And now there is one
Yes, Drew Claude Choules is still with us. Harry was the last “Trench Tommy” according to BBC.
I don’t trust wiki for much myself, except as a base to start research.
BillRest in peace sir, gods speed, and thank you.
The book of history is closing. /quote]
Never, in all my rants, ravings, or longwinded fire-breathing sessions could I come up with something as simple but so complete as that, Drew.
I want that gilded, preserved, and raised on the highest part of the World.
It is THAT true.
History is said to pass through four phases: Intimate, closer-than close knowledge, common knowledge, disputable knowledge, and legend.
The First World War is now entering the fourth and most tragic phase. The deeds of so many are now passing into the realm of the Illiad, the Hundred Years Wars, and the Crusade. It is a mournful thing, but inevitable.
However, what makes this inevitable fact so bitter is that, in addition to the passing of so many who we owe so much to, we now watch as our knowledge of them, our intimacy with the events of that era, and our connection to the past are twisted, perverted, and abused.
Decades before Harry Patch and his fellows went on the immortal journey to the beyond, the modern generation was already poisoned against them by the works of people whose insidiousness must be measured on the same measure that we use for Goebbels, Ezra Pound, and Maxim Gorky, but whose damage we must measure as far greater than even that of those aforementioned.
From the very days of our youths, we have been bombarded from all quarters with “Oh What a Lovely War"s, “Blackadder"s, and other pieces of “popular culture” that have done far more damage than all the Czar’s men ever did to us.
They have eroded our knowledge about WWI, dumbed us down, made us believe is petty cliches , and have force fed us virtually from the day of our births an intentionally slanted line directed - not in seeking the truth or in establishing a healthy, honest dialogue about WWI, the nature of War, and its effects- but in making us sycophantic, all marching to the same beat where those who dissent are branded as nutjobs or as xenophobic.
Some of the contributors, such as Rowan Atkinson and his producers, can be slightly forgiven for their “help” in this catastrophe, seeing it as perhaps being a little bit of fun or just repeating what “everybody knows” about events. But, for all their relative innocence, they have done perhaps the most damage of any.
Perhaps some others, like Basil Liddel-Hart and maybe even Keynes, can be considered somewhat redeemed by their good works later.
But for others, such as Joan Littlewood, the USSR, Alan Clarke, Attaturk, the Turkish government, and their cohorts and their “fellow travelers” (pun intended) across space and time, there can be ABSOLUTELY no forgiveness.
They understood precisely what they were doing, and consciously manipulated mutilated our understanding of the past on the alter of their PETTY LITTLE AIMS. They, more than any others, sowed the seed for this catastrophe, and if there is any justice in this plane of existence, they will be enjoying punishments no mortal can reward them with.
But, sadly enough, even while the slanderers, the liars, the misled, and the ignorant do not live forever, their slanders, their lies, their slightly wrong information, and their base assumptions may yet do so.
Pieper, Drew, and everybody else: Have you heard of the Battle of Amiens? Megiddo 1917? 3rd Gaza? “Desperate Frankey’s” drive from Salonika to Hungary?
This is the most enduring wound these literary saboteurs have inflicted: so many are left with the impression that they “KNOW” what WWI was about and what it was like, and thus they pass over actually studying the concrete facts and knowledge, which would force them to break from the normal line, evaluate the case, make a judgement on the merits (even if it is ultimately mostly in line with the “normal line"), and (perhaps most important of all) recognize the flaws, the biases, and the less-than-stellar motives of those who have authored the “normal line.”
I am serious: how much does the average Western student know about German war crimes in occupied Europe during WWI other than that they were “exaggerated?” (which is slightly dubious in and of itself, given that if we shift the over-reported and falsified reports from Belgium and the Ottoman Empire and shift them to the underreported ones in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Africa, I think one would find the scale far more even indeed)
How much does the average Western student know about the military evolution that the Western Allies underwent during the war, not merely in the types of killing devices, but in the advanced strategies that evolved in how they were used?
How much does the average Western student know about the continued existence and war crimes of German “remnants” in the West and ESPECIALLY the East, and how they threatened the independence and freedom of the emerging states of Eastern and Central Europe?
Ok, let’s get down to more basic things:
I know most Western students are taught that WWI marked the first modern deployment of poison gas. But how many recognize that decrees outlawing it stretch back to 1909 rather than being imposed after the war?
Secondly, I know most Western students are told about Germany’s “resentment” from Versailles as a cause regarding WWII and the Holocaust, but are they told about the degree at which the German military elite outright LIED to them about their performance in the war and their final standing positions? Or that the infamy of the “war guilt” clause was largely the result of screwy translation (the full version lays into the Austro-Hungarians and the other Centrals as well)?
