Why is World War 1 often considered more horrific and traumatic for the nations involved than its sequel, even though WW2 was more destructive in absolute terms?
>>1017266
psychological, there was nothing like it on that scale b4
You have to remember that it was the *first* world war. I.E nobody had ever seen anything of that kind before. Ever. To people who lived back then, the brutality and immensity of it was utterly baffling.
>>1017266
Because World War I is what started the twentieth century. World War I was the real and meaningful break from the naivetes of nineteenth century thought, and once broken, there was no going back.
People were able to remain comfy in their pleasant Victorian, Edwardian fictions of the world until WWI jolted them out of it. It was here that the pretty lies of jolly war were destroyed, forever. No nice clean six month campaign, no getting that shell-shock to "man up" and stand and fight, he shouldn't be like that, what a coward. Also chemical weapons were so absolutely god-damn wretched that the world still gets triggered by them more than anything else short of nuclear (but not enough for Obama to stand up to his 'red-line' language).
It was a cherry-pop of human depravity, and the reality of technology, which required new ways of thinking, and the jettisoning of naive idocies of heroic sentimentality. This done, the sequel didn't seem as bad.
>>1017266
Trench
Warfare.
>>1017266
World War 1 could be considered more 'pointless' than World War 2. In WW2, offensives went places and did things; in WW1, thousands would die for an additional mile of nothing.
It created an impression that there was a senseless waste of life, an entire generation dying in the trenches for nothing.
There may also be a difference in Eastern Front and Western Front viewpoints.
First time people experience a ww around the second time they were a bit more used to it. You learn how to walk first and then you learned how to run which seems more important to you
In world war 2 all generations were generally hit, with mass murder bombings and starvation.
A very big majority of those dead in world war 1, at least in western Europe, were males which spells Demographic disaster.
>>1017284
>nobody had ever seen anything of that kind before
Except the Japs and the Russians. And the American South. And the Sudanese. And the Herero. And the-
>chemical weapons
>brand new, unseen technology
>mostly draftees that hadn't even left their hometowns
>so much artillery shelling that the battlefields looked more like hellscapes
>sitting in a hole for 9 months, slowly succumbing to disease and watching your friends do the same
>no man's land
>human wave tactics
>>1017266
nice essay question
>>1017266
>World War 1: Fuck all happened and your detah was pointless
>World War 2: A lot happened and your Death was not pointless
>>1017450
You fail to understand just how different World War 1 is, no longer could you stand and march in a line because you would get gunned down by machine guns or grenades.
Japs, Russiand and the South never had to worry about tanks or being gased to death.
>>1017542
>tanks
Were hardly used until 1917.
> being gassed to death
First Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Herero Revolt.
>Japs, Russiand and the South never had to worry
They DID have to worry about machine guns, trench warfare, artillery, grenades, etc. In fact, much of the tactics of WWI evolved from the American Civil War which was the FIRST modern war. The Russo-Japanese War followed second war fought in a modern standpoint and the Japanese campaign quickly drew to a standstill because of the defensive line that would become commonplace in WWI. WWI was by no means unique in anything, but scale.
>>1017266
Individual suffering was probably worse. I'd much rather be on a moving front than spend a few weeks with mud up to my knees before sprinting across a barren hellscape of shell craters and corpses to either stab someone in the face or just get mowed down with 70% of my wave.
>>1017450
ACW was nothing like WW1, stop this meme
>>1017575
>First Italian invasion of Ethiopia,
Did not use chemical weapons.
>In fact, much of the tactics of WWI evolved from the American Civil War which was the FIRST modern war
No that would be the Crimean War
>>1017298
>People were able to remain comfy in their pleasant Victorian, Edwardian fictions of the world until WWI jolted them out of it. It was here that the pretty lies of jolly war were destroyed, forever.
I think this a point that gets overlooked by some who focus too much on just the sheer brutality of the war.
The period before WW1 was one of the most peaceful and prosperous eras of human history up to that point. Nobody had seen a general European conflagration since 100 years earlier in the Napoleonic wars. The diplomatic machinery to preserve the peace were greatly expanded. There was a palpable optimism that full-scale wars might be entirely relegated to the unenlightened past. Peace societies sprang up all over the west whose express purpose was to end war, and many truly believed it could be done too. That's not to say that there weren't wars. There were, but they were of limited scope & duration and more than anything they were ROMANTIC. Not always to the men fighting them mind you, but to the people back home who were raised on a diet of things like Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and '1812 Overtures' that preached HEROISM and the wonderfulness of GLORY and VALOR on the battlefield.
