At the going down of the sun
Nigel Jones 11:00am
Vernon Scannell, a poet who fought in North Africa in the Second World War, observed in his poem 'The Great War':
Everyone in Britain, to an extent barely believable across the rest of Europe, has grown up in the shadow of the Great War — and particularly the trench lines that cut across the fields of Flanders and France for four hundred miles and four long years. The war whose centenary falls in 2014 ended a century in which Britain had, ever since Waterloo, managed to avoid entanglement in Europe's wars — steering clear, for example, of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 which both gave dramatic notice of the rising power of Germany, and presented the French with a weeping grievance and an itch for 'revanche'. Seemingly secure behind the iron walls of her Grand Fleet, Britain held aloof in splendid isolation.'Whenever the November sky
Quivers with a bugle's hoarse, sweet cry
The reason darkens; in its evening gleam
Crosses and flares, tormented wire, grey earth
Spattered with crimson flowers,
And I remember,
Not the war I fought in
But the one called Great
Which ended in a sepia November
Four years before my birth'.
When Asquith's Liberal Government took the fateful decision to get involved there were political consequences. He lost a couple of pacifist Cabinet ministers; the Manchester Guardian issued dark warnings; and conscientious objectors who refused to fight risked humiliation at the hands of white feather-wielding women at best, jail at worst for their beliefs.
But these dissenting voices were in a distinct minority. My father, Frank Jones, in his 60s when I was born, was already an adult then and assured me: 'Everyone — or nearly everyone — was intensely patriotic'. He and his younger brother Ernest answered Kitchener's call to arms. My dad, who was myopic, was assigned to Haig's staff to take the shorthand notes at military conferences. He sat out the war in chateau several miles behind the lines. His closest brush with danger was when a shellburst high in the sky killed a pheasant which fell at his feet. He took it into the mess for lunch.
My uncle Ernest Jones, the baby of the family, was not so lucky. He had perfect eyesight, joined the 1st London Rifle Brigade and after training on the Isle of Sheppey was in the water-logged trenches defending the Ypres salient by the spring of 1915. I still have the only letter he wrote from the trenches to his eldest brother, Tom, who sensibly sat out the war in South America:
'My experience of war is altogether different to what I expected, and I don't suppose anybody realises what it means until they have been here a short time. It isn't war, its literally murder as far as I can see, there's no sport in it...the Germans hammering at us and we just stick it without retaliating. That's the difficulty: to stick it without hitting back. The life isn't exactly hard, only a heavy strain on the nerves, and I'm feeling fine and fit — absolutely in the pink.
The average life here is about a week in the 1st line trenches, 2 or 3 days in the supports, and then another three days in a wood resting. The weather is ripping. It is surprising the spirit of the fellows who were here while I was still wending my way to No. 8, Old Jewry though everybody is as heartily fed up as its possible to be, and everybody says "Roll on Peace". Enough of war...'
Six weeks later, on 6 July 1915, Ernest was killed in a British attack on a German position near the village of Boesinghe called International Trench. He was eighteen years old. I visit his grave in Talana Farm cemetery whenever I can.
He lies a few yards down the road from another cemetery called Essex Farm where, at the same time as Ernest was experiencing the trenches, a Canadian doctor called John McRae was working in a concrete front line casualty clearing station. In a brief break McRae wrote the poem 'In Flanders Fields' which has given us the ubiquitous symbolism of the poppy still marking our remembrance of war.
Thanks to the presence of the war poets (though not McRae) on school curricula, their view of the war has come to be ours. Today the Great War is the war of Owen and Sassoon rather than Haig or Asquith. We tend to think it was a meaningless slaughter carried out for possession of a few years of mud, carried out at the behest of callous, incompetent Generals and idiotic, corrupt politicians who refused to make peace and preferred to bleed Europe white.
However often modern revisionist historians decry the inaccuracy of this view of the war — what might be called the 'Blackadder version' of its history — this is the opinion of the majority of people today. It helps to explain popular revulsion at all war, not just the one we call 'Great'. But it does not alter the reality that those who will not, at the last extremity fight and die for their freedom will lose it.
