There will never be anything like visiting a war grave to explain more powerfully the cost of war in a far more eloquent way than any book ever could.
I visited when i was 16 with school
Load of gobby teenagers messing around sneaking out to get pissed.
however after 3 days touring cemeteries and seeing the size of the graveyards and then realising it was just ones days battle
on the last night we went to the Menin gate at Ypres and heard the last post.
there was not a dry eye in there even as teenagers.
Made me a life long pacifist as what a waste of life that all was.....the scale is unimaginable tbh
here are just some of the names of those who passed one way through those gates
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Never ever forget
Aye JY; I run a trip to Poland via Germany every two years, decided to come back and stay in Ypres this time. The Menin gate ceremony I have seen twice and both coincided with it getting very dusty.
Just as well there weren't many "pacifists" about in 1939 then
might have helped if the german nation had been made up of them as well
Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-l'Abbe, France. The final resting place of my Great Uncle Battery Quartermaster Sergeant W. H. Brown, awarded the Military Medal for continuing to perform his duties despite being fatally wounded whilst serving with the 30th Battery, XXXIX Brigade, attached to 1st Division Royal Field Artillery during WWI.
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In July 1916, during the first days of the Battle of the Somme, the Casualty Clearing Stations at Heilly were closest to the battlefield, but the last on the route taken by ambulance trains on their journey taking casualties back to hospital. At the peak time of 1st to 4th July 1916 they admitted thousands of men, but the shortage of trains meant that no casualties could be evacuated from the Casualty Clearing Stations for more than 72 hours. During that time, the death toll at Heilly was so great, that to save both time and space, men were often buried on top of each other, three to a grave. As there was so little room on each headstone for three names, the regimental badges of the soldiers had to be omitted, and instead the insignia of those men appear in Portland stone plaques set into a cloister and screen wall at one end of the cemetery.
Just as well there weren't many "pacifists" about in 1939 then
America was full of them. Right up until Pearl Harbor got bombed.
And we were perfectly happy to be pacifists too, right up until Germany invaded Poland, and declared war on us.
Still, I guess we'd have been better off just rolling over and being invaded by Nazis, instead of getting all bolshy and war-like, and fighting back...
"Peace in our time!"...
I'm not sure if the US isolationists pre-Pearl Harbor can be described as "pacifists". And it was Britain and France who declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, not the other way round.
I'd like to think I'd have been a conscientious objector in the first lot, but a volunteer in the second.
But that's romantic bullshit and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
My dad was involved in Norway, Burma & India during WW2, ending up as an artillery officer on 25 pounders attached to the Indian Army.
He was a lifelong socialist and his experiences convinced him of the futility of war and the non-existance of a god.
However, he was very vocal regarding the pressures on young people to join up pre 1939.
He was in the Territorials before the war - 'a logical extention of the Scouts for a Grammar School boy with an interest in the outdoors'.
He and his friends were brought up on the romantic war stories of previous generations and had little idea of the horror awaiting them.
We know more about the experiences of those in the trenches during WW1 than their children did.
He refused to go to Korea, despite a nicely worded invite from HM Govt.
He always maintained that television was a wonderful invention because, unlike the photography pioneered in the Boer War, it was truly democratic & enabled people to genuinely see the horrors of war and understand the propoganda for the crock of shite it was and still is.
Anyway, sorry for the long post.
It seemed relevant when I started it.
Mind you on the subject of celebrating war and wasting money i hear the culture secretary has 4 years of events planned to remember WWI. Not sure that's justified or healthy.
Maybe they should use the word Cemmemorate
Maybe they should use the word Cemmemorate
Or even "commemorate"?
[quote=ernie_lynch ]I have never know WW1 to be remembered in terms of celebrations. In my experience the focus is always on the appalling loss of life, the horrific conditions in the trenches/frontline, the futile offensives ordered by callous generals, and the cruel execution of young men suffering from shell shock/post traumatic stress.
I can't see any evidence to suggest that for the first time in a hundred years WW1 will be celebrated.
And as for the claim that politicians will milk the anniversary of WW1 to gain popularity, well that's just bizarre.
WW1 is a reminder of national stupidity, not national pride.
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He and his friends were brought up on the romantic war stories of previous generations and had little idea of the horror awaiting them.
It's odd, perhaps it's because my grandfather and his brothers were army kids (great grandfather was lucky to survive Ypres wounds) but none of them had any illusions when they went to war. 9 marched away, 5 of them were front-line soldiers for the entire war and all 9 came back physically whole much to the surprise of everyone. Mentally, 3 of them never really came to terms with what they'd seen or done though and never spoke of their war, except to their brothers the first year after they demobbed.
One, the youngest, lied about his age and went to North Africa at 16. His stories are horrific (starting WW1 era charges at German machine guns in the early days) and he's a surprisingly well balanced and happy man considering what he's seen and particularly what he's done. I think he's one of those rare people who thrives in those situations (one of those 15% who actually shoot to kill).
I think seeing war cemeteries is useful for children to understand the scale of things. It's also important, I believe, to show children the cemeteries of the enemy dead to humanise the cost on both sides. It's far too easy these days to assume that if we can kill with no risk to ourselves, it's okay. Even today, seeing the white crosses at the US cemetery on my ride (Patton is actually buried there) and the German one nearby, brings home the terrible losses for all countries involved, particularly as they find remains every year in the forests and still keep adding to the plots.
