Today marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the War to End All Wars. World War I was a horribly ambiguous affair that killed a lot of people for reasons that are hard to explain. When I was little, I kind of knew what wars were and had heard of World War I. I asked my grandpa why they were fighting. He said he thought they just kind of felt like fighting. In World War II, he told me, they were fighting over a girl.

Obviously World War II wasn’t fought over a girl, but I think he was mostly right about World War I. Mostly it seemed to be a dick-measuring contest between Germany, England, and France. (Apologies for the mild vulgarity, but a more civil description seems to add undeserved value to their respective motivations, near as I can tell.)

The Wikipedia article has this description:

The underlying causes of the war dated back in part to the unification of Germany and the changing balances of power among the European Great Powers in the early part of the 20th century. These causes included continuing French resentment over the loss of territory to Germany in the 19th century; the growing economic and military competition between Britain and Germany; and the German desire for a “place in the sun” equal to that of the more established countries of Europe.

The war itself was a mechanical affair that stripped the glory, to the extent it had ever been much of a reality, from war. Barbed wire, artillery, and trenches limited the ability of the opposing sides to advance on one another, and attempts to advance feet or yards were often met with heavy casualties.

I have never really thought that America had clear cause to favor one side over the other in this particular conflict.

After the British revealed the [Zimmerman] telegram to the United States [encouraging Mexico to go to war against the U.S. if the U.S. entered], President Wilson, who had won reelection on his keeping the country out of the war, released the captured telegram as a way of building support for U.S. entry into the war. He had previously claimed neutrality, while calling for the arming of U.S. merchant ships delivering munitions to combatant Britain and quietly supporting the British blockading of German ports and mining of international waters, preventing the shipment of food from America and elsewhere to combatant Germany. After submarines sank seven U.S. merchant ships and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917.

Crucial to U.S. participation was the massive domestic propaganda campaign executed by the Committee on Public Information overseen by George Creel. The campaign included tens of thousands of government-selected community leaders giving brief carefully scripted pro-war speeches at thousands of public gatherings. Along with other branches of government and private vigilante groups like the American Protective League, it also included the general repression and harassment of people either opposed to American entry into the war or of German heritage. Other forms of propaganda included newsreels, photos, large-print posters (designed by several well-known illustrators of the day, including Louis D. Fancher), magazine and newspaper articles, etc.

The Creel Committee was a piece of work, an arm of the government putting out raw propaganda designed to incite public opinion against the Germans, sometimes with complete fabrications.

Dozens of “patriotic organizations,” with names like the American Protective League and the American Defense Society, sprang up. These groups spied, tapped telephones, and opened mail in an effort to ferret out “spies and traitors.” The targets of these groups was anyone who called for peace, questioned the Allies’ progress, or criticized the government’s policies. They were particularly hard on German Americans, some of whom lost their jobs, and were publicly humiliated by being forced to kiss the American flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or buy war bonds.

Ultimately France, Britain, and the U.S. forced the Germans to surrender. The substantially vindictive peace settlement helped set the stage for the unrest in Germany that ultimately allowed the rise of fascism and Hitler.

In 1954, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day in the U.S. to commemorate all veterans and not just those who served in World War I. So have a good Veteran’s Day everyone.

Update In Memoriam:

In Memoriam

by Ewart Alan Mackintosh (killed in action 21 November 1917 aged 24)

(Private D Sutherland killed in action in the German trenches, 16 May 1916, and the others who died.)

So you were David’s father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David’s father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight –
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers’,
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed ‘Don’t leave me, sir’,
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.