Now that the last old soldier of the Great War has finally faded away, we live with its Myth rather than its living memory. Tonight, as every night, the fire brigade in Ypres will stop the traffic
under the Menin Gate — where the names of more than 50,000 dead with no known graves are inscribed — sound the 'hoarse, sweet notes' of the Last Post and Laurence Binyon's lines 'For
the Fallen' will be read:
I will remember my father and — though I never knew him — Uncle Ernest.'At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them'
Previous
Peter From Maidstone
November 11th, 2011 11:47am Report this commentDo we really all have the wrong idea of the war? Or is that not just part of the socialist narrative that many of us grew up with and are slowly rejecting?
What should have been done with an aggressive Germany? Should it just have been allowed to conquer Europe? As far as I can see anyone who thinks about war realises that it is sometimes necessary. We may question our engagement in various places but surely only romantic socialists reject the necessity of war entirely?
I have just stood in the middle of Maidstone with about 300 other shoppers while the last post was played by an old soldier, and then we stood in silence for a couple of minutes. As far as I can see there is a greater respect for the armed forces than at any time in my life, and for the value of war when properly and necessarily conducted.
I was a socialist pacifist at the time of the Falklands War - and stupid - I am not so any more.
and I'll go to bed at noon
November 11th, 2011 11:58am Report this comment@Peter from Maidstone
I will never cease admiring the creativity some commenters here display in managing to crowbar denunciations of the left into any subject whatsoever. This time, however, it is misplaced. The man chiefly responsible for propagating the modern view of the Great War was none other than that notorious hippy leftist peacenik, Alan Clark. His book The Donkeys was the inspiration for "Oh! What a Lovely War" and bequeaths to us the lasting image of brandy-sipping upper-class twits sending brave salt-of-the-earth Tommies and soulful poets to die by the thousand.
I might add that socialists were the main faction agitating for a confrontation with Hitler at a time when the right was dedicated to appeasement. You might bring up Churchill, but he was ostracised from his party for most of the 1930s for just this reason.
PayDirt
November 11th, 2011 12:45pm Report this commentThe cemeteries in Flanders did not stop WW2. The existence of weapons of mass destruction rather changes the equation. No more Great wars unless some maniac actually wants mutual destruction. Since the end of the cold war, the Americans have had to invent their enemies, aliens from outer Space. Until of course those criminals blew up the Twin Towers. War starts when one side can no longer put up with perceived injustice. The trajectory is towards a globalised dispute resolution system, or is this romantic Leftism, probably.
Crocodile Tears
November 11th, 2011 1:03pm Report this commentSorry to unermine your point but before we get too slef congratulatory about how much we care about our soldiery let's look at:
War as it is now - Pay freeze, allowances cut, pension theft, redundancy.
A land fit for heroes. Courtesy of a Conservative led government. Before the usual suspects start bleating this is all all about choices - we won't balance the books on the backs of the poor, we'll balance them on the backs of our soldiers, and our future security, instead.
daniel maris
November 11th, 2011 1:12pm Report this commentWar is sometimes necessary but war has become a minority sport of tyrants, whereas once it was a very much the sport of kings.
There was time in human society when you, as an individual or member of a family, fought for what you thought was yours and settled disputes with violence, but gradually that ides of dispute settlement has given way to court arbitration and police enforcement. There is no reason why in theory that can't be achieved globally, and - indeed - the UN charter sets out some pretty good guidelines on that but sadly totalitarians of various types have prevented it being implemented.
No two democracies have ever gone to war with each other in the last 100 years. Democracy brings peace.
daniel maris
November 11th, 2011 1:14pm Report this commentnoon -
Wasn't Alan Clark a secret national socialist rather than a conservative? (Hence his maudlin reflections on his hero "Wolf" aka AH in his diaries and the reason he was trailed by the security services.)
whatawaste
November 11th, 2011 1:22pm Report this commentPeter of Maidstone
Our view of war and the soldiers who fought in it are coloured not by the socialist narrative but by the fact that history books are heavily sanitised covering up the true evils that have been perpetrated. During wars newspapers/TV/radio have always been censored.
In WWI the papers were terribly jingoistic writing down what the War Office told them word for word. When the war started the dead were transported back to the UK for burial. After one week this policy was abandoned due to the sheer numbers involved - the people would then soon realise the truth.
Take the crusades: history books make it sound that Richard the Lionheart was the good guy, but in reality when his army sacked a city/castle all the innocent men, women and children were raped and then massacred. Nothing noble about it at all.
Peter From Maidstone
November 11th, 2011 2:03pm Report this commentwhatawaste, sorry what a load of rubbish. After the first world war the myth was created that the first world was was unnecessary and that all the leadership was inadequate. This same myth has been perpetuated by socialists through the decades.
It is only now that it is becoming clear that it is false. If your post had any truth then how did the myth of the First World War originate and last so long?
Peter From Maidstone
November 11th, 2011 2:08pm Report this commentI'll go to bed at noon, the socialist narrative had been created many decades before Clark. Indeed while English were dying in battle, socialists were agitating for strikes and revolution at home. The idea of working people having been slaughtered for nothing was a necessary part of the socialist propaganda after the war.
Adam Nixon
November 11th, 2011 3:17pm Report this commentCrocodile Tears: Hear, hear. In an earlier debate on remembrance, I suggested that poppyism was mostly about making the poppy wearer feel good about himself. The reponses I got, some passionately self-righteous and swoopingly ignoring what I had actually said, rather persuaded me that that was indeed the case: "I'm wearing a poppy, and you aren't, so I am clearly a better person than you".
Kingstonian
November 11th, 2011 3:34pm Report this commentPlenty of diverse comments here - as usual - representing all shades of opinion, but for what its worth Nigel Jones, I found your post quite moving.
Minnie Ovens
November 11th, 2011 5:12pm Report this commentThe misconception of Lions led by Donkeys was just one of many.
It was alway believed that Kaiser Wilhelm would do anything to get even with his British relatives and this was so for sometime.
Yet by 1914 he had a changed view and certainly was not a mad advocate.
It was both the Austrians, using Wilhem's sabre to rattle, and the Czar who really forced the showdown.
Talk about Turkeys voting for Christmas.
Minnie Ovens
November 11th, 2011 5:17pm Report this comment"and I'll go to bed at noon"
I'm sorry but that misapprehension cannot be allowed to stand.
It is true that, up to 1935 Balwin had kept the war wolves at bay but with his resignation Britain immediately started rearming.
The Socialists continued to declaim against rearmament until very late in the day.
Val Duncan
November 11th, 2011 6:01pm Report this commentI never saw WW11 because I was born just as it ended but I saw those who came back from war. Not generals but the squaddies, those in the front line, those from the trenches.
I grew up seeing men (mostly) with missing limbs, scarred faces and some who couldn't stop shaking. That was the reality in the back-to-back houses of the inner city in the later 40s.
What I also saw was the support of the people around them... small things like buying them a pint as they sat outside the local pubs, talking about their experiences and as a child I never understood how they could say...I'd do it all again for my country and my family. How could they say that when they suffered so much?
Now I look at the pictures of the people, thousands of them all standing in silence and you know what thoughts go through my head?
I see my British people who appear often as cool, even cold to other nations, but they have a deep compassion that only surfaces under certain moments of patriotism. A people who are in the main quite unassuming yet can come together with awesome strength.
My other thought is... this is the country our governments have given away to a dictatorship in Brussels.
We don't deserve such ill treatment.
Cynic
November 11th, 2011 7:14pm Report this commentWar is terrible, but on the other hand, all it needs for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. As for the Left - I believe many of them dragged their feet in WW2 until Hitler attacked Germany. After that, we were on the same side as the Russians and it was okay to get behind the war effort.
Val Duncan
November 11th, 2011 10:31pm Report this commentCynic.
Hitler didn't attack Germany... Hitler WAS Germany and Germany attacked the other European countries.
However, I agree that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. while Governments do their shady deals behind closed doors.
Malfleur
November 11th, 2011 11:02pm Report this commentVal Duncan
Fine post.
The Remittance Man
November 12th, 2011 4:41pm Report this comment@and I'll go to bed at noon
The socialists weren't exactly clamouring for Britain to have a go at Hitler. The half of them that took their orders from Moscow let the Molotov-von Ribbentrop non-aggression pactcolour their views.
The socialists, also, as ever resisted any military spending that might have threatened their own pet projects - the dole, etc.
Nope. While they were not alone in standing against any rearmamment in the 1930's the socialists played their part and deserve at least some of the blame.
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