World War One was the most brutal war

Thanks Con for the interesting information about the Sino-Japanese War. After living in Korea and learning the history of Korea and the rest of East Asia I can assure you Con's history is spot on. I apologize for the error with the statistics. Yes, that was a horrible mistake on my part so I apologize again. Regarding the genocides/massacres of WWI. These are relevant as the Ottoman were fighting the Armenians and Greeks as part of their WWI campaign. The Armenians were fighting with the Russians, and as such they were the enemy. The Greeks were actively involved as a participant in the war see reference 1 from round 2. The fact that the Ottomans used this as a pretext to kill civilians means it is a war crime, however it is given the name genocide as that is what you call the deliberate mass executions of people from one culture. I will drop the contention about the Assyrians, as this link between the war is less definitive and can be argued either way. However, the Jews were not a state fighting the Germans in WW2, that is why it will get a sympathy vote. The Holocaust was pure genocide, as it was not a country at war with Germany. All war crimes are incorrect, but lets not fool ourselves these two “genocides” were part of the war. Regarding the insanity and the time frame given. I was elaborating on the war and giving back story. I know time does not make a war more brutal, but again I was just giving context as I said in round 2 I hope this can also be a history lesson. Regarding unrelenting, yes Con is right the Sino-Japanese war/occupation did last longer. However, there was not constant bombardment everyday. Life carried on as normal for the most part. The Japanese essentially occupied East Asia and stayed there until after WW2. For example the Japanese occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945. Yes, they were harsh, but companies still flourished, people had families and trade still continued. In contrast, WWI had bombings and gunfire everyday for four years continually, trade stopped unless it was war related, families separated etc. This, is unrelenting. My opponent also pointed out that major cities were not involved. You need to remember though that the Western Front was 700 kms long. That is massive.(1) To give you an idea of the destruction on the Western Front, here is a picture of Pozières Village (see below) which was in the line of fire of the Western Front. (2) As you can see from this picture and the additional one added below that whole landscapes where reformed by the bombings. In fact, there are even tales of sapper crews blowing up mountains to get enemies to retreat. In fact the sounds of the explosions were heard in some cases as far away as Dublin, Ireland.(3) Additionally, the war was not only raging on the Western Front, it was raging in Russia, Austria, parts of Germany, Turkey, parts of Africa, etc. Now onto my additional information regarding WWI. WWI was the first war to actively use chemical warfare with the use of Mustard Gas, Tear Gas, Phosgene etc.(4) These weapons lead to multiple deaths and were in direct violation of the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. (5) These gas attacks at times lead to slow death after exposure or extreme burns and hospitalization. Or as Wilfred Owen put it: “If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.”(6) Now onto another point. My opponent keeps pointing out the number of civilians murdered in the Sino-Japanese war which I agree is shocking. Before, I pointed out the murders of Greeks and Armenians. However, it does not stop there as was witnessed in the Rape of Belgium. Which resulted in the killing and execution of civilians (estimated 6,000 of the 60,000 civilians killed), forced labor (slavery?) to support the German war effort and massive displacement of 1.5 million Belgians.(7) Lastly, in closing I would like to mention another medical condition that got a lot of attention after WWI. That is the mental condition called shell shock now commonly known as PTSD.(8) Now while I am not saying that shell shock did not occur before WWI, what I am saying that it was a prevalent medical condition to garner enough attention from doctors of the time. I will end this round with that thought as just another reason why I believe WWI was the most brutal war to date. Back over to you Con. (1) http://www.anzacday.org.au... (2) http://www.greatwarcollection.nl... (3) http://www.firstworldwar.com... (4) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk... (5) https://archive.org... (6) http://www.fordham.edu... (7) http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk... (8) https://www.apa.org...