1914—The Year That Shocked the World
“The Great War of 1914-18 lies like a band of scorched earth dividing that time from ours. In wiping out so many lives . . . , in destroying beliefs, changing ideas, and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion, it created a physical as well as psychological gulf between two epochs.”—From The Proud Tower—A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890–1914, by Barbara Tuchman.
“It is almost—but not quite yet—part of history, for many thousands of people who were young at the beginning of this momentous twentieth century are still alive.”—From the book 1914, by Lyn MacDonald, published in 1987.
WHY be interested in the year 1914? ‘It is the future that concerns me,’ you may say, ‘not the past.’ With problems such as the global pollution, the breakdown of family life, the increase in crime, mental sickness, and unemployment, man’s future may look bleak. Many who have examined the significance of 1914, however, found a basis for hope in a better future.
For decades The Watchtower has explained that in 1914 mankind experienced what is called “a beginning of pangs of distress.” That expression forms part of Jesus Christ’s great prophecy about events that would precede the end of man’s wicked system.—Matthew 24:7, 8.
Today, a small percentage of mankind can still recall the dramatic events of 1914. Will that elderly generation pass away before God saves the earth from ruin? Not according to Bible prophecy. “When you see all these things,” Jesus promised, “know that he is near at the doors. Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.”—Matthew 24:33, 34.
To appreciate why the year 1914 has such historical significance, consider the world situation up until the middle of 1914. Before that time, monarchs such as Czar Nicholas of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary wielded great power. Each of these men could mobilize over four million fighting men and send them off to battle. But their forefathers had signed what was called the Holy Alliance, proclaiming that God had delegated them to govern different parts of one great “Christian nation.”
According to The Encyclopædia Britannica, this document “powerfully affected the course of European diplomacy during the 19th century.” It was used to oppose democratic movements and to favor the so-called divine right of kings. “We Christian Kings,” Kaiser Wilhelm wrote to Czar Nicholas, “have one holy duty, imposed on us by Heaven, that is to uphold the principle of [the divine right of kings].” Did this mean that Europe’s kings were somehow connected with the Kingdom of God? (Compare 1 Corinthians 4:8.) And what about the churches that supported those kings? Was their profession of Christianity genuine? The answer to these questions became clear in the years immediately following 1914.
Suddenly, in August
“The spring and summer of 1914 were marked in Europe by an exceptional tranquillity,” wrote British statesman Winston Churchill. People were generally optimistic about the future. “The world of 1914 was full of hope and promise,” said Louis Snyder in his book World War I.
True, for many years there had been intense rivalry between Germany and Britain. Nevertheless, as historian G. P. Gooch explains in his book Under Six Reigns: “A European conflict appeared less likely in 1914 than in 1911, 1912 or 1913 . . . The relations of the two governments were better than they had been for years.” According to Winston Churchill, a member of Britain’s 1914 cabinet: “Germany seemed with us, to be set on peace.”
However, with the assassination at Sarajevo of the crown prince of the Empire of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, a dark cloud appeared on the horizon. A month later, Emperor Franz Josef declared war on Serbia and then ordered his troops to invade that kingdom. In the meantime, on the night of August 3, 1914, by order of Kaiser Wilhelm, a large German army suddenly invaded the kingdom of Belgium and fought its way toward France. The next day Britain declared war on Germany. As for Czar Nicholas, he had ordered the mobilization of the massive Russian army for war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Holy Alliance had failed to stop Europe’s kings from plunging the continent into a bloodbath of mutual slaughter. But the big shocks were yet to come.
Over by Christmas?
The outbreak of war did not dampen people’s optimism. Many believed that it would produce a better world, and huge crowds gathered throughout Europe to express their support for it. “No one in 1914,” writes A. J. P. Taylor in his book The Struggle for Mastery in Europe—1848–1918, “took the dangers of war seriously except on a purely military plane. . . . None expected a social catastrophe.” Instead, many prophesied that it would be over in a few months.
Nevertheless, long before Europeans could celebrate their 1914 Christmas, a bloody stalemate had developed along a line of trenches stretching over 450 miles [700 km] from Switzerland in the south to the Belgian coast in the north. This was called the Western Front, and German author Herbert Sulzbach mentioned it in an entry in his diary made on the last day of 1914. The entry reads: “This terrible war goes on and on, and whereas you thought at the start that it would be over in a few weeks, there is now no end in sight.” Meanwhile, in other parts of Europe, bloody battles raged between the troops of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Serbia. The conflict soon spread beyond Europe, and battles were fought on the oceans and in Africa, the Middle East, and the islands of the Pacific.
Four years later Europe was devastated. Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary each lost between one and two million soldiers. Russia had even lost its monarchy in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. What a shock for Europe’s kings and their clergy supporters! Modern historians still express surprise. In his book Royal Sunset, Gordon Brook-Shepherd asks: “How was it that rulers, mostly related by blood or marriage and all dedicated to the preservation of kingship, allowed themselves to slip into a fratricidal bloodbath which wiped several of them out of existence and left all the survivors weakened?”
The republic of France also lost over a million soldiers, and the British Empire, whose monarchy had already been weakened long before the war, lost over 900,000. In all, more than 9 million soldiers died, and a further 21 million were wounded. Concerning noncombatant losses, The World Book Encyclopedia states: “No one knows how many civilians died of disease, starvation, and other war-related causes. Some historians believe that as many civilians died as soldiers.” The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 reaped another 21,000,000 lives around the earth.
Radical Change
The world was never the same after the Great War, as it was then called. Since so many churches of Christendom had enthusiastically participated in it, many disillusioned survivors turned their back on religion in favor of atheism. Others turned to the pursuit of material riches and pleasures. According to Professor Modris Eksteins in his book Rites of Spring, the 1920’s “witnessed a hedonism and narcissism of remarkable proportions.”
“The war,” explains Professor Eksteins, “assaulted moral standards.” Men on both sides had been taught by religious, military, and political leaders to view mass killing as morally good. This, admits Eksteins, “was merely the crudest of assaults on a moral order that claimed to be rooted in a Judaeo-Christian ethic.” “On the Western Front,” he adds, “brothels were soon regular appurtenances of base camps . . . On the home front morality loosened its corsets and belts too. Prostitution increased strikingly.”
Indeed, 1914 changed much. It had not produced a better world, and the war did not turn out to be “the war to end all wars,” as many people had hoped. Instead, as historian Barbara Tuchman observes: “Illusions and enthusiasms possible up to 1914 slowly sank beneath a sea of massive disillusionment.”
However, some who witnessed the 1914 tragedy were not surprised by the events of that year. In fact, before the war broke out, they had been expecting “an awful time of trouble.” Who were they? And what did they know that others did not know?
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British Optimism in 1914
“For close on a century no enemy had appeared in the seas around our island. . . . There was difficulty even in envisaging the possibility of a threat to these peaceful shores. . . . Never had London appeared gayer and more prosperous. Never had there been so much that was worth doing, and seeing, and hearing. Neither the old nor the young had any suspicion that what they were witnessing, during that incomparable season of 1914, was, in fact, the end of an era.”—Before the Lamps Went Out, by Geoffrey Marcus.