Re: Warfare as Submission

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J. Piven writes of the soldier's violence in terms of the "pleasure in
domination (often couched in explicitly sexual terms) as documented by Joanna
Bourke (1999)."

The idea that the soldier acts from a position of "domination" is one
of the fundamental delusions surrounding the institution of warfare.

Bourke's research focuses upon the First World War. It is unlikely that
one out of a thousand soldiers in that war ever encountered a soldier of the
opposing side. Most of the fighting was done out of trenches. The majority of
deaths occurred as a result of artillery shells projected from afar that
dropped on or near the soldier and tore him apart. Other deaths occurred when
soldiers got out of trenches and ran into machine gun fire.

The basic posture of the soldier in the First World War was sitting in
a trench-- cold, starving, and frequently accosted by vermin. In her earlier
book, DISMEMBERING THE MALE (1996), Bourke observes that the most important
point to be made about the male body during the Great War is that it was
"intended to be mutilated."

The statistics of World War I read like a science fiction fantasy. The
"final tally" counts 65 million forces mobilized, of which more than 8
million were killed and died, over 21 million wounded and 3 million taken
prisoners and missing--for total casualties of 37 million, 58% of the forces
mobilized.

Bourke gives a flavor of what occurred to millions of men--year after
year--for four years:

"This war promised men the kind of death that removed their stomachs and left
them a mangled heap of human flesh. Scottish Highland kilts were blown up and
putrefying buttocks exposed. Men were roasted alive. Death descended from the
skies and disappeared without being sighted by those who survived. It was
like black magic: bodies continued walking after decapitation; shells burst
and bodies simply vanished. Men's bodies 'shattered': their jaws dropped and
out poured 'so much blood.' Airplane propellers sliced men into pieces.
Bodies lay forever unburied, eaten by the dogs, birds and rats."

So much for the idea that the posture of the soldier is one of
domination. The essence of soldiering revolves around the realization that
one's body might be mutilated and/or destroyed by an artillery shell and/or
bullet. The soldier exists in a state of paranoid anxiety. Occasionally, he
is required to "advance" (not because he feels "aggressive," but because he
is ordered to do so). However, the basic posture of the fighting man (in
World War I and many other Twentieth Century wars) consists of LYING IN A
TRENCH OR FOXHOLE, trying to avoid getting blown apart.

The Germans attacked Verdun in 1917 hoping France would be "bled dry"
of its fighting men. The French action to recapture Fort Douaumont employed
711 guns on a front of just over 3 miles. A notice in the fort today informs
us that 1,000 shells were used for every square meter of the battlefield.

Imagine the pathetic plight of those who were on the battlefield,
confined within a narrow space which glowed like an oven for miles because of
the constant artillery bombing. During the battles, most soldiers barely knew
what was going on, spending most of their time hiding from the incessant
shelling and bombardment of rifles and machine-gun fire rather than actually
fighting.

A French Lieutenant notes that before attacking his men were either
"drunk, howling out patriotic airs, or weeping with emotion or despair." One
had the temerity to remark within earshot of the company commander: "Baa,
baa, I am the sheep on the way to the slaughterhouse."

The stance of the soldier in World War I may best be characterized as
one of abject passivity. Soldiers were expected to obey their officers and do
their duty without shirking--to offer no resistance when they were ordered to
put their bodies onto the battlefield to face mutilation and death. What the
"masculinity" of these soldiers amounted to was a willingness to offer
oneself to one's nation as a sacrificial victim.

Robert Kee called the trenches the "concentration camps of the First
World War." Our foremost historian of war, John Keegan, observes that indeed
there "IS something Treblinka-like about all accounts of the battle of the
Somme (July 1, 1916)." Twenty-five thousand British soldiers were killed on
the first day of the Battle of the Somme (about the same number as a good day
at Auschwitz).

Keegan tells us about the "long lines of young men, shoddily uniformed,
heavily burdened, numbered about their necks, plodding forward across a
featureless landscape to their own extermination inside the barbed wire." The
soldiers went like sheep to the slaughter.

Clayton Robarchek suggests that violence in warfare occurs when it is
"perceived and selected from a field of possible alternatives as a viable
means of achieving goals and objectives." How determined and persistent is
the effort to transform an irrational, monumentally destructive institution
into something that appears to be consciously chosen or adaptive.

Beneath the institution of warfare lies the thrill obtained by the
spectator--the fantasy of national glory that occurs "over here" even as
soldiers are being killed and wounded "over there." Soldiers are promised
that they will be "made into men."

We exploit masculine fantasies of honor, virility and "aggression" in
order better to TRANSFORM THE YOUNG MAN INTO A SOLDIER, OR SACRIFICIAL
VICTIM. Of course, once he arrives on the field of battle, the soldier knows
he has been duped. No amount of aggression or masculinity or virility can
compete with cold steal.

With regards,

Richard Koenigsberg

Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D.
Director, Library of Social Science

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<HTML>      J. Piven writes of the soldier's violence in terms of the "pleasure in domination (often couched in explicitly sexual terms) as documented by Joanna Bourke (1999)." 
 
      The idea that the soldier acts from a position of "domination" is one of the fundamental delusions surrounding the institution of warfare. 
 
      Bourke's research focuses upon the First World War. It is unlikely that one out of a thousand soldiers in that war ever encountered a soldier of the opposing side. Most of the fighting was done out of trenches. The majority of deaths occurred as a result of artillery shells projected from afar that dropped on or near the soldier and tore him apart. Other deaths occurred when soldiers got out of trenches and ran into machine gun fire. 
 
      The basic posture of the soldier in the First World War was sitting in a trench-- cold, starving, and frequently accosted by vermin. In her earlier book, DISMEMBERING THE MALE (1996), Bourke observes that the most important point to be made about the male body during the Great War is that it was "intended to be mutilated." 
 
      The statistics of World War I read like a science fiction fantasy. The "final tally" counts 65 million forces mobilized, of which more than 8 million were killed and died, over 21 million wounded and 3 million taken prisoners and missing--for total casualties of 37 million, 58% of the forces mobilized. 
 
      Bourke gives a flavor of what occurred to millions of men--year after year--for four years: 
 
"This war promised men the kind of death that removed their stomachs and left them a mangled heap of human flesh. Scottish Highland kilts were blown up and putrefying buttocks exposed. Men were roasted alive. Death descended from the skies and disappeared without being sighted by those who survived. It was like black magic: bodies continued walking after decapitation; shells burst and bodies simply vanished. Men's bodies 'shattered': their jaws dropped and out poured 'so much blood.' Airplane propellers sliced men into pieces. Bodies lay forever unburied, eaten by the dogs, birds and rats." 
 
      So much for the idea that the posture of the soldier is one of domination. The essence of soldiering revolves around the realization that one's body might be mutilated and/or destroyed by an artillery shell and/or bullet. The soldier exists in a state of paranoid anxiety. Occasionally, he is required to "advance" (not because he feels "aggressive," but because he is ordered to do so). However, the basic posture of the fighting man (in World War I and many other Twentieth Century wars) consists of LYING IN A TRENCH OR FOXHOLE, trying to avoid getting blown apart. 
 
      The Germans attacked Verdun in 1917 hoping France would be "bled dry" of its fighting men. The French action to recapture Fort Douaumont employed 711 guns on a front of just over 3 miles. A notice in the fort today informs us that 1,000 shells were used for every square meter of the battlefield. 
 
      Imagine the pathetic plight of those who were on the battlefield, confined within a narrow space which glowed like an oven for miles because of the constant artillery bombing. During the battles, most soldiers barely knew what was going on, spending most of their time hiding from the incessant shelling and bombardment of rifles and machine-gun fire rather than actually fighting. 
 
      A French Lieutenant notes that before attacking his men were either "drunk, howling out patriotic airs, or weeping with emotion or despair." One had the temerity to remark within earshot of the company commander: "Baa, baa, I am the sheep on the way to the slaughterhouse." 
      
      The stance of the soldier in World War I may best be characterized as one of abject passivity. Soldiers were expected to obey their officers and do their duty without shirking--to offer no resistance when they were ordered to put their bodies onto the battlefield to face mutilation and death. What the "masculinity" of these soldiers amounted to was a willingness to offer oneself to one's nation as a sacrificial victim. 
      
      Robert Kee called the trenches the "concentration camps of the First World War." Our foremost historian of war, John Keegan, observes that indeed there "IS something Treblinka-like about all accounts of the battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916)." Twenty-five thousand British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (about the same number as a good day at Auschwitz). 
 
      Keegan tells us about the "long lines of young men, shoddily uniformed, heavily burdened, numbered about their necks, plodding forward across a featureless landscape to their own extermination inside the barbed wire." The soldiers went like sheep to the slaughter. 
      
      Clayton Robarchek suggests that violence in warfare occurs when it is "perceived and selected from a field of possible alternatives as a viable means of achieving goals and objectives." How determined and persistent is the effort to transform an irrational, monumentally destructive institution into something that appears to be consciously chosen or adaptive. 
 
      Beneath the institution of warfare lies the thrill obtained by the spectator--the fantasy of national glory that occurs "over here" even as soldiers are being killed and wounded "over there." Soldiers are promised that they will be "made into men." 
 
      We exploit masculine fantasies of honor, virility and "aggression" in order better to TRANSFORM THE YOUNG MAN INTO A SOLDIER, OR SACRIFICIAL VICTIM. Of course, once he arrives on the field of battle, the soldier knows he has been duped. No amount of aggression or masculinity or virility can compete with cold steal.  
 
With regards, 
 
Richard Koenigsberg 
 
Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D. 
Director, Library of Social Science</HTML>

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