Summary Of Lord Of The Nutcracker Men

When World War One began on June 28th, 1914, I doubt that any European nations were either shocked or upset for that matter. This “Great War” mostly begun because of four reasons that included nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and the secret alliances. There were two major alliances in Europe at the time: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia). All of these reasons were “boiling” from the 1870’s to 1914 and when the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz-Ferdinand, was assassinated, it truly sparked the war. Many do believe though, that this was just an excuse to start a highly anticipated war where all the newest weapons could be tried out and all this new land

Obviously, they don’t get what they expected. In the book, a ten-year-old boy named Johnny, living in England, has to move to Cliffe with his aunt his father goes off to the war to fight for the allies. His father, being a toymaker, makes little wooden soldiers for Johnny and sends them in letters to Johnny. However, after a while, Johnny's father is changed by the brutality of war and what he has seen. After reading this book, I have come to the conclusion that due to the strong ideas of Nationalism and Militarism, that each country had at the time, the hope for the war immensely differed from the actuality of

Europeans had developed these concepts without knowing the horrendous truth. These came to be from all the Nationalistic and Militaristic beliefs that many had during this time and with everyone’s certainty of their own victory. At the beginning of the book, Britain joins the war and all of London “seemed to celebrate“ excited to join and of course, emerge victoriously. Johnny’s father doesn’t join unlike all of the other men, which prompts Johnny to ask his father why he hasn't signed up. He truly wants his father to go, unaware of the dangers that may lie ahead. On page 4 Johnny talks to his father, “‘Aren’t you signing up?’ I asked him. “Aren’t you going to the war?’” Johnny continues to pester his dad and even asks his mom if he is a coward. The fact that Johnny actually wants his dad to go to war, goes to show you how much the idea of pride was associated with the war. Later on, when Johnny's dad finally joins the war, he starts sending letters back home. In his first letter, on page 9, he shares that he is “eager to have a crack at old Fritz, and the biggest fear is that the war will end before [they] get there.” The first few letters contain this exciting but then they slowly change to darker, sadder themes. In all, the assumption that war was to be glorious and heroic was inaccurate when in reality, the war was nothing to be