100 years ago, it was November 11, 1915. The soldiers of World War 1 had three years to go and an almost unimaginable amount of largely pointless slaughter to endure before the Armistice would be put in place on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. That event was commemorated with Armistice Day which has now been renamed Veterans Day.
For a history of World War 1, I can’t recommend highly enough Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast series “Blueprint for Armageddon 1 – 6. I don’t think any description can really do justice to the horrors of being a soldier in those trenches or trying to advance on the enemy trenches, but Carlin gives it a good effort. The horror is amplified by the ultimate futility of the war effort and the opaque reasons the war started in the first place.
This is a day to thank our soldiers — not as a way of glorifying war but as a way of reflecting upon its costs. War has sometimes been necessary, and often times it has not. But always a large part of the toll is paid by the soldiers; people who, frequently, had more in common with the soldiers on the other side than they did with the people making the decisions to fight the war. The case of World War I makes this abundantly clear. We honor not just those willing to fight and die for our freedom, but also those who are willing to do their duty when the policy goals were much more muddled.
Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman
Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.
One of the best films about the cost of war is the 1946 film “The Best Years of our Lives.”
Below is another WWI poem by WIlfred Owen. Owen was killed in action a week before WWI was over.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)
There was a poem I remember but not enough to find on-line. As I recall it, two enemy soldiers meet and one of them reflects that this guy was much like the folks back home he’d sit at the pub and have a beer with; but here he was in some godforsaken hell hole charged with killing this person who’d never done him any wrong.
It’s been a long time, so my memory might be off.
A big plus one to your post, Mr. Masson, and to your recommendation on Dan Carlin.
This is by Siegfried Sassoon, who fought in the Great
War and knew whereof he spoke.
From “Counter-Attack and Other Poems” 1918.
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-face crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Jay Hulbert
Major, USMC, retired
Wow, that’s powerful. Literally gave me chills. Thanks for sharing it.
That’s what needs to be read in the place of bravado and jingoistic nonsense. Like the one who asked why is it that the old men fight and the young men die.
I just heard a segment on NPR. Sgt. York was the great war hero of WWI. He was honored when he came hom and was offered many commercial deals. He turned them down because he did not want to prosper from the war incident.
When he came back to Tennessee, he used his own money and raised funds to build a high school in his country. That is the story of a hero.
Now, that’s inspiring.
Stuart, yes, it is a great story. York only had a 3rd grade education and wanted to ensure kids from his community were able to obtain an education. In that sense, Sgt. York’s work has improved the lives of thousands of people.