The Shortest History of War by Gwynne Dyer

Author:Gwynne Dyer [Dyer, Gwynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Old Street Publishing
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Calm Before the Storm

He who uses force unsparingly, without reference against the bloodshed involved, must obtain a superiority if his adversary uses less vigour in its application… To introduce into a philosophy of war a principle of moderation would be an absurdity. War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.

Karl von Clausewitz, 181913

Karl von Clausewitz was a Prussian veteran of the Napoleonic wars whose writings on the theory of war became gospel for succeeding generations of soldiers. But one form of restriction on the scale of violence did survive for most of the 19th century: by and large, civilians were spared the worst horrors of war.

There were three reasons for this. First, the industrial production of weapons and equipment was still much less important than the role of the masses of soldiers themselves. Secondly, the armies lacked weapons that could reach the enemy’s centres of production in any case. And finally, the soldiers were genuinely reluctant to turn their weapons against civilians. Unfortunately, when the first two conditions changed, the last proved to be no obstacle.

For forty years after the defeat of Napoleon’s comeback attempt at Waterloo in 1815, there was peace between the major European states. There was a huge conservative reaction against the excesses of the French Revolution, and among the dangerous innovations generally discarded was the mass army based on conscription; most of Europe went back to small, professional armies. But by the time the spate of mid-century wars arrived in 1854–70, every major power in Europe except Britain, protected by its navy, had reintroduced conscription – and by this time new technology was beginning to filter into war.

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