The Armistice, Remembrance and Me

The Hounslow War Memorial

I must own up: I have no personal connection to the Armistice of 1918. As far as I know, no forebears of mine died in the conflict. In fact, I don't even know of any who served in the armed forces in WW1. Nevertheless, I have had an abiding interest in that war, having read a number of books on the subject, even when I was too young to fully understand the surrounding issues. I seldom talk to anyone about WW1, though, as I don't like anoraks myself. These are the types who have an enthusiasm for some activity, eg, Jazz or sport, and at every opportunity will bore you by diverting conversation to that subject. If you have never met anyone like this, believe me, they exist.

In the 60s, WW1 came to signify meaningless carnage - the image of Tommies going over the top to be slaughtered epitomised the futility of war. An "anti-war" spirit towards the Great War pervaded popular culture, with productions such as "Oh, What a Lovely War!" and a revived interest in the poems of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, two of the greatest war poets in any language. The contemporary poet, Roger McGough, expressed the prevailing view of many in his poem "On Picnics":

"at the goingdown of the sun

and in the morning

I try to remember them

but their names are ordinary names

and their causes are thighbones

tugged excitedly from the soil

by frenchchildren

on picnics"

This does not mean that Roger McGough was himself callously indifferent to the fallen of WW1. On the contrary, anyone has read his poetry will know that he is deeply compassionate towards the victims of war, even writing about his own family members who suffered war's after effects. But this poem does sum up the attitude of many in the 60s - WW1 happened a long time ago; it was futile; the men and women who fell died for nothing, and they, like the war itself, should be forgotten.

This has been an enduring viewpoint, seen in films such as "Paths of Glory", "The Trench" and "Joyeux Noel". It can be heard in 80s songs like "Stop the Cavalry" (Jona Lewie), "The Children's Crusade" (Sting) and seen in the classic TV series of the 90s, "Blackadder Goes Forth".

What no-one took into account were the thoughts and feelings of survivors of the Great War. This view dismissed them as helpless victims - suckers, in other words. I cannot remember a single TV or radio programme that asked them whether they thought their hardship and sacrifice had been worth it or not; they were seemingly dismissed as being obsolete and irrelevant. Lyn Macdonald, in her marvellous book "To The Last Man", commented on this:

"In recent years I have listened in the company of (Great) war veterans to speeches which were kindly meant and expressed with real sincerity but whose sentiments have caused them pain...they realised long ago how difficult it can be to explain the concepts of loyalty, as they understood them..."

One positive result of the recent Armistice commemorations, as well as all other such events since 2014, has been to awaken a wider interest on the part of the general public towards those who fought in our name in WW1. There has been a greater debate on the rights and wrongs of Britain's entry to the conflict, and a boost in personal remembrance at public events and on social media. Many families have discovered more about long-forgotten forebears and learned to appreciate their sacrifice and suffering. Those forebears might have had "ordinary names", in Roger McGough's words, but they were people much like ourselves, in an extraordinary and nightmarish situation. It is as if, after the passage of a century, a barrier has been broken and a new bond has been formed.

For me, as far as I know, having no family members to remember, the barrier to the past was broken by my online work for Sefton Libraries: "Beyond the War Memorials", which I wrote about on April 29. Thanks to my work on the Waterloo and Seaforth War Memorial, and my investigations into the stories behind the names on that memorial, I had someone to remember. During the two minutes silence, I remembered them: Harold Joseph Wright, 14 years old, died on the Lusitania...Francis Zacharias, son of a German father and English mother...the gallant Walter Duncan, who escaped from German captivity...the brothers Andrew, Robert and Charles Cunningham, lost in France and Egypt...I thought of them all. A simple message on a wreath at Hounslow War Memorial summed up my feelings towards those newly important, if "ordinary" names:

And yet, while I now feel a much greater affinity and respect for our war dead, and fully appreciate the importance of commemorating the Armistice, I cannot help but reflect on the sadly unfulfilled hope of the combatants and survivors of 1914-18: that it would be the war to end wars. The violence went on in many places: Ireland, Turkey, Russia, Germany and the Baltic states. Warfare itself became even nastier, with civilians suffering an increased proportion of casualties. And, of course, the rise of Nazism in Germany led to WW2, partly, it is said, as a result of the terms imposed on the defeated Germans by the "victorious" Allies. But there was more to it than that. The C-in-C of US forces in France, General Pershing, said, in 1923:

"We never really let the Germans know who won the war. They are being told that their army was stabbed in the back, betrayed, that their army had not been defeated. The Germans never believed they were beaten. It will have to be done all over again.."

With the General's words in mind, I wrote this poem to mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice:

ARMISTICE

Under fire from dawn,

We crouched in holes and slimy ditches

While spiteful bullets went buzzing overhead.

I prayed and sang with men and boys

Listening to the battle’s noise.

It stopped. Eleven a.m.

We sat for a while, bathing in silence,

Then slowly stood and cheered “The End”

And talked of going home again.

We sang “Goodbyeee” to sniper and shell,

Escapees from attritional hell.

Our foes stood up, side by side.

One German officer saluted and cried:

“Farewell, Tommy – we’ll meet again!”

And tried to control his wavering men.

The sun shone down with a friendly light

On souls emerging from endless night.

We shook their hands and said goodbye.

We drank a toast and wondered why

We’d had to fight.

They cheered, and marched off out of sight.

We drank more wine, and, gathered there,

The Padre led us all in prayer

For God to cause all wars to cease

And all mankind to live in peace.

But later, as I tried to sleep,

I thought long and I thought deep

Of the officer’s words before he went-

“We’ll meet again” – and what that meant.

The Tower of London, 11/11/2018. Photo by Bryan Morris.