CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

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()Il( ilN.\ .'\NI ) MI :\ NINI . 1)1 W\VI
generat ing war tllld explicitly refused alloV Il's [ le Jl1.sihi[dy for till' W;II
Rohrt l.ooker aptly termed this "a depth or political ;tIld moral
hankruptcy ... of such enormity that it wnt far hcyond the crillls of
particular leaders or parties.""
Rosa Luxemburg in early 1915 wrote that "the collapse itself is without
preccdent in the history of all times."" But it is intcresting that sh('
upheld the war (as legitimized by its enemy of autocratic Russia) for
lIterally years untIl public pressure was overwhelmingly against it;
similarly, she was neither in the lead of the rising of November 191X.
which released her from prison, or of the Spartacist revolt. which she
grudgingly backed. The Social Democrats-and the unions-were co­
responsible with the army for managing the war effort in general. Their
police role most importantly was the investiture of all the military
authorities' security measures with a fading aura of "socialism" toward
the prevention of popular uprisings. When Luxemburg wrote in 1916 that
"Thc wor war has decimated the results of 40 years' work of European
SOCialism,
8
It would have been far more accurate to say that war
revealed those results. And as if this role, in bringing on and protecting
the process, werc not cnough, the Social Democrats, as the effective
agency of state power surviving the war, drowned the abortive postwar
rebellions in hlood. Of course, the road to new horrors was widc open.
As Lukacs recorded, "I witnessed the rise of fascism in Germany and I
know very well that very many young people at that time adhered to
fascism out of a sincere indignation at the capitalist system.""
Returning for a moment to the actual arrival of war, there was indeed
a sinccre "indignation" reigning in 1914. Part of this was a nihilist
dissatisfaction by many of ruling class backgrounds. Hannah Arendt
detected, among those most permeated with the ideological outlook and
standards of the bourgeoisie, a common absorption-with "the desire to
sec the ruin of this whole world of fake security, fake culture, and fake
life."'" Frnst J unger expressed an exuberant hope that everything the
elIte knew, the whole culture and texture of life, might go down in
"storms of stcd."91
At the "rink therc was a certain relief, as well, caused by thc decision
.
Itself. War gave a release to the exhausted nerves caused by the tension
of weeks of waiting-followed, commonly, SOon afterward by a confused
despair .".'
In Octohn 1 'i t 4, the diary of Rudolf Bindung, a young calvary officer
already cont"ill"" virtually the whole lesson of the war: "An endles
reproach to 1I1,,"kind ... everything becomes senseless, a lunacy, a horrible
bad joke of I"'opies and their history .. Jt was the end of happy endings
l'I I'I\·lI'N I: ( )j' 1':1 1' 1 1..., .. \1
ill 11k :,-.; ill ;11 1 ,,'H
NeVI'l" hdoelrl,:, ;Jilt! Ilowhere more so than in England, had powcr­
I I 'Illomit', pi )[ilical, administralive, military-achieved such a high degree
"I ('nllsoliti;tlitHl. Yet at this apogee its actual fragility was hecoming
I,.,tpahk, in the tendency, in England and across Europe, toward
""kttered and unpredictable mass opposition. That thcre existed a
Widespread challenge to the cohesion and integrity of nationalist states
I', tlllmistakahlc,
Til crises since 1909 regarding North Africa and the Balkans, above
.011. have been mentioned; "foreign affairs" progressed into a much closer
l''Ir;dlcl to its "domestic" counterpart; with a n; ueh la ger qualitative
diversion finally needed to transcend the mounting SOCial disharmony.
Ihe Agadir, Morocco, crisis of July and August J 911 exemplifies this
,kvdopment. During the seamen and dockers' strike, which was marked
I,y unprecedented violence, especially in the ports of Liverpool and
t.ondon, the arrival of the German gunboat Panther In Agadlf became
llie occasion for growing official furor. When railway workers joined the
strike, troops were called out and fighting ensued. The clash at home was
settled on emergency terms, thanks to the Moroccan issue. Thereafter,
domestic industrial warfare and foreign crisis both seemed to grow with
('qual intensity.
' .
Another area of outbreak in England was a reachon to bourgeOIs
suffocation, as seen in the strange physical fury of the votes for women
cause. The mad fortitude exhibited by feminists in the period of 1910-
1914-including pitched battles with police, and arson of cricket
pavilions, racetrack grandstands, and resort hotels-ce : tainly belied the
utterly tame objective of female suffrage, an obvIOUS reason for
characterizing the movement as an outlet for suppressed energy.
Reverend Joseph Bibby wrote of the suffragettes, "who set fire to our
ancient churches and noble mansions, and who go about our art galleries
with hammers up their sleeves to destroy valuable works of art." Having
felt this explosion and the growing proletarian resolve, Bibby in 1915
. 94
h
welcomed the "chastening" effects of the war on t ese passions.
The prewar Edwardian epoch was an age of violence wherein,
according to Dangerfield, "fires long smoldering in the English spirit
suddenly tlared, so that by the end of 1913, Liberal England was reduced
to ashes."" The memoirs of Emanuel Shinwell also testifY to this
quickening time: "The discontent of the masses spread, the expression of
millions of ordinary people who had gained little or nothmg from the
Victorian age of industrial expansion and grandiose imperialism.""
The seeding time of 1914, in its ferment and fertility. seemed more