Posted on 07/01/2016 3:59:22 AM PDT by naturalman1975
Britain has fallen silent this morning to honour thousands of the nations soldiers killed in the Battle of the Somme 100 years ago.
July 1 1916 was the the bloodiest day in British military history as tens of thousands of British, Commonwealth and French forces went "over the top".
Ceremonies across the United Kingdom today honoured the hundreds of thousands of victims of the brutal offensive which started a century ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
On the First Day of the Somme, Britain had 19,240 men killed and close to another 40,000 wounded. The French and Germans lost thousands as well - but it was the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army.
The numbers are hard to comprehend - but there are still people clearing unexploded ordinance from the battlefield to make it safe. They've already removed 25 tonnes this year alone - and estimate that it could take another 500 years to recover it all.
I give you the Ode. The British tradition is to respond to it with its last line - We will remember them.
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
We will remember them...
Was there in March with my son.
Our tour guide was a former Grenedier Guard.
The ground in the major memorials still shows the scars of battle.
IIRC, the British commanders accepted the massive casualties because the French were in danger of losing Verdun and had pleaded with them to relieve the pressure with an attack of their own. The ploy worked, but at a high price.
The losses sustained in WWI explain why so many were reluctant fight in the follow-up 20 years later; the “war to end all wars” was in fact just the opening act.
18th century tactics met 20th century weapons to devastating and tragic effect.
The worst part was that it was deliberate; participants describe British troops WALKING towards the German lines before being cut down - they were completely resigned. The Germans had to draw troops from the Verdun assault, and France survived to fight another day...
...there are still people clearing unexploded ordinance from the battlefield to make it safe. They’ve already removed 25 tonnes this year alone...
Astonding. 100 years later.
‘Walking as if going to the theatre’ mystified Germans noted.
British commanders promised the men that undermining and artillery would eliminate German defenses hence the casual advance. In addition each man had a 66 lb pack as he was told to take 24 hrs worth of supplies.
60,000+ Brits killed, wounded, missing in one day. Tragic.
I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how you end up with a nation of people who will do that sort of thing just because some @sshole in London (or Washington) thinks it’s a good idea.
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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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 I 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 estPro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
This captures almost perfectly my grandfather’s and great uncles’ stories about the Western Front, told to me when I was a boy. I have never forgotten the pain in their faces as they spoke to me of the horrors they saw and endured. May their memories be eternal!
1916 - Motorhead
16 years old when I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side, and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched and I fought and I bled
And I died & I never did get any older
But I knew at the time, That a year in the line
Was a long enough life for a soldier
We all volunteered
And we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life and ahead of the game
Ready for history’s pages
And we brawled and we fought
And we whored ‘til we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun
We were food for the gun
And that’s what you are when you’re soldiers
I heard my friend cry
And he sank to his knees, coughing blood
As he screamed for his mother
And I fell by his side
And that’s how he died
Clinging like kids to each other
And I lay in the mud
And the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother
And she never came
Though it wasn’t my fault
And I wasn’t to blame
The day not half over
And ten thousand slain, and now
There’s nobody remembers our names
And that’s how it is for a soldier
Britain has never recovered.
The question for me has never been where you find the men who are willing to do this. Because I would do it. The question has always been why some of those in charge have been so willing to waste them. I never held a position of high command but I had men under me who relied on me to make the right decisions and that responsibility was one I could not help but take seriously. I cannot fathom how anybody could fail to do so - but so many have.
I will always remember well the Biblical admonition ... Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.
We will remember them.
Here’s a song from the Irish as only they can write. It’s so beautiful and true. I almost cry when I think of my father and all the men who fight and die for their country.
Nice song-—hate the group performing.
.
I believe they also blew the mine early, rather than timing it to blow just before the Tommies reached the German lines.
Today you couldn’t get young men to follow orders like that...and it is a good thing.
Heck no. Better to kill the person giving the orders.
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