WW1 utterly SHATTERED that kind of thinking. So you have this generation of people, raised to view war as a kind of beautiful uplifting trial of the soul and they are suddenly faced with the reality of watching these kids, sometimes as young as 15 (lying about their age just so they could join in on the adventure they had all these illusory hopes about) marching off to die in the most ignominious fashion, sometimes in new and horrible ways that nobody had ever seen before. And you see in the newspaper every day growing lists of dead men & boys. Thousands of names longs on many days. They see the wounded, the blind, the crippled, the mentally unhinged marching back home.
It must have been TERRIFYING. Like the world was coming apart. Like it was ARMAGEDDON.
>>1017298
>>1017677
Compared to this, by the time WW2 rolled in, all major countries have mastered propaganda, mass mobilization, and total war.
This is especially true for the totalitarian systems of Germany and the Soviet Union, both which suffered devastating losses, yet proven to be very persistent.
WW2 was worse than WW1, but we perceive it differently. WW1 is a stagnant, pointless war with no sympathetic sides. Meanwhile WW2 is remembered as a great, dynamic crusade against Fascism/Bolshevism.
We were simply tricked.
>>1017298
>>1017677
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-Wilfred Owen, written shortly before his death in 1918. He was 25.
WWII was led by soldiers who had enjoyed WWI.
>>1017266
"It is almost impossible even now to describe what actually happened in Europe on August 4, 1914. The days before and the days after the first World War are separated not like the end of an old and the beginning of a new period, but like the day before and the day after an explosion. Yet this figure of speech is as inaccurate as are all others, because the quiet of sorrow which settles down after a catastrophe has never come to past. The first World War exploded the European comity of nations beyond repair, something which no other war had ever done."
It had been generations since a war in Europe, and when it came, the war took the better part of a generation's worth of the population and fundamentally altered the entire political arrangement of Europe which had stood for centuries. I mean, you enter into it with Austria-Hungary, a German Kaiser, a Russian Czar, an Ottoman Empire. You leave it with none of those things.
Basically, to sum up, it was a profound and irrevocable change in the situation in Europe, and it was also a novel, shocking, alienating experience to live through. So.
>>1017608
The War of Northern Aggression invented trench warfare, didn't it? Plus there was stuff like ironclads, submarines, canned goods, Gatling guns, and night trench raiders.
>>1017884
I swear I don't want to derail the tread, but
>War of Northern Agression
You're trolling, right? Nobody unironically calls it that and expects to be taken seriously. ...right?
>>1017884
>The War of Northern Aggression
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>invented trench warfare, didn't it?
it didn't
fieldworks have existed for centuries
the ACW was not really a particularly useful lesson for euroepan armies at the time - industrialization of war, mass mobilizations etc. were all aspects of mid19th century euro warfare, and tactically the europeans were ahead - and got even more ahead during that timeframe with the advent of very loose order rifle platoons as the tactical unit (comp. massed musket formations of the ACW)
>>1017970
Sorry, Yanky, but you started it.
>>1017575
>In fact, much of the tactics of WWI evolved from the American Civil War which was the FIRST modern war.
you could perhaps talk about how ACW brought many things that would be seen in future conflicts together, as in industrial capacity, high volume mobilization, railroad networks, but the tactical side is not one of them - the ACW was lagging behind european conflicts of the timeframe, it was still very much napoleonic at a time (except even in that regard it was behind - with a lacking use of cavalry forces) where euroepean forces were adopting loose order rifle units
>>1017846
Not that uncommon actually, contrary to public perception. A lot of soldiers enjoyed combat and looked forward to getting revenge for their fallen comrades.
>>1017307
the point is that even making the enemy die by their thousands was the point
it is not a pretty point but it was the point
such is the point in a war of resources, in a war of materiel - manpower is one factor of "supplies" which can run out
and indeed it was the manpower conflict that was chief in winning the war (together with throttling "traditional" supply with the blockade)
>>1017608
sure thing, senpai
>>1017999
>spelling Yankee wrong
Also, I couldn't hear you over the sound of your firing on Ft. Sumter.
