Kevinmeath

Question I have been thinking about is was there a ‘Lost generation’ after World War One?

Now I was brought up in Britain and the traditional view is of ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ and the useless slaughter of millions of young men by uncaring an incompetent commanders, on the British side at least, also that it was the ‘brightest and best’ who died and a whole generation of talent was lost.

This traditional view has been challenged by revisionist historians, in my mind quite effectively especially were ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ is concerned.

However is the idea of a ‘Lost Generation’ still valid?

On one level the numbers are ‘not as bad’ as they seem to the British. Yes you will find villages and towns were it seems a whole generation (even families) are wiped out but that was because the British foolishly (or wisely depending on your opinion) recruited regionally, so when 500 Irishmen fall in a matter of minutes in some ‘skirmish’ in Flanders the telegrams don’t go to all four corners of the British Isles but all to Belfast and not just the one city in many cases the same few streets.
However equally there are towns and villages where this did not happen.

Britain and Ireland were also not used to casualties on a ‘European’ scale, its wars were fought by a small professional army and the casualties would have been comparatively small and confined either to military families ,who were used to such, or of common people that ‘nobody’ mourned. WWI brought the war to a whole class of different people and was also of course very ‘bloody’ in so many ways.

So perhaps there wasn’t a lost generation, although I am looking at it from just one perspective and other nationalities may have a different view.

Perhaps there was a ‘Lost Generation’ however, casualties fell to a large degree on junior officers and NCO’s, in many English ‘Public schools’ you can point to a lost ‘year group’ and the NCO’’s were generally picked on merit so perhaps ‘brightest and best’ were to a large degree lost.

The pre-1914 world is often portrayed as an idealistic one and the post-1918 a violent revolutionary one.

The young men who returned many wanted to change things and seeing so much slaughter, they wanted a world ‘fit for heroes’. This encouraged ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ who wanted a more ‘fair’ world. Especially as you had nice privileged upper class people having close contact with the common elements of society.

These young men had also been brutalised by war and so were quite happy and willing to use violence.

There were also those who actually enjoyed the war and after 4 years knew nothing else. A whole (perhaps fascistic) creed grew up that glorified war and death (this was building on pre-war ideas of national struggle and Nationalism).

The wiser souls who may have used their talents to avoid violence, were they dead or crippled? Or turned off politics or turned to violence?

Of course there were also those who were disgusted by the violence and were desperate to avoid it again, Chamberlain was happy to appease Hitler because he feared a war that would again kill millions.

Interested in others opinions.

(I would also be very interested in other 'National view points.)

Leccy

Chamberlain was not happy to appease Hitler, he did it because after years of penny pinching and failure to equip the Armed Forces or even define their role (quite a lot of the pre war time while Chamberlain was the Chancellor), Britain was in no shape to actually fight on the Continent, so could not actually influence a militaristic continental force.
Chamberlain was playing for time.

Kevinmeath

To a degree I would agree with that point one motive was to 'buy time' for British re-armament but he also did fear another world war that would see millions killed.

Traditionally he has been lambasted for this but its easy to judge with 20:20 hindsight and all 'sane' people in Europe feared a new world war, in sharp contrast to 1914.

Chookie

I would argue that the certainly was a "Lost Generation". On the war memorial in my town the list of the dead from WW1 is at least four times the list from WWII.

Additionally, from a population of under four million at the time, almost 400,0000 Scots served in the UK forces, of whom in excess of 140,000 died (these figures are approximate as I can't remember the source off-hand).

I'd call that a "Lost Generation".

Kevinmeath

Fair point but Corrigan in 'Mud Blood and Poppycock' makes that point that in some towns casualties were terrible --eg Ackrington Pals, but in others if that towns regiment was lucky enough to avoid a major battle the dead would be much fewer.

The British dead were actually less that France and Germany (I think I recall) so the 'Lost Generation' is perhaps overstated.

However casualties fell most on junior officers and NCO's (perhaps the 'best') so it could be argued that the British Empire lost the 'flower' of a generation.

How many come home physically in 'one piece' but mentally not so?

sylla1

Of course there were several lost generations all along most of the chief contenders.
The UK was in fact one of the least affected of the major powers.
(Some 2.2% war-related deaths of its whole population)

At least as compared with:
- Italy (3.5 %)
- Greece (3.7 %)
- Germany (3.8 %)
- France (4.3 %),
- Romania (9.0 %)
- Ottoman Empire (13.7 %) or
- Serbia (16.1 % !!!).

Regarding Mr. Chamberlain, it may have been a not-so-bad idea but it was extremely poorly performed; the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

In his discharge he was hardly the only one; the main blunder of the Allied strategic equation of the time was the mirage that the III Reich and the Soviet Union were absolutely irreconcilable.

Kevinmeath

Interesting reply thanks.

But since within a generatiom demographically even France was 'back to normal' was a generation really lost?

I accept the figure for Serbia as I have often read the terrible toll on that country but the figure for the Ottoman empire seems rather large, a very big empire? does that include Armenians? or just battle casualties?

bartieboy

We have not even begun to talk about Russia and France, the biggest losers of the conflict.
At the end of the war France found her moat industrialized regions deliberately destroyed and 70% of the mobilized men were either DEAD OR WOUNDED! (or missing which is just about the same as dead)

Russia found its entire economy collapsed, she only mobilized the men from the lower classes: the farmers, shop owners, bakers.... The foundation lost the most.
The Russians lost some of their most densely populated and economic lands.

sylla1

All the figures are estimations of total war-related deaths, including famine and infections.

In the case of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian genocide was included too.

There were reportedly some 770,000 properly military deaths for this Empire, and more than two millions civilian deaths (at least one million Armenians) for a total population of some 21 millions.

Earl_of_Rochester

I'd say so.

It takes a certain type of chap to charge into machine gun fire and beat the hun to death with just a swagger stick.