Birds and the Battlefield

[Maricourt]

Dear Members

Radio 4 is transmitting the above programme "from those who served in the trenches of the First World War to the servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan today."

To confirm - it goes on on Tuesday, 6th January, 2009 at 11 am Radio 4.

This may be of interest to Forum members.

Good listening.

Maricourt

[marina]

Maricourt - you may be interested in this thread. It's all about animals and birds at the front - there is even an account of two geese being courtmartialled!

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...e+western+front

[salesie]

A Listening Post

“The sun’s a red ball in the oak

And all the grass is grey with dew,

Awhile ago a blackbird spoke –

He didn’t know the world’s askew.

And yonder rifleman and I

Wait here behind the misty trees

To shoot the first man that goes by,

Our rifles ready on our knees.

How could he know that if we fail

The world may lie in chains for years

And England be a bygone tale

And right be wrong, and laughter tears?

Strange that this bird sits there and sings

While we must only sit and plan –

Who are so much the higher things –

The murder of our fellow man.

But maybe God will cause to be –

Who brought forth sweetness from the strong –

Out of our discords harmony

Sweeter than that bird’s song.”

Robert Ernest Vernede 1917

Cheers-salesie.

[Maricourt]

My thanks to you both - I have Vernede's letters but had completely forgotten about the poem and the former thread on GWF was fascinating. I can add one more - Henry Williamson in The Wet Flanders Plain relates a rather sad story about a cuckoo that was "adopted" by a Labour Corps officer and sadly, some time after the war ended, was killed by a mother who thought it was a bird of prey about to attack her child. There is much in Williamson's five books covering the Great War that is about the natural world.

Hope you both get to listen to the programme tomorrow.

Regards ... Maricourt