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[Read about business and politics in war in the context of World War One.]
Many argue that one moral problem with many modern wars is that they are fought by governments who are encouraged by the powerful companies who make the weapons. Arguably, however, there have always been those who have a vested financial or personal interest in waging war:-
In the novel Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett, a colleague says:
I wish to God this war had bloomed in the eighteenth century. If I'd had my present job when Charlie Fox first entered Parliament, I should be making a million a year out of it.
Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 33.
The only real war was in Whitehall; the war in Flanders and France was merely a game, a sort of bloody football.
Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 25.
Why, if the British Government were to suppress a wealthy London Tory military paper, the affair would cause more stir than a hundred thousand dead on a battle-field--throughout the entire world! Everyone would say you were dithering with fright; it would be worth an army-corps to Germany.
Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 13.
At the same time there surged into his head crowds of new ideas for vitalising and controlling his Ministry. Power! Power! He was a god.
Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 14.
As is well known, the world wars had a marked effect on the society of the Home Front. However, as these extracts ironically point out, the effects may have been felt less on those with responsibility for the strategy of the war:-
At any rate in the street you knew by a hundred signs that the country was at war. The contents-bills of the papers-printed, because of the paper-famine, on old sheets of the papers themselves, just as in former days at Eccles--proved that. Whereas within the self-absorbed Ministry--except for an occasional uniform--there was no symptom of war; all was administration, conferences, minutes, literary composition. In three hours and a half he had scarcely heard a mention of the war.
Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 27.
The war habit of closing early suited him very well...
Riceyman steps by Arnold Bennett. Part 1, Chapter 4.
It was perhaps this sense of double-standards that led Florence L. Barclay to evoke a return to a (perhaps unrealistic) vision of the honourable knight in her 1917 work; here she portrays a soldier who is affected by politicking behind his back:-
A Knight arrived in this city, rather more than a month ago; a very noble Knight, splendid to look upon; one of our bravest Crusaders. He arrived here in sore anguish of heart. His betrothed had been taken from him during his absence from England, waging war against the Turks in Palestine--taken from him by a most dastardly and heartless plot.
The white ladies of Worcester by Florence L. Barclay. Chapter 19.
Ironically again, a war victory can produce a result contradictory to why the war was fought in the first place. In Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett, we read:
Why had Britain fought and won the war if the sequel was to be the abolition of natural liberties which obtained in Britain before the said war, and which still obtained throughout the Continent? Etc., etc. It was laughable. But it was also ruinous, humiliating and intolerable.
Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 46.
[Read about business and politics in war in the context of World War One.]
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21 August 2004
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