Today in France, after 94 years, soldiers of Great Britain and Australia were finally laid to rest in Fromelles. I guess many people will wonder why that after so many years would so much effort and perspective be made to such an insignificant part of history. I found that previous sentence extremely difficult to phrase because I believe, even coming up to a century, these men are worth remembering and it would be a blotch on our own history to deny them that right.
World War One is etched in everyone's memory as bloody, attritional and inevitably wasteful. It was a war in Europe that Marshall Foch predicted would eventually settle nothing; it saw specks of hope in the Christmas Day truce; but ultimately the canvas would paint the grey, vivid and ugly slaughter at Verdun, the Somme, Ypres. It was the first time Britain and the Commonwealth conscripted on mass and it was first time that every family Britain was affected with some form of loss.
Yet, despite the suffering and the huge gap in history denied to these men, the reburials and the identification of some of the remains give new gloss to the Great War. The ineffable legacy of the Unknown Soldier and his worthy sacrifice is being replaced by the reinstallation of dignity, of his soul, of his being, even his name. Millions suffered for the rest of their lives; but we can now respect them as people, not purely as statistics.
World War One is etched in everyone's memory as bloody, attritional and inevitably wasteful. It was a war in Europe that Marshall Foch predicted would eventually settle nothing; it saw specks of hope in the Christmas Day truce; but ultimately the canvas would paint the grey, vivid and ugly slaughter at Verdun, the Somme, Ypres. It was the first time Britain and the Commonwealth conscripted on mass and it was first time that every family Britain was affected with some form of loss.
Yet, despite the suffering and the huge gap in history denied to these men, the reburials and the identification of some of the remains give new gloss to the Great War. The ineffable legacy of the Unknown Soldier and his worthy sacrifice is being replaced by the reinstallation of dignity, of his soul, of his being, even his name. Millions suffered for the rest of their lives; but we can now respect them as people, not purely as statistics.
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