Weekly History Questions Thread.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to our History Questions Thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So, do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

Questions need to be historical in nature. Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke. r/history also has an active discord server where you can discuss history with other enthusiasts and experts.

[u/ATTst]

Why is the twentieth century so brutal? there were 1.6 million conflict-related deaths in the sixteenth century, 6.1 million in the seventeenth century, 7 million in the eighteenth, 19.4 million in the nineteenth, and 109.7 million in the twentieth.When we look at the twentieth century, there is a massive leap.Wars have always existed, but the events of the twentieth century were extreme.

[u/en43rs → u/ATTst]

More people, it's basic but there were around 600 million people in 1700 in the world, and 2 billion and a half in 1940.

Then new technologies. Both in weapons (it's now easier to kill a lot of people very quickly with less men). But also in industrial capacity, not only are the weapons deadlier, but they're easier and quicker to make.

Which leads to the third factor... total war. It's not enough to defeat the enemy on the battlefield, you must cripple his population and industry so they can't get up again. On this topic Mark Mazower argued that the wars of the 20th century were not just wars for land (like before) but that they became ideological. Wars were now fought so that one ideology, world view, triumph and the other die. If you lose it's not just a defeat, it's your whole way of life that disappears. And so you fought until the end. Leading to even more death.

[u/Telecom_VoIP_Fan → u/ATTst]

Technology is a key factor. You can kill many more with planes and rockets than with arrows and spears, and armies also were able to move much faster than in earlier periods with less chance to escape from them.

[u/RevolutionaryGold971 → u/ATTst]

Technology, politics and population have been brought up, and are undoubtedly the biggest factors. You couldn’t level a city hundreds of miles away in a single day before planes and modern explosives, for example, but I would also add survivability and recording.

Survivability may seem an odd factor, but I would imagine it has some bearing on it. People who were part of some of the most brutal parts of the century had far more chance to survive it with 20th century medical and mental health advancements. Those who experienced awful battles, received horrific injuries or even committed atrocities themselves, were able to live to tell what they’d been through, or have the evidence of it on them for the rest of their life (be that mental or physical). Of course, there’s the fact that people tended not to talk about the worst things they experienced, but visible 1920s reconstructive surgery or multiple amputations almost speak for themselves as to the brutality, which people were far less likely to survive in earlier periods.

Similarly, the fact that there are photographs and video footage of a great deal of the 20th century conflicts has meant that even those not involved in these conflicts have been able to see some of what has been going on, and certainly as the century progressed, footage could be live broadcast across the world.

Obviously both the factors of visibility and survivability are more based on the perception of the brutality to the wider community, that is not to diminish from the fact that the 20th century was a very brutal century, but I think it needs to be said