Sentence First! Verdict Afterwards

Queen of Hearts: Now... are you ready for your sentence?

Alice: Sentence? But there has to be a verdict first...

Queen of Hearts: Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.

Alice: But that just isn't the way...

Queen of Hearts: [shouting] All ways are...!

Alice: ...your ways, your Majesty.

Alice in Wonderland

Advance to Barbarism, FJP Veale

Veale concludes his examination of the return to barbarism in war with the Nuremberg Trials that followed Germany’s defeat in World War Two.

Regarded as an isolated phenomenon, the initiation in 1945 of the practice of disposing of prisoners of war by charging them with “war-crimes” and then finding them guilty at trials in which their accusers acted as judges of their own charges, was one of the most astonishing developments in the history of mankind.

Regarded, however, merely as the last link in a chain of developments all entirely consistent with each other and all displaying the same general trend, the initiation of trials for “war-crimes” seems the natural and inevitable outcome of a war in which one side had officially adopted a policy of systematically slaughtering a hostile racial minority without regard to age or sex and the other side had officially adopted a policy of slaughtering the enemy civilian population by dropping bombs on the most densely populated residential areas in order to terrorise the survivors into unconditional surrender.  A struggle conducted in such a spirit could have no other sequel. (Emphasis added)

When considering the vaunted trials of Nuremberg through the lens of today, these seem as nothing terribly abnormal: the loser pays a price, war is hell, etc.  That the loser pays a price for actions no different than those taken by the winner I understand seems unfair.  But the idea that the loser pays a price – in this case, the trial of the military leaders – doesn’t seem out of place.

Veale, however, places this in context, and in the context of the brief period of two centuries in Europe where war was fought in a relatively civilized manner – the root of civilized warfare being that non-combatants were not to be targets of wartime violence.  The violations build, culminating in the bombing of civilian targets and now this concept of war-crimes trials – and more specifically, the method by which this process was put into practice in Nuremberg.

To the savage mind the natural and proper way to deal with a captured enemy in one’s power is to kill him… On reflection it will become obvious that a struggle waged in this spirit could end in no other way, whichever side won, but with a massacre of the leaders of the defeated side.

So why a trial?  Why not just do the losers in? Why not just publish a list of the wanted, and get on with the executions?  To answer these questions, an examination of the views of the leaders of the Allies is necessary as is an examination of the make-up and structure of the trials.

It would have been an easy matter to have created an impartial court….

There were many neutral countries, all with individuals who were highly qualified as jurists: Switzerland, Sweden and Spain are examples.  Instead, the jurists were drawn from the victors – the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

The only possible objection to having the charges against the accused decided by a court composed of neutral jurists was that such a court could not have been relied on to bring in exactly the verdict the victors required….

Further, neutral jurists would have followed the evidence brought by the accused that pointed to the similar actions of the victors – the actions for which the accused were under trial.

But the process had one advantage – it minimized the friction between and amongst the victors.  It resulted in trials for which the Queen from Alice’s Wonderland would have found satisfaction: the captured were sentenced from the outset; all that was left was to reach a verdict that conformed to the sentence.

…the war-trials were initiated as a compromise between two entirely irreconcilable points of view.

This irreconcilable situation was first introduced by Stalin in Teheran in 1943.  According to Elliott Roosevelt:

Stalin said, “I propose a salute to the swiftest possible justice for all of Germany’s war criminals – justice before a firing squad.  I drink to our unity in dispatching them as fast as we capture them, all of them, and there must be at least 50,000 of them.”

Within much of Eastern and Central Europe, Stalin did not require the agreement of his allies to put his desires into action (Stalin admitted as much when Elliott suggested that many of the 50,000 would be killed in battle).  But such was necessary in the areas controlled by others.

Sennacherib’s Return

Advance to Barbarism, FJP Veale

The exclusion of non-combatants from the scope of hostilities is the fundamental distinction between civilized and barbarous warfare.

FJP Veale

Sennacherib, the great king,

And their small cities, which were beyond numbering I destroyed, I devastated, and I turned into ruins. The houses of the steppe, (namely) the tents, in which they lived, I set on fire and turned them into flames.

Over the whole of his wide land I swept like a hurricane. The cities Marubishti and Akkuddu, his royal residence-cities, together with small towns of their area, I besieged, I captured, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire.

In the course of my campaign, Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Banaibarka, Asuru, cities of Sidka, who had not speedily bowed in submission at my feet, I besieged, I conquered, I carried off their spoil.

As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: forty-six of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small towns in their area, which were without number, by levelling with battering-rams and by bringing up seige-engines, and by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels, and breeches, I besieged and took them.

I captured their cities and carried off their spoil, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire.

Furthermore, 33 cities within the bounds of his province I captured. People, asses, cattle and sheep, I carried away from them as spoil. I destroyed, I devastated, and I burned with fire.

The cities which were in those provinces I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. Into tells and ruins I turned them.

…strong cities, together with the small cities in their areas, which were countless, I besieged, I conquered, I despoiled, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire, with the smoke of their conflagration I covered the wide heavens like a hurricane.

Veale continues his examination of the Advance to Barbarism, focusing first on the World War II bombing of areas outside of the battlefield and culminating in the carpet bombing of German cities.  This bombing marked the complete repudiation of one of the cornerstones of the concept of civilized warfare: warfare should be the concern only of the armed combatants engaged; non-combatants should be left outside of the scope of military operations.  It marked the return, or advance as Veale puts it, to a form of warfare for which Sennacherib the Assyrian was well known.

May 11, 1940

 Veale introduces J. M. Spaight and his book “Bombing Vindicated.” Spaight describes the awesomeness of this day, the “splendid decision” to bomb German targets well outside of the area of military operations.  The next day, newspapers announced that “eighteen Whitley bombers attacked railway installations in Western Germany.”

Looked at from today’s eyes, there is nothing shocking in this statement; however, compared to what came before in European wars, this was news:

Western Germany in May 1940 was, of course, as much outside the area of military operations as Patagonia.

At the time the battle for France was in high gear, yet the pilots flew over these battlefields to reach their objective:

To the crews of these bombers it must have seemed strange to fly over a battlefield where a life and death struggle was taking place and then over a country crowded with columns of enemy troops pouring forward to the attack…Their flight marked the end of an epoch which had lasted for two and one-half centuries.

…against a background of prosaic twentieth railway installations we can imagine the grim forms of Asshurnazirpal and Sennacherib stroking their square-cut, curled and scented beards with dignified approval….

This was only the beginning, with the culmination to come in Dresden some five years later, but this is to get too far ahead in the narrative.

Barbarism’s Opening Salvo

In the previous chapter, Veale described the civilized warfare of eighteenth century Europeans…civilized at least when fighting other Europeans.  In this chapter, Veale begins by exploring the nineteenth century – and what I would describe as this civilized interlude’s beginning-of-the-end.

He describes the transition from Kings’ Wars to Peoples’ Wars – basically, from wars involving the warriors to wars necessitating the buy-in and involvement of the general population (also so well described by Hoppe).  This transition was greatly aided by propaganda, in order to generate the necessary emotion, hatred, and fear in the people: emotional engineering, as Veale calls it.

To wage war, it had become necessary to generate hatred.  If the reasoning powers of the man on the street could be paralysed by a sufficiently vivid portrayal of a real or imaginary danger…he would fight better in a state of blind hatred.

Veale traces this slow evolution in warfare from “Carnot’s  levée en masse, in 1793” to “the Dresden holocaust of 1945” (watch this, please; I insist).  The fall to barbarism occurred in stages.

Nineteenth Century Slide

During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1792 – 1815) the standards of European civil warfare suffered a marked decline…the armies of France shamelessly plundered the countries which they overran.

Veale points out that the plundering was primarily limited to churches and art galleries, as opposed to the broader and more general plundering to be found by the end of this period in question – 1945.

Further, Veale comments that the critical question is the peace that follows the war:

What is most important about any war is the peace which it brings about.  From this point of view, the wars of 1792 – 1815 maintained the highest standards.  The moderation of the victors in 1815 appears to modern eyes simply superhuman.

Veale regularly reminds that these rules of civilized warfare were only recognized for wars between European states.  He offers several examples of uncivilized war by Europeans when fighting non-Europeans, or when Europeans are not involved at all: the first major example offered of uncivilized war, in all aspects, is the American (misnamed) Civil War:

It was the Northern or Federal armies which produced this historic reversion to primary or total warfare.

Before examining this return to barbarism further, a brief review of how and why this occurred is offered.  Those on the American continent had little experience with civilized warfare as practiced in Europe in the eighteenth century.  Instead, they “had undergone long experience of primary warfare against the American Indians….”  For this reason, Veale offers:

…it is not strange that the first serious departure from the European code by a people of European descent should have taken place in the United States.”

Civilized warfare was practiced for the most part during the American Revolution, somewhat less so during the War of 1812.  So, the idea that the Americans had little experience with this code seems reasonable.  In the meantime, Americans gained experience by fighting those considered less-than-human – primarily the Indians, but also Mexicans.  No code was recognized; war was hell.

So, when fighting each other (north vs. south), perhaps this is all they knew.  Which brings us back to the barbarity of the Northern Army in the war:

There has been a traditional habit of saddling the responsibility for the Northern departure from civilized warfare on General William Tecumseh Sherman who conducted the famous march through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea, and continued it along the Atlantic seaboard.  This is quite unjust.  Sherman only executed the most dramatic and devastating example of the strategy which was laid down by President Lincoln himself and was followed by General Ulysses S. Grant as commander-in-chief of the Northern armies.

Veale cites as a source for the connection to Lincoln such books as Collin R. Ballard’s The Military Genius of Abraham Lincoln and T. Harry Williams’ Lincoln and His Generals:

Hence, it is apparent that Sherman was only carrying out effectively the military policy which Lincoln and Grant adopted.

Civilized Warfare

An oxymoron?  Bear with me….

“Advance to Barbarism: The Development of Total Warfare from Sarajevo to Hiroshima,” by FJP Veale.

Veale describes the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a period, mostly, of civilized warfare in Europe or regions influenced by European culture. 

I will point out only once that the complete contrast to warfare as practiced today – and certainly since at least the Second World War – by the West when compared to this code; to make mention of this at each possible opportunity will only serve to double the length of this post.  I hope even the most casual observer of today’s realities can see how far those in the several militaries of various western governments have fallen.

So, what is meant by “civilized warfare”?

…this code was based on one simple principle, namely that warfare should be the concern only of the armed combatants engaged.  From this follows the corollary that non-combatants should be left entirely outside the scope of military operations.

…it necessarily followed that an enemy civilian did not forfeit his rights as a human being merely because the armed forces of his country were unable to defend him.

The sufferings of civilians must never be made a means by which the course of hostilities can be influenced – for example, when, in accordance with the common practice of barbarous warfare, a country is deliberately laid waste to induce its rulers to surrender.

…a combatant who surrenders ceases to be a combatant and reacquires the status of non-combatant….a combatant who has become incapacitated through wounds or disease ceases to be a combatant….

…a prisoner of war should be treated by his captors as a person under military discipline transferred by his capture from the command of his own countrymen to the command of his captors.

…the code was safeguarded by the knowledge that violation, even if profitable at the moment, would bring ultimate retribution and the weakening of the general security enjoyed by all.

Veale does not ignore the exceptions to this type of civilized warfare during this period; many of the violations were committed by the British – safe in the security that, due to their superiority at sea, repercussions on the homeland were unlikely.  Veale also notes that this code did not mean that towns were off-limits, only that a direct military objective was necessary for the action to be justified.

As a counter-example, Veale offers France, Austria and Russia against Prussia during the Seven Years War; they could easily have overrun Prussia if barbarous methods were employed:

All that was necessary to bring about Frederick’s speedy downfall was to pour across the open and exposed frontiers of Prussia small units of Hungarian hussars and Russian Cossacks with instructions to destroy everything which could be destroyed by means of a torch or a charge of gunpowder.  The Prussian army would have been helpless in the face of such tactics, designed to turn Prussia into a desert.

The term Veale uses to describe this aspect of the culture is chivalry:

“Chivalry had two outstanding marks,” says Professor R.B. Mowat, “two that were as its essence: it was Christian and it was military.”

I can see the steam coming out of Laurence Vance’s ears even now.  But trust me, it will all come together into something meaningful.

Chivalry, as it ultimately developed, became a collective term embracing a code of conduct, manners, and etiquette, a system of ethics and a distinctive “Weltanschauung” (philosophy of life) as the Germans call it.  For our purpose, its principal importance is that, when the code of chivalry was adopted as the code of the military caste in all the European states, it provided a common bond between them.

The soldiers fought as (relatively speaking) gentlemen, as opposed to the experience in war proceeding this chivalrous age:

Sadism could no longer masquerade as moral indignation….

I like that line….

Why the Wars?

I am reading “Advance to Barbarism,” by FJP Veale.  I will, as has come to be my practice, offer more than one post based on this book.

I will begin with a topic upon which Veale spends only a few words, but one which sheds light on perhaps the main purpose of war – at least war in the era of life in a time of something more than primitive living.

The various wars are often explained by the critics as wars for resources – usually oil, but also natural gas, transit pipelines, etc.  I have come to believe (and first came across this notion at The Daily Bell) that wars are for control – control of the people: the ultimate productive and renewable resource on the planet.

I came across some comments within Veale’s book that can be interpreted as supportive of this view:

To a hunting community, a prisoner of war is merely an extra mouth to feed…. Generally, prisoners taken in battle would be disposed of summarily with a stone club.

They fought over game – the meaningful “natural resource” of the time.

But as soon as a state of civilization had been reached in which there were fields to be tilled, walls, temples, palaces and tombs to be built, and mines to be worked, a prisoner of war ceased to be merely an extra mouth to feed, and came to possess a definite economic value as a slave.

They fought to capture labor – the most meaningful “natural resource” in even the most rudimentary division-of-labor economy.  For much of history, the “labor” captured was slave labor.  But it need not be so – it isn’t so today, at least not literally.

I do not intend to trivialize actual slavery by comparing it to what we have today; at the same time, it is worth noting the yoke under which we struggle.  To mention only a few points: fiat money, taxation, regulation, prohibitions of all sorts.  To note the effectiveness of the current system, it is sufficient to point out that the slaves at least knew they were under the whip of the master; today’s masters have developed a system of control so invisible that many cannot see it.  With the franchise to vote and otherwise petition the state – “we the people” – we are conditioned to believe that we are the ones in control.  Most believe they are free.

War expands the franchise – bringing more people under one or more of the many globalizing institutions: central bank controlled money and credit, international finance, centrally managed trade; opportunities for manipulation by the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the UN.  Investment opportunities are opened for the crony capitalists. 

When you have developed a system that allows you to skim a few points off of every transaction, why care about oil?  Bringing more people under the yoke of that system allows you to skim a few points off of a few more people.

This is the reason for the wars – to capture the labor, to make the labor work for the elite.  It used to be done via slaves.  Today?  Look in the mirror.