5 ms·

On a side note, it is worth paying a visit to Eton to see the number of old boys killed serving their country in WW1 and WW2: the walls of the old building are

On a side note, it is worth paying a visit to Eton to see the number of old boys killed serving their country in WW1 and WW2: the walls of the old building are literally lined with their names in the thousands.

implements 4y ago
The whole area is a beautiful place to visit on a good spring day - and it's a quick and easy train ride from central London via Staines.
DC-3 4y ago
An interesting example of how the old English class system wasn't just about venal entrenched self-advantage. The upper classes of old really did feel a noblesse oblige, and were killed in the trenches at considerably higher rates in the trenches. Young men of high birth were expected to be officers, and to lead by example - a job that came with a life expectancy measured in days during the darkest hours of the first world war. One doubts if the present bearers of class privilege feel a similar sense of duty.
- kodah 4y ago
  With respect to fighting wars? No. The military has a couple stand out statistics, first being that most enlisted are of generational servitude while most officers are from opportunity (college recruitment). That means most people enlisted have a relative that served first. Second is that most enlistments come from the poorer part of the country, specifically the South and Midwest. The diversity of the military largely tracks those geographies. Officers similarly reflect where their volunteer pool comes from. That said, the modern upper echelon of US society have a pretty quiet yet thick disdain for military service. They'd probably never let their kids do it.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    I assume things are different in the US. Attitudes to the military certainly seem different today.
- andrepd 4y ago
  That's a funny rewriting of history, because we know that the casualty rate among enlisted (i.e. conscripted, in wwi and wwii) was much higher than for officers. The former were servants, factory labourers, peasants, etc, while the latter was a category reserved for the privileged.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    I don't think that's true for the British Army in WW1: "The casualty rates were highest among the subalterns... estimates for the mortality rates range from 65 to 81%. This was, at its lowest estimate, double the rate for enlisted men." https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/the-slaughter-of-the-subalterns-in-world-war-i.100256/ https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/the-slaughter-of-t...
    - LtWorf 4y ago
      Why would you assume "subalterns" means officers? It literally means the opposite.
      - jonas21 4y ago
        What? No, "subaltern" refers to a junior officer (e.g. lieutenant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military)
        LtWorf 4y ago
        Ah sorry, I guess yet another case of English people going like "let's take a latin word and change its meaning LOL" :) > Literally meaning "subordinate", subaltern is used to describe commissioned officers below the rank of captain and generally comprises the various grades of lieutenant.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) So since it literally means subordinate, it should not describe commissioned officers, right?
        4y ago
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  Most of the Etonian Oxbridge guys I'm friends with ended up going to the military after graduating (one became a lawyer instead). It's still seen as a great job to begin your career with in those circles. I went to a public school (but not Oxbridge) and did a couple years in the Rifles myself.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- onetimeusename 4y ago
  lately it probably is entrenched but there's an irony in there. The old system was for gentry and nobles and the new system is for a new bureaucratic class of credentialists who use the old system as a scapegoat but in reality the new system is very self serving for these bureaucrats who would never send themselves to war.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    The old system had Lord Mountbatten commanding a war ship repeatedly into combat until it was sunk.
- febeling 4y ago
  There was always a lot of desperation in second- and later born sons in the landed classes, everywhere. Because usually you wouldn’t inherit the the property, so you could as well gamble your life recklessly, and maybe get lucky. The fertility rate has been suggested as a good proxy to estimate wars and proclivity for terrorism.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  What gets me is religiosity in past ages. You read about the motivations of the elite in supporting religious institutions and dedicating their children to the regular and secular clergy, and you think, well, surely that's an arrangement of convenience or mutual advantage, mainly... but no, if you look at the data it really, really wasn't. They genuinely believed the whole eternal-damnation thing and took it super-seriously and contributed to the church in ways that were very much net-negative to them and their families (and that some others avoided doing to no clear disadvantage, so it doesn't seem to be a harm-avoidance measure, at least not in material or social terms). The norm, at least for a good stretch of centuries, was for these transactions to confer less in material or political benefits than they cost (though, sure, some were political power-plays or otherwise highly beneficial). The thinking seems so alien that it's hard to really put myself in their shoes. Even the vast majority of the modern religious, and certainly the elite religious, at least in the US, don't act as if they truly believe like the barons and dukes of Europe did. The only place you see that kind of self-sacrificial dedication to religion these days is what we'd call cults.
