Passchendaele

[Me.]

I’ve heard, throughout the years, that World War I decimated the gene pool in England. I never understood the impact quite so much as, in the last few days, I read about, Passchendaele, in the famous Flanders fields, better known as the Third Battle of Ypres, fought by the allies against the forces of the German Empire from July 31-Nov. 10. It produced a wound which lingers to this day. Poppies are worn in England, as they used to be here, as a commemoration. And there was that magnificent display of poppies outside the Tower of London not long ago. Depending on your source from ½-3/4 million soldiers, allied and German were lost in the bloodiest and most senseless battle of WWI.

Lloyd George wrote, "Passchendaele was indeed one of the greatest disasters of the war ... No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign ..."

It began one hundred years ago and is to receive a final commemoration this weekend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele

[cilla4progress]

1. Just horrifying

these senseless, senseless wars.

[Leghorn21]

2. ...

[COLGATE4]

3. I was in London at the time of the commeration of the end

of WW I. The overflowing poppies (one for each service member of Empire forces killed) filled the moat of the Tower of London and spilled out of one of the wall tops, very reminiscent of the blood spilled by the more than 800,000 British soldiers killed. As you say, it was indeed magnificent.

[Me.]

4. I Only Saw Pics

But they were stunning. Wish I had seen it in person.

[COLGATE4]

6. I don't believe I've ever used the word "overwhelming" in actual

conversation before but this, coupled with the absolute reverence shown by the British for their war dead was overwhelming. They, unlike many of us don't just 'go through the motions', They take it very seriously and to heart. After seeing it I felt like we had lost something here.

[ornotna]

55. The pictures were stunning

Last edited Mon Jul 31, 2017, 12:04 AM - Edit history (1)

At the time you could buy one of the poppies. I thought about it but could not afford it then.

[COLGATE4]

57. That's it. Thank you for providing this beautiful image

of the scene I was attempting to describe.

[Me.]

65. Astounding

Thank you

[Retrograde]

5. I periodically read history books

in an attempt to understand why WWI happened, and the best explanation I can come up with - to paraphrase Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" - is that the PTB had already paid a month's rent on the battlefields. It always seems to me that the big European powers had spent the previous decades investing in bigger and bigger armies and navies and they were just itching to try them out, so any excuse would do.

I'm surprised that the centenary of WWI isn't getting more attention in the US - or maybe I shouldn't be. But it was THE pivotal event of the 20th century, no matter how little we were directly involved.

[Me.]

8. I Am Too

Very little mention, sad really, as it is an appalling lesson in a complete waste of human life that affected a country to this very day.

[Wounded Bear]

23. I've heard it said by a few historians that think...

that WWI and WWII were basically the same conflict with a 20 year hiatus.

[Me.]

28. That Makes Sense

I think it could be called a revenge war for the hardships imposed on the Germans after the loss while not dismissing the quest for power or nazi ideology that were then the backbone of the nation.

[thucythucy]

56. At the signing of the Versailles Treaty

a witness (I forget who) said, "This isn't peace. This is a truce for twenty years." Or something similar to that. Turned out to be quite prophetic: Versailles Treaty signed in 1919, WWII started in 1939.

[hardluck]

60. Ferdinand Foch

WW2 was a continuation of WW1 and WW1 was in many ways a a result of the Franco-Prussian War.

[thucythucy]

71. Thank you.

I couldn't remember who said it.

[cwydro]

7. A lot of poetry came out of that horrible war.

I've got a lot of books about WW1, and at least one book of poems.

Heartbreaking.

[Me.]

10. Perhaps The Best Known

“In Flanders Fields is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. In Flanders Fields was first published on December 8 of that year in the London magazine Punch.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.



We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.



Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

[cwydro]

11. Yes.

I know that one.

[panader0]

12. And this one by Wilfred Owen:

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 flound’ring 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,


Obscene as cancer, 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.

[Me.]

13. Dear God

[KatyMan]

22. Extraordinary isn't it? N/T

[SwissTony]

18. I'm a big fan of Owen.

I first read Strange Meeting when I was 12. It immediately became (and still is) my favourite piece of poetry.


