Remembering the Great War

1. Christophe
   November 11th, 2009 at 7:43 am

   And don't forget that the Ottoman's Empire defeat enabled implementation of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 as well as the promise of the creation of a free Arab state.
   The first dominos that fell in the Middle East...

2. Jim
   November 11th, 2009 at 8:09 am

   My maternal Grandfather was a combat surgeon in WW 1, sort of the M*A*S*H of that war. He was also an avid photographer and he took many photos, some of the carnage. I was always taken by the dead horses as they used a lot of horses to haul supplies. He said that without the benefit of penicillin, discovered after the war, that the men who had maggots in their wounds stood a better chance of survival.

3. pwscott
   November 11th, 2009 at 8:13 am

   WWI was a terrible tragedy. As bad as WWII was it still didn't compare to the trauma inflicted to soldiers in the earlier war. I am amazed that humans still haven't found a way to settle differences without killing each other.

4. Skipweasel
   November 11th, 2009 at 9:58 am

   My grandfather fought at The Somme, and before that against the Boers in South Africa. He was a farm boy from Kent - all the men in his village got home safely, then a third of them died the next year from influenza.

   My dad fought in Burma with a battery of 25pdrs. He hardly ever spoke of it - I think he lost too many friends. He never wanted to join the Burma Star Association, though I often helped out with a branch near where I lived. There aren't many left, now.

5. Foreigner1
   November 11th, 2009 at 11:08 am

   My grandmother came from France. She had a piece of porcelain hanging on the wall in an obscure corner in her hallway. It read "Armistice 1914-1918". Everytime we her grandchildren asked her why that thing hang there, she started to sob and cry, she refused to talk about it and she chased us away for some time. When we got a bit older, of course we learned and understood that it was better not to ask her about that thing and that war. Even after some 70 years that war still way was too much for her. The next war she lived through didn't make near that much inpact on her to the point tha she could tell stories about that freely to us. That always has amazed me.

6. sara
   November 11th, 2009 at 11:19 am

   Skipweasel I'm amazed anyone survived the Somme, we were like target practice for the German artillery.

   We did a small recreation of the Somme on a school battlefields trip to Belgium when I was about 14 (about 50 of us crossed a field, each representing say 1,000 soldiers, dropping one by one onto the ground of the 'nomansland'). We also visited the big cemeteries and war memorials, heard the Last Stand played by a solitary trumpet at the Menin Gate, and generally learned a lot about the sheer bloody loss of life in WWI.

   Every kid should do that trip if they can, IMO. WWI is not to be forgotten.

   The thing that remains with me the strongest is the visual difference between the cemeteries of the Allies and the Axis/Germans.

   For example:
   Tyne Cot, white, 11,908 graves, one stone per body, many only "known unto God": http://www.firstworldwar.com/today/tynecot.htm
   Langemarck, black, mass grave of 25,000 bodies under a flower bed: http://www.firstworldwar.com/today/langemarckcemetery.htm

7. Mouserz
   November 11th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

   A war to end all wars is the one that will wipe out all life on earth.

8. Skipweasel
   November 11th, 2009 at 6:29 pm

   sara - At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

   That still brings a lump to my throat.

   Did you mean Last Post?

9. rod
   November 12th, 2009 at 2:05 am

   @ sara:

   did you happen to go to Baden senior school (Canadian forces base school?) We did the exact same thing on our trip in 88 or 89. I was also around 14-15.

10. sara
    November 12th, 2009 at 6:59 am

    I did mean the Last Post, yes! Oops.

    @rod No, I didn't, but there are many British schools who took the same trip for sure (having spoken to friends & acquaintances I've made since school), and I imagine many others all across Europe. Definitely worthwhile.

    Many a soggy-eyed moment, when you see grave upon grave upon grave upon grave and name upon name upon name... And then you realise the ones whose bodies have actually been found, and whose names have actually been etched onto that particular memorial are only a drop in the ocean - ouch. I've even got a lump in my throat typing this.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT