One of the most interesting things to me about World War I is the class dynamic about which we spoke in class. As we discussed, the officers in the armies of Britain, France and Germany were largely composed of people who came from the middle and upper classes. In this sense, it seems as if the officer corps of all nations involved, but especially France, were extensions of the Bourgeoisie into the Great War. The interesting thing about this, also, is the fact that many people saw World War I as a way for them to escape the bourgeois classes and culture; the outbreak of a war, however, does not change the fact that the same people some are trying to escape become the leadership under which they must fight, the people to whose orders they must conform.
Additionally, within the rank and file, one can also find much of the class resentment that existed before the war between Marx's Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. There is much resentment for the officer corps (which embodies the upper classes) emanating from the enlisted/conscripted soldiery. This is understandable; officers Captain and lower would often share the trenches and the battles with their men, some of them, especially in Germany (ex. Ernst Junger), having been promoted to being officers from the enlisted corps. Higher than this (major and above), however, one sees the power of money, that title and wealth can buy a ticket out of the trenches and safely on a hill miles away from no-man's-land despite whether one deserved to be there.
In regular society, it is this kind of subversion and taking advantage of the work of the lower class, according to political philosophers like Marx and Engels, that lead to revolutions. While not so much in Britain and Germany, this becomes evident in France as many soldiers mutiny their officers, a small revolution of the Proletariat against the Bourgeoisie in the trenches of World War I. So the question is how successful were the people of this time in escaping/destroying the rule and influence of the Bourgeoisie? Was the war upon which they relied to fix their social problems simply extending and prolonging them?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm not sure the class dynamic contributed so much to the old-school tactics that contributed so much to the massacres in WWI, at least the Bourgeoisie. The old school notions of the glorious offensive I would say are still carried over from the aristocratic age, mainly due to the notion of war as a glorious enterprise perpetuated by the nobility. I would agree, however, that the Bourgeoisie were able to buy themselves commissions away from the fighting, and that their disconnectedness contributed to the general willingness to use faulty tactics.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I think that the war both recreated and destroyed the bourgeois world from which so many sought to escape. The conditions of inequality found their way on the battlefield but ultimately the war itself threatened and transformed the bourgeois privilege that characterized the 19th century.
ReplyDelete