Strange Meeting

By Wilfred Owen


It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”

[Me.]

27. +1

[malaise]

63. Which begs the question

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. For the Fallen

For the Fallen
Robert Laurence Binyon
(1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

[Me.]

16. !

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

33. And a bit of music came out of the war

Requiem for a Soldier

You never lived to see
What you gave to me
One shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty
With a host of brave unknown soldiers
For your company you will live forever
Here in our memory
In fields of sacrifice
Heroes paid the price
Young men who died for old men's wars
Gone to paradise
We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see we can live together
When all the world is free
I wish you'd lived to see
All you gave to me
Your shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty
We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see - we can live together
When all the world is free

[Me.]

39. Is That Where 'Band Of Brothers'

First Came From?

[Docreed2003]

51. Shakespeare..

It's from the "St Crispin's Day" speech in Henry V

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;

[Me.]

52. Thanks

[Docreed2003]

53. No problem!

[hardluck]

61. Cecil Coles

Killed on the Western Front in 1918. His Cortège, which he composed on the Front, is haunting.

https://m.

[Me.]

66. !

[Achilleaze]

9. Don't let republican Comrade Casino* see this

It'll give him ideas.

* republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. I think the departure of the Roman army decimated the gene pool

In the aftermath, warriors from the Saxon and Angle tribes (N.E. Germany, southern Jutland), came in, brought families, and forced the Britons out (to Wales?).

The next great genetic alteration came with the Vikings (Norway, Denmark).

I don't know how much The Great War affected the gene pool. I suppose the women preserved much of the genetic material.

[Me.]

17. It Was So Said Because Of The Loss Of So Many

young marriageable men, the same was said of Napoleon's army

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. The percentage lost in Britain was less than some other countries

You can order them by percentage here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties#Casualties_by_1914.E2.80.9318_borders

Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, Romania, France, Austro-Hungary, and Germany all lost more, in proportion, in military deaths.

[Me.]

25. Quite So

You'll notice I said combined Allied & German. But the remembrance in Britain is more overt. I've read where the Germans would rather forget though I have seen pics of Angela Merkel laying wreaths.

[Warpy]

49. Old high school texts talk of Saxon conquest

but archaeology and genetic studies have found something quite different: the Saxons had come in search of land and actually moved in quite peacefully, building their long houses in the villages where the Brits continued to live and never left. The farther east you go, the stronger the Saxon heritage, but that's because that's where they landed. They'd been there a long time before any violence started, and that was more a problem of warlord against warlord rather than ethnic group against invading ethnic group. Both were already established.

The Vikings were terrifying fighters who raided the coasts and along rivers, seeking loot. However, they had a good look arouond and realized it was a better place to live than the narrow strips of land next to the fjords that had become overpopulated, so they also just moved in (presumably away from areas they'd raided) and started to farm.

People in Ireland and Wales and to a lesser extent western Scotland are related more to people on the Iberian Peninsula rather than ancient Britons, and it's theorized that's how the areas were settled as the ice melted. Again, nobody was particularly displaced by raiders or conquerors, they just moved over, made room, and eventually intermarried.

What the departure of the Roman Army did was remove the underpinnings of the Roman economy, which was based on slavery. With no military to capture runaways and inflict Roman punishments, slaves walked away from the mines, stoking the fires at the baths, and doing all the shit work at the big Roman villas. With no slaves to maintain infrastructure, towns were abandoned and England reverted to an agrarian society, although their houses were now square instead of round, one of the few lasting effects of Romanization.

[LittleBlue]

19. I just cringe when I hear that name

Passchendaele, the Somme, Ypres, Verdun, these are basically mass graveyards with hundreds of thousands of bodies.

Look at the lunar landscape, devoid of all life, that results from an entire nation putting its collective effort behind war.






There is still a large part of France that is uninhabitable 100 years later, called the Zone Rouge. People aren't allowed to go in because of all the unexploded munitions and poisons on the ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge

[Me.]

24. Had No Idea

[alterfurz]

64. Passchendaele

[Me.]

