… If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
© Darius A Irani, 2023
A CALLOUS ENDING TO A POINTLESS WAR THAT FAILED TO END ALL WARS.
WWI was touted to be the war that would end all wars. For such a noble endeavor the youth of Europe enlisted in their thousands and died in hundreds of thousands. If they had known then what we know now, from Ypres to Belfort they would have cursed the instigators of this mindless slaughter with their dying breaths. Barely twenty years later we would start the killing all over again – this time on a scale that would dwarf their 18 million dead.
Early in October 1918, Ludendorff knew that Germany had lost, yet he prolonged the slaughter for five more weeks, hoping to gain some advantage in the armistice negotiations. The fact that another half million would die did not seem to bother him at all. The final act of cruel indifference would last for six hours. Germany signed the armistice at 5:12 am on November 11th. For all intents and purposes, the war should have ended right then. However, the armistice would officially not begin till the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and no one saw fit to tell this to the troops who kept on shelling and killing each other for another six hours, during which another 2,738 men would die. So much for the war to end all wars!
In America, this day is recognized as Veterans' Day, whilst in Europe it is Remembrance Day. For over a century we have commemorated this anniversary with laying of wreaths, solemn ceremonies and moments of silence – all of which have accomplished nothing concrete towards the final peace that WWI was supposed to accomplish. Here we are a hundred years later, and all it takes is a vicious dictator with nuclear weapons and a Veto, and both NATO and the UN are helpless to stop him. Meanwhile, the poor dead in Flanders fields are still waiting for some peaceful sleep.