With the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand who was the heir to the throne of Austria and Hungary, the Great War began. It is impossible to imagine the scale of slaughter this Great War brought. Man proved, yet again, that he is worse than an animal. Over 9 million soldiers were killed between 1914-1918, an average of 5,600 a day! It is not just the number of deaths, but the way they died proves my animal point above. We could say this was the first modern war to make use of dangerous weapons of destruction, as we know them today. This war has used machine guns, which could fire 500 bullets per minute! The ‘HMS Pathfinder’ became the first warship ever torpedoed by a submarine.
The war also saw the first tank to rumble across the French battlefield. This war also discovered havoc, and death could be handed over from the air. But for all the soldiers, this war was defined by trenches wide enough for two men to walk, filled with mud, rats, lice & misery!
Germans introduced a fearsome new weapon – Chlorine gas in 1915. This war saw also the introduction of Mustard gas, which burns skin as well as lungs. Today, most nations banned the use of chemical weapons, but they have not banished it from wars. Iraq used this gas against Iran in 1980s.
Most important of all is that this war saw the emergence of communism in Russia and Nazism in Germany. This war was fought to end all wars; but the opposite happened. This was laid the strongest foundation for continued wars, where the relative peace as we experience today, is only an “intermission”!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”. Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
