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serenitygate — For the Fallen
Published: 2007-11-18 21:14:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 159; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 0
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--------Thiepval Memorial, it records the names of the 73,357 British and South African men who fell at the Somme, and have no known grave, between July 1916 and 20th March 1918.
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Comments: 13
Cheers to the men who did what had to be done.
Great shot of the place, too. Very solemn.
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Thanks, though I wouldn't say it had to be done at all.
WWI was in effect an arguement between the royal factions in Europe - it was hardly a people's war, and as such it shouldn't have escalated to the size it did, or indeed have existed at all.
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Yeah, I'll admit to being vague on what I meant, but I'll explain. ^_^
When I say 'had to be done' I speak only in the terms of history. World War I was destined to happen; it was inevitable that all those armed camps up there were going to, one day, be flicked into action by some sort of ill-advised action. When it did begin - and despite the fact that it was a matter primarily concerning the upper echolons of power in Europe - that is often the case with many wars.
It would've been nice if people could've put their pride aside and looked at that assassination as what it was; it wasn't an act of war, but an assassination by someone who was trying to split the Slavs from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Why millions of people had to die following one royal's death is beyond me. If it'd been dealt with more civilly, it would have saved a LOT of grief. Who knows; without the Treaty of Versailles, maybe a great many things could have been avoided.
But that wasn't the case. War broke out, and men were needed to stem it. Namely, to sit there and die until everyone figured, 'Yeah, we've killed each other enough now; enough mothers have lost sons; enough sons and daughters have lost fathers'.
It wasn't a people's war at all, in cause or reason. But, like all wars, it is the people that have to fight it and suffer through it. It was a foolish war, and one that shouldn't have taken place; every day, nowadays, you hear about the odd dozen or so Yank soldiers dying in the Middle East. If the tele had been as prominent back then as it is now, the numbers would have been very different. Thousands, tens of thousands, per day. It was one of the greatest losses of life on the planet, and it led to the single worst loss of human lives throughout our history.
Yeah...it would be nice if it hadn't existed at all, I agree with ya there, mate. Let's hope we've outgrown these sorts of outbursts, huh? No more wars on that kind of scale would do me fine.
And, uh....heh, yeah. Maybe it 'shouldn't' have existed, but it did, and boys had to do their duty and become men. Dead men, but men nonetheless. Our boys did that with valour, far from home, alongside our British, Aussie, Kiwi, Indian, and Canadian mates.
But that's enough outta me; I've gone on for more than long enough on this. You already know all this anyway, so this mini-history lesson is out of place.
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Totally agree with you - it was inevitable, but that doesn't make it right.
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Amen to that, mate.
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Thank you
Do you actually want to buy a print of this, or did you just click the wrong button
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I'm sorry >///👍: 0 ⏩: 1
