Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sionism as part of an inevitable struggle for space undertaken by every
nation; in this reading, encircled Germany was morally obligated to break
through the ring of hostile neighbors if it was to survive. (It was, of course,
precisely this marriage of nostalgia for the ancient German tribes with a
modernist sense that the future was open and contingent that ultimately
fueled the rise of the Nazi furor teutonicus .) As hostilities mounted, Kern
(1983) notes that the traditional diplomacy proved to be hopelessly inadequate
to cope with the accelerated rhythms of late modernity (e.g., communications
via telegraphy).
World War I, history's
fi
first modern war and its
fi
first all-consuming indus-
trial con
ict, was characterized by slaughter so enormous and horrendous
that it permanently transformed the face of Europe, and indeed, much of the
rest of the world. The sheer scale of the con
fl
fl
ict brought violence to a new
level of extremes of ruthless e
ciency. The numbers of deaths, including
battles such as Verdun and Ypres, as well as the profound and prolonged
misery of the trenches, were elevated to new levels of mechanical e
ciency
by new innovations such as the tank, airplane, submarine, zeppelin raids,
fl
age, and asphyxiating mustard and phosgene gas. The
decisive weapon of WWI, the machine gun, caused roughly 80 percent of
the casualties. The introduction of the tank in 1916 by the British, one of the
few innovations deployed by the Allies, markedly increased the speed and
maneuverability of forces over land. Mechanized war escalated casualties to
unprecedented levels: roughly 10 million died in that con
ame thrower, camou
fl
fl
agration. Germany
lost one million men in the
fi
rst
fi
five months alone, and on the
fi
first day of the
Battle of the Somme, the British su
ered 60,000 casualties, of which 21,000
were fatalities. The distinction between soldiers and civilians was rejected in
the face of total war. Vast numbers of soldiers came home shell-shocked.
Aviation also
ff
flying machines,
and played a key role in changing military conceptions of geography. As
Virilio (1986) has long argued, warfare was often a prime motor of time-
space compression. The airplane allowed war to be conducted at a distance, a
trend later greatly accelerated by supersonic bombers and remotely controlled
missiles. Airplanes destroyed the strategic signi
fl
flourished during WWI, the
fi
rst war to use
fl
fi
cance of
fi
fixed forti
fi
cations
and made the con
fluid and dynamic. Their utility against the
Germans, however, was limited, as most strategic British bombing strikes
were con
fl
ict much more
fl
ned to cities in France or the states in Belgium, the Netherlands,
and Luxembourg under German control.
Like the contours of space, the war also altered the shape of time. Most
shocking and traumatizing was the chaos and horror at the war front, where
“The normal bourgeois approach to time and the clock was reversed. As dark-
ness fell, armies of troglodytes emerged from their holes” (Eksteins 1989:150).
At home, the unexpectedly long duration of the war forced rationing and
improvements in e
fi
ciency. Daylight savings time, adopted during World
War I, aimed to conserve fuel by leaving more sunlight during long summer
evenings (Downing 2006; Prerau 2006). The notion actually has a long history;
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