  - opportune 4y ago
    The role and seriousness of religion in society has ebbed and flowed a lot historically. There is reason to believe that during much of the Hellenistic period and before/after, most ancient Greeks saw the Gods as more of a folk tradition, for example. Hence the rise in schools of philosophical thought independent of religion. Likely many other Pagan societies had such ebbs and flows. Ancient China went through similar periods IIUC. It’s also hard for me to believe that Renaissance era Italians were really fervent believers given all the corruption involved in the Church (placing rich people as Popes, tons of Popes and priests having affairs and using the church money to live lavishly). Which is likely what led to the Reformation and the wars of religion - basically a return back to taking religion very seriously. Historically it also seems to vary a lot based on class, with the upper end of society (by class or education) tending to be less religious. For example during the 19th century the average person was still quite religious in much of Europe, but the most educated classes had already become secular and begun to openly express Atheism. Then you look at things like the Wars of Religion following the reformation - most likely, this provided an excellent backdrop to motivate your soldiers with a real cause for fighting, which rulers used to accomplish their more practical goals of expanding their realm.
- pasabagi 4y ago
  I imagine it's more that they simply had no idea what they were getting into. The first world war was the first time anybody had seen a war with that kind of casualty distribution, not to mention, that kind of omnicidal lethality. Officers in previous wars had very good chances of survival.
Retric 4y ago
I think the same would be true of most similarly sized English schools, many just didn’t bother to record the names.
- arethuza 4y ago
  A lot of public schools in the UK have their own war memorials, though the Eton one sounds considerably larger than the ones I've seen.
  - Retric 4y ago
    That seems surprising considering how many UK schools lost 10+% of their graduates in WWI + WWII.
    - arethuza 4y ago
      Fair point - pretty much every village and town in the UK has its own war memorials from WW1 and WW2. The village I grew up in has about 57 names for a population of 1000 or so: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/8670 https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/8670
      - eddsh1994 4y ago
        This is pretty interesting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages
    - tristor 4y ago
      This is actually a reason why it's common. The impact was so large and so universally felt that nobody would object to the use of public funds to memorialize it. It merely takes someone to suggest it, and nobody would oppose.
- BucketsMcG 4y ago
  My school wasn't English, or as elitist as Eton, but each year on Remembrance Day they would read the names of every pupil who died in the two world wars. Took quite a while.
jfk13 4y ago
It looks like the Eton figures for WW1 are 1157 died, out of 5660 who served in the war; just over 20%. That's a lot higher than the overall British death rate of 12.5% of those who served (from https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/crime-and-defence/the-fallen/ https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/oly...).
cycomanic 4y ago
Did they actually die in higher percentages than regular footsoldiers? I seriously doubt it. We have to remember the number of people killed in WW1 and 2. I think it is likely that many other schools simply didn't put pictures up for their fallen. I suspect on exceptional aspect of Eton is the connection to former pupil, which might also explain the murderers thesis in the article. Likely many other schools don't even know what happened with their former students. I am not trying to defend Eton, it very well be a place to produce sociopaths. I don't have enough information, and the article is really anecdotal evidence by itself.
- jfk13 4y ago
  > Did they actually die in higher percentages than regular footsoldiers? Yes, as noted (with references) in some of the sibling comments here.
crossroadsguy 4y ago
Come to a colony and try to find out thousands killed by single old boys from such places.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  Indeed - Australia, for example, is littered with examples of missing memorials to those slaughtered by the Eton death cult.
aa-jv 4y ago
Quite literally a death cult. No thanks! This kind of entrenchment is why, even still today, we fight imperialist wars that murder innocent people every twenty minutes. Eton is a death cult.

implements 4y ago

The whole area is a beautiful place to visit on a good spring day - and it's a quick and easy train ride from central London via Staines.

