JUNE 17, 2009
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About 400,000 people, many of them children, annually tour the battlegrounds of Ypres, near the French border in Western Belgium, the scene of some of history's most savage combat. Millions of troops fought here during World War I; more than 600,000 of them died. Sightseers can view the numerous monuments extolling the bravery of the dead or visit the museum named for John McCrae's haunting threnody, "In Flanders Fields." And now, they can see something else, something unusual for a battlefield turned tourist destination--a memorial not to those who fought, but, instead, to those who didn't.
The new monument comprises a single pole, reminiscent of those to which convicted deserters were tied and shot, set in a courtyard outside the cells in which the condemned awaited execution. Roughly 1,000 men on both sides met that fate during the war, killed not for their beliefs--very few were conscientious objectors--but for shirking the burdens of national defense.
In earlier times, such a monument would undoubtedly have sparked outrage from veterans groups. But the Great War's survivors have nearly all died off, and European governments have embraced the memorial. The deserters, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told an Armistice Day ceremony last fall, according to The New York Times, "were not dishonored, nor were they cowards," but, rather, had been driven "to the extreme limits of their strength." The British government has gone even further than the Belgians, erecting its own monument to those who were shot and pardoning them posthumously.
What should we make of this practice of immortalizing deserters? Morally speaking, it is a complicated matter. World War I was in many respects a dubious enterprise, and those who desert from unjust wars might correctly be regarded with sympathy. The issue grows murkier, however, when an admiration for deserters from particular wars bleeds into an admiration for desertion as a general practice. There is reason to worry that this is precisely what is happening--to fear that the monuments in Belgium and Britain are symptoms of European attitudes toward not just World War I soldiers but toward all soldiers, even those who fight in just causes. And, if that is true, one might well ask: Can a society that valorizes its deserters long survive?
Questions about the Great War's greatness emerged almost as soon as the war was over. They surfaced first in the agonized poems of Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the armistice, and also in the writings of veterans Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Erich Maria Remarque. Christopher Nevinson and Otto Dix later exposed thewar's horrors on canvas, and Jean Renoir, Abel Gance, and Raymond Bernard portrayed all its senselessness in film. But only with the Second World War was the central moral claim attached to the first--that it would be a "war to end all wars"--finally discredited. Thereafter, World War I in European memory became the unjust war par excellence, a metaphor for the irrationality of all modern conflict, if not of modernity itself--"the ultimate origin of the insane contemporary scene," in historian Paul Fussell's description, "where the irony and the absurdity began."
Escaping such madness could hardly be deemed cowardice. On the contrary, it might seem preeminently sober, even heroic. That is the premise of French author Sebastien Japrisot's exhilarating 1991 novel, A Very Long Engagement, about five soldiers condemned to death for deliberately wounding themselves in order to escape the trenches, and about one woman's search for their fate. Those who fought were boorish, in Japrisot's telling, even savage, while those who fled were human. His bookwon the Prix Interallie, one of France's highest literary honors, and was later adapted into a critically celebrated film.
The process of de-glorifying World War I and sanctifying its deserters was not restricted to Europe, however. In the United States, as well, the war had scarcely concluded when artists began stripping away its patina. Two of Hollywood's earliest blockbusters--King Vidor's Big Parade (1925) and Raoul Walsh's What Price Glory? (1926)--deflated the notion of heroism in the trenches. Similar themes animated A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway's 1929 tragedy, in which the American protagonist shoots one deserter, is nearly executed--unjustly--himself, and then flees the war to Switzerland. As in Europe, World War II served to complete the debunking of its predecessor. American audiences had no difficulty identifying the heroes of Stanley Kubrick's 1957 classic Paths of Glory, about four poilus arbitrarily accused of cowardice and shot to cover up the French army's shortcomings. By the 1960s and early 1970s, movies set in World War I, such as Oh, What a Lovely War and Johnny Got His Gun, were being mustered by the antiwar movement to protest the U.S. entanglement in Vietnam.
