The end of World War One Lets We Forget

The end of World War One Lets We Forget - Today is that the day that a lot of Commonwealth countries (Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc), France, Belgium, and others bear in mind and pay respect to mark the top of World War One. The armistice was signed to finish hostilities at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

In cities, cities and villages across these countries, individuals observe 2 minutes silence to recall the supreme sacrifice paid by youngsters to defend the numerous freedoms we have a tendency to relish these days. Walls of names on these monuments stretch into the gap and determine the hellishness of war. This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the top of the war and {very|and intensely} few very elderly men survive from now, all well over a hundred. The last Australian WW1 soldier gave up the ghost recently whereas solely 3 British WW1 troopers stay.
The symbolic red corn poppy that grew wild across the muddy and harsh battle fields of the flatlands of Flanders in northern France and Belgium is worn close to the guts - the red being symbolic of the bloodshed of the fallen troopers.

Along with the only real bugler taking part in The Last Post, the words of the Ode of Remembrance are scan out:

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

I recall visiting two of these cemeteries in France some years ago, both near Villers-Bretonneux in northern France - beautifully maintained and places of true serenity and peace. The vast majority of those headstones marked young men who were less than 25 years of age, many in their teens and many unidentified. Even the hardiest of souls couldn't help but be moved.

There is a resurgence in interest in understanding, remembering and paying respect to the fallen from these past wars. I find it reassuring that the memories are strengthening with time rather than fading.

Lets we forget!

The Irish super-group, U2 sang about them in Mothers of the Disappeared. These are every day Argentine mothers and grandmothers who lost their sons and daughters in the so-called Dirty War when they were seized by representatives of the military government of the time in the late 1970s. Most of the missing are assumed to have been tortured and murdered.

Every Thursday afternoon for over thirty years, this women’s group, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have gathered in the main square of Buenos Aires to seek reunification with their children and grandchildren. They walk, slowly and purposefully, in a large circle adorned by stylised white shawls painted on the ground. The painted symbols appear a little like white doves, the universal symbol of peace. The women wear simple matching head scarves in white, embroidered with the name or names of their missing children. They chat among themselves catching up on the weekly happenings.

Adorned with the city’s main cathedral, the presidential palace and several major government buildings, the Plaza de Mayo celebrates the May uprisings which earned Argentine independence from the Spanish in the early nineteenth century. The Mothers today who gather also seek their own freedom and closure in this main square which represents freedom protests from another eta.

Some appear worn down - maybe by the passage of time, maybe by a heavy heart over the lost of their young ones, maybe by the stark duality of the significance yet apparent futility of this weekly gathering. Others walk with a strength drawn from pride, unwearied by the years of fighting for reconnection with their loved ones.

One grandmother I spoke with indicated in her broken English that she had missed attending this walk less than ten times in all the years of this weekly pilgrimage of protest. Her will and strength made it seem to me to be the most important thing in her life.

Surely a mother or grandmother can show no greater love.

Buenos Aires Vacations

In a beautiful verdant park on a river in Delhi, a simple, elegant platform of black marble, adorned with floral wreaths and lit with a single lantern marks the cremation of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation of India. The simple words "O God" in Hindi mark the bottom of the platform at Raj Ghat (as the site is called), believed to be Gandhi's last words on being shot. Even today, visiting Raj Ghat brings a harmonious feeling of peace and tranquility and is in sharp contrast to the bustling pandemonium which characterises much of the remarkable Indian capital city of Delhi.

Today, the International Day of Non-Violence is celebrated on his birthday of 2 October every year and marks a public holiday in India. His peaceful approach to mass people-driven civil disobedience has set the standard for civil rights movements around the world.

In the same area, there are memorials marking the ashes of five Indian prime ministers and several other notable Indian politicians.

Other India Posts
It's All in the Stars (Jantar Mantar, Jaipur)
A Royal Facade (Palace of the Winds, Jaipur)
A Monument to Love (Taj Mahal)
From Dead Duck to Bird Heaven (Bharatpur)

I have two abiding memories of Anzac Day – a national day celebrated in Australia and New Zealand on April 25, when the two countries remember those who fought and lost their lives in military actions involving the countries. It commemorates the specific day in 1915 when ANZAC forces landed in Gallipoli, a remote peninsula in Turkey, meeting stiff resistance from the Turkish army. Over 10,000 died over several months in a savage campaign under severe hardships.

One memory is the story of Simpson and his Donkey, taught to me in school. The other is a story about Jack.

In Australia, on Anzac Day alone, it is legal to play a gambling game called two-up. This same game was played in the trenches as a form of escape from the rigours of war. Unofficial games pop up in parks, pubs and clubs around the country on ANZAC Day. It is a simple game where you bet against another person or the spinner himself on whether two pennies thrown in the air from a flat wooden stick will result in two heads or two tails. A head and a tail results in odds and the coins are re-thrown. Much laughter and yelling adds to the raucous atmosphere as cash passes hands after each throw.

Some sixteen years ago, four of us wandered down to a local pub to partake in such a game and enjoy the comraderie of Anzac Day. With a glass nearly empty, I slipped to the bar to buy another beer and noticed an aged man sitting alone, hunched over the bar, resplendently dressed with a crisp navy blue jacket and a slightly askew rack of medals gleaming over his heart. I offered this old warrior a drink and started to chat.

