Yesterday, as I sat in the office and sneezed about 6 times in two hours and felt my nose getting blocked I decided that today was not going to be a day of activity for me. I have to say that after a nice little lie in and a leisurely stroll my Saturday is shaping up to be exactly that!
Apart from updating my blog today, the only further plans I have are to cook myself a nice roast chicken (nice and easy, in the oven), to read my book (nice and relaxing, on the sofa) and to have an early night (nice and comfy, in bed).
For my latest book review a spoiler alert is not required. I would almost say I should put a MUST READ on it.
Forgotten Voices of the Great War - Max Arthur
Is simple terms this books tells the story of the First World War from the point of view of those who lived through it. We hear from soldiers from both sides of war and from those who are left at the home front. It is one of the most interesting and moving books I have read in a long time! They are all stories that come from the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and they have been collected in this book.
In the beginning of the book you feel the enthusiasm from the young lads that cannot seem to wait to sign up for this war. They are going to go and have an adventure, defend France, win the war and be home by Christmas. Some couldn't wait to join up and worried that the war would be over by the time they were ready to go out there. What astounded me that kids as young as sixteen were signed up and set to fight in this war. they weren't supposed to. Soldiers were supposed to be 19 and a half before they were allowed to sign on and be sent to fight but this rule was applied fairly loosely in some places. The longer the war goes on the more exhausted, disillusioned, desperate the soldiers' accounts become.
The pressure that these lads were under when they were being shelled and the reality of trench warfare is described so vividly. The soldiers tell of their daily struggle for survival and little things that make life so difficult. There's the rats as big as a small cats, there's the lice, the latrines (or lack thereof), the dead bodies piling up, the gas attacks, the fatigue, the mud, the confusion, the barren landscape, the waiting and the noise of the guns... and the quiet afterwards.
Food seems scarce for the British and French but when you then read that the Germans found a British deserted post and were astounded by the amount and types of food left you know that for both sides this war was a war of attrition and of who could hold out the longest.
The tales of the mud and the tremendous losses they suffer and they are simply astounding. The mud is everywhere at one point. Soldiers are trying to get guns and food to the front lines and are wading knee and waist deep in mud. some almost drown when they fall asleep in the trenches, some get stuck and are left to die on their own. During the attacks you read that some platoons start out with hundreds of men (up to 500) but as they go over the top at the end of a barrage they have only 5 or 6 members left. The loss of human lives on both sides and the devastation caused to the landscape is simply astounding. Actually "astounding" does not even do justice to it. Probably, my understanding of it does not even do justice of the events. I don't think that living the lap of luxury we know today we can ever understand what these men had to go through in those war years.
The circumstances the young men had to fight under must have been overwhelming for them and at times victory would have seemed impossible. Yet... they fought on. They did not give up... Some tried to give up... some stuck their hand up just a little too high out of their fox hole, lingered before that opening in the trenches just a little longer than necessary so that some stray bullet might just find them but the majority were there to win this war. And if you objected and refused to fight.... you were simply shot. Demoralising as that was to the other troops who had to carry out the sentence, it was done regularly. Some survived the war as the policy on conscientious objectors seems to have changed throughout the war.
Reading all these stories definitely made me realise that it is the loss of their lives and the fact that they persisted to the end that ensured that we are able to live the comfortable lives we live now.
We owe it to them to remember! We owe it to ourselves to know what went on in those trenches, that people were killed and cut down in the prime of their lives. It seems the least we can do.
An impressive read... a must read, but prepare to be humbled and astounded by scale of it all.
Title: Forgotten Voices of the Great War
Author: Max Arthur
313 pages
Ted Smart
ISBN# 9780091882099
Books to be read: 142
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