FA+
Shop
Thoughts on the Centenary
7 years ago
General
They were the famous words of Captain Darling in the season finale of 'Blackadder Goes Forth':
"Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War: 1914-1917."
It is, of course, to the sacrifice of countless lives in countless lands to which we owe our freedom to address such a horrific human tragedy as the Great War in a light-hearted perspective, as Blackadder does so well. But I find imagining, as I read over those words, what on earth must the soldiers on the front lines - in France, Belgium, Serbia, Italy, and Romania to name a few - have thought when the clock struck 11? No more killing. No more shells. The end to a maddening hell through which some had endured from the beginning of it all. Relief to be going home once again? Joy to have concluded in what many regarded, and still regard today, as a resounding Allied victory to Part One of the European Civil War? On the flip side, anger and frustration that four years had brought them right back to where they started? There would be no cakes and coffee in Berlin; the Belgian King only entered Brussels 11 days after the armistice was signed, and it would take months until the last British soldier returned home to Blighty.
And what of those thoughts in the opposite trenches? Mightn't they also feel that same relief, that same anger and frustration that 4 years of madness had all been for nothing? The fear of facing a people that had expected so much of them, and many of whom now cast them as traitors to a revolutionary cause. The fear also of w For those fighting in the Balkans, their former brothers from across the Empire had already returned home, to defend lines drawn on maps hundreds of miles away, and Parliaments proclaimed by those men who had stayed at home, while they guarded the frontier of a nation that had, for all intents and purposes, now ceased to be.
Of course, each individual soldier's experience of the war was different, from the Privates in the field right up to the Generals at HQ. The commander shunned for his mistakes, to become Prime Minister. The corporal whose experience turned him into one of history's most terrible monsters. Those of imagination who used their experiences to generate literature and artwork, bringing the visuals and the feelings directly from the trenches into people's homes and minds. Those who would leave the war to end all wars, only to pledge their lives once more 30 years later. Then, of course, there all those who were not as fortunate to return as they had departed. Those who lost lives, those who lost limbs, and those who lost their minds. It is in remembrance of those, from the First World War and of all wars past and since, that I joined the rest of this United Kingdom in two minutes of silence at 11am, and think always of those who, for our tomorrow, gave their today.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
"Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War: 1914-1917."
It is, of course, to the sacrifice of countless lives in countless lands to which we owe our freedom to address such a horrific human tragedy as the Great War in a light-hearted perspective, as Blackadder does so well. But I find imagining, as I read over those words, what on earth must the soldiers on the front lines - in France, Belgium, Serbia, Italy, and Romania to name a few - have thought when the clock struck 11? No more killing. No more shells. The end to a maddening hell through which some had endured from the beginning of it all. Relief to be going home once again? Joy to have concluded in what many regarded, and still regard today, as a resounding Allied victory to Part One of the European Civil War? On the flip side, anger and frustration that four years had brought them right back to where they started? There would be no cakes and coffee in Berlin; the Belgian King only entered Brussels 11 days after the armistice was signed, and it would take months until the last British soldier returned home to Blighty.
And what of those thoughts in the opposite trenches? Mightn't they also feel that same relief, that same anger and frustration that 4 years of madness had all been for nothing? The fear of facing a people that had expected so much of them, and many of whom now cast them as traitors to a revolutionary cause. The fear also of w For those fighting in the Balkans, their former brothers from across the Empire had already returned home, to defend lines drawn on maps hundreds of miles away, and Parliaments proclaimed by those men who had stayed at home, while they guarded the frontier of a nation that had, for all intents and purposes, now ceased to be.
Of course, each individual soldier's experience of the war was different, from the Privates in the field right up to the Generals at HQ. The commander shunned for his mistakes, to become Prime Minister. The corporal whose experience turned him into one of history's most terrible monsters. Those of imagination who used their experiences to generate literature and artwork, bringing the visuals and the feelings directly from the trenches into people's homes and minds. Those who would leave the war to end all wars, only to pledge their lives once more 30 years later. Then, of course, there all those who were not as fortunate to return as they had departed. Those who lost lives, those who lost limbs, and those who lost their minds. It is in remembrance of those, from the First World War and of all wars past and since, that I joined the rest of this United Kingdom in two minutes of silence at 11am, and think always of those who, for our tomorrow, gave their today.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
V.