67. Doesn't That JUst Take Your Breath Away?

[applegrove]

21. A relative in high school won a trip to WWI sites in Europe by doing

Last edited Sun Jul 30, 2017, 09:33 PM - Edit history (1)

a multi media presentation on the poor soldiers of that war. The family of a young man who died 100 years ago has a biannual contest/scholarship at his high school to win that trip.

[Zorro]

26. There's a 10 episode WWI documentary available for streaming on Amazon

Seeing film clips of the horrifying awfulness of the First World War is quite sobering.

[Goonch]

29. World War I: Battle Of Passchendaele 1/4

[Warpy]

30. Decimated is correct, some villages lost 90% of men between 18-40

The heaviest losses were borne by the French. The Belgian countryside was destroyed, and the front line extended down through eastern France. The setup to war and why the assassination of a minor aristocrat by a Serbian anarchist started it has always been puzzling. However, there was a series on BBC in 1964, too raw for tender US eyes and ears, that answered most of those questions.

It's a long series, 26 episodes, but the length is necessary to do justice to the horror of that war. You can't understand subsequent history, especially the runup to WWII, without understanding The Great War.

&list=PLdEBPyoq11-7H07u7iwGM_3l-_QfxFj9B

[Me.]

31. +1

[hatrack]

32. On the idle hill of summer, Sleepy with the flow of streams,

Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a sound in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo
Shrill the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow
Woman bore me; I will rise.

A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad 35

[Me.]

37. Lovely Lads...

Sigh

[hatrack]

46. And the weird thing is that the poem was written in 1896 . . .

You might also check out "Channel Firing" by Thomas Hardy - a similar premonition.

" . . . Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living, but the dead.
Returning, lightly dance."

[Me.]

47. Interesting

Thanks

[GeoWilliam750]

34. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Was the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian empire, not a minor aristocrat. Oddly enough, he may well have been the person best suited to solve/reduce the tensions between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian empire.

[Warpy]

35. That's the sort of thing that school history books never mention

that the series I posted addresses. What I found mind boggling is how quickly both sides dug trenches and settled into a muddy, miserable four year war of attrition and no one knew how to break the stalemate. It was also a bit of a revelation how long it took the US to show up once war had been declared, all those brave guys singing "Over There" but factories needing to be retooled to equip them since standing arms factories were already at capacity supplying the Allies and had been for years of supposed neutrality.

[GeoWilliam750]

41. Whenever we go on about how Republican voters stubbornly act against their own best interests

I think of World War I, where so many millions of young men died in a pointless war which was instigated at the behest of Emperor Franz Josef and Kaiser Wilhelm for petty personal pride (not to mention Czar Nicholas and a host of others). They simply fought and died because some old man in a marble palace told them to, an old man who cared not the slightest for their lives or well-being, but only for his own prickly pride.

Then the even more deadly Great Influenza epidemic killed even more.

Thus, within the great river of history, the Trump voters' self-destructive tendencies are still relatively modest - but may get worse.

Also, the warring nations did not look at the US Civil War, which had nearly two years of trench warfare stalemate around Richmond. Except by the time of World War I, the capacity for inflicting death had increased exponentially.

[Warpy]

42. In addition, the aristocracy had intermarried for centuries, so they were all related

The whole thing was started by a family squabble, my divine right to autocracy can't be diminished by his divine right to autocracy and all that. Wars have been getting exponentionally worse and I do fear the next one will be fought over our heads.

The study of WWI certainly sharpens perspective on why France simply surrendered to Hitler and fought an underground war of resistance, instead.

[lapucelle]

36. Thank you for posting this.

[Kentonio]

38. Even in Europe, WW1 has never had the profile of WW2 in modern times

I think it's because WW1 signaled in a way the death of innocence. Nothing about it made sense, entire generations of families wiped out following what initially seemed like a glorious cause and their bodies thrown away in an endless meat grinder that didn't stop until all sides were drained beyond any reasonable comprehension.

WW2 was a much clearer conflict, despite its complexities we look back on it as good vs evil, right vs wrong. WW1 was different, and it's endless sadness is something that it's very hard to engage with without being overcome with a sense of the futility and utter sadness it wrought.

[Me.]

45. !

