|
IMDB rating: 6.80 Plot: During the Vietnam war, a girl is taken from her village by five American soldiers. Four of the soldiers rape her, but the fifth refuses. The young girl is killed. The fifth soldier is determined that justice will be done. The film is more about the realities of war, rather than this single event. |
Available versions:
DivX Version (Normal Quality), iPod/iPhone Version
Actors: Fox Michael J.,Penn Sean,Harvey Don,Reilly John C.,Leguizamo John,King Erik,Gwaltney Jack,Rhames Ving,Martin Dan,Dye Dale,Larson Steve,Linton John,Ruginis Vyto,Shannon Al,Adventure,Biography,Drama,War,
was the ww1 called the great war as it was intended to be the last world war?
also are the casualties for ww2 much higher due to what hitler did and the fact that the fighting was much less contained ie bombings etc
it`s for this reason that i always think of ww2 as the great war as it was so much bigger
Well, you have to use the term The Great War, with the capital letters, since that was the name it was given at the time. Obviously this was well before WWII. It is only a title, and not an indication of any comparison with later wars.
Casualties for WWII were higher because of the vastly increased inclusion of civilian populations. Many areas of conflict in WWII, such as China, Russia, etc were essentially fought as wars of total subjugation, meaning that one major part of warfare was terrorising the general populace in the (mistaken) belief that they would influence their own government to give in if terrorised enough.
This didn’t work for the Germans in WWI, with their record of atrocities against civilians in Belgium and Northern France, and also in their unrestricted warfare in the North Atlantic. These only served to solidify opposition to the Germans, and to drag in the neutral United States and a number of other countries against them.
Therefore, terrorising the general populace into forcing their government to submit was never going to work in WWII. This didn’t stop the Germans and Japanese trying it anyway, but the results were a massive coalition of Allied countries against them, who were totally unwilling to acept anything less than unconditional surrender.
Similar atrocities against soldiers etc by the Germans and Japanese, such as massacres by the German SS and the Japanese policy of executing captured airmen, also had the effect of solidifying the Allied armies etc in their fight against them, and had no effect in lessening Allied resolve to exterminate their enemies.
Also, WWII included mass bombing of civilians, in some cases another deliberate act, such as at Dresden and Hiroshima, which escalated the total number of casualties.
Allen Moorehead, in his book ‘The Desert War’, interestingly states that WWII, for the soldier, was more a war of machines and technology, while WWI involved masses of men.
This, of course, did not lessen the total casualty figures for WWII – machines and technology can be very effective killers of men, and of women and children as well.
The Grappler | Nov 15, 2009
remember, the tag "The Great War" was applied to WWI before WWII ever came along…
it was called that at the time because the world had never experienced any war so large before…and the death toll was appalling…
differences in technology, scope of conflict and strategy played significant roles in casualty differences…
eggman | Nov 14, 2009
Yes. They could not predict at the time that WW1 would lead to WW2.
bubble wrapping | Nov 14, 2009
Yes, I think because of the scale, and the transformative effect it had on those who fought in it.
For example, France, the agressor country in the Napoleonic Wars which fought from Germany to Russia to Egypt, all across Europe and the Mediterranean, cost about 800,000 French lives (that is including illnesses as well as combat deaths)
The Napoleonic wars were 12 years long.
WW1 was 4 years long. 1.4 million French soldiers died. 10% of the population of active males. Germany lost 15%, and also a lot of civilians died as a result of the starvation caused by the British blockade.
Sure this is peanuts compared to WW2. But Dan Carlin, the Hardcore History guy, once made a good point. Someone asked him once which war he thought was more traumatic for the countries of Europe, and he said the First. The reason is that when WW2 came around, everyone knew it was going to be horrible, since they had the experience of the First World War.
But the wars before the First were nowhere near as pointless, bloody, and terrible for the soldiers and civilians. It was the First "Total War," where industrialized countries mobilize their entire country, populace, economy, and fight the enemy’s whole country, including civilians.
So WW1 was called the Great War, but that gave way to the more popular title "World War" and "First World War." The Napoleonic Wars, which were also international and huge in scale, were also called the "Great War," since the numbers involved in that were unprecedented.
WW1 was also called "The War to End All Wars," which was wishful thinking, to say the least.
As for why the casualties were so much higher in WW2, for one thing, other than France, the countries mobilized more men. (and women, in Russia’s case) Another was the Nazi and Communist philosophy. Totalitarian regimes place very little value on the life of an individual, and Germany, Japan, and the USSR gave a truly terrible brutality to this war not seen since ancient times. One of the goals of the war was to depopulate the east so Germans could live there. Thus POWs, Civilians, Jews, Communists, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and random people were starved, frozen, shot, beaten, burned. There was a conscious effort to destroy Slavs and eastern peoples. And this violence begat violence. Germans also bombed London, and revenge was a bitch. The British bombed Germany mercilessly, even in civilian areas. And Russia intended on making Germany suffer for its horrible violence in occupying the USSR.
You have to understand that the Eastern Front, Poland, and the USSR, was the epicenter of the war. The overwhelming number of casualties, both military and civil took place on the map between Berlin to the west and Volgograd (fmly. Stalingrad) and Moscow to the East.
Tearz 4 Fearz-4 LYFE | Nov 14, 2009
They called it the great war because it turned into a war fought in Europe, Africa, Asia and in the seas. Over 10 million dead. With the new weapons, Machine guns, Tanks, etc. war was no longer considered a wonderful going off for King and Country. WWI changed it to the thinking that war would just be mass slaughter.
WWII had about 16 million military dead, more than WWI and 37 million civilian deaths, but surprisingly, estimated civilian deaths were highest from China.
michael | Nov 14, 2009
Europe had had a century of relative peace, at least no major wars, after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, 1815. It was an enormous event to have war recur on a scale not seen before, hence the Great War–of its time.
The idea of one war to end all wars was naive and parochial, however popular. Historians have shown that in mankind’s 5,000 years of known history, major wars have gone on for 95 out of every 100 years. The century of peace in Europe, 1915-1915,was the oddity, not the recurrence of a major war.
You’re right to say the WW 11 was much worse, but few wanted to imagine in 1915 the possibility in the miserable, awful depths of the first world war, let alone that something even more horrible would soon occur. Now, nuclear war is an even more horrible likelihood that anything yet known.
fallenaway | Nov 14, 2009
It was called the great war because never before had the fighting spread to so many areas or with such intensity. It was believed that the experience would be so terrible that no one could contemplate another war. The casualties were greater in WWII because there was a effort not only to kill the soldiers but many of the civilians. There has never been such an organized planned approach to killing civilians before or since.
RDDL | Nov 15, 2009
It was then called the Great War since it’s the biggest war ever in human history. It started with almost romantic and naive nationalism, powered by naked imperailistic greed. It was even believed to be "The war that end all wars".
Of course it ended as a horrific blood bath and instead of stopping all wars, WW1 had accumulated all the necessary ammunition for the world to plunge into an even bloodier war 30 years later.
JC | Nov 15, 2009
Tags: 19891989, Adventure, Biography, Drama, Dye Dale, Fox Michael J., Gwaltney Jack, Harvey Don, King Erik, Larson Steve, Leguizamo John, Linton John, Martin Dan, Penn Sean, Reilly John C., Rhames Ving, Ruginis Vyto, Shannon Al, War