Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War by Alan Kramer

Reims 1918

The dynamic of destruction was not a law of nature, it was man-made, capable of infinite variation ... capable of being stopped before ultimate self-destruction.

If you want to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the causes and effects of the Great War, this book is a fine beginning point. Dr. Kramer teaches at Trinity College, Dublin, and is the author (with John Horn) of A History of Denial, winner of WFA's 2002 Tomlinson Book Prize.

Kramer starts with the burning of Louvain and the atrocities of 1914 in Belgium to peel back the layers of myth and legend about the motivations of the principal European actors in this tragedy. He finds identifiable causes for the cultural destruction and mass killings on the Western Front, on the Italo-Austrian Front, of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, and the collective violence in Russia following the 1917 revolution.

Though he finds no straight connection between German frightfulness and Hitler's holocaust, Kramer sees World War I as a decisive step toward eroding the distinction between soldier and civilian and the development of fascist warfare that totally eradicated that distinction. But, at the same time, while not minimizing German war guilt and picking apart the "stab in the back" excuse for German defeat, he challenges the assertion of a uniquely German development of a total war policy leading to genocide in the Second World War.

In fluid and lucid prose, he explains how this dynamic came about delving into the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and unraveling the complexities of prewar European diplomacy and politics. He also looks at European culture and its increasing fascination with violence taking one case study from the emergence of fascism in Italy.

 

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In sum, this is an ambitious book in a class by itself deserving of careful reading by any WWI student.

Originally presented in the Spring 2011 issue of Relevance