>>1018014
Where are the artillery barrages? Where are the small unit tactics? Where is the defence in depth? Where are the grenades? Where are the mortars? Where are the rifles? Where is the machine gun? Where is the gas? Where are the tanks? Where are the planes?
Pic related, it is just like World War 1 because it has trenches and fortifications.
>>1018001
The Crimean War was probably more relvent for Europeans, and the Franco-Prussian better example of a new style of warfare, but due to France getting btfo so quickly it also helped perpetuate an expectation of dynamic, quickly moving fronts.
If you want to be technical about it trench warfare is just an extension of the static lines of defense seen in siege warfare, as was the notorious mining war in which both sides attempted to undermine enemy defenses, both are not much different than ancient tactics in form or function.
That said, modern artillery and modern machine guns may have seen some use prior to WW1, but that doesn't mean any of its belligerents were at all prepared for it. Look how every nation equipped its soldiers at the start of the war; cloth caps in fighting that would see 70%-95% of all casualties inflicted by artillery and mortar fragments.
It's also cliche to talk about the conditions in the trenches and the muddy hell in which men fought, living like rats in the dirt, yet we know from WW2 that bomber crews who faced only 10-20 minutes of fierce combat during hours-long missions and, if lucky, returned to a peaceful English airfields were more susceptible to PTSD than the common man on the ground.
>>1018093
>70%-95% of all casualties inflicted by artillery and mortar fragments.
Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare, Bashford Dean
https://archive.org/details/helmetsbodyarmor00deanuoft
>>1017876
Hard to imagine really. Four empires destroyed and two empires (British and French) crippled.
>>1017284
What is the 30 years war? WW1 was even compared to it when it was happening, "horrors not seen three centuries."
>>1018156
brutal
>>1018168
1 out of every 5 germans died during the 30 years war, which raged between basically every nation in Europe over the eponymous period.
In comparison 9 million germans, a little more than 10% of the population of Germany, died in World War II.
>>1017450
no one in the west. we're speaking from a western point of view here son
>>1017307
>World War 1 could be considered more 'pointless' than World War 2.
This. I will add that the cultural opinion of it being pointless was not immediate but came about because of how bad everything got after the war with the Great Depression and the failure of the League of Nations.
Contrast this with the end of the Second World War where a post-war consensus emerged providing the welfare state and most states eventually hit a boom time.
>>1017266
Because it had the worst conditions for soldiers
Try to compare that with the luxury sissified American soldiers knew in WW2
>>1017575
>. In fact, much of the tactics of WWI evolved from the American Civil War which was the FIRST modern war.
Way too spell "Crimean War", senpai
>>1019089
>with the luxury sissified American soldiers knew in WW2
Maybe in the ETO. In the PTO, conditions were just as shit as in WWI and arguably worse.
anglo propaganda
>muh horrible trench warfare
>muh shelling
not like it was that and more in ww2 eastern front
oh you got yourselfs kicked out in a month and only crawled back 4 years later
>>1017266
Because the governments told everyone that it was going to be over within the year, only for it to drag on into a 4 year long slugfest that caused destruction on a scale that hadn't been seen for more than a century. It fundamentally changed the world and broke the back of once great empires.
Imagine you are some German peasant who was told how powerful and great the German empire was, and how this war against the French and their allies was going to end like the Franco-Prussian war did, and how it was only a matter of crossing the Rhine. Then you're preoccupied for 4 years of your life fighting in a filthy trench, your friends are dead, and most importantly you encounter horrible weapons the likes of which you couldn't even imagine existed.
Even we with our modern knowledge and understanding react with shock at the devastation wrought by the war, how do you think a bumfuck peasant would react upon first seeing, or worse experiencing, a flamethrower, a tank, mustard gas, an aeroplane? Imagine the terror as well as the awe they must have experienced upon seeing artillery completely level what used to be a field that grew wheat and barely, turning once fertile fields into a barren wasteland that quite literally looks like it's from another planet.
That's why WWI is remembered as so horrible, because at least the soldiers of WWII knew that they would be faced with these things.
>>1017266
Before the major mutinies in France, the French troops used to protest before going "over the top" be baaing like sheep. All across the line men would baa like sheep being sent to a slaughter.
Let that sink in.
WWII was much more traumatic in some places though. For instance, for China WWI was a reprieve from imperialism, WWII was the Japanese raping the fuck out of China.
