Today is Veteran's Day (observed). The actual day was yesterday the 11th of November. It's the mark of a day of great importance. Veteran's Day began as Armistice Day. It's still called that in many countries. Canada has named it Remembrance Day. The Armistice ending WWI was signed on 11/11/1918, and was the original cause to be marked that we now call Veteran's Day. Veteran's Day has become a day to pay tribute to those who served in the Armed Forces, as it should. Men and women take oaths, and devote years of life, time away from family, and risk of death to defend their country. The holiday's roots are in the end of WWI, and that's important to remember.
World War I has been called the "seminal tragedy." It marked the end of the old order, and gave birth to the new order that led to the 20th Century, and all of its mad made cataclysm. All that cataclysm made so many more veteran's to salute on Veteran's Day/Armistice Day/Remembrance Day; so many more casualties to remember in tribute on Memorial Day. All of them were fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. So many of them came from working class families, or families of immigrants, upper class families, and poor families. They all deserve to be honored for taking the oath, manning a post, and sacrificing. What were the roots or war and conflict that demanded their sacrifice? We owe it to them, and present and future servicemen and service women, to assure that sacrifice is given for a just cause.
The causes of WWI are well studied. It was still the time, in the early 20th century, or empires, monarchy, and an established order of aristocratic elites that dominated the international order. Save for the young United States, and France all major powers were monarchies. All major powers had overseas colonies, and sought to exploit them for economic wealth to the home country, Even the United States, had overseas "territories" like the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam, acquired mostly from the settlement of its win in the Spanish American War. The British crown ruled a long established maritime empire. France had colonies in North Africa, and East Asia, and sought to maintain itself as a major land power in Europe,. A comparatively young German Empire, under a young Kaiser Wilhelm II, was new to the colonial era, but aggressively was amassing a navy to rival England's. Austria Hungary was the modern empire of Hapsburgs, the dynasty that had dominated central Europe since the fall of Napoleon 100 years before..The Russian Czar held domain over the most expansive land empire in the world. The Ottoman Empire still commanded the Caliphate, and though it had been pushed out of Europe, it still held dominion over the lucrative overland routes to Persia.
The common cancer throughout the world was nationalism. Germany sought it's place in the sun. Germans saw themselves, by virtue of their leading role in science, academia, technology, and most powerful land army, as who should be first among nations. England ruled the seas, controlled vast colonial resources that fed it's industrial output, and London was the financial center of the world. England did not intend for its economic, and naval dominance be compromised. France was France. It saw itself as the center of culture, and art, and civilization. It birthed the Enlightenment. The Rights Of Man were authored there. It was the heir to the legacy of Napoleon, and it's grand past meant it should be the dominant power in Europe.
All of this nationalism came to its head in August 1914. It is, in my view, the great unlearned lesson. For even The Great War that followed, and the veterans it created, did not address it. The peace of the Treaty of Versailles did not quell it. It only justified the nationalism of the Allied victors, and suppressed the nationalism of it's losers, beneath - as if it would stay there in perpetuity. When it finally did come back, it wore the face of Fascism, and Aryan supremacy seeking to establish its dominance. Millions more veterans were created. The Versailles Peace ignored, and disrespected, the budding nationalism of the expanding Japanese Empire. It's assertion in the Pacific created the need for even more veterans.
The peace of 1945 quelled nationalism for a time. An international order held sway as Capitalism held off Communism for 50+ years, and while veterans were still created, it was not on the order of the tens of millions of the World Wars.
Now nationalism is back. Many, many voices flock behind a demagogue who says "My country first!" They see the threat to national preeminence, and his promise to fight that threat. To fight back all the "others" that seek to parasitically feed off of it. But you see, it's all short sighted. It ignores the history that "My country first!" has created. The veterans created by it that, really, should be eating dinner with their families, and going to kids softball/baseball/basketball games. We have it in our power to choose to let nationalism die. A patriot is proud of their country when it does good things. A nationalist thinks whatever their great, even when it, objectively, does bad things. We owe it to all veterans that their sacrifices are offered for truly honorable things.