Jack was born in 1898 and had fought at the tail end of the First World War as a very young man. He wouldn’t speak of the war and said he never had to anyone – it was too evil and shouldn’t be spoken of. I’d have loved to have learned more and despite gentle nudging, Jack kept repeating that war was evil and wouldn’t be drawn. With a heavy heart, Jack passionately described his closest friend, a near neighbour and school buddy from a small rural town in NSW who had travelled to the western front in Belgium with him. His friend was killed in the first 48 hours there and Jack still spoke of his friend’s fine qualities and enduring friendship. He said that he would have preferred it to have been him. While the medals symbolise battles past, Jack seemed to have battled with this burden of the arbitrary loss of his dearest friend and the burden of war locked away inside him every day from that time throughout his life. An old fuzzy photo of his friend kept in his wallet accompanied these mixed memories of a much admired friend cut down in his prime.

Every small town across Australia has a prominent memorial listing those inhabitants who perished in war. It is impossible to miss the strings of names from the same family – the loss of two or three or four or more sons, husbands and fathers must have been a burden almost too intolerable to handle. I am sure that Jack’s friend is memorialised in their small town.

Since that time, Jack is likely to have passed away but the memory of our conversation will last forever. Today, Anzac Day has undergone a revival as the last soldiers of World War I have died and those of World War II grow into their elder years. The sacrifices that these young soldiers made half way across the planet in such foreign lands has etched itself into part of the national character and forged part of the Australian identity as increasing numbers every year crowd Gallipoli, the European memorial at Villers-Brettoneux and memorials around the country for the dawn commemorative service.

Lest we forget.

Source: Lead Photo

As Australians and New Zealanders approach Anzac Day, a day where the two countries remember and pay respects those who died at war, I recall a story of herosim from my school days. It is the story of Simpson and his donkey. In Gallipoli, a remote peninsula in Turkey, ANZAC troops were ordered to land and take out the Turkish army, a key ally of Germany in the First World War. Meeting stiff resistance from the Turkish army, the savage campaign ensued for several months with heavy casualties (over 10,000) on both sides.

From dawn each day and unarmed, Simpson and his trusty donkey Duffy would travel a couple of kilometers through the evocatively named Shrapnel Gully to an area where the opposing forces were in trenches less than twenty metres apart. He would crawl forward, at times under fire, aid a wounded soldier, load him across his donkey and make the trek back. He repeated this same journey ten to fifteen times a day, often well into the night.

Just under four weeks later, Duffy returned with an injured soldier but without Simpson. This brave man had been killed under fire carting over 300 injured warriors from the fields of war. This story was taught in schools as Simpson was one of many who epitomised what became known as the Anzac spirit – qualities of endurance, courage, friendship and good humour. Simpson and Duffy are commemorated with a stirring sculpture outside the national war museum.

These stories are enshrined in Australia's psyche and ensure that Australians continue to treasure the ANZAC tradition.

Note
Painting by Horace Moore-Jones now hangs in the National Library of NZ.

Only twenty kilometres from both the stunning resort town of Bled and the towering three-headed travel wonder Mount Triglav, the small village of Cerkno showcases the Yugoslav partisan ingenuity during World War Two. From early 1944 to the end of the war, a secret hospital supported the resistance movement against the occupying Italian, German and Nazi forces.

Named after the remarkable physician Franja Bidovec, the Franj Partisan Hospital is an evocative reminder of the humanity that exists even in the harshness of war. It contains thirteen basic buildings strewn along a rough path including operating theatres, isolation units, an X-ray room, electric power plant, kitchens and general wards (see entry ticket at the end for rough layout of the hospital - unfortunately in Croatian).

Located in semi-permanent dinginess in a deep, remote and spectacular gorge and protected by minefields, drawbridges and nests of machine guns, injured soldiers were blindfolded and taken into this remarkable medical facility at night. Food and medical supplies were airdropped by Allied forces, though many medical instruments were fashioned by the creativity of the local staff. A printing facility churned out a hospital newsletter for the convalescing patients. Despite coming under attack on occasions, the hospital was never discovered during the war.

Over the year and a half, over 1000 soldiers were treated including over 500 severely wounded men and at peak operations, the hospital managed 120 patients.

Though you don’t need to be blindfolded and carted in at night, the original entrance of bridges and narrow pathways over a rapid-running, energetic stream remain. This evocative reminder of people's ingenuity and compassion in difficult times of battle has been preserved in its form at the end of the war, highlighting the inventiveness, the desperation and pure tragedy of war.

Postscript
Tragically, in September 2007, heavy rainfall engulfed the narrow gorge and swept away many of the hospital’s buildings. With both government and private support, the hospital is being reconstructed to preserve this valuable historic museum.

Other European Memorial Posts
Remember! (Oradour-sur-Glane, France)
A Humbling Experience (Villers-Bretonneux, France)

Other Slovenia and Croatia Posts
Bountiful Bled (Slovenia)
Underground Fantasy (Skocjan Caves, Slovenia)
The Aquamarine Necklace (Plitvice Lakes, Croatia)
Visiting the Smallest Town in the World (Hum, Croatia)