One Hundred Years Ago …
The First World War ended one hundred years ago.
There were 40 million casualties. Between 15 and 19 million dead and 23 million wounded, many defaced, losing limbs. Nobody is sure who won?
People often ask if we learnt anything.
My favourite war poet Wilfrid Owen died on the 4th November 1918.
Owen was shell-shocked whilst fighting and was sent to my city of Edinburgh in a facility existing here, in Craiglockhart, but he insisted on going back to the front and was shot to bits there.
His poem Anthem For Doomed Youth seems an appropriate read:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, —
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
