[The original title was "People Have Unrealistic Trust in Governments". That doesn't even come close to covering it IMO . . . SC]

By Paul Craig Roberts - September 9, 2025

The Battle of the Somme lasted for 141 days from July 1, 1916 until November 18, 1916. The battle consisted of a French and English offensive against the German lines.

The battle began with a week-long artillery barrage that was supposed to destroy the barbed wire and German trenches, but in fact turned the land into craters and a muddy morass across which troops could not advance in order. The German machine guns cut down the British and French troops sent to certain death by totally incompetent and stupid generals. The first day of the 141 day exercise in total stupidity the British suffered 60,000 casualties. In many respects, these were the flower of England, the leaders who would not be present when England again confronted conflict.

A.J.P. Taylor reports that by the end of the 141 day massacre, the British had nothing to show but 420,000 casualties. The French had nothing to show but 200,000 casualties. The Germans had 450,000 casualties and intact lines. That comes to 1,070,000 casualties. According to American Battlefield Trust, the total casualties both sides of four years of Washington’s most bloody war–Lincoln’s invasion of the Confederate States of America– was 620,000.

Taylor states, “Strategically, the battle of the Somme was an unredeemed defeat” for England and France. . . . Idealism perished on the Somme.”

The troops saw the stupidity of the war long before the generals and politicians. A French general, Nivelle, self-promoted himself to miracle worker who could win the war. He was allowed his offensive against the Germans on the Aisne. To distract the Germans from Nivelle’s preparations, the British opened an offensive known as the battle of Arras. The result was 150,000 British casualties. Nivelle’s offensive exhausted the spirit of the French Army. Fifty-four divisions refused to obey orders. One hundred thousand French soldiers were court martialled. Many thousands deserted.

In 1917 the dumb shit British generals had still learned nothing. General Haig sold the moronic politicians on another offensive at Yypres. The stupid general’s barrage created a morass of impassible mud. Men sank to their waste in the mud. The horseback calvary charge could not occur. The British lost 300,000 lives.

These losses of life are nothing compared to the loss of lives toward which the politicians of our time are leading us. One nuclear missile can kill millions of people.

Compared to the Somme’s casualty list of over one million, the so-called American civil war over its four years produced not much more than half of the figure for one World War I battle. Gettysburg produced 51,116 casualties. The Seven Days produced 34,463 casualties, Chickamauga delivered 34,694 casualties, Chancellorsville 29,609 and Antietam 22,726, according to the US National Park Service.

When I referred in my columns to A. J. P. Taylors histories of WW I and WW II as masterful, I did not say that he was entirely correct. He is masterful in showing the total failure of peace negotiations by all involved. Each participant was constrained by forces that prevented them from making the best decisions. As a result, blunder was piled upon blunder until war was the result. We face a similar situation today.

In his history of the First World War even such an acerbic historian as Taylor, who has no illusions, buys into the war propaganda that Germany started the war. This shows the power of war propaganda over a first class historian.

American Harry Elmer Barnes, the best historian of World War I, The Genesis of the World War (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), whose conclusions were verified in our times by Christopher Clark of Cambridge University in his book, The Sleepwalkers, showed that World War I was the product of a conspiracy between President Poincare of France and two of the Russian Tzar’s ministers. Poincare wanted Alsace-Lorraine, lost to Germany in Napoleon the Third’s defeat by Prussia. The two Russian Tzarist ministers wanted Constantinople for Russian controlled access to the Mediterranean.

There is no mention in Taylor’s history of Poincare’s role or that of the Russian ministers.

Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany was the very last of the war participants to mobilize. The last to mobilize cannot be the originator of the conflict. How Taylor missed this again shows the power of war propaganda. The war-mongering presstitues and two-bit punk court historians do not tell the people that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Tzar Nicholas II of Russia were all related through their shared grandmother, Queen Victoria. They were first cousins. They were unaware of Poincare’s conspiracy with the Russian ministers.

They did not want war over an Austrian Archduke being assassinated by Serbians. The total destruction of Europe was the result.

The Tzar was told by his ministers, whose eyes were on Constantinople, that was too late to stop the mobilization. Poincare pushed the war in France.

When the war ended Germany occupied Belgium, huge areas of France and Russia and was said to be the loser. The Germans confronted with left-wing revolution at home agreed to an armistice that was turned against them in violation of US President Wilson’s promise of no territorial loss, no reparations. The British embargo on food starved the German victors into submission to the Versailles Treaty. Thus was the stage set for World War II.

What we are faced with today is that there won’t be a second war. Until WW II armies fought armies. During WW II war against civilians was initiated by Winston Churchill. At the time it was considered a war crime, and Churchill kept the British bombing attacks on German cities secret from the British people. The American fire bombing of Tokyo was also a war crime and culminated in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today wars are fought against civilians. Israel in Gaza is an example. In present day war plans, nuclear missiles are aimed at the opponent’s civilian cities, not against armies. The aim of nuclear war is to destroy the country and the population of the opponent. It is civilians who are at risk.

Americans need to understand that when generals talk about war today, it is the lives of civilians that are at risk.

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