World War I was far more brutal than World War II

WAS WW1 FAR MORE BRUTAL THAN WW2?Let's begin by defining brutal. Miriam-Webster offers the following: 1 : archaic : typical of beasts : animal 2 : befitting a brute: a : grossly ruthless or unfeeling b : cruel, cold-blooded c : harsh, severe d : unpleasantly accurate and incisive e : very bad or unpleasant[1] Let's also agree that both wars represent low points in human history, episodes so violent that the global census numbers dip, leaving societal scars that can still be touched today. VERY BAD OR UNPLEASANTHow do we measure brutality? The numbers of the dead is certainly one measure. The First World War ranks as the sixth deadliest conflict in human history at rough 9.8 million dead, 7.7 MIA, and 21 million wounded. This puts it behind the Mongol conquests and three major Chinese civil wars. The deadliest conflict in history is, of course, the Second World War with 26 million military deaths and roughly 46.5 million civilian dead.[2] By this method, WW2 must certainly be counted as the more brutal conflict. http://upload.wikimedia.org...; width="938" height="610" />BEFITTING A BRUTEMy opponent will argue that WW1 was the more brutal event, not because of the number of the dead, but because of the way they died- death by flamethrower, slow death by mustard gas. Comparing the relative horror of death is difficult, but I think we can safely say that death by nuclear explosion entails horrors comparable to death by flamethrower. When one considers that 100,000 soldiers died from poison gas attacks in WW1 (tear gas, phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas), but between 2 and 3 million died from cyanide gas in the German gas chambers, we must conclude that impact of chemical warfare in the Second World War was the more profound. TYPICAL of BEASTSFurthermore, there is a distinction to be made in the general conduct of war. WW1 was in many ways a war of choice. Except in France and Serbia and those places that suffered invasion, the men left their homes and families behind to conduct war abroad. Although they fought and killed their enemies, they generally considered the war a conflict of equals, with rules of engagement and fair play (even if those rules were often violated). Men warred with a sense of national purpose, expanding a political point with military force. When the war was over, the survivors expected to return to comfort and admiration of home. WW2, except in the US, was more generally a war for survival. Families and home were as much at peril from bombs and invaders as the soldier. Women and children were often victims and sometimes combatants. Men fought because if they did not win, their nation would be crushed, their homes destroyed. If we apply the definition of brutal as "typical of beasts or brutes," we see that killing for survival, killing to defend territory is more animal in nature than killing to make a political point. So by this definition, WW2 was clearly the more brutal, kill or be killed. GROSSLY RUTHLESS or UNFEELINGThe First World War was a fraternity in conflict. The men on either side of the conflict shared relatively the same judeo-christian values, the same bourgeoisie ambitions, the same classical, secular educations. There is little doubt that combatants in WW1 viewed their enemies as humans. This is certainly less true of the Second World War. On a larger scale than at any other time since the Emancipation Proclamation, humans were devalued according to ethnicity and religion. The Germans enslaved and murdered millions of Jews and Roma. The Japanese enslaved and raped millions of Koreans and Chinese. The Russians murdered Jews and ethnic Germans en masse. The Americans incarcerated tens of thousands of ethnic Japanese. CRUEL, COLD-BLOODEDWW1 may be accurately depicted as crueler than most wars, but WW2 was crueler. Millions were incarcerated and enslaved. Many were forced to work in the production of their own demise. Jews supplied much of the labor that built their own concentration camps, and gas houses, and ovens. Jews dug the mass graves in which they would bury their own families. As Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem, the Nazis made you the executioner of your own children, which is perhaps the ultimate form of evil. Both Japan and Germany used prisoners and slaves as subjects in the testing of every manner of excruciating surgical procedure and weapons test. People were amputated and sewn back together wrong, to see what would happen. People were tested with new killing gases and plagues and poxes. Is there any correlation in World War One to this level of cold-blooded dehumanization? No. UNPLEASANTLY ACCURATE and INCISIVEWW2 was also the more brutal because it was the more removed. Strategic bombers often never visited the cities they burned to ground. Snipers, tanks, artillery, torpedoes were all designed for death at a distance. WW1 had distance, too, but the distances were much shorter. Much of WW1 was fought within shouting distance of the enemy: 50 yards, 100 yards. By WW2 the distances had grown much further: bombing raids and V2 rockets across 30 and 40 miles of Channel, the battle of Midway was fought without the fleets ever coming in sight of one another, the Enola Gay killed 70,000 with a single bomb dropped from 6 miles up. HARSH, SEVERE The Christmas Truce was an unofficial ceasefire that took place on the Western Front in 1914. For the week before Christmas, British and German combatants began to celebrate in fraternity with one another. There was caroling and gift exchanges and both sides brought foodstuffs for the enemy to try. While hardly a typical week, this event demonstrates the ways in which the violence of World War One was tempered with common feeling and even occasional charity toward the enemy.For contrast, Christmas in Stalingrad, 1942. By November 20, the Germans fielded just over 1 million men defending against 2.5 million men, women, and children in much colder than average temperature (-22F daytime). The average life expectancy of a newly arriving Russian conscript was 24 hrs, the average life expectancy of an officer was 72 hrs. When the German army was surrounded in January, few terms were offered or given. German casualties were 850,000 KIA/WIA/MIA. Of the 107,000 Germans captured, only 6,000 ever made it home. The Russians lost 1,150,000 KIA/MIA, 651,000 WIA or sick. Total war has never been quite so total or desperate or cold or destructive or, well, in a word, BRUTAL, before or since. COUNTERARGUMENTSFirst Point- thanks for the backgroundSecond Point - We agree that combatants in WW1 had less in the way of effective armor and fortress defenses. Mustard Gas- Tear Gas came first. Followed by Chlorine, 85% of gas deaths were caused by phosgene gas. Mustard gas came about in 1917. In all, about 100,000 deaths were attributed gas (a little less than 1% of total deaths). [3]You forgot to mention artillery on your list, which was devastating. Most devastating of all, however, was barbed wire. WW1 was the first war in which barbed wire was put into effect. It broke up forces concentrated for effect in the face of machine guns, which was critical in turning the war into a defensive struggle.I think we can agree that WW1, coming after a long period of peace and technological innovation, introduced many unpredictable variables into the war for which the generals were unprepared and by which the troops were terrorized.Definitely brutal, just not as brutal as the Second World War. [1]http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2]http://en.wikipedia.org...[3]http://en.wikipedia.org...