A people’s right to defend itself

The right to defend oneself seems pretty straightforward to us now. But back in the 1870′s, during the Franco-Prussian war, it wasn’t. The Germans lost many men to French civilians with sniper rifles (or other weaponry) firing from church towers or bedroom windows—and they were not amused.

Self-determination

Taking a step back, it is a remarkable development of warfare from the classic Napoleonic battles to the slaughters of the first and second world wars. When looking for an explanation one has to look first and foremost at mass society, a common national identity and the concept of the nation state. But that wouldn’t make as good a story as one of the secondary causes. Back to the Franco-Prussian war: the Germans won the war relatively easily, but a debate sparked over a people’s right to defend itself.

The Germans at the time argued that war was a soldier’s business. Civilians live in a state, a state has an army and an army goes to war. Hence, when the army’s defeated, so is the state and it’s civilians. Easy-peasy. The more liberal Brits and French argued that state is an indivisible nation. War between nations cannot be reduced to a clash of armed forces; everyone’s involved. The people have a right to self-determination, a concept we still hold dear today.

The typically militaristic Germans lost the debate and didn’t like it one bit. In the First World War the Germans acted ruthlessly in Belgium and Northern France, more or less saying ‘okay, if the people are allowed to fight we shall treat them all as enemy soldiers.’ Thousands of ‘innocent’ civilians were killed. The Second World War would even take this further with the bulk of the 50 million casualties being civilian.

A self-destruct mechanism?

Should we call this form of war the result of the will of democratic nations under a mass society or should we call it total wars of destruction (rather than mere ‘military conquest’)? This right to self-determination is a beautiful weapon in debates on ideals and moral values, but when applied on the microscopic scale it has demonstrated horrible and gruesome effects. Are we better off with it than without it? Does Western liberal civilisation carry a self-destruct mechanism with it?