Battle of the Somme
Discussion
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.
TartanPaint said:
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.
I remember studying this is English Lit at school when I was 13/14.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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.
It's only when you're older that the words sink in and you can imagine being there.
LWF
The Somme and Verdun memorials are sobering places, there is barely a town in the whole area without a graveyard from this craziness. The Delville wood memorial to South African soldiers who died in the conflagration, who included members of my wife's family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_W...
There is also a military cemetery in Lisboa with Portuguese soldiers who died on the Western Front, which included my great grandfather.
We need to not lose sight of the other side of the battle, 500 000 million German soldiers also died in this giant failure of diplomacy, Churchill may not have had the greatest track record in WWI, but jaw, jaw rather than war, war is very apt in hindsight.
The docu-drama, 37 days, charting the events leading up to the war, shows this well, when events overtake politicians.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x208kyw_37-days-o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_W...
There is also a military cemetery in Lisboa with Portuguese soldiers who died on the Western Front, which included my great grandfather.
We need to not lose sight of the other side of the battle, 500 000 million German soldiers also died in this giant failure of diplomacy, Churchill may not have had the greatest track record in WWI, but jaw, jaw rather than war, war is very apt in hindsight.
The docu-drama, 37 days, charting the events leading up to the war, shows this well, when events overtake politicians.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x208kyw_37-days-o...
I don't think we can ever understand what that generation of young men went through so we could today moan and b
h about everything and everyone.
My Uncle died in May 1916 not at the Somme and he was one of only two killed that day how unlucky was that.
I cant help but think that both those who died in WW1 and those who died in WW2 are not always remembered by mainland Europe and that those of the Commonwealth who gave their lives are not always remembered by us in the UK.
h about everything and everyone.My Uncle died in May 1916 not at the Somme and he was one of only two killed that day how unlucky was that.
I cant help but think that both those who died in WW1 and those who died in WW2 are not always remembered by mainland Europe and that those of the Commonwealth who gave their lives are not always remembered by us in the UK.
DocJock said:
After the utter carnage of day one and the sacrifices of these brave men, nobody said "Hang on, perhaps this isn't such a good plan" and continued on blindly, ears closed for another four and a half months in similar vein.
Tantamount to murder.
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like being a tactician in WWI, when everything you knew about fighting a land war went out of the window. It took until 1918 for anyone to really figure it out. Tantamount to murder.
"The act specified that single men aged 18 to 40 years old were liable to be called up for military service"
If it were happening now, that is two of my three sons, the third would be eligible next June, I think for a lot of people this stuff washes over them and they feel like they need to be respectful and dignified about it (they do !) but put yourself in that position of waving off two of the kids you have brought up for the past 18 or more years, your cousins, uncles, father, brother etc and put it into the context of your life now and it brings it home, makes me well up, that isnt even thinking about what those lads had to endure, I have my Great Grandads medals upstairs, he lost a leg during WW1 but survived, imagine how many men had life changing injuries and got very little support ?
So many see it as ancient history, and it really isnt, anyone who experienced it first hand has died, we forget things pretty quickly, we have it pretty good these days but we tend to forget that.
If it were happening now, that is two of my three sons, the third would be eligible next June, I think for a lot of people this stuff washes over them and they feel like they need to be respectful and dignified about it (they do !) but put yourself in that position of waving off two of the kids you have brought up for the past 18 or more years, your cousins, uncles, father, brother etc and put it into the context of your life now and it brings it home, makes me well up, that isnt even thinking about what those lads had to endure, I have my Great Grandads medals upstairs, he lost a leg during WW1 but survived, imagine how many men had life changing injuries and got very little support ?
So many see it as ancient history, and it really isnt, anyone who experienced it first hand has died, we forget things pretty quickly, we have it pretty good these days but we tend to forget that.
The First World War was something of a perfect storm. There is an arguement (though not a slam dunk I admit) that it was inevitable given the political position on the continent at the time, and the fact that war was undergoing industrialisation.
Foch wanted the Somme offensive to relieve the pressure off the French seige at Verdun. Asquith was coming under pressure to make a break through.
It's not right, but that's why.
Foch wanted the Somme offensive to relieve the pressure off the French seige at Verdun. Asquith was coming under pressure to make a break through.
It's not right, but that's why.
grumbledoak said:
We will remember them.
The main thing I can't get my head round is the sheer scale of it. My grandfather's earliest memory is of their village priest collapsing in his pulpit as he tried to read the list of the men from the village who had been killed, and realised that it contained the name of every single man of military age in the whole village. They'd joined up together, trained together, marched off to war together, gone over the top together and all died together on the same day.
Of course, the loss is no less for the families of those who've died in Afghanistan & Iraq more recently, but part of me will always be relieved to see their individual deaths announced on the evening news, because as long as an individual solider's death is nationally newsworthy, I know there's still hope for our humanity.
RosscoPCole said:
Today is a day to put our political differences and worries to one side and remember the bravery and sacrifice of tens of thousands of young men who paid with their lives in a cause that they believed in.
Thank you to them all. We will remember them.
And let's not forget that they made the ultimate sacrifice to give all of us a future and all we have given back is to use and abuse and destroyThank you to them all. We will remember them.