That conflict, much like the Great War in Europe, prompted many Americans to question generationally held taboos about deserters. Between 1966 and 1973, the Pentagon registered 500,000 cases of desertion, and popular culture in the United States was quick to lionize those who slipped over the Canadian border or who, like Tim O'Brien's spooked grunts in Going After Cacciato, simply walked away from the jungle. In time, the dispensation for deserters from World War I and Vietnam would be extended to those who fled from other conflicts widely perceived as immoral. W.P. Inman, protagonist of Charles Frazier's novel Cold Mountain, is heroic because he runs away from the Confederacy; Sgt. Brandon King, the focus of Kimberly Peirce's 2008 film Stop-Loss, is laudable because he refuses to return to Iraq.
Still, it is difficult to imagine any but the most dovish Americans idolizing a soldier who bolted from the fight to liberate African American slaves--Union soldiers in fact deserted at higher rates than Confederates--or the 6 percent of GIs who deserted in 1944.Stephen Crane's hero, Henry Fleming, abandons the Union Army but later rallies and earns his red badge of courage, as does James Jones's Private Witt, who goes awol in the1962 novel The Thin Red Line, only to rejoin his unit and die on Guadalcanal. There are exceptions to this pattern--the movie Patton (1970) condemned the punishment of soldiers emotionally unsuited for combat during World War II, as did The Execution of Private Slovik(1974)--but Americans have generally seemed inclined to draw a distinction between desertion from unjust wars and desertion from just causes.
Is a similar understanding exhibited by Europeans? In contrast to the United States, fortunate to have fought most of its wars overseas, Europe was host to two twentieth-century apocalypses that left it depopulated and permanently traumatized. Torn between ravaging communist and fascist tides, many on the continent came to see war as an inherently no-win, illegitimate endeavor. Consequently, desertion could be conceived as logical, even honorable--and not only from the killing fields of Ypres.
The revulsion to any war, irrespective of its merits, is especially evident today among the European left. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero, for example, appointed a self-professed pacifist to head his defense ministry. Meanwhile, German leftist leader Oskar Lafontaine, a former minister of finance, recently accused his nation's army of being "indirectly involved in terrorist actions" for conducting reconnaissance flights in Afghanistan.
Such extreme positions do not characterize the policies of most European governments, several of which are centrist or even right-leaning. But some conservative European politicians are also reluctant to employ military means-- even in the service of obviously just efforts, such as keeping peace in the Middle East or standing up to the Taliban. Though empowered by the U.N. Security Council in 2006 to forcibly interdict Hezbollah from rearming and reestablishing its presence close to the Israeli border, the Italian, French, and German forces in Southern Lebanon have ignored their mandate and permitted Hezbollah to increase its stockpile of missiles. That same year, European Union observers fled their posts at a Gaza border crossing rather than confront Palestinian violence. And, in Afghanistan, European nato members have consistently resisted U.S. requests for additional troops while restricting the scope of their soldiers' operations. Deployed in relatively quiet sectors, German troops can only patrol from inside armored vehicles and cannot leave their bases at night.
For some Europeans, the aversion to military force is insufficient; they want Americans to lay down their arms as well. The Wall Street Journal recently profiled U.S. Army Specialist Andre Shepherd, a deserter living in Germany. Shepherd, with assistance from German peace activists, is seeking to stay in the country under an EU directive offering asylum to soldiers who refuse to fight in illegal wars. The German government has been paying for Shepherd's room and board. "It's just amazing here," he told the Journal.
The connection between courage and survival has been acknowledged since earliest antiquity, along with the dangers posed by desertion. "When soldiers break and run," warned the Iliad's Agamemnon, "goodbye glory, goodbye all defenses." Beowulf promised an "unpleasant fate, by any measuring of it" to those who abandoned the field, and Buddha, renowned for his placidness, forbade soldiers from deserting, even to become monks. Few leaders understood the problem better than George Washington, who, during the horrendous winter of 1777, feared that "our new Army will scarcely be raised before it will dwindle and waste away" due to unchecked desertion.
