First World War as Sacrificial Ritual
by Richard A. Koenigsberg
To read the complete paper, please click here.
Upon returning from a typical battle, Aztec warriors  told Emperor Moctezuma that they had taken a goodly number of captives, but that 370 of their own warriors had died or been captured. Moctezuma replied: “Behold brothers, how true was the word of the ancestors—who taught us that the sun feeds alike from both sides.”

“Winning” or “losing” was one dimension of Aztec warfare. However, from the god’s point of view, it didn’t matter which side won or lost. In any case, the gods could not lose. Whatever the outcome of battle, they would be fed with the body and blood of sacrificial victims.

Paul W. Kahn observes that when wars are fought, the battlefield is strewn “with the disemboweled and beheaded, with severed limbs and broken bodies.” Viewing the battlefield from a distance, it’s not clear which side is the winner and which the loser. The conscript and his enemy alike suffer “the same burden of physical destruction.”

Viewing the space of “No Man’s Land” from a distance after a First World War battle, it would be difficult to tell whether a particular soldier—lying dead or mutilated—was French, British or German. From the perspective of the bloodthirsty god, the nation-state, it didn’t matter.
According to Jacques Soustell (1970), the Aztecs believed that the sun was “born from sacrifice and blood.” Warfare was a “sacred activity” whose purpose was to capture enemy soldiers—in order to sacrifice or feed them to the gods.

According to Lopez Austin, as long as men could offer the blood and hearts of captives taken in combat, the sun god would “continue on his course above the earth.” It was necessary to feed the sun every day “with its food, the previous water,” that is, with human blood. The life of the Aztec warrior had a single purpose: to feed the sun god.

Reflecting on the carnage of the First World War (see Table below), British political leader David Lloyd George (Haste, 1977) stated that every nation was “profligate of its manpower” and conducted its war activities as if there were no limit to the number of men who were fit to be “thrown into the furnace to feed the flames of war.” He described the war as a perpetual driving force that “shoveled warm human hearts and bodies into the furnace” (Gilbert, 1994).

Observing the daily slaughter taking place in France in 1916, founder of the Irish revolutionary movement P. H. Pearse (see Martin, 1973) stated that the previous sixteenth months had been the “most glorious in the history of Europe.” It is “good for the world,” Pearse said, that “such things be done.” The heart of the earth needed to be “warmed with the red wine of the battlefield.”

The First World War was a monumental sacrificial ritual that “shoveled warm human hearts and bodies by the millions into the furnace.” As the casualties continued and mounted, the heart of the earth was “warmed with the red wine of the battlefield.” By virtue of the massive sacrifices, “nations” were kept alive.

Historians estimate that during a five month period in 1916 (encompassing the Battle of the Somme and siege of Verdun), the death toll amounted to almost a million men, an average of 6600 men killed every day, more than 277 every hour. More men were sacrificed in one year during the First World War—than died in wars during the entire history of the Aztec Empire.

Pearse was thrilled and satisfied by the spectacle of mass death. Such “august homage,” he said, was “never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives “given gladly for love of country.” Whereas the Aztecs destroyed human beings in the name of the sun god, belligerents of the First World War slaughtered young men in the name of gods given names like Great Britain, France and Germany.

There were many Mexican city-states during the Aztec period. Wars were fought between these states, each of which required sacrificial victims. Upon returning from one typical battle, Aztec warriors reported back to Emperor Moctezuma. They told him that they had taken a goodly number of captives, but that 370 of their own warriors had died or been lost through capture. Moctezuma replied: “Behold brothers, how true was the word of the ancestors—who taught us that the sun feeds alike from both sides” (Brundage, 1986).

“Winning” or “losing” was one dimension of Aztec warfare. However, Brundage observes, from the god’s point of view, it didn’t matter which side won or lost. In any case, the gods could not lose. Whatever the outcome of battle, the gods would be fed with the body and blood of sacrificial victims.

Paul W. Kahn observes that when wars are fought, the battlefield is strewn “with the disemboweled and beheaded, with severed limbs and broken bodies.” Viewing the battlefield from a certain distance, it’s not clear which side is the winner and which the loser. The conscript and his enemy alike suffer “the same burden of physical destruction.”

Viewing the space of “No Man’s Land” from a distance after a First World War battle, it would be difficult to tell whether a particular soldier—lying dead or mutilated—was French, British or German. Really, from the perspective of the bloodthirsty god, the nation-state, it didn’t matter.

First World War Casualties

The figures below are from Chris Trueman's HistoryLearningSite.co.uk

Country Men mobilised Killed Wounded POW’s + missing Total casualties casualties in % of men mobilised
Russia 12 mill 1.7 mill 4.9 mill 2.5 mill 9.15 mill 76.3
France 8.4 mill 1.3 mill 4.2 mill 537,000 6.1 mill 73.3
GB + Empire 8.9 mill 908,000 2 mill 191,000 3.1 mill 35.8
Italy 5.5 mill 650,000 947,000 600,000 2.1 mill 39
USA 4.3 mill 126,000 234,000 4,500 350,000 8
Japan 800,000 300 900 3 1210 0.2
Romania 750,000 335,000 120,000 80,000 535,000 71
Serbia 700,000 45,000 133,000 153,000 331,000 47
Belgium 267,000 13,800 45,000 34,500 93,000 35
Greece 230,000 5000 21,000 1000 27,000 12
Portugal 100,000 7222 13,700 12,000 33,000 33
Total Allies 42 mill 5 mill 13 mill 4 mill 22 mill 52%
             
Germany 11 mill 1.7 mill 4.2 mill 1.1 mill 7.1 mill 65
Austria 7.8 mill 1.2 mill 3.6 mill 2.2 mill 7 mill 90
Turkey 2.8 mill 325,000 400,000 250,000 975,000 34
Bulgaria 1.2 mill 87,000 152,000 27,000 266,000 22
Total Central Powers 22.8 mill 3.3 mill 8.3 mill 3.6 mill 15 mill 67
             
Grand Total 65 mill 8.5 mill 21 mill 7.7 mill 37 mill 57%