>>1018014
Wow, trenches!!!!
Surely this must mean they were invented during that war!
>>1019126
>In the PTO, conditions were just as shit as in WWI and arguably worse.
For nips, sure
But not for Americans
>>1019209
No but multi year fronts in trenches, offensives against machine guns, and 72 hour long artillery barrages were new.
More people died from artillery in WWI than any other means. Imagine sitting in a trench for 4 days of shelling as people died one by one around you.
>>1019218
Depends on the action. It wasn't called the Bataan Death March for no reason.
Because no one expected WWI to be so brutal. They expected war as it was during the days of Napoleon, guys in uniforms lining up to take a shot at the enemy. They didn't expect half of Europe to be turned into a muddy hell on earth.
WWII was something Europe already sort of expected, through the experiences of WWI
>>1018001
Not by the end, against the Army of Virginia.
>(except even in that regard it was behind - with a lacking use of cavalry forces)
>American Civil War
>Lacking the use of Cavalry Forces
lel.
>>1017841
jeez
>>1019218
>But not for Americans
Patently fucking false.
>Resupply wholly dependent on whether or not your fleet btfo the japs
>generally no food or water for days at a time in hundred degree heat + 80%+ humidity
>suicidal japs behind every tree and under every rock
>take months to root them out of underground tunnels or coral cave formations
>no visibility and when there was visibility, heavy artillery and machine gun fire was assured
>added bonus of tropical illness and deadly flora and fauna
>trench foot and jungle rot more common than in WWI
>"leave" consisted of going to Pavuvu to rot in the jungle for a week or two before the next operation
The PTO wasn't what John Wayne and South Pacific led you to believe. It was just as brutal as the Eastern Front in Europe and just as brutal as WWI.
>>1018156
What is this, a source in /his/?! Get lost, we don't need your kind around here.
>>1019089
Strange how that luxury translates into winning. Almost like caring for your soldiers makes a difference.
>>1019245
>They expected war as it was during the days of Napoleon, guys in uniforms lining up to take a shot at the enemy
That is not even close to true. Europeans didn't even fight like that in the 50 years leading up to WWI.
>>1017266
It killed the spirit of the Enlightenment. WW1 was only devastating to continental western-euros only. Balkans didn't see the new weapons that much, so we remember WW2 as being way worse or way greater.
>>1019249
yes, compared to the use of cavalry in european warfare at the time, the cavalry arms of the ACW were lacking
>>1019245
That's not how Napoleonic war was fought
That's not how war was ever fought
>>1017450
mong
>>1019411
To be fair, 18th century wars looked a lot like that
Napoleonic Wars were more about mobility and bayonet melee though
>>1017999
The south started it by attacking Fort Sumter you incredible faggot.
Likely had to do with the implications and the morale behind the wars. The people that fought in WW2 had such strong belief in their cause that their fear of death was outweighed and then they come back and are showered with praise (which still continues to this day, even). They practically had unbreakable spirits. Meanwhile WWI was a war borne of tensions and their soldiers likely felt more like pawns than anything. Same applies to why the Vietnam war is so commonly associated with PTSD in America. The soldiers there came back to heavy anti-war sentiments and shame. That's a breeding grounds for internal struggle.
>>1017266
Because "West" didn't suffer enough in ww2.
>>1017841
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Suicide in the trenches by Siegfried Sassoon, he too died in a the war.
>>1017575
>In fact, much of the tactics of WWI evolved from the American Civil War which was the FIRST modern war
No they fucking didn't.
British tactics mostly came from the Boer War, and French and German tactics stemmed from the Franco-Prussian War. The doctrinal deficiencies of WW1 commanders are hugely overstated.
Trenches.
>>1017266
Oh boy it's the 'ww1 was the worst war ever' meme again for the 600th time on this board. It obviously depended entirely on what nations we're talking about here. WWI was worse for the West but far easier for them in WWII with the USSR to adsorb the bulk of the casualties.
First major bombing of civilians
Poison gas / chemical weapons
Trench warfare
First major use of heavy machine guns
The realization that nationalism is retarded
>>1017266
WWI fought in trenches on the western front but not so on the eastern
>>1017841
I wrote the third post into the thread, and you gave me this (You). No sooner did I see this than I plucked "Eye Deep in Hell" off my shelf (John Ellis), a brief account of the reality of trench warfare, with several helpful pictures. Owen is cited early in the text, and again to conclude the narrative.
