100 years ago today

[Tashyboy]

Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21[SUP]st[/SUP] September 1914.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

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.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

 

[Val]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok" target="_blank">[video=youtube;ntt3wy-L8Ok]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok[/video]

 

[User62651]

Lost 2 great uncles in WW1, one at the Somme, my grandfather won the military medal at Ypres but took a bad face injury for his trouble, unthinkable what those poor men and women endured back then, sadly none left to tell the tale. Madness the whole thing.

 

[MegaSteve]

During a recent visit to the IWM purchased a book of poems 'from the front'...

Can only read one or two at a time before my vision becomes a little too blurred to continue...

 

[Liverbirdie]

Didn't thousands of them actually drown at (not in) the Somme, due to the horrendous weather?

Thousands of the Pals battalions were cut down within minutes, as the generals had them walking to the German lines due to them thinking that the previous barrage would leave nothing alive. How wrong they were.

Sad, sad day for the British army and mankind as a whole.

I went to Normandy last year for a fortnight which was a great holiday, but plan on having a holiday at some point over the other side of France and getting to the Menin gate, Waterloo and the cemetaries.

 

[Old Skier]

Very interesting http://www.thesomme19240.co.uk

 

[Deleted member 16999]

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

[Foxholer]

Definitely mixed emotions about this 'anniversary'!

The sacrifice of troops was incredible! Both by their 'blind obedience' to orders. And the apparent lack of care (or was it incompetence) by Generals (perhaps Colonels) and above!

 

[MashieNiblick]

Saw a group of the actors representing some of those who died on 1st July 1916 at Paddington today. Incredibly moving and powerful way to remember them and affirm that they are with us still and will not be forgotten.

https://becausewearehere.co.uk/

"They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old"

 

[SocketRocket]

The words to this song penetrate my soul with the reality and futility of the Great War.

[video=youtube;5GxLOenKHjE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GxLOenKHjE[/video]

 

[chico]

100 years on and the world seems to have learnt nothing. Very sad.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Saw a group of the actors representing some of those who died on 1st July 1916 at Paddington today. Incredibly moving and powerful way to remember them and affirm that they are with us still and will not be forgotten.

https://becausewearehere.co.uk/

"They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old"

Think they were at all the main stations. Been getting some fantastic and moving feedback on social media http://news.sky.com/video/1720344/somme-soldiers-sing-at-stations

 

[SocketRocket]

Rupert Brooke's poem 'The Soldier' is fairly poignant to me as he was involved with the 'Dymock Poets' who wrote a number of poems during the first world war period from an area around the village of Dymock which is near to my home. A beautiful sonnet.


If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust conceal'd;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air.
Wash'd by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

[Tashyboy]

When me and Missis T got married in 1985, Janet lived next door. She was getting on a bit. Her mum was really getting on. Janet's Dad had passed away a good few years earlier.
i asked Janet what her father had to say about the Great war, having seen photos of her father. She said " I used to ask him, what was it like daddy". He replied" it was not very nice, I do not want to talk about it". She said he never did. You can only imagine the horrors they had to deal with.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Lest we forget... hmmm...

We have a letter from the trenches - sent to my Grandfather (who was in the Duke of Atholl's regiment of the Black Watch) by his mate towards the end of the war. My grandfather had been shot and gassed and invalided out - his mate reflected on how much better conditions in the trenches were compared with their previous experiences.