The only important news is that today represents the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme. Not for me the squalid machinations of scheming, ambitious politicians, not for me the obsession with the rich and famous. This is about men, many of whom had never before so much as left the cities and counties where they lived, who at the sound of whistles left their trenches, side by side with their French comrades to fight in what was described as a “brutal battle of attrition”.
I am not doing very well reading about this and looking at the pictures. I feel truly humbled by the thought of those brave men fighting on a front that was 15 miles long. On the first day alone, there were 60,000 casualties and some five months later there were over a million. My heart aches, my heart breaks for a lost generation.
100 years ago though it was, air power was involved and, later in the war for the first time, tanks. For people like me, born after the two terrible world wars, our terrible history is something I read about it a book and see pictures on a television.
These were true heroes, each and every one. The 481,842 British casualties gave us the freedom we enjoy today, the freedom which we often take for granted, but we must not take it for granted today.
Allow me to quote the words of Robert Hall of the BBC.
“Across the rolling Somme landscape, the whistles shrilled again; a century ago they sent tens of thousands out of their trenches, and across No Man’s Land.
Today they were sounded on the lip of the Lochnagar crater, 300ft wide and 70 deep, the result of a British attempt to breach German defences.
Sixty thousand pounds of explosive sent debris 4,000ft into the air; no-one knows how many were killed.
At the cross of remembrance, a carpet of wreaths was laid, by representatives from Britain, France and Germany, along with families and local children.
In the base of the crater, beside a giant poppy, a lone bugler sounded the last post as clouds of poppies fluttered down on the breeze.”
Man’s sheer inhumanity to man, the failure of leaders and politicians who never suffer the ultimate consequences of their actions themselves. Not for them the death and decay, the brutal warfare, bodies dead and dying as far as the eye can see.
Nothing else matters today and if we fail to learn the lessons of the Battle of the Somme, our forefathers paid the ultimate price for nothing. And that cannot be allowed to happen.
A week on from the EU referendum, with our country weak and divided, today would be a good time and place to reflect on what others gave to allow us to even have a referendum in the first place.
We should all be one today, putting to one side the cynicism of politics and the superficial world of celebrity. World War One continued for two long years after the Somme, all that terrible waste of life in the pursuit of what exactly?
I weep for the unknown soldiers, buried in graves without names. That is the price of war, a price surely not worth paying. And we must remember them today.
1 comment
Very on point piece Rick and it really would be good if all of us could really find some quiet spot and be mindful of what happened on the brutal battlefields of both world wars. The waste and needless slaughter of the regular men, just like you and me. The entire villages, who were formed Into their own units. The destruction of an entire generation of men in their prime.
For me, I could never really understand it, not until I had the privilege and experience that changed me forever. My father was with the 1st Polish armoured division, for those that wish and are inclined to read a bit about my dad then please feel free to visit http://www.janpirog.com.
Dad used to be invited all over the world by many different countries but in 2004 he needed me to go as his carer. We went to Normandy and we were on a coach full of old Polish combatants, they had all seen front line action and were involved in probably what was the most bloody and brutal battle of the second front, Hill 262. They called it the mace.
Anyway, before I get too bogged down in detail, I can tell you that once we got there it was the single most humbling experience I have had to date. I doubt anything I see now will ever come close. When you see the numerous graves then it would take an extremely cold or even dysfunctional human being to not feel such deep emotion. We went to the cemeteries where only the Polish soldiers were buried at first. That was so very emotional and it was the only time, the one and only time that I saw my father have a tear flow down his cheek. This was a man who had to learn, the hard way, that emotion had no part in war and that emotion and love could kill you just as quickly as the bullets, land mines and shells. I saw the tear well up until he just could not hide it nor hold it anymore, by not blinking. I have always been one that ends up crying when I see other cry and this one tear resulted in me breaking down and sobbing.
There are so many cemeteries and it’s the same story in every one. What struck me most were the ages. 16-17 and it was rare to find one with someone that had reached the age of 25.
In my minds eye I saw a young soldier, standing at attention, behind each memorial stone. This just cannot be articulated properly, I don’t have the words to do so. It is just too much to take in and to even try to understand. Thousands upon thousands of graves, all kept in pristine condition and in perfect formation in every aspect in which you stand and look.
It was a really pivotal and seminal point in my life. Never before had I been able to truly equate the numbers of dead but seeing was very much believing.
Before I go into an essay, what I wanted to say is that I think it would be a superb idea if we made it compulsory for schoolchildren to visit Normandy. No amount of reading and teaching can come close to seeing this. What I also thought was a wonderful thing was that the French, Dutch and Belgians have their own schoolchildren keep the graves maintained. I was so very surprised when I spoke to some of these kids, they not only kept the graves clean and lay fresh flowers but they knew about each battle and who had been the combatants. I was overwhelmed Rick, there was so much going on that it was difficult to take it all in. I lost dad in August 2009 and I am so very glad that I got the chance to go with him and to visit the places where he had fought but also where my grandfather had fought. My grandfather was in the Austrian army as Poland had been partitioned and so he was on the other side.
The words that are written on the many cenotaphs are lest we forget. It is only by educating and by example that we learn. It is learning from history that *should* teach us that we just cannot allow certain situations to repeat themselves. It’s not like we don’t have that history around us Rick.
Wnat really upsets me right now is that even though we have plenty of this history to draw upon, it seems that your regular Joe just pays no heed to it. We now have a society that is so possession centred and self centred that I am fearful that we have not seen the last of war. It really does seem that many have forgotten and who pay no heed to those words written on those cenotaphs.
In closing, I don’t think I have ever felt so fearful of what is to come. If our leaders cannot seem to agree with each other then what chance habe we got eh ?
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