the importance of dates

Often people say that history is boring, especially memorizing dates, places, people. To each his or her own I say, and I would not say everyone should love history as I do. But I believe that we can learn much from history, including knowing dates and the interplay between events that one can see when they know the dates. I have two examples to share.

I remember growing up and hearing for example that the sinking of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner, precipitated the entry of the United States into World War I. The US had tried to remain neutral as Europe engaged in war since 1914.  The only problem was that the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7th, 1915 and the reelection campaign of President Wilson in 1916 featured the prominent slogan "he kept us out of war". 

Wilson was re-elected in November of 1916 and only several months later, on April 6,1917, did the US enter the war.  It's not that the attacks by the German Navy didn't contribute to our entry into the war, but the specific case was not the 'tipping point along with the fact that the Lusitania, far from being just an ordinary passenger ship, was carrying 173 tons of war material and the Germans maintained that that made it a legitimate target.

The second example was the War of 1812, one of those often overlooked wars that the US has gotten into. The reason often cited was the interference with US shipping and the "impression" or forced "recruitment" of US sailors into foreign navies. France and Britain were at war,  the Napoleonic wars, and each country had issued embargoes against all other countries engaging in trade with the other side.  This affected US trade because we were involved with both. And there was still strong feeling against the British in the US over the Revolution,

But what also tipped the balance against the British and in favor of the French was a timing issue. Napoleon was planning on invading Russia and had no desire to split his military forces to cover war with the US, so he agreed to stop harassing our shipping. There was no comparable action by the British, so on June 18, 1812, the US declared war on the British. Perhaps if communication had been faster in those days we might have avoided the war altogether. At the end of the war, there were a couple of battles that were fought needlessly, due to communication slowness - notably the Battle of New Orleans which was fought on January 9, 1815, even though the peace Treaty of Ghent (ending the war) had been signed on Dec 24, 1814.

War is complicated and when we treat it simplistically we often miss important details and fail to learn the lessons that would help us avoid errors (and the accompanying loss of life) in present situations. Knowing dates helps us maintain a global perspective. My next post will examine another facet of oversimplification - slogans.