WW1 100 years ago
Discussion
My son is participating in the memorial tonight, as part of the Air Cadets.
I was at the National Memorial Arboretum yesterday, we were unveiling a poppy wreath made of hand beaded poppies, one for each service person killed in Afghanistan with an extra one for Lee Rigby, lots of us took part in making the poppies, which in November will be sold off (they are made as brooches), to raise money for the RBL.
I was at the National Memorial Arboretum yesterday, we were unveiling a poppy wreath made of hand beaded poppies, one for each service person killed in Afghanistan with an extra one for Lee Rigby, lots of us took part in making the poppies, which in November will be sold off (they are made as brooches), to raise money for the RBL.
Breadvan72 said:
Only connect, as E M Forster would say. History and literature should be studied together, I reckon.
I DID study both together - but as two separate units - not muddled together.Our curricula were so intense it would have be too time consuming trying to assess the validity of a poet's view of the war without having first learned the reason why the war had actually happened.
In fact, we spent virtually no time on the war itself as it was deemed far more important to know and understand what actually caused the war in the first place. Whilst that meant the subject might have seemed a bit dry and unemotional, it did leave me with a deep seated understanding as to how nations can embark on the path to war.
We were also studying Irish history covering the same period so there was the difficulty of tying in what was happening on the world stage with what was happening in Ireland at the same time.
The one area that was totally ignored was the active involvement of Ireland itself in The Great War. This was due to the culture of Ireland in the 1970s which tended to see the rest of the world as somehow separate to Ireland. There was particularly a tendency to want to distance Irish involvement in any actions concerning Britain and its Empire. The situation in Ireland is very much different now.
Eric Mc said:
Breadvan72 said:
Only connect, as E M Forster would say. History and literature should be studied together, I reckon.
I DID study both together - but as two separate units - not muddled together.I think with the luxury of time you can do all these things. But when you are trying to get your head around a mass of facts and data in a very short time span (two years), you don't have that luxury.
I meet many, may British people who know little or nothing about World War 1 or the events that led up to it - but can tell me all about how the poets told us how horrible it was.
Perhaps in the UK there was too much emphasis placed on the awfulness of it all (as related by the poets) and not enough on why it happened in the first place.
I meet many, may British people who know little or nothing about World War 1 or the events that led up to it - but can tell me all about how the poets told us how horrible it was.
Perhaps in the UK there was too much emphasis placed on the awfulness of it all (as related by the poets) and not enough on why it happened in the first place.
Eric Mc said:
The bad thing about the WW1 poets in UK education is that they were taught as part of the history curriculum rather than the English Literature curriculum.
In Ireland, I spent six months studying intently the Causes of World War 1 as part of my Leaving Certificate Honours History Course. Not a poet in sight - but a lot of telegrams.
Not sure when you are referring to but I certainly studied the war poets during Eng Lit when I did GCSE over 20 years ago -In Ireland, I spent six months studying intently the Causes of World War 1 as part of my Leaving Certificate Honours History Course. Not a poet in sight - but a lot of telegrams.
I gather that the teaching of history in many UK schools no longer offers a core narrative of British/European history from the early middle ages to the present day, but I was taught that narrative, and studied the First World War for O Level history (I took the exam in 1979, when AJP Taylor was in historiographic vogue), whilst studying the war poets briefly in third form English (but not for O Level).
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 4th August 18:54
Greenie said:
For you sharped eyed historians you may notice my brother has mistakenly included my grandfather's WWII medal not the WWI one!
Bravery seems to be in the family (not me I may add!)
I did notice that the head on the medal looked like George VI!Bravery seems to be in the family (not me I may add!)
Yes, brave indeed.
We'll be turning the lights off tonight at 10pm to show our respects.
Breadvan72 said:
Guam said:
Indeed it makes me think of my Great Grandfather who is one of my earliest recollections, he was one of the "lucky ones" (his words) he was Blinded by mustard Gas, I often wonder, whenever I see those old stills and movies of the lines of guys with bandages on their eyes, hands on each others shoulders, whether one of them is him.
RIP indeed.
You will,I am sure, know this one, but just in case anyone doesn't, here it is:-RIP indeed.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest 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
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes 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, 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
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen MC (1893-1918)
'My subject is war. And the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity.'
The poet from Rugby who died at just 27, not in battle, but from a mossie bite, in 1915 the year after the war started.
Rupert Brooke.
Brooke's 'The Soldier' is oft quoted but his poem 'Dust' sums up everything both in war and life.
Oh and if you don't like poetry, or recital, Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac did his own brilliant rendition of Brooke's Dust in 1972 on the Mac's album Bare Trees. He just used the first verses and added his brilliant vibrato guitar work. Sadly, drugs and drink meant he ended up in the gutter and homeless. Another waste of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yzRik4VCA
10pm tonight, a hundred years ago; the lamps went out all over europe - a catastrophe for millions and a tragedy for the continent.
While in many ways a European war was inevitable in 1914, I feel anger aimed at the leaders and politicians whose failure allowed it to happen. The century would have been so different had some of them more moral courage.
SS7
While in many ways a European war was inevitable in 1914, I feel anger aimed at the leaders and politicians whose failure allowed it to happen. The century would have been so different had some of them more moral courage.
