第11章すべての戦争を終わらせるための戦争The War to End All Wars

While many civilians fully supported the war effort, others voiced opposition to and criticism of the war itself and the reasons behind it. This disapproval became stronger as the war and the shortages went on and morale on the home front suffered.

多くの民間人が戦争遂行を全面的に支持した一方、戦争そのものやその理由に反対や批判を表明する人々もいた。戦争と不足が長引き、銃後の士気が損なわれるにつれ、この反発は強まった。

In Germany, for instance, soldiers were prioritized in the food supply chain, so while they might not enjoy the food they were given, there was usually enough of it even if many civilians found it very difficult to find food. This was especially true for the elderly and those who were not contributing to the war effort through their work. The British blockade of Germany, which ran from 1914 until the end of the war, only compounded the problem. Bread rationing began in Germany in 1915. The winter of 1916–1917 was particularly severe, and much of the potato crop was lost, leaving many tens of thousands of people with nothing but turnips to eat. Food shortages also prompted food riots from 1915 on in Germany.

たとえばドイツでは食料供給で兵士が優先されたため、与えられる食事を好まなくても、通常は十分な量があった。一方、多くの民間人は食料確保に大変苦労した。特に高齢者や、仕事を通じて戦争遂行に貢献していない人々は厳しかった。1914年から終戦まで続いたイギリスの封鎖は問題を悪化させた。ドイツでは1915年にパンの配給が始まった。1916〜1917年の冬は特に厳しく、ジャガイモの収穫の多くが失われ、何万人もの人々に食べ物はカブしか残されなかった。食糧不足は1915年以降、食糧暴動も引き起こした。

Food shortages also occurred in Austria-Hungary, which did not have as intricate an infrastructure as Germany and therefore had fewer options for transporting food. It too was focused on making sure soldiers were supplied at the expense of the civilian population. As in many combatant countries, the disruptions to their food supply caused some civilians to begin questioning the government’s job in fighting the war and generally hurt morale at home.

オーストリア＝ハンガリーでも食糧不足が起きた。ドイツほど緻密な交通基盤がなく、食料輸送の選択肢が少なかった。同国も民間人を犠牲にして、兵士への確実な供給を重視した。多くの交戦国と同じく、食料供給の混乱は一部の民間人に政府の戦争遂行への疑問を抱かせ、全般に国内の士気を低下させた。

Civilian discontent also rose as more young men were needed for the armies. The war dragged on, and the early enthusiasm evidenced by young recruits in 1914 disappeared. Some recruits did not have confidence that the national armies would be able to win battles or that it was worth risking their lives in service. Other young men were conscientious objectors who for religious and philosophical reasons did not believe in fighting wars and therefore did not wish to serve. Some would-be soldiers in the empires increasingly questioned the value of fighting for imperial glory. Canada experienced a conscription crisis in 1917 when it had to resort to a draft to fulfill Britain’s imperial demand for troops. The military was called to quell a protest in Quebec City and fired on the protesters, killing several.

軍にさらに多くの若者が必要になると、民間人の不満も高まった。戦争は長引き、1914年の新兵が見せた当初の熱狂は消えた。国の軍隊が勝てるという自信や、軍務に命を懸ける価値への確信を持てない新兵もいた。宗教的・哲学的理由から戦争を支持せず、軍務を望まない良心的兵役拒否者もいた。帝国の兵士候補の中には、帝国の栄光のために戦う価値をますます疑う者もいた。カナダでは1917年、イギリス帝国の兵員要求を満たすため徴兵に頼る必要が生じ、徴兵危機を経験した。ケベック市の抗議を鎮めるため軍が呼ばれ、抗議者に発砲して数人を殺した。

The use of censorship became a common tool to manage civilian discontent by limiting the information distributed about the war effort. Newspapers presented only vague descriptions of battles and losses, and government-sponsored propaganda showed civilians pro-war posters and commentary. Censorship efforts began in all combatant nations in 1914 and expanded to the United States when it entered in the war in 1917. The U.S. government created the Committee on Public Information to put out pro-war propaganda via public speeches and posters that were remarkably effective. Most posters depicted the German troops as bloodthirsty monsters who would cross the Atlantic to attack the United States if they were not stopped.

検閲は、戦争遂行について流れる情報を制限して民間人の不満を抑える一般的な手段となった。新聞は戦闘や損失を曖昧に記すだけとなり、政府の宣伝は戦争支持のポスターや論評を市民に示した。検閲は1914年にすべての交戦国で始まり、1917年にアメリカが参戦すると同国にも広がった。アメリカ政府は広報委員会を設け、非常に効果的な演説やポスターによって戦争支持の宣伝を行った。大半のポスターはドイツ兵を、阻止しなければ大西洋を渡ってアメリカを襲う血に飢えた怪物として描いた。

The U.S. government’s effort to squash criticism of the war began in 1917 with the Espionage Act. It set limits on what could be mailed, banning any type of anti-war newspaper or pamphlet. In 1918, Congress passed the Sedition Act. This forbade “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, and abusive” language about the decision to enter the war, the draft, the flag, and armed forces’ uniforms. It was not about what might be true, but about what could be seen as disloyal. Anti-war speech was considered disloyal and therefore seditious. People were unable to openly question why the United States was in the war or speak out against it without risking imprisonment or hefty fines. Today we see the Sedition Act as a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which promises protections for free speech. Despite this, the Supreme Court upheld the act, and approximately two thousand people were prosecuted under it. Perhaps the best-known prosecution targeted the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs. Debs was sentenced to ten years (and served more than three) for comments he made against the war, such as questioning why working-class men had to lose their lives in a war they had no voice in declaring.

