Music was also predicting the chaos to come. In music, the Renaissance period gave way to the Baroque era followed by the Classical era of music that lasted from about 1730 to 1820. Romantic followed classical music, in vogue from approximately 1815 to 1910. The composers from the Classical and the Romantic periods of music are literally household names: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and others. During the Classical age the symphonies became ever more complex and the musical instruments available to the composers expanded. The symphony’s complexities are astounding. The composers coordinated every aspect of dozens to perhaps a hundred instruments, which would all be playing at once, to create just the right sound. So many aspects of the music were involved it is difficult to understand how one person could have written a major symphony.
These symphonies enclosed literally hundreds of thousands of notes, and each nuance of each note was vitally important to the overall composition. An accomplished listener would instantly know something was wrong if even one note was left out or significantly changed. As time went forward, much of this complex harmony started to fade. When Stravinsky performed the “Rite of Spring” in 1913 in Paris, this idea of deep complex harmony was broken. Note the date, one year before the Great War when all harmony in the Western World would cease. The “Rite of Spring” is a brutal and disjointed work. At its first performance the complex and violent music, depicting a pagan fertility rite, drew boos because of the harmonic discord. Arguments followed and then a riot requiring the intervention of the Paris police to restore order.
Whether Stravinsky knew he was predicting the future or not he managed the feat with astounding accuracy. The classical world of music where each note enjoyed a distinct place was withering, eventually to be replaced by a world where no one note meant anything in relation to the other notes. People would soon fall into the category of meaningless, just as the notes in Stravinsky’s work became; however, at least the notes were there and recognizable. If a note were left out it might be hard to discern at certain points in the work, but a close listener would still know something changed and the piece was somehow out of sorts; accordingly, the notes still mattered, but they were not part of some grand harmonious universe where all fit together so nicely. One note might be moved or removed and not affect the whole as much as such a similar move or removal would influence a symphony of the classical age. If the analogy applies to the worth of the individual, the implication is clear: the individual was a part of the whole, but how important to the whole was open to interpretation. One person would not have a massive impact on the whole just as one note would not have a great impact on the whole of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” In the late twentieth century even that would be lost, and the individual note in a musical piece would disappear in importance just as the individual’s importance would disappear in a meaningless universe. In music, art, and literature chaos replaced harmony, disunity replaced unity, meaninglessness replaced meaning, and ugliness replaced beauty. Just like the world to come in 1914, it was harsh and irrational.
Philosophy has a way of moving slowly, so theories that come forth take years to bear fruit. Nietzsche wrote in 1883 and sold perhaps one book. He died insane and unknown. Nevertheless, by 1900, people began to notice his ideas and the brutal future of which he wrote. Mill’s Utilitarianism, published in 1863, espoused the “greatest happiness to the greatest number” as the definition of morality, but it too foresaw a world where decisions had to be based on something other than religious grounds. By 1900, this philosophy was also gaining adherents.[163]
Another art was coming of age, and it combined art and science; it was photography. I can hear what you are thinking now . . . so what? Why does photography matter? If you have never seen a Mathew Brady photograph of an American Civil War battlefield you have not fully experienced the impact of photography. These photographs are simply statements of what was in front of the lens at the time of exposure. It is art by a machine. The man places the camera (that is the art part), but the scene is the scene and cannot be altered from its basic truth (at least in 1864); and that is the science part.[164] The photos of the battlefields of the 1860s are a blunt statement of death or life. They are stark and plain, almost without a soul. I will name this “harsh truth.”
Compare these photos with the many drawings or paintings of the age. Battlefield artists painted and drew much of the Civil War action. In comparison with the photographs the drawings, even those made on the scene, depict a different nuance or feel even though very accurate. Comparing the drawings to the photographs, rather than paintings, is interesting because both creations took place on the spot during the event. Paintings were finished back at a studio far away from the event. The drawings (or paintings) show what I will name “heroic truth.”
Figure 46 Drawing of Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg
Note that both are “truth,” but truth seen through the eyes of science and truth seen through the eyes of a human are different. The photographs have no “heroic” sense about them. Men are lying dead in the fields or roads with little around them except more dead. The men seem part of the landscape. The figures are unmoving, unknown, and without a higher purpose. That is the view of science, rather harsh but blunt, plain and very straightforward. The drawings have a heroic sense to them. Men seem to move, waving hats and sabers, falling in battle while smoke fills the air, and horses thunder toward waiting masses of men. A higher purpose screams from the artist’s paper. These men have purpose, because they are defending the rights of other men or their homeland, and showing courage in fierce combat. It is humanity at its highest, sacrificing for God and country, family and friend, wife and child.
Figure 47 Photograph of Confederate Dead at Antietam
War is much more like the harsh photograph than the heroic drawing. Therefore, here is the contradiction; the photograph is as real as it can be given the state of science at the time, but it adds to the philosophy of chaos and meaninglessness because it displays the human being in a mechanical way. Nothing is special about the humans in the photographs because they end up as objects, like all other objects in the photograph. Nothing moves, even the men lay still, their color and the color (shade is more like it) of the surrounding objects nearly the same (1864, all black and white). Of course, in 1864 photographs remained silent again reducing the humanity.