Washington stemmed this hemorrhaging by punishing the slackers among his troops, and Americans have never extolled them. Yet the question remains whether Europe's eagerness to immortalize deserters will reverberate elsewhere. It sounds far-fetched, but it is impossible not to wonder: Will visitors to Valley Forge someday see a single pole?
Michael B. Oren, author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, has been nominated to serve as Israel's ambassador to the United States. Simone Gold contributed to the research of this article.
By Michael B. Oren
22 comments
I share Michael B. Oren's concern about Western Europe's increasing embrace of pacifism. Societies that will not defend themselves face destruction, unless (like W. Europe and Canada in the Cold War period) they are protected by a benevolent non-pacifist power. Two specific points (1) Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957)-- In an interview, star Kirk Douglas expressed bafflement at the French government's hostility to the film: it wasn't specifically anti-French. But Charles De Gaulle's France was acutely conscious of the pacifist spirit that sapped France in the 1930s, leading to the utter shame of 1940. I admire them for resolving "Never again!" But historical lessons are often buried with those who learned them. (2) The film Patton and the slapping incident-- George Patton was condemned not for harsh treatment of deserters, but rather for failing to allow for the special circumstances of combat fatique (aka "shell shock"), a temporary failing by those who actually had done their part. In contrast, Eisenhower enjoyed broad support for allowing the execution of calculating shirker Edward D. Slovik. 1980s US military opinion rejected the views of both Patton and his critics: "combat fatigue" is a legitimate failing in honorable soldiers, but its best remedy is therapy near the front line, not a ticket to some hospital far to the rear. Soldiers who keep their ties to their unit and return to support their buddies have the best prospects of long-term recovery.
- Hugo S. Cunningham
June 1, 2009 at 7:21pm
I think Oren confuses two unrelated issues regarding military discipline. Force has long been used to maintain fighting discipline within military units. The adoption of alternative modes of discipline in recent decades is driven by empirical evidence. Military units that rely on force to maintain discipline seem to be less effective in many types of modern conflicts. There are notable exceptions. The public revulsion against violent military discipline, especially pronounced in Europe, is a social phenomena arising from the industry of modern warfare where citizens and state have a relationship governed by supply and demand as much as patriotism and survival. Many people in Europe and elsewhere now reject the theatrics of publicly administered military discipline as justification for supporting a war effort. They simply demand more as citizens for supplying a military with limited national resources. The rejection of pulp militarism has little bearing on whether Europeans or anyone else can muster the will to fight some future Thermopylae.
- Brian Loynd
June 2, 2009 at 10:41am
There have to be some situations where desertions from a military force are justified, even from Oren's point of view. What about say a member of a Waffen SS extermination unit who deserts due to some sort of moral epiphany? Ok it probably never happened, but it is always instructive to explore the extreme implications of a simplistic opinion. There are situations where desertions are justified, everyone draws the line somewhere, but that line is different for everyone. I'm sure Oren himself could find historical cases where a desertion was justified. What about the Nuremburg trials, where "we were only obeying orders" was not accepted as an excuse. Should the military men among the accused have deserted? Moral relativism ha ha ha!!!
- Stephen Nally
June 6, 2009 at 1:57pm
Actually, the soldier who was slapped, Pvt. Charles H. Kuhl, was diagnosed with malaria and chronic dysentery, conditions which justified being withdrawn to the rear if not a medical discharge. Many of the French generals were so incompetent and uncaring of their men that any criminal charges should have been brought against them. As it was, there were large scale mutinies in 1917 within the French Army.
- whimsy
June 12, 2009 at 4:12pm
(I apologize if my comments show up twice) Actually, the soldier who was slapped, Pvt. Charles H. Kuhl, was diagnosed with malaria and chronic dysentery, either of which would have him withdrawn to the rear.
