If you'll forgive an uneducated question from a Yank, why was there rejoicing in the streets of London when war was declared? Did England fear an invasion by the Kaiser, or anything similar?
Thanks for any edification!
For one thing, they had no experience about war. They entered the conflict with all these grand noble, romantic assertions that war was going to be some adventure/vacation from their normal lives. Things like PSTD were not yet recognized or revealed to the populace. They had no clue about the horrors that awaited them.
shareThe drama of a nation going to war: the news alerts, the speeches from leaders, the actual announcement that war has begun, the troops marching through the streets. All of it combined to create an exuberance. Plus everyone believed the war would be over quickly and that nothing very bad would come of it.
It wasn't just World War I. I remember when US troops were sent to the Middle East in 1990 and in 2003. There was the same excitement in the air then. Of course in the 2003 invasion the excitement eventually turned sour. That's also typical of war.
Yes, I suppose they didn't consider the grim realities of it at the onset.
shareCommon for it's times, war even 30 years earlier was a very different beast though I don't doubt people in those battles often suffered terrible injuries and death's etc but the slaughter of WW1 was something very different to anything before.
shareThey thought it would be "over by Christmas", once we'd given the Kaiser a hiding. Officers who were heading to France packed formal dinner jackets, in preparation for imminent celebratory dinners. It was a bit of a jolly jape.
Nobody thought that non-soldiers/sailors would be called up. Nobody anticipated Zeppelin raids or food shortages or shell shock.
That episode on the beach was chilling. It's one of the best.
Same as everyone getting excited over the American Civil War - mistaken ideas.
shareI'm not sure why what you all posted in your replies - the excitement of it, thinking it would be over quickly, looking forward to victory celebrations - didn't occur to me when I OPd. I certainly remember the gung-ho attitude toward exacting revenge, and the huge swell of patriotism, here in the US post-9/11. The military's so-called slogan, "Kick ass and bypass" entered the lexicon, and many doves became hawks. Unfortunately, the grim reality soon set in; there was to be no "shock and awe."
Thanks for your comments.
The common herd is ignorant and stupid, which is one of the reasons why the elite have such contempt for them.
The Players of The Game are the scum of the earth.
Up until then, and since the early 1800's after Napoleon's defeat, Britain hadn't really been in a big, serious war and had basically forgotten how bad it could be. They had won the wars they'd been in since fairly easily and were the dominate military power on Earth. So when the war came along, it was like a big adventure. If you've ever watched the series BlackAdder Goes Forth, he talks about it. He mentions that the last war he was in the natives weren't armed with much more than kiwi fruits and dried grass. When they went to war with Germany, he said that "a half a million heavily armed Germans hove into view. It was a shock I can tell you."
The advances in mechanization made WWI the most brutal, destructive war anyone had ever seen up until that point. Tanks, machine guns, gas weapons, airplanes, bombs, etc. These were all new weapons and they changed the face of warfare. Britain went from being a sure win in a few months to fighting for their lives over a period of years.
Whores will have their trinkets.
from what i have read, most people regqrded the war as a serious matter. Georgina Lee, an upper middle class woman who lived in London during the war, wrote a detailed idary of her experiences. On wednesday 5th August, the day war was declaired, she wrote:
"All was quiet at Paddington, though the railways are taken over by the State from today, for the transport of troops. We were surprised to see the platforms filled with poorly-dressed men whom we took for unemployed come there to make a disturbance. But after the departure of our train wd saw our error and made mental reparation for hard thoughts. Numbers of weeping women began to file down towards the exits, accompanied some by a small son or an old man trying to console them. For the first time I realised what these scenes mean that are going on round London in every station and all day, All reservists are being called up."
Georgina lee also writes of the problems caused by panicking people trying to buy and hoard food: "Later in the day I had to go to the Army and navy stores to get in provisions. But what a state of affirs i found! The grocery and provisions departments had been under siege all day, frim customers anticipating a sudden shortage of supplies. yhey had had 7,000 orders for groceries that day and were overwhelmed. hear of one woman who ordered £500 (a vast sum in those days) worth of groceries ag harrods, and another who actually bought over the counter £45 worth."
The impression one gets are of sadness, anxiety, and fear, rather than exhuberance.