Centenary Battle of the Somme

Sorry, I didn't mean to nag!! or niggle!! I just find it interesting and would love any other opinions!

I think it was inevitable. And possibly people are mulling it over as I've just sat down with my cup of tea and seen your post.

How sad that no one has an opinion or is prepared to comment on my previous post, as I would genuinely like to know what others think.

I think it needs to be remembered that Germany were, for their own reasons invading Belgium and France and clearly France had to defend their territory. We had to honour our treaty to defend Belgium, and having failed to do this, it would have been immoral and foolish to just pack up and retreat back to England and watch while France was overwhelmed by a vastly superior enemy, an enemy whose next port of call would have undoubtedly been England. Either way we would eventually had to have faced on our own, a very aggressive enemy, Before you all shout at me, this is only my opinion, although I would be interested to hear views on how we could have avoided this catastrophe bearing in mind the extreme aggression of Germanys generals.

If anyone is interested I can thoroughly recommend watching a film named Regeneration (1997) which tells the story of how Siegfried Sassoon met Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart Castle in 1917, when it was a military hospital for shell shocked soldiers. There, Sassoon, the older man, encouraged Owen with his poetry.

Sassoon is at Craiglockhart to shut him up after publishing a pamphlet attacking the generals. He is not ill, certainly not raving. He is a prisoner of conscience. There are others, such as Billy Prior (Jonny Lee Miller), an officer from the ranks who lost the gift of speech and Dr Rivers, the sympathetic psychiatrist in charge of the place. The patients are living proof of Sassoon's belief in the insanity of the war, Rivers is the conduit for their anguish.

The scenes in the trenches are very harrowing and the film is an adaptation of the prize winning novel by Pat Barker.

For those who would rather read I can recommend Pat Barker's trilogy - Regeneration/Eye in the Door/Ghost Road.

The original memorial at ND de Lorette is an ossuary. If you look inside you can see endless rows of coffins simply containing bones. The new memorial is lovely. I understand that children in France are taught all about the war(s) so that they do not forget.
Visiting my French pen friends family when our DDs were teenagers I told a sister in law that our DD1 had just been on a German exchange and we had had the German student back in return. She stopped in her tracks and said "you had a Bosch in your house?" I said she's young and wasn't even born then but, lovely lady that she is, she said the Bosch chased me from my home twice. She remembered being pulled along the road by her mother and then again fleeing with her own young children.
What could I say except offer a prayer of thanks that, here, we have known peace all these years.
In over forty years visiting these French friends near to Arras we always make time to visit a different cemetery to "visit" our young men-it never ceases to move me that I can go home in peace. They rest in very well maintained cemeteries and are honoured.

Daphnedill That is a brilliant poem I have not heard that one and we did quite a lots of Wilfred Owens stuff ay A level. That guy could really write.

These are the last four lines of Wilfred Owens "Dulce et Decorum Est" which sums up so much about war mongering.

"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori."

This is a "footnote" about the origin of this phrase,

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.

The rest of this poem is worth reading. It's not nice stuff but you do get the message.

Plenty of food for thought there whether a believer or not, Thank you, Stansgran!

Thanks for the link Nelliemoser 10.58

I watched coverage of the enactment of the 'ghost soldiers' on Sky News and I had a tear in my eye I must admit, had I been in close proximity I just know it would have been one of those occasions that would make the hair on my neck stand up and I would have cried buckets.

It was very moving and a brilliant concept. Well done Rufus Norris head of the National Theatre and Artist Jeremy Deller, an inspirational commemoration project, just marvellous.

THE CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HAS DEVISED A ‘CREDO’, A STATEMENT OF OUR BELIEFS AND CONVICTIONS, AS WE REMEMBER THE FIRST WORLD WAR WITHIN THIS GREAT CHURCH, AND INFORMED BY OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH.
We believe that:
• Whilst some wars are necessary and just, war falls short of God’s will for his children and his world.
• Whilst wrong, war brings out both the very best and the very worst in people, so we must both repent of the evil and celebrate the good.
• Those who have died in war are gathered up into God’s eternal purposes, so no human living and dying is in vain.
• As we remember the fallen, so God remembers them for good.
• Because all things will be reconciled in Christ, including ancient enemies, we are under an obligation to work for reconciliation today.
• The peoples of Europe and the world are interdependent on each other and must celebrate and build on the fruits of peace.
• Governments are obligated to defend the freedom and self-determination of their own people and respect and honour those of other nations.
• We have a duty and responsibility to care for the innocent victims of war.
• The Cathedral as a Christian church is a place of sanctuary and welcome for all people, and so witnesses to the worth of all who are made in God’s image and for whom Christ died.
• It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
Jesus says: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

This was in Durham Cathedral today. There were three wooden crosses made from the ammunition boxes by the men. Many who saw this credo today found it helpful.

I got chatting yesterday to a man who was reading a pb about the Somme on the bus. He told me that his 17 year old father and 37 year old grandfather were both there with the Warwickshires and both returned. His father was then killed in the WW2 blitz.
The silent soldiers must have been so moving, I saw a clip online and cried when they sang 'We're here because ...'
What have we learnt?

I remember reading 'All quiet on the Western Front' as a young teenager- it shocked me and appalled me to the core. And also illustrated so well that the young soldiers on BOTH sides were victims of the Generals' folly and crazy ambitions.

There is nothing glorious about war or death.

You're welcome.

I think it is one of the saddest of all the Wilfred Owen poems.

Yes indeed Luckygirl. Nothing glorious at all about the dead or the survivors.
Thank you for the poem daphnedill

My great uncle died on the Somme leading his men"over the top"He too has no known grave and is commemorated on the monument His brother, my grandfather was a surgeon on the Somme. My mother was born shortly afterwards and always said that she was born into a house of mourning. Next month on the anniversary of his death the whole family, 3 generations, are going to pay our respects in an act of remembrance. When my mother was 7 my grandfather took her round the battlefields but it was never talked of again.
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Lucky you, we read Chaucer! I would much rather have read W. Owen.

I studied Wifred Owen for A level English - we were too young to grasp the enormity of it all.

I wrote a child-friendly family history booklet about my hubby's great-grandpa who was a corporal in the 16th Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (From Nottingham). Sadly, he died in the Somme.The front cover is attached to view.
It was a worthwhile exercise and great for the grand children to pass down our legacy. Lest we forget!

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.
All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
Wilfred Owen

When we talk about these young men bravely giving their lives to defend our country and our democracy, it blows my mind - they mostly died for no reason and no purpose whatsoever - they were sent over the top in the full knowledge by the powers that were that they would just be mown down. A great deal of the time they gained no ground and achieved nothing. It was complete madness and a testimony to human folly and the inhumanity of the generals and politicians.

What sticks in my mind (and my craw) is the monumental incompetence of the generals sitting safely behind their desks and sending young men into what were basically pointless suicide missions. Just appalling.

Everyone has a sad story. My maternal Grandfather and 3 of his brothers were killed in the same week of that dreadful battle.

You're right felice, I'd forgotten about that. Those poor soldiers, complete confusion before you even begin.

I watched the coverage with my Flemish SO, he was telling me that most of the Belgian soldiers in WW1 were Flemish but all orders were given in French.
There was complete confusion, but at that time Flemish was often banned and people could be imprisoned and even executed for teaching Flemish.
He was very moved by the coverage yesterday.