- whimsy
June 12, 2009 at 5:36pm
In the annals of windy discursions, "Fleeing Moment" takes the cake. America was populated by draft dodgers and deserters. They make mighty good immigrants. As for this pontification: "And, if that is true, one might well ask: Can a society that valorizes its deserters long survive?" Probably about as long as one that does not. Dan
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June 19, 2009 at 6:55am
Let me rephrase the question: Can a society that valorizes dissent long survive? Well, so far so good. Dan
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June 19, 2009 at 7:05am
One could make the claim that 'If everyone deserted there would be no war', but this is hopelessly naive, on par with people who claim that we would be safer if everyone was armed. However, I strongly disagree with the author's assertion that a respect for desertion will lead to the destruction of a society, especially when we are talking about a continent-wide movement. I can see the danger of Israel, or any other small, militarily-threatened country, becoming excessively pacifistic; namely that they would be conquered, but I find it ridiculous to suggest that Europe as a whole could suffer this fate. China, for most of its history, was isolationist and therefore free of jingoistic sentiment, but it wasn't over-run until powers came along with vastly superior technology. I don't see this as a likely outcome for Europe any time soon.
- Michael W.
June 19, 2009 at 8:15am
Pacifism and anti-colonial sentiments are exactly what Europe needs, and needed a hundred years ago. But they must be accompanied by an essential corollary: a committment to the restriction of non-white immigration.
- White Cornerback
June 19, 2009 at 10:06am
This article is nothing but a wind-up for the last few paragraphs, where Oren accuses European NATO members of 'desertion' in the Middle East and Afghanistan. What's the point of the rest of it... that soldiers (European and American) tend to not show up for campaigns that are seen as immoral, pointless, or commanded incompetently? Big surprise there. The EU _obsevers_ at the Rafah Crossing had no mandate to intervene in fighting between Palestinian factions, nor were they equipped to do so. The EU force in southern Lebanon doesn't seem to have done significantly worse in controlling Hezbollah than did Israel when they occupied the region. And the reluctance of European NATO members to contribute in Afghanistan may have a lot to do with the perception that that is now an American war, fought to American goals, with American command and American methods. (BTW, the 'effete, pacifistic' French described by other posters suffered 120,000 dead during the campaign that led to the fall of France at the beginning of WW2 - out of a population of 41 million. Those casualty rates might discourage American apptite for war as well.)
- Scott M
June 19, 2009 at 10:52am
I think this was one of Oren's weaker pieces for TNR. Is it really that counter-intuitive that Europeans refuse to celebrate the military glories of World War I, and instead recognize the massive tragedy of that conflict and those soldiers who were caught up in it? After all, the same Europeans who choose to honor their countries' World War I deserters also continue to eulogize the bravery and sacrifice of their compatriots who fought in World War II (or, in the German case, resisted the Nazis). If Oren detected a mass movement to honor French, British or American deserters of World War II, then we might have a moral quandary. Since he didn't, his broader point is as suspect as his gratuitous swipe at future Americans executed for desertion at Valley Forge.
- wildboy
June 19, 2009 at 12:03pm
There are 55,000+ names on a black wall where we “honor” our war dead Too many young kids died too far away from home for far too little. Our government drafted them off of the streets (no deferrments for them) gave them three or four months training and dropped them far from home to “kill commies”. The anti-war movement, both peaceful and not, was called “unAmerican” by the likes of Nixon and Agnew, who vowed to “bring the troops home with honor”. When pols speak those words it usually means someone else’s kid will have to die for an empty slogan. My bedroom set is marked “Made in Vietnam” I guess a “commie” Vietnam was not the threat to American it was portrayed to be. Now its just another manufacturing center and market for Coca-cola. The names on that black wall, - those PEOPLE - died for nothing as did the kids at Kent State and the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. If I had a kid who faced that war I would have sent him off to Canada to avoid it all - just like Bush, Cheney and Clinton avoided it all.
- toritto
June 19, 2009 at 12:15pm
The US has had its share of deserters. Ample numbers of 'em in the Civil War. But at least we don't try to make heros out of them. Asking a different question: if Europe is trying to commit cultural suicide, why should anyone else care?
