Technology and Soldiering

    World War I.  The Great War.  The War to End All Wars.  Many names for the same conflict, a bloody conflict not only between major powers of the world, but one where the strategies of the past and the technology of the future collided violently.  A hopeless situation for many, with none of the glorious trappings men have always associated with war, a situation where men simply lined up to die.  A war where skill counted for little and luck for much.  Such a war was World War I, a war with little glory or honor, a war where men woke expecting to die, a war without heroes, a war where men became soldiers and forgot how to be mere men.  In the Great War technology outran strategy and training and men were destroyed, though not necessarily by death, in the process.

    Since the earliest times, when Genesis relates the story of how Cain slew his brother Abel for jealousy, mankind has been at war.  Furthermore, since very shortly after that time, war has been a way to accrue glory, to be honored for courage and skill.  This has been the case in virtually every major culture in the world.  In Japan, formalized hand to hand combat was born.  The feuding lords would hire the almost legendary fighters to wage war against their enemies.  In North America, the Native Americans fought small battles often.  Indeed counting coup, where a warrior touched, but did not kill, an armed enemy was a way to become known as a great and fearless warrior.  The North African Muslims created the jihad, commonly translated ‘holy war’, in which a soldier’s soul even if burdened with unforgiven sins traveled immediately to heaven upon death.  The Gauls, in northern Europe at the time of Rome believed that a man could only reach paradise if he died in battle.  In ancient Greece, military training was polished, until the phalanxes of Grecian hoplite soldiers were well known across the Mediterranean region.  Following in the Greek tradition was Rome.  To be a Roman swordsman was to be part of the most feared military force in the world.  All of these bespoke glory to the soldier, and honor, but the problem still arises as to what reasons there might be for honoring those who exist only to kill.

    Erich Maria Remarque, in the book All Quiet On The Western Front, seems to address this issue, in the form of Stanislaus Katczinsky, who is described as "the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil"(1).  This man's description, and later actions in the book, during which he proves to be a veteran soldier and an excellent leader,immediately bring to mind those ideas of a heroic soldier that have been ingrained into society.  The earliest impetus for such concepts was the soldier who fought better than the others, and whose skill with his weapon was such that he seemed impossible to kill.  However, if this was the only way to gain heroic stature, the advent of archers and ranged weaponry should have decreased the idea of the legendary soldier-hero.  They did not, but began to pull the qualifications away from simple skill to a more nebulous quality.  That of luck.