In Memorium

I have just finished the longest single-volume read of my adult life, Martin Gilbert's 'The First world War – A Complete history'. Although the book is only 543 pages, not including bibliography and maps, it is dense with information, statistics and sorrow. Amidst all of that, Mr. Gilbert was careful to add the thoughts of the soldiers predominantly English and mostly in poetry, who fought, struggled, and not infrequently died, in this most foolish of all wars.

The First world War changed the world completely, not least because it helped to set the stage for the Second.

It begins like this:

“The British public was following British military successes in France with a rapidly enhanced confidence, pride and moral superiority. This feeling was expressed in verse on September 5, 1914, by the much-respected novelist and poet Thomas Hardy:

In our heart of hearts believing
     Victory crowns the just,
     And that braggarts must
     Surely bite the dust,

Press we to the field ungrieving
In our heart of hearts believing
     Victory crowns the just.”
__________


On May 11, 1915, the Germans began a heavy artillery bombardment prior to an assault on Ypres. On May 13, Captain Julian Grenfell was wounded in the bombardment. Two weeks earlier, he had written one of the most quoted British poems of the war, 'Into Battle', the last four stanzas of which read:

In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours,
     Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;
     O patient eyes, courageous hearts!


And when the burning moment breaks,
     And all things else are out of mind,
And only joy of battle takes
     Him by the throat, and makes him blind,


Through joy and blindness he shall know,
     Not caring much to know, but still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
     That it be not the Destined Will.

The thundering line of battle stands,
     And in the air death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
     And night shall fold him in soft wings.


Captain Grenfell died of his wounds on May 26.
________

At Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula, on June 3, the Turkish Army began a concerted push to drive the British back into the sea. Among those who survived was A.P Herbert, whose postwar book 'The Secret Battle' was called by Winston Churchill 'one of those cries of pain wrung from the fighting troops by the prolonged and measureless torment through which they passed'. He also wrote this of the battle there:

This is the fourth of June
     Think not I ever dream
The noise of that infernal noon,
     The stretchers endless stream,
The tales of triumph won,
     The night that found them lies,
The wounded wailing in the sun,
     The dead, the dust, the flies.


The flies! Oh, God, the flies
     That soiled the sacred dead.
To see them swarm from dead men's eyes
     And share the soldiers' bread!
Nor think I now forget
     The filth and stench of war,
The corpses on the parapet,
     The maggots in the floor.

Also surviving the battle at Cape Helles was Patrick Shaw-Stewart, and Oxford scholar and a poet:

I saw a man this morning
     Who did not wish to die:
I ask, and cannot answer,
     If otherwise wish I.


O hell of ships and cities,
     Hell of men like me,
Fatal second Helen,
     Why must I follow thee?

Shaw-Stewart was killed two years later on the western front, after refusing to be evacuated for a wound.
________

I really had planned to go through the book, and post at least a portion of each poem or other writing, but find that I cannot. What is above is a little less than 1/10th the poetry from the book, and not 1/1000th of the horror.

I will post one more, only, then end this.

The most read English-language poem of World War One was written by a Canadian doctor, John M. MacCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
     That mark our place; and in the sky
     The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
     Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
     The torch; be yours to hold it high.
     If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
     In Flanders fields.
_________


In honor of Memorial Day, an excerpt from the last few pages:

“The destructiveness of the First World War, in terms of the number of soldiers killed, exceeded that of all other wars known to history. The following list gives the number of those who were killed in action,or who died of wounds received in action. The figures are inevitably approximate, nor do they encompass all the victims of the war. In the case of Serbia, more civilian died (82,000) than the soldiers listed here. In the United States Army, more soldiers died of influenza (62,000) than were killed in battle. The number of Armenians massacred between 1914 and 1918 was more than one million. The number of German civilians dying as a result of the Allied blockade has been estimated at more than three quarters of a million.

The number of war dead of the principal belligerents was, according to the minimum estimates:

Germany:                     1,800,000
Russia:                        1,700,000
France:                        1,384,000
Austria-Hungary:         1,290,000
Britain:                           743,000
Italy:                               615,000
Roumania:                      335,000
Turkey:                           325,000
Bulgaria                           90,000
Canada                             60,000
Australia                          59,000
India                                 49,000
United States                    48,000
Serbia                              45,000
Belgium                           44,000
New Zealand                   16,000
South Africa                      8,000
Portugal                             7,000
Greece                               5,000
Montenegro                        3,000

The Central Powers, the losers in the war, lost 3,500,000 soldiers on the battlefield. The Allied Powers, the victors, lost 5,100,000 men. On average, this was more than 5,600 soldiers killed on each day of the war. . .