- hrlngrv
June 19, 2009 at 1:19pm
There seems to be a general confusion in Oren's article and some of the reactions. For Europe as a continent to embrace a new foreign policy and to assert a more aggressive behavior one would need to generate a unity presently impossible. As such Oren taps into a common stereotype of Europe and a misunderstanding of Europe's most recent history. Indeed, former US Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld explicitly opposed a more expanded European Defense Policy. What Oren wants is for Europe to be obedient towards certain interests elsewhere. To further enhance the myth of Europeans as cowards and shirkers serves him well. Other than that it is just bad history.
- Jack Clumpkens
June 19, 2009 at 2:59pm
I wonder how long it will be before President Obama scolds those commited to protecting our country, and then erects a memorial to desertion next to the Washington Monument. Or maybe he could just erect one on the front lawn of the White House. Cindy Sheehan and Bill Ayers will dedicate the memorial.
- Chris Richards
June 19, 2009 at 4:22pm
Anyone who memorializes a deserter is a coward and finds justification for their selfishness in the company of other morally decayed individuals. "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" -- John Stuart Mill
- Mick McCoy
June 19, 2009 at 4:49pm
There's something rather alarmist and sensationalist about Mr. Oren's article and some of the responses to it. If a soldier decides they are no longer mentally or physically equipped to handle combat or no longer believe in its moral correctness, then is it really immoral to desert? To me, it's immoral in the sense that a hole is left where the soldier was that needs to be filled logistically. But as a concept, is it really as outrageous and is the European attitude toward it really worth such hand-wringing? We've been free of European dominion for over two-hundred years, and we're still obsessed with what our European brethren do differently than we do? A single pole in Belgium will not send the earth spinning off its axis; it will not lessen the call to arms for a future morally correct war; it will not impact American desertion rates. European sensibilities impact the Europeans who share them. All that said, I'm curious. Anyone posting here think it's immoral to desert a company you're working for if they're having financial problems that could be corrected by your staying with them? Is that any more or less moral than deserting an army in combat? Could it not be argued that such a departure could weaken the economy and lead to far greater mayhem than a single army desertion?
- shaw-man
June 19, 2009 at 5:27pm
@hrlngrv: tell that to Ernest Hemingway. One of his best novels was about a WWI deserter.
- City of Evil
June 19, 2009 at 6:12pm
Disturbing article and outright celebration of desertion from duty is thankfully still rare in the US. It's one thing to admit that WWI discipline, especially British discipline, was excessive. It's another to posthumously pardon and even glorify those who deserted. As to why we should care if Europe is intent on committing suicide...would you care if your mother did? If nothing else, I might be afraid that it would run in the family.
- fred gill
June 19, 2009 at 6:35pm
Why is the morality so difficult? Those who fight wars are killers, those who refuse to fight wars are not killers.
- Nathan McKnight
June 19, 2009 at 7:30pm
What a lamentable and transparent manipulation of history. Oren basically has a beef about Europe not being sufficiently supportive of American and Israeli objectives and adventures in the Middle East, and reaches for World War I as a cudgel to make that point. It's a little dubious morally to invoke Europe's ghastly experience of militant nationalism and total war in the twentieth century in such a crude and self-serving way. Oren is more interested in being a soldier---which he of course is---than a historian.
- pryoung
June 20, 2009 at 7:11am
I live in Belgium and this item is a bit more complicated than suggested by the author. First of all, deserters aren't seen as heroes in Europe. Second, millions died (soldiers) and tens of millions suffered. The Great War makes victims up to this day. Every single day unexploded shells, some are poison gas, come to the surface (by nature or farming) and have to be cleared by specialized teams (imagine the stability after a century). Shell shock wasn't know very well before WW1 so there wasn't a treatment at a the time. If one suffered from shell shock or accidentally got hurt just before battle you were considered a coward and 'deserved' a bullet. Even after spending 3 years at the front and fighting lots of battles. Maybe the author could visit the old continent and pay a visit some of the numerous memorials where soldiers are praised instead of talking about this single monument.
- tuizentfloot
June 20, 2009 at 8:06pm