Lest We Forget Posted November 11, 2008
Could the First World War have been stopped?
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 11th November 2008.
Like most people of my generation, I grew up with a mystery. I felt I understood the Second World War. The attempt to dominate and destroy, to eliminate the people of other races - though raised to unprecedented levels by the Nazis - is a familiar historical theme. The need to stop Hitler was absolute, and the dreadful sacrifices of the Second World War were unavoidable.
But the First World War, which ended 90 years ago today, seemed incomprehensible. The class interests of the men sent to kill each other were the same. While Germany was clearly the aggressor, the outlook of the opposing powers - seeking to expand their colonies and to dominate European trade – was not wildly different. Ugly as the German state was, no one could characterise the war at its outbreak – with Tsarist Russia on the side of the Entente Powers – as a simple struggle between democracy and dictatorship. Neither did this resemble the current war in Iraq, in which legislators send the children of another class to die. The chances of being killed were at least five times higher for men who had been students at Oxford or Cambridge in 1914 than they were for manual workers(1). The First World War was an act of social cannibalism, in which statesmen and generals on both sides murdered their own offspring. How could it have happened?
On July 1st 1999, consumed by the urge to understand the war before the century was over, I visited Thiepval on the Somme. This was the anniversary of the first great attack on the German salients, which caused devastating losses for British and Irish troops. Men carrying flutes and dressed in orange sashes – commemorating the Ulster Division – paced about. Beneath the arches of the Lutyens memorial a circle of evangelical Christians hugged and screamed and ululated, while a little boy dressed in combat gear played around their legs with a plastic machine-gun. I goggled at the names on the monument – the 73,000 commemorate only the British and South Africans who fell on the Somme and whose bodies were not recovered – but I couldn’t grasp the scale of what I saw.
Dizzied by these conflicting sights, unable to connect, I wandered behind the old German lines and into a field of sugar beet. Walking between the rows, trying to clear my head, I noticed a spherical pebble. I picked it up. It was strangely heavy. Then I looked around and saw that the field was covered with the same odd little balls. Almost every stone was in fact metal. Within a minute I picked up more grapeshot than I could hold. I found shell casings, twisted bullets, fragments of barbed wire, chips of armour plating. I stopped, overwhelmed by shock and recognition. It was a field of lead and steel; and every piece had been manufactured to kill someone.'
But the First World War, which ended 90 years ago today, seemed incomprehensible. The class interests of the men sent to kill each other were the same. While Germany was clearly the aggressor, the outlook of the opposing powers - seeking to expand their colonies and to dominate European trade – was not wildly different. Ugly as the German state was, no one could characterise the war at its outbreak – with Tsarist Russia on the side of the Entente Powers – as a simple struggle between democracy and dictatorship. Neither did this resemble the current war in Iraq, in which legislators send the children of another class to die. The chances of being killed were at least five times higher for men who had been students at Oxford or Cambridge in 1914 than they were for manual workers(1). The First World War was an act of social cannibalism, in which statesmen and generals on both sides murdered their own offspring. How could it have happened?
On July 1st 1999, consumed by the urge to understand the war before the century was over, I visited Thiepval on the Somme. This was the anniversary of the first great attack on the German salients, which caused devastating losses for British and Irish troops. Men carrying flutes and dressed in orange sashes – commemorating the Ulster Division – paced about. Beneath the arches of the Lutyens memorial a circle of evangelical Christians hugged and screamed and ululated, while a little boy dressed in combat gear played around their legs with a plastic machine-gun. I goggled at the names on the monument – the 73,000 commemorate only the British and South Africans who fell on the Somme and whose bodies were not recovered – but I couldn’t grasp the scale of what I saw.
Dizzied by these conflicting sights, unable to connect, I wandered behind the old German lines and into a field of sugar beet. Walking between the rows, trying to clear my head, I noticed a spherical pebble. I picked it up. It was strangely heavy. Then I looked around and saw that the field was covered with the same odd little balls. Almost every stone was in fact metal. Within a minute I picked up more grapeshot than I could hold. I found shell casings, twisted bullets, fragments of barbed wire, chips of armour plating. I stopped, overwhelmed by shock and recognition. It was a field of lead and steel; and every piece had been manufactured to kill someone.'
5 opmerkingen:
Beste Stan,
Ik wil je als reactie op dit artikel het volgende artikel suggereren:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21196.htm
War is a Racket
Remembering The Victims of Those Who Profit From War:
Nog een reden te meer om anti-war te zijn.
beste roos
dank je. ik had het al op mijn site gezet, onder de naam smedley butler.
stan
Ik moest juist aan een gedicht denken. Een gedicht van Auden uit dat tijdperk:
...
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
...
http://www.poemdujour.com/Sept1.1939.html
ismael
en deze regels van auden:
Legislation is helpless against the wild prayer of longing that rises, day in, day out, from all these households under my protection: “O God, put away justice and truth for we cannot understand them and do not want them.’
W.H. Auden
zie ook: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/search?q=w.h.+auden
groet
stan
Treffend, stan.
Het is niet alleen de tragiek van de jeugd dat men ten prooi valt aan de heerszucht van "the elderly". De grootste tragiek is misschien nog wel dat de ouderen het allemaal al eerder hebben gezegd, en nog veel beter. ;)
Een reactie posten