Home » Analysis

Context And Experience Are Everything ~ And Nothing


Ever wonder why Europe is so wedded to its EU experiment? And also why it is so reluctant to follow the US in its neo-colonial adventures? Tony Judt provides a little necessary context:

In World War I the US suffered slightly fewer than 120,000 combat deaths. For the UK, France, and Germany the figures are respectively 885,000, 1.4 million, and over 2 million. In World War II, when the US lost about 420,000 armed forces in combat, Japan lost 2.1 million, China 3.8 million, Germany 5.5 million, and the Soviet Union an estimated 10.7 million. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., records the deaths of 58,195 Americans over the course of a war lasting fifteen years: but the French army lost double that number in six weeks of fighting in May–June 1940. In the US Army's costliest engagement of the century—the Ardennes offensive of December 1944–January 1945 (the "Battle of the Bulge")—19,300 American soldiers were killed. In the first twenty-four hours of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916), the British army lost more than 20,000 dead. At the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army lost 750,000 men and the Wehrmacht almost as many.

With the exception of the generation of men who fought in World War II, the United States thus has no modern memory of combat or loss remotely comparable to that of the armed forces of other countries. But it is civilian casualties that leave the most enduring mark on national memory and here the contrast is piquant indeed. In World War II alone the British suffered 67,000 civilian dead. In continental Europe, France lost 270,000 civilians. Yugoslavia recorded over half a million civilian deaths, Germany 1.8 million, Poland 5.5 million, and the Soviet Union an estimated 11.4 million. These aggregate figures include some 5.8 million Jewish dead. Further afield, in China, the death count exceeded 16 million. American civilian losses (excluding the merchant navy) in both world wars amounted to less than 2,000 dead.

We don't even begin to comprehend what suffering war causes.


Sean-Paul Kelley April 19, 2008 - 3:33pm
Sean-Paul Kelley's diary | printer friendly version | digg
( categories: Analysis | European Union | Global Politics and Culture | Histories | USA: Armed Forces )

The EU Experiment

Was a direct response to THREE wars:

Franco-Prussian of 1870
WWI
WWII

Chamberlain went to negotiate with Hitler, because there was no stomach in England for another WWI. At this stage every living person over 30 had direct memories of WWI, and probably lost relatives because of the Great War. My maternal Grandfather and his brother, Great Uncle Fred fought in WWI. Great Uncle Fred never came back to England, he went to Honduras.

The French (Vichy France) caved in WWII because they did not want another mud covered blood bath similar to WWI.

Suggested reading: All Quiet on the Western Front.

And when I went to school, Armistice Day (November 11th) and its Remembrance Services was a very important occasion. We all wore poppies. The church service was very solemn, and we repeated antiphonally

"We will remember them"
"We will remember them"
"We will remember them"

And juvenile cracks, were nonexistent at these services. We all had some relative who'd died in WW II. Mine was Uncle Basil, died in a flying boat over Holland in 1944. My father was in the British Army in Palestine from 1942 until 1946. He believed Jews = Terrorists.

WWI & WWII overshadowed our lives.

British Colonial Experiments Included:

The Hindu Kush (Leading to the well known Cockney saying "Up The Khyber Pass = Completly F......"
The Black Hole
Khartoum, and Chinese Gordon
The Boer War, 1899
The Malayasia Insurgency 1960s
Mau-Mau 1952/3
Aden 1967/8
Cypress 1967/8

Synoia April 19, 2008 - 7:42pm
login or register to post comments
"Over There"

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government - and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives." - Winston Churchill, 1936

"Not only was our entry into the World War a calamity of the first magnitude for Europe and contemporary civilization, it was also a serious disaster for the United States". - Harry Elmer Barnes, 1939

"The yanks are coming, indeed."

Petronius April 21, 2008 - 1:00am
login or register to post comments
Cities

Not just the memory of military and civilian casualties but especially at WWII, the cities were destructed as well. 9/11 is the only such experience for Americans and a very limited one. But most of the world knows what war can do to cities and how hard it is to recover.

pembeci April 21, 2008 - 8:07am
login or register to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.