[kerry-is-my-prez]

40. Why women should be in charge....

[bagelsforbreakfast]

43. from a film about another war but pertinent... Madness! Madness! n/m

When I think of the guys who died in Vietnam from my H.S. - it was all a waste. And almost every war is such. Yet we humans get sucked in time after time. On some level we must like it as a species?@!

[Me.]

44. We Won't Even Start On The Civil War

an oxymoron if there ever was one

[Skittles]

48. excellent read

I sold poppies (fund-raising) as a kid in England

[Me.]

50. Apparently They're Still Worn Here

Though I never see them

“A. The wearing of poppies in honor of America's war dead is traditionally done on Memorial Day, not Veterans Day. The practice of wearing of poppies takes its origin from the poem In Flanders Fields, written in 1915 by John McCrae. For information on how to obtain poppies for use on Memorial Day, contact a veterans service organization, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) or The American Legion, as a number of veterans organizations distribute poppies annually on Memorial Day. You can find veterans groups in the Veterans Service Organization link on VA's Veterans Day web page. Veterans groups in your area can be found in your local phone book. Look in the yellow pages under "Veterans and Military Organizations" or a similar heading.”

https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetday_faq.asp

[winetourdriver01]

54. Canadians

I had read that the Canadians were the deciding factor in that horror show. It was said that they developed the "platoon" method of infantry operations in response to this battle. Can anyone confirm?

[NCjack]

58. WWI decimated the gene pool of Britain? Maybe, or perhaps Britain reduced its

intellectual capital (IC) growth rate by allowing its to volunteer for combat duty. For example, Britain's leading scientist, Henry Moseley, was killed at age 27 in 1915 in the Battle of Gallipoli (Turkey). If he had lived, he was the strongest candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1916. His enthusiasm for physics would have produced much more, if he had lived. His combat death caused Britain to examine its losses of IC, including and beyond science and to restrict its assignments for combat duties. Many intellectuals were poised to achieve great things, but they were cut down instead. A generation of greatness was lost. Their losses of IC allowed the USA and Canada to accelerate IC growth relative to Britain.

[Squinch]

59. Great thread.

[burrowowl]

62. K&R!!!!!!

[H2O Man]

68. Recommended.

Thank you for this!

[Me.]

69. !

[Me.]

70. "The third Battle of Ypres commences as the British attack the German lines"

On this date

[Kogaratsu72]

72. Zone rouge...

I was born and grew up in flanders fields in the 70's and i recall two things where on a daily base history intruded our present. In Belgium we had a lot of concrete téléphone and electricity poles where the first meters from the bottom up had holes. When you passd through the fields, you could see the grenades put in them by farmers, who unearthed them while ploughing. The belgian army bomb squad at that time had it's 'milk round' and collected them weekly. And weekly a farmer or his tractor got blown away when hitting a grenade with his plough in the wrong spot. That was life.

[Me.]

73. The Ramifications You Don't Ususally Hear About!

Welcome

[Kogaratsu72]

74. Thx!

Thanx! And welcome..., i've been here (lurking, i guess) since Obama entered the senator floor to ask al Gore to question thé results of the first bush jr election results

[Rhiannon12866]

75. That's pretty much as long as DU has been here

It was launched on Inauguration Day 2001. Welcome! Glad you decided to finally officially join us!

[Kogaratsu72]

76. Thx!

I lived about a year in Tennessee, back in the nineties, and flew over the twins, a mere eight hours before some a-holes flew into them, so i like to keep in touch 😉

[Rhiannon12866]

77. I've only been here since 2003, but 9/11 was the real reason I joined

I am in New York, though several hours from the City, but that horrible day scared me witless - so I decided I'd better start paying much closer attention to what was happening in this country - and the world. So I started reading and watching and that led me to DU, and I've been here ever since. I've worked on three congressional campaigns - this is important stuff!

[Kogaratsu72]

78. It is important

So keep up thé good work.

[Rhiannon12866]

79. Thanks!

Politics used to put me to sleep - now I can't make it through a day without keeping up with the news.

[GallopingGhost]

80. The movie is worth watching, in my opinion.

Depressing, like most war movies, but I thought it was decent.