アメリカ政府が戦争批判を抑え込む取り組みは、1917年のスパイ法で始まった。同法は郵送できるものに制限を設け、あらゆる反戦新聞やパンフレットを禁じた。1918年、議会は治安法を成立させた。参戦決定、徴兵、国旗、軍服について「不忠、冒瀆、中傷、罵倒」に当たる言葉を禁じたのである。問題は何が真実かではなく、何が不忠と見なされるかだった。反戦言論は不忠であり、したがって扇動的だとされた。投獄や多額の罰金の危険を冒さずに、参戦の理由を公然と問うことや、反戦を訴えることはできなくなった。今日、この治安法は、言論の自由の保護を約束する合衆国憲法修正第1条への違反と考えられている。それでも最高裁は同法を支持し、約2000人が起訴された。最も有名な対象は、社会党の大統領候補ユージン・V・デブスだろう。労働者が宣戦に発言権のない戦争でなぜ命を失わなければならないのかと問うなどの反戦発言により、禁錮10年を言い渡され、3年余り服役した。

While Debs was imprisoned, others such as Russian immigrants and those who supported socialist causes were viewed as disloyal and targeted for deportation by the U.S. government. Emma Goldman, a self-avowed anarchist, had come to the United States from Lithuania as a teenager. She had grown interested in radical politics and by the time of the war was speaking out against the draft. Along with more than two hundred others, she was deported to Russia in 1919 under wartime legislation in the United States.

デブスが投獄される一方で、ロシア系移民や社会主義を支持する人々も不忠とみなされ、アメリカ政府による国外追放の対象となった。アナーキストを自認したエマ・ゴールドマンは、10代でリトアニアからアメリカに来た。急進的な政治に関心を抱くようになり、戦争の頃には徴兵反対を訴えていた。1919年、アメリカの戦時法のもとで、200人以上の他の人々とともにロシアへ追放された。

Questioning the war could certainly take other forms than direct political speech. The poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, and William Butler Yeats published work that put the inhumanity and suffering of the war on full display. No heroic charges were celebrated in their stanzas. Visual art such as the work of German artist Käthe Kollwitz conveyed the misery of the war. Kollwitz lost her son in the fighting and explored the experience of mourning and suffering in her works. These personal depictions of the horror of the war came clearly across to their audiences and helped fuel criticism of the war.

戦争への疑問は、直接的な政治発言以外の形でも当然表せた。詩人ウィルフレッド・オーウェン、ジークフリード・サスーン、ルパート・ブルック、ウィリアム・バトラー・イェイツは、戦争の非人道性と苦しみをあらわにする作品を発表した。その詩節で英雄的な突撃が賛美されることはなかった。ドイツの芸術家ケーテ・コルヴィッツの作品などの視覚芸術も、戦争の惨めさを伝えた。戦闘で息子を失ったコルヴィッツは、追悼と苦痛の経験を作品で探究した。戦争の恐怖を個人的に描いたこれらの作品は、受け手にはっきり伝わり、反戦批判を強める一因となった。

Due to the use of aircraft in the war, civilians in Europe also had the experience of being displaced from their own cities. The German military utilized zeppelins as early as 1915 to fly to London and bomb the city. Later in the war, they used Gotha bombers to attack the British capital. Hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands injured through this bombing campaign. Those who survived the destruction of their homes became refugees in their own country. The psychological impact of this bombing was immense. For the first time, civilians were at risk in a country where no ground fighting was happening. The role of sheer chance in determining whether a street was hit by a bomb made the danger seem much greater than it was.

航空機が戦争に使われたため、ヨーロッパの民間人は自分の都市から追われる経験もした。ドイツ軍は早くも1915年にツェッペリン飛行船を使ってロンドンへ飛び、爆撃した。戦争後半にはゴータ爆撃機でイギリスの首都を攻撃した。この爆撃によって数百人の民間人が死亡し、数千人が負傷した。家屋の破壊を生き延びた者は、自国の中で避難民となった。心理的な影響は甚大だった。地上戦のない国で、初めて民間人が危険にさらされたのである。どの通りに爆弾が当たるかがまったくの偶然に左右されるため、危険は実際以上に大きく感じられた。

Refugees emerged all over Europe. By the end of 1914, more than three million people in France and Belgium alone had left their homes. While many were eventually able to return, the problem of housing millions of displaced people continued throughout the war. On the eastern front, Jewish citizens fled their homes by the tens of thousands, and many found themselves further east in Russia than had previously been allowed due to anti-Semitic laws. Refugees often fled with very little, which made their relocations especially painful.

ヨーロッパ全土で避難民が生まれた。1914年末までに、フランスとベルギーだけで300万人以上が家を離れた。多くは最終的に帰還できたが、何百万人もの避難民を住まわせる問題は戦争を通じて続いた。東部戦線では、ユダヤ人住民が何万人もの規模で逃げ、多くが反ユダヤ法のため従来認められていた範囲よりも東のロシア地域に身を置いた。避難民はわずかな持ち物で逃げることが多く、移住をいっそう苦しいものにした。