The final British soldier of the Great War passed away this week. Claude Choules, who was 110, died in a nursing home in Australia. He was the final combat troop to see the surrender of the German Imperial Navy and the scuttling of the fleet at Scapa Flow. For a long time, we have counted down a final resting place for this selfless generation to a war that no one wanted to talk about.
The interesting thing about Britain and war is that we seem to revel in all elements of it. Military terminology is laced in sporting adjectives and the Royal Wedding would not have been complete without a flyover from a Hurricane, Lancaster and the Spitfire. The current trend is raising money for cancer and armed forces charities, yet to a great extent Britain, until the Second World War, Britain was quite a pacifistic nation. World War One is inherently apart of that.
Empire was not necessarily conducive towards war-mongering and despite the ugly images of Amritsar, Hola or Palestine, Britain did its very best to keep the peace with few patrolling on the ground. In historical terms, British generals tend to be lionised because victories tended to come by surprise; mainly because our geography saw a greater need in sea power rather than land forces. The likes of Blenheim (Marlborough), Waterloo (Wellington) and El-Alamein (Montgomery) are etched in the nation’s psyche, yet other historical land battles are hard to come by.
Britain has had few, certainly over the past two centuries, army generals as Prime Ministers. The Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) stands out, yet the greater demands of Parliamentary democracy intertwined with Empire meant that Westminster had less input from military minds. Even Cromwell’s New Model Army was disbanded after it defeated the Charles the First’s loyalists. Compare that to the likes of continental Europe who saw military men dominate domestic politics for a century further.
The origins of World War One are often manifested in the Congress of Vienna, a century earlier that did not prevent all wars (Crimean, Franco-Prussian) but negated all out continental war. This was the first war that Britain legally enforced enlistment. This was common in Germany and France, yet Britain, who tended to avoid European affairs, finally asked its men to enrol. We now know, the pageantry and patriotism became blurred and much of Europe was converted into blood lands. The massacres and suffering decimated a generation and inflicted the vivid horrors of mechanical war to the ordinary.
People like Choules, and those that have gone before him, did not revel in their situation. To them it was pure and simply about duty. World War Two is frequently embedded in our national psyche because we did not see the wide scale human suffering across Europe. We remember the likes of Coventry and HMS Hood, and those who died. However, we do not lament the struggle of the Blitz, Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain. These are scorched in our memories as times of community and celebration. World War Two was an occasion when we emerged from the dark perils of solitude to emerge as victors. World War One was intolerable, unimaginable and suffering. The fighting was not brave because no one entirely knew what would ensue. Inevitably, men were slaughtered and families destroyed. The Great War should never be deemed as a grey conflict that preceded the heroism and gallantry of World War Two, it was a story in itself. Choules, was part of a generation of men that went over the top with the uncertainty of what would happen. The tragedy of the Great War was not the diplomacy and politics that happened after, it was the slaughter on the Somme, Passchendaele and Verdun. We should all remember that.
The interesting thing about Britain and war is that we seem to revel in all elements of it. Military terminology is laced in sporting adjectives and the Royal Wedding would not have been complete without a flyover from a Hurricane, Lancaster and the Spitfire. The current trend is raising money for cancer and armed forces charities, yet to a great extent Britain, until the Second World War, Britain was quite a pacifistic nation. World War One is inherently apart of that.
Empire was not necessarily conducive towards war-mongering and despite the ugly images of Amritsar, Hola or Palestine, Britain did its very best to keep the peace with few patrolling on the ground. In historical terms, British generals tend to be lionised because victories tended to come by surprise; mainly because our geography saw a greater need in sea power rather than land forces. The likes of Blenheim (Marlborough), Waterloo (Wellington) and El-Alamein (Montgomery) are etched in the nation’s psyche, yet other historical land battles are hard to come by.
The origins of World War One are often manifested in the Congress of Vienna, a century earlier that did not prevent all wars (Crimean, Franco-Prussian) but negated all out continental war. This was the first war that Britain legally enforced enlistment. This was common in Germany and France, yet Britain, who tended to avoid European affairs, finally asked its men to enrol. We now know, the pageantry and patriotism became blurred and much of Europe was converted into blood lands. The massacres and suffering decimated a generation and inflicted the vivid horrors of mechanical war to the ordinary.
People like Choules, and those that have gone before him, did not revel in their situation. To them it was pure and simply about duty. World War Two is frequently embedded in our national psyche because we did not see the wide scale human suffering across Europe. We remember the likes of Coventry and HMS Hood, and those who died. However, we do not lament the struggle of the Blitz, Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain. These are scorched in our memories as times of community and celebration. World War Two was an occasion when we emerged from the dark perils of solitude to emerge as victors. World War One was intolerable, unimaginable and suffering. The fighting was not brave because no one entirely knew what would ensue. Inevitably, men were slaughtered and families destroyed. The Great War should never be deemed as a grey conflict that preceded the heroism and gallantry of World War Two, it was a story in itself. Choules, was part of a generation of men that went over the top with the uncertainty of what would happen. The tragedy of the Great War was not the diplomacy and politics that happened after, it was the slaughter on the Somme, Passchendaele and Verdun. We should all remember that.
No comments:
Post a Comment