Passchendaele - 90 years later.

[LooseCannon]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main. ... rry112.xml

Discuss.

 

[Anonymous]

An excerpt from my term paper about Canada in World War I (written in Summer 2006):

If the Canadian nation really was born at Vimy Ridge, it shortly thereafter lost its innocence. The final phase of the third battle of Ypres was the stage for a major offensive against German positions at Passchendaele, close to Ypres. Here too, Canadian troops could capture the position of the Germans, but the commanding General Arthur W. Currie, a Canadian, had knowingly sacrificed 15,000 men. This disastrous operation caused that the term Passchendaele, now the genus for the entire third battle of Ypres, became the synonym for the terrors and pointlessness of war in British and Canadian territories, similar to Verdun in France and Germany.

On an unfittingly lighthearted note, the original footnote to this passage reads:

Desmond Morton, J.L. Granatstein: Marching To Armageddon. Chap. 7: Killing Grounds.
A. Smith, S. Harris: Paschendale. London, 2003.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/ypres3.htm (Visited: 30.07.2006, 14.40).

(I was correctly assuming that the lecturer would not be arsed to check all the literature, considering he had already said that he'd be receiving about 200 papers that term.)

 

[Forostar]

Wow, I never realized that some soldiers were still alive!!

Thanks for the link, LC!

 

[IronDuke]

As we are so quickly losing the tangible links with these conflicts (namely the First and Second Wars), I wonder if, as a society, we will begin to forget how truly hellish all-out war really can be?

We seem to be obsessed with glorifying the World Wars, and my concern is that we might forget the truth about the brutality, meaningless death, and horrible atrocities. With nobody around who actually experienced the living hell of war for themselves to remind us, what might happen to our perceptions of it?

On this same note, I find it fitting that the biggest advocate for non-violence in Canada are the two main Veterans organizations (Royal Canadian Legion and the War Amps)

 

[Raven]

As we are so quickly losing the tangible links with these conflicts (namely the First and Second Wars), I wonder if, as a society, we will begin to forget how truly hellish all-out war really can be?

We seem to be obsessed with glorifying the World Wars, and my concern is that we might forget the truth about the brutality, meaningless death, and horrible atrocities. With nobody around who actually experienced the living hell of war for themselves to remind us, what might happen to our perceptions of it?

Rwanda
Cambodia
The Falklands
The Gulf
Somalia
Vietnam

Atrocity and war is still a part of the world...if only people were to realise just what 'war' means; too many people brush the horror under the carpet, so to speak.

Sadly, it seems, the trouble is not that the links between us (as the non-serving public) and the soldiers who lived through the hell are disappearing...it's that so many benefit from ignoring it.  WWII may have been the last global war of the 20th Century, but I severely doubt that we will see a decade without some form of mass slaughter in one corner of the world or another.  The difficulty is, as you say, to emphasise the horror of war, so that we can avoid the kind of 'Spirit of 1914' that led so many men smiling to their graves.

I can only imagine what the veteran mentioned goes through, knowing he is the last link between the world and Paschendale...it must be terribly lonely.  And to outlive both your wives and your sons...

 

[Forostar]

too many people brush the horror under the carpet, so to speak.

Hardly (or even never) experienced something like that.

Sadly, it seems, the trouble is not that the links between us (as the non-serving public) and the soldiers who lived through the hell are disappearing...it's that so many benefit from ignoring it.

So many? You mean people who write books about wars? Or politicians?

 

[Raven]

So many? You mean people who write books about wars? Or politicians?

Certain Politicians, arms dealers (incidentally, did you know that the US and the UK are two of the biggest arms sellers to third world countries?), certain spin doctors, certain journalists etc.

You want to be able to increase the size of the army in future conflicts?  Then play on their patriotism and don't show 'em what really happens.

You want to keep the population sedate and stop them from rioting?  Same thing.

I'm mostly talking about Third World states here, obviously; the nations like N. Korea which need the veil of propaganda.  I was also referring to the simple naivety of some people, such as the Republican vs. Unionism conflict here...whenever you laud murderers of unarmed men, women and children as 'patriots', that's when you 'brush [the horror] under the carpet'.

Unfortunately, although we would like to think of the West as being past the 'propaganda' stage, I'm sure that several of the US news stations supporting the Iraq War are doing their utmost to try and present the expedition as a successful one.  In a (slightly) unrelated vein, much of the tabloid press here have 'hidden agenda's with regard to immigration or Islam.  It's that kind of bigotry, ignorance and sheer narrow-mindedness that caused the call-up frenzy in WWI, in my opinion, except the obscuration was present everywhere.

 

[Albie]

As we are so quickly losing the tangible links with these conflicts (namely the First and Second Wars), I wonder if, as a society, we will begin to forget how truly hellish all-out war really can be?

I'm not so sure this is the reason, but the vast majority of people in the UK that remember the second world war first hand were children at the time. This would be people like my Dad, my father in law and that generation (late 60's/early 70's). When they talk of the war, they talk of it with nostalgia rather than something they would rather forget. They talk about finding shells whilst out playing, the bomb shelter they were given, the food rations, the planes going over head and so on. To them, it does seem that it was a little exciting.

But you are right, when you step back a bit and realise just what does happen in war.....