One Century Later

On the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.

Geoffrey Norman November 11, 2018

The conflict that ended one hundred years ago — on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” – was at first called, “The Great War.”

Winston Churchill had, as usual, the right and necessary words: 

The Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought.… Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.

There were so many casualties that the mind could not really apprehend them. They became abstractions, like the distance, measured in light years, to the nearest galaxy. Brought down to the particular, to specific battles, or in the case of the Somme, to a single day, the numbers gain what would today be called “granularity.” On July 1st, 1916, the British lost almost 20,000 killed and another 80,000 wounded. As a people, they never got over it

 

In the months before the “big push” on the Somme, the French had been engaged at Verdun. The general in command of the Germans who were attacking them had made his objective clear. It was to “bleed the French army white.” He almost succeeded.

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