The Somme

[kallend 1,653]

100 years ago.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-battle-that-continues-to-haunt-europe/2016/06/29/51556a50-3d56-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

One of my uncles was gassed during the battle, and a cousin of my grandfather was missing presumed dead.

I think every politician who advocates military action to solve problems should be compelled to visit the Somme or Verdun and walk through the graveyards.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[winsor 187]

kallend

100 years ago.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-battle-that-continues-to-haunt-europe/2016/06/29/51556a50-3d56-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

One of my uncles was gassed during the battle, and a cousin of my grandfather was missing presumed dead.

I think every politician who advocates military action to solve problems should be compelled to visit the Somme or Verdun and walk through the graveyards.

"A Soldier of the Great War Known Unto God"

Something like 1 out of 3 Commonwealth War Graves Commission graves are similarly marked.

The Douaumont Ossuary contains the skeletal remains of over 130,000 combatants of unknown identity or nationality.

I could not agree more that civilians who are big on military adventure should be required to spend time exploring Verdun, the Somme, Ypres and the Marne, all of which make the graveyard at Omaha Beach seem average at best.

Perusing the names of the 54,395 Commonwealth troops inscribed on the Menin Gate, who marched to Ypres never to return, should be a good preparation for the "Last Post," which is still unsettling.

The butchery of war is truly insane, and leaves entire populations shell-shocked to one degree or another.

All too often we come up with a new wonder-weapon that is intended to make warfare too terrible to consider - the Gatling gun, and CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) weapons are examples - and we go ahead and fight anyway.

Would that the War to End All Wars had been that.


BSBD,

Winsor

[mr2mk1g 10]

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of darkest day in British military history. On the first day of the battle we suffered 57,470 casualties and indeed, most of those occurred in a couple of hours in the morning.

Strictly to put that figure in perspective (as this is in no way a competition) that's more than US war dead in the entire war. It's only a few hundred short of US deaths in more than 10 years of involvement in Vietnam. In a couple of hours.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

Perhaps those politicians should have to memorize this poem, though I doubt it would help much until they have to fight their wars without depending on other people's children, but rather risk their own.

Don

Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. -
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[mr2mk1g 10]

Hello?

Is there anyone there?

I know the US didn't bother turning up until it was almost over but this was something fairly significant in world history...

[winsor 187]

mr2mk1g

Hello?

Is there anyone there?

I know the US didn't bother turning up until it was almost over but this was something fairly significant in world history...

The participation of the US was just enough to nudge things past the tipping point after the bulk of the fighting was over.

To most on this side of the pond that have even heard of the battle, it is but an abstraction with a few statistics.

Having some direct familiarity with artillery and spending time among the seas of graves from that conflict rather changes one's perspective.

My wife is an Engineer who, when viewing the forts at Verdun, concluded that surviving the pounding the forts took would leave the occupants permanently damaged. The opposing forces expended roughly one round of artillery for every square meter of the battlefield, and 100 years later it shows.

The slaughter of the Somme was simply mind-blowing. We are most impressed with our high-tech weaponry, but it is awesome what was accomplished with little more than sheer savagery.

We still feel the effects of a conflict that wiped out a generation.


BSBD,

Winsor

[rifleman 61]

Just to show the true scale of the horror of just the first day, an artist created 19,240 12" individual shrouds (one for each soldier killed on 1st July 1916) and laid them out on a piece of grass. The video is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IP4HWGEMFs

Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

[wmw999 2,155]

I remember pictures of the poppies installation at the Tower of London a couple of years ago. My family was lucky enough to be Swedish, so we largely weren't involved in the First World War.

War is the essence of the turning of fellow human beings into objects, representations of ideas, identities, or something else that is manipulated by one group (politicians, generals, and powerful) so they can be massacred by another, the foot soldiers.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[turtlespeed 212]

wmw999

I remember pictures of the poppies installation at the Tower of London a couple of years ago. My family was lucky enough to be Swedish, so we largely weren't involved in the First World War.

War is the essence of the turning of fellow human beings into objects, representations of ideas, identities, or something else that is manipulated by one group (politicians, generals, and powerful) so they can be massacred by another, the foot soldiers.

Wendy P.

War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[winsor 187]

turtlespeed

***I remember pictures of the poppies installation at the Tower of London a couple of years ago. My family was lucky enough to be Swedish, so we largely weren't involved in the First World War.

War is the essence of the turning of fellow human beings into objects, representations of ideas, identities, or something else that is manipulated by one group (politicians, generals, and powerful) so they can be massacred by another, the foot soldiers.

Wendy P.

War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

24. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

vom Kriege - Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz

[turtlespeed 212]

winsor

******I remember pictures of the poppies installation at the Tower of London a couple of years ago. My family was lucky enough to be Swedish, so we largely weren't involved in the First World War.

War is the essence of the turning of fellow human beings into objects, representations of ideas, identities, or something else that is manipulated by one group (politicians, generals, and powerful) so they can be massacred by another, the foot soldiers.

Wendy P.

War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

24. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

vom Kriege - Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz

That may be true - But Germany is a two time loser in the "War" game.(last 100 years) They tried twice and had their ass handed to them both times.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[winsor 187]

turtlespeed

That may be true - But Germany is a two time loser in the "War" game.(last 100 years) They tried twice and had their ass handed to them both times.

You won't find anyone who worked with the Bundeswehr making fun of them.

In both the First and Second World Wars they came a whisker from winning. At the very worst, they gave as good as they got.

We are all sorts of impressed with defeating the Afrika Korps and the invasion of Normandy, for example, but both were dwarfed by the scale of Operation Barbarossa. Had the Soviets been unwilling to sustain 13:1 losses, and/or had Berlin been free to allocate those Armies to the West, we would have been hosed.

It was to our advantage that Germany in the 1940s chose to make the same blunders as did France in the 1810s. It's what happens when you put Corporals in charge.

If the the Kaiser had chosen to drive to Paris, instead of wheeling left to chase the French Army in 1914, the Great War would have lasted less than a month.


BSBD,

Winsor