WAR! WHY?

 Annamaria on Monday

As far as I can tell, World War I is incomprehensible.  Having studied it extensively, I say this is true literally as well as figuratively.  My topic today is a case in point.  The hardest thing to comprehend about WWI is why it happened in the first place. And for me "why" is the most important question.  After all, the cost of that war was astonishing:

• Military Deaths: Between 9 and 10 Million
• Civilian Deaths: Between 6 and 13 million civilians lost to tose caught in the fire and bombing or to famine, disease, or genocide
• Total Casualties: Around 40 million including wounded and missing

And yet, though you can read long treatises recounting what was going on at the time all over the planet, they never add up to actual understanding.  At least for me, though I have read many books about that war, I have never gotten to the "Oh! Now I see!" moment.

I knew that when I got to book 5 in my Africa series that I would have to present that war through the eyes of my characters.  As inexplicable as the war still is to me, it's easy to understand how my characters feel about it.

Their country has declared war against Germany.  They are involved.  They have to make decisions about what to do and what not to do, and they have to deal any lack of understanding, as all people of their time did.  If they can't understand or accept the "why," they, as individuals, have to deal with that.

My current work in progress is the fifth in my Africa series.  It's 1915.  And their location is British East Africa, which happens to be at war with German East Africa, immediately to their south.  Therefore, I have been researching what happened in that conflict for some time now.

Readers of my stories need to know what's happening in BEA.  Lots of 21st Century people are totally unaware that "The Great War For Civilization" took place in Africa, as well as in the trenches of Western Europe.  The conflicts in Europe have earned most of WWI's notoriety. Especially here in the USA, because Europe is where the Americans fought.  But The war in Africa needs explanations

The locales other than Europe--notably the MiddleEast and Africa--have mostly been written off as sideshows. But for me, understanding the war in Africa is essential if I am going to take my characters there.  Readers familiar with my series already know that Tolliver's sister Constance is now married to an Italian Admiral (no spoilers).  And Vera and Tolliver have concerned themselves with what his role in the war will be. And if they need to know that, so do I.  

Here is a simplistic summary of what I learned.  (It is all so convoluted that--as stated above about WWI in general--brief explanations (or pretty much explanations at all) are impossible.

But let me try.  Before the war, Italy had signed a defense treaty with the Central Powers--the German Empire, the Empire of Austria-Hungary.  But Italy saw the outbreak of the war as offensive, not defensive.  So they did not consider themselves as obliged to join in.  And Italy had also been playing sub-rosa games with England and France, hoping for deals that would earn them some new territory.   So they switched sides.

My characters are happy when Italy joins the Brits and the French, because their beloved Constance and Gian-Lorenzo are no longer the enemy.

What I learned about what the Italians did then boggles my mind.  The Italian Front (The Italians vs Austria-Hungary), like the Western Front was fought in trenches.   Except that the Italian trenches were on Alpine rock and glaciers, as high up as 3000 meters (9800 feet!). The Italians fought battle after battle over a place called Isonzo. Eleven bloodbaths in all.  The carnage was stupefying.

Italian price paid:

The first four battles: 60,000 dead and 150,000 wounded.

The sixth: 20,000 dead and 50,000 wounded.

The eighth and the ninth: 37,000 dead and 88,000 wounded.

They then moved their war to a new battlefield ninety-three miles away and spent another 700,000 dead, wounded, and captured Italian soldiers.

What territory, even if they won it, could possibly have been worth such a sacrifice?

Here is where I lost control of this blog post!

There are wars going on all over the world right now.  We watch them on the news each day.  We hear the death tolls.  We see the dead babies.  And the tears of the doctors, who are trying to save the lives of the mutilated.

All those lost lives.  The ones wasted in 1914-18.  More going to waste right now.  Has human kind learned nothing?  Do we still fight over pieces of ground? Is there no other way to get them back if they have been taken?

Is human carnage really the only way out?

What is war? 

Insanity

INSANITY

INSANITY

INSANITY

INSANITY