Poems of many authors are constantly used in this text. The point being that there ceased to be a scientific, rational language of the lived experience of the war, and so here particularly, men turned to artistic expression during and after the war.
>>1018021
>>1019461
And who did Fort Sumter rightfully belong to? In whose state territory was it? Who forcefully occupied that fort even though it was in Southern territory? If someone refuses to leave your house after you ask them nicely and you kick them out, who is the aggressor? The trespasser, that's who. Yankee scum.
>>1020301
Nationalism isn't the opposite of multiculturalism.
You can stick to your own and still not be overzealous towards your nation's ideology.
>>1020290
>And who did Fort Sumter rightfully belong to?
The federal government.
>In whose state territory was it?
The United States.
>Who forcefully occupied that fort
The South.
>>1020336
>The federal government.
>rightfully
>The United States.
The United States isn't a state.
>The South.
The South liberated the fort.
>>1020500
>rightfully
"Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory"
In light of the ACW arguement going on I suggest a Frenchman insults me about Joan of Arc or NapoopaN or something, so we Euros have something to relate to.
>>1017266
Trench warfare was not only scary, it was boring. Maddeningly so. You spend your days in a hole to avoid getting shot, slashed or gassed. Days and days and days.
>>1020605
The secession rendered that null and void.
>>1021405
See, and I can declare my mortgage null and void.
It doesn't mean anything unless I have enough guns to back it up, because breaking a contract means war.
>>1021405
Also the Yankees were using that Fort to blockade shipping to Charleston, which in itself is an aggressive act of war.
>>1021415
It's more like if the bank guards moved into your house and then declared your mortgage null and void.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWHbF5jGJY0
i guess it's like that first hump that seems so monumental and even when you get over it and continue you never forget that first obstacle, that first terrible war that blew all the other ones out of the water
>>1021420
>Also the Yankees were using that Fort to blockade shipping to Charleston
[citation needed]
>>1022181
The Fort was in a commanding position of the entire harbour with formidable guns facing the ocean. Look at a map. It's dead centre in the middle of the harbour's mouth. The Confederates couldn't make use of the port while the guns at the Fort were trained on the shipping lanes. The best they could do was sink some derelicts and shoot from the shore to block Union ships from resupplying the Fort. The Union was using the Fort to blockade Charleston. That's why they didn't want to surrender it.
Hitler did nothing wrong
>>1017266
>Fighting in WWII
Marching or driving across territory to take cities or force capitulation, only real stalemate situations were on the eastern front and in china, even then the fighting was still out in the open and mobile, if cold and miserable. Sure there was crazy frightening shit people had to do (beach landings, paratrooping, fighting Russians), but on average conditions are ok for a lot of soldiers.
>fighting in WW1
Sitting in a cold wet trench with 20 other men, eating, shitting and sweating in a hole in the ground. Constantly being shelled, waiting to either be ordered to run screaming to your death across a muddy barbed wire covered stretch of land, or to be gassed and stabbed to death in an enemy raid. You and most of your friend don't even know exactly where you are or why you are fighting.
>which would you rather do
>>1019907
There was trenches in the east too. Gallipolli was basically a trench campaign and there was trenches in Russia for the winter.
>>1025682
Based on the two overgeneralized, fictional scenarios you've fabricated, I'd choose the former since that's what you intended.
>>1025702
refute my generalizations then
>>1025725
Conditions for many soldiers were not okay. Freezing cold on the Eastern Front, blazing heat in North Africa, tropical diseases in the Pacific. Lack of food, adequate clothes and medicine were a real concern when supply lines were stretched or disrupted. Getting shelled in WW2 was a huge problem, as well. Something like 70-80% of combat casualties were a result of artillery and mortars (according to J. Ellis WW2 databook, but other sources usually cite it about the same)
While the Western Front of WW1 reached stalemate rather quickly, the other fronts of the war were often quite mobile. Even on the Western Front, troops were rotated between the firing lines, support trenches, reserve trenches and rest areas. British soldiers spent about half their time out of the trenches altogether.
I'm not saying there's no element of truth in what you're saying, but there's no point in comparing conditions of two large and varied wars in absolute terms. I don't understand why people like comparing suffering-boners so much.
