First World War Beyond Living Memory So Let It Rest?

[cronus]

Historians and movie geeks might find something in WW1 but surely Remembrance Sunday needs to focus on WW2 and later conflicts? WW1 might just as well be in the bronze age now?

[SteveB]

There's hardly any focus on WW1. All of it is on WW2 cuz of the cool cast of characters. You got small mustache guy, big mustache guy, wheelchair guy and not to mention top hat guy.

[devogue]

Lest we forget...

[Jason]

WWI was a bloody, muddy, mess. It was, in my opinion, a far more terrifying war from the point of view of your average soldier than WWII. It was, however, very dull in comparison. WWII had much more action and, instead of an inscrutable Kaiser and some other silly hatted monarchs, there was Hitler and Churchill, Patton and Rommel, and it the theatre of war was much larger and global.

I challenge you to name one WWI general without searching. Battles are easy.. Dieppe, Ypres, etc.. WWII did not have many such epic battles except Hurtgen, Berlin, and some few others, but it was rapid action packed.

[Jason]

Oh I'm forgetting the Pacific. There were a lot of hard fought victories there for the U.S., but not exactly 'battle' scale.

[Rum]

I don't agree. I visited the French WW1 battlefields around the Somme this summer just gone and I was terribly moved and affected. I was brought to tears on more than one occasion. The awful waste, irrationality, savagery and pointless deaths of those men - lions led by donkeys as they were described, should be remembered for a while yet.

As Dev says - lest we forget.

[Jason]

I don't agree either. I was only musing on why people seem to focus on WWII and not WWI. In Canada, remembrance day covers both world wars. If I remember right from my high school days so long ago.

[Rum]

I don't agree either. I was only musing on why people seem to focus on WWII and not WWI. In Canada, remembrance day covers both world wars. If I remember right from my high school days so long ago.

It does here too, but there are simply no survivors any more I guess, which does make it harder to make it 'live'. However I think although all wars pretty well are horrible, pointless and savage, WW1 has a particular horror all its own as the first industrialized war where attrition in the form of who could stand to lose the most men on any given day has a particular grotesque lesson to teach us.

[rasetsu]

Forgetting is never healthy. Much of our moral compass regarding chemical and biological weapons comes from remembering that war.

And books covering that war, like Kissinger's Diplomacy and Tuchman's The Guns Of August contain lessons that will never get old.


But it is in the nature of men to forget. My mentor in Women's Studies used to lament that her students seemed "lobotomized," as if the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights era simply didn't register with them at all. They had no memory.

How best to remember the past without simply entombing, embalming, and propping it up in a chair by the fire? How do we keep it alive?

[odysseus]

I don't agree. I visited the French WW1 battlefields around the Somme this summer just gone and I was terribly moved and affected. I was brought to tears on more than one occasion. The awful waste, irrationality, savagery and pointless deaths of those men - lions led by donkeys as they were described, should be remembered for a while yet.

As Dev says - lest we forget.

One of my mates, who is a massive history and militaria buff, did the same thing. He said much the same as this.

[Rum]

Forgetting is never healthy. Much of our moral compass regarding chemical and biological weapons comes from remembering that war.

And books covering that war, like Kissinger's Diplomacy and Tuchman's The Guns Of August contain lessons that will never get old.


But it is in the nature of men to forget. My mentor in Women's Studies used to lament that her students seemed "lobotomized," as if the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights era simply didn't register with them at all. They had no memory.

How best to remember the past without simply entombing, embalming, and propping it up in a chair by the fire? How do we keep it alive?

We do our best is all, but time will inevitably move on and people will forget and and lessons from those horrors will also fade and have to be learnt again. Another tragedy of the human condition.

[Jason]

To play devil's advocate a little here: Is there a remembrance day for the Napoleonic wars? They were brutal and claimed many lives.

[laklak]

If you liked trench warfare, you'll LOVE Blitzkrieg! WW II, it's a rock 'em, sock 'em, thrill-a-minute adrenaline ride! It's got everything! Massed tank battles on the Eastern Front! Midget submarines! Genocide! Cannibalism! Jet fighters! Guided missiles! Day bombings, night bombings, dam bombings....and....WAIT till you see the end! The biggest, baddest, Technicolor thermonuclear blast-fest EVER!

WWII - coming soon to a Theater of War near you!

[rasetsu]

Oh I'm forgetting the Pacific. There were a lot of hard fought victories there for the U.S., but not exactly 'battle' scale.

"Iwo Jima." Still making nightmares.






Pearl Harbor




Midway




Guadalcanal




Cooregidor

[Jason]

I'm aware of all of those. Do you have number of troops deployed to go with the pictures and places? What makes a battle, imo, is the scale of the engagement.