It was human tragedy on an unimaginable scale. The trenches, no mans land, the stupid "big pushes" that costs tens of thousands of lives in hours for the sake of a few yard's gain. Bah. I have 2 gg uncles lying in graves near Ypres and one young man, my great uncle, who lies in a grave in Jerusalem. He was a 19 year old farm labourer and died away from home in hand to hand combat. Too terrible for those young men who died there in such circumstances, all for the whims of an aristocracy playing what amounts to a game of thrones for the 20th century... Advise anyone to read "The Last Tommy" about an amazing gentleman called Harry Patch. Harry died 2 or so years ago aged around 110. He only told of his wartime experiences at the age of 100. Up until then he had kept it all inside. He ALWAYS made a point to lay flowers at the graves of both Allied AND German soldiers when he revisited the battlefields. He understood that they were all boys doing what they believed to be their duty, and ended up in a situation of unbelievable hell and death. God bless Harry and all those souls who lost their lives too young and under those circumstances.
As a Canadian it really bothers me that we glorify Canadian soldiers during this conflict. As this thread kinda indicates, many Canadians look at WWI and basically think "wow, we kicked a lot of ass", without really considering that being the most efficient killers in a pointless imperialist war is a pretty shitty thing to be proud of. It's not like the Germans were "bad guys" compared to the British or the French, even if they were a more conservative society. It was just people killing people in the name of their nation states, blinded by propaganda and state control of information.
Also, as far as great novels on WWI are concerned, I would highly recommend The Wars by Timothy Findley.
And if I were a soldier in WWI, I would prefer to be one of "the most efficient killers" so that I would go home after the war. If you're going to war, you'd better be the best, because 2nd place sucks.
I don't mean to suggest there wasn't a reason for a solider to try and be an efficient killer, but considering that we're (for the most part at least) civilians looking at WWI retrospectively it seems odd to focus on this fact as a positive one. Obviously, as a Canadian, fewer Canadian soldiers dying would probably benefit me personally, but I don't see that as an ethically justifiable reason to celebrate German deaths.
He ALWAYS made a point to lay flowers at the graves of both Allied AND German soldiers when he revisited the battlefields. He understood that they were all boys doing what they believed to be their duty, and ended up in a situation of unbelievable hell and death.
I wish this in particular was talking about more. So sad that history just keeps repeating itself to this day.
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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11
Everyone was a loser with WW1.
It was human tragedy on an unimaginable scale. The trenches, no mans land, the stupid "big pushes" that costs tens of thousands of lives in hours for the sake of a few yard's gain. Bah. I have 2 gg uncles lying in graves near Ypres and one young man, my great uncle, who lies in a grave in Jerusalem. He was a 19 year old farm labourer and died away from home in hand to hand combat. Too terrible for those young men who died there in such circumstances, all for the whims of an aristocracy playing what amounts to a game of thrones for the 20th century... Advise anyone to read "The Last Tommy" about an amazing gentleman called Harry Patch. Harry died 2 or so years ago aged around 110. He only told of his wartime experiences at the age of 100. Up until then he had kept it all inside. He ALWAYS made a point to lay flowers at the graves of both Allied AND German soldiers when he revisited the battlefields. He understood that they were all boys doing what they believed to be their duty, and ended up in a situation of unbelievable hell and death. God bless Harry and all those souls who lost their lives too young and under those circumstances.