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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: The Odds Against Antiwar Warriors War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918, Michael Kazin, Simon and Schuster, 400 pages. American advance northwest of Verdun. The ruined church on the crest of the captured height of Montfaucon. This was the condition of the site after the Americans finally drove the Germans out from it. France, 1918. National Archives A slog, but not without rewards: that’s what best describes this account of Americans who opposed U.S. participation in the European War of 1914–1918. While Michael Kazin, a historian of progressive bent who teaches at Georgetown University, tells an important story, his book suffers from a want of zip. The narrative meanders. The prose lacks sparkle. Still, for the patient reader, War Against War offers much to reflect upon. Kazin’s subject is what he calls “the largest, most diverse, and most sophisticated peace coalition” to that point in all U.S. history. Not until the Vietnam War a half-century later would there be an antiwar movement “as large, as influential, and as tactically adroit.” Perhaps so, but the American peace coalition that flourished a century ago failed abysmally. It succeeded neither in keeping the country out of the war nor in insulating the home front from war’s corrosive effects once the U.S. eventually intervened. In what was not even remotely a contest of equals, the forces favoring war proved overwhelming. An approach to “neutrality” that mortgaged American prosperity to Anglo-French victory fostered decidedly unneutral attitudes on Wall Street and in Washington. Ultimately, however, arguments for staying out of war fell prey to vast ideological pretensions. As the stalemate on the Western Front dragged on, more and more Americans succumbed to the conviction that Providence was summoning the United States to save Civilization itself. Foremost among those Americans was President Woodrow Wilson. “I wish the United States had stayed out of the Great War,” Kazin writes. I share the sentiment. From the outset, that conflict was a mindless exercise in mutual self-immolation. The belated U.S. entry into the war did nothing to redeem it. Even if justified by the supposed imperative of destroying German militarism, the eventual Allied victory to which the United States contributed at the cost of 116,000 American dead had the opposite effect. In short order, German militarism came storming back stronger than ever. Meanwhile, other deadly viruses unleashed by the bloodletting of 1914–1918 were wreaking havoc. Even today, the consequences haunt us. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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