Remember The Lessons of World War I This Veterans Day

November 11, Veteran’s Day in the United States and Armistice Day throughout the rest of the Western world, marks 105 years since the ceasefire that ended World War I, then the bloodiest conflict in human history. As our world today faces another set of brewing crises threatening to explode into a global conflict, it’s worth reflecting on the lessons of the Great War and the factors that precipitated it in the hopes that we might avoid a similar catastrophe.

Perhaps no place suffered more during World War I than the Belgian city of Ypres, located just a few miles from the French port city of Dunkirk. In many ways, the story of Ypres is symbolic of the rise of modern Western society founded on Christian ideals and its subsequent fall once those ideals were abandoned.

Ypres is an ancient town, once besieged by the Romans before the birth of Christ. Many centuries later, Benedictine monks would lay the foundations for a more modern medieval town, one that would become a thriving center of trade and education and one of the first independent towns in Europe.

With this solid economic foundation, the city thrived into the modern age. It became a major center of European civilizational heritage, with cathedral spires touching the skies and a great number of important institutions like universities and civic societies.

World War I, however, quickly reduced this flourishing city to a smoldering pile of rubble. Ypres was located at a crucial intersection for both armies, leading to at least five major engagements in and around the town between 1914 and 1918.

In total, the fighting at Ypres is estimated to have cost more than a million combined casualties. During the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, the German military used mustard gas to devastating effectiveness, an omen of the ghastly sights to come over the next four brutal years of fighting.

Following the conclusion of the war, the once great buildings of Ypres were nothing but piles of crumbling bricks and twisted metal. The spires that had once inspired generations of visitors were completely destroyed. The world entered a new dark age in which the ideals that motivated the creation of Ypres’ beautiful skyline seemed to topple along with it.

But long before the fires of exploding artillery shells and bombs engulfed Ypres and most of the world, clouds of destructive ideas darkened the globe. The war of iron and steel that was waged in the Belgian countryside began long before in the battle for people’s minds and souls.

For the decades prior to World War I, the West was confronted with the unprecedented development of industry fueled by automation, mass migration from farms to cities, and tremendous population growth. These developments came along with an erosion of the familial and community structures that had for decades defined Western society. Towering cathedral spires were slowly overshadowed by hulking factory towers, and people lost touch with the Christian faith that had previously underpinned every aspect of their lives.

The first shots of World War I were, in truth, fired by philosophers and even scientists who believed that the powers of logic and reason could explain every phenomenon on earth and perfectly measure the human condition. New relativist ways of thinking taught that there was no such thing as absolute good and evil. Nothing was inherently valuable – even human life.

Eminent British historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who authored two volumes on the history of World War I, told this author on the 90th anniversary of the war’s end that society became “friendly to the idea of war” prior to the outbreak of World War I. “Militarism, socialism, and the machine [industrialization] were central to that mentality,” he told me. “With mechanization at the bottom and savagery at the top, men either embraced socialist nationalism actively or became ‘passive barbarians.’”

The late British historian Paul Johnson, whom I also spoke with before his passing, agreed with Sir Gilbert’s sentiment, further noting that the spiritual climate of Europe played a significant role in the outbreak of the First World War. “Pragmatic liberalism was deprived of any controlling moral norms,” he explained.

The state had become God, and was considered sufficient to fulfill all aspirations. It was the state, therefore, that determined which human beings had value. “That crisis of man and faith – that was the rift led to the elevation of nationalism above Christianity,” Johnson said, stressing that it was the catalyst that transformed Europeans into war enthusiasts.

In the years leading up to World War I, Pope Pius X warned against placing extreme nationalism above faith, to the point where Christians were willing to kill other Christians. “Pius X in suffering with prayer warns against war as militarization penetrates the minds of bishops, priests, laymen and people of goodwill,” read a headline in La Repubblica eight years before War World I erupted.

The collapse of moral order even infected the Church, to the point where the Catholic German Party of The Centre, established due to a Papal call to seek justice, cheered its army to kill their fellow Polish Catholics during the war.

Today, the world’s powers again seem to be heading toward conflict that could destroy an entire generation. I spoke with four high-ranking officials from multiple countries on the condition of anonymity (as they are still serving their governments) and they all confirmed that they believe the world may be set to repeat the mistakes that led to World War I.

For one, there seems to be a pervading utopian view of what “victory” might look like. Prior to World War I, the major powers both pushed the view that victory over the other side would usher in an era of peace and prosperity. In reality, it led to the horrors of the Holocaust an even more deadly and destructive conflict in World War II.

Likewise, today there seems to be a view that unrestrained military action will solve conflicts that have festered for decades. As one official explained it, “It is an illusion that we can militarily resolve problems that have been ignored for decades. For me, this likens us to those who allowed for World War I.”

With modern weaponry and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a third global conflict would almost surely be far more deadly than either the First or the Second World War. This only increases the importance of studying why World War I began and how to avoid such a scenario today.

If Mankind is to avoid catastrophe, the solution is simple at its core: returning to traditional Christian values like humility, a belief in objective good and evil, and a respect for the inherent value of human life. These are the antidote to the hubris, egotism, and worship of the state that have replaced God in modern life and left our world on the brink of self-destruction.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.