DC-3 4y ago

An interesting example of how the old English class system wasn't just about venal entrenched self-advantage. The upper classes of old really did feel a noblesse oblige, and were killed in the trenches at considerably higher rates in the trenches. Young men of high birth were expected to be officers, and to lead by example - a job that came with a life expectancy measured in days during the darkest hours of the first world war. One doubts if the present bearers of class privilege feel a similar sense of duty.

kodah 4y ago
With respect to fighting wars? No. The military has a couple stand out statistics, first being that most enlisted are of generational servitude while most officers are from opportunity (college recruitment). That means most people enlisted have a relative that served first. Second is that most enlistments come from the poorer part of the country, specifically the South and Midwest. The diversity of the military largely tracks those geographies. Officers similarly reflect where their volunteer pool comes from. That said, the modern upper echelon of US society have a pretty quiet yet thick disdain for military service. They'd probably never let their kids do it.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  I assume things are different in the US. Attitudes to the military certainly seem different today.
andrepd 4y ago
That's a funny rewriting of history, because we know that the casualty rate among enlisted (i.e. conscripted, in wwi and wwii) was much higher than for officers. The former were servants, factory labourers, peasants, etc, while the latter was a category reserved for the privileged.
- arethuza 4y ago
  I don't think that's true for the British Army in WW1: "The casualty rates were highest among the subalterns... estimates for the mortality rates range from 65 to 81%. This was, at its lowest estimate, double the rate for enlisted men." https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/the-slaughter-of-the-subalterns-in-world-war-i.100256/ https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/the-slaughter-of-t...
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    Why would you assume "subalterns" means officers? It literally means the opposite.
    - jonas21 4y ago
      What? No, "subaltern" refers to a junior officer (e.g. lieutenant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military)
      - LtWorf 4y ago
        Ah sorry, I guess yet another case of English people going like "let's take a latin word and change its meaning LOL" :) > Literally meaning "subordinate", subaltern is used to describe commissioned officers below the rank of captain and generally comprises the various grades of lieutenant.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(military) So since it literally means subordinate, it should not describe commissioned officers, right?
        4y ago
eddsh1994 4y ago
Most of the Etonian Oxbridge guys I'm friends with ended up going to the military after graduating (one became a lawyer instead). It's still seen as a great job to begin your career with in those circles. I went to a public school (but not Oxbridge) and did a couple years in the Rifles myself.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
onetimeusename 4y ago
lately it probably is entrenched but there's an irony in there. The old system was for gentry and nobles and the new system is for a new bureaucratic class of credentialists who use the old system as a scapegoat but in reality the new system is very self serving for these bureaucrats who would never send themselves to war.
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  The old system had Lord Mountbatten commanding a war ship repeatedly into combat until it was sunk.
febeling 4y ago
There was always a lot of desperation in second- and later born sons in the landed classes, everywhere. Because usually you wouldn’t inherit the the property, so you could as well gamble your life recklessly, and maybe get lucky. The fertility rate has been suggested as a good proxy to estimate wars and proclivity for terrorism.
yamtaddle 4y ago
What gets me is religiosity in past ages. You read about the motivations of the elite in supporting religious institutions and dedicating their children to the regular and secular clergy, and you think, well, surely that's an arrangement of convenience or mutual advantage, mainly... but no, if you look at the data it really, really wasn't. They genuinely believed the whole eternal-damnation thing and took it super-seriously and contributed to the church in ways that were very much net-negative to them and their families (and that some others avoided doing to no clear disadvantage, so it doesn't seem to be a harm-avoidance measure, at least not in material or social terms). The norm, at least for a good stretch of centuries, was for these transactions to confer less in material or political benefits than they cost (though, sure, some were political power-plays or otherwise highly beneficial). The thinking seems so alien that it's hard to really put myself in their shoes. Even the vast majority of the modern religious, and certainly the elite religious, at least in the US, don't act as if they truly believe like the barons and dukes of Europe did. The only place you see that kind of self-sacrificial dedication to religion these days is what we'd call cults.
- opportune 4y ago
  The role and seriousness of religion in society has ebbed and flowed a lot historically. There is reason to believe that during much of the Hellenistic period and before/after, most ancient Greeks saw the Gods as more of a folk tradition, for example. Hence the rise in schools of philosophical thought independent of religion. Likely many other Pagan societies had such ebbs and flows. Ancient China went through similar periods IIUC. It’s also hard for me to believe that Renaissance era Italians were really fervent believers given all the corruption involved in the Church (placing rich people as Popes, tons of Popes and priests having affairs and using the church money to live lavishly). Which is likely what led to the Reformation and the wars of religion - basically a return back to taking religion very seriously. Historically it also seems to vary a lot based on class, with the upper end of society (by class or education) tending to be less religious. For example during the 19th century the average person was still quite religious in much of Europe, but the most educated classes had already become secular and begun to openly express Atheism. Then you look at things like the Wars of Religion following the reformation - most likely, this provided an excellent backdrop to motivate your soldiers with a real cause for fighting, which rulers used to accomplish their more practical goals of expanding their realm.
pasabagi 4y ago
I imagine it's more that they simply had no idea what they were getting into. The first world war was the first time anybody had seen a war with that kind of casualty distribution, not to mention, that kind of omnicidal lethality. Officers in previous wars had very good chances of survival.

