 |
| Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), war poet and soldier |
The declaration came after Germany failed to respond to an ultimatum following its invasion of neutral Belgium on its way to France.
Britain had vowed to protect the neutrality of Belgium in the Treaty of London in 1839 - and the German non-response ended the concept of Britain's so-called "splendid isolation" in a wider Concert of Europe.
The Concert had kept the European major powers largely peaceful for almost 100 years after Napoleon was defeated.
But, from the late 19th century onwards, several treaties resulted in two major alliances being formed.
In 1879, the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary effectively attempted to protect the two Central Powers from invasion by Russia.
And, in 1882, Italy signed a similar deal with Germany and Austria-Hungary called the Triple Alliance.
On the other side, Russia formed an alliance with France in 1894 to protect herself against Germany and Austria-Hungary - before Britain then made agreements with both of its imperial rivals.
Yet, despite the growing tensions, the greatest tragedy of World War One is the fact that Europe very nearly came to peace in the build-up.
After all, there was nothing new about trouble in the Balkans, where the assassination of Austria-Hungary heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist had sparked the July Crisis.
Successive Balkan wars had taken place in 1912 and 1913 without the involvement of any of the five Great Powers.
And, while a bloody skirmish between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was perhaps inevitable, a wider war was not.
That only became the case when Germany offered Austria-Hungary unconditional support in its decision to attack the Serbians who were then quickly supported by the Russian Tsar.
Russia's alliance to France left Germany hemmed in - and so it made a pre-emptive move west through Belgium which, of course, brought in Britain.
But, rather than mobilising troops under the principle of protecting Belgium, the war in Britain was 'marketed' as a patriotic duty and even as a grand adventure.
War poet Wilfred Owen enlisted in 1915 and, after training in Essex, he was sent to war the following year.
On the continent, however, Owen suffered a number of traumatic experiences.
He fell into a shell hole and became concussed, and was later blown high into the air by a trench mortar, spending several days lying out on an embankment among the remains of a fellow officer.
Soon afterwards, he was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and was sent back to Britain for hospital treatment in Edinburgh, where he met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon.
By then, the horror of the war had become apparent to Owen - and he wrote several poems denouncing the futility of the conflict.
These included Dulce et Decorum Est (pro patria mori) - a Latin phrase taken from the Roman lyrical poet Horace and his work Odes.
The line can be roughly translated into English as "it is sweet and fitting to die for your country", something described as "the old Lie" by Owen. The full text of the poem is below:
Dulce et Decorum Est (1917)
Wilfred Owen
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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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.
Owen, nevertheless, rejoined the front-line in 1918, seeing it as his duty to ensure the horrific realities of trench and gas warfare continued to be told.
He was killed in action, aged 25, on 4 November 1918, exactly one week before the Armistice was signed.
Indeed, the news of his death reached his mother by telegram on Armistice Day as church bells rang out in celebration of the end of the war.
But, for her, and millions of others, there was nothing to celebrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment