Gregory Erich Phillips's Blog
September 9, 2018
WWI Centennial
As we approach the WWI centennial—November 11, 2018 marks the 100-year anniversary of the WWI armistice—it is a good time to look back on this cataclysmic event, the historical backdrop of my novel Love of Finished Years, published earlier this year.
World War One was called “the war to end all wars,” a name that proved tragically erroneous, as it led directly to the outbreak of World War II a mere two decades later. In many ways, the second world war was a continuation of the first, with the major combatants needing a generation to recover resources and manpower.
In the build-up to WWI, the generals of Europe’s major armies had no idea of the power and destructiveness of the technology at their hands. They based their war strategies off of attack-minded successes, such as the Napoleonic wars and the Franco-Prussian war. They all started WWI with the idea of attacking more quickly than their adversaries. War technology, however, had made defensive warfare almost invincible. Defense consisted of dug-in trenches equipped with machine guns (they had to be operated by a crew of men at the time) and backed by heavy artillery. The armies that attacked with tightly packed infantry, or light cavalry charges, were annihilated. Once the trench network was set up, it became a war of attrition.
The military philosophy of the attack caused WWI to become the most dramatic case of a pre-emptive strike the world has ever seen. Germany pre-emptively invaded France, because it was afraid France would invade it first (and it undoubtedly would have a few weeks later). This is the most simplistic answer for why a regional conflict became a world war. Otherwise, it might well have remained a matter between Austria and Serbia.
World War One ended the culture of aristocratic Europe. It is astonishing to think how in 1914 European wealth and culture was at an apex, while four years later Europe was starving and bleeding to death. The leaders of Europe brought their own civilization to an end, first because of the hubris that started the war, and then because of the stubbornness that refused to end it, even once it became clear that no one could win. The civilization that rose from the ashes of WWI was very different than the one that had come before.
History, however, is perhaps too kind in lamenting the loss of European culture in the decades before WWI. Blame for the war is usually laid at the feet of the men who made it happen, but the reality is that the pride and hubris that led to the war were not unique to Europe’s leaders. A century of nationalism and individualism led the citizens of each country to feel theirs deserved a special place on the world stage. Writers of the 1880s and 1890s penned texts on French culture, or German culture, or British culture, or Italian culture, or Russian culture, exalting their own as the most advanced human idea. Although couched in positivity, the racist underpinnings of these ideas were always there. Europe’s leaders had been taught by their own philosophers, poets and activists that theirs was the superior culture, and therefore, the superior people. It was only a matter of time before those leaders transferred their feelings of superiority into military might. In the 1900s and early 1910s, a European arms race began. When opportunity arose, it came to be considered almost a moral obligation to export one’s national “idea” to the world.
If this sounds eerily familiar and current, it should.
The oft-quoted phrase of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” has never been truer as we mark the WWI centennial.
In our time, nationalism and individualism take a different form than they did in the years leading up to World War I. Now, rather than trying to export a national idea to the world, citizens are more apt to try to protect that idea from what is seen as threats from outsiders. Isolationism is therefore becoming the new nationalism. Britain voted to extricate itself from the European Union, Catalonia to extricate itself from Spain. In France and Germany, isolationist parties are rising to power in response to growing anger over migrants in those countries. The response to trade imbalances is to impose tariffs, rather than to address the root of the imbalances. U.S. President Donald Trump plans to build a wall to keep out immigrants—an isolationist policy to the extreme, reminiscent of the wall built to enclose East Germany. Because really there is not that big of a difference between a wall meant to keep people out and a wall meant to keep people in.
Interestingly, at the start of World War I, Europe’s cultural ambitions were offensive, while the technology of war made defensive weaponry superior. This combination led to disaster and ruin. Now, cultural ambitions worldwide are defensive, yet weaponry—both traditional in forms like long range missiles and drones, and non-traditional economic and cyber weaponry—has become ruthlessly offensive.
As disastrous as WWI was, in the immediate aftermath, world leaders failed to heed its lessons. They could have used the opportunity to map a new way for nations to interact. Instead, they set the world directly on course for another world war. Ambition and the satisfaction of grudges were the major attitudes that were brought to the conference that ratified the Treaty of Versailles, a few months after the end of World War One.
France, intent on punishing Germany, imposed harsh reparations that crippled the German economy and its new democratic republic, paving the way for fascism.
The Treaty of Versailles was fraught with disasters. Countries like Yugoslavia and Iraq (officially established two years later) were formed with little more reasoning than lines on a map. Rival ethnic and religious peoples were jammed together into tinder-boxes that would take decades before igniting in chaos and genocide.
A lesser-known incident at the Versailles Conference involved the Japanese representation. Japan had supported the Allies during the war, and were the superior military force in Asia. They asked for verbiage of racial equality between Asian and European peoples to be included in the treaty. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson objected to this clause, afraid that a concession to the Japanese would anger western states where Asian immigration (primarily from China) was a hot political issue. Weakness on the so-called “Oriental Problem” risked costing Wilson’s Democratic Party their Senate majority. The Japanese representation left in anger. The rift between Japan and the United States, birthed at the Versailles Conference, would have catastrophic consequences for both countries in the decades to come.
See full post at https://www.gregoryerichphillips.com/...
World War One was called “the war to end all wars,” a name that proved tragically erroneous, as it led directly to the outbreak of World War II a mere two decades later. In many ways, the second world war was a continuation of the first, with the major combatants needing a generation to recover resources and manpower.
In the build-up to WWI, the generals of Europe’s major armies had no idea of the power and destructiveness of the technology at their hands. They based their war strategies off of attack-minded successes, such as the Napoleonic wars and the Franco-Prussian war. They all started WWI with the idea of attacking more quickly than their adversaries. War technology, however, had made defensive warfare almost invincible. Defense consisted of dug-in trenches equipped with machine guns (they had to be operated by a crew of men at the time) and backed by heavy artillery. The armies that attacked with tightly packed infantry, or light cavalry charges, were annihilated. Once the trench network was set up, it became a war of attrition.
The military philosophy of the attack caused WWI to become the most dramatic case of a pre-emptive strike the world has ever seen. Germany pre-emptively invaded France, because it was afraid France would invade it first (and it undoubtedly would have a few weeks later). This is the most simplistic answer for why a regional conflict became a world war. Otherwise, it might well have remained a matter between Austria and Serbia.
World War One ended the culture of aristocratic Europe. It is astonishing to think how in 1914 European wealth and culture was at an apex, while four years later Europe was starving and bleeding to death. The leaders of Europe brought their own civilization to an end, first because of the hubris that started the war, and then because of the stubbornness that refused to end it, even once it became clear that no one could win. The civilization that rose from the ashes of WWI was very different than the one that had come before.
History, however, is perhaps too kind in lamenting the loss of European culture in the decades before WWI. Blame for the war is usually laid at the feet of the men who made it happen, but the reality is that the pride and hubris that led to the war were not unique to Europe’s leaders. A century of nationalism and individualism led the citizens of each country to feel theirs deserved a special place on the world stage. Writers of the 1880s and 1890s penned texts on French culture, or German culture, or British culture, or Italian culture, or Russian culture, exalting their own as the most advanced human idea. Although couched in positivity, the racist underpinnings of these ideas were always there. Europe’s leaders had been taught by their own philosophers, poets and activists that theirs was the superior culture, and therefore, the superior people. It was only a matter of time before those leaders transferred their feelings of superiority into military might. In the 1900s and early 1910s, a European arms race began. When opportunity arose, it came to be considered almost a moral obligation to export one’s national “idea” to the world.
If this sounds eerily familiar and current, it should.
The oft-quoted phrase of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” has never been truer as we mark the WWI centennial.
In our time, nationalism and individualism take a different form than they did in the years leading up to World War I. Now, rather than trying to export a national idea to the world, citizens are more apt to try to protect that idea from what is seen as threats from outsiders. Isolationism is therefore becoming the new nationalism. Britain voted to extricate itself from the European Union, Catalonia to extricate itself from Spain. In France and Germany, isolationist parties are rising to power in response to growing anger over migrants in those countries. The response to trade imbalances is to impose tariffs, rather than to address the root of the imbalances. U.S. President Donald Trump plans to build a wall to keep out immigrants—an isolationist policy to the extreme, reminiscent of the wall built to enclose East Germany. Because really there is not that big of a difference between a wall meant to keep people out and a wall meant to keep people in.
Interestingly, at the start of World War I, Europe’s cultural ambitions were offensive, while the technology of war made defensive weaponry superior. This combination led to disaster and ruin. Now, cultural ambitions worldwide are defensive, yet weaponry—both traditional in forms like long range missiles and drones, and non-traditional economic and cyber weaponry—has become ruthlessly offensive.
As disastrous as WWI was, in the immediate aftermath, world leaders failed to heed its lessons. They could have used the opportunity to map a new way for nations to interact. Instead, they set the world directly on course for another world war. Ambition and the satisfaction of grudges were the major attitudes that were brought to the conference that ratified the Treaty of Versailles, a few months after the end of World War One.
France, intent on punishing Germany, imposed harsh reparations that crippled the German economy and its new democratic republic, paving the way for fascism.
The Treaty of Versailles was fraught with disasters. Countries like Yugoslavia and Iraq (officially established two years later) were formed with little more reasoning than lines on a map. Rival ethnic and religious peoples were jammed together into tinder-boxes that would take decades before igniting in chaos and genocide.
A lesser-known incident at the Versailles Conference involved the Japanese representation. Japan had supported the Allies during the war, and were the superior military force in Asia. They asked for verbiage of racial equality between Asian and European peoples to be included in the treaty. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson objected to this clause, afraid that a concession to the Japanese would anger western states where Asian immigration (primarily from China) was a hot political issue. Weakness on the so-called “Oriental Problem” risked costing Wilson’s Democratic Party their Senate majority. The Japanese representation left in anger. The rift between Japan and the United States, birthed at the Versailles Conference, would have catastrophic consequences for both countries in the decades to come.
See full post at https://www.gregoryerichphillips.com/...
February 15, 2018
Historical Context for "Love of Finished Years"
Love of Finished Years is set in the time leading up to and encompassing the First World War. This era has always fascinated me and I think it is under-covered in literature and cinema, especially when compared with World War Two. Growing up, this always made me curious about World War One. I used to ask people what it was all about and never really got a satisfactory answer. It didn’t make sense to me and this inspired me to start studying both the war itself, and the world of that time.
What amazed me were the parallels between that time and our own. History, of course, tends to be that way. Some truths are universal, throughout time. Human nature is certainly a through-line across all eras and cultures. It is sometimes comically, often tragically, predictable.
World War One in many ways ended an era of world history and launched another. For the United States, it was the event that began our country’s involvement in foreign conflicts. With the hindsight of victory, it is easy to forget how controversial our involvement was in both World Wars. Whatever your viewpoint on America’s foreign policy—past and present—may be, it is fascinating to look at the politics around World War One, and the way it has shaped national and world policy ever since.
This novel is about an immigrant family, from a country—Germany—which was considered hostile to the United States. Their experience in the 1910s has parallels to the experiences of many immigrants in America today.
The setting of this novel was also during the time of women’s fight for suffrage, as well as fair and equal working conditions. The garment factory district in New York City was the epicenter of this struggle. There are two women’s marches in the novel, as well as a city-wide women’s strike. Specific issues have changed over a hundred years, but many parallels remain. We have made great progress as a nation, yet some of the same battles for equality are being fought today.
The 1910s, with its Great War, was a dark time in history. A generation was literally wiped out from Europe because of the hubris of world leaders. But that was also a time of great hope. From the ashes of war came great progress, especially in this country. It took dreamers, like Elsa, the protagonist of my novel, to believe that a better world was possible. We need dreamers like her in our own time, people with the boldness, each in their own quiet way, to work for a better world.
What amazed me were the parallels between that time and our own. History, of course, tends to be that way. Some truths are universal, throughout time. Human nature is certainly a through-line across all eras and cultures. It is sometimes comically, often tragically, predictable.
World War One in many ways ended an era of world history and launched another. For the United States, it was the event that began our country’s involvement in foreign conflicts. With the hindsight of victory, it is easy to forget how controversial our involvement was in both World Wars. Whatever your viewpoint on America’s foreign policy—past and present—may be, it is fascinating to look at the politics around World War One, and the way it has shaped national and world policy ever since.
This novel is about an immigrant family, from a country—Germany—which was considered hostile to the United States. Their experience in the 1910s has parallels to the experiences of many immigrants in America today.
The setting of this novel was also during the time of women’s fight for suffrage, as well as fair and equal working conditions. The garment factory district in New York City was the epicenter of this struggle. There are two women’s marches in the novel, as well as a city-wide women’s strike. Specific issues have changed over a hundred years, but many parallels remain. We have made great progress as a nation, yet some of the same battles for equality are being fought today.
The 1910s, with its Great War, was a dark time in history. A generation was literally wiped out from Europe because of the hubris of world leaders. But that was also a time of great hope. From the ashes of war came great progress, especially in this country. It took dreamers, like Elsa, the protagonist of my novel, to believe that a better world was possible. We need dreamers like her in our own time, people with the boldness, each in their own quiet way, to work for a better world.
