"No Glory" campaign

[sketcher]

Having read all the posts on this topic I seem to detect a general 'dithering' approach to the centenary of the start of WW1, and considering that most of you, regardless of Forum rank, are of an age just too young to have been truly touched by the subject that takes up so much of your time.

I popped into this world less than 18 years after the end of what was then still called the 'Last' war, and was just in time to bear witness to a brand new war. One of my clearest early memories was of watching my father and (6th Bn Cheshires) boarding a train for Liverpool to board a ship called Orontes bound via the Cape of Africa to join the 8th Army holding a line at El Alamein. From then on the men in my life were uncles and a grandfather, all of whom had fought at the sharp end in the 'Last' war. They were in their 40s, still working and all in the Home Guard. Grandad Tommy had served with the 8th Manchesters in Gallipoli, and had tattoos on his forearms which had been slashed and altered by Turkish bayonets in all but the first battles of Krithia. Uncle Albert had been wounded on hill 62 and had avoided being shot by a German officer going the rounds of the battlefield shooting the wounded by dragging the body of a dead mate over himself....and so it went with my education in history....listening to those young men and their friends, who had their own tales to tell.

Stop dithering, for goodness sake and believe in what you have learnt....as a hobby. WW1 was fought to prevent the German relations of Queen Victoria from doing what Hitler tried to do a generation later. Our undoubted enemy in both wars was Germany, and having several German contemporary friends, they would not argue with what I have just written.

The Great War was exactly that. It was bigger than anybody could have envisaged, but led by old commanders who had very little idea of how to cope. Ergo, blame is not for us to distinguish....merely to accept and forgive while remembering the men who had no other option than to endure.

Sketcher.

[Mark Hone]

I was interested to learn that one of the people behind the 'No Glory' campaign is Neil Faulkner, editor of Military History Monthly magazine. It's been noted on this forum before that MHM is unusual amongst current military publications (and, increasingly, popular presentations like the Paxman series) in generally sticking to the futility/incompetence interpretation of Britain's role in the war.