The so-called World War I, was actually the beginning of a war not yet over in this year of 2011, though now consisting of the hugely expensive American military bumbling about in a number of countries as our political leaders dance and speak their chosen roles of blood-soaked buffoons. That first phase of the ongoing War of the Modern Age, the phase called “World War I” was perhaps the worst if only because the European leaders who blundered and blustered into war and many of those in the masses who charged forward to the horrors were seemingly civilized human beings, a cut above those more obviously barbaric creatures who followed them. We can even claim to be their victims to some extent, that is, we became more deeply barbaric because of their stupidity and credulity and cupidity. After that first phase of our ongoing war, Winston Churchill, saw the horrors though he did little to return Europe to a civilized state in the remainder of his career. But he did speak darkly and wisely in these words quoted in Martin Gilbert’s biography of the English bulldog and requoted on page 3 of The Present Age by Robert Nisbet:
All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them… Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought would help them to win. Germany, having let Hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals — often of a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered in the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared their bodies. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered, often slowly, in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries. Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves, and they were of doubtful utility.
We modern, civilized, scientific, Christian men — especially Americans — have overcome another inhibition, no longer denying ourselves the expedient of Torture, though American leaders have instituted procedures to keep it better hidden. I guess we have only to stop denying ourselves the expedient of Cannibalism and we will have completed our transition into what we wish to be. We will have fulfilled our heart’s deepest desire — to be the Lords and Judges of Creation, to make ourselves into what we wish to be and not let ourselves be limited by God or Nature.