Retric 4y ago

I think the same would be true of most similarly sized English schools, many just didn’t bother to record the names.

arethuza 4y ago
A lot of public schools in the UK have their own war memorials, though the Eton one sounds considerably larger than the ones I've seen.
- Retric 4y ago
  That seems surprising considering how many UK schools lost 10+% of their graduates in WWI + WWII.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    Fair point - pretty much every village and town in the UK has its own war memorials from WW1 and WW2. The village I grew up in has about 57 names for a population of 1000 or so: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/8670 https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/8670
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      This is pretty interesting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages
  - tristor 4y ago
    This is actually a reason why it's common. The impact was so large and so universally felt that nobody would object to the use of public funds to memorialize it. It merely takes someone to suggest it, and nobody would oppose.
BucketsMcG 4y ago
My school wasn't English, or as elitist as Eton, but each year on Remembrance Day they would read the names of every pupil who died in the two world wars. Took quite a while.

jfk13 4y ago

It looks like the Eton figures for WW1 are 1157 died, out of 5660 who served in the war; just over 20%. That's a lot higher than the overall British death rate of 12.5% of those who served (from https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/crime-and-defence/the-fallen/ https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/oly...).

cycomanic 4y ago

Did they actually die in higher percentages than regular footsoldiers? I seriously doubt it. We have to remember the number of people killed in WW1 and 2. I think it is likely that many other schools simply didn't put pictures up for their fallen. I suspect on exceptional aspect of Eton is the connection to former pupil, which might also explain the murderers thesis in the article. Likely many other schools don't even know what happened with their former students. I am not trying to defend Eton, it very well be a place to produce sociopaths. I don't have enough information, and the article is really anecdotal evidence by itself.

jfk13 4y ago
> Did they actually die in higher percentages than regular footsoldiers? Yes, as noted (with references) in some of the sibling comments here.

crossroadsguy 4y ago

Come to a colony and try to find out thousands killed by single old boys from such places.

aa-jv 4y ago
Indeed - Australia, for example, is littered with examples of missing memorials to those slaughtered by the Eton death cult.

aa-jv 4y ago

Quite literally a death cult. No thanks! This kind of entrenchment is why, even still today, we fight imperialist wars that murder innocent people every twenty minutes. Eton is a death cult.