by It’s 100 years since the Armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Western Front of the Great War. Ten million soldiers or more were dead, and even more gravely wounded. Most of the empires that had begun the war were destroyed, and even the victors had suffered crippling losses. Far from being a “war to end war”, the Great War was the starting point for many more, as well as bloody and destructive revolutions. These wars continue even today, in the Middle East, carved up in secret treaties between the victors. For much of the century since then, it seemed that we had learned at least something from this tragedy, and the disasters that followed it. Commemoration of the war focused on the loss and sacrifice of those who served, and were accompanied by a desire that the peace
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It’s 100 years since the Armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Western Front of the Great War. Ten million soldiers or more were dead, and even more gravely wounded. Most of the empires that had begun the war were destroyed, and even the victors had suffered crippling losses. Far from being a “war to end war”, the Great War was the starting point for many more, as well as bloody and destructive revolutions. These wars continue even today, in the Middle East, carved up in secret treaties between the victors.
For much of the century since then, it seemed that we had learned at least something from this tragedy, and the disasters that followed it. Commemoration of the war focused on the loss and sacrifice of those who served, and were accompanied by a desire that the peace they sought might finally be achieved.
But now that everyone who served in that war has passed away, along with most of those who remember its consequences, all that has gone. Instead we have the kind of jingoism represented by the proposal that current and former military personnel should have priority boarding rights in air travel.
In part, this reflects the fact that, for countries like Australia, war no longer has any real impact on most people. As in the 19th century, we have a small professional army fighting in faraway countries and suffering relatively few casualties. Tens of thousands of people may die in these conflicts, but the victims of way impinge on our consciousness only when they seek to come here as refugees, to be turned away or locked up.
In the past, I’ve concluded message like this with the tag “Lest we Forget”. Sadly, everything important has already been forgotten.