A hundred years ago this week, one of the bloodiest battles in history was unfolding. By its end, more than a million men had been killed or wounded, and the trench warfare it solidified went on to swallow millions more.
The Somme offensive lasted almost five months. On its first day alone, the British army lost nearly 60,000 men. That same day, at Beaumont-Hamel, Newfoundland鈥檚 only regiment 鈥� its pride and joy 鈥� was essentially wiped out.
Yet when the shooting finally halted, the Allied armies had gained a mere 10 kilometres.
In a sane and feeling world, that should have been the end of the First World War. By that point, it was obvious 鈥� or ought to have been 鈥� that nothing lay ahead but more of the same.
Military strategists on all sides had completely failed to comprehend the new technologies that dominated the battlefield, machine guns first among them. With this weapon, a numerically inferior enemy could hold at bay any number of opponents.
The solution was apparent. Call a halt and restore the prior status quo.
But sanity and compassion were nowhere in sight. Generals such as Britain鈥檚 Douglas Haig had no greater ambition than to shovel more boatloads of raw recruits into the depleted ranks.
Universities were combed, colleges were combed, high schools, mines and mills were combed, to keep the war alive. One French 茅cole listed, on a monument to its dead, simply 鈥淭he class of 1916.鈥� All of them.
After the war had ended, a different view emerged. Even the most purblind militarist couldn鈥檛 fail to see that whatever had been gained fell far short of the price paid. Haig himself was warned to stay away from London, since the police could not guarantee his safety.
And the phrase 鈥渘ever again鈥� gained currency, as the nations counted their dead.
But of course, as we know, 鈥渘ever鈥� in this case meant only 20 years. It proved even more difficult to negotiate a satisfactory peace than to wage measureless war.
From a distance, then, the madness of it all seems obvious. Yet is it?
Russia has recently made a series of military incursions into Ukraine. China is rattling sabres. Parts of the Middle East have descended into civil war. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and is developing missiles to deliver them.
With Britain鈥檚 vote to leave the European Union, we have renewed instability in a continent better known for war than peace. No reasonable person would see in that a return to earlier times. It seems inconceivable that France and Germany would ever again wish to fight each other.
But while history does repeat itself on occasion, the real threat lies in the arrival of new events 鈥� circumstances that were not foreseen. Generals, it is said, are always preparing for the last war. But so are politicians.
We do well enough, generally speaking, at avoiding previous errors. But the world is full of novel possibilities.
The danger lies in what comes next, and as a species, we have a pretty awful record when trying to look ahead. Hence the Somme.
The lesson to be learned, if there is one, is that our dominant value must be human life. As soon as we forget that, and pursue other desires that come only too easily to us 鈥� conquest, revenge, treasure, ideology 鈥� the path leads only downward.
We have the great good fortune to live in the most peaceful, generous and decent country on Earth. It would pay us to remember how this blessing was achieved.
The self-sacrifice of earlier generations brought us here. Let鈥檚 never allow such a loss to be repeated.