I had the honour of knowing a man who served at the Somme. I've written about him on PH before. He came home. But he didn't really. He stayed and relived it in his dreams until he died in his 70s. He was 14.
What madness we make when we send our young to die over the squabbling of old men. Rest in peace.
What madness we make when we send our young to die over the squabbling of old men. Rest in peace.
Kermit power said:
I think the end of Black Adder IV is the saddest, most moving portrayal of warfare I've ever seen in either fiction or documentary. It really brings home the fact that those who died weren't just soldiers. They were also normal blokes, just trying to get through it all and have the occasional laugh with their mates in spite of the adversity. All the more shocking, I think, because right to the very last second of the programme, we were sat there waiting to see what comic turn would keep them out of harm's way.
The main thing I can't get my head round is the sheer scale of it. My grandfather's earliest memory is of their village priest collapsing in his pulpit as he tried to read the list of the men from the village who had been killed, and realised that it contained the name of every single man of military age in the whole village. They'd joined up together, trained together, marched off to war together, gone over the top together and all died together on the same day.
Of course, the loss is no less for the families of those who've died in Afghanistan & Iraq more recently, but part of me will always be relieved to see their individual deaths announced on the evening news, because as long as an individual solider's death is nationally newsworthy, I know there's still hope for our humanity.
Agree and in very rough figures it took 30 mins on day one of the Somme to reach the total Iraq figure. The main thing I can't get my head round is the sheer scale of it. My grandfather's earliest memory is of their village priest collapsing in his pulpit as he tried to read the list of the men from the village who had been killed, and realised that it contained the name of every single man of military age in the whole village. They'd joined up together, trained together, marched off to war together, gone over the top together and all died together on the same day.
Of course, the loss is no less for the families of those who've died in Afghanistan & Iraq more recently, but part of me will always be relieved to see their individual deaths announced on the evening news, because as long as an individual solider's death is nationally newsworthy, I know there's still hope for our humanity.
Pickled Piper said:
BigLion said:
RIP to all those involved.
Edited by BigLion on Friday 1st July 09:10
Incidentally , referrring to the bottom picture , the man with 3 stripes does have the same rank as a british army seargent , however in the Indian Army , his rank was Havildar , Corporal was Naik.
The last Indian Army rank in usre in the British Army was the rank of Truncheon Jemadar , a rank which went with the almagmation of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles in 1994
like millions of others, we have studio shot picture postcodes of family members in their uniforms heading off to war.
Of course they never returned.
On a nicer note, a now passed relation did survive the war and walked all the way home (or rode) with his "war horse", taking it back to the family farm in Northumberland, sleeping with it for warmth on the long trudge back.
Apparently someone wrote a book some 25 years ago about a similar tale and there has been some sort of show in London. Anyway that tale wasn't a one off
Of course they never returned.
On a nicer note, a now passed relation did survive the war and walked all the way home (or rode) with his "war horse", taking it back to the family farm in Northumberland, sleeping with it for warmth on the long trudge back.
Apparently someone wrote a book some 25 years ago about a similar tale and there has been some sort of show in London. Anyway that tale wasn't a one off
Johnnytheboy said:
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like being a tactician in WWI, when everything you knew about fighting a land war went out of the window. It took until 1918 for anyone to really figure it out.
Agreed. It's easy to think of the commanders as General Melchett, gaining a foot of ground for the loss of thousands of lives, but with new developments like machine guns and ever heavier artillery, plus the sheer size of the militaries involved compared to anything else before must have been an absolute nightmare to overcome in the early part of the war. Later in the war they'd started using close air support, tanks, creeping barrages, etc. Tactics really did evolve. Over 200 generals were killed, and proportionally more officers than enlisted were killed, so they weren't all back in a chateaux eating nice dinners either.Johnnytheboy said:
DocJock said:
After the utter carnage of day one and the sacrifices of these brave men, nobody said "Hang on, perhaps this isn't such a good plan" and continued on blindly, ears closed for another four and a half months in similar vein.
Tantamount to murder.
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like being a tactician in WWI, when everything you knew about fighting a land war went out of the window. It took until 1918 for anyone to really figure it out. Tantamount to murder.
The lessons had been learnt in 1915, but there wasn't time to bring such a massive force up to the same standard. Results across the Somme front varied on the first day, the fighting to the south of the river (mainly carried out by Regular and French units) was a sucess. The fighting to the north, carried in the main by Kitchener's Army less so. And so the "Lions led by Lambs" myth was born.
This is well worth an hours watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cK5xL6QBM0
It tells of the failings on the first day, but also how the British Army quickly learnt and addapted. The British Army that took to the field in late 1917/1918 is arguably the most efficient fighting force history has seen. That was an Army that had its baptism on the Somme.
Edit: Rizzo also makes some good points above.
In a similar way (and to a much larger and more costly extent) to the Dieppe Landing stopping D-Day being a disaster, battles like the Somme had to happen to happen in order that tacticians realise that simply throwing more infantry and more shells at an enemy trench wasn't going to work.
IIRC the first tanks appeared during the Somme but in very small numbers, and inappropriately deployed. So the seeds of change were there.
IIRC the first tanks appeared during the Somme but in very small numbers, and inappropriately deployed. So the seeds of change were there.
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