SS7
Eric Mc said:
I think with the luxury of time you can do all these things. But when you are trying to get your head around a mass of facts and data in a very short time span (two years), you don't have that luxury.
I meet many, may British people who know little or nothing about World War 1 or the events that led up to it - but can tell me all about how the poets told us how horrible it was.
Perhaps in the UK there was too much emphasis placed on the awfulness of it all (as related by the poets) and not enough on why it happened in the first place.
The trouble isn't what they teach in History - it's that History is outgunned by English departments. 3 times as many pupils student GCSE English as study GCSE history.I meet many, may British people who know little or nothing about World War 1 or the events that led up to it - but can tell me all about how the poets told us how horrible it was.
Perhaps in the UK there was too much emphasis placed on the awfulness of it all (as related by the poets) and not enough on why it happened in the first place.
The two subjects teach it to different depths. English departments are quite happy to spend the month of November teaching third-formers Sassoon, Owen, Binyon, RC Sheriff et al. The whole subject covered there and then - "bish bash bosh that was WW1. Moving on...". It doesn't matter to English departments whether they are contemporary accounts or not, just as doesn't matter that Shakespeare's plays are hardly historically accurate either.
And of course, by teaching it at younger age, the treatment is far more superficial. The CliffNotes for Journey's End describe it as anti-war when RC Sheriff is on record as stating it was anything but.
By contrast, History departments may barely scratch the surface of the war in the time available to them - just doing the July Crisis justice would require a significant amount of teaching time. And of course you have all sorts of perspectives to consider - the operational on the battlefield, the tactical in the high command, the strategic with politicians, the economic and social impacts at home and abroad.
RichS said:
jimbop1 said:
Thanks for sharing! I don't want to think what it must have been like.
I will be showing my respect at 2300 hrs tonight.
22.00 I think (though of course perhaps you meant you couldn't do it till 23.00- whatever, it's the thought/respects that count, not the timing)I will be showing my respect at 2300 hrs tonight.
Guam said:
For me one of the most poignant parts of the Great War was the idiocy of the "Pals Regiments" whole towns emptied of their young men in any single major battle.
Some of those Towns and villages in these Islands must have been dark places indeed in the early twenties. I would suspect many on here would have had elderly "maiden Aunts" (or Great Aunts) as I did, purely because there were no men for them to marry.
A social price that is frequently overlooked.
Some of those Towns and villages in these Islands must have been dark places indeed in the early twenties. I would suspect many on here would have had elderly "maiden Aunts" (or Great Aunts) as I did, purely because there were no men for them to marry.
A social price that is frequently overlooked.
Some folk have mentioned the cemeteries, especially the mixed cemeteries, where German soldiers are buried alongside Allied soldiers.
Close to home, we have one, hidden at the far end of Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley, near Southampton...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Victoria_Countr...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Royal+Victoria...
...it was the site of an enormous military hospital (built 1863). The hospital is all gone, demolished except for the chapel. It's a site of enormous military and historic significance, and the cemetery, laid out on a gentle hill, in the woods at the far end is a 'good' place to see the human cost laid before you, enemies at the front became patients together, and those that were beyond help died alongside one another in this quiet corner of Hampshire, to be buried together. It's a very sobering place to visit, but the very fact that enemy troops were evacuated and treated alongside our own suggests that the underlying benevolence of the human spirit is as strong within war as it is without.
Personally, I find it pretty tough at these times of remembrance. A few years ago I was one of four selected to perform the 'Reverse Arms' on the corners of the memorial at the Remembrance Day parade in Ripon. That's something pretty special to be involved in, as the 'Reverse Arms' is not (or certainly wasn't back then) widely taught. That few minutes of drill, which at the time felt like an age, was one of the proudest moments of my service career, and I felt it genuinely allowed me to properly pay my respects, and gain total isolation so as to really consider the spirit and the sacrifice of all those whose lives were foreshortened in the service of the freedom of the people of Europe and the wider World.
Went the day well?
We died and never knew.
But, well or ill,
Freedom, we died for you.
Close to home, we have one, hidden at the far end of Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley, near Southampton...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Victoria_Countr...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Royal+Victoria...
...it was the site of an enormous military hospital (built 1863). The hospital is all gone, demolished except for the chapel. It's a site of enormous military and historic significance, and the cemetery, laid out on a gentle hill, in the woods at the far end is a 'good' place to see the human cost laid before you, enemies at the front became patients together, and those that were beyond help died alongside one another in this quiet corner of Hampshire, to be buried together. It's a very sobering place to visit, but the very fact that enemy troops were evacuated and treated alongside our own suggests that the underlying benevolence of the human spirit is as strong within war as it is without.
Personally, I find it pretty tough at these times of remembrance. A few years ago I was one of four selected to perform the 'Reverse Arms' on the corners of the memorial at the Remembrance Day parade in Ripon. That's something pretty special to be involved in, as the 'Reverse Arms' is not (or certainly wasn't back then) widely taught. That few minutes of drill, which at the time felt like an age, was one of the proudest moments of my service career, and I felt it genuinely allowed me to properly pay my respects, and gain total isolation so as to really consider the spirit and the sacrifice of all those whose lives were foreshortened in the service of the freedom of the people of Europe and the wider World.
Went the day well?
We died and never knew.
But, well or ill,
Freedom, we died for you.
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