THE HARMS WROUGHT BY NATIONAL CONFLICTS AND WARFARE

A direct result of the division of the world into a multiplicity of separate countries is the self-perception and consequent functioning of each in much the same manner as would take place among the members of a group of independent human individuals.  By and large, the image that this calls to mind strongly resembles the situation that commonly exists within groups of people in our everyday world.  There are differences in the sizes, shapes, physical and intellectual traits, and conditions of each.  Like people, some nations are dependent upon others; some are under the domination of others; some are attempting to rid themdselves of the control of others.  Like people, some have fared better than their fellows in the past; others are enjoying greater success during present days.  Like people, friendships and alliances will form among the members of this assemblage.

Furthermore , much like a group of individual people, conflict and hostility will occasionally arise between two or more of the members of the group.  As happens among people, this hostility may sometimes progress into an actual altercation.  And, in such cases., as we may witness among a group of persons, one or more, or perhaps many, others may come to the aid of one or the other--or both--combatants.  In the world of separate countries, this is referred to as "war."

Opinions have been expressed that conflict and combat among humans are inevitable, and cannot be avoided.  This may be true to the extent that where two belligerents consider themselves to be of more or less equal strength--and both are "armed to the teeth"--negotiation becomes difficult, and frequently impossible.  However, with the relatively rare exception of the unusually deranged person, instances of an individual attacking or assaulting himself are non-existent and well-nigh impossible.  So too might the circumstances affecting the family of man be so altered, if the "group" united together into a single persona--something that is impossible biologically, but achievable politically.

                                                          * * * * *

War has been defined as a phenomenon wherein the members of one state commit organized acts of violence against those of another state, with the approval, encouragement, and assistance of their government.  Wars are usually initiated by political and/or military leaders within a nation-state seizing upon differences or problems--sometimes quite trivial--and inflating them for the purpose of rousing latent hatreds to the level of armed conflict.

These armed conflicts have taken gigantic tolls in human life since the earliest of times.  Starting , for the instant purpose, with the seventeenth century, it is known that in China, the Manchu conquest of 1640 caused death to twenty five million people; the Thirty Years War brought about an additional seven and a half million fatalities; while the Mughal Empire's conquest of Deccan resulted in the further annihilation of an additional two and a half million human beings.

The eighteenth century had its share of war deaths.  The French and American Revolutions caused death to a million and a half persons; almost the same number perished in the War of Spanish Succession; and the Seven Years War brought about the demise of another two and a half million people.

During the nineteenth century, the Taiping Rebellion killed twenty million.  The rebellions and revolts by the prople of India during the era of British occupancy resulted in approximately fifteen million deaths.  And the Napoleonic Wars can be blamed for another three and a half million wasted lives.

The twentieth century saw many advances in civilization for mankind--but our penchant for inflicting death and destruction upon one another other does not seem to have subsided.  Matthew White, in his Internet site, "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls...for the Twentieth Century," uses the term "hemoclysm" to entitle the "string of interconnected barbarities which have made the Twentieth Century so fascinating for historians and so miserable for real people."(http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warststs.httm; June, 2005).  He cites four major sources of mass killings:  World War I; the civil war in Russia that followed it, together with the abuses during Stalin's regime; World War II; and the abuses that took place in China under Mao Zedong's regime.  Two of these were outright wars; the other two followed and sprang from conditions attributable to the results of war.

In 1914, the complex web of alliances that existed among nations was suddenly activated, turning on "like an expertly engineered set of electrical relays."  Before long, twenty seven nations had joined in the fray.  In what one historian has described as a [reduction of] "the complexity of international relations to a perverse application of Darwinian theory," millions of humans turned on each other in the belief that some must die if others were to live in safety."  (Garraty and Gay, The Columbia History of the World)  The First World War saw the mobilization of more than sixty million men.  Eight and a half million of them never returned home; and another twenty one million suffered injuries--many of which being lifelong.  In all, counting military and civilians, World War I claimed at least fifteen million lives.  An entire generation of British and French males was all but wiped out in this massive slaughter.  A nillion Btritish soldiers died; close to a million and a half French military personnel periished.  The Austro-Hungarian army lost over a million men.  Italy lost half a million.  Russia lost close to two million military; and so did Germany.  The United States suffered over a hundred thousand deaths.

Some of the more minute details of this waste of human life are even more dismaying.  For example, during the six days that it took to fight the Battle of the Marne, in August of 1914, a half million human lives were lost.  And some three months later, seven million soldiers were involved in prosecuting the Battle of Lodz, in Poland, which resulted in at least 125,000 deaths.  In 1916, the Battle of the Somme enabled the Allies to push the Germans back less than ten miles, at a cost to both sides of over a million lives.  And in 1917, the British fought the Battle of Passchendaele, which produced an advance of only five miles--this time at a cost of 400,000 lives.  In March of 1918, General Ludendorff mounted an extremely heavy German offensive.  It cost the lives of 800,000 German troops; and simultaneously over a million of the Allied forces.

During the War, over two million tons of naval vessels (four billion pounds of iron and steel) were sent to the bottom of the sea.  This included the sinking of over two hundred neutral ships.

In addition to the aforesaid carnage and destruction among the various armed forces, it has been estimated that the War caused a further death toll of at least six and a half million civilians.  Add to this the two million Armenians who were exterminated at the hands of the Turks in an expression of nationalistic frenzy following the War, and we may be properly appalled by the horrendous scale of cruelty and agony that man is capable of perpetrating upon himself.

                                                        * * * * *

At War's end, and shortly thereafter--specifically between 1917 and 1922--another nine million persons died as a result of the Russian Revolution.  Admittedly, this was not a conflict between two or more nations.  However, it arose out of the sorry state of destruction, poverty, and misery that World War I had bequeathed to the surviving remainder of the Russian people--which, of course, was an international conflict.  Moreover, it constituted a desperate attempt by the people of a nation to improve their country's position among the pack of nations at this sorry moment in world history.  It has been estimated that approximately two million died during the resistance and fighting that took place; five million as a result of the famine that occurred during that period; and two million from the typhoid epidemic that accompanied the devastated condition of the country and the weakened condition of its people.

                                                    * * * * *