Nonetheless, the photographs were striking. They brought the war home to the civilians left behind with a gruesome truthfulness. Photographs were nothing like the heroic battle drawings of men pushing forward for the cause. Photographs of dead men refuse to look like much, but they reveal a startling fact; these men were once alive. Now they lay lifeless in a mechanical picture. The impact of photography on life was an important part of the New Age.[165] In many ways, photography became the most powerful art form of all time.
The Power of Change
Before 1900, big change was rather unusual. People lived out their lives often never leaving the small villages in which they were born. After 1900 in the West change came so fast people struggled to adjust. From 1900 to 1970, one lifetime, history saw WWI, WWII, Korea, and part of the Vietnam War. A person would have seen soldiers marching off to war in 1914 with bolt-action rifles and horse drawn carts. By 1970, that same person would have seen men marching off to war with automatic rifles, tanks, trucks, jet aircraft, and huge cargo aircraft to carry them across the seas. In 1914, our viewer of history could have seen a small bi-wing airplane putting along overhead, but by 1969, that same person could have witnessed, as it happened, men walking on the moon. In 1900, no radio, but by 1970, TV broadcast from around the world and even from the surface of the moon. Of course, outside of Europe and the United States of America many people did not experience any change in their way of life. Worldviews also changed, and that was the hardest fact of all to adjust to. What was accepted as absolute truth in 1900 was openly questioned by 1960.
This pace of change influenced the early 1900s, as people thou
ght change was endless. The world was advancing, they thought, and people should welcome change. World War I smashed those illusions. Still, the idea that changes represent progress hung on and it is still with us today. Not as much as in 1900, but to this day in the year 2010, people think the world can get better, and change is thought to be positive for the most part.
The concept that change is expected and is good goes a long way toward explaining how the West accelerated ahead of the rest of the world and stayed there so long. Many regions of the world view change with skepticism, impeding progress. The acceptance of change is a powerful agency forming one of the many foundations for vigorous progress by the Western world.
Let Us Learn
Citizens of this new world of the 1900s had to adapt to its manifest traits of turmoil, uncertainty, exploding knowledge, and apparent meaninglessness. But is our world meaningless? Are we, as individuals, meaningless? Recall that the universe is marvelously well ordered, as is life here on earth. Is it possible that such a harmony forms the underpinnings of chaos? If the universe is well ordered, and if life on earth is exactly harmonized, can it also be meaningless? From the moment of the Big Bang, the universe seems to have been designed for life by the very nature of the universal elements, and the exact timing of events (inflation). Can such fine tuning set the foundations of chaos for the individual life? Since everything in the universe is ordered to an exactness beyond imagination, can the individual exist for nothing? Isn’t it possible that every life has an precise place in the universal order? The symphony writers thought so. Each note was supremely important. Isn’t it possible that you have that same significance in the symphony of the universe?
Chapter 13
The First World War 1914 to 1918
Figure 48 Europe 1914
This is THE war, in that it set the foundations of the twentieth century; a century of war, murder, and devastation beyond anything seen before. If we take the position, as many do, the First World War caused the Second World War then the First World War is the most important conflict in history. However one desires to look at it, World War I changed everything. We must recognize that World War I set the foundations for the 20th and the 21st centuries, and shattered the idealism of the 19th Century. It was a momentous turning point.
In theory, if WWI never occurred, World War II, the Depression, the Cold War, communism, and a host of other ills evaporate from history’s pages. Prior to WWI, the world experienced a long peace in the sense that no general war had broken out between great powers since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1913 a person traveling around the world using the English pound as currency and speaking the English language encountered very few problems. European empires controlled colonies the world over generally uniting the world in a Western European ideology. A monetary system based on precious metals kept the world markets relatively stable, and international trade grew steadily. The world experienced peace and prosperity across the globe. Europe ruled most of the world creating a trading bonanza because business found predictable governmental systems, many uniform laws, safe trade routes, stable currencies, and access to huge markets. Rising wages with falling prices enabled consumer purchasing. Scientific and industrial advances transpired consistently, and people of the era came to suppose the future held wonderful promise.
World War I smashed the illusion of a good and predictable world. WWI was brutal beyond all explanation. Artillery, machine guns, bombs, and repeating rifles destroyed life in mass. Men marched into hopeless battles facing certain failure and all but certain death. It was war outside comprehension and beyond reason. All sides fought claiming virtue and honor belonged to them alone. Propaganda played a large role by deifying one government while demonizing the opposition, and it encouraged the opposing populations to endure monstrous hardships. Propaganda also played into the unrealistic and harsh war aims adopted by the two warring sides and guaranteed prolonging the war to the bitter end.