Thirdly, I know that most Western students are given an overview of the “complex alliances” that led to war, but are they told about how, in 1914- driven by fear that the French and Russians would totally eclipse them- the German ambassador to Vienna openly PUSHED the Dual Monarchy to attack the Serbs and Montenegrins after the former had almost completely SUBMITTED to Austria’s demands?
Has the average Western student ever so much as heard about the Herero/Naquama and “Maji-Maji” massacres the Germans perpetuated in Africa?
How many recognize that Amero-German conflict dates back to 1897 (in actuality), and 1898 (officially)?
Does this all sound like the answers to some kind of extremely obscure trivia game?
These are fundamentally important facts to understanding the modern world. But from the “knowledge” that some of the younger generation possess, YOU SURE AS HELL WOULDN’T KNOW IT!
I myself didn’t realize how bad the damage was until one of our own members literally insulted the Allied dead who had given him his freedom, and what is more thought NOTHING of doing so! And STILL has not apologized! How bad has it gotten that someone- who can claim with sincerity and a straight face to be a Republican, a supporter of Democracy, and (if he is honest) a soldier- can insult the dead to whom he is so indebted and view it as a trifling frivolity, like Armor or Armour, Tomato or Tomatoe?
I know some of you are probably sick and tired of me repeating this rant over and over again, and I honestly am too. But history- our past, our heritage, our cultural lifeblood- is ours to keep or to loose. And in this case, we have been literally hemorraging it away when we need it more than every in the fact of yet another growing threat to the West and its freedoms.
Indeed, the ISLAMISTS are probably more intimately knowledgeable about the First World War than the West is, and that alone should tell you something. Certainly, they can’t do jack in regards to objectively studying it, but they feel it is an intimate and defining moment in their ideology- the absolute point marking both the highest and the lowest fortunes of the Caliphate, of the Ummah- while we do not. And that is dangerous.
Some of you may think that I am overreacting or obsessing, and there is validity to that. But consider: those who seek to control the past can use that control to dominate the present, and that is one of the greatest threats a nation or a civilization can be presented with. And it can also set a pattern, for how we see the past will color our actions in the present, and can it can spread like a plague to other areas of our history, causing yet more damage.
Don’t believe me?
Consider what has happened to the Alamo and the Texan Revolution in recent years. How many times has the old canard of “slavery”, “Imperialism,” and “racism” been trotted out to explain that, in no small part because of “revisionist” Mexican historians?
But how many recognize the Texan Revolution as not a singular event, but as part of an entire PATTERN of near-simultaneous conflicts between pro-Federale states and the despotic Centralista government? How many know that the first victims of Santa Anna’s men were not Texan at all, but fellow Mexicans from Zacatecas who revolted against Santa Anna’s despotism and were cut down in a spree of looting, murder, and terror against the entire region?
How many realize that Zacatecas was actually one of the FOCAL points of Mexican Abolitionism, thus directly contradicting the “Slavery” thesis?
How many realize the heavy role ethnic Mexicans played in opposing Santa Anna during these years, including participating in the defense of the Texan Republic?
But you would NEVER know this from listening to the tripe Caudal Mexico prints out.
So, if one area of history can be mutilated, what of the others? How long before WWII is likewise defaced? Korea? The Barbary Wars? We already know that there are no shortage of people who can literally MAKE a highly-respectable career in carving up history both postmortem and as it happens (see the pitiful excuse for a human under this post, who I will refuse to call by name). The results are readily foreseeable: the gradual incineration of historical analysis into a never-ending cycle of spin, slander, and falsification.
I know it is a long way off, but what about, if next November 11th, we go out to celebrate not only the shared accomplishments we usually celebrate, but we highlight the reason this date was marked: to celebrate the survival of the West over the forces of Tyranny in the First World War. No excuses, no equivocation, no dumbing down of the matter. November the Eleventh was meant to celebrate the survival of the West and its Democratic heritage in one of the most terrible conflicts history has ever shown, and against an enemy who- while composed of many decent and honorable individuals- was malevolent and hostile tot he extreme.
Because the idea that the individual in the post below this (who I have given entirely too much time to) should be ACKNOWLEDGED, much less HONORED to a far greater degree than Mr. Patch and his comrades is not merely a crime against decency, it is an indictment of how much the West has forgotten its heritage and the cost of keeping it.
And, in order to not merely toss the growing Islamist tide but to also reorient the West with its historical values, this must be undone.
I am sorry for the rant, but I honestly believe this is far more important than even such cherished debates as those regarding Abortion, Gay Marriage, and even the parameters for stem cell research. Nations and peoples that cannot rouse themselves out of the malaise to remember its past accurately and to act for the future has no future save annihilation.
Posted by Turtler
07/26/2009 at 05:10 AM
Ok, the “Quote” was only support to be around the first sentence. My apologies.
Posted by Turtler
07/26/2009 at 05:10 AM
