When War Was Horrible

After World War I, when entire generations of young men had died in trench warfare for nothing, many Europeans developed a strong, instinctive reaction against war and militarism.  While it’s easy to say with historical hindsight that those who didn’t want to militarily engage Hitler earlier were naive appeasers, we have to remember that in the battle of Somme, for instance, 19,000 British soldiers died - in one day. That’s almost five times the number of American dead in the five years of the Iraq War. One wonders if the American aversion to ground war, which we developed after Vietnam, will return when we finally entangle ourselves from Iraq.  Can we imagine, in 30 or 40 years, conservative politicians hectoring us about getting over the Iraq syndrome?

The reason I want to talk about World War I is because the last French soldier who actually fought in the trenches is now dead.  Lazare Ponticelliwas 110,  lied to get into the French and fought in the trenches.  When he was in his 30s, he joined the resistance. By 1947, he was fourty years old and had fought in two world wars.  I fear that with the passing of the World War I generation, our societal memory of just how awful war is will be eroded.

Below the fold is Wilfred Owen’s poem about trench warfare, Dulce et Decorum Est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares² we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest³ 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 hoots⁴ 
Of tired, outstripped⁵ Five-Nines⁶ that dropped behind.

Gas!⁷ Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets⁸ just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime⁹ . . .
Dim, through the misty panes¹⁰ 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,¹¹ 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,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud¹² 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest¹³ 
To children ardent¹⁴ for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.¹⁵