris. Tuchman notes, "it is perhaps the saddest story of the fate of kings that the Kaiser lived to be eighty-two and died without seeing Paris." The rapprochement was not to come. The new Germany, united by Bismarck, emboldened by the victories over France in 1870, chomped at the bit, straining to assert itself in a continent that openly derided its parochialism and provinciality. Germany would soon get its chance.
England's unity with Russia was even more of a blow to the German people. Alexandra, Czar Nicholas's wife, was German. Nicholas and William were cousins. But Alexandra hated William and the czar was constrained by his more evenhanded ministers from signing an entente with Germany. Germany was, for all intents and purposes, surrounded. France to the west, Russia to the east, England on the seas. Their alliance with Italy was suspect and Austria could not provide enough protection against the hulking beast of Russia to give Germany freedom to fight only on one front in the west. A two-front war haunted Germany's military minds.
However, much of this was subliminal at the death of Edward. Peace seemed to be the order of the day. Germany could pontificate and quotes its Nietzsche and thump its chest, but the balance in Europe seemed to be stable. In 1910, the year of Edward's magisterial funeral, Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, which "proved that war had become vain." Given the economic interdependence of the nations, no country would be foolish enough to start a new war. A cult grew around the book and optimism seemed to replace predilections of war.
But at the end of June, Gavrilo Princip's shot rang out in the Sarajevo morning and the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire choked to death on his own blood in the back of his motorcar. Austria declared war on Bosnia, Bosnia was defended under treaty by Russia, Germany came in for Austria under odd pretenses. Thus the war in the east began. Inventing a threat from France, Germany violated Belgian neutrality in order to invade France from the north. Treaty-bound to defend Belgium, England declared for the side of the Allies and dispatched an expeditionary force to France. Thus the war in the west began.
Four years later, after 16 million people had died, the madness was put to bed for a time.
In my next post I will take a brief look at how that first month played out and how it served as a harbinger for the horrors to come. I would love to have more time to engage with the book, but tomorrow morning I start teaching and will be pretty busy for the next several months. My posting has fallen off the map since moving to Colorado, but I anticipate being able to post once per week during the school year. I should have a follow-up post by the end of next weekend.
01 August 2014
The Key to Paradise Lost, or One Nominal Theory on the Issue of the Hero of the Epic
I do not know that I have found the key to understanding Paradise Lost. Maybe. The title of the post is a nod to the wonderful pedantic Edward Causabon of Middlemarch, whose life's work was to be The Key to All Mythologies. Unfortunately for the world, Dr. Causabon died, victim to the harshness of George Eliot's pen, before he could complete his tome and enlighten the world.
In general I am leery of theories or claims that are as absolute as "the key to this" or "the until now overlooked aspect of that." People who make claims like that are mistaking boldness in rhetoric for boldness in thought. That large caveat aside, in my Scripture reading the other day I did come across a verse that can function, while perhaps not the key, at least a very useful lens for adjudicating the great Satan debate in Paradise Lost.
For those of you further down on the nerd scale, the debate basically centers around the hero of Paradise Lost. PL is an epic and all epics come equipped with a hero. The Iliad has Achilles. The Odyssey has Odysseus. The Aeneid has Aeneas. But Milton doesn't have a straightforward hero. People who enjoy controversy and quite literally playing the devil's advocate claim Satan as the hero. William Blake, a great reader of Milton and wonderfully visual poet, wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it."
A straightforward, maybe simplistic, reading of the poem can lead to this conclusion. Satan has all the best speeches. He is defiant and brave. "To reign is worth ambition though in hell/ Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." That is a great line. He refuses to accept defeat after literally waking up in hell. In other words, of all the characters in the epic Satan most embodies the classical traits of the hero.
But maybe Milton didn't want a classical hero. Maybe, in fact, he was sending up the ideals embodied by the classical hero. I have long sensed this as I have engaged with the poem, but in reading Romans 2 the other day it was brought home in a different way. Here is the text:
"He will render to each according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:6-8 ESV)
The classic course of the hero was to seek glory and honor and immortality. It was why Achilles went to Troy. But there is nothing more antithetical to the classical notion of heroism than the idea that glory and honor and immortality are achieved through "patience in well-doing." Glory and honor and immortality, for the ancients, had to be grasped at, struggled for; you had to do bold things and risk daringly, like Satan in Paradise Lost. But for the Christian we live patiently and do the good works God has prepared for us in Christ. A bit less grandiose. Not too many three hour blockbusters made about a Christian businessman living a patient life of good works in his suburban community.
But the quest for the Christian is different. What we need to do has already been done in Christ. Our job is to use the faith we have been given to endure. To finish the race. To continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that we heard. My ambitions when I was younger were for grand things. To change the world. To die a glorious martyr for Christ. Now my goals have changed. Life is long, the race is hard, and I just want to make it. When all hell breaks loose in this world and in my life, I want to stand.
I think Milton was on to this in setting Satan up as the most heroic character in the epic. If heroism leads to being Satan then what value is there in that type of heroism? Better to be patient. Better to endure. Better to live out good works. Better to, as Milton puts it in another poem, "only stand and wait."
In general I am leery of theories or claims that are as absolute as "the key to this" or "the until now overlooked aspect of that." People who make claims like that are mistaking boldness in rhetoric for boldness in thought. That large caveat aside, in my Scripture reading the other day I did come across a verse that can function, while perhaps not the key, at least a very useful lens for adjudicating the great Satan debate in Paradise Lost.
For those of you further down on the nerd scale, the debate basically centers around the hero of Paradise Lost. PL is an epic and all epics come equipped with a hero. The Iliad has Achilles. The Odyssey has Odysseus. The Aeneid has Aeneas. But Milton doesn't have a straightforward hero. People who enjoy controversy and quite literally playing the devil's advocate claim Satan as the hero. William Blake, a great reader of Milton and wonderfully visual poet, wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it."
A straightforward, maybe simplistic, reading of the poem can lead to this conclusion. Satan has all the best speeches. He is defiant and brave. "To reign is worth ambition though in hell/ Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." That is a great line. He refuses to accept defeat after literally waking up in hell. In other words, of all the characters in the epic Satan most embodies the classical traits of the hero.
But maybe Milton didn't want a classical hero. Maybe, in fact, he was sending up the ideals embodied by the classical hero. I have long sensed this as I have engaged with the poem, but in reading Romans 2 the other day it was brought home in a different way. Here is the text:
"He will render to each according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:6-8 ESV)
The classic course of the hero was to seek glory and honor and immortality. It was why Achilles went to Troy. But there is nothing more antithetical to the classical notion of heroism than the idea that glory and honor and immortality are achieved through "patience in well-doing." Glory and honor and immortality, for the ancients, had to be grasped at, struggled for; you had to do bold things and risk daringly, like Satan in Paradise Lost. But for the Christian we live patiently and do the good works God has prepared for us in Christ. A bit less grandiose. Not too many three hour blockbusters made about a Christian businessman living a patient life of good works in his suburban community.
But the quest for the Christian is different. What we need to do has already been done in Christ. Our job is to use the faith we have been given to endure. To finish the race. To continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that we heard. My ambitions when I was younger were for grand things. To change the world. To die a glorious martyr for Christ. Now my goals have changed. Life is long, the race is hard, and I just want to make it. When all hell breaks loose in this world and in my life, I want to stand.
I think Milton was on to this in setting Satan up as the most heroic character in the epic. If heroism leads to being Satan then what value is there in that type of heroism? Better to be patient. Better to endure. Better to live out good works. Better to, as Milton puts it in another poem, "only stand and wait."
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