At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the11th month

[Fewnix]

All over the world, the guns were silent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McCDWYgVyps

[Keefie]

For the Fallen
BY LAURENCE BINYON

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

[2dimes]

The armistice 100 years ago today must have been something difficult to imagine. An over due end to a gruesome fierce battle, worse and significantly larger than any other before it.

Many thought it was to be completed in under a year.

We take time to remember those that served and those that died. Not as celibration or glorification but in hope that our children can learn that war is tragic preferably without having to go.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lest we forget

[riskllama]

*salutes*

[Dukasaur]

Dulce et Decorum Est, first the reading, then the discussion




https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Dulce-et-Decorum-Est-by-Wilfred-Owen

Wilfred Owen and "Dulce et Decorum Est"

"Dulce et Decorum Est" is a poem Wilfred Owen wrote following his experiences fighting in the trenches in northern France during World War I.

"Here is a gas poem ... done yesterday," he wrote to his mother from the recovery hospital in Craiglockhart, Scotland, in 1917. He was 24 years old. A year later he was killed in action, just one week before the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed to signal the end of hostilities.

The poem was published posthumously in a 1920 book simply called Poems. Wilfred Owen's preface reads: "This book is not about heroes ... My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which is a line taken from the latin odes of the Roman poet Horace, means it is sweet and proper to die for one's country. In his poem, Wilfred Owen takes the opposite stance.

He is, in effect, saying that it is anything but sweet and proper to die for one's country in a hideous war that took the lives of over 17 million people.

This poem, written by a young soldier recovering from his wounds who was brave enough to return to the battlefield, still resonates today with its brutal language and imagery.
"Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Own

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 a 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 est
Pro patria mori.

[HitRed]

Toy boat. Some soldiers were very young. One carried a keepsake of childhood after joining the Army.



WW1 was dominated by the use of horses. Massive armies of draft horses were used on all fronts in WW1.



Artillery HQ. Bottom right was artillery igniters (primer). Artillery shells, when boxed for transport, would have a large round metal disk (as shown center bottom) and the same disk on top with the small hole holding the pointed end of the shell. Fields are covered with these. Spoons, axes and a surprising number of thimbles as every button and patch on a uniform had to be threaded.

These finds are not from a battlefield but a campsite. Likely the 9th Infantry Regiment along with supporting units.

World War I
9th Infantry Regiment deployed to France as part of the "Indianhead" 2nd Infantry Division. During the course of the war, they fought at Lorraine, He de France, Aisne-Marne, and St. Mihiel.

[Symmetry]

Not sure I can agree with you about the horsies being the real dominating force, but yeah, if you go to the battlefields you can still see the horror of the landscape that shelling and mines wrought from trench warfare.

[HitRed]

Not sure I can agree with you about the horsies being the real dominating force, but yeah, if you go to the battlefields you can still see the horror of the landscape that shelling and mines wrought from trench warfare.

This is from Wikipedia and its quiet glowing to the need for horses.

Logistical support

Horses were used extensively for military trains. They were used to pull ambulances, carry supplies and ordnance. At the beginning of the war, the German army depended upon horses to pull its field kitchens, as well as the ammunition wagons for artillery brigades.[50] The Royal Corps of Signals used horses to pull cable wagons, and the promptness of messengers and dispatch riders depended on their mounts. Horses often drew artillery and steady animals were crucial to artillery effectiveness.[51] The deep mud common in some parts of the front, caused by damaged drainage systems flooding nearby areas, made horses and mules vital, as they were the only means of getting supplies to the front and guns moved from place to place.[51]

Thousands of horses were employed to pull field guns; six to twelve horses were required to pull each gun.[53]

The value of horses was known to all. In 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele, men at the front understood that "at this stage to lose a horse was worse than losing a man because after all, men were replaceable while horses weren't."[58] For Britain, horses were considered so valuable that if a soldier's horse was killed or died he was required to cut off a hoof and bring it back to his commanding officer to prove that the two had not simply become separated.[59]

BTW, at Gettysburg in the US Civil War the signs read Soldiers Wounded _____, Soldiers Killed ____, Horses Killed _____.

[Symmetry]

Not sure I can agree with you about the horsies being the real dominating force, but yeah, if you go to the battlefields you can still see the horror of the landscape that shelling and mines wrought from trench warfare.

This is from Wikipedia and its quiet glowing to the need for horses.

Logistical support

Horses were used extensively for military trains. They were used to pull ambulances, carry supplies and ordnance. At the beginning of the war, the German army depended upon horses to pull its field kitchens, as well as the ammunition wagons for artillery brigades.[50] The Royal Corps of Signals used horses to pull cable wagons, and the promptness of messengers and dispatch riders depended on their mounts. Horses often drew artillery and steady animals were crucial to artillery effectiveness.[51] The deep mud common in some parts of the front, caused by damaged drainage systems flooding nearby areas, made horses and mules vital, as they were the only means of getting supplies to the front and guns moved from place to place.[51]

Thousands of horses were employed to pull field guns; six to twelve horses were required to pull each gun.[53]

The value of horses was known to all. In 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele, men at the front understood that "at this stage to lose a horse was worse than losing a man because after all, men were replaceable while horses weren't."[58] For Britain, horses were considered so valuable that if a soldier's horse was killed or died he was required to cut off a hoof and bring it back to his commanding officer to prove that the two had not simply become separated.[59]

BTW, at Gettysburg in the US Civil War the signs read Soldiers Wounded _____, Soldiers Killed ____, Horses Killed _____.

Yeah, sure, fine. Sorry I disrespected the horsies, but it's the deaths of the soldiers that bothered me when I walked the battlefields.