Casualties
“The war to end all wars,” referring to World War I, began in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. The Allies (England, France, Russia, and later Italy, and even later joined by the United States)—also known as the Triple Entente),[166] and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey)[167] together lost approximately 8 million dead and over 20 million wounded. On the Western Front alone, casualties on both sides averaged 2,250 dead and approximately 5,000 wounded every day. In England, three men were killed in WWI for every one man killed in WWII. In 1921 England there were 55 women to every 45 men in the most marriageable age group of twenty to thirty-nine years of age. During the first two months of the Great War (August and September 1914), France lost about 360,000 men, Germany 241,000, England 30,000, Austria-Hungary 230,000, Serbia 170,000, and Russia about 50,000. In spite of these losses early in the war, the most deadly year was 1918. The British lost more men in 1918 than they lost in all of WW II.
After the war, a great influenza epidemic hit the world causing 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. Most researchers think men coming home from the Western Front spread the influenza. Coupled with WWI, this was a human disaster of incalculable proportions. Pile this on top of WWII casualties and you know why the 20th Century earned its name as the century of slaughter.
Financial Costs
All the warring nations spent vast sums financing the conflict. The major European warring nations alone spent over 200 trillion dollars, and after the war large repatriations were required from Germany to pay back the winning sides’ expenses to the tune of thirty-two billion dollars. Few recognized it at the time, but these war expenses shattered the world economic system. World War I strained the monetary system beyond its capacity. The world trade system began to collapse after the war, then tariffs were passed by the major economic powers to protect their internal markets causing retaliatory tariffs by other nations. International trade dried up as a direct result of these tariffs. After the stock market crash in 1929, US banks began calling war loans to Europe rather than extending them. The world economic system imploded, and an unremitting depression swept the world. Because of governments’ mismanagement after the crisis hit, the Great Depression lingered on unlike past depressions. This depression began in 1929 and lasted past the start of World War II in 1939 until 1941 or later.[168]
Other Costs
World War I gave birth to a new world menace: communism. In 1918, Russia’s monarchy suffered a revolution and overthrow directly related to its grave mishandling of the war. A rather-small group of communist fanatics eventually took over the nation. Russia left the war in 1918, withdrawing into itself in an orgy of murder and destruction so vast the nation remained wounded until WWII. Russia took itself out of the world’s markets after the Communist Revolution causing additional European economic disruption. Communism spread after World War II and remained a direct challenge to the Western Democracies for decades (China is still communist in 2010). The number of people killed in the name of communism runs well over 94 million. Absent World War I, the world may have dodged this worldwide scourge.
Now the worst part. The great powers as a group desired peace, the war began for stupid reasons, and the war continued for the worst of reasons; both sides demanded total “victory.”[169] The ultimate cost was the destruction of a world without equal in history which, like Rome, plunged into that dark abyss of the uncaring past.
Causes of the Great War
World War I resulted from many indirect causes, and among the most important (in no particular order) were:
1) An arms race between Germany, France, and England raising world tensions. The main arms race was between England and Germany over sea power. For years the great problem standing in the way of peace was Germany’s insistence on constructing a fleet that would equal England’s. Every attempt to reach a compromise on the issue of fleet size failed, and this failure can be traced directly to German Admiral Tirpitz and the Germany’s Kaiser. Dreadnaughts were terribly expensive, so the arms
race was consuming enormous amounts of money resulting in higher taxes as well as higher tensions
2) Germany, encircled by the Allies, faced a losing two-front war unless it took desperate measures such as the Schlieffen Plan. Those plans meant Germany must move at the first sign of trouble. Under these circumstances any general mobilization by Russia or France would mean war.
3) The various interlocking European alliances were complex and often secret causing widespread mistrust. England struggled to keep the balance of power in Europe which entailed supporting weaker European nations against any nation becoming so strong it could rule Europe. England wanted to avoid another problem like Napoleon. In 1914, Germany was the nation with the ability to rule Europe as it could defeat France even if France were united with Russia; however, England supporting France increased the power of the anti-German alliance significantly. The problem: a wrong move by any nation could draw all the Great Powers into war.
4) The failure of diplomacy for many reasons including a lack of time, and German resolve to allow the Austrian attack on Serbia. After the assassination and Austria’s announced its move against Serbia, the mobilizations began so quickly that there was no time to react with diplomacy. Another problem was Russia’s pride. Russia was recently forced to back down in a confrontation with Germany and Austria, and the Tsar decided any challenge from Austria, backed by Germany or not, would be immediately accepted. The Kaiser’s diplomacy had also failed to prevent Russia and France combining in a military alliance against Germany. The Kaiser was very inept at handling foreign affairs and allowed the combinations arranged by the brilliant Bismarck to expire while failing to prevent the formation of deadly alliances against Germany. Worst of all, a few German leaders had decided on war in 1914 and conspired with Austria to allow Austria to crush Serbia.
The Super Summary of World History Page 31