Two World Wars and the Myth of the War Experience

Abstract

Much has been written about that continuity between the two world wars which seems immediate and direct: the second world war broke out as a result of the failure to restore an equilibrium after the violence, cost and passion of the first world war. The continuity between the first world war and the inter-war years has struck not only modern historians, but was on the minds of both the victims and the instigators of violence. Thus in 1934, the newly exiled German theatre critic Alfred Kerr wrote that what he was witnessing was not war once more, but a mental confusion and universal chaos which were an extension of the first world war. At the same time, one of his nazi persecutors wrote that the war against the German people was continuing, that the first world war was only its bloody beginning.2 I do not intend to make a general comparison between these wars in keeping with such perceptions of the continuity between them; instead, I want to centre my analysis upon a comparison between the wars through a consideration of some of their consequences. While I will confine my analysis to examples drawn mainly from England and Germany with some attention to France, my conclusions could then be applied, modified or rejected by those familiar with the history of various individual nations which took part in both wars. Moreover, I will not be concerned with the perceptions of those soldiers who were at the rear and never experienced fighting at first hand, but only with front-line soldiers. The front-line soldier in the first world war created the Myth of the War Experience, and, as a 'new race of men', symbolized the war's promise. When the borders between the front line and the home front became blurred, as in the second world war, it affected the way in which the conflict was seen in retrospect. This essay is intended to put forward certain hypotheses about the impact of the wars upon people's perceptions, which might help to explain some of their political consequences. The first world war was an unprecedented experience in men's lives, one which had to be confronted and dealt with on a personal,