“World War I was one of the bloodiest and stupidest wars ever engaged in by human beings. It began for no real reason, it was fought in a way that ensured maximum bloodshed, and it ended in a way that left everyone dissatisfied.” –Ed Zevin (2009). I strongly agree with the above statement. It was one war characterized with muddy, bloody mess, and unreasonable mass murders of young generation slaughtered at the command of foolish generals. Their destructive endeavors achieved nothing other than leading to establishment of the foundations for another bloody conflict 20 years later. The First World War has been described as an awful, stupid and useless war that has ever happened. This war was started off by Germans who were encouraged by the promise of masking great achievements by waging war to other nations (Henrich, 1918). After the war, the Britons thought that they had built a wide range of different meanings out of the war years. They also thought that they had achieved a miraculous deliverance from an evil enemy by managing to pull other nations behind them against Germans and their allies. However, the war encompassed not only horror frustration and sorrow but also triumph, pride and enjoyment of sadist war mongers. The way this war was fought still remains a subject of controversy as there was no sensible cause. The sad events of the war has remained a point of regret though this did not avert the emergence of another war 20 years later
During the Second World War, the conditions were better compared to that of First World War due to enlightenment among different countries from WWWI experience. Such is in the case where the British motivated themselves with ideas about the preceding conflict. Therefore, in planning WWII, the British were strongly influenced by the memory of the slump and unemployment which followed world war one. They focused on avoiding the future war than avoiding the supposed failures as opposed to First World War. Therefore, the WWII provided a sensible war as compared to WWI in issues regarding uncomplicated victory against their evil enemy. In WWII, the British losses were relatively light.
Focusing to Owens poem, a clear picture of war greatness is experienced although he tried to imply that the war was not worth. He explains that people give encouragement to other people to fight for there country but in the real sense fighting for ones country is like sentencing one self to unnecessary deaths. During the war all the young men were dying noble and heroic deaths according to Owens view (Owen, 1917). This clearly depicts the concept of unnecessary death that led to unreasonable conflicts under the encouragement of the stupidity of the participants.
As shown in photographs obtained from the archives, a clear history about First World War is depicted as a war that resulted for no apparent reasons. The pictures as per my opinion give people a field of analyzing how the war was carried out. The happenings of the war as depicted by the photographs are a clear sign of how it was one of the worst fights ever experienced in the world. People shed blood for no reason and this is a clear indication that there was no clear evidence to explain the occurrence of the events (WWWI Resource Centre).
The photographs are a clear representation of historically valuable war documents which teach people about many aspects of war. Through this, reality can be resembled more effectively and it is beyond description. First World War was one of the bloodiest wars that saw many individuals shed unnecessary blood. In addition, the manner in which it came to an end was dissatisfying to many individuals. Use of proper mechanism for resolving disputes could have saved people from shedding blood for no apparent reason.
References
- WWWI Resource Centre, Effects of Mustard Gas.
- Henrich von Treitschke(1918). The Greatness of War. P 221-223
- Owen, W. (1917). Dule et decorum Est