Richard Rhodes Quote

The civil machinery which ensured the carrying out of this law, and the military organization which turned numbers of men into battalions and divisions, were each founded on a bureaucracy. The production of resources, in particular guns and ammunition, was a matter for civil organization. The movement of men and resources to the front, and the trench system of defence, were military concerns. Each interlocking system was logical in itself and each system could be rationalized by those who worked it and moved through it. Thus, Elliot demonstrates, It is reasonable to obey the law, it is good to organize well, it is ingenious to devise guns of high technical capacity, it is sensible to shelter human beings against massive firepower by putting them in protective trenches. What was the purpose of this complex organization? Officially it was supposed to save civilization, protect the rights of small democracies, demonstrate the superiority of Teutonic culture, beat the dirty Hun, beat the arrogant British, what have you. But the men caught in the middle came to glimpse a darker truth. The War had become undisguisedly mechanical and inhuman, Siegfried Sassoon allows a fictional infantry officer to see. What in earlier days had been drafts of volunteers were now droves of victims.378 Men on every front independently discovered their victimization. Awareness intensified as the war dragged on. In Russia it exploded in revolution. In Germany it motivated desertions and surrenders. Among the French it led to mutinies in the front lines. Among the British it fostered malingering.